#asoiaf spec

[baleriontheblackkitten]

Correct correct correct! Also may I add: Maester Aemon, a character who Jon discovers being a Targaryen after knowing him for a while, who renounced his "Targaryenness" and claim to the throne as he felt he wasn't fit for it but his brother was better for the role. I absolutely expect Jon to have a similar endgame, renouncing the claim his Targaryenness would give him the right to and instead taking a step back to leave that claim to someone (his brother?) better suited. Except that, unlike Maester Aemon, he won't renounce his Targaryenness through joining the Night's Watch (which there won't be a need for anymore by the end of the series! Also the series highlights that the whole thing needs to seriously be reformed at the very least...) but taking on a different leadership role and getting married and fathering children in contrast to the vows of the Night's Watch.

GRRM’s inclusion of Mance Rayder among Jon’s expansive catalogue of father figures is a very clever one, beyond just being a retread of the fantasy protagonist gaining a temporary teacher who imparts wisdom then leaves. It’s the way Mance’s identity as father-figure and king play into Martin’s subversion and deconstruction of the secret prince trope. Because he is Rhaegar’s son, many of us would expect Jon to inherit the Iron Throne once his identity is revealed. After all, that’s the rule of the genre and Jon is as clear cut a fantasy protagonist as you can get in ASOIAF. But we’re five books into a seven-book series, and Jon is nowhere near the Iron Throne. Not only that, but he still doesn’t know who he truly is. Instead, he’s spent three out of the five books interacting with Mance’s kingdom, building their trust and becoming Mance’s spiritual heir. Jon even completes what Mance tried and failed to do when he manages to bring wildings south of the Wall and install some sort of working peace with the Watch. By the end of ADWD, Jon has pretty much become the de facto leader of the wildlings and there’s thousands more left to save. So if GRRM is to subvert the hidden prince trope in any way, it looks like he already has. Jon may not be the one to inherit Rhaegar’s kingdom at the end, but it sure looks like he’ll inherit all of Mance’s. And it’s quite clever to have the fantasy protagonist not take over his father’s kingdom by virtue of his birth, but instead rule a stand in’s by virtue of his actions.

[eruherdiriel]

was looking for the exact wording of the "sun and the moon" quote about Arya and Sansa, and came across spec saying that Arya would kill Sansa, presented as a "mercy kill" (that's as far as I got before clicking the back button). Are those people on drugs. can you imagine having such a bad take.

I'm so glad I don't see this kind of stuff 90% of the time but ooohh man. This is worse than the curtain of light honestly.

[esther-dot]

Yeah I think part of the reason why the fandom is so vehemently against Jonsa is because most of the Jonsa shippers (the one who makes predictions, theorizing, analysis, etc) also support other unpopular theories such as Dark D*ny and that T*rion and the Starks will be enemies and other things that goes against the popular theories and reading kf the series.

I don't really have a solid opinion on how the story might go (besides that D*ny will never get the IT) but I think this all really shows that Jonsas in general just have a much different way of reading the series and understanding the themes and lessons GRRM put in the story than the rest of the fandom. They're the ones who GET what GRRM meant when he said he's a 'realistic romantic'. And they take GRRM's writing of punishing violence seriously and understand which characters will be the heroes in the end (hint: its not T*rion or the person who BURNED ALIVE A SLAVE IN THE FIRST BOOK)

This is why, regardless of how the story will end, I'll always support the Jonsa part of the fandom's theories, because they offer such a fresh and interesting look and insight into ASOIAF that you're not gonna get in the mainstream part of the fandom

(about this ask)

hint: its not T*rion or the person who BURNED ALIVE A SLAVE IN THE FIRST BOOK

Dany burning a rape survivor, a woman she took as a slave, alive, in calm, deliberate fashion really is a horrific scene. It says something awful about the fandom that if you conclude that’s saying something bad about Dany, you’re an outcast. I also think Dark Dany is much more obvious than King Bran which has been confirmed to be from Martin? So I truly do not understand the outrage at this point. I definitely think that's why many people hate Jonsas, but like, we didn't write that scene, we didn't make Dany use forced labor or make money from slavery, we didn't write her allowing the slaughter of teens, we didn't make her decide to conquer a continent. We're just saying it means something that Martin did!

From what I’ve seen, Tyrion was a huge favorite for book fans, Dany was far and away the most popular show character, Arya was popular with fans of both, so Sansa was just, kinda screwed by being at odds with them and for as long as I’ve been active, it’s an uphill battle for people to try to present a different reading on her. People wanted to vilify her to defend their fav and that means taking the worst perception of her rather than considering what is actually being said in her story, and Jonsas very much do take a totally different perspective on her. I find most, not all, but much of the hate comes from people who dislike her.

