Can Varys's ADWD epilogue Speech be about Arya?

[ShadowCat Rivers]

9 minutes ago, LiveFirstDieLater said:

My point wasn't that Aegon wasn't acting like a normal kid, or that Jon was never a Brat... But that the whole idea that somehow Aegon is this paragon of what a king should be is a joke... Jon isn't claiming to be king, or leading an invasion of the country he claims to care for so as to put himself on a throne... He's getting Ceasared in the cold because he's doing what he thinks is required to shield the realms of men

and I see the Arya comparison, and I don't disagree that parts of it fit her, but I don't think she is a candidate for King, nor have I heard anyone suggest otherwise, soooooo

I think we would agree in that Varys' speech is not the sine qua non for a good ruler, after all. Though it's important to have some of the described traits, such as a good education and a sense of responsibility. However, the later is not a skill, the right upbringing cannot ensure that one will have it. 

[shizett]

18 minutes ago, LiveFirstDieLater said:

I think the best thing about him is the sense of duty... This is a man who turned down being king in the north because he swore a vow. Also, he is maybe the only leader in the series we ever see get elected... Would Aegon turn down the crown if someone told him he was really just the lead role in a mummers farce? 

Also, being raised and told the whole time that you are the rightful king might breed a certain sense of entitlement... Cough... Viserys... Cough

I think the balance between capability and duty leads to a continuous good rule. Anybody gets tired if they keep failing in their duty. We have already seen this in Stannis and Arya and both are (really really!) dutiful.

Also, not that I necessarily disagree with you (I actually agree with you), but just because he said no to a wanna-be-southern king making him the heir to WF, doesn't mean he would say no to Robb or Lords in the North. It wasn't Stannis's to give, he might have acted very differently if it came from somewhere else. Context matters.

 

[shizett]

13 minutes ago, ShadowCat Rivers said:

I think we would agree in that Varys' speech is not the sine qua non for a good ruler, after all. Though it's important to have some of the described traits, such as a good education and a sense of responsibility. However, the later is not a skill, the right upbringing cannot ensure that one will have it. 

I agree with this completely.

[LiveFirstDieLater]

9 minutes ago, shizett said:

I think the balance between capability and duty leads to a continuous good rule. Anybody gets tired if they keep failing in their duty. We have already seen this in Stannis and Arya and both are (really really!) dutiful.

Also, not that I necessarily disagree with you (I actually agree with you), but just because he said no to a wanna-be-southern king making him the heir to WF, doesn't mean he would say no to Robb or Lords in the North. It wasn't Stannis's to give, he might have acted very differently if it came from somewhere else. Context matters.

 

Context does matter, but it is such a classic to have the "true" King be the one who would turn down the crown... 

and context changes a lot when your brothers murder you in cold blood

[Ser Creighton]

3 hours ago, LiveFirstDieLater said:

Context does matter, but it is such a classic to have the "true" King be the one who would turn down the crown... 

and context changes a lot when your brothers murder you in cold blood

That's not exactly why Jon turned it down. He asked for a sign, and as usual he got one. It's funny how often him trying to abandon the watch ends up relating to Ghost doing something to prevent it. When he ran away and was hiding Ghost popped up and spooked the horse to give away his position. When he needed a sign from the Old Gods to stay or Go Ghost popped up, and when he wanted March south and people were out to get him and he was told to keep Ghost with him, Ghost effectively made the case to not be with Jon which effectively stopped him from leaving.

As for who is best to rule? Martin will decide that, if he wants a ruler to struggle to show how tough it is, he will do it. If he wants them to be good at it, he will do it, if he wants them do something amazing or screw up he will do it. It's impossible to say who will be an effective ruler or not when people like Jon and Dany, are still kids, still growing into their roles, still learning, if they didn't make mistakes I would question them. Nobody is going to be perfect, not in this story. Though Varys attempts to make this case with Aegon.

