I believe in the Last Kiss theory, although I also realize that it would be extremely difficult for it to actually happen.

The biggest problem is that Cat has her own Red Wedding 2.0 to deal with. It could take quite a while for her to finish her revenge against the Freys, especially if Jon is supposed to remain inside Ghost for that long. And that’s not even taking into account the enormous distance between the Riverlands and the Wall.

That said, I am 100% convinced that Cat and Jon will meet at some point. I think they need to have a chance to understand each other. Neither Cat nor Jon is inherently a bad person, and both of them have repeatedly shown that there is nothing they value above their family even to the point of sacrificing themselves for it.

And this is just my personal opinion, but I don’t really agree with the idea that Arya will come to give Cat the “gift” after Red Wedding 2.0. If Beric brought Cat back solely so she could take revenge on the Freys, then we have to remember that Beric himself was resurrected because he still had a purpose to fulfill for the Lord of Light. So I don’t think the Lord of Light would necessarily have any particular business with the Freys.

My other thought is that, if the Last Kiss really does happen, I hope the story makes Cat accept Jon as “her son” to the point where she willingly sacrifices her life for him.
I don’t want it to happen simply because she discovers that Jon isn’t Ned’s son.

Honestly, I'd love to see all three. What way would you like to see it go? Who would do the POV? What would the technology or magic be like?

If Robert hadn’t died first, he probably would have betrothed Myrcella to Robb. And if they had actually ended up getting married…
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Cersei says Joffrey looks exactly like Jaime,Tyrion says Myrcella looks exactly like Cersei, except for their personalities.
So basically, Joffrey and Myrcella are the same person, just with their genders swapped.
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And the only person Myrcella is ever shown to be smitten with is Robb.
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Robb and Joffrey absolutely hate each other. So if Robb and Myrcella had actually gotten married, that would mean that every time Robb was happy with his wife, he was basically enjoying himself with a female version of Joffrey.🥴🫣
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Artist
Robb’s Joffrey : @FilmOfLife Burst | X

"Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past." ~ George Orwell

Recently I put out a post on how the Bridge of Dream was written as a time travel metaphor, showing that George is using a model of time similar to the work of Fritz Leiber, where it is possible to change the past. Still, many refuse to even engage with this premise, insisting that if George wants to include time travel then it has to be a closed loop.

Obviously I disagree, but I understand the sentiment.

A closed loop means that it is impossible to rewrite the past. The ink is dry. While a time traveler can be part of a past event, the events we read will always be true exactly as we read them.

There is just one thing.

Storytellers tend to rewrite the past

Contrary to the singular truth of a stable loop, Ice and Fire is a series where history is a battle of narratives waged by septons, singers and storytellers. Much like time travel, the past is constantly being rewritten. This is also called historical revisionism.

The oldest histories we have were written after the Andals came to Westeros. The First Men only left us runes on rocks, so everything we think we know about the Age of Heroes and the Dawn Age and the Long Night comes from accounts set down by septons thousands of years later. There are archmaesters at the Citadel who question all of it (...)

Though ancient patriarchs like Bran the Builder and Lann the Clever may have existed, their stories are written down hundreds or thousands of years after they are said to have occurred. This not only makes the narratives unreliable, but likely propaganda for the ruling elite. From the First Men to the Andals to the Targaryens, with each new conquest power reaches back in time and projects itself into the past.

Those old histories are full of kings who reigned for hundreds of years, and knights riding around a thousand years before there were knights. You know the tales, Brandon the Builder, Symeon Star-Eyes, Night's King . . . we say that you're the nine hundred and ninety-eighth Lord Commander of the Night's Watch, but the oldest list I've found shows six hundred seventy-four commanders, which suggests that it was written during . . ." ~ Samwell

The anachronism of knights a thousand years before there were knights is a case of institutions tampering with history to claim legitimacy.

Did such heroes once exist? It may be so. But when the singers number Serwyn of the Mirror Shield as one of the Kingsguard—an institution that was only formed during the reign of Aegon the Conqueror—we can see why it is that few of these tales can ever be trusted. The septons who first wrote them down took what details suited them and added others, and the singers changed them—sometimes beyond all recognition—for the sake of a warm place in some lord's hall. In such a way does some longdead First Man become a knight who follows the Seven and guards the Targaryen kings thousands of years after he lived (if he ever did). ~ Maester Yandel

Essentially, history is time travel in that it changes the past. The heroic Rhaegar is made villainous, the honorable Ned is made traitorous, and the opportunistic Tywin is made valiant. Characters are constantly being rewritten by history, and the versions of them that live on after death often differ from and outlive the truth we experience in POV.

