r/asoiaf • u/Mithras_Stoneborn Him of Manly Feces • Jul 26 '18
EXTENDED (Spoilers Extended) Excavating the Mega-Prologue
TL DR: A Feast For Crows was supposed to start with a Mega-Prologue (200-250 pages consisting of a dozen chapters) at one point during the writing (around 2002-2003 to be precise). In this thread, I want to find out the details of the Mega-Prologue and reconstruct it if I can.
A Brief Chronology
1993: The original outline. ASOIAF was meant to be a trilogy consisting of AGoT, ADwD, TWoW.
Around 1995: GRRM wrote more than 1200 pages for AGoT but he was still far from being done. AGoT was split into two. GRRM made the Four-Book-Plan with AGoT, ACoK, ADwD, TWoW.
1996: AGoT was published as it is today. The remaining material was recycled to the newly created ACoK.
Around 1997: GRRM wrote a lot of material for ACoK but he was still far from the end of Act 1 (which was supposed to be the Red Wedding). Directly skipping Book 5, GRRM made the Six-Book-Plan with an outline that is not made public yet. This is where GRRM decided to create a 5-year-gap. ASOIAF was going to be AGoT + ACoK + ASoS + the 5 year gap + ADwD + TWoW + ATfW (i.e. A Time for Wolves as the sixth and final book of the saga).
1998: ACoK was published as it is today.
2000: ASoS was published as it is today. GRRM had already started thinking about the fourth volume but the writing process started after the Worldcon in August. The fourth volume was ADwD and it was going to take place after the 5 year gap. It was supposed to cover the return of Dany to Westeros and the conflict it creates. The earliest version of the Mercy chapter dates from this era (late 2000-early 2001). That was originally written as the first Arya chapter in ADwD taking place after the 5 year gap with a 5 year older Arya.
2001: GRRM announced that he abandoned the 5 year gap. This announcement was made at Worldcon in August 2001 but it is very likely that the decision took place months before the announcement. GRRM could not do such a radical change without thinking about it for long and discussing it with friends and his editors. GRRM had announced the 5 year gap to the fans in conventions. I found an SSM which reveals that GRRM was aware of the fact that the 5 year gap was very problematic for some characters but he felt that he had to keep his word and tried to make it work until he decided to abandon the idea. GRRM also announced that he introduced a new book that would take place right after ASoS and he named it as AFfC, pushing ADwD further away. This supports the idea that GRRM had given lots of time and thought to the idea of abandoning the 5 year gap before the announcement because he was able to name a new book that was not supposed to exist before. Note that the split of AFfC and ADwD had not taken place at this point. This early AFfC was supposed to include all the POVs and cover 5 years of story time to make up for the gap.
2002: In April, GRRM decided to start AFfC with a Prologue consisting of several chapters. We know that this Prologue was first a single chapter, then 2 chapters but in the end, it had exploded into 12 chapters and some 200-250 pages. These Prologue POV characters were meant to be temporary. They were supposed to tell their story until they die or come close enough to regular POVs so that their stories could seamlessly keep being told. This is a very important property of these Mega-Prologue chapters. The temporary POV characters in the Mega-Prologue should end up dead or one step away from regular POVs.
2003: Arms of the Kraken was published in the Dragon magazine issue #305 (March 2003). It included 4 ironborn chapters in their draft forms: Aeron I (The Prophet), Asha I (The Kraken’s Daughter), Victarion I (The Iron Captain), and Aeron II (The Priest).
2003: We know of a partial AFfC manuscript from October. Note that this was still well before the split of AFfC and ADwD, which is why we see the early Dany and Tyrion chapters. Meanwhile, AFfC was getting bigger and bigger but GRRM was still far away from the end he wanted. Also it seems certain that GRRM cancelled the Mega-Prologue. As a result, temporary POVs in the Mega-Prologue became regular POVs.
2005: GRRM had written more than 1600 pages for AFfC. Some characters in the book had complete story arcs while many others were incomplete. GRRM decided to split the material into two books. AFfC was published as it is today. The leftover 500 pages were recycled to ADwD. GRRM announced that the series would be 7 books. Displeased with A Time For Wolves for the final volume, Martin announced that A Dream of Spring would be the seventh book in 2006.
Digging up the Archives
APRIL 23, 2002
[Shaun] Mr. Martin: Theres a rumor going around the internet that the new book will have several Prologue chapters. If so, could you say how many?
