From Autum To Spring

Some context first. Like a lot of other people, I was somewhat dismayed by George R. R. Martin's Livejournal post regarding the hate mail he's been getting over his increasingly delayed fifth installment of A Song Of Ice And Fire.

Like every other right-thinking person in the world, I have no trouble believing that anyone who writes to someone purely to tell them they aren't working hard enough (unless it's to a member of Congress) is, a priori, a dick. Nevertheless, the fact that telling someone to work harder, or to point out to them that they are fat and might die and that this would be bad for us, is the action of a grade A douchebag doesn't really change the fact that the book is stupidly late at this point. In other words, just because people are scum for lambasting you for your mistakes, it doesn't mean mistakes weren't made [1].

I wrote an email to Martin himself along roughly those lines (at least I think it was along roughly those lines, I was drunk) at the time, mainly because it bothers me when people express an idea I am kind of on board with in such an aggressive and cack-handed way. I mention all this purely to demonstrate that I am not one of the frothing must have book now loonies peppering the internet; that I'd rather have a better book later, and that only the twin fact that men are mortal and writers don't stay on their game forever make time anything of an issue.

However...

The first season of HBO's adaptation of ASoIaF will commence filming this Autumn. Assuming for the sake of argument that they film one season a year (which doesn't seem a particularly unsafe bet), then right now they will finish filming what actually currently exists in 2012. That's less than four years from now. (Edit: Jamie points out in comments that they are filming the pilot at the end of the year, not season 1, so you can probably add a year on to every date I've given here).

A Dance of Dragons has already taken more than two years longer than originally expected. Even if Martin's current completion estimate of this June turns out to be true, then it will still have taken him more than nine years to write it and its predecessor. That is to say, even if Dance... is finished by 2012 (which seems pretty likely) and then The Winds of Winter manages to materialise by 2013 (which is certainly possible, though the amount of time needed to convert it into a script format etc might be a worry), it's almost impossible to believe both Winds... and A Dream Of Spring will both be in existence by 2014.

I'm told Martin has said that should the show outpace the novels, the headsheds at HBO can come up with their own ending, with perhaps him involved steering it along.

Well, let's be clear. The show will outpace the novels. I know I can't see the future, but I will eat a particularly jaunty hat should this not occur. Well, that's maybe a bit foolish. There is obviously one way that it might not happen; the show might get cancelled before it gets to whichever season it would have to try bookless. This is hardly a preferable option, obviously. If you're going to film a serial in progress, running out of fans before you run out of material doesn't really seem like that much of an improvement.

So let's assume the show does get to the point where the writers run out of published material and decide to make shit up. The way I can see it there are three possibilities.

1. The alternative ending doesn't live up to what came before, because whomever decides to be in charge of wrapping shit up just doesn't think along sufficiently similar lines to Martin for it not to be horribly jarring;
2. The alternative ending kicks all kind of ass, to the point when we read Martin's own conclusion (whilst sat in our Martian living rooms during our daily robo-massage) we all think it's shit, and try not to think about the decades of investment some of us have put into this series; [2]
3. The two endings are quite different but equally satisfactory.

Obviously, of the three, the third one is preferable. Notably, though, it still bothers me as an idea. I suspect this is my experience of adaptations talking. I don't think I can enjoy a book as much if I've already seen a film or TV adaptation of it. I spend less time immersed in the narrative and more time cataloguing the differences between the two. Maybe I'm alone on that, but at the very least the inevitable cross-pollination will blunt the experience. When Lord Whosisname gets killed by Prince Thingimy and as a result claims the Iron Throne, "Holy shit!" is a preferable reaction to "And to think it was Ser Oojimaflip in the TV show!"

The answer to all of this is pretty obvious, I guess: don't watch the TV series. Which, my basic weakness as a person aside, is probably what I'll have to do. I suppose I'm just bummed that my best case scenario for the TV adaptation of some of my favourite novels is now "Gets to the end and doesn't fuck up the last few hurdles that someone new slapped together, in a way that doesn't actually become apparent until the books themselves are done and I can get to check the show out."

[1] To be absolutely fair, it appears the vast majority of the complaints weren't along such comparatively reasonable lines. Having said that, you're never going to get anywhere if you only address those who didn't have a point and ignore those who did.

[2] Full disclosure; I started reading this series in late 2002, so there are people out there who will be way more pissed than me.