George R.R. Martin's Latest Game Of Thrones Update Is Incredibly Frustrating

A few things are certain in life. Death. Taxes. George R.R. Martin will never, ever finish writing "The Winds of Winter," the long-awaited sixth book in "A Song of Ice and Fire."

Martin, who authored the fantasy series and was on hand to advise showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss as they adapted it into the hit HBO series "Game of Thrones," spoke to Bangcast in early November and provided a ... deeply unsatisfying update about his progress. "The main thing I'm actually writing, of course, is the same thing... I wish I could write as fast as [The Last Kingdom author Bernard Cornwell] but I'm 12 years late on this damn novel and I'm struggling with it," Martin revealed. "I have like 1,100 pages written but I still have hundreds more pages to go. It's a big mother of a book for whatever reason. Maybe I should've started writing smaller books when I began this but it's tough. That's the main thing that dominates most of my working life."

Over a thousand pages sure sounds promising, but this number is actually quite concerning for a very specific reason: nearly a year ago, Martin used the exact same number when speaking about his progress. During an appearance on "Late Show with Stephen Colbert" in December of 2022, Martin said he had "like 1,100, 1,200 pages" and only had roughly 500 more to go. What exactly happened here, George?

This news is especially frustrating because ever since "Game of Thrones" wrapped up its televised run in May of 2019, fans have been clamoring for George R.R. Martin to swoop in on the proverbial dragon back and "fix" the story's ending. Despite the fact that Martin did collaborate with David Benioff and D.B. Weiss during "Game of Thrones," there seems to be some hope that Martin could redesign the lackluster ending fans hated so much.

So why did fans hate the ending of the iconic HBO series? There are a lot of reasons on what went wrong with "Game of Thrones," but perhaps the biggest one is that Benioff and Weiss, seemingly desperate to end the show and move on to an untitled "Star Wars" project, rushed the entire thing so intensely that the narrative was incomprehensible at best and absurd at worst. (Their "Star Wars" project was later canceled.) 

In Seasons 7 and 8 — the latter of which was only made up of six episodes — characters suddenly developed the ability to fast travel, major emotional moments happened largely off-screen, and expected character trajectories like the madness of Emilia Clarke's Daenerys Targaryen happened in the blink of an eye rather than building appropriately. Can "The Winds of Winter" fix any of these issues? Potentially! Is it ever going to be released? We'll see!

Luckily for "Game of Thrones" fans, there's other content based in George R.R. Martin's fictional Seven Kingdoms to tide them over until "The Winds of Winter" hits bookshelves (if it ever manages to do so). The biggest one is, of course, "House of the Dragon," which proved itself a hit in its own right after premiering on HBO in 2022. That story serves as both a prequel and a spin-off to "Game of Thrones," telling the sordid tale of the Targaryens years before Daenerys was even born, let alone crossed the Narrow Sea to conquer Westeros. After a time jump in Season 1, "House of the Dragon" is now led by Emma D'arcy and Olivia Cooke as friends turned enemies Rhaenyra Targaryen and Alicent Hightower, whose opposing factions both want their own very different monarchs atop the Iron Throne.

There are a few other "Game of Thrones" spin-offs either in the works or rumored at this point as well, including a currently untitled Jon Snow spin-off with Kit Harington reprising his role and the confirmed "A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms: The Hedge Knight." Fans waiting for "The Winds of Winter," though, might end up seeing a series focused on Jon Snow's grandkids before they get their hands on that book.