#song of lament elden ring

[arnaerr]

Music of Lands Between

Today I really want to ramble about the importance of music we can hear from Elden Ring NPCs bc it makes me feel A LOT. Here's a small video compilation

One of the things that make fictional world building actually GOOD and believable for me is the existence of art in the world. Often art is an urge to express the feelings in reaction to some events or to just cope; it's a catharsis. If the fictional world has history, it would have art history as well. What strikes me about the existence of music in Lands Between is the fact that this world is broken and ruined; and yet...there's an urge to create. The culture still exists and develops. The fact that the developers included these little details in the game's world makes it feel alive.

1) A page playing flute. It seems that they're playing it by the graveyard? I love how this melody fits the ambient music of Leyndell...and the atmosphere of it, too; the grief and the pain and the sombre hope in this city.

2) Chanting Winged Dame and her song of lament. What is interesting, is that the lyrics have a meaning - she signs about the sadness of the fate of this world. Beautiful song and I love that we can hear it from afar.

3) Nomadic Merchant's song. I love how sombre it is, I love how uniquely their culture is designed, I love the fact that the fingers are animated in sync with this melody, I love how it reflects the mood of the environment. They've lost everything, but the music, the important part of their culture, is still with them.

4) The songs of the Ancestral Follower Shamans is what made this place unique and otherworldly to me, such beautiful voice.

5) Frenzied Nomad surrounded by its people who went insane because of the Flame of Frenzy. Love the horrific contrast between the jovial melody and the horrid environment.

Thank you for coming to my TED talk.

[blasphemousclaw]

Hey do people need birth control in the Lands Between or

omg ok. I’ve actually been wondering this for a while. I’m about to write way more words than you probably expected

there’s a few weird references to fertility in the game but I think the most blatant is the hilarious removed item description for the turtle neck meat:

“A splendid, lengthy cut of turtle neck meat. […] Turtle meat is said to boost virility, but none in the Lands Between seem to have much appetite for it these days. In Lands Between. the urge to reproduce has waned long ago.”

so apparently in the lands between these days there’s no desire to reproduce. which makes sense as the entire land has been ravaged by war and most ordinary people have become shambling husks. lol

I do think though that in the game as a whole there’s a clear theme of a once fertile and plentiful age becoming stagnant: several item descriptions describe that the Erdtree once experienced an “age of plenty” that has since dried up:

“Talisman depicting a drop of the Erdtree's sap, a blessed boon. It was once thought that the blessed sap of the Erdtree would drip from its boughs forever — but that age of plenty swiftly came to a close, and with time, the Erdtree became more an object of faith.” (Blessed Dew Talisman)

Sap is the lifeblood of the tree, carrying nutrients as the tree grows new buds in the spring… it’s associated with a time of growth. Then, after the age of plenty ended, came the Erdtree’s seeds, and its offspring:

“A golden seed, found at the base of an illusory tree. […] When the Elden Ring was shattered, these seeds flew from the Erdtree, scattering across the various lands, as if life itself knew that its end has come.” (Golden Seed)

“The Erdtree was once perfect and eternal, and thus was it believed that Erdtree seeds could not exist.” (Seed Talismans)

“Ceremonial staff depicting the Erdtree in its historic radiance. Wielded by the avatars who protect the Minor Erdtrees. The avatars, emerging in the wake of the Elden Ring's shattering, were determined to protect the withering Erdtree's offspring.” (Staff of the Avatar)

We see this exact theme reflected in Marika and her offspring: it begins with Queen Marika the Eternal (Eternal as the Erdtree was once thought to be), who produces a lineage of offspring that end up bringing about the ruin of the Shattering wars (just as the Erdtree seeds were thought to herald the ends times). Marika’s once powerful lineage has begun to fizzle out, with Godrick, an aged and frail man, being the last of the lineage. Essentially, the Lands Between are past their age of growth, expansion, and reproduction, and the Erdtree now withers.

Regarding reproduction, we also have this interesting song sung in Latin by the chanting winged dames (aka the singing bat ladies):

“O, locus ille, beatus quondam, nunc deminuit. Nos, destinatae matribus, nunc fiunt turpes. Ploravimus lacrimavimusque, sed nemo nos consolatur. Aureum cui irascebaris?”

“Alas, that land, once blessed, now has dimished. We, destined to be mothers, now become tarnished. We have lamented and we have shed tears. But no one consoles us. Golden one, at whom were you angry?”

