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Introduction:
It seems that one of the persistent features of being in the Game of Thrones fandom is becoming wrestling with recurrent waves of anger and incredulity. The last time I wrote one of these essays was back in the tail end of Season 5, which seems like a muffled cry indeed compared to the torrents of online opinion about the events of the penultimate episode, let alone the Battle of the Bastards or the Wight Hunt.
That being said, I do think the reaction to the penultimate episode was as strong as it was because it felt like the summation of a huge number of plotlines that failed to cohere in a satisfying manner, and because (for the moment) it’s the only conclusion we have access to.
But I think there is a reason for fans who were let down by Episode 5 to have some hope: there’s good reason to guess that the endgame in King’s Landing will be very, very different from book to show.
Race for the Iron Throne 
Awesome, thanks for doing this.
You’re very welcome!
Seconded. Should GRRM die/lose all interest before releasing TWOF/ADOS, I’ll sign every petition for Steven to finish the series instead.
Thank you for writing this. I needed some hope back for the story I fell in love with.
Glad I could help.
You weren’t the only one. I think many of us are going to come back to this essay many times through the long years ahead until Dream is released.
Hey look, it’s me – coming back to this essay in 2022! (Though, to be fair, a fan prompted Steven to re-link it) 🙂
I dunno, GRRM told them his ending and while they are of course making some changes, this would be an extremely massive and momentous change, really transforming the core of the thing.
“Dany and Jon save the world BUT THEN it all falls apart” seems perfectly GRRM to me. Life is not a song.
But it is the Song of Ice and Fire. I don’t think that song ends with GRRM mashing his fists on the keyboard because that would totally flaunt convention / audience expectation.
I also do not think it will end with GRRM mashing his fists on the keyboard.
But it could well end with “Jon, Tyrion, and Arya all come back from the brink but Dany doesn’t.” Or with “Jon ends up on the throne having had to turn against the woman he loved for the good of the realm.”
Ok, but what about what I’ve written is inconsistent with “Jon and Dany both die tragically and Tyrion is left to pick up the pieces”?
Didn’t realise you were the Adam F of M.Blot whose work I enjoy so much! Apologies for being glib (nothing about your writing suggests you don’t have faith in GRRM’s ability to end the story with nuance). I love your essays – I guess I have to reread them, though. I thought you make an utterly compelling case about why Mereen will lead Dany into a path of fire and blood – but not that it wouldn’t bear a return from the brink as Steven suggests.
D&D have changed the core of the thing. Stephen’s explanation actually corresponds to both GRRM’s thematics and the clear plot foreshadowing throughout the novels
Yeah, I’m gonna disagree with that. https://meereeneseblot.wordpress.com/2013/10/05/untangling-the-meereenese-knot-part-iv-a-darker-daenerys/
I get your perspective, dude. But since you and I seem to interpret ASOIAF very differently and don’t seem to have much luck convincing one another of the other’s position, what exactly is the point of this intervention?
Several folks responded to my comment so I responded to them. Didn’t mean to come off as flooding the zone.
But yes, we have disagreed for years and now that we have some new information there are new things to disagree about. As you don’t seem to be game, I’ll leave you to it.
Ok, let me take a step back and acknowledge that it’s easy to misinterpret things through text-only mediums on the internet. If I misread you, I apologize.
I’m happy to discuss, but it did come off like you were coming onto my site and throwing your weight around a bit without really engaging with my arguments.
I don’t mind academic disagreement, but if you don’t think anything I have to say is worthwhile, I don’t see why you’d want to spend the time.
I think you are absolutely one of the best ASOIAF writers out there and have read you for so many years! I very much apologize if I came on too strong. Anyway, I look forward to your thoughts next week–
Ok, good to know. I think I’ve misinterpreted your feelings on that point. See you next week.
You two are two of my favourite essayists about the series. Is there anywhere you’ve collaborated on any point – counterpoint essays or podcast together? I’m not being all Mantis here (‘knife fight! knife fight!’) – but I’d be very interested in seeing how you would engage outside of eachother’s channels in a space where you could give the areas where you agree / diverge some air?
Just because he told them the ending that he was working toward, doesn’t mean that what he told them is what we’re seeing. I doubt they’re under contractual obligation to write the ending that he told them.
Also, I came to the books after the series started, but didn’t ADWD get published the same year that the show aired. This would hint to me that he original ideas that D&D had for adapting the series wouldn’t have taken that book into account. I suspect that has colored everything thing that came after, but I couldn’t give a specific guess as to how.
This. I’m sure GRRM told them what he was planning based on what he knew at the time, but Benioff and Weiss aren’t under contract to deliver exactly that.
1. They’re not under contractual obligation to write the ending that he told them.
2. He’s not contractually obligated to write the ending that he told them either. If he told them something vaguely along these lines, and everyone (or most people) comes out of the final episode saying “This was the dumbest resolution, what a waste of 9 years!”, it would certainly be possible for him to back peddle a bit, as long as it matched the rest of the story.
Here’s what he told them:
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“Well, to a degree. I mean, I think … the major points of the ending will be things that I told them, you know, five or six years ago,” Martin said. “But there may also be changes, and there’ll be a lot added.”
—
https://www.forbes.com/sites/paultassi/2019/05/11/george-rr-martin-told-game-of-thrones-showrunners-the-major-points-of-his-ending/
And we already know, from D&D themselves, that they came up with the “Arya kills Night King” on their own to have a big twist, not because Martin said that Arya was going to do something like that.
From 6:15 of Inside the Episode:
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“We thought it was important that, whatever the plan was, that it not just work out, ’cause that would be kind of dull. While there’s no reason to know for certain that the fire wouldn’t kill or destroy the Night King, there’s also no particular reason to believe that it would”
—
(BTW, absolute BS there. They don’t even give an excuse, they just say “no reason to think a dragon’s fire could hurt this guy”)
And 8:56, same video
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David: For, God, I think it’s probably 3 years now or something, we’ve known that it was going to be Arya who delivers that fatal blow.
Dan: She seemed like the best candidate provided we weren’t thinking about her in that moment. One of the great things about having this many people you care about in a sequence together is you can kind of pull people’s attention and focus to people they care about a lot like Jon and like Dany, Theon and Bran, not to mention Tyrion and Sansa in the crypts. So you’re going all over the place with people who you’re desperately worried for and hopefully you forget about the fact that Arya Stark ran out of the castle with the battle drums playing and going towards some purpose, and we don’t know what until it happens.
David: We hope to kind of avoid the expected, and Jon Snow has always been the one to be the hero, the one who’s been the savior, but it just didn’t seem right to us for this moment. We knew it had to be Valyrian Steel to the exact spot where the Child of the Forest put the dragonglass blade to create the Night King, and he is un-created by the Valyerian Steel. At the end of it it’s still, it’s a victory for the living but at great cost because some of our favorite characters fall along the way.
—
So for one of the biggest things of all in the series, they completely decided on their own that it would be Arya who does this. After that, I’d say the absolute most you can say about the ending is that they probably follow vaguely the same road Martin’s going down, only the addresses and neighbors have a lot of differences, and they’re going down the road backwards to boot.
You can also check out the recent 60 Minutes interview where GRRM says, “I don’t think Dan and Dave’s ending is gonna be that different from my ending because of the conversations we– we did have. But they may be on certain secondary characters, there may be big differences.” And where he says he told them “the major beats” of where the last books are going.
I agree that Night King, this use of Euron, and many many other things are show inventions.
But the contrast between “Dany is the final threat” vs. “Dany will go dark but then redeem herself against the Others” is so monumental in defining what the whole series is about. So. Did they change it? Or is this the final Red Wedding?
