A Timeframe of Ice and Fire: Two Books, Too Many Upcoming Conflicts Left To Go

[Cas Stark]

On 5/31/2017 at 10:39 AM, The Egg said:

I still believe the time gap in AFFC and the Meereenese Knot in ADWD were the problem with his pace.

The real problem is that to solve them he made the plot so slow and complicated that he now has more "knots" to solve that at the beginning of those books. I won't list them again, we all know what those problems are, but think back to the end of ASOS for a moment: you won't find an unfinished plot, you won't find anything for which you knew the direction but not how to get there, with the only exception of Dany and her wicked idea to rule Meereen. Now, after the plot has become so complicated, he'll never be able to speed up again until he finally cuts all the knots he made in the plot!
When the final event will be set into motion, then his writing MIGHT be fast. But until then, he probably doesn't know WHAT to write in the first place.

Yeah, I agree, mostly.  The Meereen knot was a self created problem to begin with, and his 'solution' to said self created problem created an entirely new set of smaller problems which bogged down the story and appears to still be bogging down the story.  In order to truly pick up the pace to where it needs to be, e.g. cutting all of those loose ends he created in the last two books Winds will need a pace like GOT.  And I don't see that happening, the sample chapters are not shorter like in GOT, but long and meandering like in the last two books.

Yes, in theory, it's possible that a final book could go back to a GOT type of pace and would be easier for him to write finally having divested himself of all the dead end knots he created in the first place.  But, only in theory, since I don't think Winds will cut out those knots, but will be a doubling down on them, it will be the author committing even more to his new plots and characters and so, no way that A Dream of Spring will be able to complete the story without a drastic and jolting shift in tempo.

[The Egg]

2 hours ago, Cas Stark said:

Yeah, I agree, mostly.  The Meereen knot was a self created problem to begin with, and his 'solution' to said self created problem created an entirely new set of smaller problems which bogged down the story and appears to still be bogging down the story.  In order to truly pick up the pace to where it needs to be, e.g. cutting all of those loose ends he created in the last two books Winds will need a pace like GOT.  And I don't see that happening, the sample chapters are not shorter like in GOT, but long and meandering like in the last two books.

Yes, in theory, it's possible that a final book could go back to a GOT type of pace and would be easier for him to write finally having divested himself of all the dead end knots he created in the first place.  But, only in theory, since I don't think Winds will cut out those knots, but will be a doubling down on them, it will be the author committing even more to his new plots and characters and so, no way that A Dream of Spring will be able to complete the story without a drastic and jolting shift in tempo.

If Winds doesn't cut the loose ends, Dream won't do that either. Nor the following book, whatever that will be.
He either cuts something or he'll never be able to finish the story. There'll be no problems with show spoilers, because the book story will go on being more and more complicated, for the sake of being so.

[Cas Stark]

20 minutes ago, The Egg said:

If Winds doesn't cut the loose ends, Dream won't do that either. Nor the following book, whatever that will be.
He either cuts something or he'll never be able to finish the story. There'll be no problems with show spoilers, because the book story will go on being more and more complicated, for the sake of being so.

I've thought for a couple of years that he wasn't going to be able to finish the series in two books, and the more chapters he released and the more comments he made about Winds...especially the part about Dany and the Dothraki and not meeting up with Tyrion until near the end of the book...convinced me that she will land in Westeros at the ends of Winds...and then there is no way, absolutely no way he can end the entire story in Dreams.

Six years and counting for Winds suggests to me that he isn't cutting the loose ends, if he had, Winds would be finished, and would have been finished some time ago.  The time he's taking with it tells me, though of course I could be wrong, that he's still stuck in the middle of all the knots.

[The Egg]

19 hours ago, Cas Stark said:

I've thought for a couple of years that he wasn't going to be able to finish the series in two books, and the more chapters he released and the more comments he made about Winds...especially the part about Dany and the Dothraki and not meeting up with Tyrion until near the end of the book...convinced me that she will land in Westeros at the ends of Winds...and then there is no way, absolutely no way he can end the entire story in Dreams.