The first line clearly refers to the Lands Between losing their vitality after the Shattering, and the last line wonders why Marika shattered the elden ring in the first place. But the bat ladies lament how what happened to the Lands Between made them unable to be mothers… why? it’s possible that the withering of the Erdtree which I just talked about also had a parallel effect on other beings’ vitality and fertility in the Lands Between, causing mass infertility? who knows

so DO you need birth control in the lands between? unclear. but maybe use it anyway just in case

[katyspersonal]

If you were curious, this song basically sums up everything of why I find Radagon sympathetic (timeline being sometime after the Twins were born)

(Attaching Youtube one with the lyrics just in case)

This is a beautiful song! And no, I agree with your vision that Radagon was not unfeeling nor "divorce selfie" meme when he left Rennala and his children! It is really funny to do all the divorce jokes and exaggerate how much of a bitch he can be for the comedic effect, I love this kind of cruel humour! xD

But in the end, Rennala did charm him enough to opt out for marriage and erasing his war crimes in Liurnia from the collective memory, instead of conquering the continent and erasing Carians instead, right? 🤔 He most likely can and did love her and his children, but he is bound with the problems of divinity as much as Marika if not more, right? Marika is just the latest carrier of Elden Ring, so, Greater Will's vision and Golden Order is just her iteration of it, when previously it were Ancient Dragons!

^^^ @izunias-meme-hole I am bringing your ask to answer here too because I went on this topic's territory here! :p

But Radagon didn't make the Golden Order "manifest" like this, he is Golden Order! His Japanese title is literally 黄金律, ラダゴン ((the) Golden Order, Radagon). His existence is a combination of the divinity and power Marika was given, where Two Fingers were guiding her and her own biases, principles and other things that give Golden Order its "current imperfection"! Let alone the fact that Marika is the dominant alter!

They were both dealing with "caged divinity"! But whereas Marika had the courage to kill herself (or get as close to it as possible, leaving it to Hewg and whoever he helps to maybe find the way to finish this), Radagon clearly liked living more :p And it is hard to blame him because whereas long long time ago Marika was just a traumatised Shaman woman that wished to make a better world where what happened to her village could not happen again, Radagon never existed as such! The divinity and this "better world" is all there was to him!

^^^ All three Mending Runes we get change the Golden Order, and it is no wonder that he is fighting us! At the first glance you'd think it makes no sense; why, if we just want to fix it? Something he himself wanted to do?

But like.. this is the point. :p He is like this because Golden Order is like this. It is not that he is protecting his power and the right to keep oppressing this or that kind of folks like any real world corrupt authority would! He goes beyond, a blend of a 'person' and of a 'concept', and is protecting his existence! Of course he doesn't want to be mended by someone except himself, because then it won't be HIM anymore! It is not that Those Who Live in Death should be condemned or anything- he probably doesn't even have an idea they exist since they appeared after Shattering! It is that Golden Order exists because Death was sealed, and he would get theseus-ship'd if that (or anything else) was changed! As if a law of nature was given the sentence and self-comprehension! I mean it: you won't wish on your worst enemy to be in Marika's OR in his situation!

Greater Will would be content with any Order, it simply created life but wants it to have a coherent form as opposed to primordial chaos!

And it seems like it abandoned everyone over Elden Ring being shattered! I pictured it as Marika shattering the "phone" between the world and itself, but it could've also been a gradual process! Like it seeing that no matter what the new Order doesn't rise from the ruins, nor the former one gets fixed. Maybe it just said "well THIS attempt at creating life with actual rules was a failure, I'll go try again, bye you weeaboo shits" fsdhfdsh The theory about us being an experiment, and a failed one at that that was abandoned by god/gods/aliens/whatever lingers somewhere amongst humanity, and here you can see it manifest.

Nonetheless 1) you'd expect the Two Fingers, its grandchild, to still remember its wishes and wish the same thing and 2) Greater Will possibly was still there long before the Shattering to do this:

I fucking love the "Sorry Rennala, I found someone better than you: myself" jokes and use them at any given chance fhhds But I am just saying, on the serious note, I do not actually think this IS what happened :p. If anything, Marika would be the one to want to hold the Golden Order as close to herself as possible, so it would be kept pure and in contact with the Greater Will like herself! I am considering the idea that she saw something similar to Goldmask's insight, except instead of drastically removing the 'person' from equation (at the time!) she wanted it to be "closer to the stars" for the lack of better term! Back then, maybe it looked like that way, it would never go corrupt, never fail her. After all, regrets and decision to destroy it only came after Godwyn was killed!