See here:
The show requires Dany, who has an army and can ride a dragon, to choose to not just get rid of the hostile Lannisters when she first arrives but instead go north after she’s had the experience of trying to compromise and learning that force was the better option to get things done. Indeed, it doesn’t seem to occur to her that even if the North’s need is so great, if she destroys Cersei Lannister she can probably bring up an even bigger army and won’t have to worry about being stabbed in the back by the family that did just that to her father.
So the show’s ending had to have Dany choosing to do something that didn’t give her anything and not choosing to do something that could get her a lot, at a time when she had the power to take it with relative ease, all so she could struggle for the Iron Throne later on. Even setting aside everything in the books not present in the show, it’s just illogical for Dany to behave that way.
Add in there the two saying that they made a decision of how the Night King battle would go purely on how it could be a big twist and yeah, I would say that D&D gave her story a complete 180.
Whoops, forgot to put in the Inside the Episode link for D&D’s discussion.
They’ve changed things momentously before, why wouldn’t they do so again?
Also, holy hell, do you really think that’s the message GRRM is going with? Littlefinger is right?! Sansa is wrong to look for beauty and truth in song?
“Also, holy hell, do you really think that’s the message GRRM is going with?”
Yes, the Long Night is a metaphor for climate change, according to GRRM. Which totally means that you can defeat it over night, and then get back to the *real* fight of killing all of your human enemies and betraying your friends.
/sarcasm
Ugh. I agree with you there.
I’ve head Benioff has history with making drastic changes last minute during productions in sudden fits of inspiration. Dorne’s plot was written well into production and crammed in only seven days of shooting (and it tells). At this point I wouldn’t be surprised if it turns out some of the most egregious changes/incoherent sloppiness sprang from similar impulsiveness.
I think the manner of victory over the Others is a pretty massive and momentous change that really transforms the core of the thing, don’t you? No way would D&D go that far to fuck with it… oh wait.
Seriously, if Martin has Ninja Arya turn out to be Azor Ahai then I will eat my computer. If D&D messed with that they’ll mess with anything.
It would be a pretty massive change. I don’t think that in any way implies it isn’t true.
Given the demographic of the fanbase it was irresponsible for Benioff and Weiss to do what they did and leave Game of Thrones to become a second gamergate.
I have faith in GRRM to be better. It’s insult to injury that GoT included wildfire explosions but didn’t pay them off. I look forward to the true decon-recon Greek tragedy and already abhor where Benioff and Weiss will turn next to Star Wars to poke fun at more dead mothers and women who play at being independent but in reality can’t handle it, as the men around them all know. What hacks.
Yeah, I’m going to skip that Star Wars for sure.
1. I don’t think Sansa will marry Harry. I think after she learns of Rickon’s survival, and Stannis rallying the North, she may be inclined to run away, especially if Harry shows his true colors. I don’t think she’ll bring the Vale. I think the Vale is more likely to side with Dany during the second Dance. 1) It’s proximity to Dragonstone, and being at full reserves. 2) Tyrion is still itching to pay back his debt to the Vale over his treatment. 3) The boy lord could be swayed partly with dragonride (appealing to his Winged Knight image, who could fly).
2. I think Arianne will be the next dragonrider as opposed to Aegon. Remember, Rhaegal was the one who killed Quentyn, and we know Arianne’s true feelings regarding him. It fits with the theme of dragons as their riders’ ids. I imagine she would get a traitor (like Brown Ben Plumm) to get her the dragonbinder, and use it given I wouldn’t imagine Dany letting any of her enemies get near her dragons, except during battle. Arianne could have Penny or someone like her blow it, given it would be a reversal of Doran’s Water Gardens lesson where she sacrifices an innocent to advance her own power.
3. I think Dany will already know Aegon is a fake before she lands. Tyrion could piece it together. Think a parallel to the Baratheon brothers. A claimant proclaimed AAR by the Red Faith on Dragonstone sends out ravens saying a certain boy king is an impostor of bastard heritage, and fights against a popular claimant of the same house in the south who has support among stormlords and Reachmen, and the bulk of his support is through marrying into one of the Great Houses.
4. I don’t think Jon will leave the NW after he awakes. He knows with the clear threat of the Others, everything else is secondary. It would be a decision that wouldn’t come until the very end after the Long Night is over. Something like a Great Council would be needed to absolve him of his vows.
1.
Why would Sansa run away? Harry’s an ass, but he’s not Joffrey. I wouldn’t even necessarily say he’s a young Robert. And he represents a strong, untapped army in the Vale that can go a very long way to defeating enemies of House Stark.
Aside from the logic of staying, Sansa’s story has been one of court politics, not of running back to fight. Outdoing Baelish, who thought he had her under control even as he lectured her about relying on people behaving in a certain way, and winning the Vale seems a much more natural outcome of that story.
On the Vale joining Dany, why would they if Tyrion wants revenge? Tyrion’s in Mereen as of ADWD and likely to end up an advisor to Dany, making her less likely to develop a view favorable to the Arryns.
2.
When would Arianne hear about dragonhorns, and why would Plumm do something as risky as betraying Dany in such a final manner when Dany seems likely to win with her dragons and Arianne has no proof that she can ride a dragon? Indeed, Quentyn’s fate would make Plumm very skeptical of anyone claiming they can do the same thing as a Targaryen. Admittedly, perhaps he’d do it for Aegon, but that’s a dangerous gamble to take on the idea that Aegon is a real Targaryen and can be a better dragonrider than Dany, when all Plumm has to do is stay loyal to Dany and he’ll probably be on the winning side.
And when would Arianne be in contact with Penny, and how would she win Penny’s loyalty?
3.
There’s certainly reason to be skeptical of Aegon in-universe, but challenging him to ride a dragon isn’t necessarily an unreasonable test when you’ve got a guy who was raised for years by a Targaryen loyalist.
4.
Remember that death changed the two characters who were brought back (that we can judge, we haven’t had a chance to see Melony or Coldhands’ mentality), apparently in a manner connected with their death. Stoneheart’s been obsessed with vengeance on the people who were connected to the Red Wedding, Beric was grimly committed to the defense of the innocent. When Jon died, he was preparing to lead a force of Free Folk against a Northmen lord. Before he made the announcement that led to his death, he thought about his Stark siblings and decided he wasn’t going to go with the ranging to try to oppose the Others.
Even if he hadn’t consciously admitted it, when he died he’d given up his NW identity for his Stark one, and then was murdered by the NW. That’s going to shape his view of the world.
1. That renders the whole Vale plot a total waste of time. Sansa’s only play is to rally the Vale behind her claim, and that requires marrying Harry.
2. I really don’t see this. Why would Aegon take a pass in favor of his wife, when it’s his credentials at stake?
3. She may know, but it doesn’t matter b/c people want to believe, and even if he is he’s still a legitimate Targaryen male.
4. He was already on his way out the door before the NW murdered him!
Regarding #1, despite being an ass, I think Harry’s been the only one romantically interested in Sansa for reasons other than her claim to the North, and given that she has a depressing internal monologue about no one will every really love her for anything beyond that, I’m hoping that she’s proven wrong and Harry ends up becoming a better man.
The thing with Harry – and I agree he’s not going to be a Ramsay Bolton figure, just a self-absorbed jerk – is that he’s The Young Falcon. Gallant, dashing romantic fighters nicknamed The Young Heraldic Beast don’t last long in the ASOIAF-verse. See: Daeron the Young Dragon and Robb the Young Wolf.
I think Sansa will marry Harry or at least be betrothed to him, but he’ll die through some kind of treachery (as did the Young Dragon and Young Wolf). To me, Sansa seems more set up to be an Elizabeth I figure – courted by many but not marrying (ok she did marry Tyrion but it will probably be annulled).