Six years and counting for Winds suggests to me that he isn't cutting the loose ends, if he had, Winds would be finished, and would have been finished some time ago.  The time he's taking with it tells me, though of course I could be wrong, that he's still stuck in the middle of all the knots.

But at the same time, if he wasn't interested in cutting the loose ends, he could've written it all much faster.
After all, it's not so hard to banter on and on and on about the same characters, the hard stuff is making them do what he wants them to do. So I think that he's trying to cut those loose ends and failing. Or, at least, he might be doing so.

[shadows and dust]

Not to beat a dead horse, but having Aegon replace Danny in the Westeros plot - seeing as how he's already there and leaving Danny to play our her story in Essos - sure would cut a bunch of knots.

[Ninerings]

I wish there was a thread allowed to be dedicated to picking apart the ridiculous behavior of this author without being shut down by mods.Just one. 

[Cas Stark]

8 hours ago, shadows and dust said:

Not to beat a dead horse, but having Aegon replace Danny in the Westeros plot - seeing as how he's already there and leaving Danny to play our her story in Essos - sure would cut a bunch of knots.

Of course that is not ever happening, a huge number of the fanbase are sick to death of Essos, but I don't even see how that would help.  

He still has to kill off Victarian, resolve Dorne, there is Euron.  Adding Aegon, especially if he doesn't end up being all that is going to have been a huge waste of all his thread over these books.  He needs to kill of a lot of people, get Dany out the fuck of Essos and to Westeros, and if Aegon is ending up being nothing important but a plot stall device, then he needs to resolve Aegon/Doran/Arianne in Winds and get back to the main players and the story.

[The Egg]

19 hours ago, shadows and dust said:

Not to beat a dead horse, but having Aegon replace Danny in the Westeros plot - seeing as how he's already there and leaving Danny to play our her story in Essos - sure would cut a bunch of knots.

That might work, but I don't think he wants to do that.

Dany is needed for the Battle of Ice and Fire, she has to go North and meet the White Walker, possibly the Night King himself, how can she do that if she's still in Essos?

Through the whole saga, since book 1, the Game has been the main focus, more than the Song, and I'm glad for it because it's what made this saga so great. But now it's gone so far that he should completely abandon his plans for the Song if he wants to play the Game until the end, and I don't think he's ok with that. Keeping Dany in Essos means taking out one and a half of the 3 books he'd planned originally, and I think George is pretty jealous of his ideas.

The other options would be killing off the Game by letting the White Walker invade the North from the first few chapters of TWOW, having them beyond the Neck by the end of the book. That of course would cut dozens of loose ends in a few chapters, because the battle for the Throne would reveal itself as pointless to everyone, and prepare the ground for a grand, fully fantasy finale in A Dream of Spring. But the series has never gone SO fantasy in 5 books, I'm not sure that's the plan. In this case Dany would have a reason to go West, which is saving the world from the White Walkers, either alone with her dragons or with a Dothraki horde at her heels.

But sure, what I can't see happening is she doing all her arc as originally immagined, showing up in Westeros, battling for the Throne and only then turning to the North and the Night King. That's simply not possible to do in 2 books, regardless of their pace.

[Kyll.Ing.]

I wonder how drastic a cut could feasibly be? Just imagine the possibilities:

