#maybe fAegon

[notfeelingthyaster]

i like how the ao3 tags are "Rhaenys Targaryen (Daughter of Elia)" and "Aegon Targaryen (Son of Elia)" yes yes they are her children <3333 her babies only hers

[sillyzombiedelusion]

Idk why it took me until yesterday to realize that young griff could be "the sun's son'' bc his mom (allegedly) would be Elia. I've been thinking of dramatic work arounds where Dany just interpreted the warning wrong and it was meant as "the son's son" as in Rhaegar's son, because I forgot about Elia (Also this would make him first cousins with Quentyn which is also wild to me for some reason).

[visenyaism]

thinking about how dany would feel finding out she's not a natural targaryen child (i have a few ideas about how this would go, but for arguments sake let's say blackfyre) so secret blackfyre and how that would come in to play with faegon and the potential that maybe he IS aegon and the conflict of heritage versus dragons BUT ALSO her rationality when it comes to ruling, prophecy, and ego..............................the bells. joncon. the death of dragons book. speak to me on this.

who is going to call the only person in the world with dragons illegitimate. she literally has the targaryen mandate of heaven with that. came into all of this power that her ancestors used as a blank check to conquer and build a kingdom and decided to use it to try and liberate the enslaved instead. her problem is that she is constantly putting others needs above herself because she is so stressed out about being a perfect symbol of a ruler for the thousands of people relying on her to please any of them it’s not that she has a big ego

honestly her name is also holding her back because her whole thing is what she REALLY wants is to have a home for herself and to liberate the oppressed and BECAUSE she’s a targaryen and also has terrible self interested advisors she thinks the only way to do those things is to go to westeros and take the throne. if for whatever reason she thought she wasn’t a real targaryen it would immediately unlock the option of just building a better society she is at home in in essos. I feel like in that hypothetical. She has an identity crisis and then realizes she doesn’t want to go to that nasty continent full of stupid political drama when she can just build a city with red doors on the ashes of volantis

[amaltheas-garden]

What do you think of the crazy Daenerys fans who hate Jon but like Lyanna and Rhaegar and think Jon is a threat to Daenerys?

I'm pretty sure that's why so many Dany fans ship her with Jon, because they know that if they're enemies, it's not gonna end in Dany's favor. Personally, I've always maintained that Jon won't gaf about the Iron Throne, so they really have nothing to worry about. If Jon becomes king, it will be as KitN/King Beyond the Wall, he'd be miserable in the South! The North is the only place that's ever been his home, and he has a deep spiritual attachment to it, so I just can't envision him going "yeah I totally want to be ruler of the entirety of Westeros and deal with each of these houses' internal squabbles with each other!". Becoming Lord of Winterfell/KitN is a far more emotionally fulfilling ending for him imo. As far as Dany fans loving Lyanna/Rhaegar but hating Jon, I think it mostly has to do with them wanting Dany to be Rhaegar's only true heir, and Jon not being "worthy" of carrying on the Targ legacy if he does press his claim. Which, they're kind of right? Dany is the one constantly thinking of her brother/trying to carry on his legacy/fighting for Targ restoration so it does seem unfair for her to be the one carrying the burden of her fallen house only for Rhaegar's secret son to swoop in at the last moment to steal her claim. Again, I don't think Rhaegar will be that important to Jon, seeing as he already had an incredible father figure; it was the mother he was missing. I think fAegon is the missing piece in setting up the Dany-Jon conflict, as fAegon beat her to KL, and will likely be in control by the time Dany finds out and has to rush her armies to Westeros. One mystery son of Rhaegar pulling the rug out from under her, only for another one to show up?? After fAegon is dealt with, she won't make the same mistake twice. Jon is just in the unlucky position of being a threat to Dany whether he wants it or not. As Rhaegar's last male heir, and a native Westerosi with the backing of the North, Dany is rightfully going to be concerned, and it sucks that the only way to neutralize this threat to her reign is by marrying the guy. I think the fandom tends to brush over how difficult it would be for J/D to coexist and not be married, seeing as it would hinge on people telling her how honorable Jon is and him pinky promising to never usurp her, and her deciding that's enough after his half-brother almost took everything from her. If Dany let the North secede entirely from the 7K, then maybe, but it's really unlikely she'd allow that. Which leaves J/D marriage or J/D enemies as the only viable options to how their conflict could end, which if the show is anything to go by... it's not looking good for Dany. So yeah, I get why they might see Jon as a threat, but if they care about Dany sitting the throne and, well... living, shipping J/D is probably the better bet. I've outlined in another post why J/D as a ship makes no sense, but this post is already too long ;).

