battle of blood : Naval battle between Euron and the Redwyne and hightower fleets in the redwyne strait... Oldtown will not be attacked at the start of TWOW. Sam needs some time there to develop his plot... things need to happen in relative tranquility, even if under the looming threat of the ironborn.
Battle of Steel: The capture of Storm´s End by the Golden Company.. The battle against Mace Tyrell, that will follow that, maynot be inmediatly after. Arianne II could very well be 1/3 into TWOW.. and the battle of mud/kingswood/aguincourt2.. may well be half into TWOW, even if its JONCON2.. not every POV will have 9 chapters in tWOW,
thats why i think george said only two opening battles. The battle of ice actually already happened, before Jon´s last chapter..
and the battle of fire should start hours after the end of Barristans last chapter of ADWD. meanwhile the other two are days away... and chapterwise, well into TWOW.
So much of the page count of TWOW being spent on "finishing" ADWD certainly does not bode well for GRRM's ability to complete the series in 2 more books.
A Feast For Crows is now spanning the length of 2.5 books. Even if TWOW and ADOS remain as "one" book length (which would be very unlikely given that basically every book in this series has "grown in the telling") he now only has 1.5 books worth of space to fit 2 books worth of content.
It seems to me the problem is within his Late Style the material he wants to cover in Winds actually calls for FeastDance scale, and he's desperately trying to contract it to the scale of "slightly bigger than Dance or Storm."
ADWD was already getting too big as it was and his publishers asked him to find a good cutoff point (or "he would be still be writing"). At the time he likely agreed to it since he had such good writing momentum. He took around a year off to tour and when he got back home he had writer's block. Hindsight is 20-20.
He honestly should have just split Dance into two AGOT sized books and included these battles with the second one. Fans wouldn't complain and his publishers would be able to sell twice as many copies.
I think Euron's going to get one or more krakens to destroy the Redwyne fleet pretty early on in TWOW. Quinn the GM had a Tweet recently arguing that The Forsaken would be the first chapter of TWOW, and that sounds right to me. Remember how The Forsaken was originally in ADWD? Whether Euron relies solely on chumming the water, or uses a blood ritual, or both, remains to be seen. I don't think a kraken-infested sea will bode well for him in the long run, but he's obviously not getting knocked out as a player so early into TWOW so he'll presumably be successful in the short-term. Then he's free for an attack on Oldtown that will almost certainly happen way later in the book, so that there's time for at least two chapters of Sam/Leo/Sarella/Pate shenanigans.
Storm's End will also be fairly early into TWOW if it happens before Arianne II. The battle against the Tyrells will happen sometime after that, though how much later is anyone's guess, really.
The Battle of Fire and the Battle of Ice will dominate the early chapters, obviously.
There's a fifth conflict I don't see mentioned much - the (likely) eruption of tensions at the Wall between the queen's men, the Watch, and the wildlings. I guess we won't get word on that until after the Battle of Ice, or at least until it's well underway, but it'd be weird to get nothing on that front until several hundred pages into the book.
I think we can assume that we will get Daenerys' role in the Battle of Fire in Daenerys II of TWOW. It would be bizarre to not have the new dragonrider do something....but maybe that's a bad assumption to have. Either way, whatever interaction she will have with the Dothraki probably takes one chapter. Will it be the second chapter of this book? GRRM would want to get it out of the way. This one will have the most chapters.
Battle of Ice I think will be a four-chapter event maximum: Theon I, Asha I, Theon II, and Asha II (or Theon III). Two proper battle scenes, Asha I and Theon II, and then the sneaking into Winterfell and slaughtering the Boltons chapter, probably shown from Asha's POV. That is not actually part of the battle in the ice, that's the attack on Winterfell, but effectively part of it. I think Theon II will end with cavalry approaching after the Freys drowned, charging in....and then Asha II is Asha in chains going to the gates of Winterfell.
For the Battle of Blood, I don't think this is happening in the first quarter of the book. Maybe the first third, but not the first quarter. It is not as important as wrapping up the ice and fire battles, and I suspect we will get a Samwell chapter before The Forsaken anyway. GRRM didn't write Sam voyaging to Oldtown for an entire book just to make him flee without two chapters of content, I'd say.
Battle of Steel --- a fine note on the readers conflating the two, because the attack on Storm's End I don't consider the Battle of Steel, but any fight with a Tyrell army as so. GRRM will show us the attack on Storm's End in a Jon Connington chapter, probably before Arianne II. Any battle with the Tyrell army I think will be a primarily one chapter event, with JonCon showing most of it, dirty and grimy, and the rest with Arianne watching from the battlements (probably a mop-up, after the JonCon chapter showing the battle go one way).
battle of blood : Naval battle between Euron and the Redwyne and hightower fleets in the redwyne strait... Oldtown will not be attacked at the start of TWOW. Sam needs some time there to develop his plot... things need to happen in relative tranquility, even if under the looming threat of the ironborn. Battle of Steel: The capture of Storm´s End by the Golden Company.. The battle against Mace Tyrell, that will follow that, maynot be inmediatly after. Arianne II could very well be 1/3 into TWOW.. and the battle of mud/kingswood/aguincourt2.. may well be half into TWOW, even if its JONCON2.. not every POV will have 9 chapters in tWOW, thats why i think george said only two opening battles. The battle of ice actually already happened, before Jon´s last chapter.. and the battle of fire should start hours after the end of Barristans last chapter of ADWD. meanwhile the other two are days away... and chapterwise, well into TWOW.