• Daenerys suddenly realizes she's pretty popular in Essos, has never set foot in Westeros, and she doesn't know squat about that continent's contemporary politics. Besides, the Seven Kingdoms have a bad case of undead infestation while Essos is warm and sunny. She decides to abandon the whole invasion, and carve herself an empire in Essos instead. Or an even faster solution to her story arch, she dies of dysentery shortly after the Dothraki find her.
• The White Walkers turn out to be a dud. Just as an invasion force is massing at the foot of the wall, they are hauled back to the Land of Always Winter by their disapproving mothers. "What did we say about going that far south, young man? And stop reanimating corpses, you'll go blind!"
• Cersei has one drink too many one evening, and the next morning she's still a little tipsy as she decends from her chambers. She stumbles down a staircase, breaking her neck.
• The Faceless Men straight-up kill Arya for her insolence. Her story arc ends mid-sentence.
• Euron encounters a freak hurricane on his way to Oldtown, which smashes his fleet and drowns him.
• Jon Snow remains dead, no resurrection.
• Tommen decides being king isn't all it's cracked up to be, and gladly yields the throne to Aegon. He and Margaery retire to this little cottage in the Westerlands, adding "T+M" next to the faded "T+T" carved into its doorway.
• Davos trudges around Skagos for a while, miserable in hail, sleet, and mud. After falling on his ass after sliding in unicorn dung for the twenty-eighth time, he decides "screw this!" and heads home to his wife.
• Stannis wins the Battle of the Ice, retakes Winterfell, kills the Boltons, and in the process becomes so gosh-darn tired of warfare and kingmaking that he decides to leave it at that. They wait out the winter repairing Winterfell, and then retire to the up-for-sale Dreadfort.
• Bran wakes up at Queenscrown, finding out that the entire trip beyond the Wall was a dream. He decides "let's not go to the three-eyed raven, it's a silly place", and instead they head to the Umbers where Rickon is already waiting for him. After Stannis retakes Winterfell, they move back in.
• Sansa wakes up the morning and realizes she likes lemon cake more than the Game of Thrones. Highborn life isn't glamorous, it's dangerous, and she can't marry for love without making everything a hundred times worse. She sneaks out in the middle of the night, goes to Gulltown, where she opens a bakery. The risk pays off, she has lemon cake every day for the rest of her life, plus a loving husband and a flock of healthy children.
• Littlefinger becomes so upset with Sansa leaving that he starts demanding that the lords of the Vale go after her. They listen to his wailing for a while until they grown tired of it, then arrange a hunting accident for him in his bed. He is found tragically gored by a griffin, whose claws look remarkably like daggers.
• Tyrion randomly stumbles across Tysha five minutes after landing in Westeros. Turns out whores go to a small secluded place on the coast of the Stormlands, where they spend the days looking out at sea, in case their loved ones come sailing in on the tide, with or without an invasion force at their back. After an uneventful capture of Casterly Rock, he pays his dues to the Second Sons and lives out his days as Aegon's Warden of the West.
• Dorne suffers a massive drought and all the characters there tragically die of thirst. Off-screen.
• Victarion has one look at a Dragon in Meereen, thinks "nope!" and throws the dragon horn overboard. After the battle, he goes to the Basilisk Isles to live out his days in piracy.
• Jaime and Brienne are hanged by Lady Stoneheart, who falls apart from rot shortly after. The Brotherhood Without Banners is then reformed into a farming collective.
• Samwell Tarly has five uneventful years in Oldtown, finishes his Maester's Degree, marries Gilly and moves someplace pleasant.
• The rest of the characters go unmentioned.

Heck, even with a lot of drastic cuts, the amount of characters and story arcs mean it would still probably take a book or two to tie it all up.

[The Egg]

1) I love your post

2) The second quote in your signature is so plainly true.

That said, I still think that the storyline that is really holding the plot back is Dany's, and maybe Aegon's and Arya's, depending on how important they're supposed to be in the next book. The rest has moved, although slowly, in the last two books. Dany has only STARTED a journey in her second to last chapter.

Keep Dany's army in Essos and there's no need for another whole book for a Dance of Dragons between her and Aegon (and Jon?), make Cersei burn King's Landing and Aegon takes the Throne in 3 chapters. It is possible to finish everything in two books, but he probably doesn't want the story to go that way.

Anyway, I'm ok with 3 more books. Or even 4. As long as they're good, it looks like we don't even care about the story anymore, we only want to see it completed.

[SuperMario]

1 hour ago, The Egg said:

1) I love your post

2) The second quote in your signature is so plainly true.

