#I just really love Dany's journey and I wouldn't change it

[finitefall]

Hi! Your blog is amazing! I love talking with people who love Dany like I do! Speaking of Dany… I might have asked you this already, and I am sorry if I am repeating, but what do you think her ending will be? That S8 shit was obviously just Dumb&Dumber’s gross sexist end for a character they hated because she was strong and kind and smart and they hate the idea of a woman being like that (it’s not a coincidence they made sweet and compassionate women like Dany, Arya, and Brienne cold and stoic in the show and status quo conformists like Sansa and Septa Mordane and Catelyn a lot nicer than they actually were (well not really with Sansa. They made her arrogant and bratty while framing her as smart). They also whitewashed so many of the men like made Daario, a lustful sleaze, and Jorah, a man lusting for a teen, nice and genuinely in love with Dany. And Jon they removed his intelligence and ambition and pragmatism and made him a bland wooden Ned Stark clone. Sorry for the rant, just get angry at how they treated Dany in the show. Anyway, do you think she’ll live and be Queen in the real ending? I’ll be perfectly happy as long as she lives and has a peaceful life but I do really want her to be Queen especially because she has an arc about learning how to rule.

Hi! Thank you and you can always rant away here! Catelyn's chapters are really interesting because she's a smart woman no matter her flaws. She's not as interesting in the show, which I guess served to whitewash her. Sansa was especially whitewashed, and I actually used to like her a lot (not at first, but finale episode of season 1 to beginning of season 4). Anyway, if I stark talking about the show it's gonna be a very long answer, so...

Dany's arc is, for me, about three things: finding home, fighting slavery, being a ruler. So an ending without at least one of those wouldn't make sense and couldn't be satisfying to me. If after they defeat the Others and she destroys the Iron Throne, she decides on her own to go back to Essos because she thinks her fight against slavery there is more important and that Westeros can have a good and fair ruler besides her, I would be all right with it. What's important for me is to respect her character and arc. Her other ending would be to rule in Westeros, and I do believe she would be a great Queen of the Seven Kingdoms. It wouldn't be a Disney ending at all since there would be so much to do, and we know Dany isn't perfect either and would still has to learn. It wouldn't be "Dany rules Westeros and everything is all right", it would be "Dany finally came home and rule Westeros... but that's gonna be another long journey for her".

I'm totally against Dany sacrificing herself to save the world, as I absolutely agree with what @rainhadaenerys said here and here. Does that mean I don't doubt she'll live? No, like many people I have doubts but it would be so disappointing and if that's what GRRM plans to do, I'm glad I'll never read that cheap ending. Of course, what I'd really want is for Dany to rule with Jon, and for both of them to be happy and have the family they want (besides Arya, of course), because the both of them are amazing characters and have great leadership arcs (and I won't go back on the Jonerys foreshadowing). I truly believe they would be the best change to happen to Westeros and that, once again, it wouldn’t be a Disney "everything is gonna be great now" ending, but there would be hope.

[sweetestpopcorn]

hi popcorn, do you have some fluffy ideas or headcanons about jon-dany and aegon-rhaenys if rhaegar had survived the trident and they all 4 were raised happily in red keep. Ofcourse it would be 1000 time better if you wrote something about them but assuming you will be quite busy with your current fics, could you just share some ideas about these 2 couples which you wanna read. Also maybe about ashara-elia as well in case you like this pairing.

Hi Anon 🤗

I have to confess that although my heart goes out to the horrible deaths that Rhaegar's children suffered, I am not really interested in them as characters nor for the potential they could have had, sorry 😬 an AU where Rhaegar survived in the Trident also wouldn't be of interest to me, no. Concerning Rhaegar and Lyanna the only AU that would interest me would be one in which he doesn't marry Elia. No hate to Elia, please, I am just not a fan of either polygamy (especially one dude with multiple women because I find it f_cking rich, and yes I do realize Aegon I had two wives, thank you, that’s something for me to deal with) or arranged marriages such as the one they had and I really feel for Elia that she did seem to really love Rhaegar but the feeling wasn’t very... mutual I would say. I am not a fan of this dynamic and of the women ALWAYS getting the sh:t part of the deal. 

As for that pairing (Elia/Ashara) and any pairing really, I do prefer sticking to canon-only pairings where asoiaf is concerned. I mean I might make some exceptions here and there, but I just cannot be invested in pairings of very minor characters that I don’t really care a lot about *shrugs* Again, nothing wrong if anyone does, it’s just not my cup of tea.

Concerning Dany and Jon, I really like the choices of the main asoiaf series especially in regards to Dany's story so I wouldn't want to change it, at least not how she became the Mother of Dragons. If I did write an AU it would only focus on Dany/Jon and I would probably just make Dany go to Westeros much sooner and meet Jon a lot sooner as well. This would be for two main reasons:

1- To spare her the cancer that was Hizdhar and ANOTHER arranged marriage like George... enough is enough! Like no! Wasn't her marriage to Drogo enough?! Can't Dany just be happy?! I just hate arranged marriages so much... and Hizdhar is such a f_cking cancer to her life I just... I want to k:ll myself when I image our queen with him!