I *still* have a grudge against D&D for putting Sansa into Jeyne Poole’s plotline. Was all the gross rapey Ramsay stuff necessary? Although her “dogs should eat a raw food diet” philosophy was very satisfying.
I know a lot of people like to compare Sansa to “The Virgin Queen” but Elizabeth I lived under very different circumstances than Sansa. For Elizabeth there were practical reasons why she avoided getting married. Her main motive was of course to maintain her authority as a monarch. But she also had good political reasons such as not having to take sides in foreign affairs (marry a Spanish suitor = instant war with France and vice versa), as well as the fact that marrying a foreign prince would be unpopular with her subjects, while marrying an Englishman would only faction the country among regional and religious lines.
In Sansa’s case if she becomes Queen in the North or Queen on the Iron Throne or even a wardeness or lady regnant, she doesn’t have those same political or religious constraints as reasons not to get married. Furthermore as a ruler she will no doubt need to secure important marriage alliances and produce an heir. And even if she doesn’t actually rule by de facto and ends up serving someone else (such as Rickon), they may still pressure her to get married anyway.
1. I agree that this is the most likely outcome, but isn’t there a possibility than Sansa can prevent Littlefinger from killing Robert, and then use her influence over Robert to be the de facto power in the Vale? Especially if she exposes Littlefinger and gets him out of the way, then whichever lord gets appointed as the new Protector (I’m assuming it’s too far-fetched they would appoint Sansa) will be (a) in Sansa’s debt; (b) needing Sansa’s help in managing Robert; and (c) wanting to stay in Robert’s good graces in case Robert ever gets to rule in his own name. Sansa might even use her developing political skills to keep everyone under her thumb: blackmailing Littlefinger, dangling the possibility of marriage before Harry, offering the Vale lords a way to control Robert.
1. Robert’s not long for this world, even with LF gone. But no, the Lords Declarant aren’t going to put up with an outsider ruling the Vale AGAIN.
I disagree here. I legitimately can see Sweetrobin outlasting everyone, just because we’re constantly told how he’s going to kick the bucket ANY SECOND NOW.
Agreed, with thatrabidpotato. GRRM consistently creates impressions to pull the rug out from under the reader ie, looking like Ned was going to be spared, King’s Landing was going to fall in BoBW and looking like Jon was doomed until Stannis arrives.
I think Robert Arryn is going to live.
I agree that Sansa won’t flee the Vale, but equally I’m not sure I see her marrying Harry, most obviously because she can’t do that — she’s married to Tyrion. Moreover, the marriage isn’t even supposed to happen in the near future; Littlefinger talks about it as a distant prospect. It’s a greater challenge for her to steer the Vale into war without marrying.
Tyrion’s a traitor convicted of regicide and it’s public knowledge he’s a kinslayer, he’s a political nonentity, and it’s public knowledge he never consummated the marriage.
His crimes and lack of power are important, but the lack of consummation is critical because it gives Baelish and Sansa a very firm legal way to get her divorced instead of having a legally dubious second marriage. All they need now is a High Septon or Council of Faith, and whatever the latter is, I’d bet that one can be gotten in the Vale.
Sansa has no way of obtaining an annulment from the High Septon under current conditions. Littlefinger himself in explaining the plan says they’re waiting until Tyrion is dead.
Littlefinger is also perfectly capable of whistling up a fake “Tysha” from a brothel. He already got a fake Arya, through very lucky circumstances (Jeyne Poole was brought up at Winterfell and has a superficial resemblance to Arya physically). If LF can find someone to impersonate an actual Lord Paramount’s daughter (who would be a well-known person to nobles and villagers) then imagine how easy it would be to find someone to impersonate a peasant girl. I am sure everyone but the absent Tyrion has forgotten what she looks like.
And, as I pointed out, I’m willing to bet that one of these vague Council of Faiths will be something that can be gotten in the Vale and they can’t wait for that. Events moved far too fast, if they wait for a death then Stannis will already have the North and Aegon will be able to show up at the Vale with a pretty powerful army and demand the Vale’s allegiance, with Baelish unable to give a good reason to the lords for why he won’t.
Also considering that she was under threat of being physically abused, I’m sure even without the High Septon or Council of Faith’s approval, one could still use the circumstances of her marriage as a way of invalidating it by default. Because as Maester Steven has already pointed out, a marriage is not considered legitimate if either party was under duress.
@Grant: if Baelish and Co. actually wind up kicking their heels waiting for a death, if Aegon shows up and is unmarried (or even married to Arianne – he IS a Targaryen, or “Targaryen” after all) LF is going to drop Harry in a King’s Landing minute for the bigger prize, most likely.
@Crystal
By that point he’ll be married to Arianne, and Baelish would have a lot of clever people around Aegon complicating any plans he’d have to get Sansa married and then murder the husband after enough time’s passed for her to be plausibly pregnant by that guy.
1. Except it isn’t if Sansa undergoes some learning, which she is, and she kills Littlefinger. She would be creating a power vacuum that Daenerys and Tyrion could fill. If Harry is Robert 2.0, then Sansa would be setting herself apart from Cersei by channeling her aunt Lyanna, and running away.
2. It would be Arianne’s idea. She takes matters into her own hands. Her beloved Sand Snake, Tyene, is no stranger to poison, and could give Plumm poisoned wine.
3. I know that. Connington wants it to be true since otherwise, it would mean he was duped into spending half his life raising some impostor that he grew to love, for Arianne it would mean she made a HUGE if not hugely embarrassing political blunder by marrying a false pretender and for the High Sparrow, it would damage his credibility as a speaker for the gods by proclaiming a false pretender as king. They would all stand to lose face.
4. He was doing so feeling it was his only option. He couldn’t let Ramsay come to the Wall without endangering everyone there, and handing over the people Ramsay demanded required Jon to violate guest right which is still regarded as sacred in the North. He knows it would be irresponsible to abandon the NW now for Winterfell.
Let me say that if, 10 years from now, presumably the earliest we get ADOS, it turns out Dany was the villain, I’d feel pretty let down and betrayed by GRRM. Hopefully I won’t be as emotionally invested in this then as I am now.
But in either case, the execution is just way off in the show and just unsatisfying. It doesn’t feel all put together and nothing in the show rung true to GRRM.
Steve, I agree with everything you’ve written. Except in one of the tumblr posts you’ve linked you mention that Brienne is going to die in LSH’s trial by combat. I don’t see that happening, tbh. Brienne has consistently been one of the truest heroes of the series, without ever being a knight. She’s one of the few characters wielding a Valyrian steel sword. Jaime’s weirwood dream of Brienne’s lit sword being the only thing chasing away the cold darkness is pretty telling. She is going to survive to fight for the living. She is going to fight against the Others. Surely her arc is much more than trying and failing to be a bodyguard to other characters.
Here’s the thing tho…what’s the metric of being a hero in Brienne’s narrative?
Dying in defense of the one she’s pledged her sword to. It’s the Aemon Dragonknight story, it’s what she wanted to do for Renly, it’s her exisential victory.
While I agree with the thematics, wouldn’t Brienne dying in trial by combat mean Jaime dies as well? Unless we have some weird plot development (thinking ST:TNG in Data’s trial) where Stoneheart further orders Brienne to fight Jaime to save Pod and Hyle. In that kind of miscarriage of justice, I’m not sure LSH and the BWB would honor the results of the combat anyway.
Not if she dies victoriously… (defending Jaime’s life, sorry that wasn’t clear)
“Dying in defense of the one she’s pledged her sword to”
Here’s where we differ, as I believe this can easily apply to her fighting for all of humanity. Her sacrifice would be much more meaningful then. Otherwise what would have been the “point” of her long-winded, emotionally rich POV in AFFC? I mean that was my favourite part of the book but I’d be pretty disappointed if that’s all we get out of Brienne.
