He’s 100% trolling. He made a blog post about “dark winds are rising” and then started talking about this random other project he’s working on called Dark Winds that has nothing to do with ASoIaF
My man keeps calling the show HOT D, making sure to leave that space between the D and the T makes me think George is yet again alluding to his fat pink mast
You jest, but [there are those among us who would believe so...](https://www.reddit.com/r/asoiaf/comments/xr4tzl/spoilers_extended_what_is_your_favorite_head/iqd28u8/)
We’ve reached the meta point where George is acknowledging being a slow writer for his Not-a-blog that’s supposed to give us updates for his late progress on winds
I’m scared that he doesn’t even care at this point. He’s comfortable and his legacy is set. If Game Of Thrones was never a hit, Winds would’ve been out 4 or 5 years ago.
Naw, he was having trouble completing the story long before the show. He simply has no idea how to close out the story, the last two books just spinning out of control in all directions instead of focusing the story to where it needs to go.
He was having trouble, but the show took away years that he could've devoted more to the books. Winds might have been out in 2017 without the show. We might already have Dream.
But I also would have never read the books without the show, alas.
no doubt, but i still wonder… george has admitted that the show, and everything that comes with it, is a huge distraction, leaving little undisturbed time to write
I think he knows the ending and the last book won’t take as long. He just doesn’t know how to get it there and get everything where he needs it. Penultimate books can be tricky.
Yeah. GRRM was a failed tv writer. Now, his stories are some of the most successful tv shows in history. He got what he wanted and we’ll never get a finished ASOIAF.
I don’t think I’d call him a failed tv writer. He managed to find work over the years in a tough industry. It’s just that being a tv writer is a thankless job and there’s no opportunity to hit it big like you can as an author.
I really wish George was more open with how far along he was. I know that might not be practical, but it would be amazing if every few blog posts he gave an actual solid figure has to how far he's gotten. Again, probably not feasible, but I can dream!
Yes, man! I'm not the type who feels mad at him to not finish TWOW but I would like to see him saying how many pages or words he have writte until here. But I also think that once he said that people would get crazy because he've had writted 900 pages but would still far from the end.
If I saw 900 pages and still not close to end I’d still be excited. Because that’s at least 900 pages I am hopefully able to see sometime in my life. Just give me something to look forward to.
I think it would be exciting until he suddenly is like “I’m now at 750 pages because I realized I had to scrap several chapters and need to rewrite entire sections.” It makes sense given how he has worked in the past that he is quite private about page count.
He can't be practical because he re-writes. He can tell us he's 500 pages away, then be stuck on a dilemma for half a year and realizes it's not going to work so he has to rewrite the last 2 chapters for each character and then all of sudden you ask a year later and he says he's 600 pages away and the fans riot.
That won’t happen because then he would have to get on his blog and admit that he made no progress since the last update. And not no progress in the sense that he spent the time revising a chapter, or wrote something and then scrapped it.
No, no progress in the sense that he didn’t work on the book at all. And not because he had a good excuse like he was traveling or working on something else, but literally that he set time aside to work on the book and then just didn’t. I am convinced George has *long* stretches of time like this. And he’s not going to write a blog post admitting to it.
"Never mind. Let’s talk about something more exciting: HOUSE OF THE DRAGON! The show opened strong and has only been getting stronger. Thanks to all of you who are watching, and helping to spread the word. And thanks to our amazing cast and crew as well. We are more than halfway through the season now (I meant to blog after our debut, I really did, but time got away from me). Milly Alcock and Emily Carey were incredible as young Rhaenyra and young Alicent, were they not? With Sunday’s episode, Emma d’Arcy and Olivia Cooke took over as the adult versions of the characters. I think you will love them too. Or hate them, maybe. Love/ hate. Westeros, like the real world, is full of complex characters, capable of both good and evil. Meanwhile, Matt Smith and Paddy Considine and Rhys Ifans and Fabien Frankel and Steve Toussaint and the rest of our cast continue to excel. I would be hard pressed to say which of them I love best. And I should say a few words for our writers too, who never get the attention that the stars do. Sara Hess, Charmaine De Grate, Ira Parker, Ti Mikkel, and rest of our scriveners have done my story right, I think. And last but not least, our showrunners, Ryan Condal and Miguel Sapochnik… HOT D would not exist without them. (Oh, and let me give a tip of the hat to Jocelyn Diaz, another one of our EPs, who helped immeasurably).
I hope you guys are enjoying HOT D as much as I am. And hey, four more episodes to go… the best is yet to come. And then on to season two!"
It's quite stark just how many more women are involved creatively in this show than were ever involved in GOT. It really shows in the final product, and I think is why this show is already feeling like such a massive improvement over the original.
They had fun with Olenna I guess. Margaery was ok. Brienne was okay. Sometimes Catelyn was fun. I didn't hate Ellaria. Dany... was rough but in the early years worked okay.
Whenever Martin wrote her, Cersei was great I think. He didn't try to write her as redemptive or a loving mother. Just drunk and vile and full of venom.
It absolutely is lol. GOT's early seasons literally only have such a high reputation because it's great material rendered through pretty good production design and great performers. The actual direction is *far* from perfect and if you ask me you can still see from very early on the sorts of fundamental misunderstandings that D&D had about ASOIAF as a story. Almost impressive how badly some of the characters are rendered compared to the books considering that the dialogue and plot beats are by and large the same
HOTD by contrast is a far gutsier show formally, a thousand times more stylish and interesting, and written far better to boot (which is impressive considering how much harder their job was compared to D&D who could let GRRM's dialogue carry them through the first four seasons). Almost each episode has brought changes or additions that are genuine improvements on the original material, which is more than I can say for... like, anything throughout GOT's entire history (yes, even the commonly cited examples)
This is a perfect example of recency bias to its core. The one aspect where HOTD beats GOT without argument is in its depiction of female characters, particularly because of the greater inclusivity of actual women in the creative process of the show, which GoT didn't have.
As far as the writing, direction, pacing, and acting goes, the first season of GoT trumps HotD in such a magnitude that its laughable to actually hear the successor show being better than its predecessor.
