I hope he hasn’t developed writer’s cramp in the midst of all this.
I read the first 4 novels as a package on Kindle several months ago. When the 5th (Dance with Dragons) came out, I went back and re-read them before reading Dance. I am now totally hooked. Martin is not allowed to die without finishing the series. He’s not even allowed to get sick.
Get busy, George, and quit screwing around.
A) It was his publisher, not his editor (does he even have an editor?)
B) She didn’t actually say that. In a question about will it stay to 7 books she mentioned they were saying around of the office - 7 books for 7 kingdoms, but then when looking at the Word of Ice and Fire stuff (to be published later this year), she noticed there were 8 kingdoms (which isn’t correct anyways - The Riverlands were controlled by the Iron Islands at the time of Aegon’s Conquest), so perhaps 8 books for 8 kingdoms? Just idle speculation that means nothing really.
How will the rest of the Starks – Bran, Arya and Sansa – figure in the ultimate resolution of the story? That’s what I wonder most about.
Bran will be Ender Wiggin, controlling the Children, First Men and Andals against the Others from his underground bunker.
If TV Sansa is any indication, Sansa is becoming Good Cersei, a future queen who is beloved rather than feared.
Arya will perform a shocking assassination or two, forget her heritage, then be reunited with Nymeria, rekindling her life as a Stark. The series will end with her consciously shedding that heritage once more to return to Braavos.
Rickon will return to resire the Stark line in Winterfell.
I used to think that Tyrion woukd be revealed as a Targ bastard and the third dragon rider, based on his early dreams. Now I think that Tyrion is the true Lannister (he carries his family’s ancestral wits), and that Jaime/Cersei are the Targ bastards, carrying on their family’s ancestral incest. That would make Jaime a good candidate for Sansa’s husband and a possible dragon rider.
The Wall will come down and the Others will reach the Riverlands at least, perhaps King’s Landing. Stannis will defeat the Boltons but be swept up in winter. Connington’s greyscale afflicts the Stormlands and Riverlands, decimating the population even before the advance of the Others.
Snow lives via warg into ghost and is reborn. He drives south, Dani arrives and drives the Others north.
The Starks become what they hate, Arya is now a killer for the powerful. Sansa is a LF style manipulator, probably going to take advantage of a naive little boy.
Neat!
Stannis will be grievously injured in the battle of ice and Jon will warg into his body. He will end up on the iron throne.
Both Kurt Cobain and Amy Winehouse are said to have spoken often of their desire to join the “27 Club;” Cobain, of course, committed suicide overtly when that age, and it might be said that Winehouse committed suicide covertly (her death has been called an overdose).
If Martin has—whether consciously or not—decided that his future reputation as A Great Fantasy Writer depends on his not finishing the books…then it’s likely that he won’t finish the books.
Whoa! That’s an awesome theory! You would think that with the first famous Lannister being “Lann the Clever” during the Age of Heroes it may have been something that was rumored earlier - nicely spotted.
And they do tend to talk a lot about Jaime and Cersei’s golden hair - almost sounding similar to the discussions of Targaryen hair - though the eyes are different & darker, of course.
Ever since I finished book five, I contend Dany will become the ultimate villian of the series. From helpless little girl to ruthless conqueror. Her whole storyline in ADWD seemed to be telling her: “you can’t be a good queen. You must rule with fire and blood.” I think the next book she will be a completely different peraon, especially when ahe finds out Daario was flung straight into the walls of Meereen by a trebuchet.
No. He is going to finish. I’m pulling a Stephen King…I’m just waiting for the guy to walk for a once-in-a-life time so I can hit him with my car.
Who will ride the dragons?
Dani already has, Jon will ride the white one (possible warging to communicate with it) and Aegon. I don’t believe he is a fake. I think Martin wants you to think you are clever for figuring out he’s a fake when he is the real deal. A spin on spins, as it were.
Will Jon Snow die?
No.
Mel’s vision:
The flames crackled softly, and in their crackling she heard the whispered name Jon Snow. His long face floated before her, limned in tongues of red and orange, appearing and disappearing again, a shadow half- seen behind a fluttering curtain. Now he was a man, now a wolf, now a man again. But the skulls were here as well, the skulls were all around him.
Skulls all around Jon/wolf/Jon? He wargs, seeking shelter in Ghost. His wolf’s name is “Ghost”. Little on the nose, don’t you think?
This will provide the segway into this dream Jon had:
Jon was armored in black ice, but his blade burned red in his fist.
Jon will warg into ghost, his body will become a wight, then he will re-inhabit a body that is now entrenched in ice.
