Would you like an AFFC/ADWD like split of Winds?

[JonisHenryTudor]

No one's boycotting ADOS no matter how GRRM releases his next book(s). People can say what they want on social media, but the second it's announced everyone is pre ordering it.

Yes and No. 

 

No, because the fans of aSoIaF will most likely want an ending.

 

 

Yes: for a couple reasons. While the fan base is divided over the last two installments, the majority of fans seem to fit into the dislike category. Now I maintain that even though I disliked FfC, I still think it is much better than most books out there. Compared to the rest of the series, I hated it. But for me that is because the characters in FfC were mostly uninteresting... 

 

1. I think we can agree for most people the split didn't end well. Regardless of which side you stand on, the majority seem to dislike the two books in general. Considering that our last great book was published in 2000 and we have sat through two mediocre books for roughly 15 years, I think that alone would create some problems. If news came out that Martin split WoW, most fans would probably be apprehensive since FfC is mostly considered a disaster. Now, I am basing this on what most people tend to say, not the sliver of people who rate FfC as the best book in the series (sorry, the minority doesn't count here). 

1a. If he splits and the first portion of WoW falls flat, then I think Martin would have a very real problem. Based on his latest track record (let's say the book is published later this year), we would have to wait until 2020/21 for the second half of WoW. That would suggest that 20 years would pass with just three shitty books (I personally liked DwD). Many fans at that point may lose interest and give up on the series altogether and just accept the tv series. This is not entirely far fetched, and I think disallowing it is a little naive. I know numerous sports fans who love specific sports, but absolutely refuse to watch anymore because of rule changes, current crop of athletes, etc. I am not talking about casual sports fans, but the type who used to live-breathe-drink the sport. If those sorts of people can suddenly stop watching sports altogether, it is naive to think people won't write aSoIaF off. It will happen. 

**Now if he splits, but the first half is simply amazing...well he could probably get away with that. 

 

2. With the reality that the tv series is bypassing the novels in about 4 months, this could easily be a dagger in the story for some people. Again this is if a split were to occur and the book is poorly done. Now I don't want to get into a discussion of "two different mediums", because I find that to be utterly BS. Paths may be different, but ending is the same. I dont care if the show transports Ayra to KL and she murders Cersei, but Martin has her travelling for several chapters before doing it--the result is the same so spoiled is spoiled. I really don't care about the meat. If it doesn't change the end result, spoiled is spoiled. But hey, if you want to convince yourself otherwise, feel free to. But that is all I will say on that...to the point now. If Martin were to split, it could cause people to say "F it" and just turn to the tv series. I think this would be a particular problem if he wrote a terrible first book. I personally think splitting the book would be a disaster now. The tv series will pass the books, and delaying the story any more is going to upset people.

 

WoW needs to be published a single installment. Anything else would not be wise... 

[JonisHenryTudor]

Brienne had 8 chapters in AFFC.  Eight...  all of which further developed the post-Wo5K world these characters have been forced to live in.  Brienne meets Randyll Tarly, Septon Merribald, the Elder Brother and his grave digger, Gendry, the BWB, Lady Stoneheart and a variety of lesser characters in her travels.  if you got nothing out of those chapters besides "i'm looking for a highborn maid of three-and-ten, with a fair face and auburn hair..." then i am surprised/impressed that you even made it that far into the book series. 

Important to the story? Yes. Inetresting? Not at all. Sorry just because something is important, does not immediately equate to interesting. 

 

History is incredibly important. Yet 90% of my students whine about how boring it is. 

[JonisHenryTudor]

To be fair Cas Stark, I think the big issue you have with feast would be the omission of Stark characters, or any of the previous "hero" characters? It's mostly "villainous" and new characters or side characters from the previous books.

This is probably the huge reason for me. I fell in love with the series because of the Starks. I like other characters to be sure, but if every Stark was dead including Jon, I would probably quit the series because the other characters do not interest me in the same way. For me, the Starks are the cornerstone for the entire series. Remove them, and I could care less what happens... Just my personal opinion. The other characters (well written yes) simply do not resonate with me like the Starks do.. 

