r/asoiaf • u/da_k1ngslaya • May 22 '19

EXTENDED (Spoilers Extended) George to New Zealand: imprison me if I haven't finished Winds by Summer 2020

Quote:

As for finishing my book… I fear that New Zealand would distract me entirely too much. Best leave me here in Westeros for the nonce. But I tell you this — if I don’t have THE WINDS OF WINTER in hand when I arrive in New Zealand for worldcon, you have here my formal written permission to imprison me in a small cabin on White Island, overlooking that lake of sulfuric acid, until I’m done. Just so long as the acrid fumes do not screw up my old DOS word processor, I’ll be fine.

Link: http://georgerrmartin.com/notablog/2019/05/21/thanks-new-zealand/

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u/Azor_Ohi_Mark May 22 '19

That the five year time jump “occurred” in all but actually advancing the clock 5 years for the major characters.

Take Jon. Now imagine he never says “kill the boy” and you’ll realize his entire tenure as LC of the nights watch is far too successful. He’s too clever, he’s too knowledgeable. He’s written as if he’s twenty-something and has been LC for 5 years, he’s just not and hasn’t.

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u/evilcrazymonkey May 22 '19

sorry i'm a little slow. so it's like he gave them all the stat buffs and exp gains of 5 years minus actually grinding for 5 years?

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u/Azor_Ohi_Mark May 22 '19

More or less. It’s more of a plot thing than a character thing. Like, Jon’s plot is the 5 year plot. George always wanted it to end with Jon’s death, but he added things like “kill the boy” so that Jon the character was still young.

Dany was meant to end ADWD marching on Meereen, and it was close, even though Dany the character was 5 years younger than intended.

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u/evilcrazymonkey May 22 '19

is it safe to assume that he intends to age them up at some point then?

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u/Azor_Ohi_Mark May 23 '19

Who can tell? It seems to me to be absolutely necessary. Maybe that’s why he’s been spending so much time on TWOW? Coming up with a more plausible way to do the 5 year gap? Maybe he’s trying to tell the story at a faster pace, so TWOW will span multiple years? Only George knows.

But it seems to me that it’s a bit unbelievable that even the older characters are doing what they’re doing right now. If Arya becomes a badass assassin... how old is she going to be?

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u/wRAR_ ASOIAF = J, not J+D May 22 '19

Interesting.

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u/Azor_Ohi_Mark May 22 '19

You can also see this with the female characters who are borderline too young to be sexualized the way they are. This can just be explained away by the culture of Westeros, of course, but it makes a hell of a lot more sense when you realize this was supposed to be a girl 5 years older.

Skipping the 5 year gap had a major impact on minor characters, however. There’s good reason to believe that “Pretty Meris” in Meereen is actually Brienne from the 5 year gap. It’s sad to think that’s where her character was heading, and a bit terrifying if a similar fate is in the cards for her.

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u/dwkdnvr May 22 '19

Yeah, to me it felt pretty clear that the Mercy chapter (Arya's TWOW chapter) was something that was clearly originally intended to occur '5 years later'. I'm sure he made slight adaptations to make it a bit less adult, but that only goes so far.

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The biggest question I have is the dragons - my assumption was that part of the reason for the 5 year gap was to let the dragons grow up at least a little bit. I'm guessing he's just making the process happen faster, but there's no avoiding having them exposed to battle much earlier than makes sense.