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19 minutes ago, sifth said:

Yea because seeing every rock and lake Tyrion moves past in the book was much better. Seeing Dany do nothing except fail as a leader was also pure gold as well. Ohh and don't get me started about Quentyn Martell and his massive contribution to the story, lol

Still far better than a 5 year gap.

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The five-year-gap would never have worked. There were, perhaps, four stories in which it could have worked (Sansa's, Arya's, Bran's, and Dany's) because they were isolated enough from everything else to jump ahead in time without losing everything important (or rather, to give the reader the illusion that nothing important was lost).

But the stories that were intricately woven into each other or whose developments sort of demand some sort of immediate reaction or repercussion from some other faction would completely rip this thing to pieces.

Perhaps we can be told five years after the fact that Littlefinger got away with Lysa's murder but the idea that how Cersei/Roose did not deal with Stannis and Jon Snow for five long years just never could make any sense. Nor the idea that Dorne would do nothing for another five years or so. Dany might be relatively safe in Meereen for five years - but still, one wonders why Cersei didn't send some assassins to take her out in the meantime. And so on.

Euron did also return back in ASoS so one would expect that guy to begin whatever he was up to immediately after he took power.

Not to mention that the most important cliffhangers of ASoS - Tyrion's escape, the aftermath of Lysa's death, Stannis/Jon at the Wall, and others - clearly demanded/cried for a direct continuation. I mean, we all wanted to read about Cersei's, Jaime's, Kevan's, etc. reaction to Tywin's death, right?

And slowing down the story after the gap with a lot of flashback chapters wouldn't have worked well, either. Every character would have lived through something important in his/her past, after all.

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15 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

The five-year-gap would never have worked. There were, perhaps, four stories in which it could have worked (Sansa's, Arya's, Bran's, and Dany's) because they were isolated enough from everything else to jump ahead in time without losing everything important (or rather, to give the reader the illusion that nothing important was lost).

But the stories that were intricately woven into each other or whose developments sort of demand some sort of immediate reaction or repercussion from some other faction would completely rip this thing to pieces.

Perhaps we can be told five years after the fact that Littlefinger got away with Lysa's murder but the idea that how Cersei/Roose did not deal with Stannis and Jon Snow for five long years just never could make any sense. Nor the idea that Dorne would do nothing for another five years or so. Dany might be relatively safe in Meereen for five years - but still, one wonders why Cersei didn't send some assassins to take her out in the meantime. And so on.

Euron did also return back in ASoS so one would expect that guy to begin whatever he was up to immediately after he took power.

Not to mention that the most important cliffhangers of ASoS - Tyrion's escape, the aftermath of Lysa's death, Stannis/Jon at the Wall, and others - clearly demanded/cried for a direct continuation. I mean, we all wanted to read about Cersei's, Jaime's, Kevan's, etc. reaction to Tywin's death, right?

And slowing down the story after the gap with a lot of flashback chapters wouldn't have worked well, either. Every character would have lived through something important in his/her past, after all.

 

That would be fine and dandy if the lack of a gap didn't cause a tone of other problems. I mean you say the stuff at the Wall wouldn't have worked with the gap, well not a whole lot happened at the Wall in that book in general. Aside from Jon's final chapter, the Wall plotline was insanely boring. Ohh sure we occasionally get to hear that something awesome is happening at Hard Home and that Stannis is doing something cool from letters he sends Jon, but in terms of what Jon himself does and see's it's more or less just, "alright, I better move this solider to this castle, I better send some wildings here to help defend this castle" and so on. He also spends a good chunk of the book bickering with his men who are mostly idiots and can't see that the Others are the real danger and that peace with the wildings is their only hope at survival.

 

Don't get me wrong from time to time we get some good stuff from the Wall chapters, like Slynt's execution, but for a large chunk of those Jon chapters it's mostly Jon dealing with garrison duty, which is insanely boring, IMO.

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3 hours ago, sifth said:

That would be fine and dandy if the lack of a gap didn't cause a tone of other problems. I mean you say the stuff at the Wall wouldn't have worked with the gap, well not a whole lot happened at the Wall in that book in general. Aside from Jon's final chapter the Wall plot line was insanely boring. Ohh sure we occasionally get to hear that something awesome is happening at Hard Home and that Stannis is doing something cool from letters he sends Jon, but in terms of what Jon himself does and see's it's more or less just, "alright, I better move this solider to this castle, I better sned some wildings here to help defend this castle" and so on. He also spends a good chunk of the book bickering with his men who are mostly idiots and can't see that the Others are the real danger and that peace with the wildings is their only hope at survival.

