No profundity on offer here, but I was once again struck by the backlash against GRRM, evidenced in every comment chain ever on posts about A Game of Thrones / A Song of Ice and Fire.
Yes, very likely he won't finish the series. Yes, even the ultimate delivery of The Winds of Winter is uncertain.
Yes, from the perspective of an eager reader this is difficult to understand.
But. And it's one of those big buts I cannot lie about: some of my greatest moments in many decades of reading fantasy have been down to Mr George RR Martin. Many of my greatest moments in many decades of watching fantasy have been down to that same GRRM and the people who brought his story to the screen.
The landscape of my imagination would be a flatter, less exciting one without the contributions from this one series of books, finished or unfinished. My glass may not be full to the brim, but what there is in the occupied section is of such quality that to complain about the open space above it would be churlish.
And you don't want to be a churl, do you?
It's a strange and wonderful thing to hand out packets of your imagination to strangers and see them enjoying it. It's traditionally a scary business because you might be found wanting - the reader might complain, or worse: yawn. But there's a flip side to that terror-coin. It's also scary when the readers go all in and invest emotionally, not just until the final page, but past that into their broader lives and identities. Some of them start to feel an ownership of the thing that the author created.
There are analogies to be made with the end of a lunch date being considered by the 'deserted' party as the author bailing on a love affair. Obviously, the vast majority of readers miffed at the failure to complete a series do not fall into this category. But some of those venting on GRRM comment chains are sure doing a good impression of it.
You might expect me to be smug because I have 1+ books a year published. Or jealous because GRRM's 10+ year old books sell way more than any of mine. But it's more like watching two people you really like lay into each other, with heavy words being thrown, and just wishing it didn't have to be like this.