[catofoldstones]

The Ashford Theory and my patience running thin

Welcome, welcome my guys, gals and non-binary pals, to another scream into the void that the Ashford theory is, in fact, very jonsa

On to the arguments!

1. The suitor has to have the correct last name, not family, look at Joffrey Baratheon, you stupid jonsa

Hypothesis - the suitor has to have the corresponding name, not family, and because Jon is a Snow he’s out of the running. The other prong is fAegon who is actually a Blackfyre and not Targeryen, who can also be the suitor.

Thesis - Joffrey is the only other suitor to have a different name. Joffrey and Jon have also been set up as foils from the start of AGOT. Joffrey is a bastard masquerading as the rightful king and Jon is the rightful king (thrice crowned) masquerading as a bastard. It makes sense that they are the only two suitors to have the wrong name as this establishes them as inverses in another way. The last suitor being the foil of the horrible first suitor thereby showing character growth, and plot progression and resolution? Count me in.

As for Young Griff being a Blackfyre, here’s a meta or two, maybe even an argument, for him being the real Aegon VI Targaryen but take my personal fav evidences of Tyrion figuring out that Young Griff is Aegon VI Targaryen and then, Varys literally telling a dying Kevan Lannister about the true Targaryen prince and why would you lie to a dying man? How does that serve your purpose?

This is literally grrm telling us who Young Griff actually is, though this does not count him I out of the contenders, it reduces the weight of him being the fifth suitor, due to story arcs and well, his doomed fate.

Conclusion - While Aegon VI is a strong contender, there is much, much more literary weight and nuance with Jon being the Targaryen suitor.

2. Lady Ashford was not crowned the Queen of Love and Beauty by any champion!!! Take that jonsas

Hypothesis - tQoLaB is a title analogous to a betrothal/love interest

Thesis - there have been no allusions to the title of tQoLaB while trying to foreshadow a relationship, except for a really, really bad one (r + l) that plunged the whole realm into a civil war and we should not take that as a good sign

Conclusion - we’re grasping at straws here besties

3. Dunk disrupted the Ashford Tourney, therefore Sxndxr will disrupt Sansa’s prospects and other things

Hypothesis - Dunk & Sxndxr are are analogous and since there was no conclusion to the Tourney we can safely assume that it’s sxnsxn foreshadowing

Thesis - Brienne is the Dunk asoiaf corollary, not Sxndxr. Brienne is theorized to be Dunk’s descendant. She even has her shield painted like Dunk’s, apart from their striking character parallels and being a true foil to all the other knights in the story. Mr. Gravedigger is just tall :/

“Your door reminded me of an old shield I once saw in my father’s armory.”

Brienne II, AFFC

Brienne has Dunk’s shield in her family home possibly because she’s a descendant of Dunk but then goes ahead and gets her shield painted exactly like this one

“[The painted shield] was more a picture than a proper coat of arms, and the sight of it took her back through the long years, to the cool dark of her father’s armory. She remembered how she’d run her fingertips across the cracked and fading paint, over the green leaves of the tree, and along the path of the falling star.”

Brienne II, AFFC

Secondly, just because the tourney did not have a (satisfactory) conclusion does not mean that the tourney did not exist to serve a purpose. I doubt grrm would likely give out his whole story as early as 1998.

Conclusion - BRIENSA 4eva!!!!!

4. Valarr Targaryen died of a sickness and Aegon VI is doomed to die and is connected to a sickness, are you looking at the nerves popping out of my thick, brainy skull

Thesis - the fifth suitor is 100% Aegon and there’s no one else

Hypothesis - there is a Targaryen.. currently dead.. in the books… (thnk u @istumpysk for ur galaxy brain). The plague in the story serves to connects Aegon more to Dany than to a northern girl he doesn’t know about and might not like since she’s a Stark and his mother is Elia Martell.

Conclusion - jonsa

5. This is all a coincidence & u jonsas are reaching as always

Hypothesis - though george is known to tie every deep end, every crack theory, even farfetched ones that the readers have not caught, this one thing completely skipped his notice because exceptions are always there

Thesis - yes, because this is acotar & not asoiaf and he’s not grrm, i am

Conclusion - JONSAAAAAAAAAAAA

[travllingbunny]

Yoy think Daenerys will turn evil in the books?

