OtherFromAnotherMother

Jon will be a king, but not a King of Westeros. He will be the Corn King. He will sacrifice himself for the land. Jon XII, DWD

Nice find!

Nice find.

Good stuff, @Walda! The possibility of the first Hand to "die" being JonCon is quite interesting. However, I don't believe we hear about JonCon until Storm. (Please correct me if I am wrong.) I tried to find something about this in the SSM but couldn't.

Tad Williams is amazing.

Bookmarking to read later.

This again? Seriously?

I am glad you are able to accept that Tyrion was expected to die at this point. This would mean he would not be expected to be at Joff's wedding then, right? Yet we know that is the day the killing is going to happen. And you still cling to an idea that Tyrion was the target? This would mean that LF pulls an audible on this whole thing with zero textual evidence or clues. This would also mean that George set the reader up with worthless foreshadowing from the previous book. Would he do that? No. No. George is not saying anything definitely in your examples. They are cliffhangers. He is not blatantly lying to the reader. The closest one is Theon. But really, Theon does symbolically die in that chapter, so it works. Also, George uses ellipses there. Dontos' alcoholism has nothing to do with this. This is George talking to the reader. It is foreshadowing. I'm not going to reply anymore. I believe you discuss this topic disingenuously. It is not productive. I was curious what your response would be, and now I found out. That's enough for me.

I've done this dance with Mr. Suburbia many times so I have stayed out of the pointless back and forth on this one. But I did have one question for you @John Suburbs which I don't believe we addressed in our many other discussions on this topic. How do you reconcile the last words of Sansa's last chapter of Clash with your theory of Tyrion as the target of the poison? For context, this is when Dontos gives her the hairnet. Being the attentive reader you are, I'm sure you know the last words of a book are significant. I know there are still chapters after this, but this is the end of Sansa's story. Dontos (George) tells Sansa (the reader) the hairnet is vengeance for Ned. Then we do not hear from Sansa until Clash. The reader is left knowing this hairnet has something to do with vengeance for Ned. Later we will learn it will be used to kill the kid who gave the order. There is no reason it would be to kill Tyrion at this point. He is expected to die on his deathbed following the Battle on the Blackwater when the hairnet is given (another major flaw in your theory, but we'll leave that alone for now). I suppose you could try to argue that George is pulling a 'gotcha' here in the last paragraph of Sansa's book. But I would challenge you to find another character's final chapter paragraph where George pulls a 'gotcha'. I'll save you the time. There aren't any. Catelyn's last chapter in Clash is a mystery, not a 'gotcha', as the reader is not told what happens but us left wondering. The reader may think something, but does not know. In Sansa's final chapter the reader is told what the hairnet is (vengeance). And the end of the paragraph, 'It's home' will eventually happen for Sansa in the next two books. Maybe you could argue that LF told Dontos to say this to Sansa. But this completely undermines the brilliance of this final paragraph and would still be a 'gotcha' in the last paragraph of a storyline in a book, which George does not do. If we look at the meta side of this, it is great writing by George. We know he writes for the re read. The re reader sees this in Sansa's last chapter, finishes the chapter and says, "It was right there in the previous book!" How cheap would this be if your theory is correct?

I miss @Dorian Martell's son, and @Dorian Martell for that matter.

That would be poetic justice for Jorah being unable to "see" the irony of the former slaver becoming the slave.

Robert and Ned in the crypts: I never noticed the irony of this statement. Robert is talking about Joff and Sansa. Joff is not his blood. Later, in aCoK, Arya and Gendry bond when traveling the Riverlands together. Gendry is Robert's blood. So, in a way, Robert and Ned's kids are bonded. Just not the two he thought would be.

I would guess that this has been noticed before, but just in case it has not... Arya, AGOT No wonder Arya was not hungry! Arya is expected to eat a plate of ribs. The ribs remind her of what Jeyne had told her about how Mycah's body was 'butchered like a pig they slaughtered'. Side note- I believe this is the first time George plays with the cannibalism motif which will be so prevalent in later books.

DwD, The Lost Lord George has changed his ASOIAF plans several times (the infamous letter, the addition of the Blackfyre storyline, five year gap). I'm wondering if George is the fat man changing his plans and he is having a little fun with his readers here. I mean, he could have just written Illyrio.

Thanks!