I'm with you though, despite what it means to be open about unpopular interpretations and theories, I prefer the Jonsa way of reading the story, our spec and fandom. I never would have gotten involved in fandom at all if it weren’t for Jonsas and their interpretations!

[transthadymacdermot]

Left image my art of Thompsons; right image a detail from "The Prince of Orange landing at Torbay" by Jan Hoynck van Papendrecht

Wip intro: Fire, Famine, & Slaughter

Genre: steampunk? kind of? but make it 17th century instead. also kind of similar to asoiaf in that it's spec fic but based heavily on a real historical event. oh and they have ice age fauna in this world too also

Progress: 1st draft

Content warnings: it's a story abt religious wars and all that implies. lots of death and gore and people being horrible to each other over pointless doctrinal disputes. etc

Ten years ago the citizens of the Commonwealth, a world power in a a seventeenth century-inspired steampunk (ish) alternate universe, rose up under the leadership of a rogue politician to kill their king. What followed was over half a decade of brutal military dictatorship, civil war, famine, plague, and general unhappiness for the population. Now the king has been secure in his restoration -- a move which has proved more popular in some sectors than others -- for four years, but lies on his deathbed, and his only successor is a cousin who worships an outlawed god and seems, to many, on the verge of plunging the country back into the chaos it fought so hard to escape.

When a former regicide hellbent on toppling the current regime accuses one of this new king's most controversial advisors of murdering a well-liked lord, war seems closer than ever. Republicans in the shadows, royalists ready to go to war, the aristocracy pulling knives over land, but the Commonwealth's parliament consoles itself with the fact that, after all, this tyrannical heretic of a king and his horrible advisors are but an anomaly -- the crown prince, who is a bit odd but who they all know and love, is nothing like that. Right?

Will shamelessly admit that this story is an attempt to write something which is to the glorious revolution as asoiaf is to the wars of the roses 👍 narrators under the cut; complete character list yet to come. title a placeholder I pilfered from a Coleridge poem ☝️

Marcus "Marc" Waring, Earl of Talbott -- (he/him) a dispossessed and very angry aristocrat from the Commonwealth's colony-member of Hieburne, who quite literally lost an arm and a leg in the civil war. A master swordsman and known manipulator.

John Thompsons -- (he/him) a regicide, pamphleteer, and vicious sectarian only alive for his intimate knowledge of and groundbreaking research on the mysterious ancient tech which keeps the Commonwealth's capital running. #1 hobby is destablising the monarchy; #2 hobby is psychologically tormenting Talbott.

Elizabeth Knox-Clifford, Duchess of Danforth -- (she/her) one of the most powerful aristocrats in the Commonwealth, first woman to be a member of the King's Closet (group of his closest advisors), dedicated to the stability of the country no matter what that requires.

Eleanor "Ellie" Foxe -- (she/her) a mildly unwilling member of a plot to systemically kill the entirety of Parliament in order to restore the absolute monarchy of the Commonwealth's past. Fanatically devoted to her cause and rather cutthroat, but more willing to negotiate than other members of the plot.

Joffre van Andrey -- (he/him) a visitor from the Commonwealth's ally the Risckan Confederacy, and advisor to the the king there, who just so happens to be the brother-in-law of the Commonwealth's own king. A very serious man who tries to do the right thing but usually has his schemes blow up in his face </3

[hollowwhisperings]

My memories on the Starks & Lannisters of the Dance are very hazy, largely amounting to "Lannister Turncloaks, Starks were Team Black, Cregan Stark Scared KL into Lawful Neutrality". So while I can't add onto the Generational Parallels, I CAN see Other Character Parallels:

Jaime Lannister is in a VERY SIMILAR POSITION to Ser Criston Cole: Jaime, as a Knight Nerd, WOULD KNOW THIS.

HotD's portrayal of the Dance as a Lesbian Divorce Drama has blessed us with Alicent Hightower as the "Anti-Cersei": women who fulfil nigh-identical functions within the narrative (as-history-remembers it) but for very opposite reasons.

Daenerys is the easiest "Rhaenyra" but Daenerys isn't there for the War of the Five Kings: she's Busy Elsewhere.

The "Rhaenyra" role is not as neatly found as her contemporary "Criston" (Jaime), "Alicent" (Cersei) & "Aegon II" (Joffrey) counterparts but, overall, it's actually Ned Stark who fulfils her "role" as Rallying Point for ASOIAF's "Team Black". That Ned is a secretly treasonous dead man hilariously makes him even more suited to be the "Rhaenyra" of this latest Civil War, Martyrs of History as won by the war's sole survivors (AKA Ned's kids & his belatedly reformed enemies).

Ned was also (kind of?) Jaime's personal Cregan Stark at the end of [Ned's] Rebellion, the civil war prior to TWOTFK (which is technically Still Happening), and Dany is more accurately represented in that war (...as its Absent Viserys II).