[Mr Fixit]

 I like Kevan's death as much as anyone and while it was a powerful stopping point for the book, it really just felt like that, a stopping point and not really an ending. The fact that nearly every other characters story ended in a cliffhanger didn't help the books ending either.

Although that last chapter was pretty cool, I always thought it would be better served as the prologue to TWoW because it is the beginning of a new storyline that'll probably be central to that book. 

[Lord Varys]

Which makes it even more crazy when Martin apologists say things like GRRM does not owe his readers anything or that GRRM is not your bitch etc. His readers have read novels that don't have definite beginnings or ends with the implicit understanding that we will get an ending. GRRM has a moral obligation to his readers at the very least.

Well, he is writing, is he not? One could perhaps argue that he should have written the whole series before publishing anything (that would have made AGoT a much better book, by the way) but I know I'd never have read any of that in that case.

And he really doesn't owe anyone anything. Any reader with half a brain knew that he or she was reading a book series that was not finished yet. There are people smart enough not to pick up an unfinished book series, you know.

As to the North: The show has rather little to spoil about that considering that Stannis is still alive in the books. He'll most likely deal with Roose and Ramsay in the books (or at least partially, getting them out of Winterfell - my personal guess is that Ramsay will die during the battle at the lake, possibly being killed by Theon, whereas cautious Roose might be able to slip out of Winterfell shortly before the remaining Northmen turn against him, retreating to the Dreadfort) whereas it is obvious that somebody else has to do that in the show where Stannis is already dead.

I'll admit that most of the books have the feeling of an ending to them. However the last two books, while certainly do have a beginning, do not really have an ending. I suppose Feast has a better one than Dance I suppose, with Sam meeting "Pate", so the story in a sense comes full circle. The fact that it took Sam over nearly an entire book to get to Old Town however was a joke, but that's besides the point. Dance's "ending" however was more of a "meanwhile back at the Red Keep". I like Kevan's death as much as anyone and while it was a powerful stopping point for the book, it really just felt like that, a stopping point and not really an ending. The fact that nearly every other characters story ended in a cliffhanger didn't help the books ending either.

The books all have sort of the illusions of beginnings and endings (AGoT aside, of course, but even that sort of begins in the middle because there is such an important back story - the Rebellion - from the recent past that it is not even a real beginning). Many of the books actually could have ended with a different POV chapter than they actually did because many of the chapters have sort of a twist or a cliffhanger at the end. Certainly not so much the early chapters but if you enter into the middle or the last chapters of the book you get that feeling.

And the endings themselves seldom leave you happy or with the feeling of closure. ACoK's overall ending is a joke: Stannis defeated but not dead, Winterfell destroyed, Bran on the way to whatever, Theon and Davos' fate is unclear, and so on. Or take ASoS: The Epilogue begins an entirely new story, Catelyn's quest for revenge. For Jon, Dany, and Arya begin entirely new, possibly even more interesting stories. Sansa and Tyrion are left at the worst cliffhangers ever. Even AGoT shows that merely the Prologue is over. If did not have ACoK to continue back then I'd have been very pissed at that ending - Robb is suddenly king, the search for the Others finally beginning, Dany having dragons, Tyrion becoming Acting Hand, etc.

Samwell not reaching Oldtown in AFfC is no different, in my opinion, from Arya getting nowhere in both ACoK and ASoS. Her chapters were the greatest nuisance for me in those books because I pretty much didn't give a damn about any of the characters in her chapters during my first read.

I'd agree that AFfC should have included Cersei's walk and perhaps even Kevan's death as an Epilogue (it makes more sense as an Epilogue, I think, because Varys demonstrates that the Lannisters - and the Tyrells, if they don't switch sides again - are done now, because they don't even know what they are up against). The KL story didn't progress much in ADwD but in light of the Aegon plot there is a much better closure to the whole thing than there was in AFfC - during which it seems the only plot was Cersei fucking things up with no recognizable purpose - but in light of Aegon's invasion the Lannister-Tyrell animosity makes sense. We can guess what's going to happen there - Aegon will most likely take KL in the next book. A lot of the irritation that was prevalent prior to the publication of ADwD was that even the KL story didn't seem to make much sense. And the Brienne cliffhanger was actually too convincing. There were quite a few people who actually thought she was dead.

