#valonqar theory

[greenerteacups]

oooh please someday tell us what you think of GOT

oh, no, it's my fatal weakness! it's [checks notes] literally just the bare modicum of temptation! okay you got me.

SO. in order to tell what's wrong with game of thrones you kind of have to have read the books, because the books are the reason the show goes off the rails. i actually blame the showrunners relatively little in proportion to GRRM for how bad the show was (which I'm not gonna rehash here because if you're interested in GOT in any capacity you've already seen that horse flogged to death). people debate when GOT "got bad" in terms of writing, but regardless of when you think it dropped off, everyone agrees the quality declined sharply in season 8, and to a certain extent, season 7. these are the seasons that are more or less entirely spun from whole cloth, because season 7 marks the beginning of what will, if we ever see it, be the Winds of Winter storyline. it's the first part that isn't based on a book by George R.R. Martin. it's said that he gave the showrunners plot outlines, but we don't know how detailed they were, or how much the writers diverged from the blueprint — and honestly, considering the cumulative changes made to the story by that point, some stark divergence would have been required. (there's a reason for this. i'll get there in a sec.)

so far, i'm not saying anything all that original. a lot of people recognized how bad the show got as soon as they ran out of Book to adapt. (I think it's kind of weird that they agreed to make a show about an unfinished series in the first place — did GRRM figure that this was his one shot at a really good HBO adaptation, and forego misgivings about his ability to write two full books in however many years it took to adapt? did he think they would wait for him? did he not care that the series would eventually spoil his magnum opus, which he's spent the last three decades of his life writing? perplexing.) but the more interesting question is why the show got bad once it ran out of Book, because in my mind, that's not a given. a lot of great shows depart from the books they were based on. fanfiction does exactly that, all the time! if you have good writers who understand the characters they're working with, departure means a different story, not a worse one. now, the natural reply would be to say that the writers of GOT just aren't good, or at least aren't good at the things that make for great television, and that's why they needed the books as a structure, but I don't think that's true or fair, either. books and television are very different things. the pacing of a book is totally different from the pacing of a television show, and even an episodic book like ASOIAF is going to need a lot of work before it's remotely watchable as a series. bad writers cannot make great series of television, regardless of how good their source material is. sure, they didn't invent the characters of tyrion lannister and daenerys targaryen, but they sure as hell understood story structure well enough to write a damn compelling season of TV about them!

so but then: what gives? i actually do think it's a problem with the books! the show starts out as very faithful to the early books (namely, A Game of Thrones and A Clash of Kings) to the point that most plotlines are copied beat-for-beat. the story is constructed a little differently, and it's definitely condensed, but the meat is still there. and not surprisingly, the early books in ASOIAF are very tightly written. for how long they are, you wouldn't expect it, but on every page of those books, the plot is racing. you can practically watch george trying to beat the fucking clock. and he does! useful context here is that he originally thought GOT was going to be a trilogy, and so the scope of most threads in the first book or two would have been much smaller. it also helps that the first three books are in some respects self-contained stories. the first book is a mystery, the second and third are espionage and war dramas — and they're kept tight in order to serve those respective plots.

the trouble begins with A Feast for Crows, and arguably A Storm of Swords, because GRRM starts multiplying plotlines and treating the series as a story, rather than each individual book. he also massively underestimated the number of pages it would take him to get through certain plot beats — an assumption whose foundation is unclear, because from a reader's standpoint, there is a fucke tonne of shit in Feast and Dance that's spurious. I'm not talking about Brienne's Riverlands storyline (which I adore thematically but speaking honestly should have been its own novella, not a part of Feast proper). I'm talking about whole chapters where Tyrion is sitting on his ass in the river, just talking to people. (will I eat crow about this if these pay off in hugely satisfying ways in Winds or Dream? oh, totally. my brothers, i will gorge myself on sweet sweet corvid. i will wear a dunce cap in the square, and gleefully, if these turn out to not have been wastes of time. the fact that i am writing this means i am willing to stake a non-negligible amount of pride on the prediction that that will not happen). I'm talking about scenes where the characters stare at each other and talk idly about things that have already happened while the author describes things we already have seen in excruciating detail. i'm talking about threads that, while forgivable in a different novel, are unforgivable in this one, because you are neglecting your main characters and their story. and don't tell me you think that a day-by-day account tyrion's river cruise is necessary to telling his story, because in the count of monte cristo, the main guy disappears for nine years and comes hurtling back into the story as a vengeful aristocrat! and while time jumps like that don't work for everything, they certainly do work if what you're talking about isn't a major story thread!

now put aside whether or not all these meandering, unconcluded threads are enjoyable to read (as, in fairness, they often are!). think about them as if you're a tv showrunner. these bad boys are your worst nightmare. because while you know the author put them in for a reason, you haven't read the conclusion to the arc, so you don't know what that reason is. and even if the author tells you in broad strokes how things are going to end for any particular character (and this is a big "if," because GRRM's whole style is that he lets plots "develop as he goes," so I'm not actually convinced that he does have endings written out for most major characters), that still doesn't help you get them from point A (meandering storyline) to point B (actual conclusion). oh, and by the way, you have under a year to write this full season of television, while GRRM has been thinking about how to end the books for at least 10. all of this means you have to basically call an audible on whether or not certain arcs are going to pay off, and, if they are, whether they make for good television, and hence are worth writing. and you have to do that for every. single. unfinished. story. in the books.