Jaime, lifelong Knight Nerd, knows well the eerie resemblance he has taken to Ser Criston Cole: abetter in unlawful succession, Commander of the sitting Queen Dowager's armies but having sworn loyalty to the opposing Queen Dowager (Catelyn). In some ways, Jaime can be made into a contemporary Prince Daemon with Cersei as King Rhaenyra: this aligns with the Maesters' view of the Dance but HotD's Take on Alicent Hightower as the Anti-Cersei makes me enjoy how much she & Cersei have "Functioned" within the narratives of their Respective Succession Crises (i.e. starting & perpetuating them) and thusly members of "Team Green".

Jaime's character development has not actually gotten to "redemption" yet but his having one would drastically affect how this civil war will end: Bran vibes very much as a "Viserys II" (second sons long assumed dead, hope spots to their few surviving family members) though most of the surviving Starklings could (or already have) acted as Historic Peacemakers between Long Estraged Peoples.

Jon made peace between the NW & the freefolk, only to Die Mysteriously; Arya makes friends with anyone & everyone who is considered an "outsider" or "lesser class"; marriage to Sansa Stark is one of the easiest ways to unite Kingdoms, providing her existing [child] marriage to Tyrion is annulled); Bran or Jon could feasibly "resolve" the Conflict between the Others & everyone else peacibly (hopefully without twin marriage pacts between Ruling Families, given that all the Starklings save Jon are children).

Given how implicitly connected Jaime's Future is to that of Bran's, his "role" as Criston Cole will play out very differently (if only in Motivation) and that's without accounting for how Fellow Knight Nerd, Brienne, is implicitly tied to the Stark Sisters: Jaime and Brienne would both Know the precedents set in the Dance by Ser Criston (for good & ill); how devastating his Kingmaking was on the Realm & for such a unanimously misliked King; and how easily the children left surviving can & would be used by Lords scrambling for power upon most of their Political Competition wiping each other out. Brienne's surviving Winds would require Jaime to Start Redeeming Himself more seriously, lest her experiences turn her into another jaded "Sandor" (which Jaime, who sees his Younger & Innocent Self in Brienne, does not actually want).

Ultimately, the amount of intergenerational parallels of abuse & violence in ASOIAF, alongside its Thesis of "War Is Horrific", make it likely that this generation of Lannisters and Starks and "Targaryens" will Learn from the mistakes of their predecessors & actively "end" these Cycles of violence. Melting The Uncomfortable Chair seems a given but it's the Logistics of recovery that most interest me: Jaime is likely to be the Oldest Person at any peace talks (give or take Doran, the Blackfish, a Sand Snake or two, some of Robb's Loyalists, etc) having been "Too Unlucky To Die", and being Punished to Live, do Community Service & Babysit the survivors of his enemies.

In contrast, Tyrion seems very, very difficult to Redeem: he started as a "good guy", his traumas & his power grabs leading him further past Moral Ambiguity and into Gleeful Villainy. Tyrion's pride would have to suffer a horrific fall or his "success" come at an awful price (e.g. baby Tommen's life &/or King's Landing, a fellow Outcast he Actually Likes being gratuitously [Fridged], "reuniting" with his Even More Traumatised Child Bride & her Inevitable Rejection of him bc CHILD BRIDE).

Tyrion is an Adult in this setting, just like Jaime or Jorah or Jon Connington: they all have Fixations that drive them, traumas that shaped them, varyingly valid justifications for villainy (i am looking at YOU, Jorah)... and they are all have had (or are being set up to hold) Power over much younger characters, orphaned & desperately seeking a Mentor who won't Betray nor Attempt Romance With Them.

Cersei has never been "redeemable" (RIP Melara Hetherspoon) but she is capable of Genuine Goodness... probably (unintentionally? she's a Narcissist: selfless heroics is not her strong suit). I'm uncertain how willing she would be to "change" her "fate" as The Anti-Alicent in a Dance/2nd Conquest/Long Night/War of ?? Queens. Maybe she'll accept Myrcella as her "younger, more beautiful" usurper & realise she Doomed Herself (& countless others but pshht, Lions Care Not The Wellbeing Of [Antelopes]).

Hopefully Bran will be an Anti-Brynden - I made a meta post on "Jojen is Fine, Actually" but its focus was on all the ways Bran is being made into a new Brynden, his only Escape requiring External Influences (Meera with a Lighter; Jojen with Big Sad Eyes; Suddenly A Benjen; un/dead Jon or Catelyn; Meera with a flamethrower; realising he's eating Brynden Paste & that he keeps Breaking Those Taboos Man Must Never Break; Meera with a flintstone axe AND a lighter, etc). Uh. Meera is Kind Of Essential to the survival of Team Cave Kids? Bran just needs to Recognise that & stop seeing her as his Designated Love Interest (she's considered an Adult in their setting, being of age with Jon, & Bran isn't even 10 yet) but his Designated Adult. Meera's motivation is Jojen, Jojen's is Bran, Bran's was "flying" but then the Tree Cult started giving him narcotic Brynden Paste... it's little wonder GRRM is putting off Winds: his lack of Timeskip has severely limited his options in getting the primary cast within each other's geography, let alone realising their common plotlines.

