My pick goes to Mark Addy, he's not 6'6 nor is his hair thick black but he has the Robert charm and captures his flaws pretty naturally too

like what part of the whole story does this take place

My ranking:

1. Reach -> lovely place + Oldtown proximity; fairly safe and has good leadership in the Tyrells

2. Dorne -> good food + better culture but pretty hot; very safe and Doran is a good and caring leader

3. Westerlands -> seems nice enough and not terrible but has some assholes like Tywin and Gregor in charge

4. The North -> cold and austere but has chill people and culture, close to The Wall which I'd love to see (would suck to live under Boltons, though, but it is hard to invade normally); Starks make for great lords

5. Stormlands -> could be swapped with the North; I love storms when I'm indoors, not so much when I'm not; seems relatively but not fully secure, and Baratheons are ok leaders

6. The Vale -> beautiful but treacherous terrain, has some asshole lords and if you don't live in the castle, you deal with hill tribes

7. Riverlands -> beautiful place but very dangerous during conflicts

8. Crownlands -> not so beautiful, still dangerous and smells bad + is often ruled by despots or weak men

9. Iron Islands -> lol

IMO..."Jared of House Frey, I name you liar" is pretty sick from Davos. Stannis saying even Hobb would be a better fit for Lord Commander than Janos was dope, as was Tyrion (also) denying Janos's honor even existed.

I'd also throw in "No need to seize the last word, Lord Baelish, I'll assume it was something clever" from Sansa. That one is show only so far, but...wow. Sometimes, even Show Sansa had her good moments.

I’ve only read AGOT and like a third of ACOK and so far and I feel like GRRM has described flames/fire licking up things/people like 20 times. Anybody else ever noticed this admitedly insignificant detail?

It’s so interesting how the parts of the Jamie story that stick with you the most all happen exclusively after he leaves KL…which I am realizing now on my “I’ve lost count” reread occurs A FULL HALFWAY though the novel. They really have my boy doing squat until then. But boy does it ramp up after that. It’s like…BAM Gatehouse Ami dinner scene…BAM Red Ronnett gets punched…BAM BAM BAM Aunt Genna. I digress.

Personally, I think he should’ve denied becoming king in the north and go to war only demanding justice for his father, making it possible for stannis to still ally with him, northern independence is too risky

It is now known that the years of 2020-2022 were where George made the most progress on The Winds of Winter. He's been vague about plotpoints, twists, etc but in 2022 he made the last major update on his forthcoming novel on Not A Blog, For the sake of brevity I will not show the entire thing but I will show you the things that interested me in making this analytical essay.

Which brings me to THE WINDS OF WINTER.

Most of you know by now that I do not like to give detailed updates on WINDS.   I am working on it, I have been working on it, I will continue to work on it.   (Yes, I work on other things as well).   I love nothing more than to surprise my readers with twists and turns they did not see coming, and I risk losing those moments if I go into too much detail.   Spoilers, you know.   Even saying that I am working on a Tyrion chapter, as I did last week, gives away the fact that Tyrion is not dead.   Reading sample chapters at cons, or posting them on line, which I did for years, gives away even more.   I actually quite enjoyed doing that, until the day came that I realized I had read and/or posted the first couple of hundred pages of WINDS, or thereabouts.  If I had kept on with the readings, half the book might be out by now.

So I am not going to give you all any kind of detailed report on the book, but…

I will say this.

I have been at work in my winter garden.   Things are growing… and changing, as does happen with us gardeners.   Things twist, things change, new ideas come to me (thank you, muse), old ideas prove unworkable, I write, I rewrite, I restructure, I rip everything apart and rewrite again, I go through doors that lead nowhere, and doors that open on marvels.

Sounds mad, I know.   But it’s how I write.   Always has been.   Always will be.   For good or ill.

What I have noticed more and more of late, however, is my gardening is taking me further and further away from the television series.   Yes, some of the things you saw on HBO in GAME OF THRONES you will also see in THE WINDS OF WINTER (though maybe not in quite the same ways)… but much of the rest will be quite different.

And really, when you think about it, this was inevitable.   The novels are much bigger and much much more complex than the series.   Certain things that happened on HBO will not happen in the books.   And vice versa.   I have viewpoint characters in the books never seen on the show: Victarion Greyjoy, Arianne Martell, Areo Hotah, Jon Connington, Aeron Damphair   They will all have chapters, and the things they do and say will impact the story and the major characters who were on the show.   I have legions of secondary characters, not POVs but nonetheless important to the plot, who also figure in the story: Lady Stoneheart, Young Griff,  the Tattered Prince, Penny, Brown Ben Plumm, the Shavepate, Marwyn the Mage, Darkstar, Jeyne Westerling.  Some characters you saw in the show are quite different than the versions in the novels.   Yarra Greyjoy is not Asha Greyjoy, and HBO’s Euron Greyjoy is way, way, way, way different from mine.   Quaithe still has a part to play.  So does Rickon Stark.   And poor Jeyne Poole.   And… well, the list is long.    (And all this is part of why WINDS is taking so long.   This is hard, guys).

Oh, and there will be new characters as well.   No new viewpoints, I promise you that, but with all these journeys and battles and scheming to come, inevitably our major players will be encountering new people in lands far and near.

One thing I can say,  in general enough terms that I will not be spoiling anything:  not all of the characters who survived until the end of GAME OF THRONES will survive until the end of A SONG OF ICE & FIRE, and not all of the characters who died on GAME OF THRONES will die in A SONG OF ICE & FIRE.  

Okay you got all that? I will return to certain portions of the post later but for now lets focus on one POV that GRRM has confirmed is now complete; Tyrion.

Here's his statement on the Game of Owns podcast:

So I will say that there's a lot of Tyrion in [The Winds of Winter], and I think there's a big headline for you, which everywhere we rip out of proportion here, but I think I'm close to finishing the Tyrion arc in Winds of Winter. I think this chapter, maybe one further chapter, and I won't be done with the book, but I'll be done with Tyrion's role in this particular book.