Don't get me wrong from time to time we get some good stuff from the Wall chapters, like Slynt's execution, but for a large chunk of those Jon chapters it's mostly Jon dealing with garrison duty, which is insanely boring, IMO.

Well, I think this is a structural problem of the story that we are reading, basically. I'm not sure what your issue with that is, but in general George (or any other author telling the same story) had the very thankless task to both continue the story in the same fashion as well as introduce other new characters and buildup the new story.

We have to face it - ASoS finished and tied up a lot of story lines and made it virtually impossible to continue the story in the same pace. A lot of the antagonists (Joffrey, Tywin) and also some protagonists did not survive that book, and those who did survive found themselves in completely new roles and positions (Jon Snow, Dany, Tyrion, Arya, Sansa, etc.).

The book to blame for the problems of AFfC/ADwD actually is ASoS and the direction the story took in that book. ASoS effectively ended the Lannister-Stark conflict that dominated the first three books and now AFfC/ADwD had to introduce us to the second part of the series and set up the other conflicts that will dominate at least a good portion of the remaining books.

Possibly the inherent flaw in all that lies with the conception of the series as a trilogy back in AGoT. If George had had everything figured out in the beginning Dorne, the Ironborn, the Tyrells, and other key players would have shown at least parts of their designs as early as in AGoT. I mean, with hindsight it is really ridiculous that no Dornishmen and neither Garlan nor Mace show up at court for the Tourney of the Hand.

The Wall story will remain boring as hell as long as it has to be because the Others will only attack when it is time for them to strike in relation to all the other dangling plot lines. Chapters from the POVs of leaders always tend to be pretty boring. Jon isn't alone in that department. Dany and Cersei essentially suffer from the same flaw but that is inherent in the things they do and are treated. People are scheming behind their backs, after all, and nobody will tell them to their faces what they are up to or what they truly think about their politics.

Both AFfC and ADwD feel strange as books following ASoS but you have to ask yourself whether this will still be the case after you have read TWoW. A lot of stuff is going to pay off in that book. The wars have begun, and there is no reason to believe that Aegon's campaign, the Stannis-Bolton war or the situation in Slaver's Bay will cool down quickly. The fires that were lit in ADwD might not go out easily. Especially if Dorne and the Vale end up joining the war in the next book too.

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1 hour ago, Lord Varys said:

The Wall story will remain boring as hell as long as it has to be because the Others will only attack when it is time for them to strike in relation to all the other dangling plot lines. Chapters from the POVs of leaders always tend to be pretty boring. Jon isn't alone in that department. Dany and Cersei essentially suffer from the same flaw but that is inherent in the things they do and are treated. People are scheming behind their backs, after all, and nobody will tell them to their faces what they are up to or what they truly think about their politics.

Both AFfC and ADwD feel strange as books following ASoS but you have to ask yourself whether this will still be the case after you have read TWoW. A lot of stuff is going to pay off in that book. The wars have begun, and there is no reason to believe that Aegon's campaign, the Stannis-Bolton war or the situation in Slaver's Bay will cool down quickly. The fires that were lit in ADwD might not go out easily. Especially if Dorne and the Vale end up joining the war in the next book too.

 

I hope you're right about WoW man, I really do. Because if that book drops the ball, it will be strike three for me with this series. Don't get me wrong I'll probably still read the last book when/if it comes out, just to see how the story ends, but my interest in the franchise will be all but lost at that point.

I don't agree that all chapters told from a leaders POV are boring however. Take our 3 Hands of the king/queen for example; Ned, Tyrion and Barristan. I found all 3 of these characters to be awesome examples of how a leaders POV should be told.

With Ned you get some amazing dialog exchanges from him and Robert, Varys and Littlefinger. Ned also gave us the murder mystery plotline and showed us the fall of House Stark from Kings Landing.

With Tyrion we got some great chapters of political maneuvering and backstabbing, with some amazing humor as a bonus. We also got the Battle of the Blackwater, which was amazing in it's own right.

Barristan's chapters were the first example of the Meereen plotline finally becoming interesting for me. We got to see him take over the city and try to desperately keep Dany's government together. It took a while, but with Barristan the Bold, GRRM finally got me excited about what's going to happen next in Meereen.

