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I wish that Martin had kept the five year gap and instead made novellasof that time like Dunk and Egg


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Another antidote to the five year gap would have been to not make the character arc endings for A Storm of Swords so final.

For example, if you end with Jon 10 (the chapter where Stannis saves the Night's Watch) rather than Jon #12 (the chapter where Jon becomes Lord Commander and prepares to tell Stannis the news), then you have an easier transition.

Another way to make the five-year gap work is to:

  • give the Iron Bank a bigger role in the story by having them call in all debts which would force the War of the Five Kings into a brief armistice due to a lack of funds
  • keep Balon Greyjoy alive for a few more years
  • explain some of the motives and endgame of the Others earlier

@Lord Varys @SeanF @Pink Fat Rast @Rose of Red Lake @Megorova @Angel Eyes @StarksInTheNorth

What do you all think?

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10 hours ago, BlackLightning said:

Another antidote to the five year gap would have been to not make the character arc endings for A Storm of Swords so final.

For example, if you end with Jon 10 (the chapter where Stannis saves the Night's Watch) rather than Jon #12 (the chapter where Jon becomes Lord Commander and prepares to tell Stannis the news), then you have an easier transition.

Another way to make the five-year gap work is to:

  • give the Iron Bank a bigger role in the story by having them call in all debts which would force the War of the Five Kings into a brief armistice due to a lack of funds
  • keep Balon Greyjoy alive for a few more years
  • explain some of the motives and endgame of the Others earlier

@Lord Varys @SeanF @Pink Fat Rast @Rose of Red Lake @Megorova @Angel Eyes @StarksInTheNorth

What do you all think?

I think we needed more time, realistically, for Cersei's rule to collapse, and for the Sons of the Harpy insurgency to gather pace, for the slavers to assemble their forces against Meereen, and for Volantis to get to the point of being on the brink of revolution.  Tyion's period of enslavement could have been made longer.  

The only difficulty is the North, but I think that could have been solved by some form of stalemate.  Say, Stannis retakes Winterfell, but the Boltons get away, and still hold the Dreadfort.

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@BlackLightning Balon seemed unwilling to stop raiding or make any deals with anyone, which would make the timeskip without his death a problem. If Stannis had died at some point and Shireen was considered the heir to his claim, his forces would have a reason not to beat back the Ironborn on the western coast, though. Maybe decide to bunker down in the Nightfort or another Wall castle then reclaim her claim after the winter is over, when people are sick of Joffrey? Idk exactly how, but Stannis surviving is a big problem to continue without much actual change during the time skips because he's so driven to get what he wants, even willing to march his army through the world's most ridiculous blizzard.

@Mithras I wouldn't call it a "must" but depending on how TWOW ends I do think GRRM can and should successfully skip several months in a few chapters. He's done it before - Dany in Meereen is only one book but takes place over about half a year, there's a Bran FeastDance chapter that lasts two-is months. It's not official, but Alayne I in TWOW seems several months after her last AFFC chapter (Lyonel Corbray's wife is pregnant and far enough along they feel safe to announce it; Sweetrobin's hair has grown super long; it takes a while to send out invitations and prepare a tournament).

I'd imagine we get several chapters like that throughout both Winds and early Dream.