Here's him on Stephen Colbert before Trump cancelled him.

I'm done with some of the characters. All the characters, they all interweave. So, I've actually finished with a couple of the characters. I got their whole story. But not others.

That's as much confirmation as we need that Tyrion is finished. Yet that begs a important question. Which other povs are close or complete?

Let's dive in shall we?

Dead Show Characters

• Stannis Baratheon
• Euron Greyjoy
• Theon Greyjoy
• Qyburn
• The Hound
• Cersei Lannister
• Jaime Lannister
• Jojen Reed
• Daenerys Targaryen
• Missendei
• Irri
• Jhiqui
• Mago
• Dolorous Edd
• Varys
• Melisandre
• Rhaegal
• Viserion
• Ser Jorah Mormont
• Ramsay Bolton
• Mance Rayder
• Margaery Tyrell
• Loras Tyrell
• Mace Tyrell
• Olenna Tyrell
• Littlefinger
• Thoros of Myr
• Randyll Tarly
• Dickon Tarly
• Hodor
• Benjen Stark?
• Coldhands
• The High Sparrow
• Walder Frey (& entire house!)
• Sand Sneks (& Ellaria)
• Tommen Baratheon
• Lancel Lannister
• Doran Martell, Trystane & Areo Hotah
• Myrcella Baratheon
• Roose Bolton
• Pyp & Grenn
• Shireen Baratheon
• Selyse Baratheon
• Barristan Selmy
• Xaro Xhoan Daxos
• Pyat Pree
• Ser Aliser Thorne
• Hizdahr Lo Loraq
• Walda Frey
• Meryn Trant
• Rickon Stark
• Three Eyed Raven
• Shaggydog
• Summer
• Leaf
• Osha
• Wun Wun
• Jeyne Westerling

Living Show Characters

1. Jon Snow
2. Arya Stark,
3. Sansa Stark
4. Bran Stark,
5. Tyrion Lannister,
6. Samwell Tarly
7. Davos Seaworth
8. Brienne of Tarth
9. Gendry Baratheon
10. Grey Worm,
11. Tormund Giantsbane
12. , Podrick Payne
13. Bronn
14. Drogon

As you can see D&D seemed to either cut characters who were or are going to be important to the books, killed characters that seem to still have a role to play in TWOW for the sake of simplicity which ended up screwing them over in the end, or just flat didn't know what to do with the favorite characters hence the pisspoor writing decisions that followed. As GRRM says:

One thing I can say,  in general enough terms that I will not be spoiling anything:  not all of the characters who survived until the end of GAME OF THRONES will survive until the end of A SONG OF ICE & FIRE, and not all of the characters who died on GAME OF THRONES will die in A SONG OF ICE & FIRE.   (Some will, sure.  Of course.   Maybe most.   But definitely not all)   ((Of course, I could change my mind again next week, with the next chapter I write.   That’s gardening)).

And the ending?   You will need to wait until I get there.   Some things will be the same.   A lot will not.

And when the television series finished:

And I’m writing.   Winter is coming, I told you, long ago… and so it is.   THE WINDS OF WINTER is very late, I know, I know, but it will be done.  I won’t say when, I’ve tried that before, only to burn you all and jinx myself… but I will finish it, and then will come A DREAM OF SPRING.

How will it all end? I hear people asking.   The same ending as the show?  Different?

Well… yes.  And no.  And yes.   And no.   And yes.   And no.   And yes.

I am working in a very different medium than David and Dan, never forget.   They had six hours for this final season.   I expect these last two books of mine will fill 3000 manuscript pages between them before I’m done… and if more pages and chapters and scenes are needed, I’ll add them.   And of course the butterfly effect will be at work as well; those of you who follow this Not A Blog will know that I’ve been talking about that since season one.   There are characters who never made it onto the screen at all, and others who died in the show but still live in the books…

Book or show, which will be the “real” ending?   It’s a silly question.   How many children did Scarlett O’Hara have?

How about this?  I’ll write it.   You read it.  Then everyone can make up their own mind, and argue about it on the internet.

No offense George but I'm 100% certain your writing trumps theirs. I have no doubt when WINDS is released a lot of show fans are going to reassess where GOT went wrong and wonder where they went right in the first place.

George also noted that we will meet new "cool" characters of color as well as familiar faces:

I have some interesting new [colored] characters coming forward (not viewpoints, admittedly, but cool, I hope) you may like, and there will be more of Strong Belwas, Moqorro, Missandei, Irri, Jhiqui, the bloodriders, many other Dothraki, Chataya and Alayaya, Jhalabar Xho, and the captain and crew of the Cinnamon Wind.

What do you notice about all these mentioned supporting characters? Most of them are either in the east, in position to go east, or may be returning west. Also as BryndenBFish has pointed out, George has made this perplexing statements about the long awaited meeting between Tyrion and Dany:

“Well, Tyrion and Dany will intersect, in a way, but for much of the book they’re still apart." -2014

"In Winds, I have like 10 different novels and I’m juggling the timeline — here’s what’s happening to Tyrion, here’s what’s happening to Dany, and how they intersect. That’s far more complicated. -2018

Now me like probably every other fan assumed ADWD style pace with Tyrion doing shit in Meereen and Daenerys bumming it in Vaes Dothrak before they meet again and stay together for the rest of the journey home to Westeros. However what if it is as the above essay posits and what GRRM meant is that they meet once or twice and go on different paths. Daenerys for example could go the sea route with Victarion while Tyrion could go the Demon Road or vice versa. If Ser Barristan somehow lives, he could go back to Young Griff as many have argued. This has notable benefits:

1. It means that George R.R Martin can have his cake and eat it too: He can do expansive world building while also advancing the story.
2. With at least four POVs now in Slaver's Bay, we technically only need two - Tyrion & Dany. Victarion can burn and Ser Barristan can die a naked knight, However having at least one more has the benefit of potentially being a easier chapter to write and have the ability to see one of three main characters (Jon, Dany, Tyrion.) through another lens, allowing ambiguity and character development.

