How would the fandom feel about a time jump during or after TWOW?

[Bendric Dayne]

I'd prefer it if there wasn't a time jump, but I prefer a time jump to set up the ending over a rushed ending of the series. So I don't think it would be too bad if GRRM spends half of TWOW or the whole book to get characters to a certain point in their stories where a time jump makes sense. For example, I think characters like Arya, Sam, Sansa, and Bran are already in a decent place for a time jump so GRRM could just write one chapter for each establishing what they are doing, and what they will be doing for the duration of the time jump. Other characters would need to do more things to get to a place in their stories where a time jump makes sense. For example, Tyrion and Arianne have to fight their respective battles before the time jump. GRRM can then do the time jump and explain how Tyrion was basically traveling back to Westeros for most of the time jump, and Arianne was seizing more castles with YG. Again, I'd rather the series continue without time jumps, (ideally, we would spend as much time as necessary to reach the ending and as much time as necessary in the ending as well, no matter how many books it takes, but I'm not sure if it's possible with only two books remaining) but I'm not sure if it can be finished without rushing some parts. So a time jump might be the best way to skip over some details of how we get to the end, but then we ultimately spend more time with the ending. 

[James Steller]

A time jump between TWOW and ADOS makes more sense.

[Aejohn the Conqueroo]

I'd be interested in the author's interviews about it.

[Bendric Dayne]

2 hours ago, James Steller said:

A time jump between TWOW and ADOS makes more sense.

Yeah I think one of the more disappointing aspects of the show was how short winter was, when they talked about how it was basically going to be the Long Night pt.2. Although the title for the last book, A Dream For Spring, does make it sound like the series will end in winter still. But either way a time jump can really let winter marinate with characters remarking how miserable it has been and everything. A time jump could make it feel more like the Long Night. 

 

27 minutes ago, Aejohn the Conqueroo said:

I'd be interested in the author's interviews about it.

Does he have interviews about this topic? It would be interesting to see. I'm not sure how much a time jump is on his radar, but it could make sense. Guess, we'll see!

[Aejohn the Conqueroo]

55 minutes ago, Bendric Dayne said:

Does he have interviews about this topic? It would be interesting to see. I'm not sure how much a time jump is on his radar, but it could make sense. Guess, we'll see!

I meant after the fact and in light of all he said about the planned and abandoned time jump between Storm and Dance/ Feast. There would be questions

[James Steller]

5 hours ago, Bendric Dayne said:

Yeah I think one of the more disappointing aspects of the show

Balin: ”it’s not a show! IT’S AN ABOMINATION!”

[Lord of Raventree Hall]

Honestly, I just want GRRM to .....produce the book. Like, I think what is actually happening is he has actually written TOO much material. At this point, I'd just be okay with it. Give me like 5 chapters of characters doing absolutely nothing, just produce the book GRRM, lol. An entire chapter or Arianne traveling to Storm's End in which no plot happens. Fine. A chapter where Tyrion just plays Cyvesse for against Brown Ben Plumm, and we learn the intricate details of how to play Cyvesse and that's it...fine. A chapter where Jon Snow is in Ghost and it's literally like just a wolf doing wolf stuff (not even exciting stuff, like ...Ghost is just scent marking, hunting, but failing to catch anything, and that's it)..fine, if GRRM gives me the book, I'll take the slowest 2,000 page book of all time. 

And honestly, I think that is more likely than a time jump. GRRM is just having a lot of trouble...limiting what he wants to write. I think because fans initially didn't like AFfC and ADwD, he is trying desperately to narrow down the length of stuff....but honestly, I don't care. Give me two volumes for TWoW. Give me 3 for all I care. Just produce a book! 

[The hairy bear]

When we were told that there would be a time jump after ASOS, fans were mostly OK with it. I don't recall any complain. So I don't think people would have much issue with it now.

But George will not do that. He tried it once and it didn't work. He explained that he disliked having to use to much flashbacks to explain what had happened in-between, and in other cases, it just didn't make sense that things had remained stable during five years and then suddenly everything started to get busy again. As I see it, and using George's famous metaphor, a time gap is something that an architect writer could pull off, but it's incredibly difficult for a gardener writer to make it work.

