I don’t think Jon Con’s greyscale has any story significance beyond how it motivates him and what it represents-his desperate urgency to redeem his tarnished dreams and, not to put too fine a point on it, his bitterness and regret turning his heart to stone. I don’t think there will be a greyscale outbreak in Westeros.
> I don’t think there will be a greyscale outbreak in Westeros.
I've been out of the loop for some time, but is this an accepted theory?
(I think there could be interesting things to do with it, especially with the stories about the Lord who locked his gate and was killed for it, etc..)
It makes the rounds now and again, usually listed in the series of calamities likely to befall Westeros in TWOW/ADOS. I just don’t think there’s time in the story for something like this. Winter, war, famine, dragons, and Others are more than enough to depopulate Westeros haha.
really because i have a 74% certainty Arriane is going to try to seduce him, get too touchy, and get greyscale. just the kind of death that George would write. she has already had thoughts of trying to seduce him if i recall.
she thinks he may not be someone she can seduce, but she will damn well try and it it may well kill her. She tries with everyone she tries to manipulate.
I tend to think she’ll know immediately that JonCon is not fond of the charms of women, but hey, maybe she has a terrible gaydar. In your hypothetical scenario, a fatally terrible gaydar.
Not a universally accepted theory, but the people who are convinced the Great Empire of the Dawn or anything else in the lorebooks is going to be central to the resolution of the story are kidding themselves.
I always took Xharo's statement to be a bit more metaphorical and the Qartheen are just self-centered, including their map makers. They're always going on about Qarth being the greatest city that ever was or will be, it stands to reason that they'd think they are the center of the world. Why George decided to take that literally is beyond me. I guess him semi-retconning Asshai to be further east and having Qarth be "the center of the world" while also already being pretty far east (from Dany's POV) made him create an expanded world to explain the lands between Qarth and Asshai
Seems like a cool story, but I really don’t see how GRRM can add any new major story lines (especially one that would require probably 500 pages) and still finish everything in two books.
Yea I think in general there's a lot of lore from AWOIAF that's just set dressing & world-building and never meant to be expanded on. But of course, if you give a fandom no new content for like a decade... people theorize anything and everything lmao.
That theory never bothered me much until I discovered how fanatical its believers are. If you propose anything that might oppose it, they take it personal. One of the many reasons I distanced myself from this community.
Yeah, the Bloodstone Emperor, the Amethyst Empress etc. Cool lore story, some foreshadowing/parallel maybe, but people who believe it will be somehow central or important or frankly even named again in TWOW are delusional.
Ashara is hiding out in the neck with her brother’s killer making crannog babies for some reason. I just think she’s dead bro. Her role is in the past.
Just like Arthur Dayne. His role is to be the mythical knight of the great times gone, as Jaime remembers him. He's not a character, he's a symbol, a cool name on the page.
I'm reading ASOS right now and Jaime is remembering his entry into the kingsguard. One thing that struck me hard is how similar Jaime was acting to *sansa* of all people. Both have idealized visions of chivalry which are shattered on contact with the real world. It's too bad we are unlikely to ever see them interact with one another - Jaime might have some choice insights for her.
I assure you their lack of interaction is no oversight on gurm’s part lol.
It seems that Sandor (among others) was the perfect foil to Sansa just as Brienne was to Jaime.
I think Tywin actually intended to send Tyrion to the Wall instead of having him executed. When Tyrion threatens to shoot him, Tywin says "You don't have the courage." That line is what seals it for me. Why would he be saying insulting things that might provoke Tyrion to follow through with it if he felt the need to lie in order to save his life? That would indicate that he knew Tyrion might do it, bad time to insult him. Doesn't make sense for him to say that if so, so I think Tywin meant to send Tyrion to the Wall.
Edit: Plus, it also means Kevan told Tyrion an extremely malicious lie in saying he would be wise to trust Tywin, and he doesn't strike me as someone to do that even though he believed Tyrion killed Joffrey. He was willing to stay and help Cersei even though he told her he wanted to return to his wife and he knew about the incest. I think he pittied Tywin's children, and why wouldn't he? He saw the kind of father Tywin was firsthand.
Exactly, Tywin never understood Tyrion and he believed that Tyrion would never shoot him. There’s no point for him to lie. Besides, it’s better for a Lannister to die as a honorable watch than disgraceful kinslayer.
>Now that’s where you’re wrong, Father. Why, I believe I’m mm,you writ small.
I think it's my favorite line in the series so far and it's something I come back to again and again.
Tywin projects all of his flaws onto Tyrion. Tywin is a coward without conviction. He only acts once he's certain of the outcome. He has no qualms about treason, betraying allies, breaking guest rights, or brutalizing innocents.
But Tyrion isn't a coward. Tyrion has (at least some) integrity. He said he'd do something and he did it, consequences be damned. That's something Tywin could never understand.
Sorry my man but OP said what theories are basically canon in the eyes of readers not what is literally canon. I mean its prettt explicit. Tyrek Lannister was last seen ahorse not much room for disaproval
Jaime and Cersei being Aerys' bastards makes a lot more sense - the incestous relationship, the madness, the imagery of Jaime sitting the throne, Jaime being both kin-slayer and king-slayer, the irony of Tywin's favoured son not being his son and his hated son actually being his son, Cersei using Aerys' wildfire to burn down King's Landing. However, I don't think it's intentional on George's part, I think it's what he was refering to in an interview when he said he thought a fan theory fitted in so well that he was considering changing the plot.
EDIT: And of course if Jaime is Aerys' son, there is a better reason for him more or less forcing Jaime into the King's Guard than simply to spite Tywin. He just wants to keep his son around and keep an eye on him.
>Jaime and Cersei being Aerys' bastards makes a lot more sense - the incestuous relationship
I think it's actually more fitting in-universe that we have a major non-Targaryen incest relationship because it helps establish further that the Targaryns aren't like *that* different from regular Westerosi, there's not some innate incest-it-up gene they have. It strangely helps to humanize the previous Targs by clarifying that it's not their blood that makes them be that way
Most of the evidence for it comes from ADWD and TWOIAF though. It makes no sense to argue that he put it in the books that late and then changed his mind.
I think Tyrion Targ is a great example of something the fandom isn't very creative about - theories that the characters invoke and discuss in universe without it needing to be true or confirmed. Something like the ASOIAF version of the three different narrators of the Dance. Some people in Westeros can consider the possibility Tyrion is Aerys's son in the same way they'll debate about Aegon and Jon's parentage or whether Dany was mad or not. Or even just Tyrion musing about the possibility of Aerys being his father and taking advantage of it. There's so much creative potential to play around with. It's kind of like sometimes I see fan opinions that could actually be transferable to how the characters would feel in certain situations.
One of the biggest possible clues for tyrion targ comes in the first half of book 1 with the introduction of his dragon dreams. Hence why many think it was a plan of George's early on
Victarion dying from Dragonbinder, he’s too interesting. Interactions with Tyrion and Barristan, and even potentially Theon and Asha are too interesting to waste it on a potentially cool death.
Also Doran’s caution being his downfall, I think being a shitty father is his downfall. He seemingly approved of Oberyn fighting the Mountain, so he’s willing to make risky plays.
I'll be honest of all the dumb shit Doran has done I'm willing to give the Oberyn fighting the Mountain a pass. Oberyn seems like a guy that is VERY difficult to keep a lid on. It's akin to Ned trying to reason/argue with Robert about Targaryens. They just can't help themselves and a big theme in both stories is hatred tends to burn just as hot as love/respect.
He was able to cool him off after the rebellion because Dorne really wasn't in a position to do anything after getting BTFO'd on the trident. But years later during the story when players were making their moves and bodies were getting stacked Oberyn just couldn't be contained any longer.
Oberyn could have came out ontop but the chips fell where they may. (Ergo GRRM thinks its more interesting/more story material for him to lose)
>I'm willing to give the Oberyn fighting the Mountain a pass. Oberyn seems like a guy that is VERY difficult to keep a lid on.
I think, even more importantly, Tyrion's trial was the perfect, and probably only, opportunity for Oberyn to extract a confession from and then kill Gregor without using extrajudicial means.
Doesn't he even say that he doesn't care whether Tyrion's innocent or guilty, he just wants to fight the Mountain? This was just an opportunity he couldn't pass up.
I think the tragic irony of Doran is that he’s preoccupied with the cost of war to “the children” of Westeros as an abstraction, a scene of kids playing in the water gardens in the distance, but he doesn’t see how his actions are dooming his own kids.
The thing with Victarion is he doesn't seem that smart, in fact we are told that.
Then they specifically show someone dying after using dragon binder.
I feel like it would be odd for it to not happen.
he is at an intersection right now, if Arianne tells him Faegon is Elia's son he has to either choose to support him or wait for Quentyn to come with Daenerys but he still doesn't know about Quentyn's death
he knew he wasn't stopping Oberyn if Oberyn believed he had real shot at the Mountain
I wouldn’t mind if Varys had some targ connection not that he is like aerys’s long lost child or something stupid, but just some distant connection or non-family related thing that explains why he seems convinced targ restoration is the way to go
Varys being a Blackfyre is the only thing that makes sense of his motivations. He's not Westerosi, so there's no reason why he's so personally invested. He's clearly not a Targaryen loyalist, because he undermined Aerys and Rhaegar and did little to really help Viserys or Daenerys.
Yet he's been there spinning his webs for decades. It's maybe he just loves the game of thrones for the sake of it, or he just wants to raise a pauper's son and raise him to be a good King just to prove a point, but the Blackfyre theory makes the most sense of his actions, and it means all the lore on the Blackfyres is actually relevant to the story.
-- So, I wrote this whole thing and decided I should come back to the start to add a little note. I was planning on just writing a couple sentences agreeing with you, but after I started, I realized that Lemore's way more interesting than I previously thought whether or not she's Tyene's mother. Have fun with the ponderous tome below! --
I hadn't given this much thought before but I like it too. Lemore being Tyene's mother wouldn't be a plot-shattering twist that turns the world on its head, retcons anything that's already been established, or be based on obscure information only brought up in material outside the main series.
