#one of the few dragons to go north (and vermithor but shut up) not even aegon the conqueror went that far!

[allyriadayne]

just answered an ask about jace and sara snow but had to delete a whole tangent about jace and queen alysanne. so here are some scattered thoughts with no real purpose

jace's journey to winterfell serves several purposes. one of them is the obvious one of gathering allies for rhaenyra's cause, convincing the lords and garnering promises of support; and the other one is to set winterfell and the north as a literal and metaphorical turning point. what do i mean by this? well, the only other targaryen excursion of note to the north was queen alysanne's visit to winterfell and the wall where most importantly, she charmed the starks and something strange happened with her dragon silverwing. and that's exactly what happened to jace! he charmed the starks and apparently, vermax, thought to be a male, laid eggs in the crypts of winterfell (and he's visiting the wall on the show?!? it's like they are reading my mind too). to me, it's obvious grrm is setting up part of the magical plot through these targaryen incursions for when it's time to fight the others but i'm not going to get into the present timeline.

most importantly, the pact of ice and fire was made. at the barebones, an agreement between the starks and targaryens. alysanne convinced a reluctant alaric stark to give up the new gift to the night's watch, while jace convinced cregan stark to lead his men south to fight for rhaenyra. it's interesting to think both jace and alysanne managed to convince two lord starks who were known to be headstrong and to become friendly with stark daughters too. their direct actions managing to make a lasting impact on the north when no other targaryen royal had managed to do until aerys killed both the current lord and heir.

and to me, it's much more interesting to think about what kind of king or prince jace would've been in times of peace. i would like to think he might go along with the same methods as alysanne. i'm really excited to see how the show weaves what we know from both the past and the future timeline of the north/the long night/tsoiaf with jace's only visit to winterfell.