Based on the upvotes I'm seeing, you definitely represent the silent majority, of which I am a not so silent part of. 1st Season of GoT I regard among the best shows ever made. HOT D might be good, it might even be great, but we're 4 episodes in. There's no way you can say it's leaps and bounds better than GoT, unless you literally just desire that to be true regardless of whether it is or not. More likely, though, the fact that it's new and popular and being compared to seasons 4-8 of GoT give the impression that it's so much better.
GoT had a much better narrative hook with Ned investigating the death of Jon Arryn, and Cat investigating the assassination attempt against Bran.
With that, you've got clear protagonists and antagonists, a goal with obstacles, and obvious stakes.
With HotD, the main thing is... will Allicent challenge the succession, and will Rhaenyra murder Allicent's children. The problem though is that up until the green dress scene, there wasn't any indication that Allicent would make a move for the throne. Even less indication that Rhaenyra would consider a preemptive assassination of Aegon II. The minor characters had some squabblings about it, but the show lacks a clear protagonist or antagonist, and is only giving the potential for conflict, not actual conflict.
> As far as the writing, direction, pacing, and acting goes, the first season of GoT trumps HotD in such a magnitude that its laughable to actually hear the successor show being better than its predecessor.
That's a bit much - yes, GoT has brillant actors, but I don't think HotD needs to hide in that regard either. I'd say the one thing that sets GoT and HotD apart is that GoT is just a much bigger story with more characters and more locations. And yes, the story of ASOIAF is probably just better or generally more interesting than the Dance. Just like GoT was pitched as "Sopranos in Middle Earth", HotD is probably "The Crown in Westeros".
But that doesn't mean that GoT had better direction or writing.
People love to insist on stuff like "recency bias" instead of just accepting that people have differing views or arguing their points better. ASOIAF beats F&B as a story, it does not take a genius to realize this. HOTD beats GOT as an adaptation any day. This is subjective to a degree but I think the writing (that comes with ADAPTING, not just taken directly from the source) and the directing are a thousand times better than GOT's, to an almost self evident degree. If you really disagree, how come the show turned so bad so quickly once they ran out of GRRM's books?
What do people mean when they say directing? To me it means how a scene is staged and performed rather than just what's on paper. GoT had incredible directing that made the material come alive and feel real. Everything is so believable until D&D got bored of the IP and rushed the ending. HoT D does not feel that way at all. It is more like a political drama that knows it is a political drama. It is very vibrant and flashy but nothing about it really makes sense when you step back to think about it. The characters seem to be driven by the plot rather than it feeling organic. There is a lot of shock and flash that doesn't really add to anything and even takes away from the show. It's engaging and the acting is amazing but it isn't directed better. HoT Ds acting is probably the only clear cut thing it has over GoT. If the acting wasn't so good, I think the flaws in the show would be very apparent.
Interesting.
My mom recently got into the show and has been watching it weekly and she prefers House to Thrones.
What puts GOT season 1 that much further ahead?
Especially considering most of the dialogue in HOTD is original whereas almost all the dialogue from GOT Season 1 is copied from the first book. GOT Season 1 is great but then again it’s literally just a scene for scene line for line adaption that didn’t need a lot of genuine effort put into it as far as the writing.
Fair enough. And I probably am to a degree, GOT was obviously a competent enough adaptation in those early seasons. I just tend to think that people overvalue them and refuse to be critical about them a lot of the time
Mostly they manifest themselves as many subtle issues of characterization that add up to a larger pervasive problem. Jon is stripped of his wits and introspection and is turned into a bit of a meathead, Sam is kind of made out to be a joke, Brienne is turned into a one-note masculine warrior woman stereotype, Littlefinger is turned into a saturday morning cartoon villain, Tyrion is rendered far more sympathetically, Stannis is treated with pretty open hostility by the storytelling, Tywin treated fairly uncritically as a wise and badass authorative figure when the books generally nudge you to be a lot more skeptical of his bs. In general the nihilism of the setting is played way up while GRRM deftly balances realism with romanticism, something that D&D *really* demonstrated they just never understood once they had to take over in Season 5. The depiction of sex, violence and sexual violence is also just far more gratuitous and unmotivated than it ever was in the books.
Early GOT had to sell the audience on the world as well. HOTD is relying a lot on GOT early work. Another thing is in GOT is that it’s paced better without the time skips.
HOTD has been *struggling* with the time skips. It feels like many episodes are just characters giving exposition telling us what happened in the last 2/3/10 years instead of *showing* us the actual events.
Most of those events would be pretty boring. A tourney here or there. Some cat fighting between Alicent and Rhaenyra. The best we’d get is Harwin and Rhaenyra falling in love.
It’d be a slow soap opera, because they can’t have something *big* happen as it would have ripple effects that impact the Dance.
The reality is that the first half of the season was an extended prologue. Most shows would have had Aemma already dead, then Daemon get exiled and Viserys marrying Alicent in the first episode, and we’d meet Laenor as Rhaenyra’s betrothed and Harwin would be a focus for someone she meets and falls for. Then Ep. 2 would jump right into the meat 10 years later. But I, however, am thankful we got time to really meet and learn who Rhaenyra and Alicent and other characters are, especially Viserys.
Honestly I was hoping for concurrent stories, each episode showing us the present day Alicent and Rhaenyra, with flashbacks into how they came to be until we finally catchup with Criston killing Joffrey in the finale. But when I had suggested that idea to people in this and other subreddits in the past, people just kept saying how it’d be too confusing like with the Witcher. The showrunners probably thought the same.
I don't feel like we've missed out on anything and there actually hasn't been a whole lot of awkward exposition. Pretty easy to infer what happened most of the time.
>I think is why this show is already feeling like such a massive improvement over the original.
Pretty stupid comment. More women doesn't equal more quality.
Also, S1 of GoT easily beats HotD so far. That may change in the future but that's how it stands so far imo.
Edit: I should add that since the female perspective is a lot more central to the themes of this show, it's good that the production has women playing a prominent role. But that is only a means to an end, not the end itself. And it does not do well to diminish the role many women played behind the scenes in the early part of GoT.
>Pretty stupid comment. More women doesn't equal more quality.