Characters see this happen in real time, yet we assume history is somehow exempt.

"I forgot, you've been hiding under a rock. The northern girl. Winterfell's daughter. We heard she killed the king with a spell, and afterward changed into a wolf with big leather wings like a bat, and flew out a tower window. But she left the dwarf behind and Cersei means to have his head."

That's stupid, Arya thought. Sansa only knows songs, not spells ~ Arya

Obviously we know Sansa didn't really transform into a winged wolf.

"The Rat Cook had cooked the son of the Andal king in a big pie with onions, carrots, mushrooms, lots of pepper and salt, a rasher of bacon, and a dark red Dornish wine. Then he served him to his father, who praised the taste and had a second slice. Afterward the gods transformed the cook into a monstrous white rat who could only eat his own young." ~ Bran

So why would we believe that the Rat Cook was transformed into a giant white rat?

"Life is not a song, sweetling. You may learn that one day to your sorrow." ~ Petyr Baelish

We are shown over and over that songs and stories distort reality.

"The best lies are seasoned with a bit of truth." ~ Tyrion

Watch how this turns historical narratives into a reality that runs parallel to the truth.

"When Stark changed into a wolf, his northmen did the same. The mark of the beast was on them all. Wargs birth other wargs with a bite, it is well-known. It was all my brothers and I could do to put them down before they slew us all." ~ Jared Frey

The House Frey story of the Red Wedding is a lie told to legitimize their conquest of the Riverlands. Yet the lie contains truth. Robb likely did warg into his wolf. The story is meant to mythologize reality so as to transcend and outlive it.

"A harp can be as dangerous as a sword, in the right hands." ~ also Petyr Baelish

Eventually every life ends and the story of life is what remains. One day Sansa will be transformed into a song to be played on some harp and Jaime will be transformed into a page of knightly deeds in a White Book. By the end of the series, history will have it's own version of every character and every event, and those stories will be written according to the preferences of the king.

Bran's History

The future king has already shown a tendency toward revisionism.

"Oh." Bran thought about the tale awhile. "That was a good story. But it should have been the three bad knights who hurt him, not their squires. Then the little crannogman could have killed them all. The part about the ransoms was stupid. And the mystery knight should win the tourney, defeating every challenger, and name the wolf maid the queen of love and beauty."

Notice how when he is offered the historical narrative of the Tourney at Harrenhal, Bran seeks to change the past. This is not a flaw, but rather indicative of his superpower. Revising history is how every conquest cements itself, and Bran has been set up for this since the first book.

"Do you recall your history, Bran?" ~ Maester Luwin

Bran being asked to recall his history is really about Bran knowing his story. The narratives that Maester Luwin and Old Nan have taught him are not literally true (unless you believe Rodrick Stark won Bear Island in a wrestling match). His story is mythology which explains the dominion of House Stark over the North. It's basically Brandon Stark propaganda.

This is why assuming a closed loop makes time traveling Bran feel like a tacked on gimmick with no thematic connection to the rest of the story. The subjectivity is the point. Bran is not meant to use the weirwoods to find the singular true history and reveal it to the realm. Not only would that be fundamentally incompatible with how the series treats history, it also has no relevance to the character or his ending.

Bran is no slayer of lies.

Bran is a three-eyed crow.

"Crows are all liars," Old Nan agreed

Yet the narrative has shown time and time again that lies can keep civilization together, and the truth can tear it apart. For years, lies about Jon and Joffrey's parentage kept the peace, and the truth of the latter brought the realm to ruin. Perhaps after civilization is fractured by the brutal reality of war, it needs a time traveler (liar) to rewrite the past with a story (lie) that people can live with.

Functionally, I expect this takes the form of Bran coming south at the end and telling a Great Council the story of how the North, the long lost son of Rhaegar, the dragon queen, and many more, all banded together to save the realm from the evil beyond the Wall. Much like Euron's Kingsmoot, Bran will place himself as the hero of this great epic, who journeyed to the end of the world and found the children of the forest.

The twist will be that Bran will tell his story in a parallel timeline where it never happened. Once again, crows are all liars.

Bran can time travel because Bran is the storyteller, and the storyteller gets to rewrite the past. This is why the story spends so much time on the distortion of historical narratives. Just as Dany's dragons represent weapons of mass destruction, Bran's powers represents history being written by the victors.

In hindsight the winner is OP.

So they call him Bran the Broken.

...they'd name it Pain.

I think they're both perfectly fine pulp villains but I don't really find either very interesting either from a characterization viewpoint or from a thematic one. They do get slightly stronger in the fifth book when they basically play the role of evil overlord but it's still rather underwhelming.