No. I also don't think she will go mad.

I do think she will get darker and more ruthless in The Winds of WInter. So will Jon Snow. In Dany's case it will be because she tried to repress the "dragon" side of her nature and made too many compromises in Meereen in ADWD, which she will realize was a mistake, symbolically embracing her dragon side now that she's with Drogon and has become his rider, but she may go too far into the other direction.

She will also at some point meet Tyrion, who will become her advisor - and Tyrion is definitely in his dark phase already and full of rage and desire for revenge against his family - especially his siblings, so he is certainly not going to be a moderating, level-headed influence.

I think, on the personal level, TWOW Jon Snow will be darker and more terrifying than Dany, and maybe more than Tyrion too, once he comes back from the dead (probably after spending some time in Ghost) - because he has the mystical storyline of getting resurrected, in addition to the man/direwolf duality and symbiosis. GRRM has made it clear many times that he thinks any storyline of someone getting resurrected must include a heavy price, and that it can't be just someone being the same or having even bigger powers. However, Jon Snow being even more terrifying than Dany and Tyrion on the personal level would be off-set by the fact that Dany is a dragonrider with control over two more dragons, which gives her a lot of potentially destructive power. (This may change when/if Jon gets to ride a dragon too, but Dany will already have that kind of power when she gets to Westeros.)

I think we're in for a very dark penultimate novel, where our protagonists will do a lot of troubling and maybe destructive things. But I don't think any of them are meant to end up their arcs as evil. It would especially be weird for Dany. GRRM has already written a "mad Queen/evil Queen" character, who loves fire, doesn't care for the lives of most people, and has been compared to Aerys - it's Cersei. So why would he make Dany go mad and evil too? Dany and Jon are parallels to each other. Dany and Cersei, on the other hand, are written to be two powerful women who are complete opposites as people and rulers (even with some of the similar experiences), so it makes no sense for them to end up both evil and mad, unless the author is trying to say women rulers are bad in general, which I really can't see GRRM deciding to do. And Dany constantly questioning her actions and her sanity (something a malignant narcissist like Cersei never does) is another reason why her going evil and/or insane would be extremely unsatisfying.

I think that the show plot of King's Landing getting destroyed will happen in the books as the tragic result of the Dany/fAegon civil war, and that it will probably be due to several factors including Dany's dragons ( it would be both/either due to her her determination to be harsh to her enemies and/or inability to fully control Drogon). stashes of wildfire in the city, and Jon Connington likely doing something extreme. He is the one who is likely to get triggered by the sound of bells, because it reminds him of his loss at the Battle of Bells, which has haunted him since, and he has already decided that he has to be more extreme and ruthless, like Tywin, in order to win this time.

In any case, I think whatever happens makes Dany decide that fighting for the Iron Throne was wrong and makes her want to redeem herself, and that her ultimate fate is to fight the Others, which has been foreshadowed. And if I'm certain of anything about ASOIAF, it's that the Long Night will not be the short, anticlimactic affair it was in the show - it will be the big, final showdown, because it has always been strongly implied that this is what the humans in the story really need to focus on, instead of fighting each other over power.

[greenaswildfire]

After George's post I caught myself thinking: It would be so tragic Dany yearning so much for a family but thanks to her "be a dragon side", the only time when she listens to it she kills fAegon, the only family she has left. I'm even starting to think that fAegon is in fact Rhaegar's son. (and maybe, just maybe, that the fake targaryen is Dany, I'm still reading about the theory so don't stone me stans, it's a theoryyyyyy)

If Martin wrote it as some sort of History-repeats-itself-with-minor-tweaks to the Dance with Aegon II and Rhaenyra, then yeah, this time it will be Daenerys on the iron throne, but instead of physically broken like Aegon II, she'll be mentally broken for, among other things, never being sure whether or not Aegon was fake given she was told she would be betrayed thrice. And just like Rhaenyra and Aegon II, she won't live long.