And in both cases, it was someone else who wanted Radagon to leave, and nothing really suggests that he was happy or indifferent doing so! He remade the sword Rennala gifted to him to symbolise the change, but nothing says which emotions were behind that process! It could've been any of them, and all interpretations are fair! He had duty to manifest the way things worked even more so than Marika, who at least GOT to live a normal human life long ago, but it doesn't mean he didn't care about how much pain he caused to Rennala in following that duty! On the other hand, bitter irony is that Radagon actually got to live a normal life - with Rennala and the kids! And just like Marika, he experienced leaving it behind to do "bigger" things. It is sad that the cruelty of caged divinity repeated even in her other self! 🤔

____________________

I've side-tracked in validating a more sympathetic reading of him (I just have a dark, immature humour that sometimes poisons my perception of the character on the first glance XD)! There is sadness about him. His one REAL sin is lacking the same courage Marika had, to die so the new, better era begins, but even then this "choice" is made for him when Elden Beast takes his motionless body as its weapon! The territorial aggressions, as well as principles of the Golden Order, are "fault" of Marika's personality as a 'god no better than humans' (which is FAIR), Two Fingers that gave her ideas via broken telephone, and maybe Greater Will in some capacity! "The roots were rotten", so Radagon could also only be rotten!

+ I also think that Radagon came into existence because Marika got cursed during the War with the Giants ( x )! Think of one breaking in two as "defence mechanism", because losing the God itself could not be afforded, however cursing the Order of this God was "fair game"! Marika is a tool of Greater Will to make the order, any order, so the tool could not be ruined yet the tool's creation (the Order) could! So, what if now it is only 90% perfect? Remnants of it are Ulcerated Tree Spirits breathing fire, despite being just malformed Minor Erdtrees! I have a theory that the same happened with Trina, as Miquella came into contact with Frenzied Flame but losing an Empyrean could not be afforded! That comes from the fact this sleep power is conceptual opposite of FF, as well as Torrent having burnt marks, his summon ring already having its part 'drained', him fearing the Abyssal Woods and Miquella being shown to ride in him the Shadow Realm before! It is a long one but you can see where I am going with this!

[fleshofmensis]

!! a continuation of my two previous posts on elden-soulsborne osts

TIME FOR ELDEN RING BABY OORUDHHEHDBR

as much as i love all of the soulsborne soundtracks, i truly adore the ost for elden ring. it's an absolute masterpiece in my opinion, never before has a soundtrack brought me to such emotion as elden ring. and i'm sure that sounds really silly but i'm a very musically inclined person so when i hear certain tracks i quite literally cry and stim lmao AND I'LL BE TALKING ABOUT THOSE TRACKS RN

— starting with elden beast. when i tell you this song brings tears to my eyes bro.. in the least dramatic way possible, elden beasts theme is the most delicious song i have ever eaten. the absolute despair and defeat in the vocals? the sadness as if coming to terms with actions long past and consequences ever quickly catching up. something i saw once which really sticks with me is that the vocals in elden beasts theme is marika herself. her lament, it's her desperation and sadness you're hearing. as you're fighting elden beast, you are hearing the final remnants of marika echoing through the liminal space of the erdtree and the beasts domain. something she herself has become intricately intwined in.

next up is a double whammy, messmers theme and radagons BECAUSE THEY PARALLEL EACH OTHER AND IM SCREAMING AND CRYING. — messmers theme is sort of orderly in a way, cold and brutal, in representation of his siege on the land of shadow. it's second phase opening is signifying his disconnect from marika, the descent into the base/abyssal serpent. there's an audible decline, him losing himself to the serpent, as foretold. and the strength of the instrumental is just so overwhelming and powerful, fit for the empyrean he is. the firstborn or second child of marika. (i'm a messmer simp, can you tell?) BUT with the comparison being made to radagons theme/ph1 of the final battle, they sound similar. messmers being cold and calculating, whereas radagons is just straight aggression and the feeling of finality. the implication of pure power and violence in the tones of it. AND if you listen, there's sounds within it that sound like the shattering of the elden ring. the actions that led to your encounter with this being. this man who wastes no time to dispose of your trespass. obviously radagons second phase being elden beast, that just adds to the story. and listening to both messmer and radagons themes consecutively you can really hear the relation between these two men AND RUAGHHHHRHDHTNG I LOVE THEM

