Has George R.R. Martin Just Doomed Winds of Winter to the Stranger Things Curse?

Patience is a muscle, and fandom keeps getting asked to bench-press a truck. Right now, two poster children for the wait-it-out era are George R.R. Martin's 'The Winds of Winter' and Netflix's 'Stranger Things' Season 5. One is a book we have been promised for over a decade. The other is a show that takes so long between seasons you could forget which Byers moved where.

Fans are... not feeling generous about 'Winds of Winter'

On the ASOIAF subreddit (tagged Spoilers Extended), a recent poll basically captured the mood. The top answer: 'It’s never going to be finished/I’ve given up.' Hard to argue with the vibe when we are 14 years into Martin working on 'The Winds of Winter.' At a certain point the anticipation turns into ambient noise.

Part of the problem is baked into the scale. Martin has talked about rewriting and restructuring, and sometimes tossing whole chapters when they stop serving the bigger picture. Combine that with a stacked schedule and an ever-sprawling cast and map, and you get a book that keeps growing while readers slowly drift away.

The Duffers say the gaps in 'Stranger Things' are intentional

Meanwhile, the Duffer Brothers know their show's between-seasons black holes are infamous, and they say it's by design. 'Stranger Things' launched in 2016, blew up instantly, and the creators have basically treated it like a long series of movies instead of a 20-episode TV machine. They grew up mainlining film, not TV, and it shows in how they pace and mount the thing.

Matt Duffer put the philosophy pretty plainly to Variety:

'If TV shows come out every year, it’s diminishing returns. I like the buildup.'

That is very behind-the-scenes logic. Viewers, for the most part, are trained to expect a yearly drop. Leave them hanging too long and the emotional investment bleeds out, especially when a dozen new franchises show up every month trying to steal attention.

So when is 'Stranger Things' back, exactly?

Season 4 hit in 2022, which already feels like a different lifetime. The final season is framed as coming this November, with a staggered rollout that looks like this in the schedule being passed around:

• Season 5 Part 1: November 26, 2025 (4 episodes)
• Season 5 Part 2: December 25, 2025 (3 episodes)
• Season 5 Finale: December 31, 2025 (1 episode)

Yes, that is an unusually chopped-up endgame and a very holiday-heavy calendar. However you slice it, the gap from 2022 to late 2025 is a long stretch to keep momentum alive.

Perfection vs. momentum

The Duffers chase a big-screen feel, which means longer builds, denser plotting, and a lot of tinkering. That level of polish adds up to a slick, cinematic TV experience. It also adds months. Years, even.

Martin is in a similar boat: huge, intricate story; constant reworking to make the pieces fit; an author who cares a little too much about getting it right. Admirable, but it has a real cost. After enough years, even diehards start to feel like the moment passed them by.

Where I land

There’s a sweet spot between crafting the perfect version and actually delivering the thing people fell in love with. Miss it by a year or two, fine. Miss it by many and you are asking fans to carry water for a memory.

Do you think waiting too long for a show or a book kills the excitement, or does the buildup make it better when it finally lands? Drop your take below.

'Stranger Things' is currently streaming on Netflix.