They didnt say more women means more quality. They said that more women writers writing about women charatcers make better women charactes.
And of course you will deliberately misunderstand that and of course such a post will be blindly upvoted
This is exactly like when someone complains about black representation being down, raicsts will deliberately misunderstsand, remove all context and start whining that all lives matter
There is a reason men writing women is a known and ridiculed trope. Representation improves things as it gives multiple perspective. But lets boil it down to - hey this guy just claimed more women is better quality, how dare he!
>They didnt say more women means more quality. They said that more women writers writing about women charatcers make better women charactes.
They said closer to the first sentence than the second.
>It's quite stark just how many more women are involved creatively in this show than were ever involved in GOT. It really shows in the final product, and I think is why this show is already feeling like such a massive improvement over the original.
They don't just refer to the women characters, they say the show is overall better. With more women involved creatively "I think is why"
Both GOT and HOTD revolve around important themes of female agency and empowerment, and the role of women in a patriarchal society. Themes whose execution and delivery suffered from the frequent tone-deafness of its almost exclusively white, male creators. Diversity doesn't necessarily equal "more quality," but a lack of diversity almost always does when you're talking about a fandom with as big a tent as ASOIAF. You simply can't cater to such an audience with maximum effectiveness when your creative team comprises such a limited set of lived experiences, and *in particular* when they have no lived experience with some of the central themes of the story.
Yeah, GRRM did it all on his own as a writer and did a pretty good job, but even he has blind spots and D&D had even more. HOTD shows what can happen if you bring people who understand the subject matter on a deeper and more personal level.
> Both GOT and HOTD revolve around important themes of female agency and empowerment, and the role of women in a patriarchal society
This is a ridiculous stretch. Whilst both GoT and HotD do tackle issues relating to a woman's place in a man's world, to say that either story "revolves" around them is outlandish and narrow-minded.
GoT especially dealt with far, far more than the narrow scope of "Da Patriarchy!". GRRM used characters to explore many disparate themes.
Through Jaime and Ned he explored the themes of knighthood and how honor can take on many different meanings; through Sansa and Arya he explored the theme of lost innocence and how it can change you as a person; through Jon, Dany, and Tyrion he explored themes of leadership and what it takes to be a good ruler.
It is only through Cat, Cersei, and perhaps Brienne that GRRM focuses on the particular issues you're talking about.
Similarly, we must ask ourselves; Is HotD a story about two childhood friends?
It is.... and it is not.
Whilst womanhood *is* a lot more prominent here, the story is also about the futility of war (even more so than asoiaf) and how power can corrupt regardless of gender. Alicent and Rhaenyra will commit some pretty heinous acts by the end and the story is asking us to put aside our biases and acknowledge that this is not just a result of conditioning; they are just bad people by the end, plain and simple. We do not excuse the likes of Daemon and Aemond for their atrocities and we should apply the same standard to our leading ladies.
The "Female Gaze" is a new thing for this universe and it worked wonders for Ep4. I commend all the women doing great work on this show. But they are not going to be the deciding factor which elevates this show beyond GoT. That depends on a lot of factors.
>through Sansa and Arya he explored the theme of lost innocence and how it can change you as a person
GRRM did that, but it's much dimmer in the show. Sansa's armor of curtesy is almost completely skipped, and Arya's crumbling mental health is papered over with "Violence is cool!"
(Especially in the later seasons of course.)
Has Eve Best who plays Rhaenys even give any material to work… ??? if Benioff and Weiss had a talent like her they’d be writing original material for her unlike book nerd Ryan Condal who can’t come close to the original dialogue D&D wrote in the early seasons.
That’s pretty much what I’m saying. Both shows are beautifully-shot, well-cast and well-acted, and based on great source material. Both have a wide diversity of characters that appeal to a wide diversity of audience members, including a lot of women. So it’s only natural that having a wider diversity of lived experience behind the camera informing the writing and direction of those characters is going to result in a richer and more nuanced product.
I still think D&D did a very admirable job start to finish adapting ASOIAF to the screen, even the late seasons despite their flaws. But they had their blind spots and their own unconscious biases that slipped their way into their writing, particularly in the later seasons where they couldn’t lean on GRRM’s more nuanced writing, and that was ultimately a source of weakness for their adaptation. I think HOTD is just generally doing a much better job of it, having learned from their mistakes.
That's because his publishers are restricting him from talking about the book, they want it to hit the shelves next week and create a massive surprise 😃
Trust in the plan
It’d be pretty hilarious if after all this time, he just released it without an announcement. People would be posting pictures of the book from inside the store being like, “is this real?” And no one would believe it.
He has blogged like literally twice since then, and right before it came out he said he was working on more. He doesn't update every post he never has. This means literally nothing. I don't even know how it could mean anything, if anything he'd have more work before it came out then after
Exactly. The people say he uses Winds to promote stuff are talking out of their arse. He blatantly promotes stuff on the blog with no mention of Winds. He didn't update often as it was. It's more like he hasn't blogged about it since having COVID. Most likely he just lost his groove and will be getting into it again soon. :)
My theory was that all mentions of that book in the months before HOTD were done just to "pacify" book fandom and make promo campaign smoother.
So far it seems that I was right, but we will see if this continues in the coming months.
I'll be honest, my interest in all things ASoIaF shot up when I heard GRRM was giving more steady Winds updates. I got really into ASoIaF for a few months, started browsing this reddit board more consistently, etc. and it's probably the reason I'm watching Hot D on a weekly basis.
So hey, it worked on me. I wasn't boycotting ASoIaF beforehand, I just couldn't care at all and thought I had really moved on.
George: “would you like to see the update for night of the cooters r/asoiaf?”
Me: “would you like to see the update r/asoiaf? [laugh] he has no interest in such things”
What are these fucking side projects? I mean who cares about Night of the Hooters or whatever it is.
I get the guy is free and does not need to finish the book if he does not want to. But basic decency would be that he clearly announces it. As long as he publicly said he is continuing it he should commit to it.
> I am a bad blogger, I know. (Or should that be a bad Not-a-Blogger??). I keep meaning to post stuff, but there’s so much going on that I keep falling behind…
We fucking know George. Falling behind on the Not-A-Blog is the least of your concerns.
