OT: A Song of Ice and Fire Series (spoilers inside)

[ISiddiqui]

Though from a comment on the article:

Yes, it is unlikely that the next book will be out in 2015, and it is true that the book is not on the schedules of either Random House (in the US) or HarperCollins Voyager (in the UK). However, that doesn't mean it is not possible. Every book in the series from the third volume onwards was released within five months of being handed in (three months in the case of the third and fifth volumes), meaning they weren't on the schedules for their particular years either. A FEAST FOR CROWS wasn't on the 2005 schedule when that year started, for example.

[Coffee Warlord]

Oh my sweet summer child.

[flere-imsaho]

Straws. Grasping.

[ISiddiqui]

But it's actually true. A Feast for Crows randomly showed up in 2005. No one had been expecting it.

[flere-imsaho]

It makes me sad to see you like this, Imran. Let it go.

[Shkspr]

Originally Posted by ISiddiqui

But it's actually true. A Feast for Crows randomly showed up in 2005. No one had been expecting it.

That's mostly because when it was solicited with missed dates for 2003 and 2004 (to the point that the publisher sent pre-order cover art for us to display), we collectively told our reps "Fuck it" and told them not to come back until they had a book to show us.

[flere-imsaho]

The Game Of Thrones Season 5 Trailer Is Here And OMG

The show will finish before the books, and I'm 110% fine with that.

[Coffee Warlord]

After that trailer, there's more credence that Aegon is, in fact, another red herring. Note Varys apparently going to Dany's camp.

And dear god I hope this means no Penny & no Quentyn.

[ISiddiqui]

Not necessarily a 'red herring'. Aegon could be the real deal but get killed before the end (and Dany takes control of his army due to bloodlines or something).

[Honolulu_Blue]

Originally Posted by Coffee Warlord

After that trailer, there's more credence that Aegon is, in fact, another red herring. Note Varys apparently going to Dany's camp.

And dear god I hope this means no Penny & no Quentyn.

There is 0% chance that Penny will be on the show. ZERO

I don't think Quentyn was even cast for this season, which means he's either getting bumped down the road or scrapped entirely. My monies are on the latter.

[ISiddiqui]

Arianne wasn't either. They are slashing the Dorne story to bits.

[flere-imsaho]

Originally Posted by ISiddiqui

Arianne wasn't either. They are slashing the Dorne story to bits.

They apparently did a lot of filming in whatever location is standing in for Dorne, so I don't think they're slashing the storyline as much as they are consolidating it into fewer characters, which makes sense from a medium perspective.

The question, of course, is how much that will end up diverging from the books.

[Honolulu_Blue]

Originally Posted by ISiddiqui

Arianne wasn't either. They are slashing the Dorne story to bits.

That's okay. I like Dorne well enough, but the most interesting characters post Red Viper are Doran, the Sand Snakes, and I guess Areo Hotah. I mean, who doesn't like a big, bad ass dude with an axe?

The only negative to cutting Quentyn is that it makes Doran seem less capable and plotting - since the Quentyn - Dany marriage was his long game. Then again, given how it turned out, perhaps it wasn't the soundest of plans.

[Coffee Warlord]

They could easily change that to Trystane / Dany marriage. Though that would case issues with Trystane / Myrcella.

[ISiddiqui]

The most interesting character post Red Viper is Arianne. Doran is in the background, scheming, but he doesn't really have a foil to scheme with - he just lays out his plan methodically to Arianne (of course part of that was Quentyn - Arianne was to be wed to Viserys until he kicked the bucket and Quentyn took her place).

[ISiddiqui]

Originally Posted by Coffee Warlord

They could easily change that to Trystane / Dany marriage.

Trystane is supposedly to get married to Myrcella. Or at least that was part of the thinking Tyrion had when he sent Myrcella down there.

[Coffee Warlord]

I edited that after I thought about it more.

[ISiddiqui]

Though I completely forget whether Tyrion used that as justification to send Myrcella to Dorne in the TV Show (I tend to think of the show as a "lesser" product, so I don't think of it as in depth as I do the books ).

[ISiddiqui]

Well the Game of Thrones wiki says:

Season 2Edit
Trystane is proposed as a potential marriage candidate for Princess Myrcella Baratheon by her uncle, Hand of the King Tyrion Lannister.[2] The alliance with the Prince of Dorne is accepted and Myrcella is sent to Dorne as a ward of House Martell.[3]

Trystane Martell - Game of Thrones Wiki

So I guess it was in the show.

[RainMaker]

Is Sansa taking over the Lady Stoneheart storyline?

[Lathum]

Just finished and now I wait.

[JAG]

Originally Posted by flere-imsaho

The Game Of Thrones Season 5 Trailer Is Here And OMG

The show will finish before the books, and I'm 110% fine with that.

I'm actually disappointed though not surprised by that.

[MrBug708]

Dorne sucks. Never got the appeal

[Lathum]

Originally Posted by MrBug708

Dorne sucks. Never got the appeal

I thought a lot more of book five would take place in dorne after hearing so much about it. Was kind of underwhelmed

[Honolulu_Blue]

Originally Posted by MrBug708

Dorne sucks. Never got the appeal

It's better than the Iron Isles!

[Coffee Warlord]

Wait, they talk about places, and not boats?

[MrBug708]

Originally Posted by Honolulu_Blue

It's better than the Iron Isles!

I just assumed the Iron Islands was supposed to suck. Nobody talks about them like they one of the coolest areas.

