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Let's speculate about the future roles of Willas and Garlan


Good Guy Garlan

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20 hours ago, Good Guy Garlan said:

GRRM has stated they'll both play important roles in Winds, so I don't think they'll end up as mere Ironborn cannon fodder. 

Now, Willas seems smart and competent, unlike his dad. He correctly predicted the Ironborn's potential attack on Oldtown and guessed how they avoided the coast to take the Shields by surprise. I'd say Willas could be a decent strategic match for Euron, certainly more so than Mace. I also wonder if his penpal status with Oberyn will pay off in some way. Maybe if Mace dies (which seems likely) Willas will take a less agressive rule of the Reach. I don't know. 

As for Garlan, last we heard he was supposedly gathering men and ships to take back the Shields. This being GRRM, however, I wonder if we're not being mislead in that regard. After all, taking back some backwoods rocks from some nobodies hardly constitutes an "important part" in my book, but that's just me. 

Anyway, got any guesses? 

Garlan will probably die defending the reach from the IB. Willas will become lord paramount when his father dies. Mace is the hand, and very bad things happen to the hand of the king in the novels 

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Mace dies and pious Willas can about turn the Tyrells out of KL politics and behind the Faith and Aegon.

Garlan will defeat Harras Harlaw and take Nightfall. Him and Loras as skilled fighting brothers will probably end up playing out the Toynes and/or Cargylls. Which means his family would have to die and him join a KG. Which is plausible given the current situation.

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Since you guys all seem to think Mace is going to die in the foreseeable future (and I agree that this is a strong possibility in light of the coming fights and battles in the Stormlands and Crownlands) have you also any idea how and when he is going to die?

That would be important in the context of Willas taking over Highgarden and the Reach.

The idea that Willas-Garlan-Olenna end up siding with Aegon while Mace is still alive and championing Tommen's cause is also not completely unlikely. If the Tyrell army marching against Storm's End is defeated by Aegon this certainly will put pressure on the Reach and the Tyrells. Mace might still have an army left in KL but the Lords of the Reach and the Tyrells at Highgarden might be forced to join Aegon simply to avoid to fight at two fronts - against the Ironborn at coasts and the Dornishmen in the Marches.

Opposing Aegon after Dorne joins him will be a very bad idea in light of the fact that winter has come. If the Dornishmen raid and burn the villages and castles in the Marches and beyond winter will be very hard in the Reach and the people there can have no interest in that kind of thing. We have to keep in mind that those lands should be rather empty right now. 30,000-40,000 men are with Mace and Tarly in KL, and an army the same size, give or take, should be with Garlan and Willas down the Mander.

This would then be similar to the Umbers splitting up their forces between Stannis and Roose.

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2 hours ago, Seams said:

In short, I see the Tyrells as potential false friends for Sansa and/or Dany in the upcoming books. And their ambitions to sit on the Iron Throne will not be restricted to making a match between Margaery and the current king, if the wizard king in Dany's vision is correctly seen as a hint about the Tyrells.

This is an interesting idea. That Loras "forgot" about Sansa, Garlan just disappeared, and Marg just never happened seems to suggest that the Tyrells don't have the follow-through to match their ambitions, rather than deviousness. Dany/Sansa/Starks may be failed by the Tyrells not by intent, but because they're just not up to the task. The Tyrells are cunning, no doubt. They play the Lannisters. But with Dany and the Starks, it may be a happier and more genuine alliance, but one which doesn't work out and the Starks/Dany may pay a price.

That there are 3 weirwood singers suggest the song of ice and fire: ice, fire, and the "song", a person who is both. We know that this is entangled with the Starks because they're the POVs, not the Tyrells. The more I think on it, the more convinced I am the the Tyrell kids should be connected to the Stark kids in some literary way.

Edit: changed my mind on this. It looks like any alliances between Starks and Tyrells may be genuine, but I no longer think so pertaining to Dany. The Undying pretended to be helping her, but turned on her which is deviousness, not unintended betrayal by incompetence. So maybe the Tyrells side with Aegon, and try to sabotage Dany with a fake alliance?