[sifth]

Truth be told, I think the lack of a time skip has really hurt this series. GRRM was forced to fast track all of the kids training and some of it just seems silly. For example I love Arya, but the character in the Mercy chapter, is not the Arya we left ADWD with. She seems a much more professional and skilled Faceless Man in the Mercy chapter, than she does in The Ugly Little Girl.

I find George's logic for not having the time skip to be rather funny. It's like he couldn't imagine 5 years of relative peace in his world, where not a lot of people were killing each other.

Edited November 16, 2023 by sifth

[Willam Stark]

1 hour ago, sifth said:

I find George's logic for not having the time skip to be rather funny. It's like he couldn't imagine 5 years of relative peace in his world, where not a lot of people were killing each other.

He wouldn't have needed it if he had ensured that each book spanned a year.

[Ingelheim]

The time jump was quite necessary between ASOS and AFFC. Maybe not a 5 year jump as he intended (IIRC it was 5 years, unless I'm mistaken), but 2-3 years would have been nice. Martin f*cked up there IMO.

All the main characters are just too young at the end of ADWD. Jon is 17, Dany 16, Sansa 13, Arya 11...they are just kids. They should be a little older.

 

Edited November 16, 2023 by Ingelheim

[Bendric Dayne]

8 hours ago, Lord of Raventree Hall said:

Honestly, I just want GRRM to .....produce the book. Like, I think what is actually happening is he has actually written TOO much material. At this point, I'd just be okay with it. Give me like 5 chapters of characters doing absolutely nothing, just produce the book GRRM, lol. An entire chapter or Arianne traveling to Storm's End in which no plot happens. Fine. A chapter where Tyrion just plays Cyvesse for against Brown Ben Plumm, and we learn the intricate details of how to play Cyvesse and that's it...fine. A chapter where Jon Snow is in Ghost and it's literally like just a wolf doing wolf stuff (not even exciting stuff, like ...Ghost is just scent marking, hunting, but failing to catch anything, and that's it)..fine, if GRRM gives me the book, I'll take the slowest 2,000 page book of all time. 

And honestly, I think that is more likely than a time jump. GRRM is just having a lot of trouble...limiting what he wants to write. I think because fans initially didn't like AFfC and ADwD, he is trying desperately to narrow down the length of stuff....but honestly, I don't care. Give me two volumes for TWoW. Give me 3 for all I care. Just produce a book! 

Yeah I agree with this. I think the issue is that for some publishing reason the book can’t be as long as we would like. I think it’s something to do with some paperback books falling apart after 1500 pages or something. If not he could finish the series in two books with no problem because they could be as long as they’d need to be to fit everything in. So yeah I think he’s probably struggling to fit this book into only 1500 pages. But yeah I agree with you. I don’t mind the slow pace and if it could be as long as GRRM wanted, then the more the merrier. I prefer a slow paced book than a book that feels rushed. I’m just worried that TWOW will be the latter because he has to fit so much in this book. Which is why I wonder about a time skip. Maybe not 5 years but maybe a year or 2 or something like that. It could get GRRM closer to the ending and then be able to take his time writing that ending, instead of having to rush everything from here on out. But what do I know? I’m just throwing it out there to see what people think. Doesn’t mean it’s a good idea or anything. 

[Aebram]

On 11/16/2023 at 9:56 AM, Lord of Raventree Hall said:

Like, I think what is actually happening is he has actually written TOO much material. At this point, I'd just be okay with it. Give me like 5 chapters of characters doing absolutely nothing, just produce the book GRRM, lol.

If the George has indeed written too many chapters, and is struggling to condense them, I doubt that there are any that are about "absolutely nothing." The problem is quantity, not quality. It occurs to me that there is a simpler solution to this Meerenese knot: add another book to the series.

I'm sure that some people will be dismayed by the thought of that. But I'm not reading the books just to get to the end; I'm enjoying every chapter along the way. (Well, most of them. Some I've found boring during rereads. But there are plenty of other readers who love them, so I'm not complaining.)

It's not unheard of for an author to write a long series of books for a single world. If I find out tomorrow that Winds has been expanded to two volumes, and that one of them will be released in early 2024, I'd consider that good news, not bad.