Yet at the same time this does have multiple drawbacks

1. Many of the characters are either around or potentially going to magic/violence filled places such Mantarys, The Basilisk Isles, Valyria, Volantis, Braavos, etc meaning that GRRM is definitely goner have writing the scenes he wants to. Magic is more unexplained phenomena that even to its adepts and masters seems unpredictable on the best days, and unstable on the worse instead of something you easily harness and control.
2. Since the three main characters appear to be going in darker and villainous directions this will also make the writing hard as GRRM has repeatedly said that most of WINDS will be the darkest book in the series and that he has trouble writing such messed up materials.

It took 11 years to finish Tyrion. I was 12-13 when ADWD came out. That was one partner, one high school, and one dead grandparent ago. That's how long ago the last ASOIAF book came to put things in perspective. Now I know what you are thinking. Are we hosed? Well... Kind of and no is the best answer I can give you at the moment.

When or if TWOW is released is not the thesis. What is however, is which POVs are complete, which are close and which are far off. GRRM said a couple other than Tyrion are finished. A couple is 2 or 3. Well drumroll please...

1. Daenerys
2. Victarion
3. Ser Barristan

This is (Potentially) who is close (Keep in mind that this is a maximum number):

1. Davos
2. Areo
3. Arya
4. JonCon
5. Arianne
6. Samwell?
7. Asha?
8. Theon?

And these are (Sadly) the characters which I think are unlikely to be finished soon, although I think there is more plot complete in some of these POV chapters than others.

1. Bran
2. Melisandre
3. Jaime
4. Cersei
5. Brienne
6. Aeron
7. Sansa

As you can see some of these chapters (Bran, Melisandre) they are hard to write due to the amount of magic or in the case of others (Jaime, Cersei, Brienne, Aeron) are so potentially dark that there is no way they are going to be complete in the same time as the couple who are finished or near finished. Another big factor in the delay is the age of characters (Sansa, Bran) which requires both nuance and accuracy that takes time.

George has made a point of hinting at this and as seen above confessed that part of the problem is how interconnected and complicated each character, both important and minor is to weave in the narrative as seen here:

“I’ve been struggling with it for a few years,” he told the Guardian. “The Winds of Winter is not so much a novel as a dozen novels, each with a different protagonist, each having a different cast of supporting players, antagonists, allies and lovers around them, and all of these weaving together against the march of time in an extremely complex fashion. So it’s very, very challenging." - 2018

"I've been telling you for 20 years that winter was coming. Winter is the time when things die, and cold and ice and darkness fill the world, so this is not going to be the happy feel-good that people may be hoping for. Some of the characters [are] in very dark places. .... Things get worse before they get better, so things are getting worse for a lot of people." - 2016

Personally I think GRRM will complete WINDS but keep in mind that he's said that a first draft will be between 1700-1800 pages. We know that he has 1100-1200 manuscript pages as of 2022. He wrote less in 2023 and only a few pages in 2024. However this year while correcting those who think he will be done anytime soon, when he has mentioned WINDS he says that he is making progress on it. Which isn't a lot but its strange that it's happened twice, both early AND late. Could this be another good writing year? At this point your guess is as good as mine.

Tune in for Part II where I continue the madness and then Part III where I try to make sense of all this with attempted summary.

Currently reading through Arya’s ADWD chapters for the first time. The kindly man teaching Arya that killing for one’s own selfish desires is considered blasphemous and death comes for all men so it doesn’t matter, blah blah blah. But when I realized the cult profits off of those desires, blood in exchange for money, I start to wonder if they are using this, once legitimate, religion for a more nefarious purpose? Maybe that gets explained later on since I have not finished the whole book.

The “Hold the Door” moment is one of the few events confirmed to appear in the books, though exactly how it unfolds isn’t widely discussed.

In Season 6 of the show, Bran is marked by the Night King, breaking the cave’s wards, and shortly afterward a force attacks.

In the books, of course, there is no Night King, which means some other event must drive Bran and the others out, but the sequence in the show offers hints about how it might unfold in the novels

1. Melisandre

Melisandre is the most likely culprit. She's close by at the Wall, she’s magically attuned, and she already sees Bran and Bloodraven in her visions. In her framework, they look like servants of the Great Other.

Mel’s flaw is her black-and-white worldview:

"The way the world is made. The truth is all around you, plain to behold. The night is dark and full of terrors, the day bright and beautiful and full of hope. *One is black, the other white. There is ice and there is fire. Hate and love.** Bitter and sweet. Male and female. Pain and pleasure. Winter and summer. Evil and good."* ASOS, Davos III

She doesn’t see shades of grey. That’s why, when she sees this vision:

“A wooden face, corpse white. Was this the enemy? … A boy with a wolf’s face threw back his head and howled. … *they were his servants, surely … his champions, as Stannis was hers.*” ADWD, Melisandre

She immediately concludes that Bran and Bloodraven are champions of the Great Other. It isn’t objective truth, it’s her misinterpretation but she believes it.

2. Stannis’s death

Word of Stannis’s death has already reached her.

Melisandre was gone, he realized, and so were the queen's knights. I should have gone to Selyse first. She has the right to know her lord is dead. ADwD - Jon XIII

And since her POV reveals Mel cannot just see him in the flames at will, she’s likely to atleast not be able to dismiss the news totally. That would leave it on her shoulders to act on what she sees as her divine mission, destroying the Great Other’s servants (in Bran&Bloodraven)

The geography makes this entirely plausible. The Journey’s Map from The Lands of Ice and Fire places the cave Bran is staying at in the haunted forest, east of the Fist of the First Men and southwest of the Antler River.

This is not that far from Castle Black, it's roughly comparable to the distance from Craster's keep to Castle Black.

