The Coconut God

I am experiencing similar issues. Would be neat if they got fixed.

I'm not sure if Jon's ending will be the same in the books, as in him rejoining the Watch or living north of the Wall with the wildlings. That seems a little disconnected and trite to me. He goes through this gigantic arc only to end up more or less back where he began? What about the LotR ending George said he was aiming for? Some characters did "go back home". but neither Frodo nor Aragorn ended up where they began. The events of the books changed them to much. Now, when it comes to his assassination, I don't think that's actually about Jon... Well, it is to some extent, but that's not the main reason why George made it happen. I think it's more about how Jon's absence will affect the rest of the story in the North, especially Stannis's. Unlike D&D, George doesn't make his character stupid just for the sake of advancing the plot. Stannis is stubborn and flawed, but he's not stupid. If Jon was around when the Others invaded, he would listen to his advice, just like he did in the Bolton campaign. I can see Stannis failing to take advance from Davos in the future, and that would be one of those big tragic mistakes for the character, but Davos would only be in a position to give ethical advice. Jon knows a lot about the North, the wildlings, the wights and the Others, he is in a position to give informed tactical and political advice. If the end of Stannis's arc is that he burns Shireen and leads a doomed attack against the Others after half his men abandon him, I can't imagine that happening with Jon at his side. And simply saying "Jon was caught up somewhere else" would be a cop out if we assume the clash with the Others is imminent. Another important part of this is that Jon, not Stannis, was the glue holding all the factions at the Wall together. The wildlings wouldn't turn on the Watch while Jon was in charge. The northern lords presumably wouldn't turn on Stannis if Jon was at his side. Especially if they know about Robb's will. Taking Jon out of the picture is an opportunity for these conflicts to play out. I will be very surprised if they don't. Of course, this also serves Jon indirectly, because you want to think of him as the character who would have known what to do. Had he been around and incapable of doing anything while all the shit the fan, then you would ask yourself "Who is this guy to pick all the pieces at the end? He's just as responsible as everyone else". So I don't think it will matter all that much if he's dead or in a coma or if people will make a big deal of his resurrection or not. The real plot point is that he won't be around for a while, and the way in which this will affect his character is that he won't be directly involved in whatever goes down (while still being able to internalize some of the blame, since the assassination itself was a result of his own political and leadership mistakes). Personally, I still suspect he will die and be resurrected, first of all for the "cool factor" and the impact it will have on some of the people who choose to follow Jon afterwards, and second of all because it would allow George to tighten up the narrative a little bit. Think about it, Cat stopped getting PoV chapters after she became LSH, so George can stop giving us Jon chapters for most if not all of TWoW, to keep us in suspense on whether or not it's still our Jon in there. Then all the other PoV characters in the North, like Davos, Asha, Mel and Theon, instead of being superfluous after Stannis dies, can serve as a window into whatever Jon is doing.

You assume Jon will be resurrected at Castle Black while Marsh is in charge. I certainly don't. And yes, fire wights are "not who they were", but that doesn't mean they are enslaved husks either. IIRC, Martin said each time they die something is lost, and they become more single minded, but I assume what remains still comes from who they were. I imagine they are like people coming back after a massive stroke, minus the paralysis. But in any case, I don't really understand what the point of this argument is. I'm not married to the idea of Jon dying and coming back to life, I'm perfectly fine with him not dying at all. The points that are important to me are: He's not dead right now. I think the story would be served better if he's out of commission for a longer time, allowing Stannis to ruin his relationship with the North and possibly lose to the Others all without Jon's intervention. So, to me, he's in a coma at the moment. Whether he recovers or not remains to be seen. Robb's will is what frees him of his vows and makes him KitN. The resurrection, even if it happens, is just a red herring with regards to the vows, and he doesn't need to fight the Boltons to prove himself as king. He is king by Robb's decree. That's it. If he doesn't die at all, that works just fine for me. Who says the North needs to be united? The Others are coming, this is when the ball drops. The North needs to be at its lowest. Ditto for the Wall, things are already at the point where they are about to fall apart when we last see the place in Dance. Why fix it when we know it has to break again for the story to move forward? This is a show to books thread, what part of the show gave you the impression that the Others will be held back at the Wall? But Roose vs Stannis is already in the final phase! If Roose loses, the story can progress to the Others, to the mother fucking stepping stone to the endgame. If Stannis loses, the story goes into another side quest loop. Roose vs Jon, interesting or not, is not necessary for progressing anything. Why not have Jon vs Lady Dustin afterwards? She's interesting too...