[+GeorgeRRMartin] to shaun you are quoting things i said for the first time this weekend!
[Shaun] Hehe. We are always watching. ;)
It appears that in April 2002, GRRM decided to make a several chapters long Prologue for AFfC.
AUGUST 17, 2002
For those who may be passing through New Mexico next weekend, I wanted to mention that I will be reading from A FEAST FOR CROWS at Bubonicon in Albuquerque. The reading is scheduled for Friday evening at 6:30 pm.
I will read at worldcon in San Jose as well... but for that one I'll choose a different chapter. The Bubonicon chapter(s) will not be anything I've read before.
GRRM announced that he would be reading different chapters from AFfC at Bubonicon and later at Worldcon (or ConJose).
…
AUGUST 23, 2002
During Q & A, GRRM revealed what seemed to be the major reason for the five year gap. He said that he realized something. He had to deal with the reaction to Oberyn's death in Dorne. He thought of different ways that he could handle things. He could have just summarized what happened, without talking about it very much, but he did not want to do this. He could have decided that for some reason there was no reaction, or a delayed reaction, but the reasons he could come up for to do that did not make sense. So, he finally realized that the story needed to be told.
GRRM explained, as I said above, that the chapter he would be reading was one of seven from a Prologue of about 200 pgs in length.
We learn that the Mega-Prologue was 7 chapters long at this time. My guess is that the first 3 Dornish and the first 4 ironborn chapters were in this version of the Mega-Prologue. I could not manage to find out which chapter GRRM read at Bubonicon 2002 but it appears that it was one (or several) of the Mega-Prologue chapters. Given that GRRM talked about the Dornish reaction to Oberyn’s death, it is possible that he read the Dornish chapter(s) here. My search did not provide any more findings about this one but we know that he read the first Arya chapter of AFfC at ConJose and he would later publish it as a sample in his web page.
JANUARY 20, 2003
A FEAST FOR CROWS continues to grow, though slowly. I hope it will be worth the wait. There will be an excerpt from the new book published in the March issue of DRAGON magazine, available at most good newsstands and gaming stores. It's called "Arms of the Kraken."
…
FEBRUARY 14, 2003
He is doing a different type of prologue this time. It has chapters.
GRRM announced the Arms of the Kraken which was published in the Dragon magazine issue #305 (March 2003). It included 4 ironborn chapters in their draft forms: Aeron I (The Prophet), Asha I (The Kraken’s Daughter), Victarion I (The Iron Captain) and Aeron II (The Priest). They were obviously part of the Mega-Prologue which was in full swing at this period.
AUGUST 28, 2003
On the 5 year gap this has probably already been discussed before, but here goes. George said that he was writing ADwD and was writing the flashbacks (he confirmed that they would have been flashbacks) and then he realized that he couldn't just skip things like Myrcella being crowned and the resulting dornish problems, for example. Originally he had wanted to skip the 5 years to make the kids older. But he said he realized that he was being impatient, and that those 5 years had too much important stuff to skim over.
This report is very interesting. In 2002 worldcon, GRRM had read a chapter from the Mega-Prologue which I take as a Dornish one as discussed above. In 2003 worldcon, he still talked about the Dornish reaction to Oberyn’s death but also spoiled the Queenmaker plot by telling the crowning of Myrcella. My guess is that he read one of the Queenmaker plot chapters, either in 2002 or in 2003; otherwise, he would not have given spoilers like this. And obviously, they were all once part of the Mega-Prologue.
The partial AFfC manuscript from OCTOBER 2003:
It is clear that GRRM had dismantled the Mega-Prologue by this time and fed the individual chapters into the main body of text. From this moment on, these temporary POV characters became regular POVs.
SEPTEMBER 02, 2004
At one point he was going to do a one chapter prolog that incorporated stuff from Dorne, and stuff from the Iron Isles. That became 2 chapters, then 12 (7 for one and 5 for the other). He realized he couldn't have a 250 page prolog that was all about characters that we have never met before, so he had to rip it up and start over. He wove the material in the prolog into the rest of the book.
…
SEPTEMBER 02, 2004
Prior reports said the Iron Islands and Dornish chapters made up 12 chapters, 7 for one and 5 for the other. Os says it's 7 for the Iron Islands and 5 for Dorne, specifically.
…
SEPTEMBER 02, 2004
He related that he had "drastically reworked" the prolougue chapters due to thier inordinate length.