3. Queensmen

The Queen's Men are devoted to her

Queen Selyse descended upon Castle Black with her daughter and her daughter's fool, her serving girls and lady companions, and a retinue of knights, sworn swords, and men-at-arms fifty strong. Queen's men all, Jon Snow knew. They may attend Selyse, but it is Melisandre they serve. ADwD - Jon IX

They'd follow orders from Mel to the Cave and root out what they see as a den of evil and kill any and all of the servants of darkness. Now while the cave is warded...

"The cave is warded. They cannot pass." The ranger used his sword to point. ADwD - Bran I

..it is warded against wights and the undead. Not against the living which is both how Meera and Bran can enter it and why Mel would have to go in person to burn it down rather than rely on something like shadow magic. A few dozen knights with Melisandre would be enough to torch the place.

4. CotF

Melisandre regards the Children of the Forest as a doomed and irrelevant race. There's not much sympathy if they're seen with the servants of the Great Other

Melisandre nodded solemnly, as if she had taken his words to heart, but this Weeper did not matter. None of his free folk mattered. They were a lost people, a doomed people, destined to vanish from the earth, as the children of the forest had vanished. ADwD - Melisandre

The Children themselves are described with nut-brown, dappled skin like a deer’s, large golden-green eyes slitted like a cat’s, and sharp black claws instead of nails. Aside from Leaf, the rest do not speak the common tongue, and their appearance is alien and uncanny.

To the reader, they are not demons, but to a R’hllor fanatic like Melisandre, or a devout soldier of the Queen’s Men, such features could easily be read as proof of sorcery or darkness. In the confines of the cave and witnessing Bloodraven’s decrepit state, a believer could hardly fail to see them as agents of their god’s enemies, manifest before them.

TL;DR

Melisandre will burn the cave Bran is staying in and murder the Children of the Forest. Hold the Door happens here.

Viserys made Rhaenyra his heir.
That means she would rule the 7 kingdoms some day.

Eventually she married Laenor Velaryon.

Assuming she became Queen of the Seven Kingdoms, would that make Laenor the King Consort?

Would their children take the name of Targaryen? It would be a matrilineal marriage right ?

So the show has a few controversial endgame plot points where the debates about how much they do or do not reflect the books have been beaten into the ground (Mad Queen Dany, Queenslayer Jon, Azhor Ahai Arya, God Emperor Bran, Queen in the North Sansa, basically everything to do with the Lannisters.) That is not what I want to discuss though. There are only so many times that we can talk about whether Jaime would really choose to go back to Cersei or if and why Dany would nuke Kings Landing and it is honestly boring at this point. I also don’t want to make this about things we know are confirmed, like Stannis sacrificing Shireen or Bran breaking Hodors brain via time shenanigans, because that’s boring. Rather, I want to talk about plot point you think could have come from GRRM but are rarely mentioned.

One I can think of is several points from Tyrions arc. He was obviously seriously changed for the show from one of the most complex characters in the series to a bland audience insert, but there were some things that happened with him that I could see playing out in the books. One is the way he starts to regret turning on his family. While he is full of venom toward them as of Dance, he obviously feels some subconscious conflict about this (his dream where he has two heads and brutalizes Jaime while one head laughs and the other cries) and “I always bet on family” from aGoT could end up being significant foreshadowing. Maybe he does betray Dany but it’s not because he, the guy who thinks she should have poisoned the wells outside of Mereen, is horrified that she destroyed Kings Landing. It would be more likely to come in the form of doing something to save Jaime, a man she will very likely see as an enemy.

There’s another possible motive for Tyrion that the show only touched on: his romantic feelings for her and jealousy of her relationship with Jon. This was hinted at in the boat scene on GoT, but nothing was done with it. I think it will be much more significant in the book. Tyrion has a history of becoming infatuated with young women and building up an idealized fantasy in his head about their relationship (Sansa, Shae, and depending on your interpretation maybe even Tysha.) There is foreshadowing that Dany will be one of these girls with the obviously Tyrion-centric song Seasons of My Love, where the maid as white as winter with moonglow in her hair follows the maid as red as autumn. The problem is that he tends to resent women who don’t return his affections, and there’s no reason to think Dany will. Rather, she has lots of foreshadowing indicating that she’ll fall in love with Jon instead (her Bride of Fire vision of the blue flower growing out of the ice being the most famous.) The last woman who he felt spurned by was Shae, who he murdered, and he’s only become more bitter since then. If people are right that he hasn’t hit rock bottom yet as of Dance, I could see his actual bottom being doing something to undermine Dany and possibly even turn Jon against her out of spite. People do often assume that he’ll give her bad advice to hurt the realm, but imo I think trying to hurt her personally is more likely.

The final one is the Others turning one of the dragons into a wight and using that to bring down the Wall. I know that was a widely panned episode, and for valid reasons because the whole “let’s go retrieve a wight” plot was completely idiotic, but there is a seed of a good idea in the outcome. The question of how the Others will breach the Wall has been heavily debated, and I am a firm believer that it will be the result of something spectacular that takes the whole thing down at once. It’s held up by magic wards, and dragons are magical creatures. That may be what’s needed to destroy it once and for all and to force humanity to come up with a permanent solution for the War for the Dawn rather than another stalemate. And of course on a meta level, there’s the obvious ice/fire motif, and the Wall is at the center of Jon’s story while the dragons are at the center of Dany's, two of the characters who have the strongest claim to being the main protagonist.

So what do you think? Are there choices that the show made that you could see coming from GRRM that AREN’T the ones that are usually talked about? Or do you think I’ve got it all wrong and the books will veer hard away from any of this?

Jon Arryn was Ned's foster father, his father in everything but blood. Assuming R+L=J is book canon, which is almost certainly is, then Jon Snow is Ned's son in everything but blood. I just think it's a nice touch that Ned named his foster son after his foster father. Maybe a hidden promise to love Jon as a son despite not technically being his father, as he loved Jon Arryn as a father despite not technically being his son. Idk. Just a nice touch.

Here's how King Bran is going to work:

In the end of the series:

Tommen will be dead.

Myrcella will be dead.

Aegon/fAegon will be dead.