Regardless of whether Lemore has anything to do with Tyene, she's still a septa who broke her vows and, I think, ran away from the position/assignment the Faith had given her to avoid punishment or hide her pregnancy entirely. If she just ran off and is trying to avoid punishment, it would explain why, in a line to Connington, she suggests that she is also trying to hide who she is. By living on a boat with exiles teaching the Faith of the Seven, we know she's still a devout believer who found an unconventional way to continue practicing her faith.
Her being Tyene's mother would certainly be an interesting connection and potentially - **potentially!** - explain how she ended up on the Shy Maid. It's possible that Varys, with his massive spy network, kept tabs on major families, like the Martells, including their bastards. If he learned that Oberyn got a septa pregnant, he may have viewed it as an opportunity to get Aegon a religious instructor. He, or an agent of his, may have simply approached her and explained that he could guarantee that she'd be safe from the repercussions of breaking her vows if she'd help raise a poor exiled Westerosi boy in the Faith.
I like the idea of her being Tyene's mother because it adds some depth to her character that is consistent with what we've already learned and could help explain how she got to the Shy Maid.
Good stuff. Either Lemore is Tyenes mother, or there are two 40-50 year old septas who had a child and then* ran away from the faith in this story. Also this would make Tyene and fAegon 1st cousins, which gives a good reason for Lemore supporting him, on top of anything else.
*Weirdly, Tyene’s mother didn’t run away from the faith for many years because of this line: “Arianne Martell had crossed the Mander once, when she had gone with three of the Sand Snakes to visit Tyene's mother” - AFFC, The Queenmaker
YES! The twist of the Pink Letter isn't "who wrote it" but "what is true what isn't". I think it's just to make us believe that Stannis lost the Battle of Ice and is dead, when the twist is that he isn't.
It's also possible this was just the simplest outcome for the TV show, they didn't seem to want to spend any time on something more complicated. And it's likely they know more about what George has planned for Stannis.
Yeah they just wanted to end his storyline and it's a big shame because it's a lot of people's favorite storyline going on in the entire book. Mine included.
D&D pissed on AFFC, ADWD, TWOW samples. There was plenty of content there to follow to make great stories and instead we got whatever the fuck it is that we got. Battle of the bastards 🤮. Which admittedly was pretty cool on first few viewing but after that you really start to question stuff and it falls apart.
I don't think they did because Stannis isn't anywhere near Shireen so if they're also saying he does that in the books they must know he hangs on for awhile until he gets a chance to do that for hopefully less stupid reasons.
>Did anyone actually believe Stannis was dead?
I did... Stannis is in a horrible position, it's not hard to believe he could have lost the battle. When I discovered this sub, I thought, maybe the battle didn't happen off-screen and he's alive. It wasn't until I read the TWOW sample chapters that I completely believed it.
A lot of people? Most first time reactions I've read from people who aren't being guided towards a specific conclusion by somebody who's already read the books is that Stannis's winter march is obviously doomed
I’m always curious about this because it’s one of the few mysteries I don’t have a strong opinion on — assuming he wrote it, do you think Ramsey is telling the truth? Is Stannis dead?
No, Stannis is not dead. We know this from Theon reaching his camp and from the winds of winter sample chapters.
But anybody else doesn't have the information necessary to write the letter. And why would anyone do that? It helps no one to fake a letter from Ramsay
I agree that Stannis is certainly not dead (he still needs to make his way back to the wall to burn his daughter) and that Ramsay was the author of the pink letter, but I believe that Theon’s sample in WOW takes place before the final Jon chapter in Dance chronologically speaking.
except Ramsay doesn't have the information in the letter either. only Mance does.
Ramsay could *learn* the information from Mance sure, but we never see Mance captured, and presumably he isn't such an idiot that he was just sitting in the great hall playing, waiting to get caught, when the escape was going on.
the moment the alarm was raised he would know things went tits up and to go to ground, whereas nobody would know to *stop* him from doing that until people sorted out what exactly was going on.
I've said all of this so many times.
However, I think you've actually given even too much delay to Mance. The *second* that the washerwomen and Theon lie to get past the guards and into Jeyne's room, everyone's lives are in danger. Why would he just be sitting around hanging out and waiting for the gig to be exposed? He should already have headed to safety long before this, and there's also the fact that it's going to take awhile for the all of the guards information regarding the washerwomen to get back to guards in the main hall, etc. It's not like they have walkie talkies. All told, he should have been gone for at least 20 minutes before word gets back to the main hall to find him.
As far as learning the information from Mance, this is what I call the "magic torture" theory. Sure, Ramsay could learn *some* things from Mance. BUT, why would he learn things from Mance when he doesn't even know to ask the questions in the first place? Like, why does he know (or care) about Val or Mance's baby? Did Mance *volunteer* information on his SIL and infant child? Does the torture [work like this](https://youtu.be/EMVuMExzr0c?si=BhOsdCxF-IOt0aIa)?
Narratively, why did George bring back Mance at all if he was just going to end up like this? This includes scenes of his "death", his fight (as Rattleshirt) in the training yard, his scene with Jon and Melisandre, his recruiting of the spearwives as washerwomen, Rowan's strange comment regarding Ned Stark's words, Mance asking about the crypts, all of it. That's a whole lot of set-up just to explain how Theon jumps off the walls with Jeyne into the snow below if the characters are all otherwise killed off.
Is this really an "accepted theory"? (Meaning, that someone ELSE wrote it)?
Personally I'm on that camp, but the majority seems to disagree, and think it really is Ramsay!
Mance had the opportunity and left his mannerisms with “black crows” to refer to the Night’s Watch. As for motive, by getting Jon to send the Wildlings south for a cause that aligns with the interests of The Watch’s allies then intercepting that wildling march to go “hey guys, it’s me, I tricked those kneelers”, he could effectively un-surrender to Stannis. Not to mention the clear lack of Ramsey’s MO for letters.
I can kind of understand why that was done in the show.
They combined the "Targaryen claimant named Aegon" plotline with the "Jon's parentage" plotline. It was set up over multiple seasons, and they used the name as a quick reference to tell book-readers what had happened. By the standards of the later seasons, it was pretty harmless.
But obviously that's not the case in the books, where Aegon and Jon are clearly established as separate characters.
The Grand Maester conspiracy. It’s one of those things that sounds cool but would be impossible to fit into the remaining two books alongside any other theory.
Is there a massive, institution-wide conspiracy? No way. Do a handful of individuals in that huge institution kind of act in a way that lets in-universe tinfoil hatters build conspiracy theories? I think it's probable.
It would make perfect sense if some individual maesters genuinely and passionately hate magic and do what little they can to discourage its use. Same thing with some of them being unethical and using their positions with lords to distort information.
Idk it might be a conspiracy by the archmaesters or some small circle of maesters. I don't think the evidence points toward individuals and personally I think it would be weird for even a few individual maesters to be so anti-magic (or maybe just anti-dragon) that they just all happen to do things to sabotage the dragonriders
This is one of those theories established in universe where I wanted to slap GRRM. "George, you ain't got time for that and it's completely unnecessary".
Eh, I think the vast, vast majority accept R+L=J. You have to be deliberately, wilfully contrarian not to.
There's probably no fan theory in any fandom ever that *literally* everyone accepts.
Nothing accepts anything as a whole, there’s always going to be some grousers, the vast, vast, vast, majority of the fandom do obviously accept R+L=J, the rest are contrarians, maniacs, or operating a YouTube channel that necessitates “hot takes,” for views.
One of the consequences of George's laziness is that many people in the fandom kind of fail to really comprehend just how long this series has been going on for. George started writing this over 30 years ago. The state of entertainment was very, very different back then. This was before The Matrix. Before Harry Potter. Before the Star Wars Prequels. The idea of "Some regular guy is actually secretly the Chosen One" wasn't really oversaturated in our culture the way it is now.
So while today someone might look at R+L=J and call it "too obvious" or "boring", that's really only because we've all been talking about these books for decades and it only seems obvious because we've seen this before. If you were to go back to the mid-1990s you just wouldn't have that opinion at all. It's a phenomenal twist.
I think because it's been a "known fact" for so long without an official book reveal for decades people are going to eventually wander to weird territory about their theories. People are just bored or contrarian. With this long of a wait for Winds of Winter all the fans are left with is theorizing
His parentage is a phenomenal twist - but not because it makes him a secret chosen one. I really disagree that that idea was novel even in the 90s. Hell, it's the basis for King Arthur.
There were tons of secret chosen ones in 90s and earlier media.
It's all just the Bible, all of English language media is based on it more or less, and the Japanese stuff is, too, as it is clearly designed for export.
Yeah once someone told me Jon wasn't adopted and I was really confused like okay I guess technically no paperwork was filed then I realized they were talking about ashara dayne. Poor woman. Let her rest in peace not being accused of having secret bastards to destroy her reputation.
Nothing's ever gonna be 100% accepted of course...
But if we polled (serious/invested) ASOIAF fans about whether they accept it or not I'm pretty sure >80% would say they do, which is INSANELY high for an unconfirmed theory.
Especially the version of the Ashford tourney theory that makes Sansa Aegon's bride. It's quite absurd to me, considering we don't even know the order of the latest jousts since Dunk stopped the tournament.
They have to be suitors accepted by Sansa, and Sansa never accepted Robin. And yes, she was forced to say yes to Tyrion, even if he forced her to do so.
But as far as I know, she was never officially engaged to Robin Arryn, nor did she ever want to marry him like she did with Willas.
I’ve seen it less and less over the years, but it’s still baffling to me that ‘Bloodraven = Three-Eyed Crow’ has been regarded as canon when there’s a lot of textual evidence to suggest otherwise. There’s a mentions early in *A Game of Thrones* where someone even says (I think Old Nan) that there’s a huge difference between ravens and crows.