Have to agree to disagree, I guess.
really good, I hope for something like this. though i’m not sure about the ending.. dany and jon will fall in love and save the world but is that the end? I wonder if there is also going to happen some break between them like it did in the show after the war of dawn ( but for different reasons than kings landing burning) if dany last treason is about jon… maybe he will be responsible for her death, maybe he kills her… it seems like that’s where the show is going for.
I think they die in the process.
but what about the last treason?
Not sure yet. It could be one of them betraying the other in the process of saving the world, but it could be something else.
I certainly hope that the books go a lot more like this. The one misgiving that I have is that GRRM is on record for being a big fan of the Scouring of the Shire, and views writing a similar “lowered-stakes conflict between climax and epilogue to show that the difficulties of life still going on after the defeat of ultimate evil” as very important. What do you think that would be in this case once the Long Night is done?
I’d point out that the Scouring of the Shire isn’t really applicable to ASOIAF.
In the Lord of the Rings, Mordor is the big bad all along, and then the hobbits come back to find the Shire’s been trashed. They saved the world but couldn’t save their home.
Here, the entirety of the story until the very end will have been petty politics. It’s literally going to be ~6 books of Scouring the Shire, and then the Others will show up at the very end. So then we’ll beat them and go right back to what we’ve been doing all along?
I found this twitter thread to be an interesting discussion of how the show has changed as it got beyond GRRM’s material:
The gist is that there are two kinds of writers, “plotters” and “pantsers.” Neither is inherently good or bad, though we may all have preferences.
Plotters know exactly where the story is going, the narrative flows well, and they are more likely to sticking the landing, but often force their characters to make unrealistic or uncharacteristic decisions in order to hit their story beats. Pantsers write very realistic characters, and the plot flows organically from the realistic choices of those characters, but because the writers are “flying by the seat of their pants,” there is a tendency for the story to meander and lose focus. The ending isn’t always satisfying to people.
GRRM is the ultimate pantser. (Yes, he necessarily had to plot out some elements of the story long in advance, but only the broad strokes, and even much of what he planned has changed, e.g. the five-year jump.) He even talks about writing in terms such as tending his garden. That’s made for compelling characters, and story beats that felt natural and logical even when they were initially surprises. But the books do tend to meander….
D&D are plotters. Once they got past the written material, their style took over. They were quite determined to “stick the landing” with the ending of the series, so they chose the key plot points they wanted, and then have shoehorned character decisions and plot elements to make them happen. I suspect that the final episode will be generally liked (not by those of us here probably, but among the broad audience) — more like a Breaking Bad than a Lost or Battlestar Galactica.
As I said, neither style is inherently better, but it’s very jarring to transition from one to the other. And that’s what the show has done — what was once a pantser series (which had the added benefit of being able to trim some of the meandering for adaptation purposes) has become a plotter series.
I read the same thread. Very interesting perspective.
Yes, but while Martin is a gardener first, he also does meticulous plotting. Whereas D&D are poor plotters with really bad and inconsistent characterisations. In contrast to many science fiction writers, who has flat characters but make up for it with excellent plotting, like Asimov for example.
Given that we now know the endpoints of various plots, I think most here could have written them better. Take season seven. If instead of splitting Daenerys forces in pointless side quests to create a semblance of tension, they could have had the people of King’s Landing revolt in the first episode. Cersei retreats to the Westerlands (probably dragged by Jaime), and Daenerys can conquer the capital unopposed. Then the messenger from the North gets there to call for help. In this scenario there is a need for a ceasefire with Cersei, and a conflict between that strategy and conquering the Westerlands first. In the same way they could have set up a genuine conflict in the North between different anti-zombie strategies (focus on the wall, focus on strongholds or withdrawal to Winterfell? Should civilians be evacuated, and if so from which areas and where to?), with Littlefinger acting to control execution of any plan and diverting resources to his own schemes. Instead of doing Branbot 3000, the robot that can’t emote, they could have made him an incoherent seer who has a hard time understanding what time he is in now. That way he could have given clues without it being silly that he doesn’t just tell his siblings what they need to know. And when Littlefinger’s schemes are discovered, what to do about it could have been a source of conflict, instead of Arya threatening to kill her sister over nonexistent ambition and a letter written under duress.
I could go on, but really I am just ranting at the really, really bad plotting.
They are plotters and really bad at plotting. That is a bad combination.
I tend to think that Arianne Martell is the YMBQ that presages Cersei’s downfall, as she ties more to Rhaegar than Daenerys. Tywin wanted to marry her to Rhaegar, he marries Elia Martell instead. Tywin Lannister sacks King’s Landing and kills Elia & her children. Then, one of those purported children along with the niece of the murdered princess return to seize the capital. Cersei is already in lust with wildfire, which brings the conflict with Jaime to a head. Everything about that setup is basically the fiery end of Tywin’s legacy.
I think Dany’s burninating moment is aimed at the Dornish Water Gardens. From her point of view, Doran made a deal then abandoned Viserys, Quentyn tried to woo her then died failing to snatch a dragon, and Arianne has married a pretender to call herself Queen. Everything sets Dorne as her enemy.
Does that have meaning for Cersei, tho?
Yes. Cersei, who desperately wants to be Tywin but doesn’t have the chops, has wrecked the Lannister hold on the Throne and has it taken from her by the embodiment of her father’s victims that secured her position in the first place. Tywin bought her marriage & crown with the blood of Elia & her children, and it’s the successors to them that’ll take it back from her.
Eh, that feels less direct for me.
Littlefinger isn’t going north to Winterfell. I’m almost 100% certain that Sansa is going to strategically reveal her true identity to Yohn Royce, Miranda Royce, and Harry at the right time before the wedding (Miranda will just smile and say “I told you” to Yohn Royce), and then set a trap for Littlefinger. He’ll get arrested trying to slip into her quarters to sleep with her, because his plot (at least to me) has always been to get Sansa married while knocking her up with his bastard. He might die then, although I suspect he’ll escape and get offed by either a returning Arya or Stoneheart.
I still think Aegon VI is going to try and fail to mount a dragon (his freezing up at the Bridge of Dream as precedent for that), but it would be pretty cool if he and the Golden Company somehow got hold of ensorcelled Viserion from a returning Iron Fleet sans Victarion*, and then he successfully mounted him and we got Dance of Dragons in KL.
* Still pretty sure that Victarion is going to try and mount Rhaegal in Slaver’s Bay, and get thrown to his death. But by then he might have ensorcelled Viserion with the horn and sent him back with part of the fleet for return to Westeros.
Bronze Yohn seems to already have his suspicions that “Alayne” isn’t who she appears to be. I mean – we are told over and over that Sansa strongly resembles her mother, Catelyn, and we are also told that Catelyn and Lysa look a lot alike. Lords who have met Catelyn and/or Lysa are going to see that resemblance, because dyeing your red hair brown doesn’t really change how you *look.* I bet it’s not just Bronze Yohn who is thinking, “Hmm, that ‘Alayne Stone’ looks a lot like Lady Arryn did…”
It will be interesting if Sansa ever goes to the Riverlands or incorporates any Riverlords into her army, because there is one who has actually *seen her* – Karyl Vance was in KL to have Ned Stark adjudicate some matter while Sansa was watching from the gallery. I’m sure Vance would have been curious about, and wanted a glimpse of, the future queen who was also Lord Hoster Tully’s granddaughter.
