The video analyzes the significant challenge of condensing George R.R. Martin's expansive narrative for "The Winds of Winter" into a single, publishable book, given the series' increasing length and complexity.
Mind Map
Click to expand
Click to explore the full interactive mind map • Zoom, pan, and navigate
hey there are spoilers in this video for
basically everything that's been
released in A Song of Ice and Fire
you've been warned
have you been waiting for the winds of
winter of course you have everyone in
their dog has been waiting for this book
people have been going insane no fandom
has lost their collective minds waiting
for a new release like this since the
Israelites waited 40 years in the desert
for the Ten Commandments Moses please
we're worshipping calves now do I have
any idea when the next book is going to
get here no I have no freaking clue but
besides that there is a post recently on
the Song of Ice and Fire subreddit by
Marcus Quintus who stated that people
who don't like dance will probably not
like wins dance of course is the fifth
book in the series Marcus goes into
detail about how the last two books are
rather expansive and there are a bunch
of side plots so if you didn't like
those then you're probably not going to
like wins and people hoping for a repeat
more of the third book are going to be
in for a bit of a disappointment but we
need to have a talk fandom because there
is a big issue at play here and it's
something that doesn't get enough air
time is probably it deserves so hold on
to your bubble wrap you special
snowflake because we're going to take a
very deep mathematical dive into a major
problem facing the winds of winter this
problem of course is the title of this
video it's how can the winds of winter
fit into the winds of winter you might
be asking why is this an issue well as
you probably know the series started out
in 96 with a game of Thrones and then
was followed up by a clash of kings and
then a storm of sores and then there was
a big wait for the fourth book in the
series called A Dance with Dragons but
this book didn't actually come out at
least not right away it was followed up
to a sequel of a storm of sorts of half
of the story called a feast for crows
which was then followed up six years
later by a Dance with Dragons which was
the sequel to the other half of a storm
of sorts so the obvious question here
now is how can you take these two books
and then condense them down into a
sequel that only spans the breadth of a
single book
well back in 2012 in an online interview
web chat a fan asked George really
looking forward to the next installment
but how are you going to finish it a
Song of Ice and Fire
in just two
books George responded to big books 1500
manuscript pages each that's 3,000 pages
I think I have a good shot so George was
targeting the winds of winter to be 1500
manuscript pages then another question
came up on George's not a blog that just
in this April by some Yahoo named Jeff
who asks this question might be painful
but I'll ask it anyways has there been
any thought of publishing wins in
similar fashion as fire and blood in two
volumes George responded some of my
publishers have suggested breaking up
winds as we did with feast and dance
I am resisting that notion so George
here didn't give any indication that
he's looking to break the winds of
winter out beyond just a single book so
it seems like the 1500 manuscript page
limit is still on this is because 1500
manuscript pages are the maximum
publishable amount once you go beyond
that then random houses Gutenberg
printing presses they just kind of like
Punk they just like died and like the
glue mr. son stick and the pages start
falling out and you just get everywhere
however for our purposes manuscript
pages are rather difficult to analyze
because the books are no longer in
manuscript page form once they get
published between the US hardback in the
US paper back in the UK hardback the UK
paperback some of them earn multiple
volumes the point is that the manuscript
pages once we get them change and it's
really hard to look at them we don't
have exact counts so for our purposes on
trying to gauge how long the winds of
winter is going to be it's easier if we
focus on word count because a it's a
more precise figure and B we also have
the precise counts for every single book
some website that I googled says that
one manuscript page equals between 250
to 300 words and this appears to be
accurate atom warhead on his blog has a
page count for a storm the swords of
fifteen hundred and thirty manuscript
pages and it danced with dragons at
about 1500 and these roughly come out to
about two hundred and eighty words per
page so if we look at an upper limit for
the winds of winter it stretched to 285
words per page to compensate for the
maps at the beginning and the appendix
at the end that would mean it would be
roughly equal to about four
one hundred and thirty thousand words so
I went online to look for one of those
great resources that an intrepid fan had
done that counted every single word in
every chapter it turns out there wasn't
one so I had to do it all myself for
disclosures sake no I didn't sit there
and count every single word in the
series but what I did do is I loaded up
all the ebooks in a program called
calibre and then I split them apart into
different word Docs containing just the
chapter titles and also the main body
text so no pages no superfluous stuff
that would throw it off and then I used
a program called fine count for every
single chapter including the sample
chapters to get the exact word counts
for an apples-to-apples comparison
between all the books what does this
mean it means I'm a huge nerd but also
we have really great data looking at the
word count of the first five books we
have a game of Thrones at about two
hundred ninety-eight thousand words
followed up by a Clash of Kings at
roughly three hundred and twenty five
thousand words then there was a big jump
by about a hundred thousand up to four
hundred and twenty four thousand words
for a storm of sorts and then the big