onto mohg, lord of blood. the phase one of his theme is just.. it seethes with grandeur and the fantasized ideal that mohg has been fed (with information from the dlc i am fully confident in saying that it was all due to miquella so i'm saying fed) and that feeling of superiority carries on into his second phase, especially in appearance as well with mohg getting a set of whole ass wings lol. i love mohg's theme, that's all

and finally (for now 😏) THE PROMISED CONSORT OH MY DEAR GOD .. CHAT THIS SONG. honestly all of the dlc songs are bangers but for a "final boss" theme?? the bar is so high now. starting with phase one, we finally FINALLY see the strength and wholeness of radahn that we saw a fraction of in base game. the just.. dominating power of the phase one is so indicative of how truly great and formidable radahn is but in audio form. and as it transitions to phase two, we get that 'holy' eminence of miquellas influence. it quite literally sounds like godly interference. the grace of a god descending to deal with something themselves and as the instruments pick up again with the vocals, there's the sounds of that strong power being used by this holy influence. the fact that there's quite literally almost a prayer/hymn in the middle of ph2 is so INCREDIBLE to me. this is just.. such an amazingly beautiful piece OH MY GOD.

— and that's all for now!!! i totally wouldn't mind doing this more often because i love putting how songs make me feel into words even though sometimes i can never truly express or find the words for it! hope you enjoyed my three part spam on elden-soulsborne osts

[cynautica]

love the diversity of answers here jksffds

If not for the dialogue you get when Robin plays a song on the jukebox you would probably assume that architects are really about music. After all they love harmony and are known to engage with art (the second sanctuary with the statue and the bonsai-esque plants). Al-an himself seems to liken architects to an orchestra with each individual playing a lone note.

It's also possible that Al-an just doesn't register precursor music as the same thing as Robin's music (which is kind of funny to me because it can be something silly like JT's Subnautica rap)

I personally like the idea that if Al-an did sing it would sound rather haunting and lonely, something not meant to be heard alone or necessarily by anything other than his own kind. Traditional opera kind of fits, especially the lonely, synthetic, and haunting PotatOS Lament and Cara Mia Addio from Portal 2. The Song of Lament from Elden Ring and Baldur's Gate 3’s Skyswane also convey that sense of loss and longing cursed to be unrequited in a way that breaks linguistic boundaries </3

There's not much evidence that Al-an would know Latin or Italian though, but there's is some in-game evidence that the architect language is related linguistically to ancient Hebrew.

There's also just an inherit romanticism in an ancient inhuman diety conveying its loneliness through the words of a long dead language. 💔

Here’s Matthew Marsh as Elton John btw. I can’t find any examples of him actually singing though 😔

what do you think /:3c

[evs-eme]

INKTOBER 16 - Chanting Winged Dame, Elden Ring

O that land, formerly blessed now withered. We had been destined for motherhood But now have become disfigured. We wailed and wept But no one comforts us. Golden one, at whom were you so angry?

Song of Lament

Eme

[of-forossa]

company.

“O, locus ille, beatus quondam, nunc deminuit.” 

The ceaseless winds of Stormhill howl and shake the worn, weathered boards of the once abandoned stable, their fierce song accompanied by a chorus of heavy rain and punctuated by the distant boom of thunder. Inside the fire burns low, fed with scraps shaken loose by an age of withstanding the tempest and whatever smaller kindling he could scrounge before the sky opened some hours ago, and Brom pauses in his sharpening just long enough to add another plank to the blaze.

“Nos, destinatae matribus...” Tilting his curved sword up towards the firelight, he admires the now razor edge’s gleam with a critical eye and fingers a scratch in the blade itself with a quiet sigh. It would be some time yet before he returned to the Round Table, and with his ill fortune as of late it would become a proper crack when pitted against the plates of Godrick’s knights in the coming days. He licks his lips and resumes his quiet rumblings even as the storm grows fiercer outside. “... nunc fiunt turpes. Ploarvimus lacrimavimusque... sed nemo nos consolatur...” 