I honestly think for the most part GRRM just didn't know what to do with Jon and Dany for most of ADWD and was just stalling for time.

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On 5/20/2016 at 7:21 AM, sifth said:

Yea because seeing every rock and lake Tyrion moves past in the book was much better. Seeing Dany do nothing except fail as a leader was also pure gold as well. Ohh and don't get me started about Quentyn Martell and his massive contribution to the story, lol

Actually, I see the reason Quentyn's chapters were in ADWD. His death is essentially going to be the thing that sets Dorne against Daenerys. Arianne's opinion of Dany already doesn't seem that favorable. 

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For me, the monkey growing = increasing pressure to finish. This means he's still got a ways to go. If he was almost done, there wouldn't be much of a monkey left. Of course, my line of thinking makes no sense if one considers the "Kong is dead" line from before, because there Kong would have been shrinking for some time as he approached the end, and would have been more Raiders of the Lost Ark monkey size rather than Kong at the end, if you catch my drift.

 

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15 hours ago, sifth said:

I hope you're right about WoW man, I really do. Because if that book drops the ball, it will be strike three for me with this series. Don't get me wrong I'll probably still read the last book when/if it comes out, just to see how the story ends, but my interest in the franchise will be all but lost at that point.

I don't agree that all chapters told from a leaders POV are boring however. Take our 3 Hands of the king/queen for example; Ned, Tyrion and Barristan. I found all 3 of these characters to be awesome examples of how a leaders POV should be told.

With Ned you get some amazing dialog exchanges from him and Robert, Varys and Littlefinger. Ned also gave us the murder mystery plotline and showed us the fall of House Stark from Kings Landing.

With Tyrion we got some great chapters of political maneuvering and backstabbing, with some amazing humor as a bonus. We also got the Battle of the Blackwater, which was amazing in it's own right.

Barristan's chapters were the first example of the Meereen plotline finally becoming interesting for me. We got to see him take over the city and try to desperately keep Dany's government together. It took a while, but with Barristan the Bold, GRRM finally got me excited about what's going to happen next in Meereen.

I honestly think for the most part GRRM just didn't know what to do with Jon and Dany for most of ADWD and was just stalling for time.

Again, perhaps you don't like the story so much the man is telling. I'm not sure what you expected to read in AFfC and ADwD. The long wait really can distort your expectations, not to mention that George's own insistence that it would be only three three, four, five, six, seven, etc. books makes the reader expect that we are already approaching or nearing the ending.

AFfC was a very weird book because its central narrative - Cersei and Jaime's estrangement and the ruin of Lannister rule in KL and Westeros as a whole - made simply no sense in light what people had been expecting since AGoT - that Daenerys would be forced to fight against some sort of Lannister-dominated Westeros when she finally arrived there. The whole Cersei plot in AFfC made that very unlikely. Who wants to read a story in which everybody falls in line behind the true monarch when she finally arrives?

But ADwD turned all that on its head. The Quentyn story effectively severed the bond between Dany and Dorne, and the Aegon story explained to us why the hell the Lannister-Tyrell had to deteriorate so quickly.

The new war has begun.

On another level AFfC and ADwD as well - in those chapters in which Aegon and his gang were introduced - served as a new Prologue to make us familiar with the new characters who will dominate much of the coming plots (Euron, Arianne, Doran, the Sand Snakes, Aegon and the Golden Company, perhaps even Areo Hotah and Darkstar).

As I've tried to say above - the problem lies with ASoS. Had there been no Red Wedding, no Purple Wedding, and no murder of Tywin and Lysa, the introduction of so many new players and plots wouldn't have been necessary. But when ASoS closed many of the primary antagonists were dead, leaving only Roose Bolton and his bastard son (and perhaps Walder Frey), and Cersei. That was not much. The idea that a continuation of the story could feature a powerful Lannister-Tyrell alliance uniting Westeros against a Targaryen restoration wasn't that likely.

As to your point about leaders in charge being depicted in a more interesting fashion:

You are right about that in a sense, but the Hand isn't the same as the ruler itself. The Hand interacts more directly with people on the mid-level of governmental bureaucracy not to mention that both Ned and Tyrion had an interesting agenda of their own (solving a murder mystery and defending the city against Robert's brothers).