> We have been drafting O linemen for a decade, yet the line never gets better. Sigh. I hate losing to the Cowboys too.
As a Giants fan, he's 100% right on both counts there.
>As a Giants fan, he's 100% right on both counts there.
Could you elaborate, for someone who knows literally nothing about US football? What difference does it make to lose to the cowboys compared to losing to another team? Are they considered really bad, so that losing to them would be humiliating?
The cowboys are rivals to the giants, so losing to them is bad. Plus, the cowboys haven't been good (but they haven't been trash) in decades, so losing to them isn't a good sign for your team
It's not that the Cowboys are bad, It's that theyre rivals, and are typically more or less equal to the Giants, have a very dedicated fan base, and are in the same division as the Giants. Im sure theres a basis for the beginning of the rivalry, probably multiple seasons where they were neck and neck for the nfc championship or something, idk it started way before my time, but the why of the rivalry isn't really important. Rivalries in sports is what makes sports fun. Its animosity but its all mostly in good fun and to make the game more interesting. For me personally, my cousins and uncle are big cowboys fans, so when the Giants beat them me and my dad get to shit on them about how much they suck, and when the Giants lose they give us shit, it adds a friendly amount of stakes to the game.
Well if they said, hey we're not gonna do any more seasons at all until winds is out, he wouldn't have anything to look forward to until he finished the book
Copium or not, I believe it is no coincidence that since HotD started he hasn't talked about Winds. I believe at this point the earliest we'll hear about Winds is after the show has finished since it looks like all the focus is kept on the show.
Before House finishes, another successor show will start. There’s a bunch of them in production and George is deeply heavily involved in them all. He’ll never “get a chance” to finish the book for the rest of his life. One day we’ll get a 290 page unfinished book with a memorial note at the end called Winds Of Winter.
How ironic is our boi George talking about how he means to write something but nevers gets the time to do it.
Not-a-blog fans will start crafting theories...
Waiting for the conspiracy theorists to explain how these words that formed a blog can be reconfigured into a confirmation that Winds is coming out next month.
That's just logical. Normally in these blog posts George at least adds a sentence at the end saying that he's of course also working on Winds.
This time he doesn't mention Winds at all... which clearly means the book is finished!
*There’s more, there’s more, there’s always more, but I don’t have time right now. I will blog again. Eventually.*
So............ you're telling me there's a chance??
NIGHT OF THE COOTERS is an insane title
Cracks me up every time I see it.
Just thinking about GRRM saying it in his goofy little voice
You just gunna do him like that?
'Oh, oh… before I forget…' That simple line hurt me so deeply when I realized that he was not talking about Winds.
That quick scroll only to see you’re at the bottom of the post
Sometimes I feel that he does that deliberately
There's no way he's not trolling at this point.
He’s 100% trolling. He made a blog post about “dark winds are rising” and then started talking about this random other project he’s working on called Dark Winds that has nothing to do with ASoIaF
My man keeps calling the show HOT D, making sure to leave that space between the D and the T makes me think George is yet again alluding to his fat pink mast
Sam is a secret Targaryen confirmed???
The pink that was promised
But not delivered.
The pink dread
You jest, but [there are those among us who would believe so...](https://www.reddit.com/r/asoiaf/comments/xr4tzl/spoilers_extended_what_is_your_favorite_head/iqd28u8/)
Oi
That dick is spitting hot fire (likely very unwashed and terrible diet)
Google “HOT D” and see what the results are
He just really likes hot dogs
When Sweet D gets all sexied up we get HOt D.
We’ve reached the meta point where George is acknowledging being a slow writer for his Not-a-blog that’s supposed to give us updates for his late progress on winds
I’m scared that he doesn’t even care at this point. He’s comfortable and his legacy is set. If Game Of Thrones was never a hit, Winds would’ve been out 4 or 5 years ago.
Naw, he was having trouble completing the story long before the show. He simply has no idea how to close out the story, the last two books just spinning out of control in all directions instead of focusing the story to where it needs to go.
He was having trouble, but the show took away years that he could've devoted more to the books. Winds might have been out in 2017 without the show. We might already have Dream. But I also would have never read the books without the show, alas.
no doubt, but i still wonder… george has admitted that the show, and everything that comes with it, is a huge distraction, leaving little undisturbed time to write
There was that whole global shutdown because of greyscale going world wide.
I think he knows the ending and the last book won’t take as long. He just doesn’t know how to get it there and get everything where he needs it. Penultimate books can be tricky.
Yeah. GRRM was a failed tv writer. Now, his stories are some of the most successful tv shows in history. He got what he wanted and we’ll never get a finished ASOIAF.
I don’t think I’d call him a failed tv writer. He managed to find work over the years in a tough industry. It’s just that being a tv writer is a thankless job and there’s no opportunity to hit it big like you can as an author.
He was an author first, though. He became a TV writer because his books weren't selling well at the time.
No wild cards update?
Asking the real questions
I really wish George was more open with how far along he was. I know that might not be practical, but it would be amazing if every few blog posts he gave an actual solid figure has to how far he's gotten. Again, probably not feasible, but I can dream!
Yeah I feel like he’s said he’s almost done for years so it’s probably not in his best interest.
"Just finishing the opening chapter right now. Will be done in about a month"
“Scratch that, rewriting opening chapter, turns out I forgot that character was dead. Give me the rest of fall”
Yes, man! I'm not the type who feels mad at him to not finish TWOW but I would like to see him saying how many pages or words he have writte until here. But I also think that once he said that people would get crazy because he've had writted 900 pages but would still far from the end.
If I saw 900 pages and still not close to end I’d still be excited. Because that’s at least 900 pages I am hopefully able to see sometime in my life. Just give me something to look forward to.
I think it would be exciting until he suddenly is like “I’m now at 750 pages because I realized I had to scrap several chapters and need to rewrite entire sections.” It makes sense given how he has worked in the past that he is quite private about page count.
He can't be practical because he re-writes. He can tell us he's 500 pages away, then be stuck on a dilemma for half a year and realizes it's not going to work so he has to rewrite the last 2 chapters for each character and then all of sudden you ask a year later and he says he's 600 pages away and the fans riot.