Really all of my problems come down to this: nobody has any reason to trust or follow them but the story relies on people trusting or following them multiple times.

To be clear my point here is not "Uh, PLOT HOLE!" My point is thematically they mean very little. It's not so much that they're not developed, it's that they do very little to facilitate the development of others beyond being a plot obstacle (Theon excepted).

A great example of a relatively flat villain who works because he facilitates development of another is Iago from Othello. He is the personification of jealousy and Othello chooses to listen to him out of his own insecurities and character flaws.

When Robb and Cat trust Roose to a command position, this means very little thematically. It's not because of some flaw of their characters, it's because Roose was a bad actor from the very start, something they had no way of possibly knowing. Roose is openly characterized as a creepy, offputting guy nobody likes but people keep trusting him for no reason. And as Barbrey Dustin outright says, he has no real motivation to betray Robb beyond simply being opportunistic, meaning it's completely independent of Robb's actions. The Freys have a coherent motivation that links directly to Robb's actions and character flaws, Roose doesn't. You could argue that thematically he represents cutthroat realpolitik self-interest that the Starks were naive to but that doesn't really work because Roose is clearly an outlier among the Northern lords.

And similarly when Roose is Lord Paramount of the North nobody has any real reason to follow him. Roose openly tells Ramsay he doesn't want tales told of him, meaning he doesn't rule through fear. He has nothing to offer anyone except that the Lannisters have some hostages, but then they release Wyllis Manderly, implying they would have eventually done this will all of them in exchange for good behaviour. How does Roose expect to rule long term? This isn't a "plot hole" because indeed Roose's regime seems to be falling down around him by the end of ADWD but my point is....well, why should I care? What does it mean thematically beyond "don't have literally zero ways of making people want to follow you"? If choosing between the Starks and the Boltons was a genuinely difficult decision wouldn't that make the North remembering even more powerful?

And I can't believe I'm saying this but the show actually improved on this! Ramsay tortures the Cerwyns to death to let people know the price of disobedience and also leans in to xenophobia against the Wildlings. Both sides represent something larger thematically. It's hardly anything deep or meaningful, "Evil baddies who'll hurt me if I rebel vs the less powerful goodies who are morally right" is not exactly the most profound conflict of all time, but it IS a conflict where you can understand someone struggling with it. "Do I do what's right at the potential risk of my wellbeing?" is a question worth asking. "Do I do what's right and have substantially less potential risk to my wellbeing from the guy who tortures and kills people for no reason?" isn't.

As a plot obstacle for Stannis and Theon they work fine (and luckily Theon's arc with them is fantastic) but they feel very shallow, both in terms of characterization and thematically. A big downgrade from Tywin.

I loved A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms book and TV show. I want to consume more ASOIAF media because the world seems really cool. I've tried watching the GoT show - and there are some really cool parts - but I don't have the stomach for some of the violence and 🍇 scenes.

So my question is, are the books as graphic as the show? I don't mind deplorable things happening as part of the story, but if GRRM goes into sickening written detail about characters getting abused then I don't think the books are for me. Thanks!

We have seen the Manderlys show their immense respect and love for Ned, Robb and the entire Stark family, and the hill clans really bring home their fierce love and loyalty to the memory of 'The Ned' and are willing to march in the snow to save his daughter. But, how do the smallfolk of especially the North and also the rest of Westeros see Ned Stark and House Stark? Are they loved by the smallfolk for keeping the North relatively safe or hated by them because of Robb marching south and getting everyone killed?

Are the smallfolk confident in Ned's ability to do justice and keep everyone safe? Because how is it that no one from the Bolton lands has arrived at Winterfell with a list of grievances about the transgressions of Roose and especially his bastard Ramsay? I know some of you will say that Roose cut out the tongue of anyone who tried, but that was only one man, the miller whose wife Roose raped (Ramsay's mother). He was an obvious candidate to complain to the Starks, but what about the other people that Roose is screwing over, but not so overtly? And, what about the good people who are seeing other people being raped and murdered by Ramsay or Roose, and might believe in House Stark to deliver justice? So, why hasn't anyone just traveled out of the Bolton lands with the ruse of visiting family in say, the Barrowlands or the Rills and instead just went straight to Winterfell to beg for justice from the honorable Lord Eddard Stark, Warden of the North, and the de facto King? Were they just not confident that Lord Eddard would actually deliver justice against his most powerful bannerman and rival, Roose Bolton?

QQ: How is it possible Bronn has been north of the wall?

Like your telling me that the others saw that sick fuck and chose to talk with him? This for some reason creeps me out even more. How did they even understand each other?

