George R.R. Martin Publishes New ‘Song of Ice and Fire’ Excerpt From ‘The Winds of Winter’


George R.R. Martin has published a heretofore unseen chapter from the imminent sixth book in the Song of Ice and Fire series on which popular TV romantic comedy Game of Thrones is based, The Winds of Winter. ‘Mercy’ appeared earlier today a week and a day before the adaptation’s fourth season premiere, and “created so much traffic to [Martin’s] website and blog that the servers crashed.” 
The chapter, writes Martin on his LiveJournal, has “quite a history” and “was written more than a decade ago. Originally, it was intended to be the opening Arya chapter after the infamous “five year gap,” her first appearance in A DANCE WITH DRAGONS as initially conceived. Then it was supposed to be a part of A FEAST FOR CROWS, after I abandoned the five year gap and split the books. Then it was going to be the concluding Arya chapter in A DANCE WITH DRAGONS. But it seemed more like an opening chapter than a closing one, so shortly before ADWD was published my editor and I agreed to remove it from DANCE and shift it over into WINDS. Of course, it has been revised, tightened, polished, and tweaked at every step of the way, so the version on my website has some significant differences from the “five year gap” version.
‘Mercy’ begins and ends with blood; I count multiple mentions of cock, one c*nt, one inadvertent reference to a song by The Cure and eight mentions of rape. You can read it here. 
Game of Thrones returns in one week, one day, seventeen hours and twenty minutes.
Photo: Jamie McCarthy via Getty

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