In case you hadn’t seen, George R.R. Martin’s talking again. And he just can’t seem to shut up about The Winds of Winter. You know, the next book in the Song of Fire and Ice saga that he’s been promising fans for years but has failed to deliver on. The same saga and the same fans that made him fabulously wealthy and turned him into a house hold name. The same saga that he will never finish and the same fans that he’s taken for granted and now started to bad mouth.
George used to just bitch about people asking him about when WoW was coming out. He used to joke that every time someone asked him, he was going to kill a Stark (hate to throw rain on that particular parade George, but you’d pretty much murdered most of them in the first five books). But it’s still coming he promised. Winds of Winter is still going to see the published light of day, he’s said over and over (and over) until he sounded like the proverbial broken record.
And each time he promised to reward the seemingly infinite, unfailing patience of his fans.
Except recently. George has decided to take a sledge hammer to his fans with neither mercy nor decency. It turns out he’s tired of being asked about Winds of Winter. He’s sick of it actually. He’s a busy guy, George is. Don’t worry, he described just how busy he is in condescending detail recently, and why people demanding the next instalment in Fire and Ice– a series that began twenty six whole years ago-are needy crybabies who should shut up. George’s tune now is that he has got a lot on his plate and if you can’t understand or accept that, well then they can just shut up and go home.
You know what George? That’s the definition of being an ass hole and people who are ass holes to their fans these days are getting themselves cancelled right quick. I’m the first one to call out fan stupidity and hypocrisy (it’s why I never get invited to parties), but you and your selfish narcissism (and it needs to be said, that stupid makes-me-wanna-punch-you-in-the-face beard) are the ones who need to be called out.
It’s time you got an ugly, cold dose of reality.
So here’s your face full of chilly water Georgie boy. Without the fans that you have disappointed and disrespected, well you’d still probably be teaching English in some forgotten high school in some unknown town. Your fans (and most importantly, their dollars) have shown you an incredible amount of patience Georgie, something incredibly rare in a western culture notorious for its anemic attention span. You published A Game of Thrones-the first book in Fire and Ice in 1996. Nineteen. Ninety Six. George. Do you have any idea of how long ago that was?
Five people have sat in the oval office since your saga first saw print. The World Trade Center was still standing, no one could pick Afghanistan out on a map and same sex marriage was still illegal in all of North America. The first Harry Potter book still hadn’t been published, Marvel was just entering bankruptcy and George Lucas still owned Star Wars. Saddam Hussein, Steve Jobs, Chris Farley, Ronald Regan, Alan Rickman and George Carlin were all still alive and no one had heard of of Osama Bin Laden, Bernie Madoff, Edward Snowden, Vladimir Putin, Coronviruses, BREXIT, the Kardashians, the Duggars or Jeff Bezos. Seinfeld, Roseanne and Married . . . With Children were still on the air, Friends was only one year old, FOX News still didn’t exist and Survivor, American Idol, Modern Family, Big Bang Theory and How I Met Your Mother hadn’t aired a single episode.
You could still shop at Eaton’s, Zellers, Circuit City, K-Mart, Future Shop and Radio Shack. Americans could still drop into a Toys R Us (we still got ‘em north of the border) and Canadians could still drop some money at a Sears.
It was seven Star Wars movies and six goddamned Star Trek shows ago George. THAT’S how long your fans have stuck by you. And it’s been well over a decade since you published A Dance With Dragons, the fifth volume in your fantasy Magnum Opus. All eight seasons of the HBO adaptation (which captured virtually ever the imagination on the planet and changed television forever) aired-complete with year long breaks-since you published anything new for your annoying fans. The producers even had to write the last two seasons because they ran out of books (books you probably promised them Georgie boy) and those seasons truly and absolutely sucked.
You know what you call people who’ve been with you that long George? They aren’t fans anymore. They’re customers George. Loyal customers who stick with you because of the product you offer. And you know what happens to businesses who willingly deny their said product to said customers and bad mouth them while they’re doing it? They go out of business Georgie.
And if this is the part where you (or your few remaining defenders and apologists) stomp your feet and cry that “authors aren’t businesses!” this is the part where I politely invite you to sit down and shut up. Because yes they are. More accurately, authors are brands and there’s a very good reason why massive corporations that own valuable brands spend tens of billions of dollars every year to keep those brands relevant and shiny and valuable (Coca-Cola spends enough money on advertising every ear to buy a small European country).
Because a product is only as good, as successful, as its brand. Ask J.K. Rowling how her brand has been doing lately. And guess what Georgie, your brand has taken an ass kicking. Last month people saw you as a popular writer who had created a fictional world that enthralled millions of people but was too lazy to write the next chapter (despite years of lockdowns and quarantines). Now your brand is that of an over entitled snob who looks down on his fans, his customers, with sneering contempt.
No matter what you think of your fans Georgie (and evidently you think very little of them), they deserve much better than that. They deserve much better than you.
If you don’t think you’ll finish Winds of Winter (and let’s be honest here Georgie, no body thinks you will), its up to you to be honest with the people who have followed you for over a quarter of a century. They deserve that much. It stopped being time to lie to them years ago Georgie. And openly disrespecting them with a snide, snarky malice is the definition of petty
Odds are you won’t be cancelled at this point George, but you will likely be ignored (does anyone really care about the Game of Thrones’ prequel coming to HBO this year? Anyone? Bueller?). Your insufferable ego will go hungry and unfed and wither like a parched tomato on a vine.
Which seems far more just for a selfish narcissist.
Now shut it.
Image via www.winteriscoming.net
