The Egg

I want to reply to your post in the Two Books thread that is now closed.

I agree with you. It would have required a chapter or two from Feast moved to Storm, like Arya arriving in Braavos, and Bran getting to the Cave (it was only two chapters really). My only problem with the 5 year gap is having the White Walkers just milling about as no significant action of that sort should happen off screen.

But a a few paragraphs for each character to remember how hard training had been or whatever for Arya, how much vision gained for Bran and how much preparation each side had done for Jon, along with the weather getting continuously worse, and maybe the first hints of winter. The Boltons could have claimed Winterfell but faced continual insurrections and found the expense of maintaining both castles ruionous (the number one killer of businesses is expansion without sufficient planning).

Ah well, the path not taken, now I don't think we'll ever see a written form of the end of this series.