Something warm pushes against the back of his arm, and without turning to look the mercenary reaches back to stroke Baelr’s nose, earning him a deep sigh from the stallion. “Aureum, cui irascebaris?” Another, more insistent press of his nose follows the end of the song, and Brom chuckles. “Not too keen to hear that after our encounter with those creatures on the cliffs, are we? I’ll find something more soothing to your ears then.” Setting aside the dismounting sword and leaning back against Baelr’s warm, wooly flank, he seems to truly consider the unspoken request while pushing the horse’s nose out of his braided locks with another chuckle. “All right, all right, if you insist.”

Closing his eyes, Brom recalls what he can of home so long ago now. Not of blustering winds or ceaseless rain, not of scarlet scarred wastes nor valleys painted in hues of gold, but of towering mountaintops and the breath of winter that the warmth of neither spring nor summer every chased away. His home far to the north where once the giants dwelled but now only their descendants remained, broken with their old god save for the last remnant still smoldering with ruinous flame... “The wolf is howling in the forest of the night. He wants to, but cannot sleep. The hunger tears his wolven stomach... and it’s cold in his burrow...”

Baelr’s head rests in his lap, and Brom absentmindedly tangles his war-weathered fingers in his thick mane as the last bits of the fire begin to die and the storm seems to fade away. “Wolf, wolf, don’t you come here. I will never let you take my child...”

[katyspersonal]

Well, Martin didn't influence the details and specifics in Elden Ring, he only wrote original mythos! As for Miyazaki himself, I vaguely recall like... 2-3 weird sexual things? And they are not really about sex as sex, as much as they are about birth in horror context 🤔

For Elden Ring, I think the roots of assumption go into early access description of Turtle Neck straight up saying people are no longer horny (not in the base game), and Melina asking whether being born of mother makes one behave like this (when talking about Boc)! There is also that one song bat ladies sing:

Alas, that land, once blessed, now has diminished. (O, locus ille, beatus quondam, nunc deminuit.)

We, (betrothed) destined to be mothers, now become tarnished. (Nos, destinatae matribus, nunc fiunt turpes.)

We have lamented and we have shed tears but no one consoles us. (Ploarvimus lacrimavimusque sed nemo nos consolatur.)

Golden One, at whom you were angry? (Aureum, cui irascebaris?)

Prior DLC, this gave an impression that after the Elden Ring got shattered, there was mass infertility effecting many but not all! Like how when Fire is dying in Dark Souls, almost no one can give births anymore! There are still births of course, like how Omen are born (that's why they're getting made objects depicting them as infants) and Demihumans. It is also heavily implied that D twins had to be born in the Lands Between since they've never met in person, so Tarnisheds can give births. Maybe only those whose being is strongly attached to the Golden Order that can't give births normal way, at least anymore?

(Now, of course, the bat song could additionally mean that they were one more species screwed over by Marika but who knows!)

Its cute that people are so weirdly insistent on the elden ring world having no sex whatshowever, because yes, elden ring, the game written by george rr martin and hidetaka miyazaki, authors famously known for not putting weird sexual shit in their art,

[persephinae]

Alas, that land, once blessed, now has diminished. (O, locus ille, beatus quondam, nunc deminuit.)

We, (betrothed) destined to be mothers, now become tarnished. (Nos, destinatae matribus, nunc fiunt turpes.)

We have lamented and we have shed tears but no one consoles us. (Ploarvimus lacrimavimusque sed nemo nos consolatur.)

Golden One, at whom you were angry? (Aureum, cui irascebaris?)

[peashooter85]

Elden Ring --- Song of Lament

from Alina Gingertail

[a-bottomless-curse]

voice meme.

bold what applies to your muse, italicize situational ones. feel free to add your own suggestions and carry it on.

► ACCENT

“country” │ “backwoods” │ “sailor” │ “upper class” │ “city slicker” | foreign speaker │ refined

► ELOQUENCE

educated │self-taught | uneducated | doesn’t use conjunctions │ shortens words | omits entire words on occasion | mixes up words │ just makes up their own words! │ archaic english │ dependent on mood or setting

► TONE

loud │ soft │ room volume │ high pitched │ low pitched │seductive │velvety │ speech impediment │ abrasive │ gruff │ shrill │ booming │ matter-of-fact │ toneless │ husky │gravelly │ breathy │ nasal │ barking │ chatty │ condescending │ musical │ suave │ world-weary │ brash │ authoritative

► HABITS

refers to self in third person│ incorporates different languages/terms/sayings │ uses gender-specific terms │ adapts to audience │ changes pitch around animals or children│ shifts tone when lying │ gives others nicknames │ uses terms of respect towards others

► OTHER BITS

• She frequently incorporates different languages / terms in her speech, but especially so when she is: thinking through something difficult, writing poetry, drunk or otherwise fairly intoxicated, and when she is feeling either extremely soft someone, or when she is feeling particularly frustrated.

