5 Reasons Why George R.R. Martin Should NOT Finish Writing A Game of Thrones

Many fans of A Game of Thrones believe that the book series A Song of Fire and Ice will never get finished, and there might be a good reason for this.  After all, author George R.R.  Martin doesn’t look all that healthy, so some morbid fans speculate that he will die before he can complete the series.  To be fair, I’m sure most of those fans are worried for Martin’s sake and not for that of the book series.

As much as I want George R.R. Martin to live a long time, my theory is that Martin could live another 20 or 30 years and still not finish the series.  If we look at the situation from his point of view, maybe George R.R. Martin shouldn’t finish writing A Song of Ice and Fire.

Here are five reasons why George R.R. Martin (maybe) shouldn’t finish A Song of Ice and Fire:

1.   He doesn’t want to finish it.

Maybe George R.R. Martin really wants to finish A Song of Ice and Fire, but he acts like he doesn’t want to finish it.  The fifth book, A Dance of Dragons, came out almost ten years ago.  Since then, Martin has written several books that are NOT the sixth book.  If Martin had wanted to finish A Song of Ice and Fire, he probably would have done it already.

2.   He likes the attention that an unfinished series brings.

Once A Song of Ice and Fire is done and fans have reacted to it, the attention that Martin receives will drop.  Right now, everybody wants to know about the last two books.  When will they come out?  How long will they be?  How different from the HBO series will the books be?  Once the books are out, all the interest surrounding Martin can never be replicated.  He might know that he will never be in the spotlight again.  Maybe he wants to hang on to the spotlight as long as he can.  If this is true, then maybe he shouldn’t finish A Song of Ice and Fire.

3.   The ending sucks.

Maybe the book ending is too similar to HBO’s version and he doesn’t want to admit it.  Or maybe he doesn’t have an ending at all.  No matter what happens, fans aren’t going to like what happens.  Favorite characters are going to die.  Some predictable things might happen.  It might be too much like the HBO series.  It might be too different from the HBO series.  The only way to resolve everything to the satisfaction of most fans is to not finish it at all.  To some readers, a non-existent ending would be better than a bad one.

4.   He has Game of Thrones writers block.

Let’s face it, the fourth and fifth books of A Song of Ice and Fire were completely different from the first three.  The fourth and fifth books were like reading from a different series, and it wasn’t an improvement.  In fact, reading those two books was difficult.  As an aspiring writer, I wonder if writing those books was difficult for Martin.  They took longer for him to write than the first three books did.  That might mean he had a tough time writing them, and it might not be getting any easier.

Game of Thrones writer’s block might explain this.  If this is true, Martin has had a long time to get out of it, and whatever he’s doing to combat the block doesn’t seem to be working. 

5.   There are so many Dunk and Egg stories to tell.

George R.R. Martin likes writing Dunk and Egg stories.  They’re shorter than Game of Thrones books, and they’re popular enough to satisfy a part of Martin’s audience.  He also likes writing the history of Westeros, and there’s a lot of history to tell.  Personally, I’d rather read real history than fantasy history.   I don’t understand people who think fantasy history is more interesting than real history, but that’s just me.  If Dunk and Egg stories and Westeros histories are now George R.R. Martin’s passion, then maybe that’s what he should write instead of A Song of Ice and Fire.

*****

For years I said that I would not read A Song of Ice and Fire until George R.R. Martin has finished the series.  Since then, I have found myself writing about it more than I write about most other topics.  I finally broke down and read the five available books, so now I understand why George R.R. Martin might not finish it.

If George R.R. Martin never finishes A Song of Ice and Fire, though, I’ll be okay.  I won’t have much of an emotional reaction.  Like many fans, I’ll just shrug and think, I figured that might happen.  And then I’ll probably write a few blog posts about it.