But why must we have this convoluted mess... Stannis losing, surviving, running away to the wall, somehow growing mad enough to burn Shireen instead of running off to Braavos to get more sellswords... all for the sake of the boring ass Ramsay vs Jon side story? I don't get it. It's just bad. The story flows smoother, is more satisfying, and serves the characters better thematically if Stannis retakes Winterfell, finally loses his skepticism about his higher destiny and makes the supreme sacrifice for the sake of the realm, only to be crushed by reality in the most tragic way. It doesn't matter what you and Martin call him, what matters is how he is seen by his potential followers. Fire wight or not, Beric's resurrections were enough to convert a lot of people down in the south. The crucial difference between them and the ice zombies (at least the ones the Others use) is that they can pass off as real people.

Being resurrected by fire means that you can't possibly be a wight. Wights are killed by fire. This is why I believe that, if he dies at all, he will come back to life from his own funeral pyre.

Sure, but we don't have to rely on resurrection to free him of his vows, therefore there is no contradiction. If she hasn't done it already, how will she now? Stannis is prepared to die at Winterfell, and in that situation he wants Shireen to succeed him, we already know this. The only thing that could make him change his mind is if this existential threat of the Great Other actually manifests itself, because then he will have to believe that he is Azor Ahai and it is his duty to save the realm.

You are free to disagree, but that is the enemy Melissandre set him out to face. If he's ever going to burn Shireen, and the show basically confirmed it, he will do it to protect the realm from an existential threat, He won't do it just to win a castle for himself, we've already seen that in the Theon preview chapters. If he dies in battle, Massey's orders are to win the throne for Shireen. I don't think he's dead either, not yet at least. I agree that getting out of the Night's Watch on a technicality would be highly questionable, but a king has the power to free him from his vows. We know this from both Stannis, who offered it to Jon, and from Cersei, who promised it to Osney. Since Robb legitimized him and named him his heir in his will, it stands to reason that he freed him of his vows as well, otherwise he'd just be in Maester Aemon's position. So technically speaking he's been free of his vows by northern law since the Red Wedding, he just didn't know it yet.

They're not nulled by his death, they're nulled by the will.

It's very simple, though. Stannis is the false Azor Ahai, the king with an iron will who will break before he bends. The Others break through the Wall, and he is convinced it is his destiny and duty to stop them. The northern lords abandon him in fear, he is hopelessly outnumbered, so he burns Shireen for a blessing from Rh'llor. Nothing happens, but he goes forth anyway, and all that happens is that his paltry forces get added to the armies of the dead. He is destroyed by the corpses of the very Freys he drowned and northmen he slaughtered to take Winterfell. Perfect ending for him, now Jon finally succumbs to his wounds and is placed on a pyre, but he comes back to life again, and on top of it all he was Robb's chosen heir as well. Boom, everyone pins their hopes on him!

Good point about the ungrateful northerners. This wasn't convincing at all with Dany given the circumstances in the show, but it works perfectly for Stannis. I don't think she will march to Winterfell either, I think there's a high chance the North will be abandoned at least temporarily before the Others are dealt with. I keep saying this, but I think the show had very strong reasons to avoid winter as much as possible. Filming on location in Iceland is one thing, but having snow on demand on large sets like Wintefell or locations like King's Landing would have been a huge production challenge and likely insanely expensive. Of course they would opt for a season of Ramsay over the Others invading early. Even in season 8, the snow is blatantly fake and never more than ankle deep. What were they going to do for a meter high snows, rebuild their sets in Alaska and keep their crew there to shoot in the winter? I bet we'll see a much harsher and longer winter in the books. Luckily, George's imagination doesn't have budgetary constraints. I'm actually going with Brienne as the Last Hero 2.0. She has a "magic sword" after all, and this would vindicate her eight chapters of character development that a lot of people are complaining about. D&D probably thought Brienne wasn't important enough, or didn't know how to make this work for the character. Remember that fight she had with Arya? You can call me a tinfoil hatter, but I think eventually we'll see that scene as a nod to this change. Kind of like "In the show, Arya is better than Brienne, so we are giving her the job of ending the Long Night". She even used the same knife move she used when she killed the Night King in that scene, so they're clearly connected. This also means that book Jaime will get show Theon's ending. He will go full circle and die protecting Bran, which I find a lot more satisfying for his character than being squashed by a bunch of bricks.