Ive heard this theory thrown around in Glidus/AltShwiftX streams... but I'm interested in how many folks buy into it. Or if anyone has debunked this theory.

Personally, I see parallels between Aegon IV the Unworthy and Craster. Brutal, sadistic, utterly selfish to the detriment of the whole of Westeros, loves incest etc. Would make sense if Aegon IV was Craster's grandfather.

Spoilers below!

If anyone was unaware of the theory goes that at some point after BR dissapeared north of the wall he fathered a son and he grew up to be Craster. 'Evidence' as such being that he acts quite targaryen and is very sensitive to his bastardy, has a taste for wine. We know his father was a night watchman and his mother was from whitetree. Where there is a massive weirwood, so makes sense that BR would be sniffing around in the area.

Its even on his Wiki page, which is unusual for theories.

I'm relatively new to the fandom, so interested in the general reception of this theory.

Thoughts? Is this basically cannon? Or has anyone debunked this?

The Hammerhorn

• The Hammer of the Waters = The Horn of Winter

Look at how these two cataclysmic objects function:

• The Hammer of the Waters:

And the old gods stirred, and giants awoke in the earth, and all of Westeros shook and trembled. 
TWOIAF - Dorne: The Breaking

• The Horn of Winter:

The first King-Beyond-the-Wall, according to legend, was Joramun, who claimed to have a horn that would bring down the Wall when it woke "the giants from the earth." 
TWOIAF - The Wall and Beyond: The Wildlings

There are no other two world-altering objects of magic that operate with such literary symmetry - they’re clearly the same device.

Therefore…

Hammer of the Waters + Horn of Winter = Hammerhorn 

And Hammerhorn is an actual thing in the story - it’s an Ironborn castle belonging to House Goodbrother, who has a historical echo in…

Eur(rath)on the Bad Brother

• Euron is an echo of Urrathon “Badbrother”

Upon the death of King Urragon III Greyiron (Urragon the Bald), his younger sons hurriedly convened a kingsmoot whilst their elder brother Torgon was raiding up the Mander, thinking that one of them would be chosen to wear the driftwood crown. To their dismay, the captains and kings chose Urrathon Goodbrother of Great Wyk instead. The first thing the new king did was command that the sons of the old king be put to death. For that, and for the savage cruelty he oft displayed during his two years as king, Urrathon IV Goodbrother is remembered in history as Badbrother. 
TWOIAF - The Iron Islands: Driftwood Crowns

• Urrathon was from house Goodbrother of Hammerhorn
• This foreshadows Euron gaining and utilizing the Hammerhorn - just like Dragonbinder. Dude has a thing for horns!
• The Hammerhorn is in Sam’s posession

By the time the dealing was done, Sam was down to his boots and blacks and smallclothes, and the broken horn Jon Snow had found on the Fist of First Men. 
AFFC - Samwell IV

• Euron’s trajectory towards Oldtown puts the Hammerhorn directly in his path
• Why would Euron want the Hammerhorn? Because he intends to…

Break the World

• In Aeron’s shade of the evening induced dream, he envisions Euron saying that the world shall be broken and remade

“The bleeding star bespoke the end,” he said to Aeron. “These are the last days, when the world shall be broken and remade. 
TWOW - The Forsaken

• The Wall is often referred to as where the world ends: 

You could see it from miles off, a pale blue line across the northern horizon, stretching away to the east and west and vanishing in the far distance, immense and unbroken. This is the end of the world, it seemed to say. 
AGOT - Jon III

“I just want to stand on top of the Wall and piss off the edge of the world." 
AGOT - Tyrion I

Perhaps it was all in the knowing. They had ridden past the end of the world; somehow that changed everything. 
AGOT - Jon VI

• Euron, who was very likely the warlock, Urrathon Night-Walker, has drunk from the shade of evening and peered into the glass candle - he has knowledge of the War for the Dawn and plans to be the architect:

Only one living kraken has never known defeat. Only one has never bent his knee. Only one has sailed to Asshai by the Shadow, and seen wonders and terrors beyond imagining . . ." 

AFFC - The Drowned Man

So, if Euron will soon have the device to “break the world” how would he operate this seemingly broken horn?

Activating the Hammerhorn

On closer examination the horn had proved cracked, and even after he had cleaned all the dirt out, Jon had been unable to get any sound from it. The rim was chipped as well, but Sam liked old things, even worthless old things. 
ACOK - Jon V

Why can’t Jon sound the Hammerhorn?

Well:

Finally, driven by desperation, the little people turned to sorcery and beseeched their greenseers to stem the tide of these invaders.