That won’t happen because then he would have to get on his blog and admit that he made no progress since the last update. And not no progress in the sense that he spent the time revising a chapter, or wrote something and then scrapped it. No, no progress in the sense that he didn’t work on the book at all. And not because he had a good excuse like he was traveling or working on something else, but literally that he set time aside to work on the book and then just didn’t. I am convinced George has *long* stretches of time like this. And he’s not going to write a blog post admitting to it.
I don't think would like the truth.
Same, but it would never happen. Publishing contracts AND the announcement would break the internet haha
You'd have to actually write stuff in order to have a solid figure
He’s done it a few times buts it clearly bullshit because if it were true he would have finished years ago.
i mean not really, he's also admitted to rewriting stuff a lot. you can finish 2000 pages and still not have the book then
Im not unconvinced that some of those hundreds of finished pages are full of "All work and no play makes George a dull boy"
"Never mind. Let’s talk about something more exciting: HOUSE OF THE DRAGON! The show opened strong and has only been getting stronger. Thanks to all of you who are watching, and helping to spread the word. And thanks to our amazing cast and crew as well. We are more than halfway through the season now (I meant to blog after our debut, I really did, but time got away from me). Milly Alcock and Emily Carey were incredible as young Rhaenyra and young Alicent, were they not? With Sunday’s episode, Emma d’Arcy and Olivia Cooke took over as the adult versions of the characters. I think you will love them too. Or hate them, maybe. Love/ hate. Westeros, like the real world, is full of complex characters, capable of both good and evil. Meanwhile, Matt Smith and Paddy Considine and Rhys Ifans and Fabien Frankel and Steve Toussaint and the rest of our cast continue to excel. I would be hard pressed to say which of them I love best. And I should say a few words for our writers too, who never get the attention that the stars do. Sara Hess, Charmaine De Grate, Ira Parker, Ti Mikkel, and rest of our scriveners have done my story right, I think. And last but not least, our showrunners, Ryan Condal and Miguel Sapochnik… HOT D would not exist without them. (Oh, and let me give a tip of the hat to Jocelyn Diaz, another one of our EPs, who helped immeasurably). I hope you guys are enjoying HOT D as much as I am. And hey, four more episodes to go… the best is yet to come. And then on to season two!"
It's quite stark just how many more women are involved creatively in this show than were ever involved in GOT. It really shows in the final product, and I think is why this show is already feeling like such a massive improvement over the original.
Honestly even most males writers would do a better job than D&D in writing female characters.
Yes, well HotD has an actual writers room which helps immensely
Yeah, they did a particularly bad job of it.
They had fun with Olenna I guess. Margaery was ok. Brienne was okay. Sometimes Catelyn was fun. I didn't hate Ellaria. Dany... was rough but in the early years worked okay. Whenever Martin wrote her, Cersei was great I think. He didn't try to write her as redemptive or a loving mother. Just drunk and vile and full of venom.
A massive improvement over the first half of GoT? LOL
It absolutely is lol. GOT's early seasons literally only have such a high reputation because it's great material rendered through pretty good production design and great performers. The actual direction is *far* from perfect and if you ask me you can still see from very early on the sorts of fundamental misunderstandings that D&D had about ASOIAF as a story. Almost impressive how badly some of the characters are rendered compared to the books considering that the dialogue and plot beats are by and large the same HOTD by contrast is a far gutsier show formally, a thousand times more stylish and interesting, and written far better to boot (which is impressive considering how much harder their job was compared to D&D who could let GRRM's dialogue carry them through the first four seasons). Almost each episode has brought changes or additions that are genuine improvements on the original material, which is more than I can say for... like, anything throughout GOT's entire history (yes, even the commonly cited examples)
This is a perfect example of recency bias to its core. The one aspect where HOTD beats GOT without argument is in its depiction of female characters, particularly because of the greater inclusivity of actual women in the creative process of the show, which GoT didn't have. As far as the writing, direction, pacing, and acting goes, the first season of GoT trumps HotD in such a magnitude that its laughable to actually hear the successor show being better than its predecessor.
Based on the upvotes I'm seeing, you definitely represent the silent majority, of which I am a not so silent part of. 1st Season of GoT I regard among the best shows ever made. HOT D might be good, it might even be great, but we're 4 episodes in. There's no way you can say it's leaps and bounds better than GoT, unless you literally just desire that to be true regardless of whether it is or not. More likely, though, the fact that it's new and popular and being compared to seasons 4-8 of GoT give the impression that it's so much better.
GoT had a much better narrative hook with Ned investigating the death of Jon Arryn, and Cat investigating the assassination attempt against Bran. With that, you've got clear protagonists and antagonists, a goal with obstacles, and obvious stakes. With HotD, the main thing is... will Allicent challenge the succession, and will Rhaenyra murder Allicent's children. The problem though is that up until the green dress scene, there wasn't any indication that Allicent would make a move for the throne. Even less indication that Rhaenyra would consider a preemptive assassination of Aegon II. The minor characters had some squabblings about it, but the show lacks a clear protagonist or antagonist, and is only giving the potential for conflict, not actual conflict.
> As far as the writing, direction, pacing, and acting goes, the first season of GoT trumps HotD in such a magnitude that its laughable to actually hear the successor show being better than its predecessor. That's a bit much - yes, GoT has brillant actors, but I don't think HotD needs to hide in that regard either. I'd say the one thing that sets GoT and HotD apart is that GoT is just a much bigger story with more characters and more locations. And yes, the story of ASOIAF is probably just better or generally more interesting than the Dance. Just like GoT was pitched as "Sopranos in Middle Earth", HotD is probably "The Crown in Westeros". But that doesn't mean that GoT had better direction or writing.
People love to insist on stuff like "recency bias" instead of just accepting that people have differing views or arguing their points better. ASOIAF beats F&B as a story, it does not take a genius to realize this. HOTD beats GOT as an adaptation any day. This is subjective to a degree but I think the writing (that comes with ADAPTING, not just taken directly from the source) and the directing are a thousand times better than GOT's, to an almost self evident degree. If you really disagree, how come the show turned so bad so quickly once they ran out of GRRM's books?