I speculate that Dawn is Lightbringer and that it will be brought north by Darkstar when he is caught and sent to the wall for his crimes. How Jon gets it I don’t know.
(Random thought: Dayne Day(the)NightEnded lol)
4. Is Stannis the promised one?
No. Stannis (the mannis) is dead or dying near Winterfell. He won’t see the south again.
The first me did not build The Wall. The Others did using their ice magic. This was part of the truce brokered after the first men’s fire magic gave them the upper hand over the Others - A truce that has been forgotten by men who are now infringing on the Other’s territories north of the Wall. The return of dragons and fire magic to Westeros are viewed by the Others as an act of war.
Jon Snow fights against Dany to preserve this truce as it turns out that Daenerys Targaryen is the true force of destruction. A fearsome queen who leaves burning cities in her wake. She is eventually assassinated by Arya.
I’ve heard a theory like this before, and as much as I like the idea, the timeline makes no sense to me.
The return of fire magic to Westeros was 300 years ago with Aegon the Conquerer. No response from the Others. Finishing what the Doom of Valyria had started would have seemed like a smart move, but instead they ignored the last surviving fire beasts south of their Wall. They slept. The Maesters took care of the problem. And during the current seasonal cycle, the Others began mobilizing their forces to murder wildlings and crows in the summer before fire magic returned with Dany’s eggs hatching. The attack on the south would have been this winter, with or without a counterattack from dragonriders.
We could speculate with bullshit prophecy stuff, like they read in the stars that Dany’s dragons would be reborn. But in that case, why wait for the winter when it happens? Why not attack twenty years before to keep her from ever having been born? Their powers of prophecy have to be ludicrously timed for them to attack the very same winter when she arrives in Westeros. The timing seems perfectly situated for Dany’s babies to be a fated response to the Others’ decision to invade, and not the other way around.
Dany wouldn’t even be moving north to engage the Others without their attack. She naturally would’ve followed Aegon to conquer Westeros, found a Targ(ish) dynasty, die of old age in King’s Landing, then have her dragon descendents killed by the Maesters or random dragonslayers over many years. Problem solved. No Other invasion necessary.
It wouldn’t surprise me if the humans had broken an old covenant, but the Others’ motives have to be more complicated than just fear of fire magic.
This is interesting. It could explain my Melisandre has seen Jon as AA, as well as why she’s seen visions of Stannis as king. “Kill the boy and become the man.” Hmm.
Any more textual support you’re basing this on?
This is one of the key differences between fiction and reality.
From the first book, same conversation:
Tyrion has in fact done more than just wanting to ride dragons.
He knows more about the dragonriding age, and about the dragons themselves, than anyone else in that world outside of Oldtown. There’s no way Dany knows a tenth as much about the beasts and their history. He also, not coincidentally, has experience with creating saddles for unusual riders.
There’s no guarantee about this, but betting against Tyrion is taking the stupid side of the wager.
No.
It will turn out that dragons can’t be tamed or controlled except through worging. The Valyrian empire is roughly 5000 years old. The pact between the First Men and the Children of the Forest was forged 10.000 years into the past, so there’s plenty of time for some of their descendants to migrate across the sea and become the Valyrian sheep-herders. The dragons will be “ridden” by the three Stark worgs: Jon, Arya and Bran. At least one of the dragons will die, and it’ll take Bran with it. Rickon will end up ruling what’s left of the North after the Others invasion. Jon Snow will remain in the Night’s Watch for the rest of his life.
His body will die, but his spirit will survive in Ghost.
No, and he’ll die fighting the Others.
Other predictions welcomed.
Dany will never sit upon the Iron Throne. Instead she’ll eventually decide to go back across the Sea to rule the cities she’s liberated once the Others are defeated. The Seven Kingdoms will not be united again, but instead will fracture into multiple states. Sansa will end up one of the most powerful people in Westeros, and she’ll take out Littlefinger before the end.
She’s not immune to fire. The fire immunity when the eggs hatched was a one time special magical event. She seems to somewhat resistant to heat, but presumably she’d get burnt if she tried to walk through fire again. From an interview:
She was on fire when she flew away with Drogon on the last book so it obviously wasn’t a one time event and she is immune to fire.
I thought the scene at the end of Dance with Dragons was more ambigous than that. From Dany’s POV she dodges the fire. It’s Barristan Selmy who thinks she’s on fire, but he’s looking from very far away. She’s also described as healing from her burns in her last chapter, so clearly she wasn’t completely immune to the dragonfire. The quote from the author himself is pretty straightforward though. It’s possible that he’s changed his mind since then.
This is unfilmable. 