here's an example: in the books, Quentin Martell goes on a quest to marry Daenerys and gain a dragon. many chapters are spent detailing this quest. spoiler alert: he fails, and he gets charbroiled by dragons. GRRM includes this plot to set up the actions of House Martell in Winds, but the problem is that we don't know what House Martell does in Winds, because (see above) the book DNE. So, although we can reliably bet that the showrunners understand (1) Daenerys is coming to Westeros with her 3 fantasy nukes, and (2) at some point they're gonna have to deal with the invasion of frozombies from Canada, that DOESN'T mean they necessarily know exactly what's going to happen to Dorne, or House Martell. i mean, fuck! we don't even know if Martin knows what's going to happen to Dorne or House Martell, because he's said he's the kind of writer who doesn't set shit out beforehand! so for every "Cersei defaults on millions of dragons in loans from the notorious Bank of Nobody Fucks With Us, assumes this will have no repercussions for her reign or Westerosi politics in general" plotline — which might as well have a big glaring THIS WILL BE IMPORTANT stamp on top of the chapter heading — you have Arianne Martell trying to do a coup/parent trap switcheroo with Myrcella, or Euron the Goffick Antichrist, or Faegon Targaryen and JonCon preparing a Blackfyre restoration, or anything else that might pan out — but might not! And while that uncertainty about what's important to the "overall story" might be a realistic way of depicting human beings in a world ruled by chance and not Destiny, it makes for much better reading than viewing, because Game of Thrones as a fantasy television series was based on the first three books, which are much more traditional "there is a plot and main characters and you can generally tell who they are" kind of book. I see Feast and Dance as a kind of soft reboot for the series in this respect, because they recenter the story around a much larger cast and cast a much broader net in terms of which characters "deserve" narrative attention.

but if you're making a season of television, you can't do that, because you've already set up the basic premise and pacing of your story, and you can't suddenly pivot into a long-form tone poem about the horrors of war. so you have to cut something. but what are you gonna cut? bear in mind that you can't just Forget About Dorne, or the Iron Islands, or the Vale, or the North, or pretty much any region of the story, because it's all interconnected, but to fit in everything from the books would require pacing of the sort that no reasonable audience would ever tolerate. and bear in mind that the later books sprout a lot more of these baby-plots that could go somewhere, but also might end up being secondary or tertiary to the "main story," which, at the end of the day, is about dragons and ice zombies and the rot at the heart of the feudal power system glorified in classical fantasy. that's the story that you as the showrunner absolutely must give them an end to, and that's the story that should be your priority 1.

so you do a hack and slash job, and you mortar over whatever you cut out with storylines that you cook up yourself, but you can't go too far afield, because you still need all the characters more or less in place for the final showdown. so you pinch here and push credulity there, and you do your best to put the characters in more or less the same place they would have been if you kept the original, but on a shorter timeframe. and is it as good as the first seasons? of course not! because the material that you have is not suited to TV like the first seasons are. and not only that, but you are now working with source material that is actively fighting your attempt to constrain a linear and well-paced narrative on it. the text that you're working with changed structure when you weren't looking, and now you have to find some way to shanghai this new sprawling behemoth of a Thing into a television show. oh, and by the way, don't think that the (living) author of the source material will be any help with this, because even though he's got years of experience working in television writing, he doesn't actually know how all of these threads will tie together, which is possibly the reason that the next book has taken over 8 years (now 13 and counting) to write. oh and also, your showrunners are sick of this (in fairness, very difficult) job and they want to go write for star wars instead, so they've refused the extra time the studio offered them for pre-production and pushed through a bunch of first-draft scripts, creating a crunch culture of the type that spawns entirely avoidable mistakes, like, say, some poor set designer leaving a starbucks cup in frame.

anyway, that's what I think went wrong with game of thrones.

[slymreddwyne]

So the Valonqar prophecy doesnt say it's specifically CERSEI'S little brother, right? Just "the valonqar". And Valonqar means little brother in specifically High Valyrian. Yknow who else is (presumably) a little brother who probably knows High Valyrian?

Young Griff/Aegon/Faegon.

Perhaps the hands that wrap around her pale throat are not literal appendages, but Faegon's "hands". Perhaps Jon Connington will give her greyscale...

[ladystoneboobs]

wrt valonqar speculation, if the valonqar is allowed to be someone else's unrelated younger sibling, let's stretch that to use the "but maester aemon said gender doesn't matter in hv" clause to mean the valonqar is not even restricted to being a younger brother either. that makes just as much sense as noting the prophecy says the valonqar, not your valonqar. what if cersei is killed by someone else's sister who keeps a lannister vendetta list? no, i don't mean arya stark, dummies. i mean her undead mother, lady stoneheart!

but catelyn was an eldest child, not anyone's younger sibling you say? wrong! "Her two older brothers had both died in infancy", meaning she was actually a younger, thirdborn child. if the valonqar is not restricted to cersei's own brothers, and could be younger siblings in general, why not count someone who was a younger sister only to two dead brothers she never knew? of all the non-lannister younger siblings, did anyone else specifically dream of strangling cersei? ("dream of riding to King's Landing and wrapping my hands around Cersei Lannister's white throat and squeezing until her face turns black." compare that to the valonqar prophecy of "the valonqar shall wrap his hands about your pale white throat and choke the life from you." why else would grrm ever repeat the unique phrasing of "white throat" in such a way? obviously it has to mean something!) and the chapter where cat speaks of her dreams of choking cersei (Catelyn V, aCoK) comes right before her chapter revealing the existence of two dead elder brothers (Catelyn VI, aCoK). that can't be a coincidence, people! grrm wants us to connect those two facts in the back of our minds, so when the true valonqar is revealed it will be shocking but make perfect sense in retrospect to those few of us who have been paying attention.

c'mon now, folks! who has a higher lannister threat level: the former lannister dog who killed his brothers' goons only in self-defense and became a lamed dog; the knight of flowers who has only ever killed baratheon soldiers, his own men included; some child whose little hands probably can't strangle anyone; or the spirit of vengeange hunting down all frey- and lannister-affiliated enemies, who had cersei lannister near the top of her hit list before her death? i rest my case. accept no other non-lannister valonqar substitutions.