[sifth]

 

Samwell not reaching Oldtown in AFfC is no different, in my opinion, from Arya getting nowhere in both ACoK and ASoS. Her chapters were the greatest nuisance for me in those books because I pretty much didn't give a damn about any of the characters in her chapters during my first read.

 

You've made some really good points and I agree with you on many of them, but this little paragraph stuck out to me the most. Comparing Sam to Arya, I just don't feel is true. While you're right that Arya did a lot of traveling in the second and third book, she also happened to witness some of the most epic events of the series, visited some of the series biggest locations and she was captured and gave us insight on several of the series factions.

 

All Sam's journey really gave us was, the average life for a person who works on a boat, a little of Maester Aemon's past (probably the best stuff from Sam's chapters), Bravos, and the Summer Islanders enjoy to celibate sex a lot. Don't get me wrong, Sam's eulogy to Maester Aemon made me cry and I loved reading it, but was it wort Sam basically doing nothing for an entire book...............I'm gona have to say no. I mean most of the Bravos stuff for example was already being given to us by Arya in the first place.

[Cas Stark]

Yeah, Sam and Arya are not comparable.  It's true he could have cut down Arya's chapters and streamlined her adventures.  It might have been better to have started Sam's POV when he got to Oldtown and we would learn of Maester Aemon's death when Sam thought back on it in a flashback.  Because other than that, there is really nothing in any of Sam's chapters that is important to the story.  More filler.

[Guest]

I would hate to have it split by character like those books were, but if it can be broken temporally and we can get a 400-500 page book sooner, I would be all for that.

[Guest]

Yeah, Sam and Arya are not comparable.  It's true he could have cut down Arya's chapters and streamlined her adventures.  It might have been better to have started Sam's POV when he got to Oldtown and we would learn of Maester Aemon's death when Sam thought back on it in a flashback.  Because other than that, there is really nothing in any of Sam's chapters that is important to the story.  More filler.

 I think Sam could be important, that horn does something - and I think it is something HUGE. 

[Lord Varys]

You've made some really good points and I agree with you on many of them, but this little paragraph stuck out to me the most. Comparing Sam to Arya, I just don't feel is true. While you're right that Arya did a lot of traveling in the second and third book, she also happened to witness some of the most epic events of the series, visited some of the series biggest locations and she was captured and gave us insight on several of the series factions.

 

All Sam's journey really gave us was, the average life for a person who works on a boat, a little of Maester Aemon's past (probably the best stuff from Sam's chapters), Bravos, and the Summer Islanders enjoy to celibate sex a lot. Don't get me wrong, Sam's eulogy to Maester Aemon made me cry and I loved reading it, but was it wort Sam basically doing nothing for an entire book...............I'm gona have to say no. I mean most of the Bravos stuff for example was already being given to us by Arya in the first place.

Well, I guess you just care to much about irrelevant characters than I do. Arya's story creeps on very slowly, and there are an awful lot of those chapters. I'm not saying that none of this completely irrelevant but just as a lot of the later stuff could have been shown in a different manner, there is no question that George could easily have skipped the whole Arya story in both ACoK and ASoS without any effect on the overall plot of the novels. Especially the arc in ASoS is vexing. Arya is just dragged on by various people, trying to reach a place she will never reach. And I'm not sure many people she is meeting during the journey are important - perhaps Edric Dayne and Thoros are, perhaps not.

This is even more the case for most or even all of the Bran chapters in the first three books. He just doesn't do anything, and a different POV (Robb, Theon) could have done much better there than the child who doesn't witness important political discussions all that much nor explores any of the magic stuff that is going to be important later on in those early chapters (or if he does he does so in a very superficial and subtle way so that you only guess/realize the importance during a reread when you already know ADwD).