weight started to kick in where a feast
for crows came out that was about three
hundred thousand words which was very
similar to the first book in the series
which was followed up by Dance with
Dragons which was very close and counted
twenty two thousand two a Storm of
Swords at it's four hundred and twenty
four thousand however a verse we've
already discussed these two books while
they are separate and they have their
own thematic stories really they're both
the sequel to a storm swords and there
are also like several different combined
reading orders that you can get out in
the fandom like the boiled leather order
or the feast with dragons order so we're
going to do is we're going to look
actually at the count of these two books
as a single book as it was originally
intended if George could have bound it
all into a single volume and now of
course we have a book that is seven
hundred and twenty three thousand words
well over any other book in the series
so let's look at this as a projection of
what it would take to follow up that
book with its own sequel the first up
that we're going to look at is going to
be the high band count the high
projection taking the max
number of chapters that a character had
in any book and then projecting it that
that will be the number of chapters that
they will eventually have in the winds
of winter obviously we're also gonna
have to take out the dead characters
because they won't be having chapters
anymore so when we look at the high
projection we get a hundred and thirty
six chapters which is well over the
length of a Storm of Swords
and while one hundred and thirty six
might appear to be somehow manageable
you also have to pay attention to the
bottom row on this chart which lists the
average boards per chapter as you can
see George has been steadily increasing
the word count for each book so if we
project that forward for the winds of
winter that original 4000 average words
per chapter would have grown to about
six thousand six hundred words which
when we multiply that six thousand six
hundred words by 136 for the projected
chapter count that comes out to about
nine hundred thousand words over double
the length of the Storm of Swords or
dance with dragons now before you get
too scared remember this is the high
projection this is the largest that we
could imagine the sequel could be so
let's look at the low projection taking
the lowest number of chapters that a
character has had since they've been
introduced bear in mind we do have to
include a chapter there for Theon
because we know he has already a chapter
in the winds of winter so let's look at
it even looking at the lobe and we get
ninety two chapters which comes out to
about six hundred and nine thousand
words which given George's current word
count per chapter projection would be
still about forty four percent too big
for the book if we really want to see
what the winds of winter would look like
fit fit into a single book we're going
to have to do a manual projection of it
trying to guess the number of chapters
that a character would have to have
while doing a very conservative look at
it to try and get that chapter count
down now this is gonna be very
subjective and you're going to disagree
with some of these but put that aside
for the moment while we go ahead and we
dive down into what it would take to fit
it into four hundred and thirty thousand
words to get it to fit the length of a
Storm of Swords let's go at it one at a
time so for Danny I'm not sure you can
go all the way down to
five chapters because she is a lot of
room to cover at least geographically
she's right now up in the Dothraki sea
so you presume she's gonna need probably
at least two chapters there then at
least one in marine maybe one in
volantis maybe one in Pentos maybe one
in Qarth before getting back all the way
to Dragonstone so six chapters would
probably be enough to do that but there
isn't much more that you can do with her
to get that chapter count down
Tyrion if you don't know is George's
favorite character he writes a lot for
Tyrion the lowest amount that he's ever
had in a book was nine chapters I think
he have to try and get that down to
about eight he had to go below that
amount and you know there are some ways
that this works out because you can have
multiple POVs in Mereen for a while and
also with Dany eventually meeting him up
later in the book you probably don't
need to have as many tiering chapters so
eight seems like a logical projection
that George might write that is also
fairly conservative at least as far as
George has done so far now we get to
John I don't know if you know this but
John is still gonna be alive and so how
is he going to do this well he's not
gonna have any chapters to start the
book but I still think in order to tell
the story that he wants for John you're
gonna have to give him at least probably
five chapters also if he is the Song of
Ice and Fire you would imagine that he
gets at least a decent chunk of the wins
winner at least enough to fulfill his
character bran I think he could stick to
about three chapters with bran
Sansa I think you're going to have to go
up to four chapters with her at least
because she's in a politically isolated
area in the Vale we know she's probably
gonna have at least two chapters in that
area maybe get back to Winterfell by the
end of the book also might have other
character moments with various
characters throughout the story for I
think is about as conservative as you
can be for Sansa but also you might
think that's too low I would kind of
agree but at the same time that would
put her right up there with Dany and
John almost in chapter count and she's
still like not a central central
character so I mean I would take as many
Sansa chapters as yours wants to write
but again we're trying to be
conservative here Arya George has
already stated that he has written
enough chapters for her to fill
Bellus so I think she's probably gonna
get at least five chapters in the book
if he already has at least maybe three
in Bravos maybe two in Westeros I think