Also too, the Riverlords in general would have seen Catelyn Tully, and known her ver well. They won’t be fooled by a bottle of hair dye and a change of name if Sansa looks that much like Catelyn.
tl;dr the game is going to be up for LF sooner than later.
If he didn’t know before the ride down from the Eyrie, I’m pretty sure he does now – Miranda Royce was really good at trying to tease out revealing information from Sansa (the accidental “Jon Snow?” being the biggest one).
I think Sansa and the Vale Armies will pass through the Riverlands, but Edmure might balk at heading north – his first priority (presumably after getting his castle back and with the Riverlands in open revolt) will be trying to keep his people alive amidst the desolation.
I could see the trap happening either way, but let it happen oh ye gods.
I don’t think Aegon is going to fail, because that way we don’t get a dance.
Vic I think burns more than drowns.
Oh yes, I’m eager for that to happen as well. I honestly wouldn’t be surprised if that ended up being my favorite part of TWoW.
Aegon might just not get the chance. Maybe they don’t intercept the Iron Fleet and get Viserion, and Euron rides him to the top of the Hightower instead. I mean, that is a lot of goddamn stairs that he’ll have to climb if he’s going to blow the horn from the top.
But yeah, I think it’s a good possibility. Like I said, I’m pretty sure Viserion will be ensorcelled by the horn at that point, so it might be easy for Aegon to mount him successfully.
Ah crap, butchered the formatting on that one. Next time WordPress does an update, they should give commentators a temporary editing window.
Hey Steven! Thanks again for your superb analyses. I’m in agreement with practically everything here — that Daenerys will unintentionally light Chekhov’s Wildfire but not in such a way that crosses the Moral Event Horizon into Mad Queen, and indeed resolves to be a hero; that the show sloppily substituted Cersei for fAegon, who’s thematically integral; that Arianne and her proximate cousins will perish in that jade conflagration, bringing the tragedy of Doran’s best laid plans to a climax (although in this I hope I’m wrong; I love Arianne’s PoV and the Martells don’t deserve more grief); that Jon Snow’s resurrection will change him, and the veracity of his heritage will be cast into question because of fAegon’s pretending.
I’m more iffy on Brienne’s fate. Although I could see her dying at Stoneheart’s trial, I also think her status as a PoV with a Valyrian Steel sword puts her in the short list for heroes of the War of the Dawn, and I admit I fancy the idea of Jaime and Brienne as soulmates — George’s Beauty and the Beast. Regardless, Jaime certainly survives the trial and embarks for King’s Landing relatively soon.
Where I differ most, though, is how/when Cersei factors into things. With fAegon and his Golden Company on the precipice of victory in the Stormlands, and with their “friends in the Reach,” and with the inevitability of fAegon taking King’s Landing… I struggle to envision a scenario where Cersei remains alive there long enough for Daenerys to come into play, let alone in a position to attempt to ignite the wildfire. Daenerys’ journey home is fairly long yet, and fAegon is on Cersei’s doorstep.
In my mind, Cersei might rather attempt to raze the city while under siege by the Golden Company, only to be stopped by Jaime, her valonqar. Or perhaps she flees to Casterly Rock, only to be ended by Jaime there (after all, we certainly need to see it before the series’ end). Then again, maybe fAegon does delay in attacking King’s Landing — Tommen and Myrcella’s deaths still need to precede Cersei’s, after all. Any further insight into how all this reconciles on a timeline?
Anyway, thanks again. It’s been maddening trying to stymie the tide of people insisting the show and book’s endings (particularly wrt Dany’s villainy/King’s Landing being post-Long Night) will be “the same.” (“The same” only in the weakly superficial sense that Shireen’s death is “the same,” or the Night King’s stealing of a dragon will be “the same” as Euron stealing one, guys!)
Why would Aegon kill Cersei? She’s the perfect hostage to make the Westerlands bend the knee.
Huh. I hadn’t considered that, admittedly! Although wouldn’t another Lannister suffice? Aegon’s camp would seemingly have custody of Myrcella too, and possibly even Tyrek (if Varys was really behind his disappearance).
As for why Aegon would kill Cersei… well, Varys would surely advise that she’s volatile and dangerous, right? And she’s the daughter of the man who murdered Aegon’s ostensible family.
Well, keep in mind, in the books Cersei is Lady of Casterly Rock. The head honchette. Honcharina? Honchessa!
Cersei as a hostage feels a little strange to me in that some Westerlands lord might just not have a problem violating whatever terms and having her executed.
But if Cersei’s head accidentally falls off during the change in administrations, and Tyrion is still attainted, and Jaime becomes an enemy of the crown, then Casterly Rock goes to…Lancel? The High Sparrow then asks Lancel to take his seat at Casterly Rock “for the good of the Seven”. Now you have the Westerlands under the rule of Lancel Lannister, beholden to the High Sparrow, firmly in Aegon’s sphere.
Lancel’s just renounced his lands and titles and become a Warrior’s Son tho…
Couldn’t the High Sparrow, who has a lot to gain here, simply absolve the vow to the Warrior’s Sons?
He could – he could take mistresses and wear silk robes too – but the High Sparrow’s power comes from a very specificly performative religiousity, which constrains his actions even as it empowers him. He just committed a huge amount of political capital into restoring the Warrior’s Sons as a celibate, oathsworn fighting order of the Faith. Traducing that would be perilous.
Your predictions are as plausible as any I’ve seen, but what you’ve really shown is why GRRM hasn’t been able to finish the books and probably never will. The complexities involved in orchestrating the events required to make any one of the various plot lines happen are enormous, let alone eventually bringing them all together.
And you’ve barely mentioned some of the other plots that seem to be somewhat apart from the main story, but that he has to wrap up some way or other. For example, there’s Nymeria and Tyene in King’s Landing, Obara and Areo pursuing Darkstar, Blackfish Tully, Edmure and the Brotherhood in the Riverlands, Illyrio in Pentos, the Iron Islands if Theon and Asha get back there, Willas and Garlan Tyrell (who GRRM said were so important that the show runners would regret leaving them out), Marwyn and Moqorro.
I still think it’s more likely than not that GRRM will publish volume 6, but I wouldn’t be terribly surprised if he didn’t. After that — I doubt it.
Pretty much all of them will be interacting with main characters, so I’d say it can be done while pushing the main story forward.
Nymeria and Tyene can be handled through Cersei, Connington, Arianne, and Dany chapters about Cersei’s brief renewal, Aegon’s victory, and Dany’s arrival.
Obara and Areo don’t directly interact with a main character, but could be wrapped up in as little as two or three chapters if Martin wants to do so.
The Tullys and Brotherhood can be done in Jaime and Arya chapters while the Freys are wrapped up.
Illyrio I think is likely to go to KL for his son’s coronation, which puts him in Arianne, Connington, and Dany chapters as a secondary character.
Asha’s known chapter in TWOW intertwines with Stannis and pushes that part forward, and if she and Theon do return they can wrap that up in maybe three chapters.
Willas and Garlan (if Garlan isn’t at KL) will be part of the Ironborn attack chapters, whatever Sam does, and Euron’s sorcerous actions.
Marwyn and Moqorro are heading to Dany and probably will be part of her group, so Marwyn will be in Dany chapters, and Moqorro will be in Victarion chapters until he dies and then Dany chapters.
So a bigger question is how many chapters does Martin need to cover all the remaining big pieces of the story before focusing it pretty much all on the North and Others?
I don’t think GRRM won’t finish. I feel fairly confident that we’ll see TWOW by the end of the year. I live in hope we’ll see ADOS, but I think TWOW alone will give us a way to understand the whole better.
Most of the plotlines you’ve mentioned – not Willas and Garlan, but Nym and Tyene, Obara and Areo, Edmure, etc. – can be wrapped up in a chapter. I wouldn’t worry about that part of it.
