#and like we don't really see a lot of mother's in the asoiaf series since most of them are dead

[radlymona]

Possibly a controversial opinion but I don't think that Rhaenyra is entirely a good person in the show even if she isn't the propoganda "Rhaneyra the Cruel" version we see in the books. Like she's still a selfish, hypocritical person who is a major proponent of Targ exceptionalism (and that impacts how she treats non-Targs) and I think her interest in the prophecy is meant to be a nod to how Targaryens often have delusions of self-grandeur (Aegon I, Rhaegar, maybesortofdipsintobutdoesn'tfullygothere with Dany). I think there's going to be a gradual descent into paranoia and violent behaviour that won't be because she's an inately horrible person (or so the Maester pov has us believe)

[zenkindoflove]

thoughts on Elain having earth powers similar to a green seer (like bran green seer or something to that effect)? a lot of people speculate that Elain has some earth-like magic.

Hey anon, I see you are trying to goad me into talking about ASOIAF parallels again. And for that I say, THANK YOU!

I REALLY REALLY HOPE that SJM has plans to really go nuts with Elain's seer powers. And I think there are a lot of clues that she is going to link some of Elain's magical abilities to manipulating the natural world. It isn't just that she "loves to garden". I think it's really interesting that two sisters went into the Cauldron, one came out with the powers of Death and the other.... well, wouldn't it be fitting if she came out with the powers of Life?

So, I have been exploring this quite a bit in some of my fanfics - mainly Summer Heat which will be expanded upon in much greater detail in the sequel Golden Visions which I plan to start working on in June. I've also explored it a bit with @crazy-ache in our fic Dear Lucien, Dear Elain. But essentially what I sort of head canon is that Elain is able to sense the natural world and possibly heal it (maybe leading to her healing Spring?). In ACOWAR, when everyone thinks that Elain is crazy, she has some interesting lines about hearing the worms wiggle in the earth that stood out to me. It could be that they're related to her visions, but it has made me wonder in what ways Elain's senses are more in tuned with plants and animals around them. After reading HOFAS, I became more convinced that SJM might have intentions to explore some earth powers with Elain - since we find out that Tristan and Sathia Flynn have earth powers, and they are descended from the same High Fae from Prythian. It made me wonder if it was a type of magic that existed in ACOTAR world long before but has been lost and the Mother has given it back to Elain.

Onto greenseers... I'm glad you mentioned that parallel because my brain is ASOIAF rotted so I bring a lot back to that series. But when I envision Elain's seer powers, I don't only see her "seeing the future". With Bran, having the sight and being a greenseer, he was able to see not only the future but also the past and the present (the present mostly warging into animals). The weirwoods gave him access to bend time and see what has and hasn't happened yet. I play around a lot in my fanfics how Elain has different "kinds" of visions, depending on where she is in time. We know from legends that the greenseers of the Children of the Forest wielded powerful magic, manipulating not only the natural world (plants and animals) but having the sight as well. I think it would be really awesome if in her own unique way, SJM blends potential earth powers Elain might have with her sight. I have some plans of how I think it could work that I will explore in fanfic. So I'm excited to see what SJM does with it!

Thank you for the ask!

[thesilverlady]

Hi! So I've been thinking about this for some time now, it seems to me like GRRM often exagerates the misogyny women suffered in medieval times.

It's not that women were happy and living in utopia but from reading about different historical societies and time periods in comparison to what he is writing it looks super exaggerated and women often suffer a lot more than what it would be like in comparison to real life.

Maybe it's just me and I don't want to sound mean..but it's starting to feel weird...for example there's a lot of women that have died from the birthing bed, a big number and although it happened it wasn't like every hour a woman died giving birth to a child. Another thing that bothers me it's when really young characters start having sex (Aemma, Daenerys, Viserys II....) It's super bizarre since yes of course women tended to be younger but and I'm pretty sure that no one was advising to have sex with a 13 year old child (there are cases I'm sure but normally it was frowned upon). Even politically women are more restrained ... I don't know maybe I'm seeing gohsts where there are none 😂.

it's definitely a valid subject to criticize and it's been something I've been conflicted over myself.

grrm is generally a. fantastic author; he knows how to write characters, worldbuilding, dialogue and how to play with themes.