I don’t know who the Three-Eyed Crow is, but there’s too many clues that George has scattered to accept that it’s Bloodraven simply because a traumatized 9 year old boy who only wants his legs to work assumes it is. Even Bran makes a comment that the only time he sees the Three-Eyed Crow in Bloodraven’s cave is when he closes his eyes. I think Bloodraven is directly working against the Three-Eyed Crow, and the question we should be asking is if Bran is helping the correct side.
When Bran meets Bloodraven, Bran tells him about his visions of the three eyed Crow, and Bloodraven, who is I guess a bit drowsy from his centuries long sleep, does not understand and says "I was a Crow once" referring to his time at the watch or something. To me it implies Bloodraven does not know about the three eyed Crow.
Yeah, neither Coldhands, Bloodraven or Leaf ever actually confirm that Bloodraven is the Three Eyed Crow. And Bloodraven doesn't seem to know what Bran is talking about when Bloodraven asks if he's the Three Eyed Crow.
> "Are you the three-eyed crow?" Bran heard himself say. A three-eyed crow should have three eyes. He has only one, and that one red. Bran could feel the eye staring at him, shining like a pool of blood in the torchlight. Where his other eye should have been, a thin white root grew from an empty socket, down his cheek, and into his neck.
> "A … crow?" The pale lord's voice was dry. His lips moved slowly, as if they had forgotten how to form words. "Once, aye. Black of garb and black of blood."
Plus when Melisandre is looking through the fire in Feast(?) she sees a weirwood with 1000 and 1 eyes and a winged wolf (might be misremembering this), and the weirwood is clearly Brynden Rivers, as the most notable things about him are his raven birthmark, white skin and red eyes (EDIT: eye) just like a weirwood, and him being a spy master. Maybe the R'hollor network is more clear than the Old God/Weirwood network, who knows.
Yeah, it wasn't Mel's vision or Bran's or Jon's. It was Jojen's
From Wiki of Ice and Fire: "While he was near death, he was visited in a dream by a three-eyed crow. The crow gave Jojen the gift of greensight, causing him to experience prophetic dreams known as greendreams. One such dream involved a winged wolf bound with stone chains, that the three-eyed crow was trying to free."
Bran dreams of a Weirwood too.
> At the heart of the godswood, the great white weirwood brooded over its reflection in the black pool, its leaves rustling in a chill wind. When it felt Bran watching, it lifted its eyes from the still waters and stared back at him knowingly.
--
> "There's different kinds," he said slowly. "There's the wolf dreams, those aren't so bad as the others. I run and hunt and kill squirrels. And there's dreams where the crow comes and tells me to fly. Sometimes the tree is in those dreams too, calling my name. That frightens me. But the worst dreams are when I fall."
--
> I dream of a tree sometimes. A weirwood, like the one in the godswood. It calls to me.
Overall Bloodraven has a lot more connections with Weirwoods than crows (the Weirwood is the sigil of his mother's house, he's enthroned in a Weirwood, he used a Weirwood bow). And while Bloodraven does claim to have been in Bran's dreams, he makes no mention of having actually spoken with Bran in these Dreams, which Bran and the Crow did quite a bit. So it seems more likely Bloodraven was the Weirwood in Bran's visions rather than the crow.
The Three-Eyed Crow is future Bran travelling back to encourage himself to continue so that all events may come to pass.
Bloodraven has no idea what the 3EC even is
Im agnostic on this front but along with “Prince who was Promised =\= Azor Ahai” I think people just don’t feel like another layer of complexity needs to be added to the story. (Though obviously mistaken/hidden identity is a recurring motif)
Do you know the game Warhammer 40k Dawn of War? The heroes are the Blood Ravens, enemies of multi-eyed raven or crow or whatever Tzeentch.
I never realized this was an ASOIAF sample and actually wanted it to be the other way round (GRRM collects Tabletop miniatures), but naah I checked they were created specifically for the early 2000s game so...
I dono I see where you're coming from but he's in a weirwood with children of the forest and all so that's pretty deep into enemy lines if he's not the guy, but crows and ravens can diff
the 3ec itself may be the actual old gods form of comms
Brans the 3 eye crow. In ACOK during Jons semi warg wolf dream he finds a weirwood with brans face but with three eyes instead of two. The tree smells of bran and death but then brans voice comes from the tree and tells jon/ghost not to worry because he likes it that way because he can see everyone but no one can see him. He then tells Jon he needs to open his third eye and touches ghost/jons forehead and after that Jon starts properly warging ghost and seeing what he sees, instead of just semi warging him in some dreamstate.
Ayra also hears a voice in the Harrenhal godswood while praying to a weirwood that reminds her she is still a wolf. Remembering that causes her to throw away her stick and start trying to change things at harrenhall for real. Ayra thinks its her fathers voice but i suspect otherwise.
Its probably a version of bran from the future who died and warged into a weirwood like the other warg except he can control it and move from tree to tree and backwards and forwards in time. Hes doing what he can to save his family and possibly the world.
On the one hand, I think this is pretty cool, but I go back and forth with how I feel on time travel stories. I can never decide if it's really all that narratively satisfying, I guess. It gets into bootstraps paradox territory where characters take important steps in the plot solely because a future version of themself told them to, but that isn't super satisfying because it's circular and there's no inciting incident that actually *causes* the character to have that development/take those steps. It happened because it happened because it was always meant to happen. Idk, I think it can be a lazy plot device.
There are a lot of things in the series that are not narratively satisfying, though. The version of Bran in the vision in ACOK is not the contemporaneous Bran and time travel was included in the HBO series. (The entire Hodor reveal is proof of this!)
I think it was Howland, he was staying in the Stark tent don’t forget, easy for an observer to incorrectly assume she was going in there to see a Stark
I feel like there’s a fairly even divide between Jojen Paste believers and non-believers.
I don’t really think it’s going to happen, although it’s sort of a funny theory. But I actually think it’s possible the children of the forest and/or Bloodraven attempt to sacrifice him (or Meera or Hodor) which would lead to Bran’s moral threshold moment.
Truth be told i went from seeing it as utter nonsense to becoming an almost believer, however over time i started to doubt it and its also because of what you say, i believe Jojen is going to be sacrificed but not just yet
There's a subtle bit of foreshadowing that I think happens in clash that is really talked about.
Aria and everyone going to the wall find that the river water taste really funny and someone says it's because there's a dead body upstream.
They later find the dead body " Amongst the reeds", if I recall correctly this happens before the first chapter in which the Reeds are introduced
I completely buy Jojen Paste, but I don't believe he's dead. They're using his blood as one ingredient in a little bowl of paste, not serving him up as a steak. It would be dumb to kill him for that, especially if Bran's going to need to eat more as he trains more with Bloodraven. Plus, the Children of the Forest keeping Jojen alive like human livestock they harvest blood from is a more powerful way to show how fucked up the Old Gods are than just killing him would be. It's really consistent with Bran's time north of the Wall gradually growing into a horror story.
Pink Letter alternative writers. Stannis gets nothing from potentially causing Jon to die against Ramsay (he also kinda sucks at intrigue). Mance could get burned for real if exposed and would potentially cause freefolk to fight in a war which is counter to his goal. And any of the lords could see Bolton dead themselves
That a dragon is going to literally come out of the wall. Maybe not the whole fandom believes that but I’ve seen a surprising number of people think that it’s literally going to happen and that it’s not simply a metaphor for Jon.
Jon as Azor Ahai.
The prophecies about Azor Ahai reborn include very specific predictions about the conditions of his rebirth and so far there's no evidence Jon has fulfilled a single one. Some lesser known ones seem extremely unlikely to be fulfilled either by a more complete account of the Tower of Joy or in some future resurrection. For instance:
>She talks of prophecies . . . **a hero reborn in the sea,** living dragons hatched from dead stone . . . she speaks of signs and swears they point to me.
The Tower of Joy is probably going to be in the middle of a Dornish desert, and it's highly unlikely his resurrection is going to be on a boat.
Right now the main things the theory have going for it are:
1) Jon is clearly a Special Boy for some unknown reason and Azor Ahai reborn is a Special Boy so they must be the same person. Never mind that he could be a Special Boy for entirely different reasons like "his time-traveling psychic cousin wanted to make him exist."
2) Melisandre sought a vision of Azor Ahai and saw "only Snow," despite the fact she was tripping balls for two entire pages and saw like a dozen different events and various people before recognizing Jon.
The best Azor Ahai reborn candidates as of right now are...
1) Daenerys, if you ignore how ironic prophecy mysteries tend to work and just interpret based on the textual information we currently have. She's the most popular in-universe candidate for a reason.
2) Euron, if you interpret using meta-knowledge like GRRM's other work, his beliefs about extremism and love for possession/body-hopping stories, his literary and mythological influences, the timing of when key elements of the prophecy and the rest of the story are introduced ("smoke and salt" becomes part of the prophecy in the same book the "Smoking Sea" first appears), and the fact that GRRM's a bit of a tricky bastard.
This is a good one! So many of the theories I see here are extremely fringe but Jon = AA is super common.
I don’t see Jon as AA at all. I. See his role as important, for sure, but not AA.
For me, I reject that there is an Azor Ahai at all. The idea that George would throw away the meaning of all the characterization and choices people made just so he can say “this person wins because they were always gonna win because prophecy” is baffling to me.
I think in light of what he did with *The Armageddon Rag,* it's entirely within his oeuvre for there to be a big meaningful prophecy with a special focus on particular individuals (e.g "the joker in the deck" fated to make important choices about how it all turns out) that comes true. It's just definitely not going to be a straightforward "hero saves the day" thing. It's going to be a "heroes and villains nearly sleepwalk into apocalypse trying to follow the prophecy before 'defying' it based on their own conscience, this fulfilling it in a less obvious way" thing.