that's about as low as you can cut it
prologue there's going to be one
epilogues I've seen debates on this
going back and forth saying the
epilogues are generally for the closing
of an act however I still think you can
have one in the winds of winter and it
would not be too obtuse obviously it
should be patch faced if they do one but
that's just a personal opinion you can
hate it if you want Theon three chapters
I don't know if you can go beyond that
I love Theon's chapters and dance with
dragons but again he's not a central
character and we have to start cutting
people down Davos gets another three
jamie is a bit of an enigma I will get
back to Jamie when I get to Brienne but
I think you got to make cuts here and
you got to take him from eight chapters
down to four Sam
four chapters I don't think you can do
five again Cersei I don't think anyone
thinks that she's going to get 12
chapters again and I think you're gonna
have to be fairly aggressive with her I
think you're gonna have to get her down
to about six chapters Brienne you can
probably drop her down again to four
because with Jamie provided both of them
are going to live beyond what they have
currently going on at the start of the
winds of winter you could combine them
for a little bit and you wouldn't lose
too much length there by doing fewer
chapters so it kind of works out a
little bit but again you can't really
tell the same type of Brienne Jamie's
story that was in a feast for crows now
you might be sitting there thinking like
this has been really aggressive a lot of
my characters are being cut down or you
might be sitting there thinking to bad
like it can be okay we'll get ready cuz
that bubble-wrap I told you to hang on
to it's about to go pop we all love
these characters but we gotta fit it
down and I don't know if you can do more
than two chapters for Aaron we know he
already has one but you kind of have to
assume that he would die in the second
one in order to fulfill the length
requirements Victarion as much as I
enjoy reading his chapters don't know if
you can do more than two chapters with
Victoria and maybe at the end of the
second we already know he has to in the
winds of winter he finally sees the
glory that awaits him
off-page in like a third chapter from
another POV area Aden
we already know that she has one back at
Sunspear and then one traveling through
the Stormlands so I'm not sure you can
expand her story more than two
additional chapters beyond that she is
going to encounter Aegon and jon
connington so maybe there's a little bit
of an overlap there but I don't think
you can grow her much more than four
OSHA I mean she might have more than
three chapters she might not I don't
know but I'm gonna just plug her in for
three for her story up at Winterfell
because again you got to be aggressive
with this arrow Jota he goes off he
fights darkstar and he dies I don't
think you can do much more with arrow
Jota I mean you could theoretically
write a whole book where he travels with
darkstar as his captive one of them
being captured by the other and they go
an old Riverlands journey I don't know
but he's not your strongest character
and again got to be aggressive now we
get to Barristan who we know already has
to battle chapters so I'm just gonna
have to plug him in here for having one
additional chapter where he dies I don't
know how much more you can do you could
give him more chapters from Tyrion and
you could have him go over and join
Aegon and maybe give him another chapter
there but then you're gonna have to
start pulling more these chapters away
from other characters that we've already
made aggressive cuts to Jon connington
gonna give him three chapters we have to
add some meat he might become a king's
landing point of view later on also
Georgia said that he wants to show us
the Battle of storms end so we're gonna
get probably one chapter there and then
a couple more later on I guess I don't
know Melisandre is probably going to
pick up the story at the wall to start
off with and she's gonna receive
probably the bulk of the beginning of
Jon's storyline now it might be four it
might be less than that but I don't know
how much Melisandre you can cut out of
there if we don't have John as a POV to
start for the book for any number of
pages so now here we are we are down to
the final page count of the manual
version which gives us 79 chapters which
if we multiply it by the 6600 workout
that george's project
for the winds of winter we get five
hundred and twenty-three thousand words
still which gives it about twenty three
percent over a Storm of Swords which is
too large again even if we remove the
increased projection for George's
average chapter word count and go back
to the feast for crows A Dance with
Dragons level of six thousand seventy
three average words per chapter we still
end up with a book that is thirteen
percent too large to fit however if we
look at the average word count of the
sample chapters for the winds of winter
that have already been released we get a
total amount of five thousand four
hundred and fifteen words which is much
closer to the average chapter word count
of a storm of swords which when we plug
that back in gives us a total word count
of this projected version of the winds
of winter to be about four hundred and
twenty seven thousand words enough to
fit into a single fifteen hundred
manuscript page book so it's possible
you can yes in fact fit the winds of
winter into the winds of winter but it
has to be fairly aggressive into how
utilitarian it is with telling
everybody's story so to go back to what
Marcus Haddon is post at the beginning
of this which I still thought was really
good if George is trying to make this
all fit into fifteen hundred manuscript
pages it actually kind of has to more
resemble a Storm of Swords than it does
the last two books you can have it be
expansive like a feast for crows and a
dance with dragons or you can have it be
very utilitarian and how concise it
tells its story now you probably
disagree with some of these or maybe
many of them but remember if you try and
