Witcher Author Says GoT TV Show “Killed” Martin’s Winds of Winter

At a recent Polish book festival, Andrzej Sapkowski offered a blunt, surprising take on why George R.R. Martin still hasn’t finished The Winds of Winter. According to the The Witcher creator, once HBO’s Game of Thrones raced ahead of the novels, it “made no sense” for Martin to keep writing a story the show had already told.

Sapkowski, who has resumed his own The Witcher saga with new works like the prequel Crossroads of Ravens, didn’t just mock Martin—he also sympathized with him. For an author, he argued, seeing an adaptation invent an ending for an unfinished book series can be deeply demotivating.

“Makes No Sense”: Sapkowski’s Theory on the Delay

Speaking at the Opole book festival (as reported via Redanian Intelligence and picked up by outlets like Polygon), Sapkowski imagined how he would feel in Martin’s place. If a studio “extrapolated” an ending to stories he hadn’t yet written, he said, he’d question whether there was any point in continuing. To him, adapting unwritten material is “indecent.”

Martin’s case is uniquely intense. HBO’s Game of Thrones exhausted the existing A Song of Ice and Fire novels by the end of Season 5, then moved into largely uncharted territory. While showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss reportedly consulted Martin on broad plot points, the controversial final season aired years before The Winds of Winter was ready, sparking massive backlash that only increased the pressure on the author.

Deadlines, Adaptations, and an 1,100-Page Manuscript

Martin has never hidden his struggles. At New York Comic Con 2025, he admitted he has “always had trouble with deadlines” and doesn’t feel good about breaching contracts over The Winds of Winter, according to GamesRadar. The HBO adaptation, he has said, became a constant source of stress instead of motivation.

Still, the book isn’t vaporware. As of late 2023, Martin estimated he had written roughly 1,100–1,200 pages of The Winds of Winter, with “hundreds” more to go, per reporting from 9meters. At the same time, he remains heavily involved as executive producer on expanding Westeros on screen, including HBO’s upcoming A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, due January 18, 2026.

Sapkowski’s comments capture a broader trend in epic fantasy: blockbuster adaptations now routinely outpace the books that inspired them, leaving authors caught between fan expectations, production timelines, and their own creative limits. Whether you’re waiting on more The Witcher or the next chapter of A Song of Ice and Fire, the message is clear—fantasy worlds have never been bigger, but finishing them has never been harder.