2- I would never have the capacity to resolve her plot as is in the books, like I have no idea where Turtle Man would be going with that - I use conditional and not present because he ain't finishing the books so it doesn't matter. #LOL

I would have her maybe go to the North sometime Robb is defeated, maybe she hears word about Maester Aemon and she wants to meet with him. Like we DESERVE a meeting between Dany and Maester Aemon - GEORGE YOU POS - that canon denied us! And it would be there she and Jon would meet and that sparks would fly!

They would talk of how Alysanne once visited the Wall, and about the Pact of Ice and Fire, how the North stood by the Dragon Queen (aka Rhaenyra Targaryen - green fans and H*O cry) even after she died... but then Dany would harden her heart and remind him of how his "father" fought against hers. And I know she would LOVE finding out he was a Targaryen, that she was no longer alone in the world. That a piece of her brother, that she had never met, lived on <3 and was there with her. (and that her baby dragons got a father to put down some much needed discipline! I am kidding)

(F_ck you HbitchO and D&D and all the rest of the circus, you are as capable handling anything asoiaf related as I am at Mandarin) 

*Me being romantic AF* (Please excuse me I have no idea how to write Jon and I know this sucks)

Jon looks at the Queen, ethereal in white furs, with the moonlight on her hair. He wonders how it would be to stretch a hand and to touch the melted silver of her mane. He might have done so before he was a sworn brother of the Night's Watch, was he just a bastard boy. Alas, she would still be a princess, a queen, too far from his reach. And in either case, Daenerys Targaryen, young and innocent as she might look, was no maiden. 

In some ways she lived a hundred more years than him even if she was younger, having yet to count her sixteenth name day. Were half the tales true and though small and frail as she looked, she had none of Queen Naerys and all of King Aegon the Dragon. She would like put Daeron the Young Dragon to shame and somehow the thought made Jon smile.

This is the best I got which still sucks 😬 oh well... I will “keep trying” (Hightower, 115 AC)

Also Dany is the one true queen, and I accept no AU where she is not 😌 Dany >>>>> Everyone else.

All the best to you, Anon 🤗

[malyen0retsev]

question: do you think grrm is setting up jon and arya in the books? though i'm not sure why the show wouldn't go there at all if that was the case... and D&D LOVE incest lol. so i bet they would've loved to explore jon/rya or jon/sa if that was grrm's plan.

In short - no, I don’t think so. I certainly think that is what he intended to do initially; we’ve all read the outline where he originally planned for there to be a love triangle between Jon, Arya, and Tyrion, where Jon and Arya’s relationship ‘tortured’ them until Jon’s parentage was revealed (’incest tortured’ plot YAY)… but it’s pretty damn clear that outline has changed drastically since. I mean, in the initial outline, Daenerys’ role seemed fairly minor and it seemed extremely focused on the Starks, which we definitely know has changed. You can see hints of the Jon-Arya relationship more heavily in AGOT to be honest, but the dynamic does change as the books go on; their relationship is still hugely important, not just to each other but to the story as a whole (I firmly believe it is the most important and strongest relationship in ASOIAF), but they also always refer to each other as ‘brother’ or ‘sister’ when thinking of each other. The sibling bond is absolute.

GRRM is a gardener writer, not an architect, as he’s said several times now. He vaguely plans the brush strokes of where he’s going, but he also makes a lot up as he goes along, letting the characters take him by surprise and following where they take him. It’s why he’s quite a slow writer, and it’s also why the initial trilogy plan has broadened so drastically to seven books now (as it stands. He’s fairly firm it will end on seven books, but has also said if it needs more than seven, then it needs more than seven). 

Personally, I think the ‘incest’ plot being set up is 100% Jon and Daenerys, and will cause a certain level of angst, but not to tear Dany down like they did in the show (at this point I just have to laugh at what they did in the show). I also think it’s very very clear that Arya’s future romance plot has been set up to be Gendry, not Jon. I sort of think Gendry’s one of those characters who took GRRM somewhat by surprise - he needed him for Ned to find in AGOT, then ended up in a situation where Arya and Gendry were in the same place, and he followed that relationship and those characters to a place where it’s very evident they’re being set up as the next generation, successful, and healthy version of Robert and Lyanna. I also think he then went back to edit hints towards Gendry earlier in Arya’s storyline - I mean, Arya’s first chapter we’re told she has ‘hands like a blacksmith’. Coincidence? I THINK NOT. 

To me, GRRM may have started out with the plan of Jon and Arya as a thing, but then as he wrote he listened to the characters, and listened also to the characters who would become their significant others (Daenerys and Gendry), and instead went down that route - ensuring Jon and Dany’s journeys literally parallel one another, and ensuring the reader knows about Robert and Lyanna and how much Arya and Gendry are said to resemble them. It’s one of the things I really respect about GRRM as a writer to be honest; his story never feels stagnant or forced, because he is willing to set aside initial plans he had in order to weave a new storyline that the characters naturally gravitate towards. i wish more writers did that.

So no. To summarise. I don’t think we’re heading for a Jon-Arya romantic relationship, because I think it’s been made abundantly clear they have significant others within the context of the story, and because as the books progress their sibling bond is fiercely reminded to us. I think he sure set their relationship out to be romantic at first, but that’s not where he’s going with the story he’s actually writing now. And personally, I’m glad. Because Jon-Arya is the purest and best relationship in the books, and there is zero part of me that wants that ruined by a ‘tortured incest’ plot. (And also yes, if it was going to happen I’m sure D&D would have lapped that shit up - so the fact it didn’t happen in the show makes it fairly clear it won’t tbh)