We all know: George R. R. Martin, creator of A Song of Ice and Fire (adapted by HBO into the immensely popular series Game of Thrones), has been struggling for over 10 years to release the sixth book in the series, “The Winds of Winter” – and, on top of that, he still has a seventh and final book to write, which will give this saga its ending.
I’m a fan of the series, and for many years, I procrastinated starting to read the books. “I’ll wait to read it all at once everything is out”, I used to say. But after discovering the work of Franz Kafka, my perspective on this subject changed: I decided to read all five already released books in the series, even knowing that the story may never conclude.
And I confess something even more surprising: my real desire is that he never concludes his story definitively. But to better understand why, let’s delve a bit more into Kafka:
Franz Kafka: (In)Complete Works
Franz Kafka is a Czech writer who stood out as one of the most influential authors of the 20th century. His works highlight themes such as alienation, bureaucracy, and the inability to fit in in society – all of this filled with absurd situations.
But many don’t know that the writer’s fame, as has happened many times throughout history, only came after his death: dead at 40 due to tuberculosis, it was his friend Max Brod who published the rest of his works. It’s worth noting that Kafka himself instructed his friend to burn all his work – but fortunately, Brod ignored his request.
In his lifetime, Kafka had only published about 1/6 of his total work. After his death, Brod published several works by the famous writer: three novels, dozens of short stories and even his correspondence with loved ones, the most famous being his well-known “Letter to His Father”;
In one of his novels, titled “The Castle”, Kafka ends his work abruptly, in the middle of a sentence and at a point in the story where it seemed things could take a turn for the better. Max Brod commented on how Kafka planned the ending for this story, but we can only guess how we would arrive at that ending.
And this is the general spirit present in his writings: we wonder what his literary work would be like if he had lived another 40 years. Whether he would be famous, whether he would finish his novels, whether he would write even better works, and whether he would be able to solve his personal and family problems.
All around the world, curiosities about Kafka’s life and work flourish – almost as much as the interest in his works. For every academic work on the Czech writer’s literary style, another emerges on details of his manuscripts, speculations about facts of his life, etc. And all this is due to just one fact: his work ended incomplete.
Humans like to complete stories in their own heads. People like to imagine what things would be like if they were finished. Because of this, many theorize about the ending of his narratives, about his love affairs, about how his literary style would develop, and other details.
In a way, this incompleteness is part of his work: chaotic, abrupt, and full of possibilities. And that’s why his life and work are intertwined, fascinating thousands of people to this day.
With this understanding, we can return to George R. R. Martin.
A Song of Ice and Fire: An Incomplete Work?
Just like Kafka, who died in the early 20th century and had his name spread throughout the world, the same could happen with Martin in the 21st century. If the author manages to finish the saga before he dies, everything will be over: we’ll know what happened to all the characters, there won’t be room for fan theories, and there won’t be a mystery and a range of possibilities for the various narratives of the story.
But what if Martin can’t finish his work? He has already said he has about 1100 pages ready out of the 1500 he plans for the next volume. In that case, his editors could publish the work as it is, incomplete, and leave the ending open. Of course, this may seem terrible to fans, but what fans ask for is not always what fans truly want.
Consider this: what if Jon Snow doesn’t come back to life and remain dead? What if the Bolton family permanently dominates the North? What if Daenerys fails to complete her mission to conquer Westeros, dying with an random arrow? What if Cersei ends the story as the queen of the Seven Kingdoms? What if the White Walkers win? Regardless of the ending, many fans will be disappointed with Martin’s choices.
The wait is already so long that, at this point, whatever story he releases, no matter how masterful it is, will divide opinions. Most fans around the world started reading when the first five books were already published, but now it’s different: there will be a new story for millions of people, and much of what he writes will inevitably go against the public’s expectations, causing many to question his choices.
The way things are polarized nowadays, two groups will quickly form: the first will fiercely defend everything he decided for the plot; and, on the other side, the second group will find problems with every minor detail. Few will be able to analyze the work for what it will really be, rather than for what they wanted it to be.
On the contrary: if he dies and only the manuscripts he already has are released, the story will remain open, and fans will not have a definitive answer to what will happen to their favorite characters. Of course, in these more than 1000 pages he already completed, some facts may disappoint some fans. But, considering that he intends to finish the work in one more book besides the one he’s currently writing, I doubt that the main characters would already have their fates sealed.
Dreaming is Better than Living
Despite never having read the books (a task I committed to undertake in the coming months), I noticed that one of the fans’ favorite parts about the book series is theorizing about what will happen in the upcoming works on YouTube, Reddit and Forums in general. Since when I started watching the series until nowadays, thousands of people speculate about prophecies, what might happen to character X or Y, and how Martin will unfold his plot with the dozens of characters involved in the narrative.
It’s as if the journey is more important than the destination. It’s like a person who desires something for years, but when they achieve what they want, they quickly lose interest and focus on the next goal.
With the posthumous publication of these 1100 pages, it is possible to reignite the fans’ enthusiasm and provide enough fuel for them to theorize for years to come, keeping the flame of Westeros alive. The possibilities of the ending would be widely discussed, his work would be a topic in pop culture for generations, and he would certainly be remembered as one of the great authors of the century.
In other words, it is much more advantageous for him to leave the story with an open ending, with a world full of possibilities, than to finish his work and inevitably disappoint a large mass of fans – fans who are never satisfied with anything, that’s the truth. Experts would seek his manuscripts to try to understand what the ending would be, there would be discussions and conflicting points about it, academic papers would be written to detail the topic, etc. This sense of mystery, of mysticism, would endure in his work and make it memorable forever.
If I were Martin, I would focus on releasing the second volume of “Fire and Blood” and writing more novellas for Dunk & Egg for the time I had left. Upon his death, “The Winds of Winter” would be published incompletely, leaving fans sad, it’s true, but filled with the desire to know the true ending of this great epic – which would leave them much more satisfied than the actual ending, at the end of the day.
And of course, he should say in his will that he prohibits another person from publishing an official sequel! Fans can write fanfics as much as they want, but the official story needs to end open – after all, finishing the story with another author would close the infinite window of possibilities that I have already mentioned, and it would do so in the worst way possible: through the hands of another person, with values, concepts for the story, and a completely different literary style.
We’ll see what the future holds.