WhatAnArtist!

I agree that Theon's redemption is (mostly) over, but I feel like it's almost essential for him to meet some Starks again, preferably Bran and/or Rickon. Also, Martin has already written a PoV chapter of Theon for Winds, so we know it hasn't been cut yet. And since both he and Asha are in the same place, that suggests that Martin will not be cutting Theon just because he and Asha are in the same place. And Jaime's arc is certainly not over. That's just a ridiculous statement. He has begun his redemption arc, and probably gotten midway through it, but it hasn't concluded yet. There needs to be a confrontation with Cersei, or even Tyrion. Jaime's psychology is heavily based on his relationships with his family. Brienne and Stoneheart are just side elements of his story, they aren't the main issues. It's Brienne whose arc is over - she will not take precedence over Jaime, in terms of who gets the PoV. She was always just a side character, and even her own PoV storyline in Feast was almost completely irrelevant compared to all the others. I think you need to set aside your biases towards female PoVs and look at things more objectively. Theon and Jaime are among the most important and complex post-GoT PoVs; they will not be cut from the next book/s. Brienne and Asha almost certainly will be, because their utility in the story has come to an end - Brienne needed to meet Stoneheart and bring Jaime to her, and Asha needed to be our PoV of Stannis after he left Jon but before he captured Theon. That's really all there is too it.

I agree with @StarksInTheNorth with his/her division of characters in general, although I'd consider Euron to be a secondary character based on his importance to the larger plot, if not screen-time. Winds will definitely see a lot of PoVs culled, probably from having those storylines merged with older, more significant PoVs, e.g. Asha will be gone since she's met up with Theon, Barristan will be gone as soon as Tyrion and/or Dany show up in Meereen, etc. I'm almost certain that Brienne's PoV is over now that she's reunited with Jaime, although I think Jaime will definitely remain a PoV, at least for Winds. His story is not finished yet. Samwell's PoV won't be cut - he's our only PoV in that part of Westeros, and the Citadel/Oldtown is poised to become pretty important, it seems.

Arianne isn't a good example. Her storyline actually is completely distinct and separate from any of the "existing main characters". Her storyline isn't related to characters like Jon, Arya, Bran, Sansa, Tyrion or even Daenerys at this point; the only PoV she'll likely have contact/relevance with for the foreseeable future is Jon Connington, and he is very far from a main character. I know some people only want the series to be about the Starks and Tyrion and Daenerys, but the reality is that Martin wanted to massively expand the scope of the series, not just to add "set dressing" for the stories of the main characters, but because he was interested in the larger world and other characters' stories. An enormous amount of Feast would not have been kept if Martin only viewed his series as being about the Starks; he would have kept the five year gap if that was the case, because by his own admission there wasn't really much substance to the stories of Bran, Sansa and Arya after Storm. But the series has evolved beyond the point of just being about one really unlucky family; Martin has created an entire world of interesting families and factions, many of whom have very little to nothing to do with the Starks. And that's fine. I have no problem with it. I think some people need to accept the fact that this series is no longer just about the Starks, and hasn't been for a long time. Maybe the final book will have a renewed focus on the family, but we won't know until we read it (and it will probably never be released). Martin would not have wasted years upon years of time, and countless hundreds of pages, on non-Stark/non-Tyrion/non-Dany stories if he didn't think they were important in their own right. He's clearly a man that loves detailed, immersive worldbuilding, and part of that is understanding that a world is larger than a small handful of characters, and Martin has proved that time and time again.

Marry Viserys I (apparently very kind and easy-going) Bang Viserys II (apparently attractive in his youth, and otherwise a smart and normal guy) Kill the Beggar King (a psycho) Warrior Women Edition: Brienne of Tarth, Dacey Mormont, Asha Greyjoy

I'm also not worried. Reviewers and redditors can critique the series as much as they want for being "problematic", but the true fans of the series don't care about that. All we want is a great story, and Martin has proved time and time again that he is capable of delivering that, however long it takes. The ASoIaF fanbase is actually one of the least toxic and hostile I've ever seen for such a huge property. Most of that is probably due to it being very far removed from any semblance of modern politics, and that's a good thing.

From a thematic perspective, maybe, but considering that Bran's only had seven chapters across the last three books, it certainly doesn't feel that way. He consistently has fewer chapters than almost every other PoV, and until ADwD his chapters were mostly unremarkable exposition dumps about old stories and legends, or travelling across barren landscapes. Only when he meets Bloodraven has his story started to feel more relevant and significant. If any of the "Stark" children were to be the central protagonist, I'd say it's Jon. He's had both a very large amount of page-time (tied for top place with Tyrion) and his role in the story is arguably more important than any other character at the moment. In comparison Arya is completely irrelevant. Despite Martin giving her an absurd amount of chapters which mostly just contain padding of her wandering around the riverlands and getting captured by everyone, she hasn't actually done anything significant from a larger storytelling perspective. The focus on the Stark family has decreased with each book - the last two books have contained only a dozen Stark PoV chapters between them - barely as many as the Greyjoys, and far fewer than the Lannisters. Even though the entire series started with the Starks, I don't really believe that this means they're the most important thing in the series, and that everything will conclude with them. I think they were a very useful way to introduce the world of the series in a relatively contained way (the king's arrival at Winterfell), and expand the world by sending the family off in different directions. Rather than starting the series with PoVs in every region, Martin decided to expand the scope in a more gradual way.

No, you didn't specify that, you just said "Westeros" without any elaboration.

Well, the main reason would be that only two PoVs are currently in Meereen as of the end of ADwD, compared with sixteen in Westeros....