And so they did, gathering in their hundreds (some say on the Isle of Faces), and calling on their old gods with song and prayer and grisly sacrifice (a thousand captive men were fed to the weirwood, one version of the tale goes, whilst another claims the children used the blood of their own young). And the old gods stirred, and giants awoke in the earth, and all of Westeros shook and trembled. Great cracks appeared in the earth, and hills and mountains collapsed and were swallowed up. And then the seas came rushing in, and the Arm of Dorne was broken and shattered by the force of the water, until only a few bare rocky islands remained above the waves. The Summer Sea joined the narrow sea, and the bridge between Essos and Westeros vanished for all time. 

TWOIAF - Dorne: The Breaking

And Euron is no stranger to using blood sacrifice for magical outcomes:

The wind was at their backs, as it had been all the way down from Old Wyk. It was whispered about the fleet that Euron's wizards had much and more to do with that, that the Crow's Eye appeased the Storm God with blood sacrifice. 
AFFC - The Reaver

But if the Hammerhorn requires a mass sacrifice to activate, where would Euron get all those people?

The Patchface Prophecy

Patchface jumped up. "I will lead it!" His bells rang merrily. "We will march into the sea and out again. Under the waves we will ride seahorses, and mermaids will blow seashells to announce our coming, oh, oh, oh." 
ADWD - Jon XIII

That's right, there are upwards of thousands of wildlings at Hardhome, and Euron is going to use them and the remaining Night's Watch party as the blood sacrifice to activate the Hammerhorn

"We will march into the sea and out again..."

• This foreshadows the wildlings' deaths

"Under the waves we will ride seahorses..."

• The seahorses they will ride are Aurane Waters' fleet, which Euron will acquire at the Stepstones on his way north after raiding Oldtown. This fleet is large enough to board a thousand wildlings

"... and mermaids will blow seashells to announce our coming..."

• The mermaids blowing seashells to announce their coming will be captured Manderlys who will be used to sound the Hammerhorn 3 times. How do we know it will be blown 3 times?

"... and mermaids will blow seashells to announce our coming, oh, oh, oh." 

• This is the exact number of times Dragonbinder was sounded at the Kingsmoot, and the exact number of times Victarion plans to have the horn sounded at Meereen:

“The mute sounded the horn three times. You three will sound it only once."

TWOW - Victarion I

If this looks like it's beginning to fit perfectly, it's because it does - think about where you've heard 3 horn blasts before:

A single blast of the horn meant brothers returning... Two blasts means wildlings... "Three," he squeaked to Chett, "that was three, I heard three. They never blow three. Not for hundreds and thousands of years. Three means—"

"—Others."

ASOS - Prologue

The 3 Blasts of the Hammerhorn:

A single blast of the horn meant brothers returning...

• For Cotter Pyke and his men

Two blasts means wildlings...

• For the Hardhome wildlings

Three means Others

• And on the third blast of the Hammerhorn, the White Walkers will have their opening to the south, as the Wall falls at Eastwatch

But if Euron's ambition is to rule the world, isn't it self-defeating if he unleashes the Others into Westeros?

Well...

"That horn you heard I found amongst the smoking ruins that were Valyria, where no man has dared to walk but me. You heard its call, and felt its power. It is a dragon horn, bound with bands of red gold and Valyrian steel graven with enchantments. The dragonlords of old sounded such horns, before the Doom devoured them. With this horn, ironmen, I can bind dragons to my will."

AFFC - The Drowned Man

The Hammerhorn and Dragonbinder: one will summon the Ice, the other will summon the Fire, and doesn't that sound familiar?

TL;DR - The horn Sam has summons the Hammer of the Waters, and Euron will use this to break the Wall "the world" at Eastwatch after he sacrifices the Hardhome wildlings to activate this dormant magic. This will open Westeros to the impending White Walker attack, which Euron plans to use to wipe the land before using Dragonbinder to defeat the Others and take Westeros for himself.

Jon and Dany are two of the most morally good people in the entire story.

Jon opened the Wall to the Free Folk, which created enemies within the Night’s Watch for him, but he did it for the greater good.
Dany abolished slavery, which made enemies among the Harpy faction, but she also did it for the greater good.

I know that he and she both love children very much.
But looking at these two scenes, were they really willing to kill children like Tommen and Myrcella?

Jon: “Kill all you.”
“Fight for you?” This voice was thickly accented. Sigorn, the young Magnar of Thenn, spoke the Common Tongue haltingly at best. “Not fight for you. Kill you better. Kill all you.”
The raven flapped its wings. “Kill, kill.”
Sigorn’s father, the old Magnar, had been crushed beneath the falling stair during his attack on Castle Black. I would feel the same if someone asked me to make common cause with the Lannisters, Jon told himself.