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2 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

Since you guys all seem to think Mace is going to die in the foreseeable future (and I agree that this is a strong possibility in light of the coming fights and battles in the Stormlands and Crownlands) have you also any idea how and when he is going to die?

Aeron's shade vision sees his brother sitting on the IT. If it is a legit vision, Euron will have to get there somehow. 
We know from the dance epilogue that Varys is trying to pitt the dornish against the reachers. As Cersei regains power, and with Kevan gone there will be no checks to her madness and she has him offed, or mace makes too many disparaging comments about their friends down south and one of the sand snakes poisons him. 

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Just now, Dorian Martell's son said:

Aeron's shade vision sees his brother sitting on the IT. If it is a legit vision, Euron will have to get there somehow. 
We know from the dance epilogue that Varys is trying to pitt the dornish against the reachers. As Cersei regains power, and with Kevan gone there will be no checks to her madness and she has him offed, or mace makes too many disparaging comments about their friends down south and one of the sand snakes poisons him. 

That doesn't make a lot of sense to me. Mace is in charge. He can throw Lady Nym into a dungeon upon her arrival just as he is likely to confine Cersei to the royal apartments, replacing her guards with his own (if necessary by butchering the remaining Lannister guardsmen in the castle).

Varys does not want to pit the Dornishmen against the Reach. He tries to ensure that King Tommen's administration is not able to build a united front against Aegon.

There is a chance that Cersei could send Ser Robert Strong to bring her the heads of Mace, Margaery, and Tarly. If she gave such an order there is a good chance that she could get what she wants simply because Ser Robert might be literally unstoppable should he try to invade the Tyrell apartments in the Red Keep. However, that would immediately lead to mortal repercussions from the Tyrell army in the city. Ser Robert and Cersei cannot hope to defend themselves against tens of thousands of men. Black magic or not, a hundred crossbow bolts piercing Ser Robert's flesh should put him down for good.

But still, the chance for an outburst of violence and fighting for control in the Red Keep itself, with Mace controlling the outer castle and Cersei and Tommen being besieged in Maegor's Holdfast (as Aegon III, Prince Viserys, and Larra Rogare were during the Regency) is not unlikely at all.

However, if this is the case then Cersei stands no chance to win that battle even if Mace and Tarly were dead. She simply doesn't have the men or the allies to prevail. Nobody in KL came to her aid when the Faith arrested her while she was Queen Regent, and nobody in KL will come to the aid of the whore-queen who has been paraded naked through the streets. If she wants to regain her power she has to return to the West or team up with Euron or both.

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19 hours ago, James Steller said:

Also, you're literally called Good Guy Garlan. Why do you want to see his dark side??

We good guys are secretly the worst. Source: my life. 

8 hours ago, Ygrain said:

ROFL, poisoning Joffrey is a noble deed in my book but I see where you are coming from :D Garlan does seem a wee bit too perfect, just like Rhaegar. Doesn't mean that he s necessarily a bad guy on the inside, only that he human and has or will make some terrible mistake(s), and will most likely die for it.

Willas as the new lord of the Reach sounds fine, I would like to see him become an important character. Also, would it be possible that he marries Arianne?

 

Oh, totally, him killing Joffrey would instantly make him the series' greatest hero. But yes, that's what I mean, he's a bit too pristine so I wanna see if there's more to him than that.

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Mace dies in the natural course of his incompetence against either the Faith or Aegon. Or Varys offs him when the time suits. And with him dies all Tyrell ambition.

Garlan, as with all the Tyrells besides the experienced Olenna is just what he appears to every non suspecting person. The conditions breed the people and he is the embodiment of Highgarden.

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3 hours ago, chrisdaw said:

Mace dies in the natural course of his incompetence against either the Faith or Aegon. Or Varys offs him when the time suits. And with him dies all Tyrell ambition.

Most likely not. Mace is the child of Luthor and Olenna who both had the chance to marry into the royal family before the Targaryens rejected them. Mace may have taken a rather weird approach with Renly but his parents clearly fed him that ambition, and since Olenna is still alive I'm pretty sure Willas and Olenna's other grandchildren have it, too. To various degrees, of course, but keep in mind that 'King Renly' was apparently as much Loras' and Mace's brainchild as it was Renly's own.

