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LChris24

Dead Branches in the Garden: Abandoned/Changed Plotlines of Ice & Fire (Spoilers Extended)

EXTENDED

Background

In this post, I thought it would be interesting to look at and discuss some of the different changed/abandoned plotlines that have happened over the years as GRRM made tweaks and changes to his story.

Note: Some/Most of this requires speculating, so some of these dead plotlines may not even be dead (it could even be true), or never have existed at all.

Abandoned/Changed Early Plotlines

As a gardener and not an architect, we have seen GRRM make major changes to the series from the very beginning. What originally started out as a trilogy has grown into a 7 plus book megawork with massive changes occurring since the 1993 outline.

From this outline there have been so many potential changes:

This doesn't even get into the different love triangle centered around Jon/Arya/Tyrion.

The 5 Year Gap

GRRM originally had input a 5 year gap into which he planned to develop characters (primarily the ages of the younger characters). This did not work for characters like Stannis and Cersei, but it is very likely that GRRM intended for Bran (magic), Arya (FM Training), Jon (LC of The Night's Watch), Sam (Citadel), Jaime (Left Hand Swordsmanship), Dany (dragon growth, leadership/ruling), Sansa (playing the Game of Thrones), Tyrion (character arc, etc.) and others to spend time developing their skills. While it is likely that GRRM decided it worked best for most (if not all) of these plotlines to be truncated and happen at an accelerated pace.

Mega Prologue

Around 2002-2003 GRRM originally wrote a 200+ page mega prologue that spanned most of the Ironborn and Dornish chapters from AFFC.

If interested: The Mega-Prologue revealed at last!

The Different AFFC Prologues

In addition to the Mega Prologue, GRRM wrote several versions of the AFFC, Prologue. The Long Version, The Short Version and the Rosey Version. I also want to note that if GRRM had not chose to split up AFFC/ADWD by location that Pate would have been the POV (so the Varamyr chapter was a later add)

Tyrion Meeting the Shrouded Lord

An example of an abandoned plotline that GRRM has mentioned a bit, that would be a cool read at some point is the chapter where Tyrion meets the Shrouded Lord:

DJ: Do you ever find you’ve sort of painted yourself into a corner and you’ve set up a part of the world that then impedes your storytelling?

GRRM: Yeah, that is the disadvantage of being a gardener. You know, the architect never finds himself building closed rooms that go nowhere, but the gardener sometimes traipses down the branch and finds himself sitting all the way out at the end, realizing he can’t get from that branch to anywhere else. So, sometimes I do go down byways and say, “No, I think I took the wrong turn back like three chapters ago. Let me rewrite these chapters,” or, in one case “remove these chapters.” I never destroy them, I keep them on my computer in case I see a way to put them in later. There’s always that. Rather famously, from the last book in the series that was published, A Dance with Dragons, I had a chapter where Tyrion was moving down the river on the Shy Maid—I wrote this chapter where he meets a character called the Shrouded Lord. And it’s a really good chapter. I mean, I like some chapters more than others—this is a terrific chapter. But it is an absolute dead end. Well, I don’t know if it’s a dead end, but it introduces like three additional layers of complication that I didn’t think I actually needed. But I liked it so much I kept trying to fit it in. I first presented it straight, and then I said, “Oh, I can’t fit it in. I’ll present it as a dream—Tyrion has a dream and he dreams that this happened to him and it has portent.” And then I split it up into like eight dreams and in every Tyrion chapter he dreamed a little bit of it. And finally I gave up and said, “I can’t. I have to rip out all this stuff. I doesn’t do me any good.” Some day, maybe when I finished the whole book, I’ll publish that lost chapter as a little standalone -SSM, In Conversation with Dan Jones: 30 Sept 2019

and:

Question: Any possibility of releasing the deleted Tyrion chapter in DANCE (where he met the Shrouded Lord) in the near future? In the Guardian Interview of 2014, you said you have been tempted to publish it as a novella. Have you decided to publish it? It won’t spoil WINDS and we will certainly enjoy it!

GRRM: I will need to do something with that chapter one of these days… but just what, I don’t know. -SSM, Interview in Redwood City: Aug 2018

and:

I don't know where the ideas come from. And sometimes they take me in the wrong direction. I mean, I have a whole chapter that I wrote, you know, back in the...for dance with dragons, of Tyrion in the Sorrows and the shrouded Lord. And it was a good chapter. I liked that chapter, but it took the story in the wrong direction and interest a whole new element. It took us away from, you know, and I kept trying to work it in. I, okay. I'll put it in. No, I can't. Doesn't work in, I'll break it up into two, no. I'll do it as a dream chapter. No, that doesn't work either. I'll break it up into six dreams.Tyrion will be haunted by a recurring dream. And I'll put a little bit in each chapter, oh, that doesn't work either. You know, and I finally had to take it out, but things occur, sometimes frustrating for us gardeners. -SSM, Game of Owns: July 2022

If interested: Patchface & the Shrouded Lord & Legacy Characters in ASOIAF

Later Changed Plotlines

The Meereenese Knot

Similar to the AFFC Prologue, the arrival order of characters to Meereen was giving GRRM fits. So much so that he wrote several versions:

Now I can explain things. It was a confluence of many, many factors: lets start with the offer from Xaro to give Dany ships, the refusal of which then leads to Qarth's declaration of war. Then there's the marriage of Daenerys to pacify the city. Then there's the arrival of the Yunkish army at the gates of Meereen, there's the order of arrival of various people going her way (Tyrion, Quentyn, Victarion, Aegon, Marwyn, etc.), and then there's Daario, this dangerous sellsword and the question of whether Dany really wants him or not, there's the plague, there's Drogon's return to Meereen...

All of these things were balls I had thrown up into the air, and they're all linked and chronologically entwined. The return of Drogon to the city was something I explored as happening at different times. For example, I wrote three different versions of Quentyn's arrival at Meereen: one where he arrived long before Dany's marriage, one where he arrived much later, and one where he arrived just the day before the marriage (which is how it ended up being in the novel). And I had to write all three versions to be able to compare and see how these different arrival points affected the stories of the other characters. Including the story of a character who actually hasn't arrived yet -Asshai.com: Interview in Barcelona - 29 July 2012

It would be cool if similar to these other draft chapters, that we get to see these Quentyn chapters when they come out of lock and key once TWoW is finished.

If interested: The "Meereenese Knot" of The Winds of Winter

TLDR: Just a quick look at some of the changed and abandoned plotlines over the years as GRRM grew the story from a trilogy to its current version.

Posted Apr 8, 2025, 11:55 AM UTC

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