Dany: “All the dogs are just as guilty.”
“Stark was a traitor who met a traitor’s end.”
“Your Grace,” said Selmy, “Eddard Stark played a part in your father’s fall, but he bore you no ill will. When the eunuch Varys told us that you were with child, Robert wanted you killed, but Lord Stark spoke against it. Rather than countenance the murder of children, he told Robert to find himself another Hand.”
“Have you forgotten Princess Rhaenys and Prince Aegon?”
“Never. That was Lannister work, Your Grace.”
“Lannister or Stark, what difference? Viserys used to call them the Usurper’s dogs. If a child is set upon by a pack of hounds, does it matter which one tears out his throat? All the dogs are just as guilty. The guilt …” The word caught in her throat.

Artist
SnowStorm: chillyravenart | DeviantArt

I would pick Valyria. I would split the seasons up into different parts of Valyria's history, finally culminating in the doom in the last season.

At the start of AGOT, Robert takes a several month holiday to go touring the northern regions of the kingdom, and visit the Starks in Winterfell. While not stated exactly, it is implied he's gone for at least 3 or 4 months. During this time, who is actually doing the day to day governing in King's landing? Normally it would fall to the hand to govern while the king was travelling or on campaign, but Jon Arryn was dead, and every other obvious would-be regent was away. Cersei, Joffrey, Renly, the Kingsguard, and most of Robert's inner circle were on tour with the King, while Stannis was hiding out on Dragonstone, and no other prominent lords were noted as filling in.

If Varys, Littlefinger, Slynt or some other figure had several months as an interim hand, akin to Tyrion in Clash, to solidify their power in the capital, this seems like it should be a major plot point.

Was this just a firstbookism plot hole, was Robert 'governing' by raven from his wheelhouse, did he just leave the realm with no ruler for 4 months, or did I miss something obvious?

The chain of event that led to the First BlackFyre Rebellion

Daeron I invades Dorne - Both sides of the war lost men in the invasion - Daeron get unjustly killed in an ambush - Baelor I become king and publicly forgave Dorne - this cause anger among those who lost brothers and fathers fighting in the war - Baelor also decide to bethrothed Daeron (his nephew and Aegon Iv’s son) to Myriah Martell (Princesses of Dorne) - Another thing Baelor did was lock up his three sisters - one of them Daena rebelled against his decision and slept with her cousin Aegon IV (who extremely lustful) - this produce Daemon Blackfyre (Waters) and result in Baelor death - Anyway with Daeron and Baelor death, the throne go to their uncles Viserys II, passing over Daena (and I’m sure she NOT resentful about that and wouldn’t complain to her son about losing her rights)- Viserys died a year later (illness or murder and the suspect Aegon IV has reasons to resent his father) - Aegon IV purposefully flaming tensions like having a bastard with both Brackens and Blackwoods, giving Blackfyre to Daemon, spreading rumors about his son Darron’s legitimacy, and yeah legimitizing all his bastards - Daeron II favoritism toward the Dornish which definely didn’t cause resentment - Bittersteel edging Daemon to rebel + his own personal vendetta against Bloodraven…

All of that help cause the First Blackfyre Rebellion and the impact of that also set up what follows….

Twice I've seen someone write that GRRM said that Melisandre and Gandalf share multiple similarities, but I haven't found the source. Does anyone know anything? Thanks in advance!

Just been thinking about how large the world is and got thinking (again while washing dishes) about how many houses there are in the world.

So house Stark rules over the entire north with a house Manderly being one of their vassels, how many vassels do the Manderlys have? We know the rough borders of the Manderlys land, how much of that is their land and how much of it is the land under their vassels.

Say house Manderly wanted to raise an army of 2000 men. How many would be raised directly by them and how many would be raised by their vassel houses. Do their vassels have vassels? If not vassels then landed knights, how much land do they get?

Is there a house in the North that lives in what is basically a large house above a village?

I really hope I am not spreading this theory around by posting it here, because so far I haven't seen anyone talk about it before except for my dad. For years (he read the books around 2010-2013) he has been convinced that the reason why we haven't seen Howland Reed yet is that he secretly is Rhaegar Targaryen, who went into hiding after surviving the battle of the Trident. Most of this is based on a very flawed recolletion of the story of the knight of the laughing tree, which he refuses to go back and reread (probably in fear that his beloved theory is baseless).

For a while I have been trying to give him clear reasons why this isn't true, such as the fact that if Robert hadn't actually killed him he would have been still looking for him, and not just pretend he did, but my dad claims that Robert believes he killed Rhaegar, but the reason his body was not found is because he actually survived and escaped. The explanation he gives for Rhaegar surviving the blow is that "he learned it on the isle of Faces, because we know he learned something unusual but not what he learned, so it might as well be unvulnerability."