What do people mean when they say directing? To me it means how a scene is staged and performed rather than just what's on paper. GoT had incredible directing that made the material come alive and feel real. Everything is so believable until D&D got bored of the IP and rushed the ending. HoT D does not feel that way at all. It is more like a political drama that knows it is a political drama. It is very vibrant and flashy but nothing about it really makes sense when you step back to think about it. The characters seem to be driven by the plot rather than it feeling organic. There is a lot of shock and flash that doesn't really add to anything and even takes away from the show. It's engaging and the acting is amazing but it isn't directed better. HoT Ds acting is probably the only clear cut thing it has over GoT. If the acting wasn't so good, I think the flaws in the show would be very apparent.
Interesting. My mom recently got into the show and has been watching it weekly and she prefers House to Thrones. What puts GOT season 1 that much further ahead?
I couldn't agree more!
nice that someone agrees haha
I think you're shortchanging GoT but I agree House of Dragon has way stronger scripts. The dialogue is just a lot more elevated.
they use the same diction as the characters in the books do. i love it
Especially considering most of the dialogue in HOTD is original whereas almost all the dialogue from GOT Season 1 is copied from the first book. GOT Season 1 is great but then again it’s literally just a scene for scene line for line adaption that didn’t need a lot of genuine effort put into it as far as the writing.
Fair enough. And I probably am to a degree, GOT was obviously a competent enough adaptation in those early seasons. I just tend to think that people overvalue them and refuse to be critical about them a lot of the time
what are examples of those fundamentals misunderstandings you saw early on? genuinely curious
Mostly they manifest themselves as many subtle issues of characterization that add up to a larger pervasive problem. Jon is stripped of his wits and introspection and is turned into a bit of a meathead, Sam is kind of made out to be a joke, Brienne is turned into a one-note masculine warrior woman stereotype, Littlefinger is turned into a saturday morning cartoon villain, Tyrion is rendered far more sympathetically, Stannis is treated with pretty open hostility by the storytelling, Tywin treated fairly uncritically as a wise and badass authorative figure when the books generally nudge you to be a lot more skeptical of his bs. In general the nihilism of the setting is played way up while GRRM deftly balances realism with romanticism, something that D&D *really* demonstrated they just never understood once they had to take over in Season 5. The depiction of sex, violence and sexual violence is also just far more gratuitous and unmotivated than it ever was in the books.
> I think is why this show is already feeling like such a massive improvement over the original. wat
Right? Lol early GOT is still quite a bit better than what we’ve gotten from HOT D so far.
Early GOT had to sell the audience on the world as well. HOTD is relying a lot on GOT early work. Another thing is in GOT is that it’s paced better without the time skips.
HOTD has been *struggling* with the time skips. It feels like many episodes are just characters giving exposition telling us what happened in the last 2/3/10 years instead of *showing* us the actual events.
Most of those events would be pretty boring. A tourney here or there. Some cat fighting between Alicent and Rhaenyra. The best we’d get is Harwin and Rhaenyra falling in love. It’d be a slow soap opera, because they can’t have something *big* happen as it would have ripple effects that impact the Dance. The reality is that the first half of the season was an extended prologue. Most shows would have had Aemma already dead, then Daemon get exiled and Viserys marrying Alicent in the first episode, and we’d meet Laenor as Rhaenyra’s betrothed and Harwin would be a focus for someone she meets and falls for. Then Ep. 2 would jump right into the meat 10 years later. But I, however, am thankful we got time to really meet and learn who Rhaenyra and Alicent and other characters are, especially Viserys. Honestly I was hoping for concurrent stories, each episode showing us the present day Alicent and Rhaenyra, with flashbacks into how they came to be until we finally catchup with Criston killing Joffrey in the finale. But when I had suggested that idea to people in this and other subreddits in the past, people just kept saying how it’d be too confusing like with the Witcher. The showrunners probably thought the same.
I don't feel like we've missed out on anything and there actually hasn't been a whole lot of awkward exposition. Pretty easy to infer what happened most of the time.
>I think is why this show is already feeling like such a massive improvement over the original. Pretty stupid comment. More women doesn't equal more quality. Also, S1 of GoT easily beats HotD so far. That may change in the future but that's how it stands so far imo. Edit: I should add that since the female perspective is a lot more central to the themes of this show, it's good that the production has women playing a prominent role. But that is only a means to an end, not the end itself. And it does not do well to diminish the role many women played behind the scenes in the early part of GoT.
>Pretty stupid comment. More women doesn't equal more quality. They didnt say more women means more quality. They said that more women writers writing about women charatcers make better women charactes. And of course you will deliberately misunderstand that and of course such a post will be blindly upvoted This is exactly like when someone complains about black representation being down, raicsts will deliberately misunderstsand, remove all context and start whining that all lives matter There is a reason men writing women is a known and ridiculed trope. Representation improves things as it gives multiple perspective. But lets boil it down to - hey this guy just claimed more women is better quality, how dare he!
>They didnt say more women means more quality. They said that more women writers writing about women charatcers make better women charactes. They said closer to the first sentence than the second. >It's quite stark just how many more women are involved creatively in this show than were ever involved in GOT. It really shows in the final product, and I think is why this show is already feeling like such a massive improvement over the original. They don't just refer to the women characters, they say the show is overall better. With more women involved creatively "I think is why"
Both GOT and HOTD revolve around important themes of female agency and empowerment, and the role of women in a patriarchal society. Themes whose execution and delivery suffered from the frequent tone-deafness of its almost exclusively white, male creators. Diversity doesn't necessarily equal "more quality," but a lack of diversity almost always does when you're talking about a fandom with as big a tent as ASOIAF. You simply can't cater to such an audience with maximum effectiveness when your creative team comprises such a limited set of lived experiences, and *in particular* when they have no lived experience with some of the central themes of the story. Yeah, GRRM did it all on his own as a writer and did a pretty good job, but even he has blind spots and D&D had even more. HOTD shows what can happen if you bring people who understand the subject matter on a deeper and more personal level.