I’m hopeful that ADOS will be much easier for him. He’ll have collapsed the story back down to King’s Landing, and realistically down to two main “theaters” – and killed off a bunch of characters. If he’s down to less than 10 POV characters, maybe it will go faster.
I guess if he doesn’t finish, we might still get A Dream of Spring by Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck.
I wouldn’t be surprised, too. IIRC he actually posted a blog post apologizing for it not being done in early 2017 or 2018, which at least indicates that he’d made enough progress on it that finishing it by then was a serious possibility.
Thank you for this, Steven. I mean it. I’m bookmarking this particular essay and will come back to it in future when I’m feeling particularly depressed about the series. Never before have I so fervently hoped that a prediction will come true.
I’ve had people tell me in the last few weeks that I “just can’t handle that my favorite character is going to die”. Daenerys is my favorite character now, though she honestly wasn’t before the show did her dirty. But I’ve always liked her, and I admit that my dream outcome for the series has always roughly involved “Jon and Dany get married, rule as equals, and fill the Red Keep with so many Targaryen incest babies that you can’t set foot through the gate without tripping over one or five”.
I’ve always known that that wasn’t actually going to happen, however, so I prepared myself for a lot of grimmer possibilities.
I can deal with Dany dying.
I can deal with her never touching the Iron Throne.
I can even deal with her dying at Jon’s hands, if it turns out to be brutally necessary to beat the Others.
What I can’t deal with, and refuse to accept under every circumstance, is the utter and complete negation of who she was in the first five books: a fierce and compassionate young woman who did her damndest to protect the weak and make the world a better place. If Martin does that to her in the books I will hunt him through all seven hells.
You’re very welcome!
Yeah, I see the difference between a death and a good death.
“Daenerys is my favorite character now, though she honestly wasn’t before the show did her dirty.”
Same! I swear, I’d never defended Dany before as much I did in s8. Passionately defending her against idiots who believe that “foreshadowing is character development” turned me into a Dany lover.
It’s crazy how the more the writers tried to make us dislike Dany, the more I liked her, and the more I came away convinced Jon and Tyrion were the biggest villains of the show.
Lord of the Rings was named after the villain, ice and fire are the two threats facing Westeros (per GRRM’s own interviews), and “fire” doesn’t get a redemption arc. It ends as a threat precisely because its a twist and it makes sense that fire, in the end, is just as dangerous as ice. You’re also theorizing from the perspective of zero unexpected twists. D&D and GRRM like those in equal measure and the show reveals that this is “the big one.” It’s already stated outright in the books that Dany is a savior and that’s what everyone expects. The author has gone on record as saying that he hates lazy writing where everyone is exactly what they seem, so he’s going to play with reader expectations in the way that the show has. Also Jon would have no reason to trust someone who just commited mass murder and atrocities on that scale. The series also isn’t going to end with the message that “yes, nuclear weapons can be bad, but they can eventually save the day!” The author has said that he doesn’t want dragons on our doorstep. In fact, the cautionary tale positioned at the END is more impactful and readers are left to ponder the implications as the story reaches narrative closure. You’re also omitting the element of deception on the characters’ parts, how they deceived themselves into believing in her. This has a powerful message about how group-think can lead to atrocities without the participants being aware of their own complicity, in addition to the way in which a dearth of critical thinking can enable war crimes on a massive scale. Your theory basically lobotomizes all of this.
I think this is a misreading.
To begin with, GRRM doesn’t describe fire as a threat. Fire is equated with life and love, and Dany’s birthing of the dragons is shown as a sublime, transcendant miracle, in comparison to say Melisandre’s ontological horrorshow.
If you don’t believe me, click over to the essay I wrote about Bran II of ASOS. “If ice can burn,…then love and hate can mate. Mountain or marsh, it makes no matter. The land is one.”
Moving on, I think you’re really misreading GRRM’s comments. In fact, he’s said the opposite, that he hates writing that breaks the implicit contract of setup and payoff (“I’ve been planting all these clues that the butler did it, then you’re halfway through a series and suddenly thousands of people have figured out that the butler did it, and then you say the chambermaid did it? No, you can’t do that,”) for the sake of a twist.
And I think that’s a misread on fire. Pure ice and pure fire are both extremes that cause destruction. Jojen’s quote is about how a mixing of all these different elements creates the land. But if you rely too much on one extreme, it is destructive to the land. Even dragonglass is a mix of fire and earth. Pure fire is simply too much for any group of humans to handle. Look at Valyria.
Second, fire as life and love is a romanticized view and the author has been coy about that. In text, that viewpoint only comes from Dany’s POV or cultish R’hollr followers. Cersei has the same delusional thoughts about fire when she burns the Tower of the Hand, just like Dany does when she hatches dragons. Romanticizing fire ignores Qhorin’s observation about how fire is both life and death. Then there is the Robert Frost poem which GRRM acknowledges is an influence, which is about how the world could end. It’s not that the world ending in fire is “saving” anyone – people still died. The show executed this well by having the dragons play a role but not THE main role in defeating ice. In the end they are WMD and they will be destroying people – not saving people – and that’s what they and Dany will be remembered for. The Targaryen empire is built on rule by fire, conquest, and dragons and that won’t be shown to be the way forward. Dany is not getting a redemption arc because that theme is too important.
Third, in the author’s 2014 Al Jazeera interview, he says that Dany and the Others are the two threats in the title that are building up armies on the periphery of the 7 kingdoms to conquer them all. The houses squabbling over the throne weakens Westeros to face BOTH of these threats. Dany is collapsed into Philip of Macedon, the Nazies, all the groups who sought to rule by fear.
I think we’re going to have to agree to disagree here.
FYI, here is the interview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GaPZGDlm2F4
Starts at 4:55
GRRM does not classify it as threats though. He says ” the two outlines one- the things going on North of The Wall and Daenerys Targaryen…” are the Ice and Fire of the tittle
He then goes on about the things” in the middle”- in King´s Landing- about the politicking and specifically, about people in Power fighting for Power and not paying attention to what happens at the margins…
Keep in mind, this is interview is of February 2016, before Jon Snow parentage came out. That GRRM is so clear about ” Daenerys and dragons” being the Fire side of the Song, and is very vague about ” things going North of the Wall” should not be interpreted as equating those two as ” faces of evil.”
Joffrey was dead afraid of Daenerys and dragons, but Tywin said not to worry; Cersei ignores the pleas for help at The Wall…
There are two threats for ” the middle ” ( KL) : the first is existencial- The Others, and the second, is Political- Daenerys.
The show does not deal with grey; it is either black or white. So is the nature of what the commenter said. GRRM turning female Lincoln into Hitler , no matter how brilliant a writer he is, is as black and white as it could be. That is why I do not believe it will go exactly there.
I tend to side with you, that they messed with the timeline and turned the side event into the major event. Daenerys will bring dragons to Westeros and everywhere the dragons go, people will die. Kl will burn in this conflict with the ” mummer´s dragon” and people will whisper she is her Father´s daughter.
It will be as grey as it gets, not only with her, but also with Jon, who is not a doormat in the books. What she brought to KL will haunt her, no doubt. It will show her that yes, dragons are not only her children, but also monstes. I think this will bring her to the conclusion that she has to save the world not only from The Others, but also from the dragons- from herself.
But this is only my opinion. No matter what GRRM´s plans are, I am not here to watch two rape survivors, both who sought Power as a way of escaping their victimization, with two extremes coping mechanisms ( one internalized it and became an abuser; the other became a fighter against the abuse) to survive, going down BOTH by the hands of their lovers…rally, in 2019, no matter how, no matter what, I will not be there to read it.