I subscribe to the theory that Stannis will use the frozen lake to defeat the Freys, then dress his own men in their armor and enter Winterfell by guile. The Pink Letter is supposed to be a direct result of this trick and a hint for the reader that it is taking place. I also believe that Stannis's men and the loyal northern lords will tragically butcher each other because neither knows about the others' deception. Manderly's knights will fall in the same trap as the Freys, and Stannis won't be inclined to spare any survivors. The northern lords will defend themselves fiercely against a perceived Frey betrayal. So in the end Stannis will win, but there will be very few soldiers left in the North. Then Ramsay's raven reaches Castle Black first, everyone believes Stannis lost, Jon is assassinated and everything turns to shit over there. Cue the Others breaching the Wall. Good luck everyone! That's what I understand by progressing the story. I accept that I may be biased, but half a book of Jon Snow fighting the Boltons after Stannis dies in an anticlimactic way sounds like a turd sandwich to me and I don't want it!

You make a good point about fArya, but on the other hand the clansmen don't really plan to return home. Part of their reason for joining Stannis was that old men usually go out in the cold to die anyway during hard winters, to leave more food for the young, and they'd rather die in battle. As for Roose, even if he has some special powers, unless they connect to the main plot line, he's still going to be a side quest. I suppose he could be this ancient creature who can reveal something about the Others, but that would feel a bit too tacked on for me (and not really necessary, considering Bran is linked to the weirnet).

I agree that he has to lose, but not to the Boltons. The Boltons are much weaker end game material than Stannis. I understand that the show focused an entire season on Ramsay vs the Starks, but I'd call that a side quest more than story progression, and they had to deviate quite a lot from the books in order to have it happen anyway. Keep in mind Jon doesn't need to prove himself in battle to become KitN because Robb's will exists in the books. The pack absolutely has to pay off, but we've clearly seen that Arya can serve as a PoV for them and maybe even control Nymeria regardless of where she is. Arya doesn't need to come to the Riverlands for the gun to be fired.

Not saying she won't take control of the North, but that's hardly a guarantee. The story in the books is poised to have Stannis beat the Boltons, which means the next step is either a much earlier invasion of the Others (very fitting given the title), or a war between Stannis and the North and/or the Vale. Cersei as queen is also highly unlikely. In the books she has to deal with Aegon as well as the Faith and the Tyrell, and Euron is not exactly the sex-crazed puppy from the show. He is the kind of man book Cersei has no hope of playing. She'll engineer her own doom by allying herself with him.

It can and it should be, some can offer very interesting results. As I said on the first page, if you look at Arya's major plot beats in the show, she's either taking over someone else's story (Lady Stoneheart killing the Freys, more likely at a feast thrown by Emmon at Riverrun than at the Twins), or playing the fifth wheel (Sansa doesn't really need her to defeat Littlefinger), or doing something half made up by the show runners (Arya killing the Night King was their idea, and the Night King himself was a show only creation). I think we have pretty good reasons to dismiss that Arya will be doing any of those things. So then the question becomes, what is Arya going to do? Clearly it is connected to something that was cut from the show. Will Braavos itself play a big enough role to fuel her return in the main story as a Faceless Man agent? That's what I suspect.

That's what I got from it too. Plenty of differences, and differences interwoven with similarities. Like I wrote in a different thread, how would you describe the Sansa & Ramsay plot line? Theon's arc is fairly similar, and he was the PoV for that plot line. In vague political terms, the Boltons are still using a Stark bride to consolidate their power. As a reader/watcher, you are still horrified by a young woman being victimized. And if Sansa ends up north with the Vale army, the end result might be the same too. But it's a very different story for Sansa, and a ton of minor characters and political complexities are missing. Can you really say anything about similarities and differences for this plot line without spoiling everything?