Arya and Bran were my least favorite POVs throughout the first three books, and that only changed with Arya reaching Braavos and Bran reaching the cave. Sansa was by comparison much better because she was in KL and witnessed a lot of interesting stuff. And now her giving us insights into Littlefinger's plans is even more interesting (mostly due to the fact that we know what Littlefinger is capable of).

I think the fact that the Sam arc is criticized so much is mostly due to the fact that AFfC is not a very big book, containing not so many different POVs as the others. Arya's and Bran's boring ACoK and ASoS chapters are less important due to the fact that a lot of more interesting stuff is going on in those books. By comparison I think what Samwell finds out in AFfC is no different than what the reader finds out through Arya in ASoS (flaming sword stuff, prophecies of the Ghost of High Heart) - who the promised prince seems to be, and what Aemon tells him in addition (cryptic prophecies to decipher) - or what the reader learns from Meera's tale in ASoS.

Yeah, Sam and Arya are not comparable.  It's true he could have cut down Arya's chapters and streamlined her adventures.  It might have been better to have started Sam's POV when he got to Oldtown and we would learn of Maester Aemon's death when Sam thought back on it in a flashback.  Because other than that, there is really nothing in any of Sam's chapters that is important to the story.  More filler.

I'm not so sure - Arya meeting Sam might turn out to become very important. More so the fact that she didn't reveal her identity to him. Remember that Jaqen Faceless Man is at Citadel now, with Sam, and whatever his job is it is certainly connected to the overall story (access to ancient dragonlore books). The important question now is whether this is just a job the Faceless Men took or whether it is part of their very own agenda - after all, it seems as if they caused the Doom. Whatever brings Arya back into the main story will connected to all that, and whatever superficial her connection to Sam now is it may be very crucial at one point in the story.

I don't know where Arya will go and what she'll do but I think she'll have to have a very good reason not to become a Faceless Girl/Woman and stay with them, and that must have to do with their ultimate plan/agenda not so much with their day-to-day policy. She already murders people for them, after all.

Arya going back to the Riverlands to join Nymeria is a no-go in my opinion. If that was the case she would never have gone to Braavos in the first place, and there would also be no need for her to gain more control and awareness of her skinchanger abilities in Braavos. Soon she'll be able to control Nymeria over a distance. She does not have to be in Westeros to use her wolf army to wreak havoc there...

[Guest]

Agree with everything you say about storyline (we can disagree that slow pacing can be be good writing) but I do think Arya and Nymeria make sense.  If Arya can Warg and be a FM?  That would be powerful.

[sifth]

Well, I guess you just care to much about irrelevant characters than I do. Arya's story creeps on very slowly, and there are an awful lot of those chapters. I'm not saying that none of this completely irrelevant but just as a lot of the later stuff could have been shown in a different manner, there is no question that George could easily have skipped the whole Arya story in both ACoK and ASoS without any effect on the overall plot of the novels. Especially the arc in ASoS is vexing. Arya is just dragged on by various people, trying to reach a place she will never reach. And I'm not sure many people she is meeting during the journey are important - perhaps Edric Dayne and Thoros are, perhaps not.

Shortened for space.

 

I think saying Arya's entire journey in books 2 and 3 was pointless is going a little too far. I mean without those chapters we would have had nothing with The Brotherhood Without Banners, Jaquen H'ghard and the Faceless Men, and all the screwed up stuff the Lannister's were doing in the River Lands. Most of all we would have nothing from The Hound, personally one of my favorite characters. From your perspective I'm assuming The Hound, Jaquen (or whatever he's called), Gendry and all of the other characters Arya meets who aren't dead are only bit players, which to be fair might be true. However I still found these characters to be insanely more interesting than anyone Sam met on his filler quest to Old Town. Even the characters who died such as Beric I really enjoyed.

 

Without Arya's chapters the first time we would see the Brotherhood Without Banners would be in the epilogue of A Storm of Swords. I for one would be confused as hell why a zombie Cat is hanging out with a bunch of silly outlaws.

