your ideal a song of ice and fire ending (merged threads)

[Aegon the Great]

Dany on the Iron Throne with a dead Jon Snow at her feet. Sansa is LP of the Vale, Rickon of the North, Theon and Asha as joint LPs of the Iron Islands (Euron is alive and kicking as a pirate king somewhere), Arienne as LP of Dorne, Shireen as LP of the Stormlands, Tommen and Myrcella as LPs of the Westerlands, Margaery as LP of the Reach and Tytos Blackwood as LP of the Riverlands. Arya is Dany's Master of Whisperers.

Wishful thinking? Yes.

[AcesAnd8s]

The ideal ending ties up all loose ends, and essentially hits the reset button on the concepts of honor, nobility, knighthood, etc. I imagine Westeros to be a Venn Diagram, with each circle representing the great houses, within which are smaller Venn diagrams, as the lesser houses vie for supremacy. At the beginning of A Game of Thrones, the Targaryen circle has shrunk to almost nothing, and the Baratheon circle is shrinking, as are the Martell, Tully, and Arryn circles. The Stark circle and the Lannister circle overlap the most. The “current” generation (Jaime, Cersei, Renly, Robb, Tyrion, Daenerys, Jon, Sandor, Loras, etc etc.) talk often about how their parents’ generation were kind of the height of the Great houses, the peak of political sway. That previous generation, encompassing Rhaegar, Arthur Dayne, Gerold Hightower, Barristan in his younger years, Jeor Mormont, Hoster Tully, Brandon Stark, Tywin in his younger years, and others like them…these were MEN, and MEN who knew how to move and shake, knights who understand what an oath was worth, soldiers and vassals and lords who understood and LIVED the idea of service. But the Targaryen dynasty, weakend by the Defiance of Duskendale, left the realm with a great chip in the glass face of its peace, and the madness of Aerys Targaryen tore asunder the balance of power between the Great Houses.

Then, too, there is prophecy. Remember that Rhaegar was a bookish young man, who one day arrived on the practice yard and proclaimed “I will require a sword and armor. It seems I must be a warrior.”

Rhaegar read something that gave him a keen understanding of the near future. He is described as having a melancholy about him, a sense of doom. Rhaegar knew that Robert was going to kill him. He also knew that, more so even than Aerys, that he must be the catalyst that sparks Robert’s Rebellion, and sets in motion the events that will ultimately purge Westeros of much of its internal necrosis.

Tywin Lannister is a character to be much respected for his dedication to his family, his single-minded purpose, and his unrelenting drive and ambition. With the loss of Joanna, however, I believe Tywin lost sight of his House’s purpose, and instead decided to push his family into the forefront of all things Westeros. It was no longer enough for House Lannister to be the richest, most powerful after the Targaryens. It must be that House Lannister will become preeminent. This is just one example of the sickness that wastes within Westeros as ASOIAF opens.

House Stark is, ultimately, no better. The north has been neglected, the Gift deserted, its people a separate realm as in the days before Aegon’s Landing. Ned Stark, for all of his honor, is suspicious of anything that happens south of The Neck, and of any of its people. The Stark’s “support” of Robert Baratheon’s reign exists only on paper. There is no mention, anywhere ever, of a Northman serving in the South, in any capacity, until Ned comes to King’s Landing to be Robert’s Hand. And his suspicion of all things “southron” plays itself out as he makes a series of enemies in the capital.

House Tully is also weak, ripe for revolution. Hoster Tully has been dying for a decade, but nobody has taken steps to instill Edmure as his replacement, instead allowing him to play at being the heir apparent, a rich lordling who drinks and whores and has no responsibility. The Riverlands are, ultimately, left to their own devices. Our biggest representation of this is Lord Frey…who simply sits, breeds, and broods. Fielding an army out of his breeches, and does little else but populate the world with lesser lords and ladies, and baseborn children whose demeanor is still more fallen than their lord father’s.

House Martell is, let’s face it, a joke in the first half of what is written in ASOIAF. Prince Oberyn is the only member of that family we take seriously, and he is so hellbent on vengeance that he…well, you know the rest. Doran has been biding his time, Quentyn is more ambitious than prudent, Arianne is so wrapped up in seducing a knight who vowed chastity that she can’t see past her own bed. The Sand Snakes, now, want vengeance as well. And on it goes. House Martell and, indeed, all of Dorne, WAITED TOO LONG.