Yep. The idea that Stoneheart would repeat the exact same mistake she made in Clash by releasing Jaime again is hilarious. The entire point of Stoneheart is that she has none of the mercy or empathy of Catelyn, and does not forgive or forget. If Stoneheart captures Jaime and then trusts him again to fulfil some promise in King's Landing, it will be the dumbest thing Martin has ever written. I have more faith in him than that.

No evidence of this whatsoever

Storm had plenty of twists and turns as well, and is the longest book in the series. That came out two years after Clash. I don't think it's taken him a decade to work out the "Meereenese knot", and if it has, that means the rest of the series is doomed. Martin can write excellent chapters and passages that don't require a decade to write; see the rest of the series. I just don't feel like jumping through hoops and grasping at straws to justify this monumental delay. It is what it is. The book hasn't come out in a decade, and there's the very real possibility that it never will come out. I'm at peace with that.

In that case: Martin stopped working on the show in 2014/15. The last episode he wrote was for season 4, which aired in 2014 and was thus probably made in 2013. That means he hasn't had any actual writing work for the show in 8 years. His "involvement" with the show was relatively minimal (especially since D&D ignored most of his suggestions), and it ended a long time ago in any real capacity. Him being "busy" with the show is not a valid justification for the monumental delay with Winds.

I don't know if this was intended as sarcasm or not, so I'm not sure how to respond to it.

I predict that we'll still be arguing about our Winds of Winter predictions in another five years.

My head-canon says that this musician had secret Stark sympathies, and was doing this as a tiny bit of personal retribution for the Red Wedding.

I stopped watching in season 5 so I don't know about any new cast members are that, but from the first five seasons, the worst one, in my opinion, would possibly be Lena Heady. I know this is probably a controversial take, but I just never really saw her as being Cersei. Not only is she not even close to being "the most beautiful woman in the world" as the books describe her, and even the show at one point, but I also think the actress didn't have the right type of energy and attitude - a lot of that might be down to the writing and directing, granted, but I always thought that Heady kept delivering lines with far too little energy or charisma. Most of her dialogue comes across as excessively subdued and monotonous, whereas in the books Cersei is a very emotionally unstable and expressive character. I just don't think Heady's performance imbued enough of that charisma and expressiveness as befitting Cersei. She seemed to mostly just be bored, in her expressions and her line delivery.

What happened to the bodies of the dead Targaryens after the Rebellion? Were they given a proper burial? Cremated? I'm sure it's been mentioned in the books, but if so I've forgotten what was said.

A lot of people are still - understandably - in the "denial" stage. It'll take a long time before everyone gets to "acceptance".

No one denies that because of Varys's "little birds" he could have had Jaime killed any time he wanted, like Pycelle and Kevan; the issue is with your claim that Varys could easily overpower Jaime physically, of which there is absolutely no textual evidence for this, purely your own conjecture and assumption. I think you need to distance yourself from your adoration of the character and look at things more objectively (i.e. based purely on what the text tells us about this character). Calling a debate you can't win "a joke" is immature.

I understand the thematic reasons of why there "needs" to be a confrontation between Jaime and Cersei, from a traditional storytelling perspective, but at the same time I feel that if Martin were to end every storyline with the most obvious conclusion because it's what fits thematically, there'd be no surprises left in the story. Catelyn and Robb's storylines ended very abruptly and without any closure; they never even encountered any of the people that wanted to defeat - Cersei, Tywin, Joffrey - and were unceremoniously murdered by a minor character who had only showed up once before. I don't expect the storyline to actually end the way I said - I was merely outlining what the most purely realistic and logical way it would end based on the events as they currently are, not what fans predict. But I'm sure that if Jaime was going to be killed by Stoneheart it would have been included at the end of Dance, so.... yeah, I wouldn't worry about that happening, I'm sure he'll go to King's Landing and confront Cersei and it'll either end with him killing her, as every fan predicts, or them dying together, as the show had things happen. I can't say either conclusion particularly interests me, but I'm not the writer so it's not up to me.

If Martin was intent on having a realistic and logical conclusion to Jaime's arc, based on what we've seen on Stoneheart and the aDwD chapter, he'll be brought before Stoneheart, found guilty of his crimes, and hanged from a tree. An extremely bleak and nihilistic ending, to be sure, but it would have a certain poetic feel to it - hanged just as he was starting to truly turn his life around and be a better man, and hanged not for any of the crimes he really did commit, but for the one he actually did not. As much as I truly love Jaime as a character, I wouldn't necessarily have a problem with this ending. It would certainly be more unexpected and impactful than him going back to King's Landing and killing Cersei. Everyone and their cat is predicting this will happen, and it's never seemed particularly interesting or original to me.

I would have thought that Martin would have an instinctive aversion to collaborating on projects with HBO after GoT, but apparently not. Very disappointing.

There isn't any actual evidence to support this, just vague conjecture. Okay now this is just ridiculous. I know you're a fan of the character, but come on. This is a bit much. Unless he takes them completely by surprise and lands a single knock-out blow, there's no way he could take down a "professional warrior".

It should be released in whatever format is necessary for the book to actually be released. I don't care how it's released, I just want it to be released. But all of this is pointless theorising, because we don't even know when it will be released. For all we know it could be another five years.

That's a theoretical theme, yes, because it sounds very clever, but since Martin decided to massively expand the scope and length of the series, almost solely for the sake of the "irrelevant" political maneuvering, it suggests that he himself does not consider the politics to be irrelevant. If it truly was, he wouldn't have spent decades writing about it and going into extreme and mind-boggling depth with it. If all that really mattered was the Others threat, he would have kept the series as a simple trilogy that focused more on that.