With that being said, I can totally understand your feelings on the subject.

On the one hand, you're right, the whole "died in childbirth" is. just a very convenient, easy way to get rid off a female character while adding a tragedy to the mix. On the other hand.... some of these characters were simply not meant to be around.

I think he has definitely tried to add some elements around childbirth death to make it slightly different each time. Like, in f&b the difference between Alyssa Velaryon and Daella Targaryen who both died in childbirth is that Alyssa was at a quite old age and had complications from her pregnancy and her husband and maesters completely disregarded her health and basically sacrificed her to get that child out (for context: her dead was basically what Aemma had in the show. they copied it from that part of the story) In her tragic death, we see how shitty her husband was and the power maesters have over life. We do get her other daughter, Rhaena, rightfully calling out Rogar Baratheon's callous actions.

With Daella her death., while similar is a bit different because her issue was that she was waaay too young. Her mother, Alysanne felt guilty after her death and even wondered if it would have been so much for Daella to stay a child a while longer before pushing her to marry.

Both fall.victims to the patriarchy that is established in Westeros, in the belief that a woman's duty is to be a wife and a mother and a childbirth death while sad is noble. I won't analyze each childbirth death we see 'cause that would take forever - but I do think they all kinda serve a theme that has been existing all throughout the asoiaf series.

As for the age.... listen, i know it's uncomfortable for everyone but I think that's purposely done. Later in the series dany does think. of her old 13 yo self as a child so George doesn't pretend that she wasn't.

Were her descriptions in the first book oversexualized? Sure

But as for the age factor, I study history and cultures at uni and you'd be surprised at the age range young girls were thought to be suited for marriage and childbirth. You gotta consider multiple ethinicies, cultures, social norms, and not to mention life expectancy which played a huge factor in this.

George takes inspiration for all of this. The series is not meant to be a realistic portrayal.

And while I constantly think about the pro and cons about the way George writes his female characters, i don't see enough prase nowadays about how he writes the vulnerability of girlhood, or motherly love, or the caging feeling of being a woman who lives in such a restraining society.

As a man George does a surprisingly amazing job at describing these feelings. And while, I definitely think we should be objective and consider the good, the bad and the ugly with how he writes woman, the good heavily outweigh the bad

[weirwoodking]

who do you think will be on the throne at the end? is there a chance it will be a woman? do you agree with the theory that bran will be king in the north bc he symbolizes winterfell? idk if i see dany on the throne bc i don't feel like she belongs in westeros, i think she would be better off with a throne on the other side of the narrow sea but i really don't know what i'm saying

It’s very hard to make predictions for ADOS, because we don’t have TWOW yet. So much can change about the story and the characters in one book, thematically and narratively. Think of how much the plot was influenced by just that final Bran chapter in ADWD. 

But, here I go anyway.

My short answer is: no one. (And no, I don’t mean Arya)

Let’s get into it.

Part 1: How the Show Tainted Everyone’s Brains

Obviously, a lot of people care about the Iron Throne plot. Sometimes too much. I do believe that this is mostly because of how much the HBO show changed everything about the story to make the Iron Throne seem like it was more important than anything else. Like promotional posters of all the actors each sitting on the throne, the name of the series itself being changed to “Game of Thrones”, actors getting asked in every interview “who do you think should get the Iron Throne?” as if it’s the last cupcake at a birthday party that everyone’s fighting over, the final episode was titled “The Iron Throne”. The marketing for everything was “it’s the fight for the Throne!” up through the eighth season. It made the object itself become a huge pop culture symbol.

It almost felt like the show was trying to make it seem like the goal of the Night King (a character not in the books) was to sit on the Iron Throne! The show portrayed it as if the Others were just a little distraction that needed to be dealt with so the characters could get back to arguing over the Porcupine Chair. However, in ASOIAF, it’s the exact opposite. The Porcupine Chair is what’s distracting the characters from the real conflict, the Others.