 

Part of reading is being entertained and other than the Maester Aemon stuff, I really was not entertained by Sam's chapters.

 

BTW: I agree with 100% on Bran's chapters. To this day he's my least favorite POV, until he gets to the other side of The Wall that is.

[Cas Stark]

 

Shortened for space.

 

I think saying Arya's entire journey in books 2 and 3 was pointless is going a little too far. I mean without those chapters we would have had nothing with The Brotherhood Without Banners, Jaquen H'ghard and the Faceless Men, and all the screwed up stuff the Lannister's were doing in the River Lands. Most of all we would have nothing from The Hound, personally one of my favorite characters. From your perspective I'm assuming The Hound, Jaquen (or whatever he's called), Gendry and all of the other characters Arya meets who aren't dead are only bit players, which to be fair might be true. However I still found these characters to be insanely more interesting than anyone Sam met on his filler quest to Old Town. Even the characters who died such as Beric I really enjoyed.

 

Without Arya's chapters the first time we would see the Brotherhood Without Banners would be in the epilogue of A Storm of Swords. I for one would be confused as hell why a zombie Cat is hanging out with a bunch of silly outlaws.

 

Part of reading is being entertained and other than the Maester Aemon stuff, I really was not entertained by Sam's chapters.

 

BTW: I agree with 100% on Bran's chapters. To this day he's my least favorite POV, until he gets to the other side of The Wall that is.

This.  

I have the opposite take on Bran, I love all his chapters, but the further North they got the duller and more repetitive they felt to me. 

[Barristan Whitebeard]

If I had been GRRM's editor, I would:

 

* Combined AFFC/ADWD in a single book.

* Removed Quentyn, Arys, Damphair and Jon Con POV chapters completely.

* Cut half of the POV chapters for Sam, Brienne and Jaime.

* Cut a third of the POV chapters for Tyrion, Cersei, Jon and Dany.

 

* Added the Battles of Ice and Fire and a proper ending for the Brienne/Jaime/Stoneheart arc.

 

Now you have a really stand out novel.

[Good Guy Garlan]

This.  

I have the opposite take on Bran, I love all his chapters, but the further North they got the duller and more repetitive they felt to me. 

Same here, I loved his chapters in Clash - I mean, he had an actual complete character arc there and a pretty strong ending - but in Storm he sort of lost me. I feel his storyline there needed a bit more meat? Like, it's telling that the most memorable thing that happened in those chapters was that Meera told a story. And at the end he just vanished like, see you in 10 years. 

[Cas Stark]

Yeah, I loved Bran in Clash also.  But as time has gone on GRRM has seemingly been obsessed with timing and how everyone gets to wherever, or even if X isn't doing anything he feels the need to write several chapters about them anyway, unless he doesn't, LOL and they disappear for one or two books with only a chapter or two.  Even though there are not that many Bran chapters in Swords and Dance...we could still have done with half the number and not lost much. I will never understand the reason for 10 Dany chapters in Dance and for god's sake 12 Tyrion chapters where he does fuck all that is relevant except meets Griff.  That's just a crazy amount of padding.  Same for Jon too,  13 chapters not necessary even though more happens in his chapters, but still. 

Everything out of balance.

[Lord Varys]

I think saying Arya's entire journey in books 2 and 3 was pointless is going a little too far. I mean without those chapters we would have had nothing with The Brotherhood Without Banners, Jaquen H'ghard and the Faceless Men, and all the screwed up stuff the Lannister's were doing in the River Lands. Most of all we would have nothing from The Hound, personally one of my favorite characters. From your perspective I'm assuming The Hound, Jaquen (or whatever he's called), Gendry and all of the other characters Arya meets who aren't dead are only bit players, which to be fair might be true. However I still found these characters to be insanely more interesting than anyone Sam met on his filler quest to Old Town. Even the characters who died such as Beric I really enjoyed.

