The The George R. Martin once said, in reference to the cutting of the five-year gap,

if a 12-year-old has to conquer the world, then so be it.

The natural first thought here is one of the Starks, or maybe Danny.

But the only Stark who is in the neighborhood of 12 without the five-year gap is Aria.

The rest are older, and Danny as well is older. They are 12, well past 12 already,

unless you're talking about Brand, who is well less than 12, and Rickon even more so. A character

who is very clearly part of George's plans for after the five year gap is our subject today,

Lord Edric Dane of Starfall.

He's 12 when we first meet him.

And without the gap, he could be one year older at most by now, but he was 12 when George

made that comment.

But already he's been subtly shown to be formidable, so George won't have to stretch if he

wants to have this 12-year-old take over the world, which, of course,

we don't mean that literally. He doesn't mean that literally. No one's going to take over the world.

But Barrick was killed six times. Edric was likely by his side for several of those, yet like

Thoros of Mir is apparently hard to kill.

House Dane has always been a big part of George's plans, Edric aside, in a manner that

indicates their role is for later in the story.

The Danes aren't a big part of the Wars of the Five Kings, and until Darkstar came along,

they weren't really part of the drama in Dorn either.

During the war, Edric was an outlaw.

Though he didn't begin that way, he was a king's man like Barrick and the rest, and the world

...