No, The Winds of Winter isn’t finished; don’t heed the rumors

Another day, another rumor about the status of The Winds of Winter, the long-awaited sixth book in George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire series. You all know the drill by now: we’ve been waiting for Winds for almost 12 years, which means that we’ve all had ample time to come up with conspiracy theories about how it’s almost done, how it’s already done, how Martin has actually written both Winds and the seventh book A Dream of Spring and is sitting on them for some unknown reason, etc.

A new Reddit thread has gotten some traction; it makes some claims that had me sighing with exhaustion into my coffee, claims like:

"Winds of Winter has been completed. They are Editing the manuscript now. Then it gets translated. That is why Spain announced they are republishing A Song of Ice and Fire. No release date has been set. My guess is Christmas of this year."

Redditor u/jorywea78 says that, because The Winds of Winter is done, Martin has been able to focus on TV production. “[He’s] in charge of the rewrites for [House of the Dragon] season 2,” they write. They also claim Martin has outlined season 3 and may even write the first two episodes, because, and I quote, “he has nothing but FREE TIME!”

The post also claims that HBO’s new Game of Thrones prequel show, A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms: The Hedge Knight, is supposed to film next summer/fall with a 2025 release; that’s not an unreasonable guess, but is very likely a guess. Also, the post informs us that the Jon Snow sequel series is dead in the water because no one from the original cast want to do it aside from Kit Harington. “[Y]ou will still hear through media and hand picked Warner/HBO influencers that it’s still in development” because Warner Bros. Discovery still wants to do it, the post claims, but “I’m telling you if the show happens it will be just Kit.”

That’s a lot. Now let’s talk about why the vast majority of it is nonsense and why you should take any announcements of this type with a grain of salt until we get something official.

George R.R. Martin reassured fans he was still working on The Winds of Winter this week

Let’s start with the main point: The Winds of Winter isn’t done. This one crops up every so often, and it never ceases to amaze me how much people are willing to believe it. Martin has said repeatedly that when the book is done, he will announce it on his blog. The idea that he’s keeping a finished version in secret is silly; Martin reassured fans just the other day that he is still hard at work on Winds.

Could he have meant he’s editing it? Sure. Martin has been open before about the fact that he drafts and revises concurrently; however, that is not the same thing as having handed in a manuscript to the editors at his publishing house. Think of it more as Martin is writing a first and second draft at the same time, rather than that the book is actually in the editorial phase.

The fandom went through this exact same process with A Dance with Dragons: Martin said he’d announce when it was finished on his blog, people came up with all sorts of theories, and then, lo and behold, the actual announcement about the book’s completion came from Martin himself on his blog just as he had promised. There’s no reason to think it’s going to be different for The Winds of Winter. Until you hear it from the author, it’s best not to assume the book is done.

What’s the deal with the Spanish reprint of the series?

A big part of what’s fueling this latest rumor is that Penguin Random House Spain will be republishing A Song of Ice and Fire with new cover artwork starting this June. According to reliable Spanish ASOIAF fansite Los Siete Reinos, Penguin Random House Spain’s press release says that in addition to the first five books, the company will also publish “the continuation of the saga, with no confirmed publication date.”

The important bit there is the “no confirmed publication date” part. That means they don’t know when Winds is coming out yet, but want to keep fans excited by reminding them that whenever it does come out, they’ll be the ones to publish it.

This is especially relevant for fans in Spain. The series’ original publisher for the region, Gilgamesh, wasn’t able to afford the rising cost of the publishing rights to A Song of Ice and Fire. Gilgamesh lost those in 2020, which led to a period of limbo for fans where the books were largely out of print in Spain. Now that Penguin Random House has the rights back, they’re relaunching the series in Spain under their own banner.

Is the Jon Snow series still happening?

We won’t get into every single detail of the Reddit thread, but the other major thing to touch on is the claim that the Jon Snow spinoff is dead. As of right now, we have no reason to believe that’s the case; nothing has been announced one way or another. And considering that this series has been pitched as a Jon Snow-centric TV show, it was always a pretty safe assumption that it was going to mainly revolve around him. Plenty of cast members have mulled whether they’d come back, like Gwendoline Christie (Brienne of Tarth), John Bradley (Samwell Tarley), and Jacob Anderson (Grey Worm), but given that we don’t even know which characters would be relevant to a Jon Snow spinoff yet, there’s no reason to assume that it’s existence hinges on any one of them returning.

Rumors like these are often proven wrong in time. For example, a while back there were reports that the Nymeria spinoff 10,000 Ships and the Corlys Velaryon spinoff The Sea Snake had both been shelved. But a few months later, Martin came out and debunked them, pointing out that it took seven years from when he originally pitched the A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms spinoff till when we got the official announcement that HBO was making it. I leave you with his words:

"The lesson there is that development takes time. I see all these stories on the net about other spinoffs being killed or abandoned… no idea where they get this stuff… and it just makes me shake my head."

So shake off this latest bit of rumor-mongering and get back to your post on the Wall with us. The Winds of Winter isn’t done yet and the Jon Snow series remains a mystery. Until we know more, our watch continues.

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