[amber-laughs]

faegon should get to languish privilegedly in dany’s court like that one blackfyre

just meander around in luxury for the rest of his life i mean sure they might have to muzzle him from time to time but he’s actually living a waking nightmare right now and it’s only going to get worse i’d be shocked if he isn’t suicidal before he dies so yes! fluffed pillows, maybe a cavalier king charles spaniel to keep in his lap since he can’t have a dragon, just straight vibin for the rest of his days after being forced to grieve a life he never lost and uphold a dynasty that was never his. please someone just feed him a lemon cake

[horizon-verizon]

The ASOIAF fandom discourse online is dominated by bitter incels and male supremacists who were infuriated that Stannis, the character they projected onto got a (GRRM confirmed canon) villainous ending so they’ve tried to manipulate and dominate discourse around Stannis and Daenerys for years. I’m happy to see the tide to turn in our favor and Daenerys’ fans critiquing and pushing back against their laughable essays and podcasts.

Anyone with a brain and reading comprehension skills can clearly see that Stannis, FAegon and Euron Greyjoy are foils to Daenerys’s hero’s journey, the “lies she must slay”, anyone who says otherwise is a side character/NPC stan, a contrarian or misogynist.

It's so interesting that Dany is the "slayer of lies" in such a big way, it really gets into an inevitable intersection of philosophy and politics. I wrote a anti-Euron Greyjoy post HERE,

So I won't get into why Euron is a "liar" and a "Father" of lies both the normal way and a sort of spiritual way where he's looking to just exploit magic, belief systems like the Seven, and people through magic to dominate others and realize a dream of being a "god". And because he's supposedly inspiring and charming and seemingly devoted to his crew, he also seems to inspire a lot of blind loyalty.

So he often reminds me of a wannabe cult leader, megalomaniac as he is. It parallels the horror of the Greyjoys' invasion of the Riverlands pre-Conquest, which brings up some interesting queries of Dany re-represented by her ancestor Aegon I (who though not altruistic seeming, maybe) burning down Harrenhal to a less-maintain husk of itself, even thought still "inhabitable." The ironborn, specifically Harren Hoare and his ancestors later, also drove several people many people (esp lower classed) to death to build their castle (as Maegor did the Keep)...

Anyway, FAegon is probably not only not Rhaegar & Elia's son and thus not a claimant, the people who have raised him up (possible Blackfyre supporters) have constructed lies around him to try to control the future throne that way. A simulation of autonomy.

Finally, Stannis doesn't believe in the religion he's using for his own ends, but he does see the results of its very real magic. And as as a TikToker named HallowedHArpy notes, he not only doesn't believe in this god that Melisandre worships and is suing Stannis for to spread the religion, she herself was a real slave and is still a sort of "slave" to the priests' construction of the faith of R'hollor. She is an agent of this spread of religious lies about the Azor Ahai and she will go through a crisis where she realizes it was Dany all along. Which will be painful...as fire is both a cleanser and inflicts pain that can "shock" a thing out of it current state.

Those men & every Dany anti/doubter prefer to think of this fantasy series as purely political...too bad for them.

[kiefbowl]

Okay, but do you have thoughts on Danny/her arc? (I still do not know how to spell her name lol)

(Asking bc I read an interesting take on her arc/the last seasons devolution into a mad queen that was from a feminist perspective and I liked it BUT it was solely about GOT not the books so I’m curious)

If D&D didn't just pull that out of their asses, and were making something out of info GRRM handed to them, then what the Mad Queen Arc is going to be is propaganda, because Dany will fly over to Westeros too late and fAegon (a character not in the show) will already have either established his kingship (after Cersei blows up the sept/King's Landing with wildfire, which is very in line with her character and very set up in the books, and is removed from power) OR at least has a sizable following backing him. That's at least something I can see fit.

Dany will not just go crazy, or if she does it will be from a lot of understandable circumstances. The idea that "madness" is "in her blood" that will just turn on is absolutely 1000% not going to happen in the books, and her burning King's Landing on a dime is like...it's weird. Maybe she gets bad advisement from her council, maybe she can't control Drogon and only means to burn the castle, idk but just indiscriminately killing smallfolk and then having a Fascist Coded speech about freeing people from slavery and then getting killed is so not in line with Dany.

