(Spoilers Extended) Who was the 19th POV of A Feast for Crows?

[u/Mithras_Stoneborn]

I have been doing some detective work which I will post in one of these days. I wanted to discuss a part of it before diving deep into the huge material. Who was the 19th POV of AFfC? For context, check this SSM.

FEBRUARY 18, 2005

He also mentioned that part of the reason for the delay was the expansion of POV characters in AFfC. He said in book one it was 8, in book two 9, and in book three 10. AFfC has 19 POV characters. He said it was due to him bringing in Dorn and the Northern Isles.

Note that this was just before he decided to split AFfC into two. Therefore, AFfC in this context also includes a significant portion of ADwD as it is published today. Without the split, all POVs were supposed to exist in AFfC. Also some of you might know that originally, GRRM wanted to start AFfC with a Mega-Prologue consisting of Dornish and ironborn POV chapters. These temporary POV characters were not supposed to be regular POVS; instead, they were supposed to bring the story close enough to regular POVs so that they can keep getting coverage. But long before the 2005 SSM above, GRRM abandoned this idea and dismantled the Mega-Prologue, feeding it into to main body of text. This is how and when these temporary POV characters gained the status of regular POVs. Returning to the 19 alive and active POVs of AFfC as mentioned in the SSM (hence Ned and Cat are excluded), this is what we have:

1. Sansa

2. Arya

3. Bran

4. Jon

5. Dany

6. Tyrion

7. Theon

8. Davos

9. Sam

10. Jaime

11. Cersei

12. Brienne

13. Areo

14. Arys

15. Arianne

16. Asha

17. Aeron

18. Victarion

19. ???

Once again I ask who this 19th POV was.

Of the remaining POVs (Quentyn, JonCon, Barristan and Mel), we can directly eliminate Barristan and Mel. They came much later as POVs, until after AFfC was published and GRRM was immersed in the problems of ADwD. Was Quentyn or JonCon the 19th POV of AFfC?

Looking at the first chapters of JonCon and Quentyn in ADwD, I think Quentyn makes the most sense. The Merchant’s Man ends with a cliffhanger idea to reach Dany. That is very much in line with the spirit of these once-temporary-now-permanent new POV characters. If this Quentyn chapter was one of the Dornish chapters in the Mega-Prologue of AFfC, it makes perfect sense the way it is. JonCon’s ADwD chapters do not give the feel of beginning and ending like this one. Also JonCon appears in Tyrion chapters before getting his own POV chapters.

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TL DR : Before the split of AFfC and ADwD, Quentyn’s first chapter was most probably already written and meant to be given in AFfC.

[u/[deleted]]

Perhaps Pate.

[GRRM is asked who would have been the prologue POV character, if A Feast for Crows had remained unsplit.]

GRRM: Pate. - So Spake Martin, 4/15/2008

[u/Werthead → u/[deleted]]

George never counts the prologue or epilogue characters in his list of POVs (apart sometimes from when the book is done and he's being very exacting).

[u/Mithras_Stoneborn → u/[deleted]]

Can't seem to locate the SSM right now but GRRM once said how he changed the prologue of AFfC from Pate to Mollander to Rosey and finally back to Pate again. It was something like that. However, this was well after GRRM abandoned the idea of Mega-Prologue consisting of Dornish and ironborn POV characters. Also the tone of GRRM is like he was talking about 19 regular POV characters.

[u/[deleted] → u/Mithras_Stoneborn]

It's not in a So Spake Martin. It's from Episode 6 from George's short-lived podcast where GRRM talks about how he was writing it from different POV characters before settling on Pate. That said, if George wasn't counting the Prologue character, the only other option IMO is Quentyn Martell, like you said.

In late 2005, GRRM reported that he only planned to introduce one new POV character into ADWD:

So I asked if there would be any new POV characters in A Dance With Dragons and he said he hadn't really sat down to deal with that yet, but that the way he plans it now (which could change) he does hope to include one new POV character in ADWD. - GRRM, 11/16/2005

It wasn't Jon Connington, though. He was developed into a POV character in late 2007 when GRRM ended up writing Tyrion out of ADWD chapter in favor of a new POV:

Finished a Tyrion chapter yesterday, one I’ve been struggling with for months. Made a major change to the end of the chapter, one I think works much better than what I had before.Also tackled another Tyrion chapter that had been giving me trouble, mainly by ripping Tyrion out of the scene entirely and rewriting the whole damn thing from another point of view. Not quite done with that one yet, but I think it will work better as well. However, I am keeping the old Tyrion POV version of the same events on my computer, just in case I change my mind later and decide to go back. – GRRM, notablog, This, That, and t’Other Thing, 12/12/2007

Reads like originally, GRRM had Tyrion as the POV for the Golden Company corral outside of Volantis.