That said, I still think that the storyline that is really holding the plot back is Dany's, and maybe Aegon's and Arya's, depending on how important they're supposed to be in the next book. The rest has moved, although slowly, in the last two books. Dany has only STARTED a journey in her second to last chapter.

Keep Dany's army in Essos and there's no need for another whole book for a Dance of Dragons between her and Aegon (and Jon?), make Cersei burn King's Landing and Aegon takes the Throne in 3 chapters. It is possible to finish everything in two books, but he probably doesn't want the story to go that way.

Anyway, I'm ok with 3 more books. Or even 4. As long as they're good, it looks like we don't even care about the story anymore, we only want to see it completed.

I agree that Dany is the main one holding the plot back, but there are others as well. Arya comes to mind as well as Sansa. And that's why I feel when he decided to go against the 5-year gap between ASOS and AFFC, he really lost his way. In AFFC, Dany could have already landed in Westeros and begun part 2 of his original plan with the Second Dance. Instead she will be meandering about Westeros throughout Winds for most of or the entire book.

And I would be ok with 3 or 4 more books knowing we would get them. But I still stand by my belief that Winds will be the last book we will ever see on this series.

[The Egg]

I don't know if and when we'll see those books (I'm not even sure about Winds anymore, but I hope I'm wrong) but I agree with everything else, especially the 5 year gap he should've kept.

Arya and Sansa, though, have done something in the last two books. Maybe not much, but enough that, if the overall plot requires that, they can be back in the main game in a couple of chapters.... Dany is not even near having the possibility to go to Westeros, and AFTER she gets it she'll have to decide she wants to, and then plan HOW. You don't leave a place like Meereen in a day, unless you want Astapor 2.0!
The only think I can hope is that after she's back into Meereen she realizes she has to face Volantis. If she moves to conquer THERE, than she might establish something strong enough to survive her absence, and then go directly to Westeros without turning back. Of course, if she has to go east to go west... 

[Cas Stark]

I don't think Arya or Sansa are holding the plot back.  He could have sped up Arya's training easily, she could already been on her way or back to Westeros without having lost much.  Same with Sansa, all those Alayne chapters accomplished nothing.  It has been Dany and her stupid Meereen arc that caused the entire story to slow to a crawl.  Also the introduction of all the new POVs which will now have to see their stories come to some sort of reasonable conclusion...wasting who knows how many more chapters.  If we never had a Victarian POV, we wouldn't have to wrap up his story.  Ditto for Arianne....we already have Connington as a POV for Aegon, so we don't need both.  

Good lord, if she has to fight Volantis after several Dothraki chapters, then she really will not get to Westeros until the end of Winds...which means there is no question about 7 books, it will have to be 8.  At a minimum.  Unless he forgoes the second dance of dragons and has Aegon dead before she arrives.  He has doomed himself.

[The Egg]

14 hours ago, Cas Stark said:

  Ditto for Arianne....we already have Connington as a POV for Aegon, so we don't need both. 

Not for long, luckily. I'd have spared ouselves that moron of JonCon rather than Arianne, her story might have been unnecessary to the overall plot, but at least was interesting. Same with Brienne. On Vic I agree though, he was useless, we could've had Euron saying he was going to "fetch him the Dragon Queen" and then Vic showing up as Deus Ex Machina in the Battle of Meereen, much more dramatic and much shorter, without actually losing much.

14 hours ago, Cas Stark said:

Good lord, if she has to fight Volantis after several Dothraki chapters, then she really will not get to Westeros until the end of Winds...which means there is no question about 7 books, it will have to be 8.  At a minimum.  Unless he forgoes the second dance of dragons and has Aegon dead before she arrives.  He has doomed himself.