Now...Dany at the end of ADWD does appear to be choosing "Fire and Blood" over Peace, which could manifest in all sorts of ways. But ultimately, GRRM didn't write the Meereen arc so we can think "oh, she's secretly evil all along for freeing slaves," it's to demonstrate in the game of politics and the pursuit of peace, you are constantly compromising on your morals, and your decisions come with consequences even if they were ultimately good decisions. GRRM says constantly that the "only thing worth writing about is the human heart in conflict with itself." So Dany frees slaves, but doesn't know how to feed them, and Dany takes over a city to ensure her slaves remain free, but then needs to learn how to compromise with the people she's conquered for the sake of peace, and Dany punishes a handful of people harshly and even by death, but she is in constant turmoil of whether it was a good or just decision. Dany wants peace, justice, and freedom over all else. She wants to go "home" but she doesn't have a home, and she has a lot of people descending on her wanting her to go to Westeros, which she believes right now is supposed to be her home, but she's an exiled princess...it isn't her home. She will help fight the White Walkers in some form, she will fight for her claim, it's probably not going to work out for her especially with fAegon, and with Jon eventually learning his dad was Rhaegar (people are convinced he'll be a legitimate child in the books for some reason, because that's the way the show went. Not necessarily, but Rhaegar being his father will still be politically important either way).

Dany might be "Nissa Nissa" and have to die to let Jon save the day. Honestly, I hate that and hope that's something GRRM subverts. I'd rather Dany realize home is with the Dothraki, and she creates a new female led culture with them...but idk, the evidence is thin on the ground for that. Unfortunately for my girl, I think she's headed for tragedy, but we'll see.

[notfeelingthyaster]

faegon being aegon or faegon or blackfyre or dragonseed or varys' secret child: who cares, he's a loser

he needs to marry his probable aunt so hard bc his claim is as flimsy as his hair color, and she is the one with actual dragons and armies (he has the golden company which is nothing to scoff at but it actually doesn't help to disprove he is a blackfyre) and a conquesting story

sucks to suck, loser (i actually love him) (but he is a big ass loser)

[daenystheedreamer]

I love Varys so much he's the definition of never let them know your next move. what is he doing exactly who could possibly say. is it faegon throne plot maybe. is it Dany throne plot maybe. is it a secret third thing maybe. and whenever he brings someone 'into the fold' he always does drag as an initiation like that's so unbelievably cunt. there's no reason to do that but he does it. the fact that he's the only person (that I can think of lol) that has a signature scent in asoiaf other than like piss and shit, like cunt to the extreme.

yesssss i love him i love his mystique i love him as sort of a parallel to melisandre? or at least if his trajectory is towards being a faegon/blackfyre loyalist (im a varys blackfyre truther for the fun of it). i love him saying all that shit to kevan and maybe he was straight up lying and still did that. i love how his character plays with gender and the expectations of gender in this society. he's a great character in the realm of worldbuilding pun intended, in the way that he's so deeply entrenched in this world. you get so much information on the richness of this world grrm has created through this character. OOF i love him. if i was isekai'd to westeros i would befriend varys immediately not even as a survival thing i just wanna Lets Have A Kiki by the scissor sisters with varys<3 not a fan of him being friends with illyrio though cos i hate illlyrio on principle (slave owner, sex creep, blonde) :/ i like how faegon is surrounded by morally questionable lgbtqs and varys IS included #gnc #femmerealness #beatfacecontoured

[theredpharaoah]

Dragonbinder is so nonsensical. A horn, some blood, and a sacrifice is all it takes for some random to claim a dragon? Yet in the thousands of years Valyria ruled, not one of their enemies could manage to steal a dragon? Maybe you could say Ghis and the Andals had no magical knowledge, but you can’t say that of the Rhoyne. GRRMS magical system is vibes and blood. He says all ritual is arbitrary(one thing he gets right) and magic is innate to certain people. So the Rhoynish’s mastery of water magic would’ve definitely allowed them to engineer their own dragon horns. Everyone knew Valyrian magic was based on Fire and Blood and it doesn’t seem to have even originated with them - having most likely come from the people of Asshai. Horns and spells are said to have been used to control dragons by Valyrians but the Targs never had to use them so I think that’s bullshit. Unless they made them for non-Valyrians they adopted to ride dragons I’m not buying it.