It’s almost comical how that has somewhat transferred over into the fandom, the “game of thrones” is what’s keeping everyone from focusing on what really matters, the “song of ice and fire”.

Part 2: GRRM’s Quote

It wasn't easy for me. I didn't want to give away my books. Every character has a different end. I told them who would be on the Iron Throne, and I told them some big twists like Hodor and "hold the door", and Stannis' decision to burn his daughter. We didn't get to everybody by any means.

-George R.R. Martin

So, he “told them who would be on the Iron Throne”. Something important about this quote is that he doesn’t say who. And, of course, the Iron Throne gets destroyed at the end of the show anyway. Show!Bran doesn’t really “end up on the Iron Throne”. Show!Dany does. George never said that who “ends up” on it in the books is who ends up on it in the show. He’s said that the Shireen thing and the Hodor thing will “happen very differently” in the books anyway. And, of course, another major part of that quote is “every character has a different end”.

I don’t think that who sits the Iron Throne last is necessarily going to be the ruler of Westeros at the end. For example, Cersei (or Aegon) may be the last person to sit the Iron Throne. Or even Euron (however, even though his goal is to rule post-apocalyptic Westeros as a god from the Iron Throne, I don’t think he’ll actually get there). If wildfire is hot enough to melt iron, I could see the throne being destroyed during whatever fiery shenanigans go down with Cersei and JonCon in TWOW. I think it would be fitting for the fight over the throne to end in the next book. ‘Cause the winds of winter are coming, baby, and it’s gonna be time to start dreaming of spring.

Part 3: The Weirwood King

The idea/theory of Bran becoming King has been around for a long time, long before the HBO show even started airing. This is because of the Celtic myth of King Brân the Blessed, whose name means “Blessed Crow” or “Blessed Raven” in Welsh. Other than the obvious connection with the name, Brân the Blessed’s story involves a magic cauldron that can bring the dead back to life. 

In the myth, Brân’s head is cut off and continues talking (think of how Bran’s most powerful aspect is the magical powers of his mind), because in Celtic mythology the head is believed to be where the soul is.

Celts had a reputation as head hunters. According to Paul Jacobsthal, "Amongst the Celts the human head was venerated above all else, since the head was to the Celt the soul, centre of the emotions as well as of life itself, a symbol of divinity and of the powers of the otherworld." (source)

Catch that? “Otherworld”. There is another myth (Irish, specifically) called the Voyage of Bran, in which the title character goes on a quest to the Otherworld. The Otherworld is a supernatural realm in Celtic mythology. It is also where the sidhe (a.k.a. aos sí) live. Remember, the sidhe are what George has said the Others are inspired by. In Irish mythology, the Otherworld is called Tír na nÓg, Mag Mell and Emain Ablach, in Welsh mythology it’s called Annwn, and in Arthurian legend it’s called Avalon. Fun fact, “Avalon” was the title of the novel George was writing when he had suddenly had the idea of a scene in which a young boy and his brothers see a beheading and then find a litter of direwolf pups in the snow. And so ASOIAF happened.

I’ll leave that there, and try not to go down the great big rabbit-hole of Celtic (and other cultures) mythology connections in ASOIAF. The takeaway is: ASOIAF has been influenced by these myths.

I do believe that Bran is going to be King. Not just because of his ties to this mythology, but also because of symbolism in his own story. The most notable one being…

Under the hill, the broken boy sat upon a weirwood throne, listening to whispers in the dark as ravens walked up and down his arms.

[...]

The singers made Bran a throne of his own, like the one Lord Brynden sat, white weirwood flecked with red, dead branches woven through living roots. 

[...]

His father and the black pool and the godswood faded and were gone and he was back in the cavern, the pale thick roots of his weirwood throne cradling his limbs as a mother does a child. 

- Bran III, A Dance with Dragons

Bran is also the only one of the Stark kids who still thinks of himself as royalty:

What was he now? Only Bran the broken boy, Brandon of House Stark, prince of a lost kingdom, lord of a burned castle, heir to ruins.