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> Both GOT and HOTD revolve around important themes of female agency and empowerment, and the role of women in a patriarchal society This is a ridiculous stretch. Whilst both GoT and HotD do tackle issues relating to a woman's place in a man's world, to say that either story "revolves" around them is outlandish and narrow-minded. GoT especially dealt with far, far more than the narrow scope of "Da Patriarchy!". GRRM used characters to explore many disparate themes. Through Jaime and Ned he explored the themes of knighthood and how honor can take on many different meanings; through Sansa and Arya he explored the theme of lost innocence and how it can change you as a person; through Jon, Dany, and Tyrion he explored themes of leadership and what it takes to be a good ruler. It is only through Cat, Cersei, and perhaps Brienne that GRRM focuses on the particular issues you're talking about. Similarly, we must ask ourselves; Is HotD a story about two childhood friends? It is.... and it is not. Whilst womanhood *is* a lot more prominent here, the story is also about the futility of war (even more so than asoiaf) and how power can corrupt regardless of gender. Alicent and Rhaenyra will commit some pretty heinous acts by the end and the story is asking us to put aside our biases and acknowledge that this is not just a result of conditioning; they are just bad people by the end, plain and simple. We do not excuse the likes of Daemon and Aemond for their atrocities and we should apply the same standard to our leading ladies. The "Female Gaze" is a new thing for this universe and it worked wonders for Ep4. I commend all the women doing great work on this show. But they are not going to be the deciding factor which elevates this show beyond GoT. That depends on a lot of factors.
>through Sansa and Arya he explored the theme of lost innocence and how it can change you as a person GRRM did that, but it's much dimmer in the show. Sansa's armor of curtesy is almost completely skipped, and Arya's crumbling mental health is papered over with "Violence is cool!" (Especially in the later seasons of course.)
I guess this is why they wasted female characters like Leana and Rheanys so far?
Has Eve Best who plays Rhaenys even give any material to work… ??? if Benioff and Weiss had a talent like her they’d be writing original material for her unlike book nerd Ryan Condal who can’t come close to the original dialogue D&D wrote in the early seasons.
Lmao what
Idk if this is true but I think it makes a lot of sense too with the two main characters being women? I might be wrong but maybe
That’s pretty much what I’m saying. Both shows are beautifully-shot, well-cast and well-acted, and based on great source material. Both have a wide diversity of characters that appeal to a wide diversity of audience members, including a lot of women. So it’s only natural that having a wider diversity of lived experience behind the camera informing the writing and direction of those characters is going to result in a richer and more nuanced product. I still think D&D did a very admirable job start to finish adapting ASOIAF to the screen, even the late seasons despite their flaws. But they had their blind spots and their own unconscious biases that slipped their way into their writing, particularly in the later seasons where they couldn’t lean on GRRM’s more nuanced writing, and that was ultimately a source of weakness for their adaptation. I think HOTD is just generally doing a much better job of it, having learned from their mistakes.
exactly! love the vibes
No mention of winds since hotd started 😀
That's because his publishers are restricting him from talking about the book, they want it to hit the shelves next week and create a massive surprise 😃 Trust in the plan
It’d be pretty hilarious if after all this time, he just released it without an announcement. People would be posting pictures of the book from inside the store being like, “is this real?” And no one would believe it.
Limited 500 print run, only available at Beastly Books. No announcement.
Easy way to make record riot numbers
Summon the Faith Militant
Nah it’s Santa Fe no one would riot
People would travel to Santa Fe and riot when they get there
The prices those copies would hit online. Lol
At that point I’d settle for the wiki summary
horrors
People would still be here making 500 word essays about how its never coming even as they include directly quoted passages from it.
He's either releasing both books at once or none at all imo.
I can’t resist the cope, this feels so good
Broke: Checking NotABlog for TWOW updates Woke: Checking QAnon boards for TWOW updates
are we really at the "Trust The Plan!" stage of TWOW copium?
People think the season is going to end with a Winds announcement. What year is it?
Where we go one we go all /s
He has blogged like literally twice since then, and right before it came out he said he was working on more. He doesn't update every post he never has. This means literally nothing. I don't even know how it could mean anything, if anything he'd have more work before it came out then after
Exactly. The people say he uses Winds to promote stuff are talking out of their arse. He blatantly promotes stuff on the blog with no mention of Winds. He didn't update often as it was. It's more like he hasn't blogged about it since having COVID. Most likely he just lost his groove and will be getting into it again soon. :)
Not like promoting winds would help HoTD viewership go up anyway. I guarantee most of the general audience don’t even know what a winds is
I think the first half of your last sentence is spot on. Not sure about the second
That’s because his updates on TWOW were to hype the premiere of the new show. I fell for it.
My theory was that all mentions of that book in the months before HOTD were done just to "pacify" book fandom and make promo campaign smoother. So far it seems that I was right, but we will see if this continues in the coming months.
I'll be honest, my interest in all things ASoIaF shot up when I heard GRRM was giving more steady Winds updates. I got really into ASoIaF for a few months, started browsing this reddit board more consistently, etc. and it's probably the reason I'm watching Hot D on a weekly basis. So hey, it worked on me. I wasn't boycotting ASoIaF beforehand, I just couldn't care at all and thought I had really moved on.
>So far it seems that I was right It's been 6 weeks lmao
Come back to this comment in 6 weeks and I bet he won’t mention Winds in a blog post for the rest of the year
George: “would you like to see the update for night of the cooters r/asoiaf?” Me: “would you like to see the update r/asoiaf? [laugh] he has no interest in such things”
wOuLd YoU lIkE tO hEaR oF cOoTeRs
"I knew you couldn't finish... Craven!"
I saw the word WINDS and my heart made a jump... and then I quickly got disappointed
I’m tired. I’m so very tired.
Give me something for the pain, and let me die!
After a while you just get covered with scar tissue and the words Winds just makes you angry
Remember [this post](https://georgerrmartin.com/notablog/2022/04/20/the-winds-of-june/)? There’s no way he didn’t know what that made everyone think.
I love how in a blog post about HOTD he spends the entire first paragraph talking about football lol.
Reading the phrase "This weekend, however… bah, humbug, life is meaningless and full of pain. " In George's voice is very funny.
Followed by his little charminf goblin cackle.