Well, it'd take a couple of chapters to convince the dothraki, one or two more to win back Meereen and decide she has to storm Volantis and finally another 2/3 to do it and then get to Westeros, not necessarily all her chapters anyway. We could have her in Westeros by two thirds of the book.... can you imagine Dany actually pacifying Meereen and then deciding she can go to Westeros and finally finds a reason to go to Westeros faster than that?
I honestly can't, not with the pace her chapter had in ADWD!

[Cas Stark]

I don't particularly like either POV, Arianne or Connington, because I don't like the Dorne story after being deeply disappointed with Doran's master plan of sitting on his ass for 15 years while his future son in law went crazy due to stress and poverty.  That pretty much did it for me on Dorne and convinced me it was a retcon by the author, and a bad one at that.

The author "could" tighten up the story and accelerate the pace in Winds, but nothing that is known about Winds, based on the chapters or the author's comments or the show suggests that he is.  

And I frankly don't see how he gets Dany out of Essos without creating a huge plot hole logic gap, because it's going to be hard to believe she can leave Meereen in any reasonable shape where it won't immediately fall back into slavery without spending a ton of time on it, and if she leaves it a ruin, then her status as liberator and hero takes another huge hit.  He has made her rule of Meereen so bad and so chaotic that there is now no solution for fixing it that can reaslistically also involve her leaving within a few months or a year.  It's not possible.

I like Brienne as a character, but her POV was not necessary and her chapters were mostly filler.  It was another unnecessary expansion of the story that left things standing in place for two books.  Brienne looks for the red headed gal, wanders around, meets people, sees things.  Could have all been done in 3 chapters.

Oh well, it is what it is, nothing anyone can do about it.  I think Winds will come out if not late 2018, then not until 2020.

[The Coconut God]

First of all, hello everyone. I've been enjoying these forums from the shadow for a very long time, and I finally decided to contribute. It's a pleasure to officially count myself a member of this fandom. With that out of the way, on to the subject at hand.

 

I think that, ironically, the reason most of you don't think George can finish in two books is that you aren't taking Feast and Dance seriously. These book are supposed to set the stage for Winds and Dream; if the story is to maintain its quality, we should expect the arcs, characters and locations introduced here to be very relevant to the endgame of the series. This might not align with the ending most of the fanbase had in mind, but then again, why would it? George has always enjoyed subverting expectations.

Instead of working against the books, try to look at all the new elements they introduce and ask yourselves "How is this going to figure in the endgame?".

The primary thing that might appear out of place is the focus on Essos. It's not just Tyrion's trip on the pole boat:

- We get a bunch of chapters in Volantis, and George sets up an entire Volantene army that has yet to come into play, as well as a potential slave rebellion in the city, led by followers of R'hllor.

- Braavos has even more things connected to it: Arya is training there, Jeyne Poole is headed there, Jon and Stannis both negotiated loans from the Iron Bank, Euron presumably gave the Faceless Men a dragon egg, Tysha very likely resides at the Happy Port with Tyrion's daughter and even Dany has childhood memories there.

- Pentos is not only connected to both (f)Aegon and Dany through Illirio, but there's also the Tattered Prince and his contract with Quentyn (which may or may not still hold weight), which really wasn't necessary unless it's going to play out later.

- Perhaps the most inconspicuous of all, Areo Hotah's POVs introduced us to the city of Norvos. Aside from a few local customs, we learn that this is a slaver city and that Doran's wife currently resides there (many hypothesized Quentyn's death will affect Dany's relationship with Doran and/or Arianne, but Quentyn's mother, the lady Mellario, is much closer to her).

Now, is all of this filler... or is it a sign that most of Winds and Dream will take place in Essos and around the Narrow Sea?

The only reason you expect Dany to get to Westeros quickly is because she has to eventually meet up with Jon, but what if Jon is the one who comes to Essos instead, retreating from the Others' onslaught with a fleet of refugees? This leaves Dany room to continue her arc of abolishing slavery in Essos, gives them something in common as protectors of their respective people, and makes them much more likely to cross paths than a scenario where Jon is stuck fighting wights in Winterfell and Dany lands on Dragonstone to contend with Cersei or Aegon.