- Bran III, A Dance with Dragons

Bran is the heir to Winterfell. It doesn’t matter if Robb named Jon his heir in his will, the will was written under the pretense that Bran and Rickon were dead.

However, Bran doesn’t have any connection to the Iron Throne. It’s far more likely that he would sit on a weirwood throne, because of, y’know, everything about his story. So, if Bran was King of the Seven Kingdoms, I don’t think it would be on the Pincushion Stool.

If Bran is king of the realm, I do think there would still be a separate Lord/Lady of Winterfell, but I do think that there’s a possibility of a Pevensie siblings ending, where all the Stark kids would rule together as the Lords and Ladies and Winterfell.

Something that I’ve never really seen talked about regarding the idea of Bran becoming King of the Seven Kingdoms is the religious differences between the North and the southern regions of Westeros. Of course, the show didn’t deal with this at all. For fuck’s sake, they had Cersei blow up the Westerosi verison of the Vatican and face no backlash. It was so laughably absurd how Show!Cersei’s destructive reign was shown to have like… zero impact on the Seven Kingdoms. 

In short, I’m not too sure that the Kingdom who is majority Faith of the Seven worshippers would react too well to a weirwood-tree-Old-Gods-warg-wizard-king. I mean, when Janos Slynt finds out Jon is a warg he calls him a “thing”, a “creature”, and a “beastling that is not fit to live”, and wanted to execute him not just for being a turncloak but for being a warg as well. And Jojen warns Bran of these things, saying that his own folk may want to kill him if they know what he is.

But… all of that anti-magic attitude might not matter after night falls. 

Part 4: Winter is Coming

I believe that the Long Night is going to be very devastating for the Seven Kingdoms.

Martin is a big believer in making things have meaningful, permanent consequences in his stories. I don’t think that an apocalyptic event like the Long Night is something that’s just gonna get dealt with in a quick snap and have no lasting effect.

A lot of people are going to die. I don’t mean main characters, I mean people that would not survive a normal winter and sure as hell won’t be prepared for this one. Westeros’s food stores have been severely depleted by the War of the Five Kings, and we’ve been told multiple times in the text (particularly AFFC and ADWD) that feeding people during this winter is going to be extremely hard.

Besides that… the whole, uh, invasion of the eldritch ice beings thing might have a bit of an impact on the realm. 

I won’t go into depth about how the Seven Kingdoms will be affected by the Long Night, ‘cause we really have no idea. But, however it all goes down, I do think it will have lasting changes for the people of Westeros. The impact that it leaves may make the concept of Bran being a wizard-king more acceptable. “Oh, well we’ve just seen zombies and winter elves, so what’s too surprising about a magical greenseer warg king?” I think that Westerosi culture becoming more aware and accepting of the existence of magic is the only way that Bran could become the king of the whole realm. The Westeros at the end of the series is not going to be the place that it was at the beginning.

Part 5: Dany: A Home, Not a Throne

To sum up my thoughts on our dragon girl, I don’t think Dany will end up on the Spiky Toilet. I don’t want Dany to be on the Spiky Toilet.

Now, my personal speculation (which a lot of people disagree with, which is fine) is that Dany will never see King’s Landing before the Long Night. I personally don’t think that Dany will ever meet Aegon or Cersei. I don’t see there being enough time in the story for that. Yes, GRRM said that there will be a second Dance of the Dragons, but he also said that the second Dance does not have to involve Dany. He may have originally planned for it to be Aegon and Dany, but probably not once the Meereenese Knot happened.

The Meereenese Knot is what Dany’s ADWD plot is referred to as. GRRM did not intend for Dany to stay in Meereen as long as she has, but because of his “gardener” style of writing, that’s where the story led him. GRRM has said that one of the hardest parts of writing the Meereen plotline (which involves Dany, Barristan, Quentyn, Tyrion, and Victarion) is trying to find a way to cut the plot knot he accidentally got himself stuck in. He has said that Tyrion and Dany will meet towards the end of TWOW, which means that Dany will most likely be spending a large portion of her story with the Dothraki. That part is a completely blank page, but I believe that Dany will meet Tyrion possibly ¾ of the way into the book, and sail for Westeros at the end.