[The Bard of Banefort]

George’s biggest problem is that the books didn’t each span several years like they were supposed to. That’s something that he should have been more diligent about when writing the first three books. (Ironically, all it would have taken was using realistic travel times; everyone travels way too fast in this series.) I’m thinking he probably planned on AGOT spanning at least three years, since Joffrey was able to have Ned executed without a regent’s permission. He shouldn’t have been able to do that until he was king in his own right, which would have been when he turned 16.

[Ingelheim]

4 hours ago, Aebram said:

If the George has indeed written too many chapters, and is struggling to condense them, I doubt that there are any that are about "absolutely nothing." The problem is quantity, not quality. It occurs to me that there is a simpler solution to this Meerenese knot: add another book to the series.

I'm sure that some people will be dismayed by the thought of that. But I'm not reading the books just to get to the end; I'm enjoying every chapter along the way. (Well, most of them. Some I've found boring during rereads. But there are plenty of other readers who love them, so I'm not complaining.)

It's not unheard of for an author to write a long series of books for a single world. If I find out tomorrow that Winds has been expanded to two volumes, and that one of them will be released in early 2024, I'd consider that good news, not bad.

George is 75 years old. Sadly he doesn't have the time to expand the series beyond the two planned books. In the last 18 years, he's released only two books. And now it's been more than 12 years since ADWD came out.

3000 pages is more than enough to finish the series, at least a third of the POV characters in Winds shouldn't be alive by the end of the book. 

Edited November 18, 2023 by Ingelheim

[Lord of Raventree Hall]

3 hours ago, Ingelheim said:

George is 75 years old. Sadly he doesn't have the time to expand the series beyond the two planned books. In the last 18 years, he's released only two books. And now it's been more than 12 years since ADWD came out.

3000 pages is more than enough to finish the series, at least a third of the POV characters in Winds shouldn't be alive by the end of the book. 

But...he has already written the pages. I would guess he essentially has the material to produce a book today. So just produce a book. Then keep writing. I want a book. You are right, he is old. So just give me a book instead of endless rewrites to make it shorter and more succinct. 

[Ingelheim]

6 hours ago, Lord of Raventree Hall said:

But...he has already written the pages. I would guess he essentially has the material to produce a book today. So just produce a book. Then keep writing. I want a book. You are right, he is old. So just give me a book instead of endless rewrites to make it shorter and more succinct. 

Martin himself has said a few days ago that he has 1100 pages written, which is the same amount he mentioned in October of last year (https://www.reddit.com/r/asoiaf/comments/17wync0/spoilers_extended_grrm_mentions_winds_in_a/)

He isn't writing much these days, no matter how badly we would want him to.

He's also mentioned they are working on a lot of spin-offs with HBO. He seems to be far more focused on TV now than books.

We have to be realists, if we actually get Winds that will be an achievement in itself

[sifth]

7 hours ago, Lord of Raventree Hall said:

But...he has already written the pages. I would guess he essentially has the material to produce a book today. So just produce a book. Then keep writing. I want a book. You are right, he is old. So just give me a book instead of endless rewrites to make it shorter and more succinct. 

Me mentioned a few days ago that he's only written 11,000 pages. The same amount he mentioned last year. So despite GRRM saying he writes every day, it seems like he's throwing away an equal amount.

[The Bard of Banefort]

It’s possible—not likely, but possible—that George has been working on the supplementary material in addition to/instead of Winds (Dunk & Egg, Fire & Blood vol. 2). I’ll take anything aside from another reprinting of the Dance at this point, so this is an acceptable alternative to me.

As for the shows, Casey Bloys made it sound like they were sticking with HOTD and DnE, and weren’t focusing on any other spin-offs at the moment. I guess we’ll find out. I think they’ve already tried and failed to write a screenplay for the Conquest like three times now.

[PrettyLittlePsycho]

I think he´s already past the point where a time gap would make sense.

There´s some plotlines he just can´t stop right now.

Or can anyone imagine a line like "And after Aegon took Storms End he sat down in his reclining chair and sipped cocktails for 5 years before continuing his campaign."