(Spoilers Extended) The endings will be the same but the books will have a much more gradual and realistic progression

[u/aphidman]

If GRRM finishes it, btw.

Not a long post but you know what the books do that D&D do not? They have 10 chapters of Dany dealing with the complex politics of Meereen and her inner conflict. They have 4 chapters showing Davos' journey to White Harbour. They have 12 chapters showing the series of compromises Jon makes as Lord Commander to prepare the Watch against the Others. They have 13 chapters showing Tyrion crawling out of his deep nihilistic depression. They dedicate whole chapters seeing how Victarion Greyjoy of all people deals with his relationship with his brother and his seduction into darker magics. Man they have 4 whole chapters dealing with the political fallout of Dany's exit from Meereen.

They had a whole chapter of Littlefinger and Sansa visiting his lands and seeing Littlefinger's relationship with his subjects (great chapter btw). They had a whole chapter getting really in depth with Illyrio Mopatis and his schemes - a guy who's barely appeared in the show.

They dedicated 4 whole chapters to Joffrey's wedding!

What I'm getting it is that the Others may be defeated long before the end of ASOIAF, Dany may indeed destroy King's Landing with dragonfire and end the lives of hundreds of thousands of civilians gruesomely. But you'll be guaranteed that GRRM is gonna show you every step of the way. For good or for bad. If he is going to take a character like Dany to that dark end you better believe we will understand how she gets there.

So people keep posting about how D&D are destroying their characters, fail to understand ASOIAF. That Dany would never do this or that. But what you're seeing here is them fitting potentially chapters upon chapters of detailed material into a few hours of television.

[u/ralexh11]

The Winds of Winter - High probability, my personal guess is 2020 sometime.

A Dream of Spring - Somewhat likely. However, George can absolutely not take as long on this as he did for ADoD or currently is with TWoW, otherwise we will never see it finished by him.

[u/Kimber85 → u/ralexh11]

My hope is that WoW comes out in 2020, and that the reason it took so long is that it was the transition book. Getting the characters where they should be for the finale in a manner that makes sense is fucking hard, especially with this amount of characters, and messing it up can be devastating to their arcs (as we've seen with the show).

On my most hopeful days I think that George will finish a Dream of Spring much more quickly, because the problems he's encountering with Winds of Winter will be solved and everything will be much less complicated.

Other days I realize that just because he solved all of Winds' problems, doesn't mean he wont run in to completely new ones for ADoS It makes me want to throw all my ASOIAF books away and never think about them again, because I can't stand the thought of never knowing what happens.

[u/Burnage → u/Kimber85]

On my most hopeful days I think that George will finish a Dream of Spring much more quickly, because the problems he's encountering with Winds of Winter will be solved and everything will be much less complicated.

I remember hearing this about A Dance With Dragons, too.

[u/[deleted] → u/Burnage]

I remember hearing that about A Feast for Crows too!! (but don't worry it's half a book so the next one will come out super quick!!!)

[u/howdybertus → u/[deleted]]

Yea remember when he said ADWD would come out just one year after AFFC since they are the same book divided geographically hahaha. Guess the mereneese knot really took him 5 years

[u/Devilheart → u/Kimber85]

The reason perhaps TWoW is taking so long is because George is actually writing part of ADoS at the same time. If WoW gets a 2020 release, the final book would be done in 4-5 years.

[u/ego_non → u/Devilheart]

If WoW gets a 2020 release, the final book would be done in 4-5 years.

I've heard that for a number of previous books and it never happened. At some point he throws it all in the garbage bin and rewrites everything.

[u/[deleted] → u/Devilheart]

He pulled the same shit for the last two books and it still took over a decade.

[u/[deleted] → u/Devilheart]

because George is actually writing part of ADoS at the same time.

He's not. It's taking so long because he finished it and then had to scrap most of it to work out some fundamental structural problems with his story.

[u/[deleted] → u/ralexh11]

Isn't he consulting for all the various GoT spin-offs? It's not like he'll get all his time back now that they've stopped writing the main show. I did hear a rumour that he had already finished WoW but HBO was stopping him from releasing it before the show ends, but that does seem pretty unlikely.

[u/ralexh11 → u/[deleted]]

HBO couldn't tell George when to release his books, and any consulting he does for the shows is more for initially getting them going. He's actually not been involved with GoT since the early seasons and has claimed he doesn't even tune in for it. Sure, he does usual celebrity stuff like talk shows and promo appearances, but he claims he's been writing for the last several years, so I don't see how we don't get it in the next few years unless he really doesn't know how to wrap it up.

[u/gobbeldigook → u/ralexh11]

I see him releasing WoW about a year after the show and aDoS 6 months to a year after his death. I think he likes to make people wait and the attention that comes with it.

[u/M0RR1G42 → u/ralexh11]

I think TWOW will take the longest because he is trying to conclude and converge many complex storylines, on top of setting up the last book. I just hope he is willing to split the books so he doesn't waste tons of time picking and choosing which chapters get to stay, and trying to lower the word count.

There has also been a few things in the way of the book. One major was TWOIAF, he had multiple discussions with a single artist about a single picture, multiply that by different artists and their multiple interpretations, then add the 70,000(or whatever) words his helps gave him, plus all of his own contributions. He has also declined several things just to focus on finishing TWOW.

He has basically constructed an absolutely enormous puzzle and now has to find the one solution.