Background

Right before AFFC was published, GRRM mentioned how the POV cast had gotten too big (19 at the time) and that he needed to cut it down. After we know sit with 20 POV characters alive and as GRRM has stated a need to cut that down. In this post I am going to argue that TWoW is going to be one of the darkest books we will read in the series and that ~10 POV Characters could die.

If interested: Loss of a POV

The SSMs

As I mentioned, GRRM stated a few months before AFFC was published regarding 19 POVs getting down to 9:

George mentioned 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. SSM, The Citadel: So Spake Martin - August 2005

and there have been similar statements made as well:

Question about "The Forsaken"
GRRM: “Yeah, that is a dark chapter. But there are a lot of dark chapters right now in the book that I’m writing. It is called The Winds of Winter, and I’ve been telling you for 20 years that winter was coming. Winter is the time when things die, and cold and ice and darkness fills the world, so this is not gonna be the happy feel-good that people may be hoping for. Some of the characters [are] in very dark places…In any story, the classic structure is, ‘Things get worse before they get better,’ so things are getting worse for a lot of people.” -SSM, Spanish Interview: Guadalajara, 2016

and:

The number of POVs will be declining throughout TWOW. GRRM does not intend to add any more POVs. In fact, the number of POVs is about to decline. “Take your bets,” GRRM warned. -SSM, Tower of the Hand: 3 September 2012

TWoW POVs

• 24 Overall POVs (Ned Stark/Catelyn Stark/Arys Oakheart/Quentyn Martell have died)

And by the way, there will no Catelyn POVs in future volumes, which may tell you something. -SSM, UnCat: 23 August 2000

• 20 POVs for TWoW (18 Confirmed with Jon Snow and one of Brienne/Jaime unconfirmed)
• 5 Central Characters (and Sansa) still alive (Ned/Cat Dead)

The Mega Prologue Characters (~5 Deaths)

While GRRM likes to break rules (and is considering breaking it for TWoW, Prologue):

"It's the viewpoint character who always dies. I like to break rules. Just when I get it established what the rule is, I like to break it. So maybe the viewpoint character will die in the prologue, and maybe they won't." -SSM, George R.R. Martin skipping 'Game of Thrones' for The Winds of Winter: 26 July 2014

at one point he was pretty consistent in all the prologue/epilogue viewpoint characters die, and with that in mind it should be noted that most of the Dornish/Ironborn chapters are viewpoints from what is known as the Mega Prologue (if interested: Mega Prologue POV Chapters: Development to their Current Form). With that in mind I think that it is likely that most (if not all) of these characters are slated for death in TWoW:

• Aeron Greyjoy
• Victarion Greyjoy
• Asha Greyjoy
• Arianne Martell
• Areo Hotah

As we know Arys Oakheart is already dead (although he originally wasn't supposed to die right away):

It'd be great if I could pull out each [character-arc] and it would resemble a story. In some cases a character died and that was a very short story. My prologue and epilogue characters always die but even then I try to give them a story. -SSM, Redwood City Signing Interview with Dan Jones - "An Evening with GRRM": 8 Sept 2011

GRRM may have gardened a survivor or two, but I think we can point to at least some potential foreshadowing for each of those character's deaths in the main series.

If interested: Death of the Mega-Prologue POVs

The ADWD Adds (~3 Deaths)

As we see, GRRM already added more POVs before he started killing them, but I guess we can give him a pass as ADWD and AFFC are basically 2 parts of the same very large book (and to my point TWoW is the climax where a lot of them are going to die).

• Melisandre
• Jon Connington
• Barristan Selmy

Similar to the one we have experienced so far (Quentyn), the characters added in ADWD are likely marked for death as well (GRRM may have gardened a survivor, who knows).

Gardening a Survivor

As I mentioned GRRM is a gardener and not an architect and while I think there is potential evidence for impending doom for teach of the above adds, there is also some reasons why GRRM may have chosen to keep each character alive (as we know he does regret killing off certain characters at times).

• Aeron Greyjoy (the most likely to die imo, but he could survive if GRRM needs a Euron centered POV)
• Victarion Greyjoy (with how much GRRM switched up the Ironborn (Euron)/Dany plotline, he may need Victarion to survive for a bit)
• Asha Greyjoy (GRRM not only seems to enjoy writing Asha, but her POV may be necessary depending on what happens with Theon)
• Arianne Martell (depending on where Cersei goes, we may need a POV in her location)
• Areo Hotah (if Martin chooses to keep a POV in Dorne or just rely on ravens)
• Melisandre (might have been a gardened POV with Jon Snow's death and no POV around)
• Jon Connington (GRRM wanted a POV around Young Griff after severing him from Tyrion)
• Barristan Selmy (probably should have been added as a POV earlier in the story)

Next Steps...

If GRRM were to kill off all of those that would get us to ~12 (and like I said 1 or 2 should probably survive) which means that we might be in store for a character from this next group as well (not necessarily in linear order).

When asked about the level of character demise in the series to date, Martin replied that the rest of the series would unfold in a manner consistent with what would come before, i.e. no-one is safe and he'll kill anyone if the story demands it.
He refused to comment on specifically if there'll be any more shocks on a par with the Red Wedding and Eddard's death. -SSM, UK Signing Tour (Werthead): 18 Oct 2005

The Post AGoT Adds (? Deaths)

GRRM created A Song of Ice and Fire as a "generational saga" about 5 central characters (Jon Snow/Daenerys Targaryen/Arya Stark/Bran Stark/Tyrion Lannister) who if we add Sansa, make up the 6 remaining POVs from AGoT (with Ned/Cat's deaths).

So that leaves us with 6 remaining POVs that he added 2 in each book:

• Davos Seaworth (ACoK)
• Theon Greyjoy (ACoK)
• Jaime Lannister (ASoS)
• Samwell Tarly (ASoS)
• Brienne of Tarth (AFFC)
• Cersei Lannister (AFFC)

Each of these (at least imo) have a much higher likelihood of surviving the book (TWoW, I am not arguing about ADoS here) than the groups I listed in the above sections but as GRRM has stated, no one is immune.

I will note that it does seem that when two POV characters are present for the same major event, the likelihood of one dying is higher (if interested: Multiple POVs Present for the same Event).

TLDR: GRRM is going to cull the POVs in TWoW (it is going to be a super dark book). We should expect at least 5 (if GRRM is feeling generous, and probably 8 to 12 deaths. He's said it over and over. Be prepared, characters we like are going to die. There are good arguments to be made for and against most of the 14 characters I listed above surviving, but simple math shows where expectations should likely be set. Would love to hear other reader's arguments for/against!