The story is called a Song not a battle. Both are necessary, both are beneficial and detrimental. Neither is good or bad that the point of the story. A song is harmony as long as they coexist. R’hllor followers are no saints but so far the Targaryens have never followed them not even fire loving mad King Aerys. But the Others are no saints either, they embody ice and destruction. You have to read that story without prejudice and without thinking one is good and the other is bad. There’s no black and no white, no absolute villain and no absolute hero. George has said it several times, it would be boring if it were.
Why would this be the case when the author has basically said that he’s not writing about a battle of good vs. evil as the main story…
GRRM’s also said that the White Walkers are the real threat and the Game is a distraction.
I’m not saying this all ends with an uncomplicated struggle of light and darkness – I imagine the final battle against the Other is going to involve doing some horrendous thing, from Bran raising wights from the dead to Stannis sacrificing his daughter, all the while the North struggles over who will lead them, etc.
But I do think the story ends in Winterfell where it began, not in King’s Landing.
I think the prologue chapters are a good guide for what is the big-picture story being told. What are they?
1. Return of the Others.
2. Stannis/Patchface/Prophecy Fire Magic
3. The others are moving South
4. A faceless man arrives at the Citadel
5. Warging is serious stuff
1, 3 and 5 are clearly about magic and the Great War. 2 has hints of both and while the point of 4 is more enigmatic, it, too, appears to be about magic and something weird going one.
That all points to the real story being about a grand epic of good and evil, living and dead rather than the politics of who gets the chair.
The Meereenese Knot is one of the best essays on ASOIAF. that being said, the last portion where he theorizes Daenerys’ “dark turn” is rather lousy and has had a negative effect on the fandom’s analysis capacity because we hold this essay as almost canon due to Gurm’s praise. the show will have a similar effect unfortunately. the essay fails in that:
1. it bastardizes Daenerys reasons for staying in Meereen as the “whims of a young girl” when they were actually rooted in responsibility:
“All my victories turn to dross in my hands, she thought. Whatever I do, all I make is death and horror. When word of what had befallen Astapor reached the streets, as it surely would, tens of thousands of newly freed Meereenese slaves would doubtless decide to follow her when she went west, for fear of what awaited them if they stayed… yet it might well be that worse would await them on the march. Even if she emptied every granary in the city and left Meereen to starve, how could she feed so many? The way before her was fraught with hardship, bloodshed, and danger.”
2. it equates “fire and blood” with indiscriminate violence without really caring for the innocent. of course “fire and blood” implies war and violence but it doesn’t mean forgetting your principles and morals. Aegon V wanted to bring “fire and blood” to improve the smallfolk lives for example.
the power in Gurm’s realistic writing is among other things the shades of grey. let’s take a heroic but tragic character like The Ned. In AGOT we see him sitting the Iron Throne and faced with a crucial decision. Tywin without officialy declaring war has sent Ser Gregor to pillage the Riverlands. Ned, without actual proof but the certainty of it being’s Tywin’s work officialy sends his men and Beric to bring Ser Gregor to justice. Everyone in the Throne Room know what this means: war. Fire and Blood.
Ned broke the peace, we readers know the peace wasn’t real (like in Meereen), but still the violence that will stem from this action is far greater than the one that caused the suffering of the Riverland’s peasants. Ned made the choice for justice, but the just choice also meant war. All the shades of grey. Daenerys won’t solve her problems by opting for violence, and opting for violence won’t mean she has resolved to stop caring for the innocents. it will probably work for her at first in Essos and in Westeros it will come to bite her and it will no doubt conflict her deeply.
If Ned hadn’t sent forces to stop Gregor and ordered Tywin to appear before the throne, it would have said that the throne wouldn’t take action to keep the peace and punish anyone who broke it, meaning that every region might as well be back in pre-Targaryen times for all the good the Iron Throne does them.
That’s the point, though. Sometimes, war is necessary, and better than a false peace. GRRM is not an absolute pacifist any more than he is a nihilist.
My point was that Ned’s actions were necessary to stop violence, they weren’t worsening it.
Stephen points out in his analyses that Dany in Slavers Bay essentially faces the choice between doing nothing and leaving the system intact, thereby becoming complicit in it, or going to war to crush it. The moral choice here is very much the latter, and that’s what she does.
War and violence are awful, but sometimes they are preferable to an even worse evil. Extremism in defense of justice is no vice, and moderation in opposition to evil is no virtue.
The greatest rebuttal to the Meereenese Blot and all the others who say that “peace” in Meereen and Slaver’s Bay was a desirable outcome comes fairly late in Dance, when Dany starts getting called “Mother” by the slavers. It really says it all. Peace is simply not a desirable or moral outcome when faced with the opponents she’s faced with there.
If Ned was a pacifist in the way the essay proposes then he would’ve send word to Cat to release Tyrion and would’ve sent a raven to Tywin offering his apologies. after all, there’s no price high enough to avoid a war.
Ned’s act of justice officialy started a war, because it was all unofficial until Ned acting in the name of Robert as Hand of the King sent men to kill one of Tywin’s bannermen and call for Tywin to answer for Ser Gregor’s crimes.
What was the destruction of some villages in the Riverlands escalated to a full out war between the North-Riverlands against the Westerlands-Crownlands. His action while just meant more violence in the future, violence against soldiers and civilians alike. Ned, a veteran commander knows this.
You might think it would be outrageous to leave Ser Gregor’s crimes unpunished. well the essay disagrees because it suggests “Peace is the pearl beyond price.”
Dany breaks the peace too. a peace that meant that while slavery was prohibited in Meereen they were setting up slave markets just outside the city walls.
@Jazz
No, as I pointed out, if Ned hadn’t done it then it would have meant that the throne is officially not enforcing the peace. With no higher power enforcing it, and a lesser power actively breaking it, everyone has to arm and prepare for war. See Bloodraven’s disastrous policy about the Greyjoys, where Lannisters and Starks were forced to raise their own armies because the throne wouldn’t do a thing to actually protect them from someone actively attacking them. I highly doubt people forgot about that the next time the Blackfyres attacked.
And this seems to treat it as though “Ned goes after Lannisters who broke the peace, instant war across Westeros”. Why? The Martells showed no interest in breaking the peace at the time, neither did the Arryns, Baratheons, Greyjoys and so on. The only one interested in breaking the peace was one group of bad actors on their own, the Lannisters. There’s nothing in that to suggest that this will mean full-scale war if Ned acts and no escalation by disillusioned lords if he doesn’t.
Got a bit of speculation I’d like to hear your opinion on, Steven. What’s the likelihood that Jon and Dany will be already married when his heritage comes out in the books? We know it’s happening eventually, given the references to Dany as a bride in connection to Jon, so what would be Dany’s reaction if she marries a man and THEN he reveals himself/is revealed as yet another pretender?
Unlikely. Hell, in the books unlike the show, they understand that dynastic marriages can clear that right up, even in House Stark…
I was thinking more along the lines of the impact on their characters.
While we’re on the topic, thoughts on the possibility of Jon/Dany having a child in the books?
(I’m Spanish, excuse my English)
Very good, I thank you for that effort of synthesis. However, I seem to understand that you conceive a siege where Cersei, Aegon and Dany coincide, something that seems very complicated to me. Do you think that the following form can be more correct?