Both Dany and Jon Snow aren't very witty or interesting personalities on their own. In fact, Jon Snow is a very narrow-minded guy who is completely focused on being a great warrior in ADwD. One can criticize chapters like the one featuring the storeroom of the Night's Watch - but then, it was interesting and enlightening to see how winter provisions are stored in this world, how much they have, and how long it will last. This puts things into perspective and I guess quite a few readers were having the same thoughts as Bowen Marsh throughout the book - how the hell does Jon Snow think will be able to feed all those people when winter has come? Later there won't be any time to establish stuff like that.

I agree, though, that the story at the Wall is most likely deliberately very slow-going in ADwD. But then, we know that the Others will eventually strike and I think we all agree that this should happen at the right time to fit with the entire story, not just so that Jon Snow has something to do. I personally assume that George intends to fuck with the people in the North a lot more - the whole assassination thing as well as the battles between Stannis and the Boltons as well as the lingering threat that the Weeper might make another attempt on the Bridge of Skulls - has the potential to ruin everything both Jon and Stannis had been trying to build. So the Others might actually strike at a point in time when pretty much nobody at the Wall or in the North is very likely to be able to coherently inform anyone down south what has transpired there. And that could easily be crucial for the success the campaign of the Others will have at first. I think we are all in agreement that this whole plot would be a huge waste of time if they don't become the ultimate threat to everybody in the series.

And Dany, well, in her and Cersei's case you see how aloof you are when you are at the very top of the ladder. You get your information from the people around you, and you are also preoccupied with you own (sex) life. I agree that Barristan's POV came at a time when things in Meereen took up speed - but then, reread Dany's previous Meereen chapters and find a lot of interesting hints about things that are going on behind the scenes, especially things pointing towards the true allegiance of the Green Grace.

I guess if George hadn't closed ASoS with the five-year-gap idea in his mind Dany's entire story would have been much more interesting. But he could not close ASoS with Dany's decision to stay in Meereen for the time being and 'be a queen' and then open ADwD with her changing her mind on that one. The Meereen chapters had to introduce new characters to us and set the stage for the drama that unfolded there. And that took time.

Tyrion's stint as Hand is so interesting in ACoK because by this time Varys, Littlefinger, Pycelle, Cersei, Joffrey, etc. are all old friends and acquaintances to us. In AGoT all those people have first to be introduced and I remember that back during my first read I found a lot of this stuff boring as hell because I did not see what was going on and wanted to see him resolve the murder mystery and the Lannister intrigues. You have to pay very close attention to realize that the whole 'Lannister intrigue' thing is, at least in part, Littlefinger fooling Ned.

But the gang in Meereen is unknown to us, as is their culture. Dany and Barristan sit in the midst of people who are smiling at them but who we don't know nor care all that much about.

As things stand now, though, I'm really looking forward to the resolution of the Meereen plot lines in the wake of the battle. What is going to happen to Hizdahr? How much did he know about the attempt on Dany's life? What's Skahaz up to? What is the Green Grace going to do now?

One assumes we'll see Tyrion investigating this whole mystery eventually, assuming it will still be necessary.

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1 hour ago, Lord Varys said:

As I've tried to say above - the problem lies with ASoS. Had there been no Red Wedding, no Purple Wedding, and no murder of Tywin and Lysa, the introduction of so many new players and plots wouldn't have been necessary. But when ASoS closed many of the primary antagonists were dead, leaving only Roose Bolton and his bastard son (and perhaps Walder Frey), and Cersei. That was not much. The idea that a continuation of the story could feature a powerful Lannister-Tyrell alliance uniting Westeros against a Targaryen restoration wasn't that likely.

As to your point about leaders in charge being depicted in a more interesting fashion:

 

As things stand now, though, I'm really looking forward to the resolution of the Meereen plot lines in the wake of the battle. What is going to happen to Hizdahr? How much did he know about the attempt on Dany's life? What's Skahaz up to? What is the Green Grace going to do now?

One assumes we'll see Tyrion investigating this whole mystery eventually, assuming it will still be necessary.

I just wanted to focus on a few points. While you're right that the Hand isn't the guy with absolute power, he's still the person who's second in command of the government, the vice president if you would. In Ned and Barristan's case they were the de-facto leaders of the government, since Robert was more focused on getting drunk to lead and Dany was off ridding her dragon. Tyrion had to find clever ways to do things without Joffrey or Cercie knowing, which made for some fun writing, so in his case I can see what you mean by a mid level man.