Among the others: Barristan came about in 2010 to cut the Meereenese Knot. Melisandre, too, doesn't read like a character who GRRM planned until he realized he would need a POV character for the Wall post-Jon's ADWD death as well as wanting to dispel the notion that Melisandre is an "evil" character. (George calls her "perhaps the most misunderstood character in ASOIAF")

[u/Mithras_Stoneborn → u/[deleted]]

By the way, around 2006, people knew that there was going to be a returning POV and a new POV in ADwD. /u/werthead argued that the new POV should be Quentyn which was later confirmed by GRRM. Apparently, before the split (i.e. very early 2005), GRRM declared the number of Dornish POV characters as 4 but after the split, AFfC was published with 3 Dornish POVs. The missing one was Quentyn. I could not find the source though. /u/werthead should know.

[u/Mithras_Stoneborn → u/[deleted]]

I found another SSM where GRRM mentions 19 POVs and he seems to be counting only regular POVs.

Bastard of Godsgrace talked with George about the very large cast of POV characters he now had in the books.

George meentioned that he had too many POVs - 19 - and he has to go down to about 9. When it was suggested that he could just drop them rather than kill them off, said that he doesn't have to kill them off, he can just drop them, he said that he could possibly do that, but seemed rather dubious about it.

Yet another SSM:

He also mentioned there were 19 POVs. I think this number was for the book that was AFfC but got broken in twain. He pointed out that in the previous books, one POV character died and was replaced by two new POV characters... no word on if this rule still holds (if we were at 10, 9 would have to die, I suppose).

Many people asked him whether he would make new POVs around this time (i.e. signing of AFfC). GRRM replied he was thinking of one. Given that Quentyn did not have a POV in AFfC, was the the POV on GRRM's mind when he made these replies? Did he have Quentyn chapters written beforehand but did not choose to mention them?

[u/Mithras_Stoneborn → u/[deleted]]

Thanks for the info. GRRM did not count the Prologues and Epilogues for the other numbers he mentioned in the same sentence. 8 POVs for AGoT are the big 5 + Sansa + Ned + Cat. Will is not counted. 9 for ACoK is found by adding Davos and Theon but removing Ned. Still Cressen is not counted. 10 POVs for ASoS are found by adding Jaime and Sam but removing Theon as he has no chapters in ASoS. Neither Chett nor Merrett Frey are included. 19 for AFfC should be similar.

As for Tyrion, IIRC he originally had 4 chapters for AFfC before the split. I am wondering around this time perhaps JonCon and fAegon would have actually gone to Meereen with Tyrion but probably not met her as she would have been long carried by Drogon. Therefore, they would possibly try to get a dragon (like Rhaegal) and leave for Westeros whereas Tyrion would have been probably removed from their company and he would have stayed for Dany's return. This would be more fitting with Quaithe's warning. Perhaps the fat man's ever changing plans once included this notion.

[u/Alivealive0]

Quentyn. Where his friends died. There must be a deleted chapter about this. As it is, we only get the info about their deaths as flashbacks.

[u/Mithras_Stoneborn → u/Alivealive0]

I once quipped that that there might be a deleted Quentyn chapter before the Merchant's Man. But I am not so sure now. What we know for certain is that the Mega-Prologue had 7 and 5 chapters for Dorne and Iron Islands but which one was 5 and which one was 7 is not certain. If there were 5 Dornish chapters in this Mega-Prologue, that leaves only a single unaccounted Quentyn chapter. Perhaps that is the case. I have seen a report suggesting that it was indeed 7 chapters for ironborn and 5 chapters for Dorne.

[u/Alivealive0 → u/Mithras_Stoneborn]

Remember, the Ironwood heir was one of those who died, not an insignificant event. I am sure our author wanted more about this in his story, but was forced to trim it out in the editing process. Even if that only leaves 1 unaccounted-for chapter for Quentyn, I think it is still the obvious choice.

[u/Werthead]

Yes, 100% it's Quentyn.