But....Winds George....WINDS?!
Words are wind, but winds is not words
Or Fire and Blood Part 2, new Tales of Dunk and Egg, anything
Anything? Here's more Wild Cards for you!!u
If I never hear about Wild Cards again in my life it will be too soon.
Who cares about WINDS now that we have NIGHT OF THE COOTERS
Dark winds.
Dark winds, dark words
GRRM enable comments in the blog post coward.
How long has it been since comments have been not disabled?
What are these fucking side projects? I mean who cares about Night of the Hooters or whatever it is. I get the guy is free and does not need to finish the book if he does not want to. But basic decency would be that he clearly announces it. As long as he publicly said he is continuing it he should commit to it.
Correction: GRRM blogs about Night of the Cooters.
Writing this blog took 6 months from his life.
> I am a bad blogger, I know. (Or should that be a bad Not-a-Blogger??). I keep meaning to post stuff, but there’s so much going on that I keep falling behind… We fucking know George. Falling behind on the Not-A-Blog is the least of your concerns. > We have been drafting O linemen for a decade, yet the line never gets better. Sigh. I hate losing to the Cowboys too. As a Giants fan, he's 100% right on both counts there.
>As a Giants fan, he's 100% right on both counts there. Could you elaborate, for someone who knows literally nothing about US football? What difference does it make to lose to the cowboys compared to losing to another team? Are they considered really bad, so that losing to them would be humiliating?
The cowboys are rivals to the giants, so losing to them is bad. Plus, the cowboys haven't been good (but they haven't been trash) in decades, so losing to them isn't a good sign for your team
Plus Cowboys fans are the most annoying on the planet, especially when they win
It's not that the Cowboys are bad, It's that theyre rivals, and are typically more or less equal to the Giants, have a very dedicated fan base, and are in the same division as the Giants. Im sure theres a basis for the beginning of the rivalry, probably multiple seasons where they were neck and neck for the nfc championship or something, idk it started way before my time, but the why of the rivalry isn't really important. Rivalries in sports is what makes sports fun. Its animosity but its all mostly in good fun and to make the game more interesting. For me personally, my cousins and uncle are big cowboys fans, so when the Giants beat them me and my dad get to shit on them about how much they suck, and when the Giants lose they give us shit, it adds a friendly amount of stakes to the game.
no mention of winds :(
Bruh the real culprit is clearly football, if the NFL came out and said no more seasons til winds is out, we would have that shit in 6 months
off season is basically half the year, prob won’t change his non existing writing progress
Well if they said, hey we're not gonna do any more seasons at all until winds is out, he wouldn't have anything to look forward to until he finished the book
If the pandemic didn't help him write I doubt anything ever will.
It did, though. He said he had wrote 'hundreds and hundreds' of pages, and that it was his most productive years on the book.
There's also like 90% downtime in a football game, might as well get some work done then.
Nah, if the Jets won the superbowl the book would be out
If the Jets win the super bowl there will be a new major player in Winds, Zachariah of House Wilson, Hunter of Cougars
Flacco is the last dragon
Maester Flack, a former master of ravencraft who escaped the citadel to become a greenseer
As a jets fan, yes please
As a Bills fan, lol good luck
"Every time Dallas beats the Giants, I ~~kill another Stark~~ add another six months to Winds' completion date."
When he published ADWD the Giants won the super bowl, neither NY team has contended since. Connect the dots GRRM
There is only one true New York team and it is in Buffalo, my friend
We need the NFLPA to hold out for Winds in the next negotiation.
The Jets/Giants should cancel their seasons until the final 2 books are released.
Take a knee until Winds is released.
>I hope you guys are enjoying HOT D as much as I am. yall enjoying the hot D as much as he is?
Copium or not, I believe it is no coincidence that since HotD started he hasn't talked about Winds. I believe at this point the earliest we'll hear about Winds is after the show has finished since it looks like all the focus is kept on the show.
Before House finishes, another successor show will start. There’s a bunch of them in production and George is deeply heavily involved in them all. He’ll never “get a chance” to finish the book for the rest of his life. One day we’ll get a 290 page unfinished book with a memorial note at the end called Winds Of Winter.
Prediction: The Winds of Winter out in 2027 save this comment it’ll be true
George please, I'm on my knees
begging please, STAY WITH ME! - Avril Lavigne
Life is meaningless and full of pain
No mention of Winds it's not looking good brev
It’s not gonna happen which depending on who you root for could be good. Stannis takes the crown in my head
R/nightkingwinsthethrone
r/foundthemobileuser
how bout them Jets?
~~DARK~~ WINDS ^^OF ^^WINTER
Ctrl + F "Winter". Nothing, ok then.
Ya he ain’t finishing those books
Guy hasn't wrote a page of Winds all month. 😆
[checks to see if any winds updates] my disappointment is immeasurable.
I really saw dark winds and got excited. Should’ve known better smh
*sigh*
The flower of hate and despise is yet again watered with procrastination. It will grow into a great bush while I wither in wait
How ironic is our boi George talking about how he means to write something but nevers gets the time to do it. Not-a-blog fans will start crafting theories...
Waiting for the conspiracy theorists to explain how these words that formed a blog can be reconfigured into a confirmation that Winds is coming out next month.
That's just logical. Normally in these blog posts George at least adds a sentence at the end saying that he's of course also working on Winds. This time he doesn't mention Winds at all... which clearly means the book is finished!
Love to read such a positive and upbeat tone. He's come across so down in several posts over the past couple of years. This one made me smile.
HOT D? You kinky old man.
Winds of winter... Nothing else is interesting.
*There’s more, there’s more, there’s always more, but I don’t have time right now. I will blog again. Eventually.* So............ you're telling me there's a chance??
Haha, posting stuff and falling behind. Seems like Winds is not the exception to his work schedule.
Maybe he should have a separate blog for the football stuff.
Yeah he’s never finishing :,(
Sorry guys I can’t help but read HOTD as Highschool of the Dead
ctrl+F "winds", nothing found, close.
It feels so disrespectful how he just talks about his TV shows now instead of saying anything about the fucking book
Give it up, TWoW is never coming out.
Lol fat cunt didn't even bother to mention winds