expand one of these characters here or
there then you have to take away
chapters from somewhere else not
everything can be expansive when you're
trying to fit it into a 1500 manuscript
pages and yeah I can totally understand
if you're looking at this going like
this is terrible like this is not how
you write a book like CeCe's not to the
poke that I vaunted I mean yeah you
can't write a book in a spreadsheet I
think like yes technically you can type
a book into a spreadsheet but the why
would you do that that's dumb and yet
chapter count and word count and all this
this
stuff not how you write a book but again
it's the ingredients that ultimately
come out of it and somehow you have to
get whatever George is writing for the
winds winner down into this kind of
format otherwise you can't make the book
at least not in 1500 manuscript pages no
yeah there are advantages here like
characters overlapping and multiple
storylines and everybody coming together
a bit more that helps a lot and that
could be one of the reasons why George
has delayed the book quite a bit as it
keeps getting pushed back you know it's
it's hard to really condense it down if
that is what he is trying to do
especially when you consider that he has
20 point of views in this book versus
the ten that were in a Storm of Swords
and if you want a bunch of asterisk to
why George might not be able to manage
it down to only 1500 manuscript pages
well you got it your three main
characters are cut down to basically
half of what they were in the last book
to you can go through this entire list
and find a whole bunch of points for why
George might want to stretch that out
especially considering things like cut
characters from the show where the show
didn't even feel like they were worth
including I got to imagine that George
is gonna try and give that more gravitas
to give these characters more of a story
and more of an importance to the plot
and do what he wants to do within his
own book you've also got chapters that
are left over that we're supposed to be
in a dance with dragons where you have
the battles at the beginning that were
originally not winds of winter stuff
coupled with that the timelines some
chapters that come at the end of a dance
with dragons take place probably days
weeks months farther into the future
than the beginnings of the winds of winter
winter
Kevin's epilogue signals the arrival of
winter however if we look at Sansa's
chapters in the Vale it doesn't appear
that winter has really arrived yet so
how long is it going to be before we get
to that point before her story actually
tells the story of the timeline for the
rest of the winds of winter this manual
version that I did I also cut out a
whole lot of King's Landing chapters in
every single book King's Landing has
accounted for ten plus chapters some
even way more can George really go down
to just six or seven if another
character moves in there
cetera and he look at the stuff here
that I did with his manual projection I
killed off a whole bunch of characters
towards the end that personally if I
were writing it I'm not an author but I
would not kill them off especially to
fit within the confines of a single book
for that being the sole reason that's
bad so I don't even know with this
manual projection if George would even
do that I doubt he would and I don't
know if you've realized this but this
idea that George like just kills off
characters a lot that's more of an HBO
show invention to like market the series
for Game of Thrones and it is actually
what George does you look at the first
three books and who did he kill off for
point of views he killed off the parents
which is basically any Disney story ever
he just did it within the confines of
the book and one of them comes back as
an undead and then in the last two books
he killed off one character who had one
chapter and another character whose
whole catharsis in the series was that
he was going to die so George is not
really a kill off my own characters kind
of guy like I don't think Aaron's gonna
get just two chapters and you he'll
probably get three or four are you could
get seven Sansa could get seven
Victarion could get four like he the
list Ariane could get six eight it did
the list goes on so can George get it
down hmm I don't know it seems like a
tough nut to crack if he can could
George release the winds of winter in
two volumes at the same time purely for
binding purposes could do but at the
same time doesn't look like that is on
the horizon in any kind of case at all
at least George hasn't indicated that
he's looking to do that so far so so on
the one hand II have a book that needs
to be condensed down and on the other
hand you have a story that expands in
the telling it's the human book in
conflict with itself or something well
anyways thank you for watching and
listening to my long rambling stupidity
I hope you enjoyed it maybe if you did
you can like this video you can
subscribe to it I might make more I
haven't done one at least not for myself
you can you can comment on it tell me
what version that you
what but how would you have what what
chapters would you use for your your
book your version of the winds of winter
1500 you'd make your own version you can
share this video with your friends if
you don't want to have friends anymore
you can do whatever it's your life make
the most of it
my name's Ben Admiral Kurd you can
become a follower of me on Twitter you
can join my cult Twitter is a cult
because you have followers at least
that's how I look at it I don't have a
big cult but you can join it anyway
Click on any text or timestamp to jump to that moment in the video
Share:
Most transcripts ready in under 5 seconds
One-Click Copy125+ LanguagesSearch ContentJump to Timestamps
Paste YouTube URL
Enter any YouTube video link to get the full transcript
Transcript Extraction Form
Most transcripts ready in under 5 seconds
Get Our Chrome Extension
Get transcripts instantly without leaving YouTube. Install our Chrome extension for one-click access to any video's transcript directly on the watch page.