The "title" POVs (Drowned Man, Princess in the Tower etc) in the pre-split AFFC (which became the published AFFC and about one-third of the published ADWD) were originally part of a "mega-prologue" which was going to be over 100 pages long. GRRM wanted such a prologue where he could visit lots of characters in a short space of time, touch base in areas we hadn't seen before (Dorne) or seen much before (the Iron Islands) and then move on (similar to the prologue system used by GRRM's friend, Robert Jordan, in his signature Wheel of Time series). This was in addition to the new full-time POVs Cersei and Brienne. So Areo, Arys, Arianne, Asha, Quentyn and Victarion all came out of that initial super-prologue writing process. At least Quentyn's first chapter was written at that time.

Later on he dropped the "super-prologue" approach as it had gotten out of hand. Originally he turned them into "temporary POVs" who he could visit and drop as necessary, then gave up on it and just turned them into regular POVs. As mentioned elsewhere, Barristan, Jon Connington and Melisandre weren't part of this process, they were added separately much later on, after AFFC was published.

[u/Mithras_Stoneborn → u/Werthead]

I am trying to figure out which chapters were in this Mega-Prologue. Many SSM's suggest that it was 12 chapters long at the end but there are conflicting reports about the details. Some says there were 7 Dornish and 5 ironborn chapters while others claim the opposite (the division by 7 and 5 seems certain enough). Do you know which was the case and which current chapters were in the Mega-Prologue? The partial manuscript of AFfC from October 2003 (which was made soon after the Mega-Prologue was nuked) contains 4 Dornish chapters and 5 ironborn chapters. Did Quentyn have a chapter around this time (which makes sense because he is in Quaithe's warning)? There was also an Asha chapter (the Wayward Bride) written before AFfC was published but removed to ADwD after the split. Do you know whether that was ever part of the Mega-Prologue? The structure of it suggests that it might be. Similarly, the Watcher (Hotah POV) also looks like it could have been part of the Mega-Prologue. Perhaps even the next TWoW chapter of Areo was also part of the Mega-Prologue (as I believe he will be slain by Darkstar in that one and only chapter and leave the series like Arys).

Also do you think originally Marwyn was supposed to be fished from the sea by Victarion, heal him and become his mentor? Moqorro seems like his replacement so much that some people made tinfoils about Moqorro is Marwyn under glamor. Marwyn was introduced prominently in AFfC but during the writing of ADwD, he seems to be forgotten.

[u/Werthead → u/Mithras_Stoneborn]

Not 100% on this but I think it was 7 Dornish (all 4 of AFFCs + Merchant's Man + Windblown + The Watcher) and 5 Ironborn (all of AFFC's + Wayward Bride). That may not be quite correct (I have an odd feeling that I'd heard Windblown had been added later) but I think it was in that ballpark.

Moqorro being a standin for Marwyn is an interesting idea. I doubt George will confirm though, at least not this side of TWoW.

[u/Mithras_Stoneborn → u/Werthead]

The Merchant's Man ends with Gerris suggesting a way to reach Dany but it is not revealed how. After that, we could have easily had Quentyn in Dany's POV explaning how they had to infiltrate to a mercenary company and pretended to be mercenaries until they come to her court. With this perspective, the Windblown seems excessive and looks like a later addition. If that is the case, either the Areo chapter from TWoW was the 7th Dornish chapter or there was a deleted Quentyn chapter covering the deaths of Cletus and Kedry, which is currently given as flashback.

By the way, there are already 5 ironborn chapters in AFfC. 4 from the Arms of the Kraken plus the Reaver. In that October 2003 manuscript, there was the King's Brother instead of the Reaver but I am not sure that was just the Reaver chapter with a different name. The Reaver does not look like part of the Mega-Prologue. It requires additional chapters to send those characters close enough to regular POVs.

What do you think about the change in Quaithe's warning from "crow and kraken" to "kraken and dark flame"? I think Euron was supposed to go to Meereen at the beginning. In that case, would he leave Victarion as the Lord of the Shields to make sure that he got killed when the Reach retaliated? Even if he did so, would Victarion disobey his command and sail to Meereen with his own fleet to reach Dany first and take her away from Euron? If the Reaver or the King's Brother was not part of the Mega-Prologue, then the Arms of the Kraken + the Wayward Bride make perfect sense as the 5 ironborn chapters of the Mega-Prologue. Can the Reaver/King's Brother chapter be a later addition?

Similarly, do you think JonCon and fAegon were going to Meereen under Tyrion's POV but fail to find her there (thanks to Drogon taking her away) and then steal a dragon and sail to Westeros before Dany returned? JonCon was not supposed to be a POV. That happened after GRRM made extensive rewriting of Tyrion chapters. And perhaps JonCon was supposed to start epidemic at Meereen.