 

Now while you're right GRRM did get a little kill crazy in ASoS's and did kill a lot of villains and "good" guys if you would. I still think he could have focused on some of the other villains a bit more in AFFC and ADWD, because aside from Cercie and the Bolton's I feel most of the other new and old villains seems to get ignored.

Euron for example only gets three chapters in two books. All I know about this guy is he's insane, charismatic and smart. He wants Dany's dragons and sends his brother to get them, who is apparently still on his way to Meereen, because of horrible pacing in ADWD.

Some more focus on Littlefinger would have been nice as well. He's another antagonist who only gets three chapters in two books. Those Vale characters were probably my favorite parts of AFFC to be honest and left me wanting more. The fact that GRRM seems to be going out of his way to delay the Vale story line as much as possible seems to annoy me a little.

The worst example of an amazing character being ignored is Varys though. This guy was possibly my favorite supporting character for the first 3 novels and then suddenly he just vanishes from the story entirely. Sure his return at the end of ADWD is awesome, but having to read over 1000 pages to get him back in the story was not.

 

 

7 hours ago, PCK said:

Actually, I see the reason Quentyn's chapters were in ADWD. His death is essentially going to be the thing that sets Dorne against Daenerys. Arianne's opinion of Dany already doesn't seem that favorable. 

 

You're right, his death will serve a purpose to the story. His life on the other hand did not. What was the point of getting to know this guy and his friends if really the only narrative purpose this guy had was to die. We've had plenty of examples of important people dying without making them POV's.

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17 minutes ago, sifth said:

I just wanted to focus on a few points. While you're right that the Hand isn't the guy with absolute power, he's still the person who's second in command of the government, the vice president if you would. In Ned and Barristan's case they were the de-facto leaders of the government, since Robert was more focused on getting drunk to lead and Dany was off ridding her dragon. Tyrion had to find clever ways to do things without Joffrey or Cercie knowing, which made for some fun writing, so in his case I can see what you mean by a mid level man.

Now while you're right GRRM did get a little kill crazy in ASoS's and did kill a lot of villains and "good" guys if you would. I still think he could have focused on some of the other villains a bit more in AFFC and ADWD, because aside from Cercie and the Bolton's I feel most of the other new and old villains seems to get ignored.

Euron for example only gets three chapters in two books. All I know about this guy is he's insane, charismatic and smart. He wants Dany's dragons and sends his brother to get them, who is apparently still on his way to Meereen, because of horrible pacing in ADWD.

Some more focus on Littlefinger would have been nice as well. He's another antagonist who only gets three chapters in two books. Those Vale characters were probably my favorite parts of AFFC to be honest and left me wanting more. The fact that GRRM seems to be going out of his way to delay the Vale story line as much as possible seems to annoy me a little.

The worst example of an amazing character being ignored is Varys though. This guy was possibly my favorite supporting character for the first 3 novels and then suddenly he just vanishes from the story entirely. Sure his return at the end of ADWD is awesome, but having to read over 1000 pages to get him back in the story was not.

Ah, well, Barristan only becomes the Hand of the Queen at the end of his successful coup, and I must say the guy we meet at first in 'The Discarded Knight' is neither an interesting character in himself nor in a particularly interesting setting. That only begins when he decides to do something (which admittedly happens soon thereafter). And if you read the sample Barristan chapters things get really interesting.

I guess Euron is still being set up. I'm not sure why we had to get Aeron chapters (because I really don't like that guy, personally) but I understand why we don't get Euron chapters. The man is evil and a king and George usually doesn't give us such POVs (e.g. Davos instead of Stannis). He will get important later on.

I agree with you that the greatest weakness of AFfC is the lack of Sansa and Arya chapters. There are way too few there and there stories would have greatly profited if it had been five or so chapters and not as few as we got. Just watching Sansa react to Littlefinger's intrigues and see what he does to take over the Vale would have been interesting enough.

And Varys, well, yeah, I'd have liked to read more about him, too, for obvious reasons. But it is quite clear that the man will come back big time in the remaining books. We might see him in more prominent positions than over since he (and Illyrio) will most likely play very important roles at Aegon's court. But the end of ASoS as well as the POV structure of the series made it pretty difficult for Varys to show his face in AFfC and ADwD.