Coldhands, Suddenly A Benjen, Ghost, Melissandre or Suddenly A Giant/Mammoth are kind of GRRM's only options to get Team Cave Kids out of slow & eldritch deaths. If Dany somehow beats Bran to Westeros, I would struggle to understand how he had even survived that long with the Tree Cult. It would be like Arya actually choosing to stay with the Murder Cult instead of Literally Any Alternative Safe Haven (my silver's on Sam, stopping over at Braavos post/mid-Euronpocalypse).

...but, uh, yes. PARALLELS. Ned would be hyperventilating at all his kids getting cast as Targaryens & at the Kingslayer being positioned to be a Criston Cole in their general direction.

JAIME LANNISTER ENDGAME SPECULATION: #2, "Jaime Goldenhand"

~ DEFINITELY spoilers, both book & That Dragon Show, and some diving into other theories in the ASOIAF theory iceberg ~

2. Jaime "Golden Hand"

- for Jaime's sins, he is "rewarded" with what he has always dreaded but has already demonstrated relative competence at: responsibility.

- We Don't Talk About The Dragon Show but its ending for Tyrion actually steals much from what has been foreshadowed for Jaime: Jaime, who has never wanted nor sought out any power save his sword arm, WOULD feel punished by a sentence of lifelong service to The Realm. His most heroic act made him reviled: his kingslaying was the beginnings of his blatantly undermining the stability of Westeros by cuckolding its king, causing a lasting succession crisis, and unwittingly stirring the winds of war in his recklessness & ignorance.

- furthermore, Jaime serving as BRAN STARK'S Hand? tbh, "King Bran" punishing Jaime by installing him as his Hand not only fits all the foreshadowing in their respective character arcs, it ALSO follows logically from their POV of their interactions' ripple effects unto Westeros. Jaime as Hand to King Bran is the ONLY setup of "Bran becomes king" that makes sense to me outside of "Dystopian Weirwood-Police State" Horror Endings or Jojen's filling the role (i don't subscribe to "Jojen Paste": its memetic status baffles me and, like, the 3EC is LITERALLY BECOMING A TREE? and House Blackwood canonically buries its dead beneath its dead weirwood tree, and WEIRWOODS ARE ALREADY PEOPLE: JOJEN'S ABSENCES ARE ALWAYS MEERA'S ABSENCES ANYWAY- *several more allcaps paragraphs*).

[baleriontheblackkitten]

Hello everyone and welcome to my ASOIAF re-read blog!

It's finally time for me to start, although I make no promises about how often I will update.

Context for my re-read: I read the main ASOIAF books (so no F&B and the other stories yet) once, a few years ago now (I started reading them after the end of the tv show, for brain-cleansing reasons). I remember some stuff. I forgot other stuff. Not sure about how much I have forgotten since I have forgotten about it. We'll discover it together!

I do have some theories and spec/mental scenarios for the developments in the next books, that range from spec-that-might-be-proven-right to spec-that-won't-be-proven-right-but-it's-fun-to-speculate-it (probabably it's all the latter, but the thing about spec is that you don't know for sure, ain't that cool?). My theories will probably pop up as I read, be patient if some speculation is blatantly disproven by stuff I have forgotten that I won't have reached yet in my re-read.

Everyone is welcome to discuss their own opinions and spec with me!! I'm super eager to talk about ASOIAF with people ^-^

No character hate or ship wars please. I'm, like, super chill about everyone and everything in the books.

Tag for these posts will be "marghe rereads asoiaf". I have no tagging system for ASOIAF characters and things, I will make it up as I go.

[slaygentford]

umm 1 for asoiaf 2 for classical history & like… 16 for fandom in general!! hehe🔫

the character everyone gets wrong. ned stark. for REAL. ned stark. the big mistake people make with ned is. oh my god wait I just realized something. asoiaf is drag me to hell media bc ned Just Dies like you think he's gonna get out and he doesn't he just dies. anyway I was saying. ned because people always make it a he was a good man/he was a bad man/he was a complicated man thing and that's so far afield from the point... it doesnt matter what kind of man he was it matters that he made a political misstep and got his head chopped off like ned is fundamentally here to illustrate something about westeros/feudal culture to us. the starks are not fundamentally heroes that's the whole thing that's the whole point . like ned is the "hero" who just dies for a reason and its to illustrate that there are no heroes theres people making good and bad decisions. also just the starks in general they are so interesting if you stop basing your whole view of them on Protagonist IT'S AN ENSEMBLE SERIES. im strangling people .

