Why A 5 Year Time Jump Could Have Saved Game of Thrones

The last four seasons of Game of Thrones were the weakest and here's how they could have been an improvement on the first four? This short uses evidence from A Game of Thrones, A Clash of Kings, A Storm of Swords, A Feast for Crows, A Dance with Dragons and The Winds of Winter.

A Game of Thrones theory explained, prepare for The Winds of Winter release date with a theory video of George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire book series and something to think about while waiting for HBO's House of the Dragon Season 2.

[pauljames]

Hotpie could have spent that time becoming a Michelin star chef.

[nelsonchereta]

George's mistake wasn't failing to put in a time skip. It was failing to write the last two books while the series was on the air. That would have saved Game of Thrones.

[xSunde]

Sam would've been far into his maester studies too, and we wouldn't have had to read all those Brienne chapters where she's just wandering about...

[edgarmartien]

That would have given us some great storylines

[ptatisen]

I believe he said that there were two major reasons why a 5 year timskip wouldn't work in the end:
The walkers and Cersei wouldn't spend 5 years rolling their thumbs

[Ruby.D]

The moment George realised he made his characters too young and the political conflicts too fast but it was too late to fix it.

[xxlCortez]

instead, we have a 13 years book skip

[kevinavelar]

The only problem is that the GOT team didn’t have the writing chops to make any of these storylines work without the books as a guide, just like what happened without this time jump

[Samy-Sami]

And the Night King would have multiplied his army and fu**ed them up

[cia]

And Stannis? Is he just chilling at the Wall for 5 years?

[raultimo]

By that time the white walkers would have finished them all one by one

[cheeseforeveryone]

I reckon his biggest mistake was forgetting to finish the story.

[michaelkean]

the reason why the last kingdom show worked so well was because it had quite a few time jumps both in between seasons and also within the seasons themselves. this allowed for the show to recontextualise events and was able to pace out the story in away that didn't feel rushed despite the jump ahead in time. the show decided to focus heavily on the mainline events and knew what irrelevant stuff from the books to cut. (there are things in a story that you don't need to see and you can get away with.)

season 2 of the last kingdom had a 3 year timeskip half-way through and there is like 15 years in-between season 2 and 3 then another 5 years between 3 and 4 then 10 years between 4 and 5. with a massive 20 years in between season 5 and the Movie 7 kings must die (with Uhtred in his mid 80s)

game of thrones should have done timeskips in-between seasons and allowed for it's story to breath and establish more permanency which would allow for way more breathing room for the writers.

[domonicdecoco]

Myrcella becoming Queen is the most interesting theory to me. I suspect the situation with Tommen and the Highsparrow would still play out as it had. But Cersei’s ego would not allow her to surrender the Iron Throne to her Daughter. I suspect Myrcella’s compassion and reasoning gained from her stay in Dorne would rally other great houses to her cause. Probably would decide not to go to war with Danaerys as well with the some convincing from Tyrion and House Martell. Also resulting in the crown being rational about the things happening North of the Wall. Yadda yadda yadda.. Great theory imo

[cia]

It would not take Tyrion 5 years to make it to Mereen.

[didinx]

All the more sad really considering HotD had multiple time jumps and it worked.

[whyareyoureadingmynickname]

All characters but Lannisters and Stannis would seemingly have benefited from this situation, but I'm still not sure if timeskip would be a good idea, since it would basically imply that nothing interesting has happened in those 5 years, which is a bit of a cop-out. Besides, the issue in later part of the series wasn't just the plot (in some cases it was) but the fact that pacing was all over the place.

[rebel]

The White Walkers would’ve breached the wall within 5 years.

Stannis isn’t patient, and so even if waiting until Cersei’s power weakens, he’ll find a solution to take the Iron Throne sooner.

With the way Cersei was ruling, the consequences of her stupidity would possibly literally topple onto her way sooner than 5 years.

And who the hell knows what the Boltons and Greyjoys would be doing within that timeframe.

[zk-zg]

Can someone explain to me why Stanis went north? Did he really think Wildlings would fight for him? He had no idea they were marching on the wall and he had no idea that Jon had 1/100 chance to sway them. That really made on sense to me.

[Cam-jvqy]

That means Ramsey Bolton would be the Worden of the North for five years.