[ISiddiqui]

Never got the appeal of Dorne? I mean the Sand Snakes should be enough and that's only part of it.

[flere-imsaho]

I like both Dorne and the Iron Islands. It may be solely because I was craving some variety.

[Lathum]

When does the GoT MMOPRPG come out? There has to be one in the works.

[MrBug708]

Originally Posted by ISiddiqui

Never got the appeal of Dorne? I mean the Sand Snakes should be enough and that's only part of it.

I dont think I've read one thing where I thought "This is interesting". Though it is better than Arya's process of becoming a faceless man

[path12]

Originally Posted by MrBug708

I dont think I've read one thing where I thought "This is interesting". Though it is better than Arya's process of becoming a faceless man

This is why there are different colored jellybeans in the bag because Arya's storyline is my favorite.

[bronconick]

HBO Needs To Finish 'Game Of Thrones' With Or Without George R.R. Martin - Forbes

[Grover]

Originally Posted by path12

This is why there are different colored jellybeans in the bag because Arya's storyline is my favorite.

+1 Arya's story is fantastic.

[JAG]

Originally Posted by Lathum

When does the GoT MMOPRPG come out? There has to be one in the works.

Crowfall

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS | General
1. What genre of game is Crowfall?
Crowfall is a Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game (MMORPG, for anyone born in a cave). By that, we mean that the game is played online in a persistent shared environment with thousands (and thousands, and thousands…) of other players.



We think Crowfall is a very different flavor of MMO – internally, we call it a Throne War Simulator. That’s because we’ve designed it to be a very different game experience. It has elements in common with strategy games, political simulators, survival games… and a few elements that don’t really exist anywhere else.


2. Throne War Simulator? You mean like Game of Thrones?
Game of who? Song of what? Uhh, no...never heard of it. Any similarities to any existing fantasy novels and/or television shows is purely coincidental.



(p.s. RT+LS totally = JS)

[ISiddiqui]

Originally Posted by path12

This is why there are different colored jellybeans in the bag because Arya's storyline is my favorite.

+1 for another reason.

Dorne is one of my favorite areas in the series. And all of the characters.

[flere-imsaho]

The only storyline so far that had me skimming pages was (predictably) part of Dany's, mainly in Mereen.

[sabotai]

The original (very broad) outline for A Game of Thrones.

Waterstones on Twitter: "From @HarperCollinsUK. The original outline for Game of Thrones. Complete with redacted ending. Spoilers, obviously. http://t.co/dfC7wHRS9Z"

Very different than how it turned out.

[ISiddiqui]

That page has been taken down it seems... so... what did it say?

[flere-imsaho]

Game of Thrones Spoilers: 5 Characters Might Survive to the End | Variety

That's a summary. Reddit apparently has copies of the original letter / manuscript / whatever.

[Coffee Warlord]

And of course reddit is currently trying to un-redact that document.

[ISiddiqui]

Very interesting... some of the stuff is quite fascinating (and I guess mild spoiler for how the series will actually play out, though GRRM could have changed his mind as he did for some of the stuff already listed).

[flere-imsaho]

Biggest change is to Arya, IMO. Dany's not that big of a change in that I expect her arc will be the same, it's just drawn out longer because he's writing more books (hah!) than originally planned.

Of course, it doesn't matter, as the show will finish the story, not Martin.

[ISiddiqui]

Originally Posted by flere-imsaho

the show will finish a fanfic version of the story

Fixed

[flere-imsaho]

Fine by me. The big advantage fanfic has over Martin's prose in this instance is that it's much more likely to materialize.

[ISiddiqui]

Considering that the fanfic decided to get all rape-heavy for no reason whatsoever, maybe that isn't a good thing .

[sabotai]

At this point, I don't really care which finishes first as the show has already deviated from the books enough that i don't really consider them the same story (and it's about to go to 11 with how different they become), so I don't really think of it as HBO finishing "the story" before Martin.

My only worry is that the show will influence Martin to do something in his books he would not have done otherwise.

[ISiddiqui]

Originally Posted by sabotai

My only worry is that the show will influence Martin to do something in his books he would not have done otherwise.

My fear has been the opposite (I assume you meant that something in that the show does will make Martin change things so it matches). I was worrying that the show may decide to do something, so Martin instinctively does something completely different with that story arc (Martin is really supportive of the show, but I think that support will flag when they attempt to write story that he hasn't written first).

[flere-imsaho]

Originally Posted by ISiddiqui

so Martin instinctively does something completely different with that story arc (Martin is really supportive of the show, but I think that support will flag when they attempt to write story that he hasn't written first).

I suspect this is exactly what happens, assuming Martin actually finishes. I've long predicted, however, in this thread, that Martin will not finish, and will claim that the show finishing the story represents a new paradigm, etc, etc, blah, blah.

Yes, I could see him finishing, and finishing differently out of spite and pique. But that requires him to buckle down and write. It'll be kind of funny if spite & pique are the main reasons why he finally finishes the books.

[sabotai]

Originally Posted by ISiddiqui

My fear has been the opposite (I assume you meant that something in that the show does will make Martin change things so it matches). I was worrying that the show may decide to do something, so Martin instinctively does something completely different with that story arc (Martin is really supportive of the show, but I think that support will flag when they attempt to write story that he hasn't written first).

Yes, I meant change the books to match to show, but I didn't consider the other way you described (so thanks a lot for giving me something else to worry about!!). So yeah, either way for me. The show has to influence him to some degree, I just hope it doesn't make him do something to story because he feels he either needs to match it exactly or change something that works perfectly well to one-up it.