House Tyrell, by contrast, seemed to jump right into the thick of things as the other houses were looking the other way. Things went sideways in King’s Landing, Renly rides down with his lover, and lo and behold, here comes an army of roses, with lords great and small from all along the south, with food and money and soldiers and…everything the bleeding realm could ask for. How well timed! How fortuitous! How…suspicious.

House Arryn. Uhhh. Well, Lysa and little lord Robert. Jon Arryn was old and tired when he wed Lysa. His health did not improve after the rebellion. His discovery of Cersei and Jaime’s secret didn’t help anyone at all. And then Lysa killed him. So we have left a madwoman, a feeble boy, and a Vale full of knights and lords who all want to be the next dominant House name in the area. REPLACE THE ARRYNS WITH THE EGANS…OR THE ROYCES…you get the picture.

Leaving us with the Baratheons. Robert is headstrong and oblivious, Stannis is so offended by anything not perfect as to be useless, and Renly is so wrapped up in his affair with Loras that he is useless as well.

In any case. Rhaegar knew that a change must come. I find it curious that he would tell Jaime that when he came back, things would change. I believe Rhaegar knew that one of the changes that must come was his own death. I believe Rhaegar spirited Lyanna away to father Jon. I believe Lyanna was a willing party to this; she never loved Robert, and nearly despaired of being married to him. I believe Varys is probably the truest servant of the realm (alongside Tyrion) in Westeros or anywhere else, both 17 years before the beginning of AGOT, and presently. I believe Rhaegar and Varys arranged to have Aegon spirited from the capital and given to Jon Connington for the purpose of bringing him back as the People’s King. I believe Daenerys was spirited away to Essos to be brought back as the Mother of Dragons. And I believe Jon was intended to be the Prince that was Promised. These three…Jon, Daenerys, and Aegon, are to be the Dragon of Three Heads, the restoration of House Targaryen, and the cleansing fire that will FINALLY wipe clean the stain of lesser men’s ambitions and restore the Great Houses to their FORMER GREATNESS.

I believe enough has been said regarding Stannis and Lightbring to make it clear that, whatever game it is that Melisandre is playing, it is not the game she’s telling people. Either she is mistaken, regarding the nature of R’hllor and the Great Other, or she knows the truth and is selling lies. Remember a few things…Maester Aemon and Sam pointing out that LIghtbringer gives off light but no heat. Remember that everyone R’hllor “restores to life” (and really, I’m just talking about Beric Dondarrion and “Lady Stoneheart”) is less of themselves than they were before. It would seem that, consistently, people coming back from the dead do so in a less than savory way. Bottom line, here…if Melisandre is simply mistaken, then she has armed and supported a man whose destiny has, all along, been to offer the one enemy that could unite the realm of Westeros. Stannis will, ultimately declare himself the Night King, through his own devices or through the corruption of R’hllor’s influence. OR. Melisandre is a tool of The Great Other, but is performing as though in service to R’hllor. Or or or…something is just off about that woman. Given the sinister nature of her works, an ideal ending would include a Martinian (read: sufficiently gruesome, with a hint of justice) end for her. Stannis…”just” as he is, is too unbending to be of any use to a nation as widely varied and ever-changing as Westeros. So either he will end up being the ICE in the Song of Ice and Fire, or will otherwise be a casualty in the war against the Others.

(I’m pausing here as I write…even as I wrote the above, I realized that my predictions don’t take into account all of the disparate pieces of GRRM’s sweeping fantasy…I’ll saddle on, bear with me.)

I would like to see Tyrion either proclaimed Lord of the Rock, or brought to King’s Landing to serve as Master of Coin, and Myrcella sent to serve as Lady of the Rock. This, of course, requires that Cersei get fired into a stone wall from a high-speed catapult, and that Jaime confess all to Daenerys and be allowed to retire to Tarth with Brienne as his wife, or something along those lines. REDEMPTION for Jaime and a gentling for Brienne would not go amiss, in an ideal ending. I almost wrote that Jaime should be allowed to take the Black…but let’s face it. An ideal ending requires the Others to be wiped out completely, the Wall torn down, and the Night’s Watch abolished.

I would also like to see the Iron Islands redeemed in some way. Euron has a part to play, here, and it all centers around his Valyrian dragon horn. But his appearance the day AFTER Balon died is not coincidence. He and Victarion remain a danger to everything happening in Westeros; the Greyjoy family needs to be put in their place and FOLDED IN AS THE 8^th GREAT HOUSE. Meaning, the Old Way needs to be abolished as well, and Asha, with enough sense to understand both her place in the world and the Iron Islands’ place within the 7 kingdoms, could serve as Lady Greyjoy. Theon is, at this point, a non-issue in my eyes. Dead or alive, he serves no purpose but a splash of blood on a page.