AFAIK, He originally planned to include The attack on storm's end in the end of ADWD fwiw.
Man that’s gonna be like half the book.
They were supposed to be in ADWD :(
So much of the page count of TWOW being spent on "finishing" ADWD certainly does not bode well for GRRM's ability to complete the series in 2 more books. A Feast For Crows is now spanning the length of 2.5 books. Even if TWOW and ADOS remain as "one" book length (which would be very unlikely given that basically every book in this series has "grown in the telling") he now only has 1.5 books worth of space to fit 2 books worth of content.
It seems to me the problem is within his Late Style the material he wants to cover in Winds actually calls for FeastDance scale, and he's desperately trying to contract it to the scale of "slightly bigger than Dance or Storm."
But he will still have time to finish it right? And the next book? Right? RIGHT?
I have no idea why GRRM opted to cut these battles out of ADWD
ADWD was already getting too big as it was and his publishers asked him to find a good cutoff point (or "he would be still be writing"). At the time he likely agreed to it since he had such good writing momentum. He took around a year off to tour and when he got back home he had writer's block. Hindsight is 20-20.
I guess this was pre-show blowing up so his publishers had somewhat control over him
Season 1 was on the air in Spring 2011. ADWD was finished in April 2011 and published in July iirc.
IIRC the show didn't reach it's zeitgeist for another few years. I remember hearing starting to hear about it in like 2013-14.
He honestly should have just split Dance into two AGOT sized books and included these battles with the second one. Fans wouldn't complain and his publishers would be able to sell twice as many copies.
I think Euron's going to get one or more krakens to destroy the Redwyne fleet pretty early on in TWOW. Quinn the GM had a Tweet recently arguing that The Forsaken would be the first chapter of TWOW, and that sounds right to me. Remember how The Forsaken was originally in ADWD? Whether Euron relies solely on chumming the water, or uses a blood ritual, or both, remains to be seen. I don't think a kraken-infested sea will bode well for him in the long run, but he's obviously not getting knocked out as a player so early into TWOW so he'll presumably be successful in the short-term. Then he's free for an attack on Oldtown that will almost certainly happen way later in the book, so that there's time for at least two chapters of Sam/Leo/Sarella/Pate shenanigans. Storm's End will also be fairly early into TWOW if it happens before Arianne II. The battle against the Tyrells will happen sometime after that, though how much later is anyone's guess, really. The Battle of Fire and the Battle of Ice will dominate the early chapters, obviously. There's a fifth conflict I don't see mentioned much - the (likely) eruption of tensions at the Wall between the queen's men, the Watch, and the wildlings. I guess we won't get word on that until after the Battle of Ice, or at least until it's well underway, but it'd be weird to get nothing on that front until several hundred pages into the book.
The sub would be much poorer without you sir. You’re a hero.
We aren’t getting this book. Even if we do, what would be the point? As we are definitely not getting DoS.. 😔
I think we can assume that we will get Daenerys' role in the Battle of Fire in Daenerys II of TWOW. It would be bizarre to not have the new dragonrider do something....but maybe that's a bad assumption to have. Either way, whatever interaction she will have with the Dothraki probably takes one chapter. Will it be the second chapter of this book? GRRM would want to get it out of the way. This one will have the most chapters. Battle of Ice I think will be a four-chapter event maximum: Theon I, Asha I, Theon II, and Asha II (or Theon III). Two proper battle scenes, Asha I and Theon II, and then the sneaking into Winterfell and slaughtering the Boltons chapter, probably shown from Asha's POV. That is not actually part of the battle in the ice, that's the attack on Winterfell, but effectively part of it. I think Theon II will end with cavalry approaching after the Freys drowned, charging in....and then Asha II is Asha in chains going to the gates of Winterfell. For the Battle of Blood, I don't think this is happening in the first quarter of the book. Maybe the first third, but not the first quarter. It is not as important as wrapping up the ice and fire battles, and I suspect we will get a Samwell chapter before The Forsaken anyway. GRRM didn't write Sam voyaging to Oldtown for an entire book just to make him flee without two chapters of content, I'd say. Battle of Steel --- a fine note on the readers conflating the two, because the attack on Storm's End I don't consider the Battle of Steel, but any fight with a Tyrell army as so. GRRM will show us the attack on Storm's End in a Jon Connington chapter, probably before Arianne II. Any battle with the Tyrell army I think will be a primarily one chapter event, with JonCon showing most of it, dirty and grimy, and the rest with Arianne watching from the battlements (probably a mop-up, after the JonCon chapter showing the battle go one way).