And as if this whole lil horn thing wasn’t bad enough, he seems to be implying that Victarion is going to be the one to steal Rhaegal. Victarion Greyjoy, the grey bullock(whatever that is). Unambitious, dutiful, and dim Victarion. “Dumb as a stump”, “dullard and brutish”, Victarion is going to gain a dragon and ride off to glory. He’s somehow going to outsmart his much more intelligent brother; the psychopathic magician Euron. All with the help of a horn Euron gave him and a random Flame Priest. Victarion. Not fAegon. Not Jon Snow. Not Tyrion. Not Arianne Martell. Not Bran. Hell, not Arya. Victarion. The Ironborn will succeed in attaining a power Old Ghis, The Rhoyne, and probably countless other literate and intelligent civilizations failed to. The Ironborn….hmmm.

Moquorro says: "I have seen you in the nightfires, Victarion Greyjoy. You come striding through the flames stern and fierce, your great axe dripping blood, blind to the tentacles that grasp you at wrist and neck and ankle, the black strings that make you dance."

The men of the fandom seem to be all over Victarion because they like dumb asses who swing weapons around, revels in raiding, murder, rape, and kidnaps ppl to bring home as sex slaves or just regular slaves(Salt wives and thralls are slaves regardless of what the illiterate squid cult says). They consider that to be badass I suppose. I don’t. I will drop this series like a sack of hot potatoes if Victarions gets Rhaegal. Nothing would piss me off more than that. And no I’m not asking him to care - I doubt he will ever even know. But this is my blog so I’m talking about me.

[esther-dot]

What is your opinion on why fAegon was left out of Game of Thrones? I've always thought it's because the true endgame will be between Jon and Dany, so the showrunners were fine with leaving him out.

I agree with you. It's very odd to me how many book fans insisted D&D took the story in a totally different direction overall, when I thought the streamlining of the series (cutting cast, settings) is a natural part of adapting a work. I've seen very simple stories (in comparison to ASOIAF) get paired down to nothing, but the nothing that is left, the endpoints are generally the same. Just think of any classic literature that's been adapted. Sometimes, even with the endpoints, the movie tries to make a point that's in defiance of the author's sentiments, but even so, usually, the characters still arrive at the same spot.

Obviously, how far off D&D were with interpreting characters, how often they simply reassigned storylines, how badly written the later seasons were gave a lot of support to people who believed this, but I've often thought there was a lot of wishful thinking behind it when it came to people saying actually, Stannis isn't gonna burn his daughter, Cersei is the mad queen, Jon Con will burn KL, it's Arya who will reunite with Jon and become QitN, etc etc.

To me, D&D didn't understand the core ideas or just valued hype more, and therefore, doing justice to Dorne and Arianne and Aegon seemed unnecessary. It probably just seemed to add confusion where they desperately needed to start coalescing the story in order to bring it to an end.

Also, having Aegon is a big indicator that Dany is not the hero everyone makes her out to be because whether he is or isn't who he believes he is, Dany is going to decide that she must rule, and she will go to war with another Targ (or someone people accept as one), to do so which makes her actions not about benefiting anyone but herself. So, perhaps the major reason they needed to not do Aegon was to preserve the surprise? The Lannisters were very popular too, so if he is the one that ends them (and I think that is more satisfying than Dany doing it), including him would have meant a loss they weren't sure his presence would compensate for. I've suggested that if they ever do another remake, they need to include Dorne/Aegon from very early on and that the tension needs to be about the inevitability of our three Targs (Jon, Dany, Aegon) coming into conflict, not an attempt to pretend like that wont happen. Maybe someday!

[lemonhemlock]

I'm a 'Martin won't ever publish another ASOIAF book' truther but in addition to King Bran being profoundly idiotic, Martin has major structural issues that are now too 'big' to 'fix' imo. Namely, the ages of the characters are ridiculous and are all wrong for where their arcs need to go. The characters on the show were aged up and even the younger ones grew up on screen so Bran and Sansa and Arya were at least into late teens/adulthood at the end of the show - one is 13 and other is currently 11 and Bran is like, what, 8 in books? sksksksksk Just absolutely disastrous.

The characters should have been in their mid to late teens at the start of AGOT, at minimum. Especially because Martin essentially treated them, and has them act, like adults. I'm sorry, but I don't think that man has any understanding between the mental and physical developmental differences between, say, a 14 year old girl and a 17 year old girl. Every character appears and acts like they are anywhere from 3 to 5 years older than they are.

Also, the POV structure, while interesting, has also been disastrous in actually getting the story moving because certain characters have to be in certain places for things to happen while others are just sitting around killing time.