An ideal ending would also include a fitting end for Petyr Baelish. Ah, Lord Littlefinger, what are we to do with you? “Always keep your foes confused. If they are never certain who you are or what you want, they cannot know what you are like to do next. Sometimes the best way to baffle them is to make moves that have no purpose, or even seem to work against you. Remember that, Sansa, when you come to play the game.” His is a game whose purpose is only his own advancement, and amusement, it would seem. An ideal ending…leaves us with a primary cast of characters who understand that to be great, one must serve and protect all those under their station. Petyr thinks the smallfolk exist to provide him with position. He needs to go. Preferably on fire while drowning, as he’s tossed out the Moon Door. Unlikely, but I can dream, right?

Who’s left? The Freys need to just be scourged right off the map. Not a single redeeming quality has been described by anybody bearing that surname. The Boltons, as well.

Sansa…probably needs to die. She spent the first 3 books with her head in the clouds, having apparently neither learning nor retaining anything her parents told her about southron lords. She’s so guileless as to be pathetic. Ok, she gets a little hard at the end of AFFC, but by that point, it’s really kind of too late, because she’s been dancing to Littlefinger’s tune for 1000 pages. I’m afraid we will see her rise to be as conniving as Cersei, if she’s allowed to live; a product of the lessons taught her by the harshest realities of life in Westeros, and therefor a threat to the realm and its people.

Arya…I would like Arya to either come back to Westeros and fall madly in love with Aegon, or stay in Essos and do cool things there. I don’t see her as being a pivotal character in what I feel will be the ultimate battleground. She’s gone peripheral, and ideally, should stay there. Yes, she’s fun to read about, and she seems to be building toward something epic. But her epic can stay in Essos, while the REAL epic happens in Westeros, and the story will still end just fine.

Bran, as well. Much has been made about the Three-Eyed Raven (Bloodraven? Maybe.) telling him that he will learn to fly, and must cloak himself in darkness, and all the rest. I find it very difficult to believe that Bran is being positioned to be a force for evil, as has been implied. I think, rather, that we are seeing the beginnings of a long-building war not only on the ground, but in the heavens. The “old” gods, the “new” gods, the Lord of Light, the Great Other, the Many Faced God, and the Drowned God and the Storm God…something HUGE is about to go down, in which (if we are REALLY going for an ideal ending) whatever caused the seasons to go all out of whack will be corrected. And I think Bran is the earthly connection to the only real “good” forces on the side of humankind.

So Rickon. Lord of Winterfell? That would be simplest. He’s been pretty much a non-entity for awhile now. I don’t feel like he matters enough to have an “ideal” ending.

I sincerely hope that Sandor Clegane is able to find peace as a gravedigger on the Quiet Isle. He has been described as a man for whom levity, grace, and kindness cause pain. “The Hound” died in Elder Brother’s arms, and what was left was a man who could finally atone. Ideally, we will hear only confirmation that Sandor is who some of us think he is, and that he will live out his days in quiet service.

Qyburn, Robert Strong, et all…they just need to die. A lot.

Tommen, gentle as he is, may find some way to serve…let’s assume Myrcella stays in Dorne and marries Trystane. Ok, then Tommen can be Lord of the Rock, not being held accountable for his parents’ sin, and encouraged to maintain a gentle heart but a firm hand as well. I think Tommen Lannister could be a great asset to the West, and to all of Westeros. Ideally. :P

There are a whole host of minor characters who “deserve” this or that. Davos Seaworth deserves better than the lot he’s been handed, but I see him dying a tragic death, as he learns the “truth” about Stannis and Melisandre’s destined roles.

[Salt Wife]

What would your ideal A Song of Ice and Fire ending be? On the other hand, what ending do you think is more realistic and is going to happen?

I think some of my ideal endings will end up as realistic endings. (in bold):

My ideal ending is that every one of importance lives and ends up living happily ever after, with a few heroic deaths or betrayals thrown in.

Westeros: Ultimately the Others are destroyed and everyone has an independent kingdom, and a peaceful Westeros lives on.

Essos manages to recover from Dany’s destruction and continues on, and Valyria is reborn with the help of Dany and/or Aegon Targaryen coming back to rule it. I don’t want either of them ruling Westeros.