 

Here's what I believe is going to happen: Stannis is going to defeat the Boltons and retake Winterfell early in Winds. The North will hopefully get enough of a respite for the mountain clans to send their children to the Winter Town, but soon after the Wall will collapse and the Others will attack in full.

Stannis, emboldened by his victory against the Boltons and more convinced than ever that he really is Azor Ahai, will either try to hold Winterfell or march out against the wights (many of which will be the freshly decimated Frey army from the previous battle). This is when Shireen's sacrifice is going to play out, since Stannis believes it is a king's duty to pay whatever price it takes to protect his people. The northern lords, however, will abandon him, retreating to White Harbor, and so will Melissandre.

Around this point Jon will regain consciousness, and he will be declared King in the North as per Robb's will. However, Jon will see that they no longer have any chance to hold the Others back, so he will use Manderly's fleet to take as many refugees as he can across the Narrow Sea. This will probably be the chapter that inspired the show's Hardhome episode, but it will happen at White Harbor, obviously at a different point in the story. They will then sail to Braavos.

The Sealord will not allow such a large number of refugees into the city, but Jon will convince the Iron Bank to honor the contract he signed with Tycho Nestoris (and maybe even Stannis' contract, if he haggles well enough) so he can buy food for his people. Arya will probably have second thoughts about Jon at this point, because of Jeyne Poole and the fact that he is no longer a Night's Watch man (after all, she killed the last Night's Watch deserter she crossed paths with), so she will not reveal herself to him. She may or may not be asked by the FM to put on a different face (Jeyne Poole maybe?) and keep an eye on him.

The refugees will probably continue south on land, down to the Upper Rhoyne and the Forrests of Norvos. The settlement he's going to establish and the line of credit with the Iron Bank will make Jon a rallying figure for future Westerosi refugees, but might also put him in conflict with one or more of the Free Cities.

Back in Westeros, as the last standing armies of the south destroy each other in the Cersei vs Aegon conflict, the Others will spill into the Neck and Riverlands, driving any survivors to seek refuge in the Vale, which will serve as a temporary safe haven. Such refugees might include Howland Reed, placing him in a position to tell Sansa about Jon's true heritage.

Eventually, though, the Vale will have to be evacuated as well, and Jon will send the Manderly fleet and hired Braavosi ships to assist the now revealed Sansa. By this point, however, Euron's fleet will be prowling the Narrow Sea, and he will serve as a major foil to their effort, either of his own will, at Cersei's bidding, or both (I can imagine Cersei having a very North-Korean attitude towards people trying to flee her kingdom, especially if said people are revealed to be harboring Sansa).

If we are to use the show's fifth and sixth seasons as a source of bastardized, out of place and poorly motivated versions of situations the characters will find themselves in in the books, we might assume that Sansa will either try to seduce, marry or be captured by Euron (rather than Ramsay), and eventually she will end up with Jon and an army of Valemen (or rather women, children and other survivors). It might be interesting to see Davos smuggling her off of Silence.

Now, since the main port of the Vale is Gulltown, and Gulltown is slightly closer to Pentos than Braavos (not to mention the seas could be too rough to sail at this point that far north), Jon might need to make sure that Pentos will assist with the evacuation of the Vale, and in case Euron will have a dragon or two by now (which is very likely), he might even need Dany's help, giving him a reason to approach her.

It's getting a bit too far from Feast & Dance to try to predict how things might work out (not to mention this is already a colossal first post), but I do need to mention Jaime and Brienne. I don't think their story will interact with either Sansa, Arya or Cersei.

I think LSH will initially use Jaime to get herself and the BWB inside the Twins to take revenge on Walder Frey and all his family, and then she will order Brienne to execute him. Brienne will choose to drive her sword through her heart instead, replaying Jaime's kingslaying act and playing out the Azor Ahai/Nissa Nissa prophecy at the same time. The sword will catch fire, prompting the BWB to follow Brienne.