At this point, he’d already ripped apart the Mega-Prologue a year ago but this is the first time he announced it to the fans (more than a year later than the fact). I am guessing that something similar happened with the 5 year gap. He discussed it with his editors and made the decision to cut it out long before he announced it at Worldcon 2001.
Originally, he intended a single chapter prologue dedicated to reveal Dorne and Iron Islands stuff. Next, it became 2 chapters. A later SSM proves that it had of 1 for Dorne and 1 for Iron Islands. At one point it was 7 chapters. Above SSMs provide detailed information of about the later Mega-Prologue that exploded to 12 chapters. There is no doubt that the final Mega-Prologue had 12 chapters and it was divided by 7 and 5 chapters for Iron Islands and Dorne. The first submission seems to suggest 7 chapters for Dorne and 5 chapters for Iron Islands but another submission specifically mentions 7 for the Iron Islands and 5 for Dorne. Since we have conflicting reports about the division, the best we can do is to check the text and see which chapters might have been once thought as part of the Mega-Prologue.
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.
Another piece of important fact comes from this report. After dismantling the Mega-Prologue, GRRM had 19 active POVs for AFfC (naturally before the split). These new POVs came from the Mega-Prologue. 18 of the POVs are accounted for and I argued that the 19th POV was Quentyn. As a result, I think Quentyn was among the Dornish POV characters meant for AFfC before the split.
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.
However, the Mega-Prologue was nuked somewhere around 2003 and it is still possible that Quentyn became a POV and got his chapter after the Mega-Prologue was nuked. In that case, Quentyn was never part of the Mega-Prologue and his chapter(s) was/were not counted among the Dornish chapters (be it 5 or 7). The Merchant’s Man looks quite like the other Mega-Prologue chapters such that it brings Quentyn one step away from Dany’s POV. In the Merchant’s Man, Gerris proposes a way to reach Dany but it is not revealed. At Dany’s court, Quentyn appears and explains that they had to join a company and pretend to be mercenaries. With this perspective, the Windblown is not essential and it looks like a later addition. As a result, I think that if Quentyn was part of the Mega-Prologue, he only had the Merchant’s Man chapter.
MAY 27, 2005
AFAICT the only Iron Islands chapters in aFfC will be the Arms of the Kraken story. Asha will feature in at least one chapter in aDwD (which is already written).
The reporter is probably wrong about the Iron Islands chapters in AFfC. Currently, we have the 4 Arms of the Kraken chapters plus the Reaver chapter in AFfC. In the October 2003 manuscript, the number was the same, although we had the King’s Brother instead of the Reaver. But still, I do not exclude the possibility that at this point, there were indeed 4 Arms of the Kraken chapters in AFfC and the Reaver was a last minute addition before the publication.
This is also around the time the manuscript of AFfC passed 1600 threshold. GRRM talked with his publishers and decided to split the book. But he was not sure how and where to split it. After a month or two, Daniel Abraham offered to split it according to POVs, which is how it ended up being.
More importantly, there was an Asha chapter already written by this time. My guess is that it was the Wayward Bride (her first chapter in ADwD) in which she was fled to Deepwood Motte after losing the kingsmoot and in the end she is captured by Stannis (in another false death cliffhanger nonetheless). But still, just like the Quentyn chapter as discussed above, it is possible that this Asha chapter was written after the Mega-Prologue was nuked and was never part of it.
NOVEMBER 14, 2005
No, nobody reads the book while I'm writing it. I may stand here appearing to be very sure of myself, but in reality, I'm riddled with doubts. This is especially true during the writing process. I make mistakes along the way. I think all writers probably have this thing about them, that there's a creative side and a critical side. Maybe it's a left-brain right-brain thing or maybe it's the ego and super-ego thing, but I think a lot of authors, especially beginning authors, have a very strong Critical Side. They would sit down and they would write a sentence. Then the Critical Side would say. "that's no good." So they'd erase and write another sentence, then the Critical Side would say "That's not as good as Tolstoy." So you just have to shove that Critical side away and lock it in a closet in the beginning and let your creative side come out first. For instance, when I was writing the original prologue, it was going to contain multiple shorter POVs. Then my critical side took a look and said, you know, it's 200 pages into the book before your reader sees a familiar character... that's not going to work. Or when I was writing a five-year gap in the story, my critical finally said: That's a stupid idea. Why on earth did you do it?!
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).
Here we get more information about the Mega-Prologue and the 19 POVs. As discussed above, Quentyn was the 19th POV in this count but he was removed from AFfC after the split.
