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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Steel_Wind" data-source="post: 4041552" data-attributes="member: 20741">The delay between Storm of Swords and AFFC was longer than anyone wanted - including GRRM.For all that, the problem which I saw in A Wheel of Time is not (yet) present in SoIaF. In Wheel of Time, Jordan wrote a series initially that was going in a particular direction in terms of his metaplot and overall thrust of the story.Perceptibly, after the first volume in WoT series, and again after the fourth and sixth volumes, it became apparent that Jordan had changed direction with no purpose other than to lengthen the series. New obstacles were placed in the path of the characters that seemed out of place, neither foreshadowed nor logically appearing. In the result, they appeared to be what they in fact were: awkward contrivances. Worse, conflict between the principal heroes and heroines of the WoT story were introduced which seem irrational and extremely contrived - and Jordan had the gall to do this more than once. It became obvious to the reader that this plot device was being employed for no other purpose than to lengthen the tale through such contrived "false conflicts".But its not just Jordan. Goodkind relied upon this same device of false conflict between hero and heroine to lengthen the Sword of Truth novels. (With SoT, as with WoT, when this plot device reared its head in too perceptible a fashion - I quit reading the series and deliberately put it aside.  I'd had enough of this crap.)Contrast this transparency of obvious "new" directions and "false conflicts" in both Wheel of Time and Sword of Truth with GRRM's Song of Ice and Fire.  I do not see the false conflict, save perhaps between Jaime and Cersei Lannister. (Any other intra-Lannister conflict was foreshadowed from the very first chapters in GoT - GRRM was always going there.)More importantly, I do not detect a false change in metaplot direction to deliberately lengthen the story.  While it may well be that the tale "grew in the telling" and is taking much longer to reach its goal than first thought, it does not seem to me that GRRM has bent his tale out of shape or diverted its course from that originally intended with respect to his main plot. It's simply taking him longer to get where he was always going. The emerging subplot in AFFC involving the High Septon and the sparrows seems a little contrived and out of place in light of the previous books perhaps. But that's really the only part in SoIaF where there seems some artificiality. GRRM is doing, on a comparative basis, extremely well with such an unexpected meandering, as it has not affected the main metaplot.I think that is the principal difference between comparing the overly long Wheel of Time to the not-yet-overly-long Song of Ice and Fire. It is a distinction with a difference.</blockquote>

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