And Quentyn, well, the poor guy only has five chapter, has he not? And only two of them are travelogue chapters. That is not so much a waste. The whole dragonstealing plot was actually interesting, and it wouldn't have worked all that well just to have Quentyn as a POV for that - or to have him just pop up as a suitor in one of Dany's chapters without properly introducing him as a character. I mean, it would have been difficult to sell the idea to the reader that such a no-name character would have a chance to marry Dany.

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7 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

And Varys, well, yeah, I'd have liked to read more about him, too, for obvious reasons. But it is quite clear that the man will come back big time in the remaining books. We might see him in more prominent positions than over since he (and Illyrio) will most likely play very important roles at Aegon's court. But the end of ASoS as well as the POV structure of the series made it pretty difficult for Varys to show his face in AFfC and ADwD.

And Quentyn, well, the poor guy only has five chapter, has he not? And only two of them are travelogue chapters. That is not so much a waste. The whole dragonstealing plot was actually interesting, and it wouldn't have worked all that well just to have Quentyn as a POV for that - or to have him just pop up as a suitor in one of Dany's chapters without properly introducing him as a character. I mean, it would have been difficult to sell the idea to the reader that such a no-name character would have a chance to marry Dany.

You know I often don't say nice things about the show, but I honestly think having Varys go to Essos with Tyrion was one of the better changes made from the books. He's such an amazing character and seeing him almost completely ignored for nearly 2 novels felt like such a waste. Will his amazing return moment be misses, certainly, but I'd rather have the character in the story than ignored the way the books did things.

 

As for Quentyn, I don't know man. Nothing about his POV chapters made me think he stood a chance in hell at wining Dany over. I'd much rather have him introduced in a Tyrion or Barristan chapter, than give him his own POV. His first two chapters are mostly just exposition and his final two seem beyond stupid. Having his story told from Dany, Barristan and Tyrion POV's might have been better if you ask me, since I honestly don't think this guy contributed enough to the story to earn one.

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37 minutes ago, sifth said:

You know I often don't say nice things about the show, but I honestly think having Varys go to Essos with Tyrion was one of the better changes made from the books. He's such an amazing character and seeing him almost completely ignored for nearly 2 novels felt like such a waste. Will his amazing return moment be misses, certainly, but I'd rather have the character in the story than ignored the way the books did things.

George has revealed a long time ago that Varys would remain back in KL. Therefore we had quite some time to cope with that. Back when I read ASoS I also thought it would be interesting if Tyrion and Varys left KL together to go to Dany.

But then, Varys has a different plan in the books and while he could make an interesting side kick or traveling companion that's not really his purpose or his role. The man moves kings and princes like pawns on his board. He does not travel across the lands like a beggar (or rather, he only does this in KL to disguise himself).

Varys is one of the characters who is mostly going to last until the very end (or even survive the entire series). Therefore we should see quite a lot of him in the remaining books.

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1 hour ago, Lord Varys said:

George has revealed a long time ago that Varys would remain back in KL. Therefore we had quite some time to cope with that. Back when I read ASoS I also thought it would be interesting if Tyrion and Varys left KL together to go to Dany.

But then, Varys has a different plan in the books and while he could make an interesting side kick or traveling companion that's not really his purpose or his role. The man moves kings and princes like pawns on his board. He does not travel across the lands like a beggar (or rather, he only does this in KL to disguise himself).

Varys is one of the characters who is mostly going to last until the very end (or even survive the entire series). Therefore we should see quite a lot of him in the remaining books.

You say that, but I just don't see how. He's not a POV character and aside from Cercie there's no other POV's in Kings Landing. I mean we can speculate that JC might take the city at some point, or a hundred other things could happen, but given from what we know at the end of the last book, I just don't know. George has shown he has no issue with ignoring characters for long periods of time after all.

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I don't like that "and one day..." bit, one bit.
The monkey is growing sure, that's good, but after all this time that's the LEAST anyone would expect from him.

If he would have said "Monkey's getting pretty big", that would've been another story entirely.
I'm trying to stay positive and hope the Son of Kong is gonna die before 2017, but at this point can I even do that?

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On 19/05/2016 at 4:07 AM, JEORDHl said:

Mmn... I don't know about the majority of that, Hightower. 

I'll grant you the point about starting the Stark children so young.