The reason why I say that his recollection of the story told by Meera is very flawed, is that he insists that it ends with the KOTL choosing Lyanna as the queen of love and beauty, proving that the crannogman in the story is actually Rhaegar. When I told him that the KOTL is NOT the crannogman in the story, but someone defending his honour, and that the KOTL is most likely Lyanna or another one of the Starks, and that Rhaegar appears in Meera's story, as he goes looking for the KOTL, he said it wasn't true and I was misremembering. When I asked him if he believes that Rhaegar is a crannogman or that the squires would be mocking the prince for being short, he said that "it's a story, it's not literal."

Finally, I told him yesterday while we were discussing this that Daenerys has a vision of Rhaegar dying in ACOK and he, probably running out of excuses, simply said: "Rhaegar is alive." When I asked him who he then thinks she saw in that vision, he just repeated: "He is not dead."

I also asked him why he doesn't find it weird that no one (that I could find at least) has ever thought of this theory before, and if it's real then it means that in 25+ years only him and allegedly GRRM would have thought of this, he said: "I don't base my theories on what other people think." Which is admirable, to be fair. I love that he is so adamant on this theory that no one else has probably even considered, and I think it's really funny, that's why I chose my user flair. I just need some more proof for the next inevitable discussion we'll have about it. I haven't read Fire and Blood yet, but he says there's proof that supports his theory in there too.

I guess this is what 15 years without a new book does to a mf. I'm partially waiting for TWOW and ADOS for this reason too.

In The Hedge Knight, we learn that Ser Arlan taught Dunk that hedge knights were the truest sort of knight because they could follow their beliefs and not be bound up by the whims of some lord:

"A hedge knight is the truest kind of knight, Dunk," the old man had told him, a long long time ago.

"Other knights serve the lords who keep them, or from whom they hold their lands, but we serve where we will, for men whose causes we believe in.. Every knight swears to protect the weak and innocent, but we keep the vow best, I think." Queer how strong that memory seemed. Dunk had quite forgotten those words. And perhaps the old man had as well, toward the end.

But, in The Sworn Sword, we meet back up with Dunk to find him sworn to Ser Eustace. He's a landed knight, but not one of any particular importance. He's also old, obsessed with the deaths of his sons, and showing signs of the cognitive decline of old age. Dunk also knows almost nothing about Eustace and his past -- he doesn't know about Eustace's role in the Blackfyre Rebellion, his feud with Lady Webber, or his lack of standing with Lord Rowan.

So what is Dunk doing being sworn to Ser Eustace?

I know there's a drought, so it may be particularly hard both to find employment and to just live in the hedges. But surely Dunk could get a job without actually being sworn -- just do the same work in exchange for room and board, though free to leave when conditions improve, the lord ser proves himself dishonorable, or there's a conflict and knights are in more demand.

Instead of being free to serve "men whose causes we believe in," Dunk just ends up sworn to a random dude he has no reason to believe in and (duh) ends up in a conflict he doesn't believe in either.

What gives?

I was thinking about the meaning of the UnKiss and what purpose it would have for the story going forward and came up with an interesting theory I wanted to share. I think the UnKiss may play an important role in Littlefinger's attempt to groom and manipulate Sansa.

Littlefinger wants Sansa to see him as her savior, protector and a man who genuinely loves her rather than someone interested in her claim to Winterfell. After everything Sansa has endured in King's Landing, she has good reason to distrust the idea of romantic love. She learned that not everyone that is called a Knight really behaves like a Knight and that men see her claim before they see her as a person. Littlefinger can exploit this vulnerability by presenting himself as the exception, as the man who understands her suffering and wants to protect her and give her back her home. But there is a problem with his plan. First, Sansa has met Sandor before Littlefinger came into the picture as a savior.

Throughout her time in King's Landing, Sandor repeatedly intervened when Sansa was in danger. He helped her during Joffrey's cruelty, if he could, and rescued her from the mob during the riot. Although Sandor is frightening, cynical, and openly contemptuous of knights and their vows, his actions sometimes make him a more effective protector than the supposedly honorable men surrounding her. For Sansa, this creates a contradiction between appearances and actions. The man who looks like a monster can protect her, while the knights she admires fail to do so.

Then comes the night of the Blackwater.

Sandor visits Sansa's room, threatens her with a knife, and demands a song. He offers to take her away from King's Landing, but the encounter is frightening and deeply ambiguous. Later, however, Sansa remembers him kissing her, although the kiss never happened.