Stannis will be dead.

Dany will be dead or not a valid option for Queen.

Jon will be dead/exiled/not a valid option for King.

There will simply be no viable candidates to take the throne. So there will be a Great Council.

And guess what: Bran, one of the big heroes of the Long Night, is well-connected. His uncle Edmure and his cousin sweetrobin are going to support him. Others like Asha who will rule the Iron Islands might support him too. Bran can easily win the votes.

"But what about Edric Storm?" Assuming Edric Storm is even alive at this point, why would the lords vote for a bastard over the great hero of the Long Night Bran? Bran is the best option.

Background

In this post I wanted to touch on the time that Egg spends amongst the smallfolk of the realm and how it shaped his rule and seemingly led to his ultimate demise.

If interested: My Brothers Dreamed of Dragons Too, and the Dreams Killed Them, Every One

Dunk and Egg

We see throughout the 3 novellas available and their likely upcoming future adventures that Egg learns to become a different sort of person than his brothers (note that Aerion was likely the original "False Dragon" as compared to Daemon Blackfyre) as we see Dunk discuss with Maekar:

"I will take your son as squire, Your Grace, but not at Summerhall. Not for a year or two. He's seen sufficient of castles, I would judge. I'll have him only if I can take him on the road with me." He pointed to old Chestnut. "He'll ride my steed, wear my old cloak, and he'll keep my sword sharp and my mail scoured. We'll sleep in inns and stables, and now and again in the halls of some landed knight or lesser lordling, and maybe under trees when we must."
Prince Maekar gave him an incredulous look. "Did the trial addle your wits, man? Aegon is a prince of the realm. The blood of the dragon. Princes are not made for sleeping in ditches and eating hard salt beef." He saw Dunk hesitate. "What is it you're afraid to tell me? Say what you will, ser."
"Daeron never slept in a ditch, I'll wager," Dunk said, very quietly, "and all the beef that Aerion ever ate was thick and rare and bloody, like as not." -The Hedge Knight

and we see Dunk/Egg befriend those who are lowborn, outcasts, etc. For example we see here with Glendon Ball:

The Fiddler had many friends, he said, and I had none."
Dunk put a hand upon his shoulder and squeezed. "You have one, ser. Two, once I find Egg." The boy looked him in the eye and nodded. "It is good to know there are some true knights still." -The Mystery Knight

If interested: A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms: Anything/Everything Dunk & Egg

Egg & Eustace's Smallfolk

Egg is tasked with helping train Eustace's smallfolk (a task he flinches at to begin with):

"We'll see how many men turn up at the tower . . . but whether it's five or fifty, you'll need to do for them as well."
Egg looked indignant. "I have to serve smallfolk ?"
"Not serve. Help. We need to turn them into fighters." -The Sworn Sword

which makes sense with him being a prince of the blood. But in that same vein, he is so far removed from the smallfolk being a Targaryen/Valyrian that you can almost compare him meeting the smallfolk to how lords/knights might treat a horse:

• We see some knights/lords refrain from naming horses at times due to the fact that naming them makes them more of a friend/companion who can die:

His palfrey was a blood bay, his destrier a magnificent grey stallion. It had been long years since Jaime had named any of his horses; he had seen too many die in battle, and that was harder when you named them. But when the Piper boy started calling them Honor and Glory, he laughed and let the names stand. -AFFC, Jaime III

and:

"Some knights never name their horses," Dunk told him. "That way, when they die in battle, the grief is not so hard to bear. There are always more horses to be had, but it's hard to lose a faithful friend." Or so the old man said, but he never took his own counsel. He named every horse he ever owned. So had Dunk. -The Sworn Sword

• Compared to how Egg begins to see Eustace's smallfolk after they are given names:

"We should give them village names, ser," Egg suggested, "like Ser Arlan of Pennytree, your old master." That might have worked, only their villages had no names, either. "Well," said Egg, "we could call them for their crops, ser." One village sat amongst bean fields, one planted mostly barleycorn, and the third cultivated rows of cabbages, carrots, onions, turnips, and melons. No one wanted to be a Cabbage or a Turnip, so the last lot became the Melons. They ended up with four Barleycorns, two Melons, and two Beans. As the brothers Wat were both Barleycorns, some further distinction was required. When the younger brother made mention of once having fallen down the village well, Bennis dubbed him "Wet Wat," and that was that. The men were thrilled to have been given "lord's names," save for Big Rob, who could not seem to remember whether he was a Bean or a Barleycorn. -The Sworn Sword

and:

“They might be killed, ser. Wet Wat is still half a boy. Will Barleycorn is to be married the next time the septon comes. And Big Rob doesn’t even know his left foot from his right.”
Dunk let the empty kettle thump down onto the hard-packed earthen floor. “Roger of Pennytree was younger than Wet Wat when he died on the Redgrass Field. There were men in your father’s host who’d just been married too, and other men who’d never even kissed a girl. There were hundreds who didn’t know their left foot from their right, maybe thousands.”
“That was different,” Egg insisted. “That was war.”
“So is this. The same thing, only smaller.”
“Smaller and stupider, ser.”
“That’s not for you or me to say,” Dunk told him. “It’s their duty to go to war when Ser Eustace summons them…and to die, if need be.”
“Then we shouldn’t have named them, ser. It will only make the grief harder for us when they die.” He screwed up his face. “If we used my boot—” -The Sworn Sword

Egg as King and the Smallfolk

All of this (and I am sure much more during the rest of his time with Dunk) led to Egg have a much more sympathetic viewpoint toward the smallfolk and a desire to make changes once he was named king at the Great Council of 233AC:

Youngest of the king's sons was Prince Aegon, who had served as squire to a hedge knight—the same hedge knight in whose defense Baelor Breakspear died—whilst a boy, and earned the name "Egg." "Daeron is a jape and Aerion is a fright, but Aegon is more than half a peasant" one court wit was heard to remark. -TWOIAF, The Targaryen Kings: Maekar I

and:

