Should GRRM trim the Battle of Mereen chapters?

[Tyrion1991]

Just as a preface, I was bitterly disappointed that GRRM decided they couldn’t fit the battle into ADWD. Almost the entire book is from the ground up building towards that battle. It’s clearly intended to be Blackwater with Dragons. In fact it’s much bigger in scope and scale than Blackwater. This was obviously the big finale after two books of buildup. The result is that ADWD is an unfinished book. 

However GRRM clearly did write most of these chapters. A cursory glance on the previews shows a lot of them. About three chapters each for Barristan, Tyrion and Victarion; with more probably following. 

That said, I think these chapters should be summarised and trimmed down for TWOW. It does not make sense to have a sprawling climactic battle at the start of the novel. All of ADWD builds towards this battle and that gravitas is meant to make it carry weight. When you start TWOW, that won’t transfer, even if you recall every name and what’s going on. It’s a bizarre way to start a novel. It’s not like The Fist of the First Men because of the amount of material and chapters. It’s mostly dead weight.

Another reason, is that by using these chapters as preview content he has effectively spoilt a large chunk of what was meant to be the climactic battle of TWOW. It’s falls incredibly flat IMO. Stripped of context from a half remembered book it has no weight. 

Another reason, is that before ADWD came out GRRM was not aware of people’s apathy towards this battle. I really do believe that he thought he was going to get another Blackwater and capture lightning in a bottle.They might care about Stannis, but this grand battle he set up is just not what people are interested in. They consider it a sideshow to Westeros. So he could opt to focus more on Aegon and Stannis’s early book fights because he knows that’s what people want to see.

So I think most of this material should go because it makes more sense to gracefully move the plot on rather than pretend that you can cram the ending of ADWD into another book without reducing material in the TWOW. As mentioned above, I would have loved to have got the battle in ADWD. I cannot understand his decision to do so. But GRRM could not fit that in. So he should cut his losses and use those chapters to push the story forward. 

I can envisage this being a major issue in TWOW. GRRM probably has written vastly more material than can be put into a book and is perfectly naturally loathe to cut good work that he worked hard on. I mean, how is he meant to fit Aegons conquest, Stannis and Meereen in without taking up most of TWOW?

 

[BlackLightning]

On 5/1/2019 at 4:44 PM, Tyrion1991 said:

Just as a preface, I was bitterly disappointed that GRRM decided they couldn’t fit the battle into ADWD. Almost the entire book is from the ground up building towards that battle. It’s clearly intended to be Blackwater with Dragons. In fact it’s much bigger in scope and scale than Blackwater. This was obviously the big finale after two books of buildup. The result is that ADWD is an unfinished book. 

However GRRM clearly did write most of these chapters. A cursory glance on the previews shows a lot of them. About three chapters each for Barristan, Tyrion and Victarion; with more probably following. 

I agree. Although originally the Battle of Winterfell and the Battle of Meereen were both supposed to be in Dance (I really don't know how and why he thought that would have worked), the Battle of Meereen should have been included in Dance.

I understand that Dance is pretty long. But, at the very least, he should have shown us some of the beginning of the battle and left us off with a big cliffhanger.

Because of his inability to cut down on the fluff in Dance (e.g. Jaime and Cersei's chapters should have been in Feast, a lot of the content in Daenerys and Tyrion's chapters are filler), he now has to include at least four very big battles in The Winds of Winter.