[hollowwhisperings]

ASOIAF Prophecies As Punchlines:

cersei lannister learns she's to be "replaced" by someone "younger and more beautiful": cersei raises myrcella to be an intelligent politician & pointedly dotes on her. myrcella ends up as queen, the younger & more beautiful heir to her mother's legacy.

cersei learns a [younger sibling] will kill her by the neck: cersei reforms her attitudes to her brothers, pointedly doting on them; cersei has 3 kids and remembers to dote on the two younger siblings of the 3; cersei, long-reconciled with her brothers & well-loved by her children, retires to a castle in the riverlands. she dies mid-journey north, pain relief provided by a maester with elder siblings, in the region of westeros named "the neck".

aegon v & his kids learn that "the prince who was promised" is to be borne of the line of his grandkids aerys & rhaella. aegon v prevents his teenaged kids, jaehaerys & shaera, from wedding their own kids to each other while underaged & unwilling. aegon v finds nice, non-relative spouses for aerys and rhaella. when they are both of age & married, not to each other, THEIR kids (cousins) are tentatively betrothed: they are princes promised to each other, prophecy fulfilled.

rhaegar asks maester aemon about this "prince who was promised" prophecy he read in a book. maester aemon patiently explains to his great-grandnephew the mysticism of Contract Law & the importance not of "who" is promised but to "WHOM" he is promised. rhaegar dutifully doublechecks his debts & debtors to make sure any kids of his don't get promised to, say, an eldritch sea god or an uncle tree-wizard.

rhaegar learns his wife, elia, cannot have another pregnancy after their 2nd child's birth. rhaegar believes he must have three children: elia reminds rhaegar that adoption is a thing & that his parents are unlikely to survive to raise his kid brother forever. rhaegar takes an intetest im the wellbeing of his mother, "adopting" viserys by making him his squire before taking his family from court to dragonstone. viserys grows up looking to his brother as a father figure, looked up to by his niece & nephew (who call him "brother"). elia & her children live, rhaegar has his "3 heads", no lords paramounts get murdered while protesting the royal kidnapping of their underage daughters.

dany learns she will have 3 great loves, equated with pyres. dany shrugs this very disturbing imagery off & goes about living her best life. on her deathbed, wrinkled & surrounded by adopted family, everyone retroactively checks off dany's prophecies to see how they ended up being fulfilled, knowing that prophecies happen regardless of personal intervention.

jaime has a dream about getting abandoned & then saved by brienne of tarth. jaime remembers tyrion describing myths of "green seers": jaime recalls his eyes are green & notices he is sitting on a tree stump. jaime resolves to ensure lady brienne has plentiful resources available to her, and thus him, & endeavors to endear himself to her (in his hour of need, brienne comes to his rescue: armed, armoured & with a medically trained maester. jaime never dies of exposure after getting lost in a snowstorm).

melissandre sees in her flames: azhor ahai reborn! melissandre starts drafting a List of interpretations alternate to "stabbing loved ones = get magic victory sword".

melissandre later reminds stannis of sexual innuendo & his being kin to 'that dragon mother girl': shireen, beloved daughter of stannis by his less-loved wife, successfully adopts daenerys into the family & gets to borrow one of her dragons to keep everyone warm for the winter. more people survive & no children are burned as hypothetical victory fuel.

[thewormformerlyknownasletojrjr]

I hate it when I get re interested in ASOIAF because I’m like…. Oh my god do we know which of the Lannister twins was born first?! Is Jaime the valoqar??!! Oh man!! And Ghost is an albino canine, is he deaf like many albino dogs are? Is that why he makes no noise? And when Jon calls for Ghost moments before his death, is it merely affection for his companion, or is there more to it than that? The prologue in ADWD is about a warg taking the skins of animals to survive when his own body can’t, is that significant? Is Jon the reason why it’s included at that particular time? It says he never feels the fourth knife, only the cold. Is that because he’s in Ghost’s body now? Oh my god, is it?! And Maester Aemon says dragons change sex at will, this is mentioned in Fire and Blood as well. That’s what makes Aemon think there was an error, and the Prince that was Promised is actually a princess. But GRRM has described the story as Jon’s as well as Dany’s many times. Is the fluid nature of the dragons’ gender just there to explain the potential misgendering of the ‘prince’ or is there more to it than that? And IF Jon is currently living in Ghost’s body and can now shift bodies, where will he go next? Jon as Rhaegar and Lyanna’s son is long foreshadowed in the books, from the like the first Ned chapter back in AGOT. Is the subject of dragon’s changeable genders foreshadowing as well? And IF Jon really is alive in Ghost’s body, is he eventually going to find his way to Dany? Will the concept of dragons and their sex changing abilities be reflected in House Targaryen’s children, the ‘dragons’ Jon and Dany? Are we looking at some weird body sharing situation here? Are they BOTH the prince(ss) who was promised, or are they when put together?! And also what about Dany’s three men prophecy? It says ‘will be’ does that mean that all of the men were men she had yet to meet? And when they discuss the dragon’s three heads, with the concept of that being equivalent to three people, how do you count that? Is there significance to what generation they are from? Can it be any Targaryens?? Does it have to be Targaryens, for that matter? The Mad King had three children; Rhaegar, Viserys, Daenerys. Rhaegar had three children; Rhaenys, Aegon, and Jon. Dany has her three dragons, who she considers her children, but she also had a stillborn child, Rhaego. How does that factor in? If Jon’s body is not recovered for him, does he count as one of the three heads the dragon must have? GEORGE??!! GRRM???!!! George, I have so many questions, I need you to finish writing the books so I can sleep at 1AM instead of making this increasingly frantic post. I’m begging, please just have an actual ending.