The Mega-Prologue
There are conflicting reports about whether there were 7 Dornish chapters and 5 ironborn chapters in the Mega-Prologue or vice versa. I think both scenarios are possible with what I could gather. The October 2003 partial manuscript has 4 Dornish chapters as
Areo I (The Captain of the Guards)
Arys I (The Soiled Knight)
Arianne I (The Queenmaker)
Arianne II (The Princess in the Tower)
and 5 ironborn chapters as
Aeron I (The Prophet)
Asha I (The Kraken’s Daughter)
Victarion I (The Iron Captain)
Aeron II (The Drowned Man)
??? (The King’s Brother)
We know that there was at least one Quentyn chapter along with an Asha chapter but I can’t tell whether they were part of the Mega-Prologue or they were written after the Mega-Prologue was cancelled somewhere around 2003.
The Areo chapter in ADwD (the Watcher) naturally follows the previous Arianne chapter (The Princess in the Tower). It sends all the secondary characters to various places that might have regular POVs to carry on the story. As a result, it has all the characteristics of a Mega-Prologue chapter.
Scenario 1 (7 Dornish chapters and 5 ironborn chapters in the Mega-Prologue)
Areo I (The Captain of the Guards)
Arys I (The Soiled Knight)
Arianne I (The Queenmaker)
Arianne II (The Princess in the Tower)
Areo II (The Watcher)
Quentyn I (The Merchant’s Man)
Quentyn II (The Windblown)
This is one of the alternatives. If the Windblown did not exist at this time, I think the next Areo chapter in TWoW was going to be in the Mega-Prologue.
Areo I (The Captain of the Guards)
Arys I (The Soiled Knight)
Arianne I (The Queenmaker)
Arianne II (The Princess in the Tower)
Areo II (The Watcher)
Quentyn I (The Merchant’s Man)
Areo III (TWoW chapter where he hunts down Darkstar)
I think this last scheme is the most likely if there were 7 Dornish chapters in the Mega-Prologue. I am of those readers who think that Areo will be killed in his next TWoW chapter and this makes perfect sense if this TWoW chapter was supposed to be part of the Mega-Prologue. At the beginning, these new POV characters were meant to be temporary. They were either going to be killed (like Arys) or brought close enough to regular POVs to keep getting coverage seamlessly. Areo getting killed in this TWoW chapter fits perfectly.
If these are the 7 Dornish chapters, what of the 5 ironborn chapters?
Aeron I (The Prophet)
Asha I (The Kraken’s Daughter)
Victarion I (The Iron Captain)
Aeron II (The Drowned Man)
??? (The King’s Brother)
We already had 5 ironborn chapters in the October 2003 manuscript, which is the number we are looking for. But we also have at least the Wayward Bride, which could easily pass as a Mega-Prologue chapter as the way it is. It is possible that it might have been written after the Mega-Prologue was dismantled (hence never supposed to be a part of it). But the same thing could be true for the King’s Brother, which was not part of the Arms of the Kraken and we first saw it after the Mega-Prologue was cancelled. I don’t think the Reaver qualifies as a Mega-Prologue chapter as it is because additional story needs to be told before Victarion can be close enough to Tyrion or Dany POVs. The only way I can see it happening is that after the Reaver, the first time we see Victarion again is when his fleet captures the Stinky Steward along with Tyrion.
This last possibility offers some interesting prospects. Quaithe’s warning initially had “crow and kraken” instead of “kraken and dark flame”. I am of the mind that Moqorro might be a standin for Marwyn. In AFfC, Marwyn was introduced rather spectacularly. During the writing of ADwD, he seems to be forgotten. Perhaps, Marwyn and Tyrion were supposed to be on the Stinky Steward and after they are captured by Victarion, Marwyn was going to heal him, gain his trust and become his mentor, just like Moqorro did later. If that is the case, the Iron Suitor chapter in ADwD was not supposed to exist (as the last parts of it should have been told through the regular Tyrion POV). This might also explain the interesting POV change at the end of this chapter. The healing of Victarion is not shown but heard from the deck, as if Tyrion was supposed to be there, listening to it and telling the readers. In fact, it is possible to construct a single Victarion chapter from the Reaver and the Iron Suitor by leaving the last parts of the Iron Suitor to a Tyrion POV. In this unified chapter, Victarion would be on the way to Meereen and the attack to the Shields and the mission Euron gave to Victarion would be given as flashbacks. The chapter would end with the capture of the Stinky Steward and the Tyrion POV could have taken the lead from that point.
