Game of Thrones creator George R.R. Martin has said his highly anticipated next A Song of Ice and Fire book, The Winds of Winter, will explain the relationships between dragons and humans, presumably including Daenerys Targaryen’s.
In a blog post, Martin delved into his philosophy behind the dragons in Game of Thrones and how they’re based in realism, and like other beasts therefore can be trained but not tamed.
While this seems to contradict the connection between dragons and House Targaryen, Martin said this relationship would actually be explained in The Winds of Winter and final book A Dream of Spring, alongside Fire and Blood sequel Blood and Fire.
“They bond with men… Some men… And the why and how of that, and how it came to be, will eventually be revealed in more detail in The Winds of Winter and A Dream of Spring and some in Blood and Fire,” he said, before noting that the character Septon Barth “got much of it right.”
He continued: “Like wolves and bears and lions, dragons can be trained, but never entirely tamed. They will always be dangerous. Some are wilder and more willful than others. They are individuals, they have personalities… And they often reflect the personalities of their riders, thanks to bond they share are. They do not care a whit about gold or gems, no more than a tiger would. Unless maybe their rider was obsessed with the shiny stuff, and even then…”
Martin still hasn’t revealed when fans will get to discover those secrets, as The Winds of Winter is so far 10 years late and seemingly making slow progress. He said in November 2023 that he’d written 1,100 pages of the highly anticipated book, the same number he’d written a year earlier.
No writer is blessed with producing a perfect first draft, of course, and Martin’s “writing” of The Winds of Winter will also encompass re-reading, re-writing, editing, planning, and so on, so there’s still plenty of work to be done without actually increasing the page number total.
Martin said in October 2022 the book was around three quarters of the way done, noting he’s completely finished some characters’ stories but still has others to weave throughout them. The overall progress of The Winds of Winter has become somewhat of an ongoing gag within the fiction community though, with even Martin himself getting in on the joke.
An estimated release window for The Winds of Winter was first given in 2011 when the previous book, A Dance With Dragons, was released, as Martin said it would take three years to finish at a good pace. That set expectations for a 2014 release date, but year after year, and delay after delay, Martin still isn’t ready to release the penultimate A Song of Ice and Fire entry.
Fans can at least enjoy the current books (which are about to get a refreshed cover design) in the meantime, alongside Game of Thrones spin-off House of the Dragon which is currently in its second season. In fact, Martin said the latest episode features the best dragon battle in entertainment history.
Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelance reporter. He’ll talk about The Witcher all day.