[melrosing]

When do you think Jaime will collect the Widow’s Wail from KL?

I think there are two possibilities??

Loras has the sword - this has been theorised since it’s mentioned in Cersei’s POV that Tommen gifts Loras a jewelled sword when he departs KL in AFFC. I honestly don’t think Cersei would notice Tommen handing over Widow’s Wail, so makes sense it goes unremarked upon. Anyway, if that’s the case, it just means the sword has to make his way to Jaime somehow - and given the potential ambiguity around Loras’ condition plus future within the plot, plus the fact that really GRRM could orchestrate any manner of things to get the sword from Loras to Jaime (like how he gets Needle back to Arya), this doesn’t seem impossible at all.

Jaime goes to KL, is or is not the valonqar, acquires the sword whilst there and heads North. This seems more likely but also makes the whole matter of Jaime and Cersei’s endings murkier?? If Jaime is not the valonqar, that means he goes to KL, perhaps reckons with Cersei and then walks away, acquires the sword and fucks off North. If he is the valonqar, he kills Cersei and fucks off North. I’ve never been a great believer in the whole jc ‘born together/die together’ ending, I think it’s a belief exists to be contradicted and also the fact that the valonqar prophecy exists at all more or less precludes it (like they cannot die together if Cersei is already dead, and I don’t see Jaime’s story heading towards suicide at all - he’s been in that place already and moved onwards). And what’s more, I can’t imagine Cersei dying before the torch of KL (rather, I think she will certainly have a hand in that). So therefore - what the fuck is going on here lol. Widow’s Wail has a role to play in the Long Night, I think everyone feels clear on that, and I’ve talked before about how I feel it is practically confirmed by GRRM himself that Jaime is getting that sword. So what I mean to say is what does Jaime acquiring the sword in KL suggest about the timing of other surrounding events, and what’s more what does it suggest about the endings of Jaime and Cersei themselves?? Jaime getting his hands on Widow’s Wail is a relatively small plot point but the logistics of it have broad implications. So whilst I do tend to think that the Loras theory is a little bit of a reach, Jaime acquiring it in KL kind if asks more questions than it answers….

[goodqueenaly]

What will Jaime's reaction and development in response to the probable slaughter of Freys and Lannisters ("Red Wedding 2.0") by Lady Stoneheart, and the rebellion of the Riverlands that will likely follow, be? While there are a lot of valonqar theories and theories of how he might survive the encounter with Stoneheart, but for some reason I don't recall any theories on this front. Might there be a realization that his family's, and his, actions in the Riverlands from AGoT forward were wrong?

To the extend a “second Red Wedding” or similar event happens, I tend to think the impact would be intended for us as readers, rather than for Jaime as a character. Throughout his chapters in AFFC and ADWD, in my opinion, Jaime never quite gets to the point of realizing, to put it a certain way, “are we the baddies”. Jaime may pat himself on the back (with his golden hand) for hanging outlaws found beneath a Wode keep, but never considers what responsibility his father’s order to raze the Riverlands had on these presumably homeless, presumably starving people sheltering in a now-rare refuge. Jaime advocates for the Lannister-Frey household at Darry to “make the smallfolk love you” as a response to their support of the brotherhood without banners, without acknowledging the hypocrisy of this household trying to win the love of people whose neighbors had been raped, murdered, and despoiled by Lannister agents and whose lords and countrymen the Freys had murdered in a gross violation of guest right (or such smallfolk seeking justice from a royal dynasty which directly engineered and benefitted from the Red Wedding). Jaime applauds himself for, as he sees it, bringing about Riverrun’s surrender without seeing, or being willing to see, that by bringing an army to this siege, mentally deciding that he would storm the walls if the Tullys remained obstinate, and threatening Edmure with violence against himself, his people, and his unborn child, he, Jaime, had already violated his oath to Catelyn (to say nothing, again, of rewarding the perpetrators of the Red Wedding). Jaime departs Raventree Hall not only by threatening Lord Tytos with Hoster’s beheading if Tytos were to aid any “outlaws and rebels” but by wishing him “a good harvest and the joy of the king’s peace” - a cruel and hollow sort of farewell, given that Jaime’s family’s agents ravaged the Riverlands  and its hope of harvests and that this same royal government was the one which oversaw the murders of, among others, Blackwood’s second son and his king. Given all that, I don’t see it likely or timely for Jaime to witness a second Red Wedding type of event and say “oh right, we were wrong the whole time”; Jaime’s had plenty of evidence of that up to this point without drawing that conclusion. 