They will somehow find out about Bran (a vision from him seems the most likely source) and they will go north to "rescue" him (they made a promise about saving Cat's daughters, but at that time they didn't know the sons survived, so why not include him in the vow?), eventually playing out whatever part needs to be played up north in order to prevent the Long Winter from taking hold.

[Cas Stark]

His original plan when it was was still a trilogy was that Dany invades Westeros and the final battle is with the Others, which to me, makes it absolutely correct that Essos is filler, it is especially filler because we dont' have any Essos characters with POVs or really any characters in Essos who are filled out and would even count as good/strong secondary characters, outside of Drogo who is dead and Varys partner.  

Not only would that level of expansion of the Essos story send most readers over the edge, but it would virtually guarantee that he cannot finish the series in 7 books.

[The Coconut God]

41 minutes ago, Cas Stark said:

His original plan when it was was still a trilogy was that Dany invades Westeros and the final battle is with the Others, which to me, makes it absolutely correct that Essos is filler, it is especially filler because we dont' have any Essos characters with POVs or really any characters in Essos who are filled out and would even count as good/strong secondary characters, outside of Drogo who is dead and Varys partner.  

Not only would that level of expansion of the Essos story send most readers over the edge, but it would virtually guarantee that he cannot finish the series in 7 books.

I don't think his original plan matters that much. A lot of things were wildly different in there, and the story changed in the telling. As for characters in Essos, Arya and Tyrion already went there. Dany grew up there. We have as many characters from the original POVs in Essos as we do in Westeros.

Bringing Jon and Sansa to Essos as leaders of Westerosi refugees is ultimately a much cleaner and quicker way to bring their storylines together, with the added benefit of actually bringing the Others into play and making Euron into an effective villain.

As for Essos driving people over the edge, allow me to doubt that. Most people disliked Essos because they thought it was filler. If it turns out that it isn't, not only will they accept it, but Feast&Dance will be redeemed as well.

[Cas Stark]

6 minutes ago, The Coconut God said:

I don't think his original plan matters that much. A lot of things were wildly different in there, and the story changed in the telling. As for characters in Essos, Arya and Tyrion already went there. Dany grew up there. We have as many characters from the original POVs in Essos as we do in Westeros.

Bringing Jon and Sansa to Essos as leaders of Westerosi refugees is ultimately a much cleaner and quicker way to bring their storylines together, with the added benefit of actually bringing the Others into play and making Euron into an effective villain.

As for Essos driving people over the edge, allow me to doubt that. Most people disliked Essos because they thought it was filler. If it turns out that it isn't, not only will they accept it, but Feast&Dance will be redeemed as well.

It's a novel and interesting concept, but I really don't think the story will go that way, nor do I think that Feast and Dance are going to be redeemed in hindsight.  What I sadly suspect is that the series is going to be seen to have peaked at Storm of Swords.  But, we first have to get Winds published before we can determine if his meandering pace continues or begins to abate.  LOL.

[The Coconut God]

37 minutes ago, Cas Stark said:

It's a novel and interesting concept, but I really don't think the story will go that way, nor do I think that Feast and Dance are going to be redeemed in hindsight.  What I sadly suspect is that the series is going to be seen to have peaked at Storm of Swords.  But, we first have to get Winds published before we can determine if his meandering pace continues or begins to abate.  LOL.

I agree that we can't say anything for sure before Winds is published, but I think it's unfair to expect Feast & Dance to outshine Storm. Storm was the big climax at the middle of the story. Feast & Dance were meant to show us the aftermath of that and set the scene for the climax at the end. We can't really tell if they did their job or not without Winds. Comparing them to a hypothetical fan fiction ending isn't a good way to pick them apart.

I personally wouldn't really be satisfied with the story if Dany, Tyrion and Arya are simply rushed to Westeros for a final battle with the Others. I think doing that runs a much higher risk of cementing their story arcs as filler (but who knows, maybe George will do that and it will turn out ok).