a compelling argument for why your fave would never top or bottom why on earth would you make cicero top 🤔 age discrimination... do you think his heart can handle that?

you can't understand why so many people like this thing (characterization, trope, headcanon, etc) episode fixes tbh I don't want to see your rick and morty spec script I'm here for one thing and one thing only

[daenystheedreamer]

what’s the weirdest thing u did over asoiaf?? spreadlist of names intrigues me

as much as i'd love and i covet ownership of The Spreadsheet it isnt mine! it's available here i spend so much time on it that i can squirrel out if a name has been made up or is canonical EXTREMELY well. i havent done anything extremely weird though... hmm. some chucklable occurances under the cut

a) the ashara dayne x female oc self insert fanfic. again this matter is not to be spoken of nor will i ever release it. it is WIPED from ao3. i did get into an argument in the comments section with a CUNT over it and it was really funny cos when he found out i was a girl (how i ID'd at the time) he was like sorry ma'am my most egregious apologies missus.

b) my season 8 spec fic i wrote at 14 after watching s7 when i was a jonerys (dw i recovered) and the actual battle of winterfell in season 8 was sooooo bad and lame that i predicted most of it. like i had melisandre sacrifice herself and die. actually thats all i remember idk if i predicted anything else. posted on wattpad ofc, on which i had irls following and i know for a FACT one of them read it. jesus christ.

c) watching GOT for the first time in 2017 and getting to the voyeuristic lesbian dany x irri scene from season 1 and realising i recognised it cos i watched it many, many, MANY times as a young homosexual on youtube without realising it was from got

d) ive been using this one family tree site since 2018 to create alternate timeline asoiaf family trees and boy oh boy i currently have TWENTY FOUR asoiaf related family trees created. im terrified that theyre secretly public and the site owners know im using their genealogy site to track generations of invented blorbos. its called familyecho.com! when it added the option to track adoption/polyamory/step parenting Oh My God i went crazy it was so good. and omg they added noble titles and suffixes it fuelled my paranoia that they could See My Blorbos.

[postmodernmulticoloredcloak]

i need to follow more asoiaf blogs, i think i follow... like, 1 active one. i love the fandom spec, over the years i've stumbled over theories that were totally opposite from one another but all intriguing lol. also i want to dive into the fanart. any recs?

[redteabaron]

Why people defend Jon decision about swapping Gilly and mance child? He put Gilly child on risk and bullied her to give up on her kid because he could. I know he didn't want any child to die but couldn't he find another way to deal this situation?

I don't know why people defend this decision of jon's specifically, but I don't really believe we were intended to be "okay" with this decision of his, because obviously there would've been other ways to deal with the situation, but i think those would've been more costly (with lives or the possibility of the withdrawal of any support against the dead immediately) and ultimately stannis wouldn't have let this one just slide, know what I mean? that said...there's no real way to be like "yup okay that's fine". I think it's a shitty, awful decision that ultimately punishes gilly, but I also believe that gilly is a stand-in for another mother who's child may have been switched out to protect the baby with "better standings/more value".

so what we're seeing is absolutely about how gilly, not involved with jon or stannis, is the one punished because she's low-born and when lords play their games it's the people who suffer, and also about jon's actions, but it's also, imo, very in the spirit of "this has happened before and we've seen it" in grrm's way of flagging us to pay attention to this situation and aegon and varys. jon would be playing the part of varys. (and if melisandre and stannis play the part of the tywin lannister and gregor clegane in a way, i wonder if val is meant to be a parallel to elia or at least the closest approximation of a "protector" to the baby)

I think the controversy of the baby switch is to indicate multiple things to us: 1) jon's grayer actions while he's in command and his ability to see those darker actions through if he deems it necessary enough, 2) the likelihood that jon felt this was the only option left in order to trick stannis and that we're meant to see that stannis wouldn't have stood any other alternative besides burning a king's son and how focused he is on power and his right, even if he must do monstrous things to an innocent child 👀, 3) jon's idea of switching a king's son likely isn't original, particularly when we look to the likelihood that varys arranged a switch out for baby aegon and the clues we find throughout asoiaf that point to it

[thebluelemontree]

I don't know if you've already answered a similar question, if you have I apologize and will look better for it. But do you think Sandor and Sansa would still love each with how much they've both changed? They've almost become new people, but still the same beings.

It’s no problem. I’ve written about that here and probably touched on this in many other posts. 

