Game Of Thrones Season 9 Would Need To Use An Idea That George R.R. Martin Scrapped Over 20 Years Ago

If Game of Thrones season 9 were to happen, it would need to borrow an idea that George R.R. Martin himself once considered. Because Game of Thrones’ ending was so controversial, and the show so huge generally, then the idea of it being brought back and continuing some way remains a pertinent one, even years after the series finale.

Is it likely? No. But is it plausible? Yes. In a world where HBO has multiple Game of Thrones spinoffs planned, WB might make a movie set in Westeros too, a Lord of the Rings film set during Fellowship with Aragorn and Gandalf is in the works, and there’s a Harry Potter TV remake on the way, so it definitely could happen.

Nothing is sacred, just about everything is viable for a reboot, revival, remake, or re-imagining, and so if the powers-that-be decided to revisit Westeros with Game of Thrones season 9, it wouldn’t be a shock. That doesn’t mean it’s a good idea, but that’s how business works. And if it were to happen – which, hopefully, would involve a lot of the cast and crew coming back, otherwise there’s really no point – then it needs one plot device to work.

GRRM’s Scrapped Time Jump Explained

There Was Almost A 5-Year Gap

When Martin was working on the follow-up to A Storm of Swords, he originally planned to skip the story ahead by five years. A Song of Ice and Fire’s time jump would’ve mostly served the purpose of aging up the books’ younger characters: Jon Snow was just 14 when the story started, Daenerys Targaryen was 13, and the likes of Arya and Bran Stark younger still. The author felt they weren’t old enough for the even darker, more mature stories he had planned for them, and the time jump was his fix for that.

A Song of Ice and Fire books in order

Title

Year

A Game of Thrones

1996

A Clash of Kings

1998

A Storm of Swords

2000

A Feast for Crows

2005

A Dance with Dragons

2011

The Winds of Winter

TBA

A Dream of Spring

TBA

This would’ve also marked a new direction for the story, because A Storm of Swords changed things so radically. With Tywin Lannister dead, Tyrion Lannister and Arya both headed to Essos, Robb and Catelyn Stark killed at the Red Wedding, Joffrey Baratheon murdered at his own wedding, and then Catelyn coming back as Lady Stoneheart, to mention just a few game-changing plot lines, the status quo was irrevocably changed, so there is some logic to having more reaching room between events.

The author found himself writing that five years had passed at the Wall, following Jon Snow becoming Lord Commander, and hardly anything of note had happened

However, Martin ultimately scrapped the time jump, because it provided more problems than solutions. The author found himself writing that five years had passed at the Wall, following Jon Snow becoming Lord Commander, and hardly anything of note had happened. Other stories had the opposite issue: too much had happened, and he was bogged down in writing flashbacks to explain it. So, instead, there was no time jump, and Martin ended up writing the versions of A Feast For Crows and A Dance with Dragons we have now.

Why A Time Jump Is The Only Way To Make Game Of Thrones Season 9 Work

It Makes Sense After Thrones’ Series Finale

Although Game of Thrones is now a long way past the point of Martin’s time jump idea, it’s one that would actually be better suited to the story and characters for season 9. That’s not just to help with Game of Thrones’ cast – which isn’t too much of an issue, so it’s only been a few years – but more because if the show were to return, the passage of time would be important in finding a new narrative.

For one thing, the ending of Game of Thrones season 8 was pretty definitive. That’s true of the major characters, but even more so the state of the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros as a whole: so many major houses are extinct, so many people dead, and so many wars and rivalries over that it needs time for things to rebuild. This is Westeros, after all. There’ll always be some new threat, a new reason for houses to go to war, and new quests for power, but it can’t happen so quickly after crowning a new King, or a new Queen in the North, and so on.

Game of Thrones Season 8 Time Passed

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Game Of Thrones: How Much Time Passes From Seasons 1-8

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A time jump would make a new story feel more earned and believable, and allow those characters to feel more lived-in with their new roles, while still being able to show what, say, Bran is like as a king and how his Small Council operates. The passage of time is always important to Westeros’ biggest stories, because so much of what Martin writes is a generational saga: the cycles of violence and power, the idea of what legacy you leave behind, the weight of family, the sins of the father, and how history repeats itself.

Similar to how Game of Thrones exists because of Robert’s Rebellion, a bigger time jump in season 9 of the show could allow for these themes to be renewed and play out once more in new ways…

Similar to how Game of Thrones exists because of Robert’s Rebellion, a bigger time jump in season 9 of the show could allow for these themes to be renewed and play out once more in new ways, with some characters perhaps having children of their own, and new families emerging to claim power where there were vacancies. It comes with the benefit of distancing itself from season 8, which isn’t a bad thing given the backlash, and can better play into some of the core ideas of the series, making this the best way to continue the main show.