#thoughts on this and that

[stormcloudrising]

Things That Make You Go Hmmm!

So, if Aegon received a prophetic dream about the fall of man coming out of the North and he and his dragons being the one to lead the fight in defending man, why did he settle in Kings Landing and not the North where he would have been closer to the danger to defend against it. It would even have made sense to settle around the Riverlands to protect against the danger of the Others crossing the Trident.

Yet, he didn't do either of those things. Instead, he settled himself, his wives and their dragons at Kings Landing, just a stones throw from their ancestral home at Dragonstone. It was almost the furtherest he could have settled from the North without actually being in Dorne. Why?

It's a question that many in the fandom don't consider. They have rushed to embrace the theory because it "puts" the Targs in a good light without considering the inconsistencies. They also don't seem to wonder who sent Aegon the visions or why George would reveal such an important plot point of his story in the real world before it shows up on the page.

I think there has to be a catch, and I suspect it won't mean what many think it does.

[pink-psychic]

[alleesaur]

doodling a bunny vs doodling a hare

[thegreatyin]

"how can m/f ships be good-" first of all through the power of bisexuality anything is possible so write that down. second of all if we start othering ships based on gender and nothing else we're no better than the opposition. third of all you need to watch more addams family

[vimbry-moved]

[skellybonesandtrees]

The pettiness is just 👌😂

[foolfortune]

[grntaire]

HELLLLLL YEAH!!!!!!!

[spec-squared]

being on tumblr is like being in a car in a parking lot

like it's technically public, but you're also sorta in your own little bubble, and people have to be Actively trying to listen in order to hear you, if they're even aware that you're speaking at all. and then sometimes you accidentally bonk the horn with ur elbow and suddenly the whole parking lot knows you're a virgin

[remanence-of-love]

[yeepof]

I understand that tall men are our POV characters, but surely being like a foot taller than everyone around them would have some occasional consequences

[stormcloudrising]

What do you think would change for Sansa and her abilities had Lady lived?

Hi Chasingtemptest,

Thanks for the ask!

Surprisingly, this is a difficult question to answer because on a Doylist level, IMO Lady’s death warrant was signed once George discovered during his garden style of writing that it was Sansa, and not Arya who was going to be linked romantically, and more importantly, magically with Jon and the creation of the Others.

He knew from the beginning that the direwolves were going to re-awaken the Starks connection to magic, and so if he wanted to hide from and later surprise the readers with Sansa being the female greenseer of the story, Lady had to die so the readers would discount the many clues he’s dropped about her abilities. She needed to be hidden in plain sight.

There must be a female greenseer in the story because all the evidence points to there being one at the center of the two great ancient mysteries surrounding Nissa Nissa, and the corpse queen. As George’s story is rhyming if not 100% percent repeating, there must be a female greenseer in the modern story as well. And while there are some clues that Dany could potentially have the ability as well, I think those are just symbolic while the overwhelming evidence points to Sansa being the greenseer, and Dany being a fakeout. Plus, there is the fact that fire is written as anathema to the weirwoods in the text.

I’m on record as stating that I think that I think George is telling a multiple timeline story, and that’s why we see so many different versions of the ancient NN/AA monomyth. Of course, part of that has to do with the fact that in the story as in the real world, different cultures tend to have similar myths about world changing events.

However, time travel has been a theme in many of George’s past writings, and it’s heavily present in ASOIAF as well with the greenseer arc. It’s not the traditional take on time travel where a person physically travels through time, but rather one where a special individual—a greenseer is able to send their consciousness through time with the ability to influence events and individuals.

So, yes, I think that Lady was always going to die to hide the truth about Sansa’s ability. What would have happened if Lady was not killed? The Hound would have found Nymeria, and she would have been the direwolf killed.

I say this because if not Sansa, Arya would have been the female greenseer as seems to have been George's original plan. It was always going to be one of the Stark sisters, and if not Sansa, it could only have been Arya. Thus, Nymeria would have had to die to hide this truth about Arya.

Instead, Arya’s wolf survived, and while we get evidence of their extremely strong warg bond, we don’t get the same hints of her being a greenseer, or the similar comparison to Bran’s greenseer ability as we do with Sansa.

The sister with the greenseer abilities and romantic relationship with Jon was originally going to be Arya. That’s why a relationship between the two is so heavily foreshadowed in the first book. If I had to guess, I would say that it was while writing the 2nd book and before the first was published that George discovered his garden style was taking him towards Jon and Sansa instead of Jon and Arya. He then went back in edits to drop in early clues about Jon and Sansa that would pay off later…hence the “Sansa look radiant.”

If Lady had not died, D&D’s hints to Sansa’s greenseer ability on the show such as Petyr’s greenseer advice to her; the bells ringing all day at her birth; the use of the dragonfly motif in her costumes; her wearing a chain necklace with an insignia that echoed the drawings of the Others; and her winding up as Queen of the North would have been Arya’s story. Of course, D&D would also have failed to tell Arya’s true story arc just as they did with Sansa, because unlike in the books, they put all their eggs in the Dany basket.

I started this answer by saying that your question was surprisingly difficult to answer on a Doylist level, but in typing out my response, I discovered that on a Watsonian one, that wasn’t the case after all. So, to answer your question, if Lady had not died, and George was not a garden style writer, Sansa’s story would have played out very similar to how it’s described in his infamous outline and she quite possibly would have never made it out of Kings Landing.

[mushiver]

I know what you're all definitely thinking. What if everyone from Gravity Falls was a chair. Well, I was bored enough at 3am to think about that too

Edit: part 2

[stardial]

missing someone is crazy because you’ll have dreams that r like “we went on a nice walk together :)” and you’ll wake up feeling like you’re gonna throw up

[sop-soap]

Biases being broken down on both sides