How good Willas is as a politician or schemer is completely unclear as of yet. We know he is smart and is interested in horse-breeding, but that says nothing about his charisma or his ability to lead or inspire loyalty. Or his willingness to betray or murder people to protect his house.

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6 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

Mace is the child of Luthor and Olenna who both had the chance to marry into the royal family before the Targaryens rejected them.

ASOS Sansa I:

She sniffed. "They tried to marry me to a Targaryen once, but I soon put an end to that."

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2 minutes ago, Lollygag said:

ASOS Sansa I:

She sniffed. "They tried to marry me to a Targaryen once, but I soon put an end to that."

That is Olenna's reinterpretation of events. She was betrothed to a gay man, Prince Daeron Targaryen, Egg's youngest son, who decided to remain faithful to his longtime friend and lover, Ser Jeremy Norridge, instead of marrying the daughter of the Lord of the Arbor.

But even if we assume that Olenna somehow convinced Daeron not to insist on a marriage (something that's exceedingly unlikely if you ask me) then Luthor Tyrell was still betrothed to Princess Shaera Targaryen, and she rejected him in favor of her true love, her own brother Prince Jaehaerys, later King Jaehaerys II.

Mace is very determined to see his daughter marry into the royal family and have a grandson for a king. Olenna, Luthor, and their parents clearly had the same ambition, and the fact that nothing came of their plans must be an open wound in those families to this day. Especially since Olenna is still around to remember all that stuff.

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I doubt they actually will be important by the common understanding of the word.

They'll be Glorfindel important. Bard II important. Radagast important.

i.e. they'll be doing something in the background we will hear about through envoys or some such. Something that's important to the internal story logic and that works to make the world coherent.

But at this point I fairly doubt they'll be part of the on-page action.

The only thing I could see would be them jining up with either Aegon or Daenerys in an attempt to safe Margaery if her trial goes south. And even then they'd basically be Maege Mormont and Greatjon Umber to Jon Con, Faegon or Daenerys.

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6 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

That is Olenna's reinterpretation of events. She was betrothed to a gay man, Prince Daeron Targaryen, Egg's youngest son, who decided to remain faithful to his longtime friend and lover, Ser Jeremy Norridge, instead of marrying the daughter of the Lord of the Arbor.

But even if we assume that Olenna somehow convinced Daeron not to insist on a marriage (something that's exceedingly unlikely if you ask me) then Luthor Tyrell was still betrothed to Princess Shaera Targaryen, and she rejected him in favor of her true love, her own brother Prince Jaehaerys, later King Jaehaerys II.

Mace is very determined to see his daughter marry into the royal family and have a grandson for a king. Olenna, Luthor, and their parents clearly had the same ambition, and the fact that nothing came of their plans must be an open wound in those families to this day. Especially since Olenna is still around to remember all that stuff.

The quote does feel like it has a backstory. I've been curious to if see the Tyrells bend backwards for an alliance/marriage with a Targ - any Targ, then this statement will add another dynamic to their ambitions. If Olenna very badly wants any Targ alliance contrary to her statement, then she's been holding onto a lot of bitterness/inferiority complex for a long time. Something that goes beyond run-of-the-mill greed and ambition.

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8 hours ago, chrisdaw said:

Mace's ambition is in spite of Olenna as the text makes perfectly clear, by having her state it in emphatic terms.

You have to read between the lines. It is Olenna who plots to marry Sansa Stark to Willas. It is Olenna who ensures that Willas does not marry an instable woman like Cersei whose son Olenna is going to murder. It is also Olenna who ensures that Tommen marries Margaery after Joff's death, never mind the other matches that would have been possible between Casterly Rock and Highgarden.

The Sansa-Willas match strongly suggests that Olenna actually works to ensure that House Tyrell dominates the entire Realm, not just the Iron Throne. 

Olenna seems to be blunt in her talk with Sansa but her bluntness is a weapon. Sansa is her pawn, and nothing indicates she is honest there.