Hmmm, I don't really agree about the POV structure. It functioned fine for three books and offered compelling court drama, battles, magical elements and intriguing plot-twists. AGOT / ACOK / ASOS are pretty well paced and I've even seen someone making the case that the series could even have ended in that point and would have been one of the best fictional fantasy experiments. I found myself agreeing and disagreeing. I think the ASOS ending would have still distinguished ASOIAF from other fantasy series in its toppling of the good-guys-win-everything type of wrap-up, but it would be way less ambitious than what GRRM ended up pursuing.

The pacing problems came about with AFFC/ADWD. And I'm not one to talk here, because I'm an AFFC truther and it's always been my favourite of the series, so my two cents on this is that Dany's Slaver's Bay plotline is too damn long. Tyrion is also taking too damn long to get to her. It's a drag. In the book she is supposed to solve the Quaithe riddle,* escape Vaes Dothrak, get herself an army + navy, make the decision to leave Slaver's Bay AND sail to Westeros, so that in TWOW she can fight Young Gryff, face-off the Others, become a mask-off tyrant AND get deposed? It's a lot.

I honestly think he should just give up the 7 book compartmentation, admit defeat and just add another damn book to the series to get Dany to Westeros and fit in his fAegon plotline. It's not like he doesn't have the pages. No one's gonna care if there are 8 books instead of magic no 7. But my guess is that he's hung up over some decisions he's made in the past and kept trying to make the gargantuan plot fit inside this neat box he envisioned - 7 books, King Bran, Caesar!Jon etc. It would explain why he tried a time skip between ASOS and AFFC and had to scrap it - it would make more sense for the Stark children to be older. But he characterized himself as a gardener-style writing who doesn't plan everything in advance and lets the story grow organically. In that case, he should make allowances if the story grew in a direction he did not initially predict and make the required changes! Maybe King Bran made sense when he first wrote the initial three-book outline, but that was a long time ago & many other plot points changed.

My advice is to just stop trying to make the plot fit the previous designs, stay true to the way the characters evolved and respect the themes you've painstakingly developed over the course of nearly 30 years. Otherwise what's the point? If your original ending doesn't fit anymore, think of another ending ffs. The show is irrelevant at this point, so what if the endgame will be different? IDK, I'd be thinking that this is my life's work and I have every right to do it justice. Perhaps that's what he's thinking too and why it's taking him so long.

I agree that the ages of the characters are ridiculous, but if a time skip really, really can't fit anywhere, it's better to compromise on the age issue and leave off with a teen monarch than it would be to impose a surveillance state in Westeros as the solution with all-seeing, all-knowing Bran. That's a starkly dystopic ending, if you ask me.

Not to mention that it clashes directly with the end of magic - how is Bran supposed to be the Tree of Sauron if there's no magic anymore and everything goes back to normal? On what basis does he even get to be king at all if he's just a regular boy? How will he even survive being pulled out of the weirwood net if magic leaves the realm of men?

*“To go north, you must journey south. To reach the west, you must go east. To go forward you must go back, and to touch the light you must pass beneath the shadow.” JFC, if Dany has to get to Asshai, I will fucking scream.

[gwenllian-in-the-abbey]

Do you have favorite noncanon ships in asoiaf/f&b ?

Hi anon, fun question! I think most of my ships are technically non-canon? I definitely like my crackships.

Well, if you've found my blog you probably know that I would have solved the Dance with Aegon II/Baela Targaryen, but in case you didn't, please climb aboard this ship. @aifsaath and I have a post-Dance fic we're co-writing about them (and individual projects as well).

Jace/Cregan is one of those ships that feels like canon, even though the books don't mention it once. It is canon in my heart. I don't even really like Cregan, but I like to pretend this is the real reason he kept the war going after Rhaenyra died.

Helaena/Kermit Tully. I think I could talk Viserys into it and then Aemond wouldn't burn the Riverlands. Think of the lives saved. As a bonus, he's age appropriate and has cute freckles.

Alicent/Tyland Lannister postwar queerplatonic life partners

I guess the show made Jaime/Brienne canon but in the books they're not really (yet??). They were my first asoiaf ship years ago, which I suppose is a pretty common experience.

fAegon/Sansa. I just think it's a neat idea.

Someone asked me about the most chaotic pairings I could think of and I thought about Euron/Ramsay as a joke but then I was kind like ... but maybe?? Okay probably not ... but?? Look, I was curious enough to search up fic. There are 9 of them, and at least one is in French.