Well, there it is. We all have our preferences. I actually had difficulties liking those books. It was sold to me as 'adult fantasy' but what I got was political intrigue and the adventures and exploits of children. That didn't work well at first, and despite having spent so much of my lifetime discussing those I still wonder why I should care who sits the Iron Throne in the end.

For me it was the rereads that made much of the children's stuff work. The fact that there is still a lot of interesting stuff in there you tend to miss during a first or even second read. However, I still prefer any grown-up POV (Jon and Dany included among them) over any child POV save, perhaps, Arya due to the state of mind she is in now and Bran due to the knowledge he might gain in future chapters (and the powers he might have).

But I'd certainly uphold my assessment that most of the characters Arya meets during her travels are irrelevant. They show the effects of war but so do Brienne's chapters later on - which I'd find more interesting than Arya being Arry or Weasel or Nan or whoever. The Brotherhood could easily have been introduced via reports, as could seemingly immortal Dondarrion. Strictly speaking, we did not need any of that, and most people tend to forget who showed up during all those chapters. Who remembers the outlaw village in the trees, the Mad Huntsman of Stony Sept, or Lady Smallwood? 

Sandor is an interesting character, but he is not relevant for the plot after he has left KL. Everything he does throughout ASoS is literally pointless, and ASoS would have certainly worked much better if we had gotten the first Aeron chapter and the whole Kingsmoot in that book, rather than AFfC, instead of pointless travelogue. And, of course, ASoS's last Bran chapter should have been his second ADwD chapter, to finally bring his arc to a good conclusion in that book instead of just cutting him off. That I found so out of place when I first read ASoS since I never even had the idea that there wouldn't be another Bran chapter considering how many pages there were left.

Not sure what's there to like in the Bran chapters of ACoK. He effectively does nothing in there. He is always sad, not getting along with the Freys, and then he has the Reeds but even they don't tell him much or do much. Everything else that happens is simply witnessed by him or told to him (Ironborn attacks, Hornwood trouble, Ramsay trouble) and then comes Theon who serves as a decent Winterfell POV.

Most of his chapters convey emotions and a general feeling (a depopulated Winterfell, despair, a sense of foreboding) just as many of the other quieter chapters in the later books do.

But then, I really thing AGoT is the worst book in the series. It makes far too many jumps ahead in the story. George was completely wrong when he believed he could have the characters become adults during the series but he quickly understood that this didn't work. You cannot write a books series the way he does and then have huge jumps ahead in time between chapters. I just finished Tad Williams' Osten Ard series (which greatly influenced the ASoIaF) which actually has two years pass in the first book, and that doesn't work at all.

A slower pace actually works much better than the pace in AGoT. In the first book you never have a real interaction between Catelyn and her daughters, between Ned and Jon Snow, between Robert and Joffrey, or Benjen and Ned. George writing the same book now would have done a much better job. If you compare the early chapters of AGoT with the early chapters of AFfC - say, the Prologue or 'The Captain of Guards' then it is pretty clear which contain the better prose.

[sifth]

Well, there it is. We all have our preferences. I actually had difficulties liking those books. It was sold to me as 'adult fantasy' but what I got was political intrigue and the adventures and exploits of children. That didn't work well at first, and despite having spent so much of my lifetime discussing those I still wonder why I should care who sits the Iron Throne in the end.

For me it was the rereads that made much of the children's stuff work. The fact that there is still a lot of interesting stuff in there you tend to miss during a first or even second read. However, I still prefer any grown-up POV (Jon and Dany included among them) over any child POV save, perhaps, Arya due to the state of mind she is in now and Bran due to the knowledge he might gain in future chapters (and the powers he might have).

But I'd certainly uphold my assessment that most of the characters Arya meets during her travels are irrelevant. They show the effects of war but so do Brienne's chapters later on - which I'd find more interesting than Arya being Arry or Weasel or Nan or whoever. The Brotherhood could easily have been introduced via reports, as could seemingly immortal Dondarrion. Strictly speaking, we did not need any of that, and most people tend to forget who showed up during all those chapters. Who remembers the outlaw village in the trees, the Mad Huntsman of Stony Sept, or Lady Smallwood? 