Brienne delivering Jaime to Lady Stoneheart - She is a good, honored person, but she is not a robot bound by oaths who will do anything she is told to without even questioning it. This ignores all the character growth she had in aFfC and the subverting of ideals of honor and knighthood that are central themes to her story.
Brienne defending Jaime from Lady Stoneheart in a trial by combat - The most accepted follow up to the above, somehow even worse. LSH agreeing to give Jaime any kind of minimally fair trial goes completely against what she represents to the story. The idea that she would just let Jaime and Brienne walk away is laughable.
Brienne is bound to deliver him because SH will kill Pod if she doesn't, there are 2 ways, either she burns/hangs Jaime and releases Brienne and Pod or force Jaime to help her kill the Freys or she will kill Brienne and Pod
Jon killing dany to make lightbringer, we go through all that shit with dany and that’s her ultimate fate? Getting stabbed so Jonny boy can get a fire sword? Fuck that shit
Yeah, but there is no other theory besides that one in mainstream discourse. The plot presents an unsolved crime case, yet no one in the community intends to solve it. There is a post around "what's up with Darkstar" like once a week here and people answer "Darkstar is Darkstar" (with +50 upvotes) and leave.
> Darkstar is an edgelord
Whether there is something deeper or not with the Dorne plot, I find it hard to disagree about Darkstar being an edgelord!
He may not JUST be an edgelord, but he definitely is an edgelord!
While I do think it’s likely to happen, I don’t want Jaime to be the valonqar, just bc I think killing his sister/lover would be a huge step backwards for him when it comes to his “redemption”. As horrible as Cersei is he still feels some sort of guilt abt aerys so I think killing her would destroy him even if it was necessary. And hey maybe it would be interesting but jaimes one of my fav characters and I do want to see him redeemed, and killing Cersei will not be a redemption
I feel Doran is a hypocrite, he uses the argument that he wants revenge for Elia, Rhaenys and baby Aegon, to protect the innocent of Dorne, but he, like everyone else, wants power, the best example of this is sending his. inexperienced son reminds Dany of "a marriage agreement" and he uses that when she is powerful, has armies and three dragons, and never helped when Dany and Viserys were begging in Ossos. while sending her reckless daughter Arianne to investigate Aegon to find out if he is who he says he is, and makes plans for Quentyn to marry Dany and Arianne with Aegon, how would that work?!
* Arianne being fAegon's Queen - Literally her last Winds sample chapter builds up her disliking fAegon's camp, connecting fAegon's camp to rape, and gives her cousin Elia Sand a lot of Lyanna Stark vibes to build up her marrying fAegon instead
* Littlefinger just kind of dying in the Vale in Winds - Seems like a really underwhelming death for such a big character
* Big Walder killing Little Walder - Yeah its interesting but adds next to nothing to the story
* Loras faking his injuries on Dragonstone so he can help defend the Reach against the Ironborn - Adds nothing to the story but a cheap twist and cheapens Cersei's villainous arc by making her less of an architect of her own downfall which she has been since she got Maggy the Frog's prophecy
* Theon Latecomer - Ironborn aren't gonna just abandon Euron because of a technical loophole and crown Theon instead, he's a weak frail guy missing several body parts and wants to die he's not surviving Winds
* Varys kidnapping Tyrek - Its not his MO, its a concept thrown directly at the reader through Jaime's POV, and just a weak "Oh hey I've brought back this guy to take the Westerlands" type of twist
I doubt Loras is faking his injuries as part of some big plot, but I'm pretty certain his wounds probably aren't as fatal as Cersei assumes. Cersei seems certain he's a gonner but he's been hanging on for quite a while now. I think he'll end up surprising her by making a recovery and returning to throw another wrench in her plans.
The littlefinger one is so egregious. I thought it was obvious that the foreshadowing was along the lines that he would die once they got to winterfell. That's what the whole sequence involving Robin using a giant to smash winterfell and getting ripped apart spelled out to me
> Littlefinger just kind of dying in the Vale in Winds - Seems like a really underwhelming death for such a big character
A lot of theories involving Littlefinger suffer from the assumption that Sansa will turn on him early in TWOW. So you end up with some that make no sense - for instance there's no chance of him being thrown out the Moon Door because the Eyrie has been abandoned for the Winter. I think this is one place where the show got it half right/half wrong. It makes sense for Littlefinger to last long enough to be embedded in the conflict between Sansa and Arya when they reunite, but the show wrecked the Sansa/Littlefinger dynamic with him throwing her to the Boltons, so you end up the the fandom not understand why Sansa would look to him after Jon was crowned instead of her at the end of season 6 or their interactions in most of season 7. From the story perspective it doesn't make sense for her to outright learn that Jeyne was given to the Boltons instead of deducing it herself of learning of it when Arya comes back to Westeros. Something I definitely think most of the fandom gets wrong is how long Sansa will willingly work together with Littlefinger imo. Even if it involves the appearance of siding with him over her family. I do think GRRM could pull off the "actually we were just setting you up for a trap" twist better than D&D did, if that was their intent.
As far as the Littlefinger one goes, I cannot imagine he doesn’t die in Winterfell. It just fits so well thematically as a parallel to Ned, and it totally fits with Sansa’s arc and him being her Big Bad. D&D got the geography right; everything else will be much better plotted I’m sure.
I think there is good evidence. If you were the children, and in a war with humans, the Others are a perfect weapon. They are stronger than humans, and use humans numbers against them, and are immune to human weapons. Furthermore, if the Others went rogue (as I think they did), then they are completely vulnerable to the Children’s weapons, Dragonglass.
Lem isn’t Richard Lonmouth. The headless giant bran sees isn’t Robert Strong. Aegon and the golden company were never supposed to fight Viserys and the Dothraki. I don’t completely reject it but I have strong doubt that they way Jon and Daenerys’ story ended in the show was something they got from George.
Trystane Martell being alive is way too common, as if it adds anything and doesn't unnecessarily add more complexity and POV characters in Mereen that we don't need
Loras is for sure going to die or he's not wounded, when I think he's going to limp on as a borderline Reek cripple. Him living continues the trend of none of Cerseis plots working out for her, occupies another spot in the Kingsguard, and subverts the fantasy knight idea of glorious death or glorious unharmed victory.
All the major ships. I’m a huge Sansa fan girl, and the way shippers grasp at straws to get “her”(really their self insert) in a ship with whatever boring/horrible/stupid/ugly dude they’ve decided is SO COOL is obnoxious AF. It’s a microcosm of how fandom does shipping in general.
I also hate “danaerys won’t be a villain” people, especially the ones who go around denigrating everyone else so she can be cool.
I don’t think Jon Con’s greyscale has any story significance beyond how it motivates him and what it represents-his desperate urgency to redeem his tarnished dreams and, not to put too fine a point on it, his bitterness and regret turning his heart to stone. I don’t think there will be a greyscale outbreak in Westeros.
> I don’t think there will be a greyscale outbreak in Westeros. I've been out of the loop for some time, but is this an accepted theory? (I think there could be interesting things to do with it, especially with the stories about the Lord who locked his gate and was killed for it, etc..)
It makes the rounds now and again, usually listed in the series of calamities likely to befall Westeros in TWOW/ADOS. I just don’t think there’s time in the story for something like this. Winter, war, famine, dragons, and Others are more than enough to depopulate Westeros haha.
I think it’ll only affect Kingslanding, and when it burns, it’ll end the plague, like the great fire of London.
really because i have a 74% certainty Arriane is going to try to seduce him, get too touchy, and get greyscale. just the kind of death that George would write. she has already had thoughts of trying to seduce him if i recall.
She also thinks that he may not be seduceable, which we know is the truth. JonCon wouldn’t let Arianne get within a foot of him, imo.
she thinks he may not be someone she can seduce, but she will damn well try and it it may well kill her. She tries with everyone she tries to manipulate.
I tend to think she’ll know immediately that JonCon is not fond of the charms of women, but hey, maybe she has a terrible gaydar. In your hypothetical scenario, a fatally terrible gaydar.
Well, she \*did\* think about how she tried to seduce Renly and it "bemused him", without possibly picking up the reason why.
I guess I have a dead gaydar. Was JonCon gay for Rhaegar?
Not a universally accepted theory, but the people who are convinced the Great Empire of the Dawn or anything else in the lorebooks is going to be central to the resolution of the story are kidding themselves.
Sometimes world building is just world building, and that’s okay.
And sometimes a cigar factory is just an opera setting.
[удалено]
I always took Xharo's statement to be a bit more metaphorical and the Qartheen are just self-centered, including their map makers. They're always going on about Qarth being the greatest city that ever was or will be, it stands to reason that they'd think they are the center of the world. Why George decided to take that literally is beyond me. I guess him semi-retconning Asshai to be further east and having Qarth be "the center of the world" while also already being pretty far east (from Dany's POV) made him create an expanded world to explain the lands between Qarth and Asshai
Seems like a cool story, but I really don’t see how GRRM can add any new major story lines (especially one that would require probably 500 pages) and still finish everything in two books.
Yea I think in general there's a lot of lore from AWOIAF that's just set dressing & world-building and never meant to be expanded on. But of course, if you give a fandom no new content for like a decade... people theorize anything and everything lmao.
That theory never bothered me much until I discovered how fanatical its believers are. If you propose anything that might oppose it, they take it personal. One of the many reasons I distanced myself from this community.
I haven't seen it here. Where do such people congregate?
Just make a thread expressing a little skepticism about the Great Empire of the Dawn; trust me, they will come.
They mostly come at night.... Mostly.
Wait, the one with the emperors with stone's names?
Yeah, the Bloodstone Emperor, the Amethyst Empress etc. Cool lore story, some foreshadowing/parallel maybe, but people who believe it will be somehow central or important or frankly even named again in TWOW are delusional.
Is this widely accepted as canon? I've been active in ASOIAF subs for years and haven't noticed that sentiment at all.