Jon makes high moral choices, but his plans are poorly thought through and executed. His plans generally involve him saying just figure it out and do it, and his orders boarder on the ridiculous. Hey take a bunch of unskilled labor and rebuild a bunch or ruind forts, in winter, without supplies and do it quickly. 

Just go rescue the people from hardhome, a plan based on everything including the weather going right and never really considering how bad hardhome would be.

I want to build Glass Gardens at the wall just like at Winterfell. The Glass Gardens at Winterfell are heated by hot springs, which the wall is lacking.

Jon benefits from almost never having to make a morally bad choice. Rescue sister from Ramsey, do his duty, or go to Hardhome on a rescue mission. The toughest moral choice he had to face was betraying the Wildlings, though as a prisoner, and trying to protect the realm. The Wildlings have a right to want to be south of the wall, they have a right to be scared, but Jon has an equal right to make sure they don't attack and kill people.

From a moral standpoint with him, he has not exactly had the toughest choices.

Aegon has had no choices really.

Neither have had to face actual rule, Jon has a command, and Aegon was on a pole boat. Jon's command has also been on a very small and limited scale. Him and Stannis both did something odd which I attribute to poor writing but I am not sure. They both seem to suddenly downplay the Others. The letter from Hardhome indicates dead things in the woods, dead things in the water. He makes no mention of how to deal with that. It's weird. And Stannis seems to think the Others will wait until he takes over Westeros. He is not just taking the North, his plan is to March all the way to KL. He does not know when they will attack and leaves almost none of his people behind save Mel. I get the unite the Kingdom thing but he knows the situation at the Wall. Almost no rangers are left, they have like 300-400 Stewards and builders, and some Wildling scraps, most of which were women and children. 

Jon has a ways to go in terms of rule and he gets his free passes as a protagonist, he basically got gold and ships from the iron bank and Torrmund bending the knee in negotiations no reader was ever privy to. We never actually see Jon negotiate, it's just here it's done. I still want to know how an organization that is by and large a charity with no income, that is failing suddenly got a mass of gold, and 3 ships. Funny thing is if you look at the number of people Jon expects at the wall and the cost of food in Westeros, plus the three ships, the amount of gold needed would be greater than the debt of the Iron Throne. You are talking about years worth of food for lets say 10,000 people, plus he wanted glass blowers, smiths, skilled labor, and other supplies and all of it needed to be shipped during winter in dangerous waters.

 

[LiveFirstDieLater]

34 minutes ago, Ser Creighton said:

That's not exactly why Jon turned it down. He asked for a sign, and as usual he got one. It's funny how often him trying to abandon the watch ends up relating to Ghost doing something to prevent it. When he ran away and was hiding Ghost popped up and spooked the horse to give away his position. When he needed a sign from the Old Gods to stay or Go Ghost popped up, and when he wanted March south and people were out to get him and he was told to keep Ghost with him, Ghost effectively made the case to not be with Jon which effectively stopped him from leaving.

As for who is best to rule? Martin will decide that, if he wants a ruler to struggle to show how tough it is, he will do it. If he wants them to be good at it, he will do it, if he wants them do something amazing or screw up he will do it. It's impossible to say who will be an effective ruler or not when people like Jon and Dany, are still kids, still growing into their roles, still learning, if they didn't make mistakes I would question them. Nobody is going to be perfect, not in this story. Though Varys attempts to make this case with Aegon.

Jon makes high moral choices, but his plans are poorly thought through and executed. His plans generally involve him saying just figure it out and do it, and his orders boarder on the ridiculous. Hey take a bunch of unskilled labor and rebuild a bunch or ruind forts, in winter, without supplies and do it quickly. 

Just go rescue the people from hardhome, a plan based on everything including the weather going right and never really considering how bad hardhome would be.

I want to build Glass Gardens at the wall just like at Winterfell. The Glass Gardens at Winterfell are heated by hot springs, which the wall is lacking.