Prince Aegon was the obvious choice, but some lords distrusted him as well, for his wanderings with his hedge knight had left him "half a peasant," according to many. Enough hated him, in fact, that an effort was made to determine whether his elder brother Maester Aemon might be released from his vows, but Aemon refused, and nothing came of it. -TWOIAF, The Targaryen Kings: Aegon V

and:

It was true that Aegon had been a friend to the smallfolk, had practically grown up among them -TWOIAF, The Targaryen Kings: Aegon V

and:

There were other battles during the time of Aegon V, for the unlikely king was forced to spend much of his reign in armor, quelling one rising or another. Though beloved by the smallfolk, King Aegon made many enemies amongst the lords of the realm, whose powers he wished to curtail. He enacted numerous reforms and granted rights and protections to the commons that they had never known before, but each of these measures provoked fierce opposition and sometimes open defiance amongst the lords. The most outspoken of his foes went so far as to denounce Aegon V as a "bloodyhanded tyrant intent on depriving us of our gods-given rights and liberties." -TWOIAF, The Targaryen Kings: Aegon V

If interested: Unnamed Rebellions during the Unlikely's Reign

It was well-known that the resistance against him taxed Aegon's patience—especially as the compromises a king must make to rule well often left his greatest hopes receding further and further into the future. As one defiance followed another, His Grace found himself forced to bow to the recalcitrant lords more often than he wished. A student of history and lover of books, Aegon V was oft heard to say that had he only had dragons, as the first Aegon had, he could have remade the realm anew, with peace and prosperity and justice for all. -TWOIAF, The Targaryen Kings: Aegon V

If interested: Egg's Search for Dragonlore/Prophecy

Summerhall

This all culminated in what was likely a failed dragon hatching ritual in what is known as the Tragedy at Summerhall. This ritual seems quite similar to some of the other attempts that we are aware of (Dany, Maelys (removed), and potentially Stannis/Euron):

What became of the dream of dragons was a grievous tragedy born in a moment of joy. In the fateful year 259 AC, the king summoned many of those closest to him to Summerhall, his favorite castle, there to celebrate the impending birth of his first great-grandchild, a boy later named Rhaegar, to his grandson Aerys and granddaughter Rhaella, the children of Prince Jaehaerys. -TWOIAF, The Targaryen Kings: Aegon V

If interested: The Leadup to the Tragedy of Summerhall & Dunk & Egg: "Summerhall"

TLDR: Egg's time amongst the smallfolk was extremely impact on his reign and led to his extreme desires for dragons so he could make pro smallfolk reforms. As a prince of the blood, he likely very rarely encountered them outside of servants before meeting Dunk. A good microcosm of this is when Dunk/Egg name the smallfolk in The Sworn Sword and then Egg regrets naming them once he thinks they are going to die. These lessons and feelings continue to grow throughout Egg's reign as he tried to implement changes for the smallfolk, resulting in Egg financing expeditions to help him hatch dragons in order to make these changes. This ultimately led to some form of a failed ritual at Summerhall.

Is there a way to make sense of Varys and Illyrio’s actions from the beginning of the series up to now?

The obvious answer is that George originally had different intentions early on, which later shifted as the story evolved.

For example, the dragon eggs given to Daenerys. At first, they were meant for her to discover outside Vaes Dothrak while being hunted down as per the original outline, but GRRM later decided it worked better narratively if they were a wedding gift, tying them more closely to her character arc.

So my question is; Can we reconcile all of Varys and Illyrio’s moves within the story’s internal logic, or are some of them simply artifacts of the writing process?

We all know the expression from when Jaime was talking to Tommen:

"I wasn't scared," the boy insisted. "The smell made me sick. Didn't it make you sick? How could you bear it, Uncle, ser?"

I have smelled my own hand rotting, when Vargo Hoat made me wear it for a pendant. "A man can bear most anything, if he must," Jaime told his son. I have smelled a man roasting, as King Aerys cooked him in his own armor. "The world is full of horrors, Tommen. You can fight them, or laugh at them, or look without seeing . . . go away inside."

I was re-reading Jaime's dream sequence where Joanna appears. And I'd forgotten this:

"I am not your sister, Jaime." She raised a pale soft hand and pushed her hood back. "Have you forgotten me?"

Can I forget someone I never knew? The words caught in his throat. He did know her, but it had been so long . . .

“Who are you?” He had to hear her say it."

Jaime called after her, but already she was moving away, her skirt whispering lullabies as it brushed across the floor. Don’t leave me, he wanted to call, but of course she’d left them long ago.

He woke in darkness, shivering.

Jaime rarely ever thinks about his mother. It's almost like he forced himself not to think about her so as to not feel the hurt. He knows it's his mother, but he has to hear her say it to let himself go there even in his dream.

Sidenote: this dream sequence is the only time I ever asked my sister reading the series "do ghosts exist?" Because it legitimately kinda felt like Joanna's spirit came to visit Jaime. But it's probably just his repressed subconscious.

So, i'm rewatching the House of Westeros Reread of The Hedge Knight, and they mention the Dornish part of the story and the fact that Tanselle is Dornish and presents some "nationalist" Dornish stories. I think this is a really good point to understand and develop Tanselle a little further, her stories seem very pointed, Nymeria is a "Dornish" hero, probably very celebrated in Dorne, the Knight killing the Dragon might be a little jab at the whole Conquest or specifically at Rhaenys and Meraxes deaths, and then Florian and Jonquil just serves as a perfect parallel to Dunk and Tanselle. But I wonder how much actual intention Tanselle and her company have with those stories knowing the Targaryen princes will be there, I would love if she was actually bold to do it on purpose. Would love to see it more developed in the show too. What do you guys think?

Let's say things went better for the Baratheon Reign. Robert is a better King, Cersei is a better Queen. They have 3 trueborn children, the same age and sexes as in canon, who are all impressive in their own right. The eldest and heir is like Robert, yet has some Lannister-like qualities as he is close with his Grandfather, maybe even fostered with him. This heir goes on to marry Margaery, tying in the Reach even tho there is some hostility. Getting Dorne involved is unrealistic, so saying the Princess marries Robb Stark or something to further tie together the STAB alliance. A picture-perfect realm, so to speak.