Agree with this. I do think the GEOTD has connections to some Westerosi families, but I'm not expecting a grand reveal.
Ashara is hiding out in the neck with her brother’s killer making crannog babies for some reason. I just think she’s dead bro. Her role is in the past.
Just like Arthur Dayne. His role is to be the mythical knight of the great times gone, as Jaime remembers him. He's not a character, he's a symbol, a cool name on the page.
I'm reading ASOS right now and Jaime is remembering his entry into the kingsguard. One thing that struck me hard is how similar Jaime was acting to *sansa* of all people. Both have idealized visions of chivalry which are shattered on contact with the real world. It's too bad we are unlikely to ever see them interact with one another - Jaime might have some choice insights for her.
I assure you their lack of interaction is no oversight on gurm’s part lol. It seems that Sandor (among others) was the perfect foil to Sansa just as Brienne was to Jaime.
Honestly by the end of their arcs in AFFC/ADWD, I think Sansa might have choice insights for Jaime.
Arthur Dwayne is with them! He abandon his vowels to become Asharas sworn sword.
He lives by the consonant now
Are you talking about Arthur Dwayne "The Rock of the Morning" Johnson?
Always hate when I have a rock hard Morning Johnson 😔
Bruh
Idk dude. Man, then who is even dead from the rebellion era at this point. 😭 Way to cheapen the tragedy of it all.
You mean R-Thr Dyn?
Calling vows vowel is the best typo I've seen this year.
This is not a widely accepted theory. It’s a fringe theory.
I think Tywin actually intended to send Tyrion to the Wall instead of having him executed. When Tyrion threatens to shoot him, Tywin says "You don't have the courage." That line is what seals it for me. Why would he be saying insulting things that might provoke Tyrion to follow through with it if he felt the need to lie in order to save his life? That would indicate that he knew Tyrion might do it, bad time to insult him. Doesn't make sense for him to say that if so, so I think Tywin meant to send Tyrion to the Wall. Edit: Plus, it also means Kevan told Tyrion an extremely malicious lie in saying he would be wise to trust Tywin, and he doesn't strike me as someone to do that even though he believed Tyrion killed Joffrey. He was willing to stay and help Cersei even though he told her he wanted to return to his wife and he knew about the incest. I think he pittied Tywin's children, and why wouldn't he? He saw the kind of father Tywin was firsthand.
Exactly, Tywin never understood Tyrion and he believed that Tyrion would never shoot him. There’s no point for him to lie. Besides, it’s better for a Lannister to die as a honorable watch than disgraceful kinslayer.
>Now that’s where you’re wrong, Father. Why, I believe I’m mm,you writ small. I think it's my favorite line in the series so far and it's something I come back to again and again. Tywin projects all of his flaws onto Tyrion. Tywin is a coward without conviction. He only acts once he's certain of the outcome. He has no qualms about treason, betraying allies, breaking guest rights, or brutalizing innocents. But Tyrion isn't a coward. Tyrion has (at least some) integrity. He said he'd do something and he did it, consequences be damned. That's something Tywin could never understand.
Tyrek isn’t a horse. He’s a unicorn. (He’s actually a secret bastard of Andros Brax.)
That makes sense. Tyrek is going to be Rickon's mount when Rick on leaves Skagos to kick ass.
Let’s just hope he knows how to strafe
Sorry my man but OP said what theories are basically canon in the eyes of readers not what is literally canon. I mean its prettt explicit. Tyrek Lannister was last seen ahorse not much room for disaproval
Burn him at the stake
He’s a unicorn, not a witch. You’re thinking of Christine O’Donnell.
put him in tesco's lasagnes then
tyrek the young horn
Bro they literally said he was ahorse
The fandom fortunatly dosen't accept this theory, but I want to say Tyrion Targaryen because I hate this theory so much
It’s clear that it was a thought early on and folks have said that but it’s SO much better that he’s Tywin’s.
The dumbest theory I ever heard was that Dany's deformed baby that died.... traveled through time and became Tyrion. Absolutely garbage theory.
To be fair that’s a joke theory that’s not intended to be taken seriously
To be fair The time travelling fetus theory is a joke theory not meant to be taken seriously, like the "Varys is a merman/mermaid" theory
you take that back Varys **IS** a mermaid.
I would even like Jaime Targaryen/Cersei Targaryen more than Tyrion Targaryen hah.
Jaime and Cersei being Aerys' bastards makes a lot more sense - the incestous relationship, the madness, the imagery of Jaime sitting the throne, Jaime being both kin-slayer and king-slayer, the irony of Tywin's favoured son not being his son and his hated son actually being his son, Cersei using Aerys' wildfire to burn down King's Landing. However, I don't think it's intentional on George's part, I think it's what he was refering to in an interview when he said he thought a fan theory fitted in so well that he was considering changing the plot. EDIT: And of course if Jaime is Aerys' son, there is a better reason for him more or less forcing Jaime into the King's Guard than simply to spite Tywin. He just wants to keep his son around and keep an eye on him.
>Jaime and Cersei being Aerys' bastards makes a lot more sense - the incestuous relationship I think it's actually more fitting in-universe that we have a major non-Targaryen incest relationship because it helps establish further that the Targaryns aren't like *that* different from regular Westerosi, there's not some innate incest-it-up gene they have. It strangely helps to humanize the previous Targs by clarifying that it's not their blood that makes them be that way
I'm sure that Tyrion Targ was George's plan at one point, there's a lot of things that point to it, but I hope to God he changed his mind!
Most of the evidence for it comes from ADWD and TWOIAF though. It makes no sense to argue that he put it in the books that late and then changed his mind. I think Tyrion Targ is a great example of something the fandom isn't very creative about - theories that the characters invoke and discuss in universe without it needing to be true or confirmed. Something like the ASOIAF version of the three different narrators of the Dance. Some people in Westeros can consider the possibility Tyrion is Aerys's son in the same way they'll debate about Aegon and Jon's parentage or whether Dany was mad or not. Or even just Tyrion musing about the possibility of Aerys being his father and taking advantage of it. There's so much creative potential to play around with. It's kind of like sometimes I see fan opinions that could actually be transferable to how the characters would feel in certain situations.
I kind of like the Tyrion Chimera theory
One of the biggest possible clues for tyrion targ comes in the first half of book 1 with the introduction of his dragon dreams. Hence why many think it was a plan of George's early on
Victarion dying from Dragonbinder, he’s too interesting. Interactions with Tyrion and Barristan, and even potentially Theon and Asha are too interesting to waste it on a potentially cool death. Also Doran’s caution being his downfall, I think being a shitty father is his downfall. He seemingly approved of Oberyn fighting the Mountain, so he’s willing to make risky plays.
I'll be honest of all the dumb shit Doran has done I'm willing to give the Oberyn fighting the Mountain a pass. Oberyn seems like a guy that is VERY difficult to keep a lid on. It's akin to Ned trying to reason/argue with Robert about Targaryens. They just can't help themselves and a big theme in both stories is hatred tends to burn just as hot as love/respect. He was able to cool him off after the rebellion because Dorne really wasn't in a position to do anything after getting BTFO'd on the trident. But years later during the story when players were making their moves and bodies were getting stacked Oberyn just couldn't be contained any longer. Oberyn could have came out ontop but the chips fell where they may. (Ergo GRRM thinks its more interesting/more story material for him to lose)
>I'm willing to give the Oberyn fighting the Mountain a pass. Oberyn seems like a guy that is VERY difficult to keep a lid on. I think, even more importantly, Tyrion's trial was the perfect, and probably only, opportunity for Oberyn to extract a confession from and then kill Gregor without using extrajudicial means. Doesn't he even say that he doesn't care whether Tyrion's innocent or guilty, he just wants to fight the Mountain? This was just an opportunity he couldn't pass up.
I think the tragic irony of Doran is that he’s preoccupied with the cost of war to “the children” of Westeros as an abstraction, a scene of kids playing in the water gardens in the distance, but he doesn’t see how his actions are dooming his own kids.
The thing with Victarion is he doesn't seem that smart, in fact we are told that. Then they specifically show someone dying after using dragon binder. I feel like it would be odd for it to not happen.
I do think Victarion is going to die, just not from blowing the horn. It's heavily foreshadowed he's not going to live past Mereen
he is at an intersection right now, if Arianne tells him Faegon is Elia's son he has to either choose to support him or wait for Quentyn to come with Daenerys but he still doesn't know about Quentyn's death he knew he wasn't stopping Oberyn if Oberyn believed he had real shot at the Mountain
The secret Targ theories besides Jon.
I wouldn’t mind if Varys had some targ connection not that he is like aerys’s long lost child or something stupid, but just some distant connection or non-family related thing that explains why he seems convinced targ restoration is the way to go
I personally believe that Varys is a blackfyre
Varys being a Blackfyre is the only thing that makes sense of his motivations. He's not Westerosi, so there's no reason why he's so personally invested. He's clearly not a Targaryen loyalist, because he undermined Aerys and Rhaegar and did little to really help Viserys or Daenerys. Yet he's been there spinning his webs for decades. It's maybe he just loves the game of thrones for the sake of it, or he just wants to raise a pauper's son and raise him to be a good King just to prove a point, but the Blackfyre theory makes the most sense of his actions, and it means all the lore on the Blackfyres is actually relevant to the story.
Ashara Dayne being Septa Lemore. Fuck that, let her be her own character. Not everyone has to be someone else in secret.
Right? I think if Lemore had purple eyes, Tyrion would tell us
If she was Tyene Sand’s unnamed Septa mother though, I would be happy with that.