I wouldn’t frame the question as would they “still love each other with how much they’ve both changed.” It implies that their feelings were already understood as love by them when they were together. What they had was a confusing mess of conflicting emotions that neither were fully capable of understanding or accepting at the time. Each had their reasons for why that was so, which goes to some of the issues that stood between them. While there is chemistry, intimacy, and empathy shown, IMO, it’s better to think of them as possessing the building blocks that can lead to love in the future.  

On the other hand, there was also:

The fact that she’s too young, immature, and unready for a consummated romance with anyone. She needs space and time to grow up and figure out what she wants. Until AFFC, she’s still only comfortable consciously fantasizing about Loras Tyrell, who is non-threatening, conventionally attractive, and uncomplicated. They are still relatively chaste/borderline erotic fantasies. The unkiss takes time for her to consciously accept and embrace as reciprocated erotic desire.  

The fact that he has no idea how to express himself without resorting to the language of violence that he understands best.

The fact that he copes with the unresolved childhood trauma and PTSD in unhealthy ways like his abrasive Hound persona, his overly-cynical worldview, and sometimes abusing alcohol when he’s under stress.

His immaturity and inability to simply ask for and accept the emotional support he wants (which she was perfectly willing to give) without freaking out over being vulnerable with someone. 

The fact that they are on opposite sides of a war where Sansa’s family is in open rebellion against her captors who Sandor owes fealty to. 

The fact that she’s the king’s betrothed. She’s his property. To explicitly act upon any romantic attraction would be considered treason, punishable by torture and death.  

The fact that there is a massive class disparity between them that overshadows the age difference in their world. That’s one reason why neither can put a name to this thing between them. A future queen / high lord’s daughter from an ancient house should not be fraternizing with a non-knight from a house only three generations old. That’s why they struggle even knowing what to call each other because using first names shows too much familiarity and intimacy. This would be true even without any of the other conflicts. Class controls everything in Westeros. 

And yes, he still owes her a big heartfelt apology for his abhorrent behavior during the Blackwater, and he should beg her forgiveness.  

Most of these points I elaborate on in more detail in the links above. If you notice, though, most of these things have either been resolved or are in the process of being resolved. None of these issues were ever insurmountable obstacles. 

The ways in which Sansa and Sandor have evolved even in their separation has been largely positive and complementary of each other. They haven’t grown apart or become incompatibly different at all. If anything, it’s pushed their feelings further along, and it’s clear they are very much on each other’s minds. Since we can see Sansa’s perspective firsthand, she’s only thought about Sandor more since he left.  

Sansa has grown and matured a lot more when we see her in the TWOW sample chapter. Had the five-year gap panned out, she would be legally an adult in Westeros; however, dropping it doesn’t seem to have affected GRRM’s intentions for any of his POVs. She’s in the company of unconventional, sexually mature women in their early twenties who can be role models in navigating adult relationships. The sassy way she takes no shit from a brutally honest Harrold Hardyng shows she has confidence and the ability to go toe-to-toe with Sandor’s gruff personality without getting flustered and running away. After she wipes the floor with him with her wit, she ends up winning Harry over to the point he’s begging for her favor. There is no point in the sample chapter where she voices any anxieties about not feeling ready for marriage, sex, or children. This no longer seems to be an issue for her, so we can assume she feels okay with having an adult relationship at this point.   

Her time as a bastard girl has made her warmer and friendlier. She was always kind, but proprieties and courtesies can also read as aloof and re-enforcing strict class boundaries. Can you imagine Kings Landing!Sansa hugging someone like Lothor Brune, a landless knight, as she does in TWOW? Or preferring the company of a sex-positive widow who enjoys taking lovers or a bastard girl over the “perfect sister” she saw in Margaery Tyrell and her cousins? Hell no. That would never happen. This new Sansa lacks those prejudices and is openly affectionate towards people she was raised to keep at arm’s length. Once she loosened up and stopped reciting courtesies, people actually got to know her and like her for who she is. That’s what Sandor always wanted from her, right? To drop the courtesies and flattering bullshit and just be a real person with him, not a talking parrot. While that criticism was harsh and rudely put, it had a lot of truth to it. It seems to have made Sansa into a happier person and more in touch with her authentic self. Now that she has accepted in Feast that she wanted Sandor like that, what is there to stop her from acting on it later?

