thehandwipes

Its hard to nail down where Arya's story goes after Braavos. Returning to the RL storyline seems the most likely since its where she spent most of the first three books and its where Nymeria is. She is also intimately linked to Harrenhall and the God's Eye. As well as the RW, and I expect a big showdown at the Twins in ADOS. Arya should certainly be there. I'm of the opinion that they gave Jon's story (barebones) to the show only character of the Night's King which is why they couldn't give the characyer any motive, because they can't write and are hacks. They created a show only character but couldn't give him any show only characteristics. Jon goes north of the Wall post resurrection. Once he sees Jeyne he will assume Arya is dead and has been betrayed by his NW brothers. He goes north, looking for Bran, looking for Benjen, lured by bran, Ghost, Summer, something. At this point Jon story will continue the parellels with Dany. We'll get some "the Others know who you are, do you?" I don't think the Others are Evil, though they will certainly be destructive, and RLJ just doesn't cover all the nothing Jon doesn't know. Jon, I think, gets his Return of the King moment by taking WF from Stannis, who by this point has gone full Denethor staring into the flames. Jon's army (of the dead) then moves south to the Twins. Now I don't take anything from the show as cannon, but Arya's turn away from vengeance, along with her killing the NK (Jon), along with Jon's joke in Arya's first chapter, could all combine for quite the bittersweet ending. But its more likely they were just trying to retcon Mel and Arya from season 3 as well as give something of significance for her to do this season.

I'm convinced the Ides of Marsh will effectively destroy the NW. In addition to the groups sweetsunray just mentioned I'd add Davos and the survivors of Hardhome. Narratively, I think Massey's group serves one, possibly two, purposes. First it brings Jeyne to the Wall. I don't think Jon stays dead for long, three days seems natural. Knowing Jeyne is not Arya, he must at that point conclude she is dead. This, combined with his NW brothers stabbing him to death, convinces him to head north. Lured by Bran, Ghost, looking for Benjen, something, he goes north of the Wall. The second is that it might bring Asha to the Wall. I know she's supposed to stay with Stannis but I'm not convinced. That puts three POV's plus Jon at the Wall. That means events at the Wall are going to be huge deal very early in TWOW. Massey is unlikely to able to walk away from that and I really don't see that sellsword story going anywhere. He'll almost certainly decide its more important to protect the Queen and Shireen.

Arya returning to WF disguised as the girl pretending to be her, to avenge the abuse she suffered in Arya's name, certainly seems like something George would write. Though I don't think it fits narratively. Roose and Ramsay are done, stick a fork in them. And I'm not convinced the Massey expedition makes it any further than the chaos at the Wall. But I think if GRRM saw this theory, he'd wish he was the one who thought of it.

I love the idea of Arya returning to Winterfell disguised as fArya. That would be really interesting, though I'd hate to see Jeyne go out like that.

I Ten Thousand percent agree. Bran's chapters cut off, Davos cuts off, and the Battle of Ice is clearly going to be a big deal. He should just publish that as a novella, he can still include it on TWOW. Who's going to complain, nobody! Then a couple of chapters of Jaime Brienne and Stoneheart! Yeah, my hope is that he's already found Rickon, or rather Rickon has found him and Davos has to talk his way free. Then leaving Skagos with Rickon or proof that he's alive, he gets swept up in the Hardhome expedition.

Seriously?

Jesus, Isaac. Way to drop a spoiler. But it doesn't matter, I don't consider anything in the show to confirm or refute the books. King of the North, King of Winter, maybe. God Emperor of the Weirwood net, sure. But King of the Six Kingdoms, nonsense.

People are way too forgiving of Varys. He rips out children's tongue's so they can better serve as his spies. That's not morally grey, that is some dark shit.

I seriously doubt Bran being King at the end. I think D&D did this because they literally couldn't think of anything interesting to do with the character so they just shoved them into whatever roles they thought the audience would accept. Feudalism wasn't ended by parliaments relegating monarchs to figureheads. It was ended by monarchs growing strong enough to crush the power of feudal lords and rule centralized states. Which were eventually forced to cede power to representative governments. Dany could have "broken the wheel" by crushing the power of the feudal lords, establishing standing armies, and centralized bureaucracy, and a national bank. Does anyone else think its funny they basically chose Leto II as God Emperor of Westeros?

Yeah, I don't think GRRM ever intended to give Dany a morally easy way to the throne. Whether Aegon is "real" or not won't really matter by the time Dany lands, he'll be popular and seen as legitimate. Dany, with the weaker claim, will have to justify the attack by claiming he's an illegitimate Blackfyre or simply that he's not "a real Dragon." In other words, the Dragons prove her claim, naked power legitimizes her. Leading to that thing that happened on HBO.

Aegon is going to sack King's Landing long before Dany gets anywhere near Westeros. And I can't imagine Arianne murdering Myrcella in cold blood. I imagine Tommen, and probably Myrcella, die in sack of KL. Probably with more than a little help from Cersei's wildfire.

Yeah, I don't see another election happening in the TWOW. If Bowen Marsh takes over it'll be a short lived and chaotic shit storm. I think Davos and Asha are headed to the Wall so we should have three (with Mel) POV's to watch the Watch implode.

I literally cannot wait to read Davos' unnecessary detour. I think Davos, with or without Rickon, will get swept up in the Hardhome expedition and return to the Wall around the same time as the Ides of Marsh. Remember, Davos chapters ended about halfway through ADWD, along with Bran's. I think GRRM removed them from the end of the book because there were certain things he wanted to keep hidden from us till the next book.

This is extremely unfair. Many of us have seen Dany's arc leading to this long before D&D did their hack version of it. This is like saying there won't be a Long Night because the show version of it was ridiculous. I don't consider anything on the show to be confirmation in the books (Cleganebowl, the Others being irrelevant and pointless, other stupid things) but there are a lot of reasons to believe that something like this will happen in the books. They diverged so drastically for all the characters that its just impossible to tell what's a shitty version of GRRM's ending and what's just fanservice. But Dany's ending certainly wasn't fanservice, and the hamfisted way they bent her character makes me think they felt some obligation to end her story that way. Or they just think fanboys love grim dark stories and can't write character arc's and don't care to try.

Yup. I also think one of the big endpiece battles will take place at the Twins with Jon leading the armies of the dead against a small force of whoever is left in the South. Sansa and the Knights of Vale will be the strongest contingent. As far as I know I'm the only person ever to suggest this (probably cause I'm dead wrong).