Jon benefits from almost never having to make a morally bad choice. Rescue sister from Ramsey, do his duty, or go to Hardhome on a rescue mission. The toughest moral choice he had to face was betraying the Wildlings, though as a prisoner, and trying to protect the realm. The Wildlings have a right to want to be south of the wall, they have a right to be scared, but Jon has an equal right to make sure they don't attack and kill people.

From a moral standpoint with him, he has not exactly had the toughest choices.

Aegon has had no choices really.

Neither have had to face actual rule, Jon has a command, and Aegon was on a pole boat. Jon's command has also been on a very small and limited scale. Him and Stannis both did something odd which I attribute to poor writing but I am not sure. They both seem to suddenly downplay the Others. The letter from Hardhome indicates dead things in the woods, dead things in the water. He makes no mention of how to deal with that. It's weird. And Stannis seems to think the Others will wait until he takes over Westeros. He is not just taking the North, his plan is to March all the way to KL. He does not know when they will attack and leaves almost none of his people behind save Mel. I get the unite the Kingdom thing but he knows the situation at the Wall. Almost no rangers are left, they have like 300-400 Stewards and builders, and some Wildling scraps, most of which were women and children. 

Jon has a ways to go in terms of rule and he gets his free passes as a protagonist, he basically got gold and ships from the iron bank and Torrmund bending the knee in negotiations no reader was ever privy to. We never actually see Jon negotiate, it's just here it's done. I still want to know how an organization that is by and large a charity with no income, that is failing suddenly got a mass of gold, and 3 ships. Funny thing is if you look at the number of people Jon expects at the wall and the cost of food in Westeros, plus the three ships, the amount of gold needed would be greater than the debt of the Iron Throne. You are talking about years worth of food for lets say 10,000 people, plus he wanted glass blowers, smiths, skilled labor, and other supplies and all of it needed to be shipped during winter in dangerous waters.

 

Ok I respect the opinion but I couldn't disagree with you more... We have had many chances for Jon to make moral/immoral choices and he has done both... He doesn't always make the high moral choice... He's made mistakes and been cruel and been wrong and been stupid... But he seems to learn, and like you said he's been through it... Which makes the world of difference, especially if we are comparing him to Aegon who has been "raised to rule", aka coddled and babied his whole life. It isn't the fishing and mending of clothes that teaches you it's the living and the fucking up and the responsibility and the learning from your mistakes... As Aemon once told another young boy who would be king: Kill the boy, and let the man be born... Oh wait he told that to both egg and Jon.

But the point I was trying to make was that Varys might have been onto something with his description but he got the wrong boy, and no matter how good a mummer you are, you can't script a childhood that teaches a boy all he needs to know about life any more than you can make him the real Aegon.

[shizett]

3 minutes ago, LiveFirstDieLater said:

Ok I respect the opinion but I couldn't disagree with you more... We have had many chances for Jon to make moral/immoral choices and he has done both... He doesn't always make the high moral choice... He's made mistakes and been cruel and been wrong and been stupid... But he seems to learn, and like you said he's been through it... Which makes the world of difference, especially if we are comparing him to Aegon who has been "raised to rule", aka coddled and babied his whole life. It isn't the fishing and mending of clothes that teaches you it's the living and the fucking up and the responsibility and the learning from your mistakes... As Aemon once told another young boy who would be king: Kill the boy, and let the man be born... Oh wait he told that to both egg and Jon.

But the point I was trying to make was that Varys might have been onto something with his description but he got the wrong boy, and no matter how good a mummer you are, you can't script a childhood that teaches a boy all he needs to know about life any more than you can make him the real Aegon.

Yes, it will of course be up to GRRM. The similarity with Arya is still interesting though

As for morality of choice with Jon, again, I think its because he is very familiar with the settings of his operation, which is for example missing from Dany's arc. Its not just that his choices are easier, but that given he has tons more information about all his choices, they are easier to make and justify.