The Quiet Isle didn’t exist before Feast. It was written for Sandor to recover and rehabilitate. Not just physically, but he’s getting what constitutes psychological counseling and a treatment plan that deals directly with his worst traits. He appears to meet with the Elder Brother often enough because the latter seems to know quite a bit about Sandor’s backstory, what his issues are, and exactly who Sansa Stark is. The rest of the time, he must observe the no talking rule and do meaningful work as a novice. This man, who once flaunted his contempt for those who couldn’t defend themselves as weak and deserving of death, is put to work digging graves for the innocent victims of violence. All day long, he has to look at the faces of men, women, and children killed by evil men with that philosophy. One brother even yells at him for carelessly tossing dirt around with the shovel, and he silently takes it. No smart ass backtalk. In the evening, he has to serve food and clear plates for men he would have once mocked. They’re men of faith, they’ve renounced violence, and Sandor sits lower in status than them. To Sandor’s credit, he humbly submits to all this in a show of respect and humility. It’s like he wants to learn these lessons they are offering and is allowing himself to be schooled. Now Sandor may always be Sandor on some level (if Stranger kicking down the stable doors and refusing to be gelded is any indication). Still, it does look like he’s become a gentler, healthier, and sober version of himself. The only part of Sandor that Sansa rejected was the Hound, and it’s both stated in the text and by George himself that the Hound is dead. Period. And yeah, it seems like Sandor is in a place where he is unlikely to backslide into old behavior, and he can make that heartfelt and necessary apology to Sansa. I don't think Sandor could ever be okay with moving their relationship forward without making amends first. It wouldn't sit right with his sense of remorse and personal responsibility, which is a good thing. 

All these changes are for the better for them as individuals and as a possible future couple. Contrary to your ask, I would say a positive, fully-fledged romance with "HEA" potential wouldn’t be possible or believable without all the growth and changes they've undergone. When they reunite, they can do so on more equal footing. 

Not that there aren’t more conflicts to overcome. They both are currently wanted fugitives for murders they didn’t commit, so they both need to clear their names and reclaim their true identities. There is still the matter of Sansa’s marital status as Tyrion isn’t dead but their marriage was also unconsummated. She could try to have her marriage officially annulled by the Faith somehow, but to do that, she’ll have to take the risk of revealing her true identity. Again, these don’t seem like plots that won’t be resolved anyway at some point. What about that class divide though? Well, the Starks aren’t like Tywin or Cersei, and they actually value things like faithful service. No reason why Sandor couldn’t be awarded a lordship and lands in gratitude for saving the lives of both Arya and Sansa. I’m just sayin’.  

[esther-dot]

Hi Esther!

Would you have a tag (or tags) that I can follow for asoiaf theories and metas on your blog? I feel like I am far behind in terms of fandom speculation/theories that have come out and would really like to catch up.

Thank you <3

Sadly, I was not good about tagging when I first joined the fandom, and I’m still not consistent. 🫣 But I looked around and have found some stuff you might enjoy.

I like these posts about Dany's relationships with her nephews as being foreshadowed by her interactions with Rhaegal (Jon) and Viserion (Aegon). This post about potential foreshadowing for Dany to kill Aegon. This spec about Dany v Aegon and Jon betraying her. This one, about how killing Aegon will not be the victory she expects, and some parallels between him and Robb .

I have a tag for Dance of Dragons 2.0, but the better one to peruse is prolly sayruq's on that topic. Also, just so you know, the fandom at large seems to think "mummer's dragon" means Aegon is fake, but we tend to believe he's Elia's son and that that's about Jon. I'd recommend reading Aegor's tag for more general Aegon content.

I can't find any specific book meta about how the Starks will defeat the Others at the moment, although I linked to a meta about it happening at Winterfell in this post. If anyone has a post they like or wrote on it, please send it catofoldstone's way!

Let's see...I haven't been doing a good job keeping up with meta for the past year, but I think there's good stuff in the Stark v Tag tag which has foreshadowing for conflict between wolf and dragon and spec about Arya and/or Jon assassinating Dany. Oh, here's the tag talking about foreshadowing for Dany to face-off with Euron which I find interesting spec. I do have a few tags I’ve tried to remember to use more, Book Jonsa, R+L=J, King Bran, The Girl in Grey. This post about the Ashford Tourney Theory has links for meta on that (it's a beloved Jonsa theory), and I have a few additional things tagged for it. I also have this post with some favorite Jonsa metas. The Sansa and Lyanna tag has been fun due to @please-dot's eye for parallels.

theusurpersdog doesn't seem to be active any longer, but their posts on Dark Dany are very good. This one has links to the previous ones in their series on her. I like this one about book Jon as well.

I enjoyed howlandreads writing (also inactive), especially this post, Feminine Rebellion in ASOIAF.

Reading trinuviel's post about Dany being Azor Ahai (but that being a bad thing!) was formative for me, so even though I feel like I link that a lot, I shall again! This is the final post in the series and has links to the previous entries.

Fedonciadale is someone I thought of as our very own ASOIAF expert. She passed away a year ago, but I’d encourage you to look through her masterlist. She was a fan of LOTR and Martin is a huge fan (he said he regularly rereads it), so I was very interested in the parallels she found between the two series.

I’m not sure if you were around for this, but Istumpy did a reread project and you can find links to each of those posts in this master post. You may want to look at the summaries for each book in that post to find where the foreshadowing for a specific topic is and approach it that way.