Which is not to say that this event, should it happen, would have no impact, of course. Rather, I think GRRM may use such an event to have readers reflect on, and perhaps challenge, any desire for and approach to vengeance. The Freys may suffer and die en masse - not necessarily just those who directly swung a sword or helped organize the Red Wedding in the first place. The uncomfortable display and exploration of the violent execution (pun intended) of certain acts of vengeance is a topic GRRM often handles very well, and I could see the author writing a second Red Wedding as, perhaps, an escalation of the end of Brienne’s arc in AFFC: as then the brotherhood, under Lady Stoneheart, was willing to murder Brienne, Hyle Hunt, and Podrick Payne on grossly inaccurate and unjust connections to the Lannister regime, so now perhaps the brotherhood and Lady Stoneheart will kill any Freys they can seize, whether or not these Freys actually participated in or even condoned the Red Wedding. 

[asoiaf-essays-collector]

For me, idk if Sansa is the girl in grey in Melisandre's prophecy and i don't care if they reunite at the Wall, in the Vale, in Winterfell or on the way, because the thing is its almost given that Sansa and Jon will be the first Starks to reunite since they are the most distant ones. Its how grrm works. The Starks are the central family of the series and out of their four povs that remain, Jon and Sansa are the only ones to not have a defined relationship and their reunion in twow before others will give them time to develop one.

In defence of the girl in grey theory - at this point it almost impossible to imagine her being not sansa. As much as I would prefer the vale meeting. Just think of it - Jon and Melisandre were thinking that the girl in grey would be Arya but ironically it was Jeyne Pool/Alys Karstark who happened to be geographically more convenient? Nah, that's not the irony of GRRM. Now, Sansa who Jon barely registers as sister in his inner pov - that would be the irony that we are used to in ASOIAF.

The girl in grey being not the Stark but someone else entirely just because this girl fits the criteria? It's not interesting. It gives the same vibes as theory that Cersei's valonqar is neither Tyrion nor Jaime and some other person that just happens to be someone else's younger sibling. That's just boring.

"Jon and Sansa are the only ones to not have a defined relationship" - oooh, now that's the topic I can speculate about for hours.

I'm rereading ASOS right now and gosh, the ways GRRM chooses to portray these two while their lack of any established relationship in books? That's simply fascinating how he dances around some words and names.

One of the most interesting part of this lack of interactions is the fact that it doesn't mean that they don't have this defined relationship. Their meeting and then dynamic will be a total wild card - unlike any other pair of siblings. They can literally have any dynamic and shared history or lack of it and we have no idea what it will be. I'm so excited!

And it's not only that. There is a conflict between them too - until they learn that Bran and Rickon are alive they both are kinda heirs of Starks and Winterfell, both are ruler coded since AGOT and their political strengths complement each other's weaknesses. Moreover, both can support each other's claim. Sansa Stark while being legitimate heir in many lords eyes is still married to Lannister and everyone knows it and she is also a girl who doesn't know how to wage a war. On the other hand Jon Snow even with Stark blood printed on his Ned Stark (who is still beloved in the North) face is still a bastard and can't interfere with claim of legitimate heirs (given that Robb's will is still unknown). One of them on his/her own can raise a lot of questions but two can make a decent claim.

So yeah.

Sansa and Jon meeting first of the pack is making quite a lot of sense from every point of view. It's not just that they are most distant siblings and thus make more interesting pair to interact, it's also very practical for GRRM if he wants Starks to go on the offensive - two of them combined can actually form a decent political power (in terms of both claim and set of skills). No other pair of Starks has that.

[nobodysuspectsthebutterfly]

What will Jaime's reaction and development in response to the probable slaughter of Freys and Lannisters ("Red Wedding 2.0") by Lady Stoneheart, and the rebellion of the Riverlands that will likely follow, be? While there are a lot of valonqar theories and theories of how he might survive the encounter with Stoneheart, but for some reason I don't recall any theories on this front. Might there be a realization that his family's, and his, actions in the Riverlands from AGoT forward were wrong?

Generally people who theorize about Red Wedding: Back 2 Tha Hood have this elaborate fantasy about Jaime being tied up and forced to watch. Usually in conjunction with the theory that he's already half mad because he had to kill Brienne, who sacrificed herself for him. I think the latter theory is highly contrary to both plot and character, so I've been rather doubtful of the former theory as well. (As well as it being in Riverrun: no this is not an invite for proponents of that element of the theory to tell me about it, I've seen it all before and nothing but TWOW will move me.) Personally, I think RW2: First Blood could be one of those downbeat refusal-of-catharsis moments GRRM does sometimes, which includes no direct POV, just hearing about the atrocities after the fact. It may be otherwise, but I'm still sure fans will not be remotely as satisfied as they expect to be.

Anyway. Jaime already knows the actions of his family in the Riverlands were wrong. His whole arc from ASOS onwards just rubbed his nose into it over and over and over again. Notably including his encounter with the Bloody Mummers his father brought to Westeros, notably returning to Harrenhal and finding the house of horrors Gregor had turned it into, notably the whole siege of Riverrun where he's hating the Freys, hating every moment he has to reward idiots like his uncle Emmon or a "scheming turncloak bitch" like Sybell Spicer. Just look at his conversation with Hoster Blackwood in ADWD:

"My father had a saying too. Never wound a foe when you can kill him. Dead men don't claim vengeance." "Their sons do," said Hoster, apologetically. "Not if you kill the sons as well. Ask the Casterlys about that if you doubt me. Ask Lord and Lady Tarbeck, or the Reynes of Castamere. Ask the Prince of Dragonstone." For an instant, the deep red clouds that crowned the western hills reminded him of Rhaegar's children, all wrapped up in crimson cloaks. "Is that why you killed all the Starks?" "Not all," said Jaime. "Lord Eddard's daughters live. One has just been wed. The other…" Brienne, where are you? Have you found her? "…if the gods are good, she'll forget she was a Stark. She'll wed some burly blacksmith or fat-faced innkeep, fill his house with children, and never need to fear that some knight might come along to smash their heads against a wall." "The gods are good," his hostage said, uncertainly. You go on believing that. Jaime let Honor feel his spurs.