Act 1 – Battle Cersei vs Aegon:
Cersei smells the defeat because Aegon has already won many lords (many who were before with Cersei, like Tarly) and because Aegon has beaten her in battle. As a last resort, prepare wildfire throughout the city. Jaime survives Lady Stoneheart and returns to Kingslanding, not for Cersei but for Tommen, his king. The siege begins, they enter the city (by assault or by internal betrayals) and a radicalized Connington decides to do what Tywin would do, kill Tommen and Myrcella to secure the new regime. Cersei sees everything lost and goes completely crazy, asks to blow up the city. At that moment arrives Jaime, Aerys 2.0 with Qyburn and Cersei, Valonqar is fulfilled (Jaime dead or arrested by Aegon). Amid the chaos a Cleganbowl? It is possible because the church will help Aegon, but I doubt it.
Act 2 – Battle Aegon vs Dany:
Aegon is handsome, rich and good king. He is Targaryen and above Dany in the line of succession. I can see there a pissed-off Dany. I can also see there the war of the 7th season where Dany begins to do questionable acts and where Westeros begins to see Dany as a foreign queen, savage and bloodthirsty (vision both at the level of nobility and at the level of the populace). Dany explodes and attacks the capital directly (in the books I believe that with the support / recommendation of Tyrion if the character has not rectified the course). In the middle of a battle a dragon falls seriously wounded in the city, people and soldiers kill him and mutilate him for that fanaticism, hatred and / or fear of the alien / savage (in the style of Dragon Pit in Fire and Blood, remember that the church and his followers are still there). Dany loses his mind, an attack on the city begins (if the Wildfire has not exploded with Cersei, and I think not, it can explode here by increasing Dany’s attack). Dany at the end of the day wins the battle and Aegon, Arianne, Connington … are dead. Varys executed with the words he heard in the fire in the past.
Act 3 – Humanity vs. Others
Respect the theme of the books and does it serve as a redemption for Dany? I think so, although the conflict with Jon remains.
Your grammar is good for the most part, although you’re referring to Dany with male pronouns which is, uh, not correct.
This is basically what Steven is proposing here, except you’re having Dany go full on crazy. If she does that, she can’t come back, and certainly I don’t think Jon would be interested in falling in love with her/marrying her.
Then I misunderstood Steve, I thought his proposal was one where Dany, Aegon and Cersei coincide in time and it seemed somewhat difficult. That is why I proposed this separation in two steps.
Interesting except this Aegon is not above Dany in the line of succession as he can’t prove he actually is the son of Rhaegar and Elia. No one doubts Danaerys is indeed who she claims to be. Even the Golden Company says at the end of Dance that Aegon needs Dany to strengthen his claim. What she has done in Slavers Bay is something Westeros will know (some already do) and that will rally support to her side… What has fAegon done? He brought sellswords to Westeros to conquer the continent… He’s the mummer’s dragon Dany has seen and she’s the slayer of lies, she’ll bring him down.
I personally don’t see the conflict with Jon. He needs dragonglass and he’ll go south to resume the mining Stannis had started. He’ll meet at least one of them depending who controls the castle. I’d bet on Dany as she has already had vision of the sweet-smelling blue flower in a chunk of ice, she heard about the Song of Ice and Fire even if she doesn’t know what it means, she heard Rhaegar say there needed to be a third child, she saw him die at the Trident whispering a woman’s name and she had a dream of fight an army clad in ice at the Trident with Drogon… So having Jon come to tell her about the Others will sound like something she already knows. With Moqorro and Marwyn at her side, she’ll even have more information (if anyone can retrieve that prophecy it’s Marwyn and Moqorro knows about the Great Other, the enemy of R’hllor). I’m even ready to bet she’ll be the one to guess who he is and Viserion (only white for the darkest Targaryen) will confirm it.
I don’t think Euron’s horn will work, she’ll still have her 3 dragons. I could imagine her giving fAegon the benefit of the doubt and offering him a dragon for the fight against the enemy north. He’ll get Rhaegal, but he won’t help them and use the dragon to conquer the kingdoms that qhave not aligned to his rule forcing Dany to stay south for damage control while Jon goes north.
We’ll have our second Dance of Dragons and fAegon will lose because the Green always lose to the Black (see the first Dance). There will be death and destruction south especially if the Dornish continue their support to the Green. If KL is destroyed it will be because fAegon will have brought the conflict there.
Only then will she be able to join Jon in his fight against the Others (she might have given him part of her army, we’ll see). The war will be deadly and I expect them to get south. Personally I think one of them will die, both are good candidates for that lol. The other will rebuild Westeros and break the wheel with the people who survived. Last time they could only push the Others back not destroy them, I expect this will play out the same because Ice needs Fire in this story to bring peace and harmony to the realm. Now if only Old Nan could have finished her story of the Last Hero we might know how they did it…
I’m late to this party, but what the hell. Let me try and boil this down a bit.
We have the choice of believing one of two things here.
1) That the show is largely accurate to how the books are going to go. This basically requires that we believe George Martin is a complete hack; that the strength of the books up until now was some sort of crazy accident and that he’s going to ignore enormous amounts of his own work in order to deliver a novelized version of this shitshow.
2) That the books are going to be different in many enormous ways from the show. This only requires us to believe that Martin has been being diplomatic and kind and not trying to give the game away when he talks about the showrunners and the show they’ve made.
I ask people, which do you think is more likely?
I mean… Christ on a bike, some of the willful obtuseness it takes to believe in option one. I got into an argument with a guy over on Lawyers, Guns, and Money who kept saying “The Night King WILL exist in the books, and yes, Martin is just going to ignore all of his prophecies, and nothing Aegon or Lady Stoneheart do will impact anyone significantly at all.”
Steven, have you seen the video making the rounds about the actors making some less than complimentary comments about the show’s writing?
I have indeed. They look quite frustrated. It will be interesting to see what happens after the show’s over.
[…] I wrote last week, and as noted by ASOIAF luminaries smarter than me, Benioff & Weiss inverted Martin’s ending. Rather than turning from a burnt King’s […]
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Reblogged this on Fortress of Solitude IV.
“•Cersei Lannister, who’s not leaving King’s Landing unless it’s feet-first in a pine box.”
I disagree. From comments of GRRM like this one:
Any pov characters in Casterly Rock?
Yes, maybe in TWOW.
And similar other ones, so it seems we will get to see CR through a POV. While Tyrion seems poised to go to the Westerlands, I feel it more plausible that Cersei is sent there (as Kevan wanted to do), especially since she has the strongest for it.
I will bet dollars to donuts the CR POV is the Prologue POV who ends up dead at the hands of the Brotherhood.
[…] not going to go too deep on how it will burn. Steven Attewell has an excellent piece about about Daenerys and the burning of KL where he argues that the showrunners switched the ordering between the war against the White […]
Personally, I believe that Daenerys will kill Aegon, but that will not translate into her taking the Iron Throne. For several reasons:
1) Everybody will hate her for killing Aegon. For Aegon to work as “Dany’s lowest point” and to cause her self-reflection, he has to be a good king. It is easy for her to justify killing a bunch of tyrants, as in Slaver Cities. But if Aegon is a good king, and he has the claim, how will she justify it? Yes, she believes him to be a false dragon, false Targaryen, but she has no more proof that he is false than he does that he is not – vision is not a proof. So you will have a youth who is a) a Targaryen, b) a good – or at least “not bad” – ruler, and c) popular. Even if a) is correct, does that justify killing him and God knows how many people? That question may make her more open to considering Jon’s potential claim. I have analysis on Aegon here:
https://militaryfantasy.home.blog/2019/08/11/aegon-targaryen-as-a-ruler-case-of-matthias-corvinus/
2) Iron Throne will be destroyed when wildfire under King’s Landing goes off.
“And in this fashion, the ice melts, the blue rose blooms, and the world is saved by love – however transitiory or tragic – because for the last damn time GRRM IS A ROMANTIC NOT A NIHILIST.”
The moment this happens Im gonna burts into self righteous tears. Im so ready for it!!!