Jon: Wargs into Ghost in order to be contacted by Bran, and will know that the Starks are all alive/reunite. He will also learn of his true parentage (I honestly think he is Ned’s and Alayne’s son). Melisandre will make him reborn as Azor Ahai, who will then defeat the Others with the help of Dany’s dragons, and die a heroic death defending Westeros.

Aegon: He is the trueborn son of Rhaegar. He will take the Iron Throne, but then relinquish it after meeting/marrying Dany and fighting the Others with the help of the dragons. They will go back to rebuild Valyria and continue the Targaryen line. He will be a good ruler as he has been taught everything he needs to know and she will have the support and the dragons to help him.

Dany: She never becomes queen of Westeros because the Others attack, forcing all of Westeros to band together to fight them. Her dragons will help defeat the Others and will be controlled by her and Bran. The dragons then rejoin her and she marries Aegon, the only other Targaryen. They go back to Valyria to repopulate and rebuild their former nation. In ADWD she states: "If he had lived, I might have married him. Aegon would have been closer to my age than Viserys." Brynden Rivers/Bloodraven will contact Dany from the tree, because I want her to make contact with her ancestors and find peace and purpose.

Sansa: Will kill Littlefinger at the right time, reveal herself as Sansa, take back Winterfell and either she or Bran will rule the North as an independent king/queendom. Will reunite with all her siblings and help hold Winterfell. She will marry someone nice, have kids, and be happy.

Bran: Will help win the war against the Others by warging into wolves and dragons with the help of Arya, and Jon/Azor. Will contact and reunite all the Starks and help take back Winterfell for the Starks. Will become king in the North if his sister does not become queen. He may die or choose to remain a tree.

Rickon: Reunite with his siblings’, stay in Winterfell for rest of his life.

Arya: Will come back to Westeros after Bran contacts her and helps them in battle. Marries Gendry and stops the revenge killings as everyone on her list is dead now. Master of whisperers for Winterfell king/queen or a knight of Winterfell.

Tyrion: Will find out Tysha’s fate, (dead or alive) realize Penny is his daughter, take her back and rule at Casterly Rock. Jaime, Brienne and Podrick will be at his side as knights.

Stannis: Melisandre will sacrifice Stannis in order to turn dead Jon Snow into Azor Asshai. His daughter dies of greyscale.

Davos: He will die fighting the Others.

Melisandre: Recreates Jon as Azor, dies during the battle against the Others.

Jaime: Reveals he’s the parent of his kids, marries Brienne and becomes a knight in Tyrion’s service, Cersei dies at his hand.

OR he dies and gains redemption fighting the Others, confesses his parentage and love for Brienne anyway. (Either way is fine for me).

Brienne: Becomes a knight in the king's guard, marries Jaime, abolishes celibacy rule. Podrick becomes a knight and reunites with/serves Tyrion, lord of Casterly Rock.

Cersei: Killed by Jaime/he refuses to help her and she dies. Reveals twincest secret.

Theon: Kills Ramsay Bolton and helps take back Winterfell for the Starks but he dies a hero's death. Asha becomes the heir to the Iron Isles, he dies redeemed and Pike has an heir.

Asha: Becomes queen of the independent Iron Isles, makes an heir, and forgives her brother.

Tommen: Relinquishes the crown, lives out his life peacefully with his father and uncle at Casterly Rock. Eventually becomes a wise and respected lord of Casterly Rock, or happy to be in the background if Penny becomes a Lady.

Myrcella: She is happy in Dorne being married to Trystane, and she lives out her life peacefully.

Margaery: Does not marry Tommen, but Tyrell’s still manage to hold onto Highgarden but Loras somehow dies. She becomes Queen of Highgarden like she always wanted and is a kind ruler.

Petyr: If he doesn’t become king by marrying Sansa, then he will die at Sansa’s hand but not after gaining immense power and lands. He will die just before or after he achieves the Iron Throne or Casterly Rock. His true plans and all his secrets will be revealed by Sansa.

Sweet Robin: He survives and grows up to be a good lord of the Vale and House Arryn helps in the war against the Others. Becomes an independent kingdom and friendly with other nations.

Varys: Leaves with Aegon and Dany to Valyria/goes back to Essos, or continues to live in Westeros once peace has been achieved through independence for all the regions.

Hodor: Dies protecting Bran, finally speaks.

Jojen: Dies protecting Bran, a hero's death.

Meera: Either she dies protecting Bran heroically, or she goes back home to live peacefully.

Result:

So the Others will die, Westeros and Essos are saved. A ton of independent queen/kingdoms will arise in Westeros and Valyria will be rebuilt with a king and a queen.