User blog comment:Zaralyyth/The Sad Truth/@comment-210608-20120605094021/@comment-5014364-20120605162457

A Feast for Crows and A Dance with Dragons aren't going to be condensed into one season. Rather, the books were originally one book that got split in half due to length issues, with AFFC following characters in the Seven Kingdoms, and ADWD focusing on The Wall and Essos. But each book takes place side by side chronologically (only the end of ADWD *briefly* revisits the characters from AFFC just to check on how they're doing).

So given that A Storm of Swords is going to be cut in half to span season 3 and season 4...

"Season 5" will be "the first half of A Feast For Crows and the first half of A Dance with Dragons,

and "Season 6" will be "the second half of A Feast for Crows and the second half of A Dance with Dragons.

Somewhat similar to how in Tolkien's book The Two Towers, the first half followed Aragorn & Co. and everyone except Frodo, and then the second half backed up to show what Frodo was doing *simultaneously* as the first half of the book was happening. The film adaptation just intercut between the two plotlines, as it would be less confusing to an audience watching it in a 3 hour burst as opposed to sitting down to read a book.

So there will be no merger of AFFC and ADWD into one season. Rather, AFFC and ADWD are going to be *intercut* across seasons 5 and 6.