As for all the rest, I think some of the ideas with regards to building of ruined castles, food supplies, and all the glass gardens are ideas that were supposed to happen before the 5year gap and be done by the end of 5year gap where the Winter wouldn't have officially been announced. He skipped the gap and these are some residues which make little sense, especially because they require tremendous effort in a long time and seem just too dense to happen in such a short time. We probably do not have any of the negotiation details because they were supposed to be headlines that we would get after the gap without details. At the same time, he has to skip some details, he simply cannot finish all these story lines in two books if he wants to include such level of detail that you seem to expect. (Also probably they are going to be some unexpected outcomes.) 

[a black swan]

On 16/01/2016 at 0:53 PM, Joan Jett said:

What matters is that throughout Arya's story she has shown that she can do pretty much all of these things. Even Dany doesn't fit the description as well as Arya does. And Arya isn't even finished learning yet. 

There is also a thread dedicated to Arya's similarities to Aegon the unlikely which I thought was interesting too. 

There's also a bit of show dialogue that may foreshadow Arya becoming queen. 

 Margaery's "pigface" story that she tells to Sansa is obviously a reference to Arya's childhood wherein she felt inferior to her sister for her beauty and talents. Both Sansa and Jeyne would call Arya "horseface" and neigh at her. 

Clearly Margaery is being paralleled with Arya here and Sansa/Jeyne is being paralleled with Alanna. The important part is that Margaery becomes Queen while Alanna does not. I can't help but think of this other quote from AGOT

 If in fact Arya does become queen I wonder how Sansa would feel about having to call her "Your Grace". 

There's actually more connections betweeen Margaery and Arya, but I'll put those in another thread.

I love this breakdown. The parallels are striking.

[The Sleeper]

I think that the speech is meant to refer to Egg. Aegon is after all introduced wearing a straw hat and has Duck in place of Dunk. However, past the superficial similarities the differences are glaring. Egg never expexted to be king and roamed through the seven kingdoms with a minimal safety net. Aegon has a group of people who are devoted to his safety and wellfare, so for all intents and purposes he is raised in a bubble with notions of being destined to become king.

The sure thing is that Varys has built himself a figurehead, who is likely modeled in story after Egg and is likely aiming for popular support. Whether or not he actually believes these traits to be essential for a good ruler is debateable, as I don't think he intends for Aegon to do any actual ruling, at least in the immediate future.

There undeniable similarities between Arya and Egg. They have sharp tongues, are mistaken for stable boys and are disguised by making themselves bald. Of course Arya is a far more extreme version of Egg being raised in a war zone and with no safety net.

I have to say that I consider the notions that Arya is impulsive and impatient or that she is obssessed with revenge grossmisreadings of her character. She has ceased to be impulsive or impatient after Harrenhal and her preoccupation is about power. Personal power that cannot be stripped away. Her list exclusively contains people who have harmed those whom she felt were hers to protect thus rendering her helpless. Her list is her promise to rectify the situation.

Whether any of this is foreshadowing that she might be queen I think the thought has certainly entered Martin's mind. Arya has the attitude of a queen. She is incapable of defering to anyone's judgement than her own and her notions of loyalty and the need for a pack are inextricable entwined with possessiveness. She won't be happy unless she feels in charge. As for a road to a crown, the Blackfish and Stoneheart would crown her in prefference to Sansa, due to the latters marriage to Tyrion.

The way the story is going, I think that she is going to be Dany's bid to the North and the riverlands.

[aryagonnakill#2]

I'm going to be honest here and say that regardless of any potential connections you can make, any speech that starts off with the word "he" is not about a girl.

[ShadowCat Rivers]

41 minutes ago, The Sleeper said:

I think that the speech is meant to refer to Egg. Aegon is after all introduced wearing a straw hat and has Duck in place of Dunk.

Wow, I never noticed that! 

Good catch.

[The Sleeper]

1 hour ago, ShadowCat Rivers said:

Wow, I never noticed that! 

Good catch.