• She uses a mix of endearments and titles for those she cares about. While she will use such endearments like "dear", "darling" and even "love", depending on the person, she will refer to them in such ways as "My darling knight", "Dearest warrior" and similar titles as a way to show her respect and her caring for them.

• Even though her voice is quite soft, she is fairly good at doing impressions and mimicry, with her favorite sounds to mimic being that of bird calls / birdsong.

► VOICE CLAIM REFERENCE

I don't have an official voice claim for her (mostly cause I'm indecisive lol) but these videos are what I imagine resembles her voice (when speaking and when singing) the voice

voice claim: Gingertail (Singing) - Elden Ring Song of Lament

Marcella Lentz-Pope (Speaking) - Lamb (LoL)

tagged by: @of-forossa and @umbrclflame (thank youuuu!)

tagging: @farumazula, @accendible (anri!), @wolfdivined, @abysscl, @sinnhelmingr, @crimsonlocks (laurence?), @royal-dragonslayer-ornstein

[lostlevelsclub]

Elden Ring - Part 3

Mike, Ting and Mike (@msdq) from Xdrive Megabox (@xdrivemegabox) talk about Elden Ring.

Contains SPOILERS for Elden Ring!

Contact us: @lostlevelsclub or mike.and.ting@lostlevels.club

Show Notes:

Playthrough

Elden Ring - Main Theme (OST | Official Soundtrack Music) FULL VERSION (YouTube)

Samurai

Navy Hood

Equip Load

Raya Lucaria Academy

Bloodhound's Fang

Elden Ring's 'Let Me Solo Her' Gifted Actual Sword By Devs, Because He's A Legend

Hookclaws

Sword of Night and Flame

Dark Moon Greatsword

Rogier’s Rapier

Antspur Rapier

Endings

Crystalians

Moments

Elden Ring OST - Malenia, Blade of Miquella (YouTube)

Enia

Fingercreeper

Three Fingers

Golden Rune [1]

Too Awesome to Use

The Inside Story of The Burger King | Behind the Mask | Cannes Lions (YouTube)

Glintstone Sorcerer

Red Wolf of Radagon

Marionette Soldier

Lesser Kindred of Rot (Pests)

Sacrificial Twig

Mimic

Dragon-Burnt Ruins

Caelid

Elder Dragon Greyoll

Elden Ring Dissected #1 - Fall Damage Explained (YouTube)

Hidetaka Miyazaki Rediscovered His Love Of Creating Poison Swamps In Elden Ring

Messages

Death Stranding

Sites of Grace

Frenzy-Flaming Tower

Morgott, The Omen King

Mohg, Lord of Blood

Subterranean Shunning-Grounds

Merchant Kalé Full Questline Restored (YouTube)

Abductor Virgins

Full-Grown Fallingstar Beast

Baldachin's Blessing

Elden Ring - The horrifying implications of a name (YouTube)

Patches

Starscourge Radahn

Volcano Manor

Scaled Armor

Twinned Armor

I hate dogs (in Elden Ring) (YouTube)

Larval Tear

Elden Ring OST - Song of Lament (YouTube)

Chanting Winged Dame

Download this Episode

[aion-rsa]

Game of Thrones: George R.R. Martin Admits He Should Have Stayed Ahead with the Books

https://ift.tt/35PTtAe

Winter has come and gone for hit HBO series Game of Thrones, but—in a dilemma unique to the dynamic of adaptations—the literary source material on which it was based, George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire novels, famously remains incomplete. The situation, now a decade old from the release of the 2011 fifth book, A Dance with Dragons, has become a meme-inspiring legend, centered on what is now the most-publicized case of writer’s block in contemporary literary history. Yet, while Martin has spent the past decade teasing sixth book The Winds of Winter, he now finally concedes the unideal nature of the rollout.