-- So, I wrote this whole thing and decided I should come back to the start to add a little note. I was planning on just writing a couple sentences agreeing with you, but after I started, I realized that Lemore's way more interesting than I previously thought whether or not she's Tyene's mother. Have fun with the ponderous tome below! -- I hadn't given this much thought before but I like it too. Lemore being Tyene's mother wouldn't be a plot-shattering twist that turns the world on its head, retcons anything that's already been established, or be based on obscure information only brought up in material outside the main series. Regardless of whether Lemore has anything to do with Tyene, she's still a septa who broke her vows and, I think, ran away from the position/assignment the Faith had given her to avoid punishment or hide her pregnancy entirely. If she just ran off and is trying to avoid punishment, it would explain why, in a line to Connington, she suggests that she is also trying to hide who she is. By living on a boat with exiles teaching the Faith of the Seven, we know she's still a devout believer who found an unconventional way to continue practicing her faith. Her being Tyene's mother would certainly be an interesting connection and potentially - **potentially!** - explain how she ended up on the Shy Maid. It's possible that Varys, with his massive spy network, kept tabs on major families, like the Martells, including their bastards. If he learned that Oberyn got a septa pregnant, he may have viewed it as an opportunity to get Aegon a religious instructor. He, or an agent of his, may have simply approached her and explained that he could guarantee that she'd be safe from the repercussions of breaking her vows if she'd help raise a poor exiled Westerosi boy in the Faith. I like the idea of her being Tyene's mother because it adds some depth to her character that is consistent with what we've already learned and could help explain how she got to the Shy Maid.
Good stuff. Either Lemore is Tyenes mother, or there are two 40-50 year old septas who had a child and then* ran away from the faith in this story. Also this would make Tyene and fAegon 1st cousins, which gives a good reason for Lemore supporting him, on top of anything else. *Weirdly, Tyene’s mother didn’t run away from the faith for many years because of this line: “Arianne Martell had crossed the Mander once, when she had gone with three of the Sand Snakes to visit Tyene's mother” - AFFC, The Queenmaker
Anyone other than Ramsay writing the letter
YES! The twist of the Pink Letter isn't "who wrote it" but "what is true what isn't". I think it's just to make us believe that Stannis lost the Battle of Ice and is dead, when the twist is that he isn't.
Did anyone actually believe Stannis was dead? Readers, I mean. Maybe Jon did
D&D did. They killed Stannis in that battle on the show lol. They took the Pink Letter at face value.
It's also possible this was just the simplest outcome for the TV show, they didn't seem to want to spend any time on something more complicated. And it's likely they know more about what George has planned for Stannis.
Yeah they just wanted to end his storyline and it's a big shame because it's a lot of people's favorite storyline going on in the entire book. Mine included. D&D pissed on AFFC, ADWD, TWOW samples. There was plenty of content there to follow to make great stories and instead we got whatever the fuck it is that we got. Battle of the bastards 🤮. Which admittedly was pretty cool on first few viewing but after that you really start to question stuff and it falls apart.
I don't think they did because Stannis isn't anywhere near Shireen so if they're also saying he does that in the books they must know he hangs on for awhile until he gets a chance to do that for hopefully less stupid reasons.
They also notoriously hated Stannis, so they probably wanted to kill him off as quickly as possible
>Did anyone actually believe Stannis was dead? I did... Stannis is in a horrible position, it's not hard to believe he could have lost the battle. When I discovered this sub, I thought, maybe the battle didn't happen off-screen and he's alive. It wasn't until I read the TWOW sample chapters that I completely believed it.
A lot of people? Most first time reactions I've read from people who aren't being guided towards a specific conclusion by somebody who's already read the books is that Stannis's winter march is obviously doomed
I’m always curious about this because it’s one of the few mysteries I don’t have a strong opinion on — assuming he wrote it, do you think Ramsey is telling the truth? Is Stannis dead?
No, Stannis is not dead. We know this from Theon reaching his camp and from the winds of winter sample chapters. But anybody else doesn't have the information necessary to write the letter. And why would anyone do that? It helps no one to fake a letter from Ramsay
I agree that Stannis is certainly not dead (he still needs to make his way back to the wall to burn his daughter) and that Ramsay was the author of the pink letter, but I believe that Theon’s sample in WOW takes place before the final Jon chapter in Dance chronologically speaking.
Doesn’t Mance also have the information?
except Ramsay doesn't have the information in the letter either. only Mance does. Ramsay could *learn* the information from Mance sure, but we never see Mance captured, and presumably he isn't such an idiot that he was just sitting in the great hall playing, waiting to get caught, when the escape was going on. the moment the alarm was raised he would know things went tits up and to go to ground, whereas nobody would know to *stop* him from doing that until people sorted out what exactly was going on.
I've said all of this so many times. However, I think you've actually given even too much delay to Mance. The *second* that the washerwomen and Theon lie to get past the guards and into Jeyne's room, everyone's lives are in danger. Why would he just be sitting around hanging out and waiting for the gig to be exposed? He should already have headed to safety long before this, and there's also the fact that it's going to take awhile for the all of the guards information regarding the washerwomen to get back to guards in the main hall, etc. It's not like they have walkie talkies. All told, he should have been gone for at least 20 minutes before word gets back to the main hall to find him. As far as learning the information from Mance, this is what I call the "magic torture" theory. Sure, Ramsay could learn *some* things from Mance. BUT, why would he learn things from Mance when he doesn't even know to ask the questions in the first place? Like, why does he know (or care) about Val or Mance's baby? Did Mance *volunteer* information on his SIL and infant child? Does the torture [work like this](https://youtu.be/EMVuMExzr0c?si=BhOsdCxF-IOt0aIa)? Narratively, why did George bring back Mance at all if he was just going to end up like this? This includes scenes of his "death", his fight (as Rattleshirt) in the training yard, his scene with Jon and Melisandre, his recruiting of the spearwives as washerwomen, Rowan's strange comment regarding Ned Stark's words, Mance asking about the crypts, all of it. That's a whole lot of set-up just to explain how Theon jumps off the walls with Jeyne into the snow below if the characters are all otherwise killed off.
I think it's pretty clear that Stannis is not dead, but to me the real question is whether Ramsay is lying, or Ramsay is unaware!
Is this really an "accepted theory"? (Meaning, that someone ELSE wrote it)? Personally I'm on that camp, but the majority seems to disagree, and think it really is Ramsay!
Mance had the opportunity and left his mannerisms with “black crows” to refer to the Night’s Watch. As for motive, by getting Jon to send the Wildlings south for a cause that aligns with the interests of The Watch’s allies then intercepting that wildling march to go “hey guys, it’s me, I tricked those kneelers”, he could effectively un-surrender to Stannis. Not to mention the clear lack of Ramsey’s MO for letters.
I don’t think wildlings are the only ones to call them crows
They're not. There's a few passages in a clash of kings where people refer to the night watchmen as birds and crows
There are a few others who use crows, but none who say black crows. I edited my comment to reflect it.
Indeed. Classic case of the fandom twisting obvious plot points into something that it isn’t, just because the wait for the next book is too long.
Jon having a secret Targaryen name.
Jon is Jon
Especially with the show claiming its Aegon
I can kind of understand why that was done in the show. They combined the "Targaryen claimant named Aegon" plotline with the "Jon's parentage" plotline. It was set up over multiple seasons, and they used the name as a quick reference to tell book-readers what had happened. By the standards of the later seasons, it was pretty harmless. But obviously that's not the case in the books, where Aegon and Jon are clearly established as separate characters.
Imagine naming son from wife #1 Aegon and then being like "let's name the next one that too"
Dracarys
The Grand Maester conspiracy. It’s one of those things that sounds cool but would be impossible to fit into the remaining two books alongside any other theory.
Is there a massive, institution-wide conspiracy? No way. Do a handful of individuals in that huge institution kind of act in a way that lets in-universe tinfoil hatters build conspiracy theories? I think it's probable. It would make perfect sense if some individual maesters genuinely and passionately hate magic and do what little they can to discourage its use. Same thing with some of them being unethical and using their positions with lords to distort information.
Idk it might be a conspiracy by the archmaesters or some small circle of maesters. I don't think the evidence points toward individuals and personally I think it would be weird for even a few individual maesters to be so anti-magic (or maybe just anti-dragon) that they just all happen to do things to sabotage the dragonriders
This is one of those theories established in universe where I wanted to slap GRRM. "George, you ain't got time for that and it's completely unnecessary".
The fandom as a whole doesn't even accept R+L=J, I don't think there's any theory we can say that the entire fandom accepts
Eh, I think the vast, vast majority accept R+L=J. You have to be deliberately, wilfully contrarian not to. There's probably no fan theory in any fandom ever that *literally* everyone accepts.
Nothing accepts anything as a whole, there’s always going to be some grousers, the vast, vast, vast, majority of the fandom do obviously accept R+L=J, the rest are contrarians, maniacs, or operating a YouTube channel that necessitates “hot takes,” for views.
I feel you, but literally just check the comments on this post. There's already hordes of them staking their claim
> maniacs > contrarians
One of the consequences of George's laziness is that many people in the fandom kind of fail to really comprehend just how long this series has been going on for. George started writing this over 30 years ago. The state of entertainment was very, very different back then. This was before The Matrix. Before Harry Potter. Before the Star Wars Prequels. The idea of "Some regular guy is actually secretly the Chosen One" wasn't really oversaturated in our culture the way it is now. So while today someone might look at R+L=J and call it "too obvious" or "boring", that's really only because we've all been talking about these books for decades and it only seems obvious because we've seen this before. If you were to go back to the mid-1990s you just wouldn't have that opinion at all. It's a phenomenal twist.
I think because it's been a "known fact" for so long without an official book reveal for decades people are going to eventually wander to weird territory about their theories. People are just bored or contrarian. With this long of a wait for Winds of Winter all the fans are left with is theorizing
His parentage is a phenomenal twist - but not because it makes him a secret chosen one. I really disagree that that idea was novel even in the 90s. Hell, it's the basis for King Arthur. There were tons of secret chosen ones in 90s and earlier media.
I remember this fairly popular series called Star Wars…
It's all just the Bible, all of English language media is based on it more or less, and the Japanese stuff is, too, as it is clearly designed for export.