It's from his most recent blog post. Titled "An Ending", btw, which might tell us something too.

1. First Tier Characters I think some broad strokes for the main characters are taken from George, but not necessarily the execution. Jon and Tyrion will probably end up opposing Dany after supporting her for a while. Conflict between them was almost a given, the "good guys" teaming up to fight the bad guys would make for a fairly conventional story. I even tentatively included Jon and Tyrion as two of Dany's treasons in my own theories, though I didn't go as far as Jon killing her. Arya will probably oppose Dany too, and so might Sansa, though I don't really see her doing it for "northern independence". I'm not sure about Bran becoming king. I don't think it's out of the question, as Preston Jacobs pointed out, George has a thing for the "all-powerful, benevolent shut-in" trope, but I dislike it. Not because I have anything against the character, but because it seems like a fantasy ending devoid of any social and political commentary... The all-powerful, benevolent shut-in isn't a solution that can be achieved in the real world. Quite the contrary, people who believe themselves to fill that role are more likely to resemble Kim Jong-un. I also don't see Bran leaving the tree, at least not very soon. George abandoned his PoV because the character knows too much now. By that rule, for us to see him again, another PoV character would have to make the journey North and find him. That would work in a Last Hero type of arc, where the character finds Bran and learns how to stop the Long Night from him, but someone going there just to bring him back to Winterfell and King's Landing... that would take too much narrative space imho. I can see Bran becoming a sort of god rather than a king. The voice that brings about a resurgence of the heart tree religion, or the Three Eyed Raven that lords over a continent abandoned by man. King Brandon the Broken is silly. It would be hard even for George to convince me that is a good ending. 2. Second Tier Characters Now, the lesser main characters, such as Arya, Jaime and Sansa, are a lot more telling, I believe. The show went off the reservation with them, so by dissecting their arcs we might have a better chance at figuring out what the story might look like in the books. Let's take a look at the major plot points for Arya: She goes through a trial of sorts with the Waif, then is allowed to leave the Faceless Men with no consequence whatsoever. This never felt realistic tome, but the general consensus was that her leaving the Faceless Men was required for the plot. So let's look at the rest of the plot: She infiltrates the Twins and murders all the Freys. This is obviously a beat from Lady Stoneheart's story, something we will see from Jaime or Brienne's perspective. This is 100% not Arya in the books. She travels to Winterfell where she has a minor confrontation with her sister, ending with Littlefinger's death. Now, Sansa dealing with Littlefinger on her own would be a lot more satisfying. I find it very unlikely that Arya would be part of this story. Her role in it was relatively inconsequential, I'm more inclined to believe that this was simply the show writers giving her something to do. She kills the Night King. There is no Night King in the books, and D&D pretty much said this was something they made up on their own. 99.999% not book material. She goes to kill Cersei, but fails. Instead, she serves as a PoV for the destruction of King's Landing. This is also inconsequential and very unlikely. From the interviews, it also sounds like something the show runners made up for the sake of that episode. She sails on an expedition west of Westeros. This seems to come out of nowhere for both book and show. Arya is not a sailor, and west of Westeros is not really a destination we care about. This feels like something the writers tacked on to replace her real ending, either because they didn't like it or because the character's journey in the show was so different that it no longer fit. My conclusion has to be, therefore, that Arya's arc will be completely different in the books. My personal belief is that she will remain a member of the Faceless Men. This is, after all, the most realistic scenario. Braavos will take a more active role in opposing Dany than they did in the show (whether on Westeros or on Essos), and Arya will be sent to her as a spy or an assassin, playing a crucial role in Jon's betrayal. Having to choose between his little sister and his love represents "the human heart in conflict with itself" a lot better than "I'm in love with a genocidal maniac". Taking a look at Jaime, Cersei and Brienne, their arcs also seem out of whack. Jaime and Cersei are very different people in the show. Cersei is a lot more intelligent and composed (unless the plot demands otherwise), and she has complete control over Euron. Jaime has more reson to respect her, and