Sandor is an interesting character, but he is not relevant for the plot after he has left KL. Everything he does throughout ASoS is literally pointless, and ASoS would have certainly worked much better if we had gotten the first Aeron chapter and the whole Kingsmoot in that book, rather than AFfC, instead of pointless travelogue. And, of course, ASoS's last Bran chapter should have been his second ADwD chapter, to finally bring his arc to a good conclusion in that book instead of just cutting him off. That I found so out of place when I first read ASoS since I never even had the idea that there wouldn't be another Bran chapter considering how many pages there were left.

Not sure what's there to like in the Bran chapters of ACoK. He effectively does nothing in there. He is always sad, not getting along with the Freys, and then he has the Reeds but even they don't tell him much or do much. Everything else that happens is simply witnessed by him or told to him (Ironborn attacks, Hornwood trouble, Ramsay trouble) and then comes Theon who serves as a decent Winterfell POV.

Most of his chapters convey emotions and a general feeling (a depopulated Winterfell, despair, a sense of foreboding) just as many of the other quieter chapters in the later books do.

But then, I really thing AGoT is the worst book in the series. It makes far too many jumps ahead in the story. George was completely wrong when he believed he could have the characters become adults during the series but he quickly understood that this didn't work. You cannot write a books series the way he does and then have huge jumps ahead in time between chapters. I just finished Tad Williams' Osten Ard series (which greatly influenced the ASoIaF) which actually has two years pass in the first book, and that doesn't work at all.

A slower pace actually works much better than the pace in AGoT. In the first book you never have a real interaction between Catelyn and her daughters, between Ned and Jon Snow, between Robert and Joffrey, or Benjen and Ned. George writing the same book now would have done a much better job. If you compare the early chapters of AGoT with the early chapters of AFfC - say, the Prologue or 'The Captain of Guards' then it is pretty clear which contain the better prose.

So you're actually defending a slower pace story over a fast paced one. Pretty sure the slow placing is one of the key reasons many don't enjoy George's last two books.

[Cas Stark]

George writing a Game of Thrones now it would probably be 2 books, who knows maybe 3.  LOL.  

GOT is my favorite book in the series for the very reason that his writing is so dense.  He conveys an unbelievable amount of information, mood, back story, foreshadowing in the first 100 pages.  There aren't any paragraph long food descriptions, nobody goes on a tangent to nowhere, everything in the book is important and the story does not get bogged down in unnecessary details.

But you can tell the story is starting to get away from him by Storm of Swords where yes, there is a lot that happens but things aren't tied up well for all the stories.  However, the writing doesn't feel full of filler the way it does in Dance.  To me anyway.  

[Blade of Sunlight]

I think a split would be terrible, but like anything it would depend on the execution, there may be a way to pull it off (but I don't think so),

Regarding the excessive number of chapters for some characters, as I see it there are chapters with little action in order to create suspense, helping the pacing of the overall book/story.
In some cases chapters are required to avoid abandoning characters, most Bran chapters probably fit here, he will likely only be truly important when he actually uses the weirnet.
Another bunch of boring Chapters/PoV are used to show places never seen, plenty of those in affc and adwd, GRRM simply got bored/stuck and decided to show action with new characters instead of using existing ones (or at least fewer new ones)

A faster pace has a somewhat jarring effect in this kind of book, though GRRM has been pushing it, limiting the time passed between chapters doesn't have to mean story progress slowing down to a crawl, which is what happens in recent books. In my opinion he should accelerate quite a bit streamlining side plots.

On a side note, after the last book is published (probably the 8th or 9th if he keeps the current pace), he could spend his free time editing the books into a "director's cut" with rearranged chapters, maybe cutting some and adding others, so that future readers are spared the weird disappearance of nearly all major characters in AFFC and the quasi soap opera cliffhangers that have no place in the end of a book (though by then it won't matter as much since there's no waiting a decade for the next book)