Can God make a boulder so big he cant lift it?

That was a question once posed to me by a pastor at a catechism class as a teen.

moment on God and prove there was one thing the infallible deity could actually fail at.

Ad content continues below

Dont worry about it, Pastor Woods said.

After all, he crafts entire worlds out of nothing and may as well be Gods second cousin.

The boulder test is therefore an apt one.

And its clear that George R.R.

Martin may have created a boulder so big that he cannot lift it.

One of the internets favorite pastimes is being angry.

The fifth book in ASOIAF,A Dance With Dragons,came out on July 12, 2011.

That represented an almost unheard of wait-time from the previous book for the series.

The fourth book,A Feast for Crows, had been published on Oct. 17, 2005.

Still,A Dance with Dragonseventually saw the light of day and all was forgiven.

Martin even offered up a compelling reason for the perceived delay.

He was dealing with what he called a Mereeneese Knot.

Every new Martin LiveJournal blog post is met with a fury of speculation and renewed fervor.

for in one hour is thy judgment come.

Surely, this was it!

Despite the internets repeating assertions to the contrary, George R.R.

Martin is not a troll.

Hes presumably out there, typing away on hisancient word processor, trying to finishThe Winds of Winter.

The Meereeneese Knot is Martins self-created boulder, and hes having trouble lifting it.

When its all said and done, he may never be able to do so.

Think about the sheer size of these books for a moment.

The A Song of Ice and Fire series to date is approximately, 4,500 pages.

That includes details of the sprawling geography and every single branch on hundreds of familys trees.

Think of Tyrion gazing out at the encroaching spring over the top of the Wall.

Or even a pack of wolves, traversing a snowy hellscapeno humanity in sight.

And Beric is only like 30th on the Song of Ice and Fire call sheet.

And that leads me to another achingly saccharine and likely boring childhood anecdote.

I had been fitted with a cast that covered my entire chest to keep my smashed collarbone into place.

This was annoying, I announced to my mother.

Oh well, youll just have to make lemonade out of lemons, she told me.

We turn that cast into the White Rangers armor, damn it.

Season 8 will be the final season ofGame of Thrones,and the story will have an ending.

Martin even shared some information about the overall ending of the series with showrunners D.B.

Weiss and David Benioff.

Those in desperate need of a conclusion can choose to treat theThronesending as canon.

Those who dont enjoy theThronesending can just choose to ignore it.

Its like Schrodingers ending for fantasy books.

It will simultaneously exist and not exist.

Wouldnt everyone opt to accept the shows ending regardless of how perfect or imperfect it may be?

As a culture, our perception of endings seems to be evolving.

Think back to 2010 whenLostwas about to air its final episode.

There was an ongoing cultural discourse over how it needed to stick the landing.

As in planet Earth.

As fellow HBO classicThe Sopranostaught us, endings are relative.

(UPCOMING SPOILERS FORTHE SOPRANOSFINALE).The Sopranosrather brilliantly just… ends.

Is it his daughter Meadow coming through the door?

It doesnt matter because the story is over.

It ends, right there at the diner.

Stories are little more than windows.

Sometimes you find a frame big enough to fit one characters entire life story.

But youll never find a frame big enough to encompass the entire entire world.

There are already many endings in A Song of Ice and Fire.

Those endings come on the battlefield as nameless Stark and Lannister soldiers die on a forested Westerland battlefield.

They come at The Twins in the form of a dagger slashing across a mothers throat.

They even come in the form of an unexpected crossbow bolt on the toilet.

As far as theyre concerned, it already happened.

Maybe Martin will one day be able to lift this unliftable boulder and finish this series.

Whether he does or notit wont mean the end of theGame of Thronesfranchise.

Youll get to make your own as you play.

Whether Winter and then Spring ever come or not for A Song of Ice and Fireis irrelevant.

The series already features its fair share of endings.

A version of this article ran in July 2017.