Not to mention that being against the idea of King Renly has nothing do with the question whether she, Olenna, does not also want to see a great-grandson on the Iron Throne. Far to the contrary actually.

Just because you think seating some gay man on the Iron Throne (who most likely won't be able or willing to father an heir anyway) is a bad idea doesn't mean you object to the idea of a king controlled by House Tyrell in principle.

1 hour ago, Lollygag said:

The quote does feel like it has a backstory. I've been curious to if see the Tyrells bend backwards for an alliance/marriage with a Targ - any Targ, then this statement will add another dynamic to their ambitions. If Olenna very badly wants any Targ alliance contrary to her statement, then she's been holding onto a lot of bitterness/inferiority complex for a long time. Something that goes beyond run-of-the-mill greed and ambition.

What little we know about the betrothals Aegon V and Queen Betha made suggests that the Targaryens approached the Baratheons, Tullys, Tyrells, and Redwynes with this, not the other way around. The Tyrells and even the Tullys are not exactly a house the royal family would marry into, considering they are no former royal houses nor have they Targaryen/Valyrian blood.

There is small chance that Daeron Targaryen intended to go through with a marriage. He would have had no sexual/romantic nor any other interest in Olenna. But the man died in 251 AC, half a century ago. Olenna seems to have spun a story how she got out of that betrothal all by herself when in fact Daeron certainly wouldn't have objected if she had also once publicly declared that she wasn't happy with the arrangement.

And the fact that Luthor and Olenna then married each other is also a very strong sign that the spurned suitors and their families weren't exactly happy with all that. We don't know all the details but Aegon V faced problems after his other children broke their betrothals, and the Olenna-Luthor match indicates that whatever he did to appease them wasn't enough.

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I think Garlan dies on the Mander fighting the Iron Born and his wife and children are murdered as well when Brightwater keep is taken by the IB with help from some Florent who is still alive. Garlan and his familys deaths will hit Willas hard especially after losing Loras and his sister earlier on which leaves Willas without any of his family which causes him to make bad decisions which costs him HG in the end. 

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2 hours ago, Stormking902 said:

I think Garlan dies on the Mander fighting the Iron Born and his wife and children are murdered as well when Brightwater keep is taken by the IB with help from some Florent who is still alive. Garlan and his familys deaths will hit Willas hard especially after losing Loras and his sister earlier on which leaves Willas without any of his family which causes him to make bad decisions which costs him HG in the end. 

Garlan doesn't even hold Brightwater right now, so this is a very unlikely scenario. The castle is still in possession of the Florents, namely Ser Colin Florent, another younger brother of the late Lord Alester Florent. Garlan's wife Lady Leonette Fossoway Tyrell has not yet given birth to any children and is most likely at Highgarden right now, just as Olenna and Alerie are.

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I have no opinion that isn't already touched upon. A really liked the idea that Willas is part of some intellectual secret society outside of the Citadel's control, and it's one of the few ideas that satisfyingly ties his friendship with Oberyn in. Perhaps breeding horses and whatnot was part of their code. Of course, perhaps I have a dirty mind, but the horse breeding and whatnot always made me wonder if Oberyn and he were involved more intimately, at least once upon a time. 

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9 hours ago, chrisdaw said:

No it's a case of if you blatantly deny the text.

Well, I guess you then also take Littlefinger and Varys during a council session at face value, right?

Olenna's actions reveal the lies in her words. She is in the game for power. But she can still consider the Renly thing a bad idea in the aftermath. However, one has to wonder - if she has was able to cancel the Willas-Cersei match (which very well could have led to a son of Willas becoming Lord of Casterly Rock in the future!) shouldn't she not also have been able to put an end to the Renly? Either by talking to Mace behind closed doors or by, you know, poisoning the man on his wedding feast?

The Willas-Cersei is a much more important match for House Tyrell than Joffrey/Tommen-Margaery because it involves the heir of Highgarden. Margaery's children will be of a female cadet branch which means they are pretty irrelevant in the long run but Willas' children will inherit Highgarden.

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