This is not a man who is happy with his life and his or his family's actions. Especially considering he took the very first opportunity to abandon it all to help Brienne with her quest.

Now, if you mean, will Red Wedding 2: The Revenge cause Jaime to admit out loud that he and his dad done bad? *pfft* Not a clue in the world. Jaime's going to have a lot going on in TWOW, not in the least however he and Brienne escape (my personal theories including divine Bran intervention; there's a reason why the Brotherhood's cave is full of weirwood roots and has a weirwood throne just like Bloodraven's), and not in the least whatever the hell Cersei gets up to in KL and her probable flight to the Rock. I'm afraid that prejudging Jaime's personality changes that may come from all this is beyond my power, sorry.

________

@windriverdelta replied to your post “What will Jaime's reaction and development in...”:

Yeah, it was the "Now, if you mean, will Red Wedding 2: The Revenge cause Jaime to admit out loud that he and his dad done bad?" question - because for all what he knows and thinks, he's still doing these bad things.

​aha, so you're asking more like, will he stop. And like I said, Jaime's going to be very busy, I think his Riverlands enforcement tour will be well past done by the time he gets out of it all. Mind you, I don't think he's going to ever give up entirely on the Lannister state of mind (Tywin's ability to give people complexes is very hard to shake). But a lot of the Riverlands tour was guilt over being responsible for his father's death (since Jaime freed Tyrion and gave him a reason to kill Tywin), which undoubtely made him extra-Lannistery for a while. And also Jaime was trying to get away and deal with his Cersei issues (by using Ilyn as a rubber duck therapist who beats you up), so a lot of his um, complex actions greatly depend on what Cersei ends up doing and how that makes him feel. (Even if they've "broken up", they'll always be connected.) And however the valonqar plays out, alas...

[first-of-her-nxme]

First I like the theory of jaqen=aegon even many people won´t believe it . second I have couples of questions for you :

.How can we believe that jaqen face is true (the one arya saw half white half red) because many people assuming that is not true .?

.why jaqen is working alone to get his dragon , without the help of varys or anyone , he doesn´t have fellowship like danny ?

and last, I think danny and brienne have seen a similar vision about a man and a girl stand alone in a fallen city does this indicates something ? and i´m so sorry about my questions hhhh.

thank you

Thank you :) I just wanted to say again that I wasn't the person who guessed that Jaqen was Aegon. Many people before me realized that. You can find some old discussions on westeros.org and other message boards. I don't want to take all the credit for it. However, everything I write here about Jaqen's journey is my explanation. People have all sorts of ideas of what happened. I often disagree with them so what you see here is mine.

But to the point.

You probably noticed that A Song of Ice and Fire is written a bit like a crime story. The series begins with a mysterious death of Jon Arryn and then Ned Stark starts his investigation. Then, the "detective" himself is murdered and the chain of deaths continues. Ned's death was the result of the unfair trial but following victims died under even stranger circumstances. You remember Joffrey and Tywin, to name but a few. We also get the prophecy of the Valonqar who is supposed to ruin Cersei's life. Some people accuse Tyrion but then we get Mercy chapter where the true killer is revealed: he is hiding in Tyrion's shade and his name is the Stranger. Interestingly enough, we have already met the Stranger who first introduced himself as Jaqen H'ghar, who is a professional killer and a very important person in Arya's life. So this is a crime story where the characters and the readers are supposed to find the real killer. In crime stories, authors always introduce the killer very early but they usually present him as a person not involved in the main plot so out of suspicion. And so it happens that GRRM also introduced Jaqen and his work quite early. And we tend to believe that he is a random criminal locked in the black cells. We see his true face like in the classic detective book and then GRRM starts messing with us and gives Jaqen a new face and then another. So this is the first reason why this face is real: it's how things work in crime stories.

Another factor is GRRM's description of Targaryens on his Not a Blog. Back in the days when the comments were still allowed, GRRM used to respond to his readers. He talked about the Targaryens's fine chiseled aristocratic features and then he described Jaqen in almost the same words in the books "slender, fine-featured...the handsome one". In addition to his beautiful face, Jaqen has white Valyrian hair. GRRM makes him tall and slender too. Jaqen is supposed to be a criminal and yet he has the manners of the aristocrat. He is clever and educated, he speaks High Valyrian. If he is a Targaryen, he doesn't need another face - he already looks like a Targ.

Then we see the resemblance to the weirwood tree. Arya observes that Jaqen seems like a tree where he is standing next to the weirwood. His hair is the color of weirwood: Valyrian white and blood red like the song of ice and fire. And like you mentioned, the image of the weirwood that looks like a young man with a girl by his side appears later in the books, in Brienne POV. There is too much of importance to this face to dismiss it as fake.