Martin is expressing regret about his unfinished novels, which are now overshadowed by the television run of Game of Thrones, which aired its final episode on HBO back on May 19, 2019. At the cost of franchise uniformity, the decade-long delay left the show to work without the safety net of published source material since 2016’s Season 6, and sporadic elements not yet covered in the books had already been introduced in preceding seasons. Indeed, Martin managed to lose his grip on the bestselling literary mythology, which would come to be defined in the eyes of the public by the controversial climax of the television series. The situation has essentially defanged the proverbial direwolf of Martin’s two unpublished novels; a notion that he seems to affirm in an interview with WTTW Chicago.

“Looking back, I wish I’d stayed ahead of the books,” laments the author. “My biggest issue was when they began that series, I had four books already in print, and the fifth one came out just as the series was starting in 2011. I had a five-book head start, and these are gigantic books, as you know. I never thought they would catch up with me, but they did. They caught up with me and passed me.”

HBO

By the time the HBO series surpassed Martin’s novel content of A Game of Thrones (1996), A Clash of Kings (1999), A Storm of Swords (2000), A Feast for Crows (2005) and A Dance with Dragons (2011), it was only left to work off a generalized early outline of planned plot developments that Martin provided to showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss; a change that many fans believe led to a slow-but-steady decline in story quality, leading to the controversially rushed series climax of the abbreviated Season 8. While, in an ideal scenario, Martin’s inspiration for The Winds of Winter would remain untainted by how the show ultimately unfolded and the audience’s reaction, that can’t possibly be the case. He’s only human, and the book’s decade-long gestation has likely been frustratingly reshaped numerous times, which would explain the seemingly interminable delay. However, said delay will serendipitously give Martin the chance to redeem, in literary form, a television ending widely considered controversial.

“That made it a little strange because now the show was ahead of me and the show was going in somewhat different directions,” explains Martin. “So, I’m still working on the book, but you’ll see my ending when that comes out.” Indeed, while the question of why the climax of Game of Thrones was so unsatisfying to a significant portion of the fandom could probably fill a book as long as A Song of Ice and Fire entry, Martin chooses his words carefully when he intriguingly hypes “my ending,” which should resonate with fans who were left dejected by the way the series unfolded, even two years after the fact.  

Thus, Martin’s now-famous inertia on the novels could yield a satisfying course correction, albeit tangentially, based on the large scope—of two prospectively 1,000+ page novels—it will enjoy. After all, the decision—purportedly by showrunners Benioff and Weiss—to reduce the number of episodes for Game of Thrones’ final season to a scant six created crippling pacing issues, resulting in the rushed nature of the finale. In the very least, those storylines needed to play out across the typical ten episodes the series regularly released through Season 6, which was the point of the aforementioned source material drought. The quick conclusion arguably did a disservice to the major characters, most notably Emilia Clarke’s Daenerys Targaryen, whose arc had gone from being bartered into bridal slavery by her own royal brother into becoming an enlightened ruler in the East, poised to take her accrued army of Dothraki and Unsullied back to Westeros for a justice-motivated invasion and restoration of her family’s usurped throne. Of course, that all rapidly came to a visually-stunning, but anti-climactic end across the few final episodes, which turned her from a dragon-riding populist hero and defender of the realm into a lovelorn, megalomaniacal, genocidal pyromaniac. If Martin’s ending plays out similarly in that regard, we can at least hope the turn occurs more organically.

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While the process of being excited by Martin’s auspicious-sounding updates on The Winds of Winter has become a perfunctory exercise in goal-post-moving for fans, there is actually something to be excited about on the book front—really, there is! His last major update, from this past February, revealed that pandemic-era extended home time allowed him to write “hundreds and hundreds of pages” of the book. Considering that he has posted sporadic completed chapters of the book on his “Not a Blog” (which is totally a blog) website over the years, he is likely close to finishing the book. However, even after that monumental event finally unfolds, the process will simply start over again when Martin commences writing the literary conclusion, A Dream of Spring. It will therefore be interesting to see if said dream ever commences. He’ll first have to pry himself away from other projects such a co-creator position on developing fantasy video game Elden Ring.

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In the meantime, Game of Thrones fans will have no shortage of content on the television side of things, with the 300-year-rewind prequel series, House of the Dragon, currently in production and on track for a 2022 premiere. That series will eventually be complemented by yet-to-be-titled spinoff projects set across various eras of Westeros history such as Dunk and Egg, The Sea Snake, Dornish princess Nymeria and a series set in King’s Landing slum Flea Bottom.

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