Game of Thrones creator George R.R. Martin was confronted over not finishing The Winds of Winter at a convention, and fans are rallying behind the author

Hardly a mystery—devotees are starved for George R. R. Martin to drop the sixth volume of the Game of Thrones saga: The Winds of Winter. The novelist has been laboring over the manuscript for well beyond a decade, penning four chapters before the TV adaptation’s 2011 debut—yet the tome remains unfinished.

At Seattle WorldCon 2025 one attendee decided the time had come for a straight-up progress report. Their blunt style, however, drew collective ire from the room.

Footage posted to YouTube (via Screen Rant) captures the question: should another scribe take the reins once the 76-year-old Martin is “no longer around”? They even floated Brandon Sanderson—already on the panel for finishing Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time—as a possible successor.

Boos erupted instantly; fellow panellists jumped to the Song of Ice and Fire creator’s defense, while moderators steered the chat elsewhere. Although a few stood by the query, sympathetic Reddit users blasted the “rude” conduct, calling the clip “cringeworthy”.

Over on Twitter the backlash escalated; one poster wrote: “That nasty ***hole sums up a solid chunk of the so-called ‘readers’ I run into.”

“Harassing a grieving elder who’s battled mental-health struggles since losing his closest friend is next-level insanity,” another chimed in. “We need to revive stoning.”

See further reactions below…

Every chapter of Game of Thrones is now streaming on HBO Max. Need more? Browse our list of the 100 greatest TV series of all time. (Spoilers: GOT racks up the #6 spot.)

I’m an Entertainment Writer at GamesRadar+, busy dissecting TV and film across both Total Film and SFX. My bylines have also popped up at Digital Spy, SciFiNow, PinkNews, FANDOM, Radio Times, and Total Film magazine.