There is also a notable reference to Jaqen and Bloodraven in the prologue to A Clash of Kings when the maesters at Dragonstone receive the raven. The raven that arrives is white as snow and larger than any hawk, with the bright black eyes that meant it was no mere albino, but a truebred white raven of the Citadel. The "mere albino" is Bloodraven. Jaqen also has white hair but is a true born Targaryen and the rightful king and more powerful than Brynden. Perhaps Jaqen has black eyes like Elia. Jaqen is also a student at the Citadel later in the books so he is "the reaven of the Citadel". When the raven starts to talk he is very polite, he bows his head and calls Shireen "Lady" which mirrors Jaqen's courtesy towards Arya in Harrenhal where he calls her "My Lady of Stark". It is so symbolic that GRRM is using a raven to make a reference to Jaqen because of what we later learn about Bloodraven and the magic of weirwoods. And here in the prologue we learn that he is more powerful than Brynden, the last greenseer.

A reader needs to work a little to understand Jaqen's role in the books but this is GRRM's intention. It's supposed to be a big mystery. Like he has always been saying, he laid out breadcrumbs for us to pick up and get the true meaning behind the story.

Next part of your question: the fellowship of Jaqen or the lack of it. When we talk about Varys I think that he might be helping Jaqen. We should remember that it is Illyrio who has the gold to buy the army and it was Illyrio who took Jaqen in after Rhaegar had lost the war. I think that Illyrio decided to get rid of J/Aegon after Serra gave birth to a boy who looked like a Targaryen prince. Illyrio in the books is a carbon copy of Aegon IV so he must be one of the King's successors. He is not a legitimate Targaryen and so he can't push his claim but he got his hands on Rhaegar's son and then he got a boy who looked a lot like Aegon. So, he swapped the boys and decided to raise Young Griff like Rhaegar wished his son to be raised and make him the king. I think that he told Varys to get rid of Aegon, to kill him or sell into slavery but Varys took the boy to Braavos and left him with the Faceless Men. Please, remember that Illyrio stole all the things that used to belong to Aegon. He has the boxes filled with the boy's clothing, the silver, the armor of his guardians, the court clothes. He might have had Aegon's dragons's eggs too but he gave them to Daenerys. So now Aegon has to earn his dragon himself. He was robbed and abandoned, that's why he is alone. I still think that Varys is secretly rooting for him and might turn sides when Young Griff dies. You may be interested in re-reading the prologue to A Feast for Crows for the reference to Aegon the Conqueror and Jaqen. There is a mention of Aegon's single-dragoned conquest of Westeros. Now, Jaqen comes to Oldtown to learn how to hatch his dragon's egg and he is surely dreaming of conquering Westeros with his dragon like Aegon I did it.

The last part of your question, the symbolism of weirwoods. Yes, yes and yes: the weirwood that Brienne sees symbolizes J/Aegon and Arya. It means that they are connected to the powerful weirwood magic. They will join the old gods someday. Their souls are immortal and they will live together in weirwoods for eternity.

I'm sorry but I can't remember which Daenerys's vision you have in mind. It would be great if you could find the quote from the books, thank you in advance!

I apologize for the long answer. There is just so much book material to explain.

Thank you for another interesting question :)

[agentrouka-blog]

The inability of a lot of the fandom on reddit, twitter, and especially BNFs, to even explore the hints in the book that GRRM laid for Aegon potentially being real is very funny to me. But this is the same fandom that is deep in the POV traps and is still taking everything at face value. The valonqar - Cersei thinks it will be Tyrion and is fixated on him. But it will likely be Jaime. The Girl in Grey - Jon is fixated on the girl being Arya. Then Jon (and the fandom) thinks the vision refers to Alys Karstark when the girl will likely be Sansa - the other sister who will likely flee a marriage or betrothal in the Vale. This is where Sansa and Jon not being close in the series will come into play. She'll be the Girl in Grey, they will retake Winterfell working together, etc. It's kinda genius because Jon thinks it has to be the sister he is close to, Arya, and doesn't even consider the possibility that Melisandre is correct, just that her vision refers to his other sister, Sansa. The Sun's Son - the fandom and Dany believes this refers to Quentyn when it's referring to Aegon. Dany being so sure Quentyn is the Sun's Son is on its own enough for me to know it's not. It's obvious misdirection and exactly the type of irony GRRM likes to put into the series. But these theories don't fit in with peoples' headcanons lol so they refuse to even entertain the possibility.

As @istumpysk rightfully pointed out: why on EARTH would Quaithe warn Dany about sincere, forthright, dutiful Quentyn Martell of all people. He utters zero lies and is entirely upfront about his intentions.

If we had nothing else to go on, this alone should be a huge hint that it's not meant to be Quentyn. So who else qualifies? Oh, right. Elia's son. The guy whose claim supercedes hers. Who was going to come meet her until he decided to try his luck in Westeros on his own. Because he wants to be king there. They would be a lot less reluctant to accept that if it didn't create two inconvenient extra facts: Dany can't be queen unless she usurps Aegon (she who hates usurpers!), and the 'mummers dragon' is Jon, which casts doubt on them having a positive relationship.

Girl in Grey? It's not Arya, obviously as she's currently in Braavos, nor is it Alys Karstark who passes no bodies of water nor wears a grey cloak, nor is it Jeyne Poole, who never travels alone. Is anonymously travelling Arya somehow going to have another marriage arranged for her when she returns to Westeros before she's even reached Winterfell? Or could it possibly end up referring to the other "non-sister" who actually has a long history of sinister marriage plans actually involving her own plot, not in absentia? Nah, that would imply Sansa is important.

