Stories without endings, and how to save them
George RR Martin hasn't finished The Winds of Winter. Mervyn Peake couldn't finish Gormenghast. What would it look like if GRRM ended ASOIAF in one book, if The Winds of Winter ended the whole series? What mistakes would George need to avoid in fulfilling the themes and foreshadowings he's spent all of A Song of Ice & Fire developing? Titus Groan's ending by Maeve Gilmore is not the ending Mervyn Peake had in mind. I just want an ending to Jon Snow's and Daenerys Targaryen's and Tyrion Lannister's stories by GRRM himself!
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Sources & further reading:
Mervyn Peake https://www.mervynpeake.org/
Peake Studies https://peakestudies.com/index.htm
Gormenghast BBC Series • Gormenghast (2000 Miniseries)
Maeve Gilmore art https://www.maevegilmore.com/artworks
Mervyn Peake by John Watney (1976)
Vast Alchemies: The Life and Work of Mervyn Peake by G. Peter Winnington (2000)
Mervyn Peake: My Eyes Mint Gold - A Life by Malcolm Yorke (2000)
Dr Sahlas article on Peake's dementia https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama...
Breaking Free: An Introduction to Mervyn Peake’s Titus Alone by Michael Moorcock (2012) https://web.archive.org/web/201206201...
Titus rises again! https://www.theguardian.com/theguardi...
GRRM re: 5-year gap https://www.westeros.org/Citadel/SSM/...
GRRM re: Hodor moment https://ew.com/tv/george-rr-martin-ho...
GRRM re: Tyrion as a villain https://web.archive.org/web/199910131...
GRRM re: Vietnam https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/...
GRRM at Ideas at the House 2013 • George R.R. Martin, Lena Headey & Michelle...
Timestamps:
0:00 Peake's problems
7:33 Titus Awakes
16:23 Choose your own Winds
25:06 Core themes that need fulfillment