GRRM made the kids too young, and that made some things (Arya in Mercy, Sansa’s upcoming wedding, etc.) creepy. The five year gap was supposed to fix this by aging up the kids, but that didn’t work out b/c of the impact on the storylines of Jon, Cersei, et al. so GRRM dropped that idea.
I’m pointing out that it probably would have been easier just to go back and change the text of AGOT so that the kids started older.
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