The one meta by someone beyond our corner of the fandom that I think about often is that famous series of essays on Dany because Martin endorsed them. It was written years and years ago, and after reading Martin's words on it, it's hard to understand how Dark Dany is treated as a fringe theory or rejected as part of shipping wars.

I hope you find something you enjoy somewhere in all of that!

[visenyaism]

house hightower did clearly learn from the dance of the dragons as demonstrated by Leyton Hightower deciding to let HIS weird lesbian daughter stay single and spend her time trying to learn how to do wizard spells in the garage with him instead of making her marry into the royal family. otto take notes

[calamity-bean]

Excuse the unedited excited rambling here, but I really do go a bit wild when I think about how many of my favorite characters are, last we saw them, all palling around in the southwestern Vale or northeastern Riverlands, practically within A STONE’S THROW of each other...... Jaime and Brienne near Pennytree, likely headed southeast toward where we last saw Lady Stoneheart (and Gendry!), near the crossroads inn...... which is not far at all from the Quiet Isle and Sandor...... and from there you just keep heading east a little longer and you run right into Sansa at the Gates of the Moon! And yeah, there’s travel time between all these places, I’m not suggesting they’re right next door, but considering how far flung many of the characters have become by now?? It’s not much!

And considering EVERYTHING going on with Sansa’s arc right now -- people flocking from all over for the tourney! Sweetrobin being slowly poisoned! Shadrich very probably knowing who she really is! -- I can dream up more than a couple ways some of their paths might cross. Nearby characters might be drawn from the Riverlands to the Vale for the tourney... Sansa might wind up suddenly rushing down to the Riverlands, whether of her own will or to flee or even while being abducted. Characters in ASoIaF sometimes do wind up this close to one other and yet just miss each other, like ships in the night, but man, I’m hoping for some sort of convergence this time. Sandor I won’t really count on -- I don’t want him to stay retired, but I won’t discount the possibility that he might be staying on the QI for good -- but if Sansa ran into Jaime and/or Brienne and/or, y’know, HER UNDEAD MOTHER... Oh man. Oh man. Just imagine.

At the very least, it seems almost certain that we’re gonna get Jaime, Brienne, and Lady Stoneheart all together, and even if Sansa doesn’t cross paths with any of the others... I will disappointed, but I’m still reeaally interested in this whole tourney situation. I wanna see more of Mya and Myranda and Shadrich. I wanna see the tourney itself; in its scope and in Sansa’s deep investment, it already feels like an echo of the Hand’s tourney, which was a really thematically rich part of Sansa’s AGoT chapters, and I wanna see more of her within the context of this tourney compared to that first one. Overall, I just really feel like the plot points in the Vale are building to something BIG for Sansa. Bigger than, say, simply revealing herself and marrying Harry and rallying forces to reclaim Winterfell, as is supposedly Petyr’s plan. I feel like the situation is ripe for something to go WRONG up there, to go very much NOT the way Petyr has planned, and oh boy am I eager to see what it might be.

[postmodernmulticoloredcloak]

@nobodysuspectsthebutterfly replied to your post “i need to follow more asoiaf blogs, i think i...”:

not to toot my own horn, but I post a lot of fanart every day, and occasionally theories and humorous posts. though it is a personal blog so I post other things too, but usually more than half the day is my queued asoiaf posts

​excellent! i'd dabble in some spec but it's been a while since i read the books and i don't remember a lot of what happened in it super clearly, so i'm not sure it would be of any worth 😅

i should reread the books but. with what time and spoons lol

[fedonciadale]

Sorry I’m back...what’s the point of Varys sending out all those letters?! Seriously what’s the point of all these breadcrumbs if they amount to nothing ? I need to know narratively what happened here?

Dear nonny,

I wish I could answer you these questions. The thing is, that I am still hopeful, that RLJ was not for nothing and that it’s purpose was not only for driving Dany further down the lane of ruthlessness.

The leaks might be false after all and the story might still come to a satisfying conclusion.

I am quite sure though, that whatever happens, that there will be many questions we’ll never get the answer to. I fear, that we will never have certainty about Political Jon. Many plot points were not addressed. Nobody asked after Littlefinger, what happened to the Red Priesst who helped Dany. What happened in Essos? Is it all chaos?

We’ll never know, because D&D are too sloppy to tie up lose ends. They do not write a story, no development, their writing is all set on reaching important plot points.

Take Cleganebowl for example. It had to happen some time, but it could have happened anywhere, anytime. There was no need for it episode 5. It is as if D&D just tick boxes.

Night King dead, done.

DarkDany, done.

Cleganebowl, done.

The thing is, I would really like to know what boxes are left to tick….Guess, we’ll see on Sunday (Monday for me).

Thanks for the ask!