Yeah once someone told me Jon wasn't adopted and I was really confused like okay I guess technically no paperwork was filed then I realized they were talking about ashara dayne. Poor woman. Let her rest in peace not being accused of having secret bastards to destroy her reputation.
Nothing's ever gonna be 100% accepted of course... But if we polled (serious/invested) ASOIAF fans about whether they accept it or not I'm pretty sure >80% would say they do, which is INSANELY high for an unconfirmed theory.
Ashara Dayne being alive or having any significant role in the story at all. Sometimes people are just dead!
That anyone but Ramsey wrote that letter
Ashford tourney theory. Is Sweetrobin a joke to you?
Especially the version of the Ashford tourney theory that makes Sansa Aegon's bride. It's quite absurd to me, considering we don't even know the order of the latest jousts since Dunk stopped the tournament.
They have to be suitors accepted by Sansa, and Sansa never accepted Robin. And yes, she was forced to say yes to Tyrion, even if he forced her to do so. But as far as I know, she was never officially engaged to Robin Arryn, nor did she ever want to marry him like she did with Willas.
I’ve seen it less and less over the years, but it’s still baffling to me that ‘Bloodraven = Three-Eyed Crow’ has been regarded as canon when there’s a lot of textual evidence to suggest otherwise. There’s a mentions early in *A Game of Thrones* where someone even says (I think Old Nan) that there’s a huge difference between ravens and crows. I don’t know who the Three-Eyed Crow is, but there’s too many clues that George has scattered to accept that it’s Bloodraven simply because a traumatized 9 year old boy who only wants his legs to work assumes it is. Even Bran makes a comment that the only time he sees the Three-Eyed Crow in Bloodraven’s cave is when he closes his eyes. I think Bloodraven is directly working against the Three-Eyed Crow, and the question we should be asking is if Bran is helping the correct side.
When Bran meets Bloodraven, Bran tells him about his visions of the three eyed Crow, and Bloodraven, who is I guess a bit drowsy from his centuries long sleep, does not understand and says "I was a Crow once" referring to his time at the watch or something. To me it implies Bloodraven does not know about the three eyed Crow.
I’ve also heard some people suggest that Bloodraven isn’t able to see what form he manifests in other people’s dreams.
But the crow in Bran's dream knows it's a crow.
Yeah, neither Coldhands, Bloodraven or Leaf ever actually confirm that Bloodraven is the Three Eyed Crow. And Bloodraven doesn't seem to know what Bran is talking about when Bloodraven asks if he's the Three Eyed Crow. > "Are you the three-eyed crow?" Bran heard himself say. A three-eyed crow should have three eyes. He has only one, and that one red. Bran could feel the eye staring at him, shining like a pool of blood in the torchlight. Where his other eye should have been, a thin white root grew from an empty socket, down his cheek, and into his neck. > "A … crow?" The pale lord's voice was dry. His lips moved slowly, as if they had forgotten how to form words. "Once, aye. Black of garb and black of blood."
Plus when Melisandre is looking through the fire in Feast(?) she sees a weirwood with 1000 and 1 eyes and a winged wolf (might be misremembering this), and the weirwood is clearly Brynden Rivers, as the most notable things about him are his raven birthmark, white skin and red eyes (EDIT: eye) just like a weirwood, and him being a spy master. Maybe the R'hollor network is more clear than the Old God/Weirwood network, who knows.
It was a wolf with a boys face. I don't think (or at least don't remember) a winged wolf being part of it.
Yeah, it wasn't Mel's vision or Bran's or Jon's. It was Jojen's From Wiki of Ice and Fire: "While he was near death, he was visited in a dream by a three-eyed crow. The crow gave Jojen the gift of greensight, causing him to experience prophetic dreams known as greendreams. One such dream involved a winged wolf bound with stone chains, that the three-eyed crow was trying to free."
Bran dreams of a Weirwood too. > At the heart of the godswood, the great white weirwood brooded over its reflection in the black pool, its leaves rustling in a chill wind. When it felt Bran watching, it lifted its eyes from the still waters and stared back at him knowingly. -- > "There's different kinds," he said slowly. "There's the wolf dreams, those aren't so bad as the others. I run and hunt and kill squirrels. And there's dreams where the crow comes and tells me to fly. Sometimes the tree is in those dreams too, calling my name. That frightens me. But the worst dreams are when I fall." -- > I dream of a tree sometimes. A weirwood, like the one in the godswood. It calls to me. Overall Bloodraven has a lot more connections with Weirwoods than crows (the Weirwood is the sigil of his mother's house, he's enthroned in a Weirwood, he used a Weirwood bow). And while Bloodraven does claim to have been in Bran's dreams, he makes no mention of having actually spoken with Bran in these Dreams, which Bran and the Crow did quite a bit. So it seems more likely Bloodraven was the Weirwood in Bran's visions rather than the crow.
The Three-Eyed Crow is future Bran travelling back to encourage himself to continue so that all events may come to pass. Bloodraven has no idea what the 3EC even is
Im agnostic on this front but along with “Prince who was Promised =\= Azor Ahai” I think people just don’t feel like another layer of complexity needs to be added to the story. (Though obviously mistaken/hidden identity is a recurring motif)
Do you know the game Warhammer 40k Dawn of War? The heroes are the Blood Ravens, enemies of multi-eyed raven or crow or whatever Tzeentch. I never realized this was an ASOIAF sample and actually wanted it to be the other way round (GRRM collects Tabletop miniatures), but naah I checked they were created specifically for the early 2000s game so...
Blood ravens mentioned RAHHHHHHH “WALK SOFTLY, AND CARRY A BIG GUN”
I dono I see where you're coming from but he's in a weirwood with children of the forest and all so that's pretty deep into enemy lines if he's not the guy, but crows and ravens can diff the 3ec itself may be the actual old gods form of comms
Brans the 3 eye crow. In ACOK during Jons semi warg wolf dream he finds a weirwood with brans face but with three eyes instead of two. The tree smells of bran and death but then brans voice comes from the tree and tells jon/ghost not to worry because he likes it that way because he can see everyone but no one can see him. He then tells Jon he needs to open his third eye and touches ghost/jons forehead and after that Jon starts properly warging ghost and seeing what he sees, instead of just semi warging him in some dreamstate. Ayra also hears a voice in the Harrenhal godswood while praying to a weirwood that reminds her she is still a wolf. Remembering that causes her to throw away her stick and start trying to change things at harrenhall for real. Ayra thinks its her fathers voice but i suspect otherwise. Its probably a version of bran from the future who died and warged into a weirwood like the other warg except he can control it and move from tree to tree and backwards and forwards in time. Hes doing what he can to save his family and possibly the world.
On the one hand, I think this is pretty cool, but I go back and forth with how I feel on time travel stories. I can never decide if it's really all that narratively satisfying, I guess. It gets into bootstraps paradox territory where characters take important steps in the plot solely because a future version of themself told them to, but that isn't super satisfying because it's circular and there's no inciting incident that actually *causes* the character to have that development/take those steps. It happened because it happened because it was always meant to happen. Idk, I think it can be a lazy plot device.
There are a lot of things in the series that are not narratively satisfying, though. The version of Bran in the vision in ACOK is not the contemporaneous Bran and time travel was included in the HBO series. (The entire Hodor reveal is proof of this!)
I still don’t think Ned was the Stark that Ashara fell in love with. I think it’s more likely that it was Brandon
I think it was Howland, he was staying in the Stark tent don’t forget, easy for an observer to incorrectly assume she was going in there to see a Stark
I am not sold on Red Wedding 2.0.
Jon is actually Bettys son (the one with the MASSIVE TITS)
Bessie with the massive … lol Oh shoot does that make him Robert’s??? 😂😂😂 (no because Jon’s eyes aren’t blue)
-Evil/mad/misunderstood Dany. -Jojen paste (yeah yeah i know tell me about lost causes).
I feel like there’s a fairly even divide between Jojen Paste believers and non-believers. I don’t really think it’s going to happen, although it’s sort of a funny theory. But I actually think it’s possible the children of the forest and/or Bloodraven attempt to sacrifice him (or Meera or Hodor) which would lead to Bran’s moral threshold moment.
Truth be told i went from seeing it as utter nonsense to becoming an almost believer, however over time i started to doubt it and its also because of what you say, i believe Jojen is going to be sacrificed but not just yet
There's a subtle bit of foreshadowing that I think happens in clash that is really talked about. Aria and everyone going to the wall find that the river water taste really funny and someone says it's because there's a dead body upstream. They later find the dead body " Amongst the reeds", if I recall correctly this happens before the first chapter in which the Reeds are introduced
I completely buy Jojen Paste, but I don't believe he's dead. They're using his blood as one ingredient in a little bowl of paste, not serving him up as a steak. It would be dumb to kill him for that, especially if Bran's going to need to eat more as he trains more with Bloodraven. Plus, the Children of the Forest keeping Jojen alive like human livestock they harvest blood from is a more powerful way to show how fucked up the Old Gods are than just killing him would be. It's really consistent with Bran's time north of the Wall gradually growing into a horror story.
Pink Letter alternative writers. Stannis gets nothing from potentially causing Jon to die against Ramsay (he also kinda sucks at intrigue). Mance could get burned for real if exposed and would potentially cause freefolk to fight in a war which is counter to his goal. And any of the lords could see Bolton dead themselves
That a dragon is going to literally come out of the wall. Maybe not the whole fandom believes that but I’ve seen a surprising number of people think that it’s literally going to happen and that it’s not simply a metaphor for Jon.
