George R.R. Martin would like you to stop asking him about the show, please
When it comes to his Not a Blog, George R.R. Martin has some pretty simple ground rules, an important one being that people who leave comments don’t go off-topic. Earlier this season, as fans were reeling from the controversial ending to “Unbowed, Unbent, Unbroken,” he used his Not a Blog to weigh in on the differences between his novels and Game of Thrones, although he politely reminded fans that it wasn’t really the place to discuss the TV series. It would appear that “The Dance of Dragons,” the latest episode of the show, has once again resulted in his inbox becoming stuffed with questions from fans and his Not a Blog littered with off-topic comments. Yesterday, he reiterated his plea that people, you know, lay off.
Meanwhile, other wars are breaking out on other fronts, centered around the last few episodes of GAME OF THRONES. It is not my intention to get involved in those, nor to allow them to take over my blog and website, so please stop emailing me about them, or posting off-topic comments here on my Not A Blog. Wage those battles on Westeros, or Tower of the Hand, or Boiled Leather, or Winter Is Coming, or Watchers on the Walls. Anyplace that isn’t here, actually.
Good call on being able to discuss the latest Game of Thrones developments on places like Winter Is Coming. I concur.
When thinking about soliciting Martin’s opinion on the show, it pays to remember that he does quite a bit more than write the Song of Ice and Fire novels. As he outlines earlier in his post, in addition to working on The Winds of Winter (which he refers to with what I’m going to assume is affection as “Son of Kong”), he’s also editing the latest edition in the Wild Cards anthology series, developing TV concepts for HBO and Cinemax, and running the Jean Cocteau Cinema in Santa Fe, among other things. The guy’s busy, is what we’re saying.
Martin also reminded people that, even if he cared to, he couldn’t change anything about the show.
Yes, I know that THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER named me “the third most powerful writer in Hollywood” last December. You would be surprised at how little that means. I cannot control what anyone else says or does, or make them stop saying or doing it, be it on the fannish or professional fronts.
This isn’t a new sentiment. Martin has long maintained that the show is the show and the books are the books. The show, for better or worse, is in the hands of executive producers David Benioff and Dan Weiss. Rather than haranguing them to conform to his template, Martin prefers to channel his energies elsewhere.
What I can control is what happens in my books, so I am going to return to that chapter I’ve been writing on THE WINDS OF WINTER now, thank you very much.
In the end, that’s probably what’s best for everyone.
Incidentally, The Hollywood Reporter named Stephen King and J.K. Rowling as the second and first most powerful authors in Hollywood, respectively. I wonder if Rowling has any tips on handling these kinds of situations—lord knows she must have gone through it back when Harry Potter ruled the world.
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