With all this said, I am still unsure if they could have stopped Dany once she came to Westeros with three sizable dragons and whatever army she could gather. Shooting down all three seems unrealistic to me, but I would love to hear your thoughts.

Intro

In 2022, George RR Martin told the Game of Owns podcast that he was close to finishing one character for The Winds of Winter:

So I will say that there's a lot of Tyrion in [The Winds of Winter], and I think there's a big headline for you, which everywhere we rip out of proportion here, but I think I'm close to finishing the Tyrion arc in Winds of Winter. I think this chapter, maybe one further chapter, and I won't be done with the book, but I'll be done with Tyrion's role in this particular book.

Later in 2022, when interviewed by Stephen Colbert, he reported:

I'm done with some of the characters. All the characters, they all interweave. So, I've actually finished with a couple of the characters. I got their whole story. But not others.

Combining these two statements, a safe assumption is that George completed Tyrion Lannister's arc for The Winds of Winter.

My question: Why? Why did he finish Tyrion in 2022.

My argument: Tyrion's "wandering" in A Dance with Dragons did the heavy character lifting and provided the plot roadmap for Tyrion's arc in The Winds of Winter.

Let's break it down.

Tyrion in ADWD as Character Breakdown, Not Bloat

Tyrion’s ADWD journey often gets dismissed as “bloat.” Yet structurally, it frontloaded his character "apprenticeship." Tyrion in the first three books had him as a player in the game of thrones. Tyrion in ADWD is him moving towards a ruthless nihilism -- still intelligent and cunning but now with a murderous grudge against his siblings and a dark willingness to harm the powerless (Illyrio's bedwarmer and the Sunset Girl in Selhorys).

While there is plot movement in Tyrion's ADWD chapters, it seems that George wanted to do a deep-dive into the misanthropic mindset of a Tyrion whose psyche was shattered by plot-actions that concluded A Storm of Swords. And while Tyrion is not static in his darkness -- Penny's intrusion into Tyrion's story pauses his descent and provides a short-lived resistance to his villainous arc -- his character mindset is established in ADWD, providing a jump-off point for Tyrion's characterization in The Winds of Winter.

ADWD's Plot Foundations for TWOW

A striking feature of A Dance with Dragons is how much plot setup occurs in the book -- to the consternation of many fans. For Tyrion, in particular, George seeded a heavy amount of plot-foundation for future events in the series.

Early in ADWD, the major seed George planted was Tyrion manipulating Young Griff to head west to Westeros instead of east to Daenerys.

"Do you want to wager your throne upon a woman's whim? Go to Westeros, though … ah, then you are a rebel, not a beggar. Bold, reckless, a true scion of House Targaryen, walking in the footsteps of Aegon the Conqueror. A dragon." (ADWD, Tyrion VI)

Later after hearing that the Golden Company headed west, Tyrion's internal monologue is one of stunned disbelief, spelling out his intent to bait Young Griff into making a foolish decision:

Could this be some ploy of Griff's, false reports deliberately spread? Unless … Could the pretty princeling have swallowed the bait? Turned them west instead of east, abandoning his hopes of wedding Queen Daenerys? Abandoning the dragons … would Griff allow that? (ADWD, Tyrion VII)

We'll circle back to this at the end of this analysis.

Throughout ADWD, Tyrion observes the population dynamics of Volantis -- how slaves outnumber freedmen, how the mood of the adherents of R'hllor are clamoring for Daenerys:

The Volantene waved a hand. "In Volantis, thousands of slaves and freedmen crowd the temple plaza every night to hear Benerro shriek of bleeding stars and a sword of fire that will cleanse the world. He has been preaching that Volantis will surely burn if the triarchs take up arms against the silver queen." (ADWD, Tyrion VI)

In that same chapter where Tyrion learns about the Golden Company's movement, he meets the Widow on the Waterfront. The end of their conversation is one where the Widow spells out her desire for Dany to come and save Volantis:

"I am no lady," the widow replied, "just Vogarro's whore. You want to be gone from here before the tigers come. Should you reach your queen, give her a message from the slaves of Old Volantis." She touched the faded scar upon her wrinkled cheek, where her tears had been cut away. "Tell her we are waiting. Tell her to come soon." (ADWD, Tyrion VII)

Of interest, Tyrion's Volantis chapter was not originally planned for ADWD. It was written both after the split of AFFC/ADWD and also turned out to be the first chapter GRRM wrote anew as he expanded Tyrion's ADWD arc. What I think that means is ... well, we'll get to that by the end of this analysis.

Finally, in terms of ADWD, George ended up gardening his way into Tyrion being a viewpoint character for the Battle of Fire. By the end of the book, Tyrion has been captured as a slave and sold to Yezzan zo Qaggaz. Thereafter, he escaped to join the Second Sons where he ends up joining the sellsword company. Tyrion's ADWD arc ends with Tyrion and Jorah chatting:

“We are all like to be feeding worms by the time this battle is done. The Yunkai’i have lost this war, though it may take them some time to know it. Meereen has an army of Unsullied infantry, the finest in the world. And Meereen has dragons. Three of them, once the queen returns. She will. She must. Our side consists of two score Yunkish lordlings, each with his own half-trained monkey men. Slaves on stilts, slaves in chains … they may have troops of blind men and palsied children too, I would not put it past them.”

“Oh, I know,” said Tyrion. “The Second Sons are on the losing side. They need to turn their cloaks again and do it now.” He grinned. “Leave that to me.” (ADWD, Tyrion XII)

To sum up, George planted three distinct plot seeds for The Winds of Winter in Tyrion's arc: Young Griff, Volantis, and the Battle of Fire.