Well, yeah. It would make sense to make for Varys to make Aegon remind people of his namesake, who was after all both unlikely and popular among the smallfolk. He is introducing a potential king out of nowhere with no pre existing alliances or support. It would make snse for him to go for popular support.

[chrisdaw]

It is about Arya, Varys is not speaking about Arya, GRRM is. She will be the one and only queen at the end of the series.

[shizett]

23 hours ago, The Sleeper said:

I think that the speech is meant to refer to Egg. Aegon is after all introduced wearing a straw hat and has Duck in place of Dunk. However, past the superficial similarities the differences are glaring. Egg never expexted to be king and roamed through the seven kingdoms with a minimal safety net. Aegon has a group of people who are devoted to his safety and wellfare, so for all intents and purposes he is raised in a bubble with notions of being destined to become king.

The sure thing is that Varys has built himself a figurehead, who is likely modeled in story after Egg and is likely aiming for popular support. Whether or not he actually believes these traits to be essential for a good ruler is debateable, as I don't think he intends for Aegon to do any actual ruling, at least in the immediate future.

There undeniable similarities between Arya and Egg. They have sharp tongues, are mistaken for stable boys and are disguised by making themselves bald. Of course Arya is a far more extreme version of Egg being raised in a war zone and with no safety net.

Wow, great post. It does make much more sense for this speech to be about Egg, intended both on Varys's part and GRRM's. Thank you.

[a black swan]

On 24/09/2016 at 1:08 PM, The Sleeper said:

Well, yeah. It would make sense to make for Varys to make Aegon remind people of his namesake, who was after all both unlikely and popular among the smallfolk. He is introducing a potential king out of nowhere with no pre existing alliances or support. It would make snse for him to go for popular support.

How well does Egg fit the description, the details Varys speaks of? 

I agree, fAegon is defintely not the intended person being described. 

Which makes you wonder what grrm's intentions are with the many similarities between Arya and Egg? Both Egg and Arya were cupbearers as well. I like the connection they both share with the Ghost of High Heart and Summerhall.

 

13 hours ago, chrisdaw said:

It is about Arya, Varys is not speaking about Arya, GRRM is. She will be the one and only queen at the end of the series.

GRRM's misdirection is very clear here. You say that she will be Queen. Ruling or just a consort I wonder? 

[The Sleeper]

2 hours ago, DutchArya said:

How well does Egg fit the description, the details Varys speaks of? 

I agree, fAegon is defintely not the intended person being described. 

Which makes you wonder what grrm's intentions are with the many similarities between Arya and Egg? Both Egg and Arya were cupbearers as well. I like the connection they both share with the Ghost of High Heart and Summerhall.

 

GRRM's misdirection is very clear here. You say that she will be Queen. Ruling or just a consort I wonder? 

It's not the matter of details. I doubt Egg ever had reason to learn how to fish. It is the whole concept of living among commoners as a commoner.

As for Arya and Egg the reason for their similarities could be simply that Martin had fun writing Arya and wrote Egg along similar lines. The attitude is the same. It also not difficult to imagine Arya running away from an oppressive home environment.

I think it near certain that Arya is set up as a leading figure of one type or another. She is charismatic, headstrong and determined. Nymeria's name, Arya's association with survival and new beginnings and even coins and passage through bodies of water (Charon ferrying the souls of the death to Hades) makes me think that she will lead a body of people to a new life. Who those might be I don't know.

[chrisdaw]

12 hours ago, DutchArya said:

GRRM's misdirection is very clear here. You say that she will be Queen. Ruling or just a consort I wonder? 

Sweetrobin will rule, he will personally be a weak king but ultimately his reign will prove successful, owing to two primary influences. The honour, justice and mercy of his wilful wife, and the shrewdness, calculation and sometimes ruthlessness of the queen dowager, his mother figure and true love. While their advice and wishes will often be at odds with each other, sometimes vehemently so, the realm will prosper by SR picking a path between the two warring sisters.