  • Travel in general. I know we all joked about "Varys' jetpack" back in season 6 of the show, but something like that would be useful. It's GRRM so I don't think it will be unrealistic, but I do think we'll see less travelogues than the previous Jaime, Brienne, Arya, and Tyrion chapters. Sort of like how Quentyn goes from Volantis to Astapor to Meereen in three chapters, even though that's months of traveling. I imagine we see lots of that.
    • Dany or Tyrion leave Meereen, spend one chapter a few weeks later on the dragon roads, and the next of either of them is in Volantis.
    • Sansa + co. decide to go to Winterfell, and her next chapter could be in Winterfell (this depends on where she confronts Littelfinger, and if the theory that she goes through the Riverlands is correct. I generally think no since the high road is snowed in already, but it is possible)
  • Bran's chapters are so far removed he can pretty easily timeskip as necessary
  • Theon + Yara can narrate the Battle of Winterfell and then just stay put. Open their next, post-victory chapter with "settling into Winterfell had it's troubles. The months of burnings displeased the northern lords . . ."  A timeskip there would make sense because, somewhat like Dany in Meereen, the changes will be pretty wide, rather than the more play-by-play chapters in a battle sequence. Theon can survive via the birds talking, and then be kept around if he admits the boys are alive and he needs to verify their identity. Or if he's dead, Yara is still around anyway.
  • Aegon can spend time working from Storm's End to shore up a coalition before marching on King's Landing, giving enough time for the Tyrell v. Lannister feud to resolve itself before he takes the city.
  • IMO, Winds ends with Cersei either leaving King's Landing or in Casterly Rock (to escape Aegon and crown Myrcella as queen in exile after Tommen's untimely death, bringing her new favorite septa, Tyene, with her, who will encourage her insanity and eventually poison Myrcella). If Cersei's last chapter is in Casterly Rock, it'll be at least a month timeskip since she'll need to cross the continent to get there. Something like "they had ridden their horses until they needed to be changed, hiding under cover of night as the moon turned black then showed its face again."
  • Areo Hotah's chasing of Darkstar can lead to some pretty big leaps in time, too.

 

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16 hours ago, BlackLightning said:

What do you all think?

I think that an idea that in ASOIAF should be a 5-years long time skip, was an option only until the point when GRRM actually started writing first books of the series. But when he actually wrote some of the plot that he had planned, he saw that that idea isn't realistic/workable, so he had to abandon it. Same as he had to abandon the original outline, in which ASOIAF was supposed to be a threelogy.

In my opinion, it's just impossible to match timings of all important characters and to write a synchronic "pause" for each of them prior making that fast-forward to 5 years later. What I mean is, let's take Jon's arc for example. In his case good place to "leave him be" for those 5 years was when he was "working undercover"/staying with the wildlings (but the problem here is that they would have most likely "converted" him, and he would have abandoned Night's Watch for real, married with Ygritte, had kids, etc., so he would have been a completely different person by then). GRRM could have made this work, with Jon becoming something like Mance Version 2. Then instead of Mance, leading the widlings to attack The Wall, it would have been Jon.

Though the problem is is that at the time when Jon went with the wildings, Arya was still at Westeros, and Sansa was still a hostage of the Lannisters. And then there's Sam.

There would have been no reason for Lannisters to keep Sansa unmarried. So they would have either married her to Tyrion, or to someone else. Eitherway, by the end of that 5-years skip, Sansa would have had kids. Because even Tyrion wouldn't have waited for more than a year or so prior consummating his marriage, whether Sansa would have been willing or not. Because after several months of their marriage, if Sansa didn't became pregnant, Tywin would have pressed Tyrion that he's such a disappointment, can't even impregnate his own wife. So Tyrion would have went along with his father's wishes. And Sansa with Tyrion's kids just wouldn't have worked for the further plot of her character arc. She wouldn't have abandoned her kids, and wouldn't have went with Littlefinger, to The Vale or wherever. Or if Tyrion wouldn't have impregnated Sansa, then Joffrey would have done it. It's Sansa's luck that Joffrey died when he did and not later. Or if the skip happened after Sansa came to The Eyrie, then by the end of it, she would have been married and with kids. Either Humfrey's or LF's, or maybe even Robert's. And "Sansa with kids" kind of plot, just wouldn't have worked, no matter whose those kids are.

Concerning Arya, if GRRM inserted the skip into her arc at the same time as when that skip occured in Jon's arc, then he wouldn't have wrote how exactly did she left Westeros and came to Braavos, and also he would have had to skip those chapters that were depicting how Arya was adapting to live amongst FM and learned their ways. And that's a lot of interesting plot elements to just skip them.

