Game Of Thrones Nearly Included A Massive Time Jump That Could Have Changed Everything
There are dozens of key moments in the history of “A Song of Ice and Fire” that, had they gone another way, could’ve put characters on very different paths. What if Robb Stark had stuck to his original wedding plans? What if Bran had listened to his mother and not gone climbing? What if Ned Stark had taken the time to hear out the deserter from the Night’s Watch who claimed that White Walkers were the real deal? These are all hypotheticals that could’ve changed “Game of Thrones” drastically, but one huge alteration that author George R. R. Martin had genuinely considered was having a time jump in the middle of a pivotal moment of his epic story.
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Amidst all the deception, death, and dragons, Martin played with the idea of giving his characters a breather between “A Storm of Swords” and “A Feast for Crows,” the third and fourth novels in Martin’s “Game of Thrones” book series, by leaping forward five years in the timeline. At this point, Oberyn Martell had died, Jon Snow was now Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch, Jorah had been banished by Daenerys, Petyr Baelish killed Lysa Arryn, and Arya Stark had made her way to Braavos to learn the ways of the Faceless Men. That’s a lot to leave lingering for half a decade, but the reasoning behind it all made sense while also potentially making things a little more complicated.
The time jump worked for some Game of Thrones’ characters, but not for others
Speaking to Gizmodo about his brief battle with time, George R. R. Martin backed up his five-year gap idea after realising that during his very active story where heroes died and villains lived, some of the characters that were privy to it all hadn’t aged. “So you end a book, and you’ve had a tremendous amount of events — but they’ve taken place over a short time frame, and the eight-year-old kid is still eight years old.”
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It was here that Martin toyed with the idea of a time jump, allowing the likes of the Stark children, Jon Snow, and Daenerys to all grow up and be of a fitting age for the even tougher events that were ahead of them. The problem was that while they were growing up, other adult characters were left twiddling their thumbs (or Littlefingers) to get back into action. Five years out could’ve worked for Arya, for example, who heads off to Bravos at only 12 years old, allowing her to become a lethal killing machine by the time she’s 17. Meanwhile, Cersei, according to GRRM, would’ve gone through six different Hands, all of whom would’ve come with their own bits of backstabbing that would need to be referred to in flashbacks. It simply made things far more difficult than it needed to be and would’ve made the adaptation of the books just plain boring in places.
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Game of Thrones would’ve had to take a House of the Dragon approach had the time jump happened
There are certainly arguments to be made for the jump working in some areas but had it transferred over to the show, we might’ve encountered the same issue that presented itself in “House of the Dragon” when the show recast some of their key characters. Some, if not all of the Stark children would — after at least three four seasons — be completely recast, making for a jarring transition in a pivotal moment in the storyline. The likes of Robb Stark (Richard Madden), Theon Greyjoy (Alfie Allen) and Jon Snow (Kit Harrington) may well have stayed as they are, but the likes of Arya (Maisie Williams), Sansa (Sophie Turner) and Brian (Isaac Hempstead Wright) would’ve all needed to be replaced by actors five years older, and viewers having got accustomed to characters they’d watched for some time were now played by totally different people.
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Speaking of Jon, it also would’ve been an even longer time on the wall, with him taking the title of Lord Commander and seemingly left with nothing really to do. It also would’ve made his eventual betrayal by other members of the Night’s Watch a long time coming. For now, we should just be thankful that Martin stuck to the plan and simply gave the youngsters in “A Song of Ice and Fire” some of the toughest childhoods in literature, which ended up becoming one of the best television shows of the last decade.