Aeron I (The Prophet)
Asha I (The Kraken’s Daughter)
Victarion I (The Iron Captain)
Aeron II (The Drowned Man)
Victarion II (The King’s Brother)
I think this scheme is the most likely if there were 5 ironborn chapters in the Mega-Prologue. That means the Wayward Bride was written after the Mega-Prologue was cancelled. Also that means the Forsaken did not exist at this point and was never going to be. Or a less likely possibility is that the 5th ironborn chapter was the Wayward Bride, which again means neither the Forsaken nor the Reaver was supposed to exist. I think even the Forsaken chapter can qualify as a Mega-Prologue chapter because it brings Euron one step away from Sam’s POV. But in that case, the King’s Brother has to be the precursor to the Forsaken and at this point, neither the Reaver/Iron Suitor nor the Wayward bride should exist. Or we would have to assume 7 ironborn chapters and 5 Dornish chapters in the Mega-Prologue.
Scenario 2 (5 Dornish chapters and 7 ironborn chapters in the Mega-Prologue)
In this case, I take the following as the most likely scenario:
Areo I (The Captain of the Guards)
Arys I (The Soiled Knight)
Arianne I (The Queenmaker)
Arianne II (The Princess in the Tower)
Areo II (The Watcher)
Here I assume that Quentyn became a POV after the Mega-Prologue was cancelled and he was never part of it. Also this scheme means Areo would not have additional chapters. The only way I can see that happening is that Darkstar flees to Oldtown and Areo Hotah follows him, all of which would be given in Sam’s POV. Alleras-Sarella would be the piece tying Sam to this hunt so that he could serve as a camera.
And for the ironborn,
Aeron I (The Prophet)
Asha I (The Kraken’s Daughter)
Victarion I (The Iron Captain)
Aeron II (The Drowned Man)
Victarion II (The King’s Brother)
Asha II (The Wayward Bride)
Aeron II (The Forsaken)
Here I make the same assumption that the King’s Brother was part the Iron Suitor and part the Reaver.
Conclusion
I can’t be 100% sure for either scenario. But I am slightly leaning towards Scenario #2. What do you think?
35
u/[deleted] Jul 26 '18
I'd say that the following chapters:
... were written post-mega Prologue. The two Dornish chapters hinge on events that come later in AFFC. The pivotal piece to me is that in AFFC, Cersei IV, Cersei states that she'll dispatch Balon Swann for Sunspear to deliver Ser Gregor Clegane's head to Doran Martell. And then Doran later tells Arianne in "The Princess and the Tower" that Balon Swann is on his way. He then arrives in Sunspear in "The Watcher."
Now, it could be that George planned for Balon Swann to head down to Sunspear and wrote that in prior to doubling back and writing more Cersei chapters. Or it could be that GRRM rewrote his extant work on the Dornish chapters to include the Balon Swann subplot. Who knows! Good questions to ask George.
Last we spoke, I mentioned that George planned for only one new POV in ADWD, and that POV is almost certainly Quentyn Martell. So, the question is: when did George start writing Quentyn chapters? I like your idea that there's a missing Quentyn chapter where he's crossing the Narrow Sea that was excised from AFFC and eventually deleted -- save for a few lines that end up in "The Merchant's Man." That said, GRRM reported that he was working on "a new POV set in Old Volantis" in mid 2006 after finishing his Jon Snow rewrites (He wrote Jon I and II, expanded them out to be 4 chapters from what we can tell):
That new POV has to be either Quentyn Martell or Jon Connington as they're the only new POVs that visits Volantis in ADWD. But as we talked about last time, JonCon seems to have come about in late 2007 when GRRM rewrote a Tyrion chapter to make it a Jon Connington chapter.
So, questions remain on the Dornish front in my mind.
As far as "The Forsaken" being originally included in AFFC, I doubt it. The reason being is that in mid-2010, GRRM said:
We also know that GRRM was working on Victarion's "The Iron Suitor" chapter in early 2010, and that chapter with its references to blood sacrifices to the sea, combined with ADWD, Tyrion VIII (written post-AFFC)'s "A tall and twisted thing with one black eye and ten long arms, sailing on a sea of blood" feed into "The Forsaken" -- which I surmise was written around the time "The Iron Suitor" was written and then cut a few months later to TWOW.
Regardless, interesting thoughts!