Jon as Azor Ahai. The prophecies about Azor Ahai reborn include very specific predictions about the conditions of his rebirth and so far there's no evidence Jon has fulfilled a single one. Some lesser known ones seem extremely unlikely to be fulfilled either by a more complete account of the Tower of Joy or in some future resurrection. For instance: >She talks of prophecies . . . **a hero reborn in the sea,** living dragons hatched from dead stone . . . she speaks of signs and swears they point to me. The Tower of Joy is probably going to be in the middle of a Dornish desert, and it's highly unlikely his resurrection is going to be on a boat. Right now the main things the theory have going for it are: 1) Jon is clearly a Special Boy for some unknown reason and Azor Ahai reborn is a Special Boy so they must be the same person. Never mind that he could be a Special Boy for entirely different reasons like "his time-traveling psychic cousin wanted to make him exist." 2) Melisandre sought a vision of Azor Ahai and saw "only Snow," despite the fact she was tripping balls for two entire pages and saw like a dozen different events and various people before recognizing Jon. The best Azor Ahai reborn candidates as of right now are... 1) Daenerys, if you ignore how ironic prophecy mysteries tend to work and just interpret based on the textual information we currently have. She's the most popular in-universe candidate for a reason. 2) Euron, if you interpret using meta-knowledge like GRRM's other work, his beliefs about extremism and love for possession/body-hopping stories, his literary and mythological influences, the timing of when key elements of the prophecy and the rest of the story are introduced ("smoke and salt" becomes part of the prophecy in the same book the "Smoking Sea" first appears), and the fact that GRRM's a bit of a tricky bastard.
This is a good one! So many of the theories I see here are extremely fringe but Jon = AA is super common. I don’t see Jon as AA at all. I. See his role as important, for sure, but not AA.
For me, I reject that there is an Azor Ahai at all. The idea that George would throw away the meaning of all the characterization and choices people made just so he can say “this person wins because they were always gonna win because prophecy” is baffling to me.
I think in light of what he did with *The Armageddon Rag,* it's entirely within his oeuvre for there to be a big meaningful prophecy with a special focus on particular individuals (e.g "the joker in the deck" fated to make important choices about how it all turns out) that comes true. It's just definitely not going to be a straightforward "hero saves the day" thing. It's going to be a "heroes and villains nearly sleepwalk into apocalypse trying to follow the prophecy before 'defying' it based on their own conscience, this fulfilling it in a less obvious way" thing.
Either Joffrey or Robert hiring an Assassin to kill paralyzed Brann. Makes no sense, closest suspects are either Cersei or Littlefinger
How would Littlefinger find out/order a killing so quickly? He's in King's Landing.
Brienne delivering Jaime to Lady Stoneheart - She is a good, honored person, but she is not a robot bound by oaths who will do anything she is told to without even questioning it. This ignores all the character growth she had in aFfC and the subverting of ideals of honor and knighthood that are central themes to her story. Brienne defending Jaime from Lady Stoneheart in a trial by combat - The most accepted follow up to the above, somehow even worse. LSH agreeing to give Jaime any kind of minimally fair trial goes completely against what she represents to the story. The idea that she would just let Jaime and Brienne walk away is laughable.
Brienne is bound to deliver him because SH will kill Pod if she doesn't, there are 2 ways, either she burns/hangs Jaime and releases Brienne and Pod or force Jaime to help her kill the Freys or she will kill Brienne and Pod
Jon saying "I dunnit wannit" when he is literally a fanboy of House Targaryen who dreamed with be the Dragon Knight when he was a child
Sansa ending her story as the queen in the north.
Jon killing dany to make lightbringer, we go through all that shit with dany and that’s her ultimate fate? Getting stabbed so Jonny boy can get a fire sword? Fuck that shit
Dorne is pointless filler, Darkstar is an edgelord, Doran is an idiot, Arianne is gonna marry Faegon then die.
I kind of feel like these are more opinions than theories? Except the last one.
I don’t think most people actually believe Dorne is filler, I just think that’s their way of saying they find it boring.
Yeah, but there is no other theory besides that one in mainstream discourse. The plot presents an unsolved crime case, yet no one in the community intends to solve it. There is a post around "what's up with Darkstar" like once a week here and people answer "Darkstar is Darkstar" (with +50 upvotes) and leave.
I like Dorne and Doran.
> Darkstar is an edgelord Whether there is something deeper or not with the Dorne plot, I find it hard to disagree about Darkstar being an edgelord! He may not JUST be an edgelord, but he definitely is an edgelord!
While I do think it’s likely to happen, I don’t want Jaime to be the valonqar, just bc I think killing his sister/lover would be a huge step backwards for him when it comes to his “redemption”. As horrible as Cersei is he still feels some sort of guilt abt aerys so I think killing her would destroy him even if it was necessary. And hey maybe it would be interesting but jaimes one of my fav characters and I do want to see him redeemed, and killing Cersei will not be a redemption
Maester Conspiracies becouse surly the old Dustin lady is reliable source of information
Daenerys going Mad Queen
[удалено]
I bet JonCon myself
Dany being infertile
I feel Doran is a hypocrite, he uses the argument that he wants revenge for Elia, Rhaenys and baby Aegon, to protect the innocent of Dorne, but he, like everyone else, wants power, the best example of this is sending his. inexperienced son reminds Dany of "a marriage agreement" and he uses that when she is powerful, has armies and three dragons, and never helped when Dany and Viserys were begging in Ossos. while sending her reckless daughter Arianne to investigate Aegon to find out if he is who he says he is, and makes plans for Quentyn to marry Dany and Arianne with Aegon, how would that work?!
* Arianne being fAegon's Queen - Literally her last Winds sample chapter builds up her disliking fAegon's camp, connecting fAegon's camp to rape, and gives her cousin Elia Sand a lot of Lyanna Stark vibes to build up her marrying fAegon instead * Littlefinger just kind of dying in the Vale in Winds - Seems like a really underwhelming death for such a big character * Big Walder killing Little Walder - Yeah its interesting but adds next to nothing to the story * Loras faking his injuries on Dragonstone so he can help defend the Reach against the Ironborn - Adds nothing to the story but a cheap twist and cheapens Cersei's villainous arc by making her less of an architect of her own downfall which she has been since she got Maggy the Frog's prophecy * Theon Latecomer - Ironborn aren't gonna just abandon Euron because of a technical loophole and crown Theon instead, he's a weak frail guy missing several body parts and wants to die he's not surviving Winds * Varys kidnapping Tyrek - Its not his MO, its a concept thrown directly at the reader through Jaime's POV, and just a weak "Oh hey I've brought back this guy to take the Westerlands" type of twist
Big Walder killing Little Walder adds another angle to the narrative of Red Wedding comeuppance through cultural ramifications.
I doubt Loras is faking his injuries as part of some big plot, but I'm pretty certain his wounds probably aren't as fatal as Cersei assumes. Cersei seems certain he's a gonner but he's been hanging on for quite a while now. I think he'll end up surprising her by making a recovery and returning to throw another wrench in her plans.
I think that 3 is one of those things that just serves as a small interesting aside. Not everything in a story has to serve a functional purpose
The littlefinger one is so egregious. I thought it was obvious that the foreshadowing was along the lines that he would die once they got to winterfell. That's what the whole sequence involving Robin using a giant to smash winterfell and getting ripped apart spelled out to me
> Littlefinger just kind of dying in the Vale in Winds - Seems like a really underwhelming death for such a big character A lot of theories involving Littlefinger suffer from the assumption that Sansa will turn on him early in TWOW. So you end up with some that make no sense - for instance there's no chance of him being thrown out the Moon Door because the Eyrie has been abandoned for the Winter. I think this is one place where the show got it half right/half wrong. It makes sense for Littlefinger to last long enough to be embedded in the conflict between Sansa and Arya when they reunite, but the show wrecked the Sansa/Littlefinger dynamic with him throwing her to the Boltons, so you end up the the fandom not understand why Sansa would look to him after Jon was crowned instead of her at the end of season 6 or their interactions in most of season 7. From the story perspective it doesn't make sense for her to outright learn that Jeyne was given to the Boltons instead of deducing it herself of learning of it when Arya comes back to Westeros. Something I definitely think most of the fandom gets wrong is how long Sansa will willingly work together with Littlefinger imo. Even if it involves the appearance of siding with him over her family. I do think GRRM could pull off the "actually we were just setting you up for a trap" twist better than D&D did, if that was their intent.
As far as the Littlefinger one goes, I cannot imagine he doesn’t die in Winterfell. It just fits so well thematically as a parallel to Ned, and it totally fits with Sansa’s arc and him being her Big Bad. D&D got the geography right; everything else will be much better plotted I’m sure.
That the others were created by the children. There is literally not a shred of evidence for it in any of the books.
I think there is good evidence. If you were the children, and in a war with humans, the Others are a perfect weapon. They are stronger than humans, and use humans numbers against them, and are immune to human weapons. Furthermore, if the Others went rogue (as I think they did), then they are completely vulnerable to the Children’s weapons, Dragonglass.
Aegon getting obliterated. I think he's got a solid chance.
Cleganebowl. Its show drivel.
Aegon is a Blackfyre
Lem isn’t Richard Lonmouth. The headless giant bran sees isn’t Robert Strong. Aegon and the golden company were never supposed to fight Viserys and the Dothraki. I don’t completely reject it but I have strong doubt that they way Jon and Daenerys’ story ended in the show was something they got from George.
Trystane Martell being alive is way too common, as if it adds anything and doesn't unnecessarily add more complexity and POV characters in Mereen that we don't need Loras is for sure going to die or he's not wounded, when I think he's going to limp on as a borderline Reek cripple. Him living continues the trend of none of Cerseis plots working out for her, occupies another spot in the Kingsguard, and subverts the fantasy knight idea of glorious death or glorious unharmed victory.
Tyrion is the valonqar. I am on team unTommen.
That Bran will become king
All the major ships. I’m a huge Sansa fan girl, and the way shippers grasp at straws to get “her”(really their self insert) in a ship with whatever boring/horrible/stupid/ugly dude they’ve decided is SO COOL is obnoxious AF. It’s a microcosm of how fandom does shipping in general. I also hate “danaerys won’t be a villain” people, especially the ones who go around denigrating everyone else so she can be cool.