therefore his redemption arc goes nowhere. His tryst with Brienne is inconsequential (since she does not become pregnant), and by extension so is his entire trip north. I think the only thing we can extract from the show is that Jaime is most certainly NOT the valonqar, which is a good thing, because it would have been the most obviously telegraphed prophecy interpretation in the entire series. Other than that, their arcs will likely be very different. Cersei is very much the architect of her own demise, but she doesn't need Dany to get there. There is heavy foreshadowing that she will form an alliance with Euron, and the show confirms this, but Euron is a very different character in the books, and he won't be kind to Cersei for long. Falia Flowers in the Forsaken chapter is the perfect example of how Euron will treat Cersei: sweet at first, ruthless after he gets bored. There are even a few instances in the AFFC that foreshadow Cersei losing her tongue: Cersei and Euron will probably be the ones burning King's Landing when fAegon attacks it, and after they escape on the Iron Fleet, things will take a turn for the worse for Cersei. I believe the valonqar will actually be Victarion, "dragonlord" Euron's little brother, and at that point he will be putting her out of her misery more than anything else (perhaps with the purpose of depriving his brother of a king's blood sacrifice, only to take her place instead?). Jaime has to continue his redemption arc. In the books, it is much more defined and justified. Bare with me here, but I believe book-Jaime will actually have show-Theon's ending. His story will go full circle: he started the War of the Five Kings by pushing Bran out of that window, and he will die defending him. That ending is much more fitting for him than for Theon, since we can argue Theon already redeemed himself somewhat by rescuing Jayne Poole in the books and Sansa in the show (though it's the act that counts, not the importance of the person you save!). This goes hand in hand with the idea that Brienne will be the Azor Ahai figure who stops the Long Night. She is not a prince or princess, but the Last Hero wasn't one either, and neither was Arya in the show. Everything matches for her: she sets out on the perfect hero's journey in AFFC, she has a magic sword that just might catch fire when thrust through unCat's heart, and she is sworn to protect Cat's children. Well, if Brandon Stark has tapped into the root system in the caves of the BwB, trying to contact his mother who is oblivious to him due to her undead state, and he ends up sending a vision to Jaime because he's the only other person there he recognizes (just like he whispered Theon at Winterfell), wouldn't Jaime want to go help him? Wouldn't Brienne believe him, since it was a vision that sent him back to rescue her from the bear pit? Wouldn't she think it's worth killing LSH if she refuses to listen that her son is alive? Wouldn't the BwB accept her actions as just if Rh'llor blesses her sword with fire after she thrusts it through her heart? It makes perfect sense to me, how else are they going to get out of there alive? And Jaime, Brienne and the BwB all went north in the show (and did nothing because this plot line was cut). One other little detail I would like to point out was that gratuitous fight Arya had to Brienne last season. The fact that Arya defeats her could be a nod to the fact that she took over her story line from the books. Obviously it wouldn't play out the same as the show (there probably isn't a Night King, or if there is, it's probably another greenseer stuck in a cave like Bran), but rather like Old Nan's Last Hero story (because George would actually give us the punch line to the jackass and the honeycomb joke). I think these are some good starting points. I will try to abstain from bringing up other elements from the Exodus theory, since the show pissed all over that, but I do think Braavos is a better foil to Dany's conquest than Cersei and King's Landing, and I am almost convinced that Mellario Martell will be the one who kills Missandei and Norvos will be the city Dany burns (most likely by accident). If you try connect the dots between all the Dornish PoVs, it becomes hard to deny that she must play some crucial role (though not necessarily a lengthy one): The clues point to Andrey Dalt being Doran's man in Arianne's party. Andrey "punishment" was to go serve Mellario, meaning there is now a way for her to find out about Quentin's mission. Half the point of having Areo Hotah as a PoV was to introduce Norvos and Mellario. What would be the point of all that if we're never going there? Mellario is the most likely character to want revenge for Quentin's death, and the closest to Dany geographically. In his final chapter, Quentin gives us the faintest reminder that she is in play by thinking that he "should have gone to Norvos to see [his] mother and the place that gave her birth".