Tyrion already strangled a defenseless woman with a chain of golden hands. Are we to expect a reprise? A mere copy of this event? What- or whoever the valonqar will turn out to be, it's bound to be a lot less literal than that.

GRRM making prophecies deliberately confusing, or introducing false leads, is him playing with the characters and the readers. The moment a character fails to consider how unreliable a prophecy is, and believes himself certain of a specific outcome, we can strongly doubt their interpretation. That doesn't mean there isn't a specific fitting outcome attached to the every part of the prophecy at all. Just that it will only ever be clear in hindsight. Never in advance.

[slymreddwyne]

My Valonqar Theory That I Just Wont Shut Up About:

It's Young Griff/Aegon VI/Faegon. Let me explain.

Maggy the Frog doesnt say "your Valonqar" just "THE Valonqar", implying that it doesnt have to be HER "little brother" (i.e. Tyrion or Jaime).

Also why does Maggy specifically use the High Valyrian word for "little brother"? She could have just said it in Westerosi if it wasnt important. Yknow who else is a (supposed) little brother who presumably has been taught High Valyrian? Young Griff.

I suspect that the Hands that choke Cersei out might not be literal hands, but Hands of the King (perhaps YG will name both Joncon and Varys as co-hands? Or Joncon's greyscaled hands will infect her, and it will eventually spread to her throat, asphyxiating her).

[alicentofficial]

i know there are already twelve million valonqar theories but i so desperately need for the next 'younger and more beautiful queen' cersei fixates on to be myrcella. the way cersei views all her kids as extensions of herself but especially myrcella as an idealised version of a young cersei that she will immediately grow resentful of the moment myrcella gets back to kings landing and is not entirely under her thumb and doing everything she says. like. myrcella is literally at the center of a plot that will usurp cersei's power through overthrowing tommen. tyene in affc going YEAH SHES SOOOO BEAUTIFUL...... SHE WAS MADE TO BE QUEEN.... JUST LIKE HER MOTHER..........

[visenyaism]

Visenyaism ASOIAF Theory Rubric Table of Contents

I have done so many of these over the course of this semester that I think it makes sense to start organizing them now. Here's my list under the cut. I tried to put them in little subcategories so it'd be easier to get through at this point:

Weird Magic Shit:

Arrax left dragon eggs in the Winterfell Crypts

Maegor the Cruel was a blood magic baby

Euron dropped out of Bloodraven school

Bran serves the Great Other

The Starks are responsible for the Others

Danny Flint is Coldhands (REAL)

Theon is favored by the Drowned God

Secret Parentages (Rhaegar Targaryen you ARE the father)

Melisandre is Shiera & Bloodraven's kid

Robert Strong isn't Gregor Clegane but rather a descendant of Aemond and Alys Rivers

Pycelle Hill

Tywin is Rhaegar's biological father

Alyssa Targaryen was Alaric Stark's kid

R+L=D

Cersei and Jaime are Aerys II's children

Domeric Bolton was Brandon Stark's Bastard

Daemon is Aemond's real father

Aemond and Alys’ son invented House Whent

Brienne the Tall

Varys Blackfyre

Who Young Griff is Specifically:

YOUNG GRIFF BLACKFYRE SWEEP

Young Griff is a Brightflame

Young Griff is a random

Disguise Time

Quaithe is Shiera

Euron is warging the dusky woman

Assorted Political Conspiracies:

Red Wedding 2.0

Walda Frey's letters are code re: the red wedding

Oberyn poisoned Tywin

Lemongate

Mance Rayder wrote the Pink Letter

Barbery Dustin wrote the Pink Letter

Grand Maester Conspiracy

Galaza Galare is the Harpy

Predicting the Future:

Loras is alive

The Cannibal is alive and on Skagos

Jon will lose an eye

Jaime Lannister is the Valonqar

Jaime YMBQ

Horsie symbolism

Hound warged his horse to avoid dying

Silly Goofy Funtimes:

Jon has no secret Targaryen name but Lyanna gave him a secret Stark name before she died which happens to be theon (this one is mine)

Varys is a merman

Varys is 3 kids in a trenchcoat

Ghost is a good boy :)

Tyrek Lannister was/is a horse

Hater Corner

Bolt-On

Exodus Theory

The prestonjacobs one about dany lying about the red door

Euron is time-travelling Bran

Ramsay's mother poisoned Domeric Bolton

Viserys II was a random

Time-travelling fetus tyrion

Meera and Jon are twins and Jyana Reed is Ashara Dayne

Ser Shadrich is Howland Reed

Dunk is Tywin’s grandfather

[satinoflowers]

19 and 31!

19: a theory you've adopted as canon- hard one but I'm partial to the jon coming back with anime hair and red eyes., its too sick to resist i love cool guys. I think it was shwifty who proposed that jon wouldnt have any more pov chapters and i would fucking love that, some of my favorite parts of the series is the distinction between old humanity warped into sorcery and obsession and how it affects the present (eg bloodraven) so id love to see jon fully old god-ed. cersei being her own valonqar is also a nice one i like to come back to but she needs to be ten percent more transgender for me to fall in love w it i think

31: who would you elevate to a POV character- well. I have a very obvious answer. Other than satin, i think myrcella would be a neat way to show whats happening in dorne and id like to know more about her. More mel chapters fs :,) oh and just ONE northern lord. Barbery dustin, a manderly, roose idc i need an in on the great northern conspiracy bullshit. Oh one more! Either osha or rickon because what the fuck is happening

Ty for sending :)))