Furthermore, the only place where it was logically possible to make a skip in Sam's arc, is already after he left The Wall and went to the Citadel. But it wouldn't have worked with the arcs of the other characters. Because if Jon was staying with the wildlings for years, then without Jon, Sam would have died (he would have either been killed by the widlings, or by Thorne's cronies, or he would have commited suicide, because for someone like him the life at The Wall would have been unbearable (he was able to get through only because Jon helped him, and with Jon not there, Sam would have died)).

That "5-years time skip"-idea looked viable only theoretically, but when applied practically, it just doesn't work. Thus GRRM had to rethink it, and to write ASOIAF without it. Probably.

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It could have worked with few changes before the gap:

- Stannis dies at the Battle of Blackwater

- Davos goes into exile in Braavos with the remaining Stannis' supporters, Selyse, Shireen and Edric Storm

- Oberyn kills Gregor and survives

- Tyrion is sent to Winterfell with Sansa and Brienne to rule the North as the liege lord

- Jaime is sent to Casterly Rock to rule the Westerlands 

- Cersei is married to Willas Tyrell and sent to Highgarden

- Kevan replaces Tyrion as master of coin

- Tywin survives and stays the Hand of the King

- Victarion and Asha are captured by the Boltons then held hostage

- Balon survives

- The Wildling's army is crushed by Northmen led by Roose and Tyrion

- Rickon should be one year younger than Bran

 

Thanks to that, the kids would have enough time to grow up without disturbing the adults storylines. 

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On 8/4/2021 at 9:06 AM, Willam Stark said:

It could have worked with few changes before the gap:

- Stannis dies at the Battle of Blackwater

- Davos goes into exile in Braavos with the remaining Stannis' supporters, Selyse, Shireen and Edric Storm

- Oberyn kills Gregor and survives

- Tyrion is sent to Winterfell with Sansa and Brienne to rule the North as the liege lord

- Jaime is sent to Casterly Rock to rule the Westerlands 

- Cersei is married to Willas Tyrell and sent to Highgarden

- Kevan replaces Tyrion as master of coin

- Tywin survives and stays the Hand of the King

- Victarion and Asha are captured by the Boltons then held hostage

- Balon survives

- The Wildling's army is crushed by Northmen led by Roose and Tyrion

- Rickon should be one year younger than Bran

 

Thanks to that, the kids would have enough time to grow up without disturbing the adults storylines. 

You would end up with an entirely different story if you made these changes.

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On 7/31/2021 at 8:42 AM, StarksInTheNorth said:

@BlackLightning Balon seemed unwilling to stop raiding or make any deals with anyone, which would make the timeskip without his death a problem. If Stannis had died at some point and Shireen was considered the heir to his claim, his forces would have a reason not to beat back the Ironborn on the western coast, though. Maybe decide to bunker down in the Nightfort or another Wall castle then reclaim her claim after the winter is over, when people are sick of Joffrey? Idk exactly how, but Stannis surviving is a big problem to continue without much actual change during the time skips because he's so driven to get what he wants, even willing to march his army through the world's most ridiculous blizzard.

@Mithras I wouldn't call it a "must" but depending on how TWOW ends I do think GRRM can and should successfully skip several months in a few chapters. He's done it before - Dany in Meereen is only one book but takes place over about half a year, there's a Bran FeastDance chapter that lasts two-is months. It's not official, but Alayne I in TWOW seems several months after her last AFFC chapter (Lyonel Corbray's wife is pregnant and far enough along they feel safe to announce it; Sweetrobin's hair has grown super long; it takes a while to send out invitations and prepare a tournament).

I'd imagine we get several chapters like that throughout both Winds and early Dream.

