When is it time for Game of Thrones fans to worry about the winds of winter?

Summary

• George RR Martin is 13 years behind on finishing The Winds of Winter, causing concern among fans.
• The final two books in the series, including A Springtime Dream, may face significant publication delays.
• Martin's original plan was for a trilogy, but the series expanded, potentially affecting the story's final resolution.

Winter should come to George RR Martin A song of ice and fire saga, but since it's been an excruciatingly long 13 years since he released the last book, fans are worried that he may never get around to ending the War of the Five Kings. Although the game of thrones The TV series delivered its own finale in 2019, there's still a lot to tell in book form.

Martin outlined his plan to write seven books in A song of ice and fire series, the last two entries being The winds of winter and A spring dream. The author has been open about falling behind on writing The winds of winter. Despite saying he has no plans to retire, his advanced age and previous admissions have readers worried about the last two entries.

Where are the Winds of Winter?

Martin began to write The winds of winter no later than 2010, with expected to start from A dance with dragons' cliffhanger ends. Book five ended with Daenerys fleeing a troubled Meereen on Drogon's back, Jon Snow being stabbed by his own men of the Night's Watch, and Varys revealing his plot to put Aegon Targaryen on the Iron Throne. Although things played out differently in regards to the missing characters from the show, these events roughly line up with Season 5 of the HBO series.

Martin's original plan was to write A song of ice and fire as a trilogy, the only books being A Game of Thrones, A dance with dragonsand The winds of winter. This again emphasizes the apparent importance of The winds of winter and the story it will tell. This would also have meant that all the books had been published before game of thrones it even started airing. Instead, it's been 28 years since the first book was published and there's still no end in sight.

Frustratingly, the fact that A dance with dragons run concurrently with those of 2005 A feast for crows it means that other dangling plot threads, such as Brienne of Tarth's fate at the hands of Lady Stoneheart and Arya Stark being blinded by the Faceless Men, remain unresolved. Martin teased his fans by releasing 11 chapters of The winds of winter over the years, one in which Theon is captured by Stannis Baratheon being included A dance with dragons' paperback. He stopped releasing chapters in 2018 because he didn't want to give away more.

In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Martin admitted that he was 13 years late the winds of winter, but he doesn't know how it happened. Reiterating that the novel is a priority, he explained:

“This is still a priority. Many people are already writing my obituary. [They’re saying] “Oh, it will never end.” Maybe they are right. I don't know. I'm alive right now! I seem quite vital!”

This sparked several complaints from readers, which once again shows how The winds of winter it was not the priority it had previously promised it would be. In addition to taking the time to write the sixth book in writing Fire and bloodhe worked at it House of the Dragonhelped the development A knight of the seven kingdomsand is working on a film based on that of the late Howard Waldrop The Ugly Chickens.

All of this comes alongside FromSoftware's worldbuilding Elden Ringwhich some claim to have reached The winds of winterhis cost. Given that he had written four chapters by June 2010, it shows how slow progress has been over the last 14 years. The hopeful release dates of 2014 and 2016 are long gone, and Martin's critics will point to his infamous quote from February 2016 when he promised readers of his Not a Blog website:

“I'm not writing anything until I deliver Winds of Winter. Teleplays, screenplays, short stories, introductions, forewords, nothing.”

He once told fans he could jail him if it wasn't finished by July 2020, but nearly four and a half years later, there's no sign of the mythical manuscript. Although Martin jokes that people think he might die before The winds of winter is published, others look even further.

Game of Thrones fans have yet another spring dream

When readers close the book The winds of winter, A spring dream expect it to be even more epic. Even if The winds of winter got a surprise release in 2025 if Martin took that long to write A spring dreamwouldn't be released until 2039. Aside from putting George RR Martin in the '90s, a large number of fans would probably miss out on seeing how the story ends.

In a 2022 update on his website, Martin explained how the books will be removed game of thronescontroversial ending, which makes sense due to the absence of seemingly important characters like Victarion Greyjoy, Arianne Martell and Jon Connington:

“What I've noticed more and more lately, though, is that gardening is taking me further and further away from the television series. Yes, some of the things you saw on HBO in Game of Thrones you'll see in The Winds of Winter (though maybe not in quite the same ways)…but a lot of the rest will be quite different.”

It's no secret that game of thronesThe ending was divisive, with over 1.5 million people signing a petition to redo season 8. This makes The winds of winterIts release is even more important as it will give critics their first real taste of where things could be headed.

In Martin's original plan, the final book would have focused on the Others, who are the book version of the White Walkers. They were presented as the real threat to Westeros, which the show failed to capitalize on. Many have criticized season 8 and think it should have focused on Cersei and the battle for King's Landing in the first half before moving towards an epic battle with the White Walkers at Winterfell in the final episodes. Martin hasn't revealed how he plans to end the books, but many expect the Others to be the de facto big bad. That doesn't mean Daenerys Targaryen won't get her Mad Queen arc, though.

Like both of them The winds of winter and A spring dream are set to be longer than the previous books, it gives an insight into how long they will be. There are swirling theories that Martin cooked up something special and possibly wrote The winds of winter and A spring dream at the same time. In a more recent July 2024 blog post, Martin cryptically warned:

When Winds of Winter ends, word won't trickle out, it will be a big announcement…where and when I can't say.

Optimists hope that even if the last two books aren't released at the same time, Martin has secretly written the ending of the story in case something happens to him. Meanwhile, disgruntled readers have taken to ChatGPT to create examples of how they think Martin will complete the sordid saga. With the man himself warning that fan favorites who died in game of thrones they will live to fight another day and some who survived will not make it A spring dreamits final pages, readers brace themselves A song of ice and fireHis final entries are just as shocking as HBO's live-action adaptation.