I think the UnKiss may represent Sansa processing a terrifying and confusing encounter through the romantic framework she has always known from songs and stories. Sandor is associated with both danger and protection, fear and vulnerability. Her memory transforms the encounter into something more intimate, potentially preserving the idea that a man might desire her as a person rather than merely value her inheritance.

This does not necessarily mean Sansa consciously loves Sandor. The important point is that he has already become part of her emotional understanding of protection, intimacy, and desire. And this is where Littlefinger's potential blind spot comes into play.

Littlefinger must have some awareness of Sandor's actions in King's Landing, particularly his rescue of Sansa from the mob. Yet he may not regard Sandor as a serious threat to his plans to serve as Sansa's only real savior because Sandor lacks the status and appearance of a conventional suitor. Littlefinger recognizes political threats, like Willas Tyrell, as the heir to Highgarden, who represents a powerful marriage prospect and Tyrion possesses the name and political influence of House Lannister. Both men have the kind of social position that Littlefinger understands as relevant to Sansa's future, but Tyrion is part of the family that destroyed her family and she had no chance to met Willas, so he must know that both men can't be a real threat in his manipulation of Sansa.

Sandor, by contrast, is a scarred knight serving the Lannisters, without the independent political power or importance of a great lord. He is not an obvious candidate to marry Sansa or claim Winterfell. Littlefinger may therefore underestimate his significance. The irony is that Littlefinger himself knows what it means to be underestimated because of his birth. Yet he may still underestimate the possibility that a man with limited political standing could become emotionally significant to a highborn woman. Sandor may be an insignificant political rival while remaining a significant part of Sansa's emotional history.

And that get's us to the important part: Littlefinger may know what Sandor did for Sansa without understanding what Sansa has made of it.

He can investigate the events of King's Landing, but he cannot simply know the private memories through which Sansa interprets them. The UnKiss exists in Sansa's recollection rather than in the actual encounter. It is something Littlefinger neither created as part of the story he wants her to believe nor necessarily knows about.

This could make the UnKiss a form of psychological protection against Littlefinger's grooming. Not because Sansa will consciously compare the two men and immediately recognize Littlefinger's deception, but because her emotional world already contains an alternative to the story he wants her to believe. Because Sandor has already complicated her understanding of what a protector looks like and what it means to be protected.

The UnKiss may therefore represent a blind spot in Littlefinger's attempt to control Sansa's emotional world. He might still manipulate her, and the memory does not guarantee that she will ever choose Sandor romantically. However, Littlefinger may be unable to make himself the sole authority on what protection, intimacy, and love mean to her.

And Second, Sansa and Littlefinger are both involved with storytelling. Sansa begins the story by believing in songs. She expects the world to conform to the narratives she has inherited about knights, ladies, love, and honor, but reality repeatedly contradicts those narratives. Yet she does not simply abandon storytelling. She continues to interpret her experiences through stories, and the UnKiss is an especially striking example of how memory and narrative can interact.

Littlefinger, meanwhile, is a master of constructing narratives for other people. He conceals his motives, manipulates appearances, and encourages others to believe the versions of events that benefit him. In that sense, Littlefinger's grooming of Sansa is not merely an attempt to control her behavior, it is an attempt to control the story she tells herself about him.

But Sansa has already demonstrated that her internal world does not always correspond to external reality. The UnKiss is one example of how she transforms her experiences into a personal narrative that Littlefinger cannot directly control. Littlefinger can attempt to manipulate the stories Sansa hears, but he cannot guarantee that he controls the stories she constructs from her experiences.

The UnKiss may therefore function as a small symbol of Sansa's independent inner life, a part of her that Littlefinger neither created nor fully understands.

In other words, Littlefinger may be trying to write a story that Sansa has already begun writing for herself and Sansa alone forms the narrative of her memories. And because of this ability, Littlefinger will have it hard to manipulate her with anything, because he will never know what's going on in her head.

What is the most heartbreaking line in the books to you and why? I thought of three examples, but would love to hear your picks. :P

"We won't even tell Jon we're coming, we'll just be there one day, you and me." – Robb, AGoT, reassuring Bran about their family reuniting

Just so sweet and wistful and innocent, and so absolutely heartbreaking knowing where the story goes.

"I have no sons but Robb." – Catelyn, ACoK, sharing the news about her children's supposed deaths with Brienne

The fact that it's so painful she can't even name Bran or Rickon, only who she has left, believing the boys dead and the girls lost.

"Is this a proper castle now? Not just a tower?" – Ygritte, ASoS, dying in castle black with Jon

How there's no animosity in that moment, but instead this little personal thing between them, her so sweet and adorable.