I won’t write a full meta about this here (because that’s not what this post is about), but to summarize my prediction: Aegon VS Cersei is going to be the battle in King’s Landing, a battle which will destroy the city. Dany (who has already rejected sailing for the Throne multiple times) will still be stuck in Essos, dealing with everything she’s still got going on, and will sail for Westeros at the end. Not for the Throne, but to go North for the real fight (remember that Marwyn is also on his way to Meereen to tell Dany that they need her).

Because Dany's purpose is not to fight for the Iron Throne, it’s to fight the Others. Dany (fire, light, and life) VS the Others (ice, darkness, and death) is the main thing the title refers to:

“Well of course the two outlying ones, the things that are going on north of the Wall and Daenerys Targaryen on the other continent with her dragons are of course the Ice and Fire of the title, the Song of Ice and Fire.” 

- George R.R. Martin, 2016

One of the most important excerpts that shows us where Dany’s story is headed is this:

That night she dreamt that she was Rhaegar, riding to the Trident. But she was mounted on a dragon, not a horse. When she saw the Usurper's rebel host across the river they were armored all in ice, but she bathed them in dragonfire and they melted away like dew and turned the Trident into a torrent. Some small part of her knew that she was dreaming, but another part exulted. This is how it was meant to be. The other was a nightmare, and I have only now awakened.

- Daenerys III, A Storm a Swords

Dany has a short prophetic “this is what I was meant to do” dream. Dany could possibly have more dreams about the Others in TWOW, visions that will make what Marwyn has to tell her more believable. It’s not like that dream was the only one Dany has had that alludes to the winter threat, Dany has had visions about this since book one:

The red door was so far ahead of her, and she could feel the icy breath behind, sweeping up on her. If it caught her she would die a death that was more than death, howling forever alone in the darkness. She began to run.

- Dany IX, A Game of Thrones

Anyway, there’s just a lot more foreshadowing in the plot that this is what Dany is meant to do. I think adding in another conflict into her story once she leaves Meereen would make the story feel bloated and would severely fuck up the pacing.

I don’t think Dany will ever see the Iron Throne. The themes of her story have never been about her wanting the Iron Throne for what it is, but for what it represents to her. It represents the possibility of a home and of feeling safe for the first time in her life, what Dany truly wants. I think that it’s absolutely fine if Dany never sees the Throne or sits on it, and that it makes more sense for her narrative arc if she discovers that she can find a home somewhere else, not necessarily where she thought it would be. 

Part 6: Final Thoughts

So, in conclusion, I don’t really give a shit who ends up placing their ass on the Forbidden Laz-E-Boy, I care about the War for the Dawn. I care about seeing the characters I’ve followed for the past five books coming together to fight the real conflict of A Song of Ice and Fire. Also, even if we do get a Scouring of the Shire-type post-climax for ASOIAF, it doesn’t matter. People don’t see the Scouring of the Shire as the climax of Lord of the Rings, they see the climax as Aragorn leading the forces of good against the forces of evil and Frodo and Sam throwing the One Ring into Mount Doom. Whatever ending resolution comes after the climax of ASOIAF, it doesn’t change what the climax is.

"Do you think your brother's war is more important than ours?" the old man barked.

Jon chewed his lip. The raven flapped its wings at him. "War, war, war, war," it sang.

"It's not," Mormont told him. "Gods save us, boy, you're not blind and you're not stupid. When dead men come hunting in the night, do you think it matters who sits the Iron Throne?"

"No." Jon had not thought of it that way.

- Jon IX, A Game of Thrones

TL;DR:

My prediction: Cersei will be the last person to sit the Iron Throne, which will be destroyed in the Wildfire of King’s Landing. After the Long Night devastates the Seven Kingdoms, Bran will become the King of this new Westeros that has been majorly affected by the return of magic. Also, it would be real nice if Dany found her red door.

God I hope my rambling made sense