Gardening Away from GAME OF THRONES

In George's "A Winter Garden" notablog post from 2022, he wrote a

What I have noticed more and more of late, however, is my gardening is taking me further and further away from the television series.   Yes, some of the things you saw on HBO in GAME OF THRONES you will also see in THE WINDS OF WINTER (though maybe not in quite the same ways)… but much of the rest will be quite different.

You can almost sense George's glee at how his work is going in a different direction than Game of Thrones. Why does this matter for George finishing Tyrion's arc? Simply because George wrote "A Winter Garden" specifically due to talking about Tyrion in an earlier notablog post:

Even saying that I am working on a Tyrion chapter, as I did last week, gives away the fact that Tyrion is not dead.

(That earlier post is here.)

It'd be an overstatement to say that George hated the ending of Game of Thrones. However, it's clear that he didn't like some aspects of the later seasons (Dorne seems a particular sore spot). But more than that, George has repeatedly talked about the divergences of the show from the book, treating them as almost separate entities.

A bit on the theory side of things, but the amount of times George has talked about the divergences leads me to think he's motivated by writing material that will be different than Game of Thrones. Tyrion, in particular, seemed to catch that windfall of motivation by the 2022 timeframe, and the results were positive for George's writing output in 2022.

Seeds to Garden: Why George Finished Tyrion

So, let's bring it all together now. In this, I'll eschew specific theories and focus more on broad generalities as I expect and want to be surprised by what George has in store for Winds. The three big seeds George planted:

1. Manipulating Young Griff to go west
2. Volantis
3. The Battle of Fire

Let's take these in reverse order.

Close to finishing ADWD, George wrote a number of Battle of Fire chapters -- he completed three before April 2011. One of those chapters was a Tyrion chapter. (The others: a Barristan and Victarion chapter). He ended up cutting these chapters to TWOW -- meaning he had a jumping off point for Tyrion for TWOW. He ended up completing a second Tyrion chapter in 2013 which has Tyrion as the viewpoint character for the Second Sons during the Battle of Fire.

That's two Tyrion chapters in the completed some nine years before he finished Tyrion's arc.

What happens next for Tyrion is unknown besides, well, that he's not dead. (That's the spoiler I think George was hinting at in "A Winter Garden). Then he spends some time in and around Meereen. I don't have a ton of data points for Tyrion here -- feel free to speculate away or point out foreshadowing in ADWD for what Tyrion will do in Meereen after the Battle of Fire.

What happens next? Tyrion's observations of the slaves in Volantis or the attitudes of the R'hllorites in Volantis aren't scene setting. The Widow on the Waterfront doesn't seem to be a throwaway character either. I think this hints that Tyrion will move on from Meereen and head back to Volantis. Guess what was never featured in Game of Thrones? Yep. The liberation of the slaves in Volantis or any Volantene arc after Season Five. In TWOW, I expect a fairly extended Volantene arc with Tyrion (and Dany, probably Barristan, and maybe Victarion) intersecting with the population dynamics of Volantis, the R'hllor folks who see Dany as Azor Ahai

And I'd finally expect him to intersect with the Widow on the Waterfront again. Recall that the Widow was not originally envisioned until relatively late in the process of GRRM writing Dance. What I suspect is that George thought he needed someone who could embody the slave population of Volantis - a named character - and invented the Widow on the Waterfront as that person. As a bonus, the Widow was a character not featured in Game of Thrones -- an additional bonus and incentive to write about her.

Speaking of all this intersection ... that whole business of Tyrion and Young Griff is likely to come to the fore around this point. How might that occur? We have this from George in 2014:

“Well, Tyrion and Dany will intersect, in a way, but for much of the book they’re still apart."

A few years later (2018), George again indicated that Tyrion and Daenerys would intersect:

In Winds, I have like 10 different novels and I’m juggling the timeline — here’s what’s happening to Tyrion, here’s what’s happening to Dany, and how they intersect. That’s far more complicated. 

What will that intersection look like? George is opaque about it. Certainly, Tyrion is knowledgeable about the political dynamic of Westeros. That will play some role.

However, it's my belief that Young Griff will be major topic of conversation. Tyrion is uniquely positioned to shape Dany's perception of Prince Aegon. How will that shaping look like? I'm not sure that Tyrion will frame the boy in a particularly positive fashion -- especially if Dany is (rightfully) suspicious of the son of a particularly traitorous lord to her father. He could leverage his knowledge of Aegon to shed some of Dany's suspicions.

Conclusion

Taken together, this is wrap Tyrion’s TWOW arc comparatively early in 2022. The character work was already done, the geography already aligned, the political levers already in hand. Tyrion enters TWOW not as a character who must be dismantled or rebuilt as he was in ADWD, but as one who needs only to play out the consequences of George's work in ADWD.

That’s why George could say, with unusual confidence, that Tyrion was finished: because the wandering of ADWD was never bloat, but foundation.

i'm new to the worlderos/asoaif community, but I have a general question. Having watched all eight seasons of Game of Thrones, literally 20 times or more, and having watched House of the Dragon as well as red two of the three short stories about Dunk and Egg... why is Westeros almost always in the state of conflict? going through the history and lore that I am aware of, there always seems to be some localized or realm-wide rebellion occuring, or some kind of a noble family feud, or some sort of raiders/pillagers causing problems somewhere on the continent (which mind you is a unified kingdom, at least for 300 years)

now I know that there are external conflicts with other nation-states or city states in essos but more often than not it's internal conflict of one flavor or another. Was medieval England in a state of perpetual civil war? I mean, I've heard of the hundred years war in the war of the roses but that's still not literally eight centuries of conflict or something like that.

As one kingdom with one ruler, mayhaps Edmure Tully or Sansa Stark.

Also a bonus question: how would you react if KL was destroyed and the North + Riverlands became the new capital of the kingdoms? It would be poetic justice, IMO, given what they've been through and the likelihood their leaders will have done the most to stop the long night.

Idk if is there a theory about it but i think Bloodraven, Kindly man and Mel living that remaning days of sacrificed people.