Putting aside how good Martin is with flashback snippets/dreams, consider all the history [ancient and otherwise] that Martin has capably proven he can impart in one short-yet-fraught conversation, or several. All we know about Lyanna for instance [and surrounding events] has been imparted through such and I feel comfortable in stating that all of them together wouldn't amount to many pages at all.

I'm reading Dance after the gap: 

 

Dany Chapter.

Sweet. Hmn, the dragons are big now. Where's Drogon? And jeez, clearly Dany has some discipline issues with them cause those are some angry people souring her mood there on her way to the meeting. Euron said he could help with that, but, Greyjoys, right. Besides, that horn that Belwas shoved up his ass, they can't get it out. Wait, were those resentful former Masters she just passed there, those pissy guys doing menial public works? Hah. As she walks down the hall to the meeting she passes dozens of damaged masks that adorn the passage's walls. She rubs the ugly scar on her neck. Sons of the Harpy. Pfft. She enters the Queen's Small Council. Wait, what? Is that Tyrion at the end of the table? What the... yet Barristan and he seem to have a grudging respect for each other given their banter. Huh. Here's Dany now making herself get over the incident with the aggrieved parents she'd encountered on the way to the meeting and asks her councilors to give a round table report on the logistics of the succession of power once she leaves Meereen. Then, where they're all at with the assembling of the fleet. Add some reflection, sprinkle some anecdotes throughout: Remember that guy? Hahaha...  Hell, even the two dragons out on the balcony are laughing at this point. Yet, amusement aside, Dany is skeptical about what else the Martells might want when she finally lands in Westeros [worse than those pandering Tyrells] but she's especially concerned about that insubordinate Darkstar currently residing in the dungeon below. Tyrion councils her not to worry too much about him and wryly reminds her of when they first met. Or even Arya Stark. She was hired to kill you remember, and now she's Second to Barristan here in Queen's Guard. Point, there. Now Tyrion is belting back a large goblet of wine, but it's not the time to upbraid his falling off the wagon though, who can blame him, what with what happened with the Unsullied and all... 

 

In the passage of say a baker's dozen or so of pages to expand the above, you've now smoothed readers into what could have been an otherwise jarring leap in time. It also has the benefit of re-injecting some more mystery into the narrative with changed allegiances, friends turned enemies [why the hell is Edd being such a dick to Jon] surprising deaths, and so and so forth. Martin may have decided to do the gap, as you say, because the Starks were too young-- and sure, maybe by part way through writing Clash he also realized his intended trilogy was blown.

No idea.

But I disagree with you on whether the gap would have worked. Not with an author of Martin's ability. I mean, look at all we got insofar as characterization and personal history through character interactions [not to mention anticipation] within the first few chapters of A Game of Thrones... And we hardly knew anyone then. 

 

this is amazing.  As you say he was operating at this pace in the first book...

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10 hours ago, Daemon I Blackfyre said:

I don't like that "and one day..." bit, one bit.
The monkey is growing sure, that's good, but after all this time that's the LEAST anyone would expect from him.

If he would have said "Monkey's getting pretty big", that would've been another story entirely.
I'm trying to stay positive and hope the Son of Kong is gonna die before 2017, but at this point can I even do that?

this. 

It pretty much screams "2 years to publishing." 

And 2 more books to go after that.

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I am feeling genuinely sad because we're getting monumental reveals from the show (seems to be the case anyway).:( 

Still, it's the why and how more than the what for me, so here's hoping the book comes out soonish. 

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I think that when he gave us the update in January, he had in the low hundreds of pages done. He said "hundreds of pages." I think that meant less than 500. So put it at 400 to be generous. (Book pages, not manuscript pages, which seems to be something different).

He said he had "dozens of chapters" done. To me that doesn't sound like more than 50. It probably means like 36-48 or thereabouts, else he would have said scores, or half a hundred or something along those lines.

So basically, I think he is about halfway with Winds. What boggles the mind is that he still thought he could have it done in time for April.

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10 minutes ago, Crixus said:

I am feeling genuinely sad because we're getting monumental reveals from the show (seems to be the case anyway).:( 

Still, it's the why and how more than the what for me, so here's hoping the book comes out soonish. 

Yes, the revelations from the last episode had me incredibly sad, for Martin, that he let it come to this. Secrets that he has spent 25 years carefully withholding from the public just got revealed to the whole world via the Show.

If he didn't care about that he wouldn't have been so careful not to share these details with us before. It has robbed his work of a HUGE amount of impact, no doubt. So sad.

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