  • Travel in general. I know we all joked about "Varys' jetpack" back in season 6 of the show, but something like that would be useful. It's GRRM so I don't think it will be unrealistic, but I do think we'll see less travelogues than the previous Jaime, Brienne, Arya, and Tyrion chapters. Sort of like how Quentyn goes from Volantis to Astapor to Meereen in three chapters, even though that's months of traveling. I imagine we see lots of that.
    • Dany or Tyrion leave Meereen, spend one chapter a few weeks later on the dragon roads, and the next of either of them is in Volantis.
    • Sansa + co. decide to go to Winterfell, and her next chapter could be in Winterfell (this depends on where she confronts Littelfinger, and if the theory that she goes through the Riverlands is correct. I generally think no since the high road is snowed in already, but it is possible)
  • Bran's chapters are so far removed he can pretty easily timeskip as necessary
  • Theon + Yara can narrate the Battle of Winterfell and then just stay put. Open their next, post-victory chapter with "settling into Winterfell had it's troubles. The months of burnings displeased the northern lords . . ."  A timeskip there would make sense because, somewhat like Dany in Meereen, the changes will be pretty wide, rather than the more play-by-play chapters in a battle sequence. Theon can survive via the birds talking, and then be kept around if he admits the boys are alive and he needs to verify their identity. Or if he's dead, Yara is still around anyway.
  • Aegon can spend time working from Storm's End to shore up a coalition before marching on King's Landing, giving enough time for the Tyrell v. Lannister feud to resolve itself before he takes the city.
  • IMO, Winds ends with Cersei either leaving King's Landing or in Casterly Rock (to escape Aegon and crown Myrcella as queen in exile after Tommen's untimely death, bringing her new favorite septa, Tyene, with her, who will encourage her insanity and eventually poison Myrcella). If Cersei's last chapter is in Casterly Rock, it'll be at least a month timeskip since she'll need to cross the continent to get there. Something like "they had ridden their horses until they needed to be changed, hiding under cover of night as the moon turned black then showed its face again."
  • Areo Hotah's chasing of Darkstar can lead to some pretty big leaps in time, too.

 

Varys and Littlefinger could write double patents for those jetpacks (though they might have to share with Euron considering that he managed to implement it to an fleet-wide scale).

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On 7/31/2021 at 6:30 AM, Mithras said:

Not necessarily 5 but a time jump of a couple of years after TWoW is a must for the ending to work. That is why TWoW has to be written and ended similar to ASoS.

I agree with this.

One year max, six months at minimum would be enough to suffice.

However, in order for such a time jump to work, the Wall would need to fall or be otherwise breached by the Others in either the Winds epilogue (meaning that there needs to be a significant time jump between the last chapter of Winds and its epilogue) or the Dream prologue

On 7/31/2021 at 8:36 AM, Megorova said:

I think that an idea that in ASOIAF should be a 5-years long time skip, was an option only until the point when GRRM actually started writing first books of the series. But when he actually wrote some of the plot that he had planned, he saw that that idea isn't realistic/workable, so he had to abandon it. Same as he had to abandon the original outline, in which ASOIAF was supposed to be a threelogy.

In my opinion, it's just impossible to match timings of all important characters and to write a synchronic "pause" for each of them prior making that fast-forward to 5 years later.

I agree.

Part of the problem here is that there is just such a massive geographical difference with all of the characters and that they are all doing different things. Like it would be easier if all of the characters were around a central location and there was an established connection between them.

For example, Daenerys hasn't officially connected with anyone from Westeros outside of Quentyn (who is dead) and Arya has effectively disconnected herself from Westeros. Cersei is in a lot of trouble in King's Landing, Sam has only just begun is studies in Oldtown and Stannis is snowed in with an army descending upon. They're at least 1500 miles separating them and their plotlines have different urgencies

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12 minutes ago, Angel Eyes said:

Varys and Littlefinger could write double patents for those jetpacks (though they might have to share with Euron considering that he managed to implement it to an fleet-wide scale).

Don´t forget Gendrys marathon world record, followed by instant raven-mail and Drogon/Dany inventing warp drives for Dragons. That was the most ridiculous by far.

 

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