Mithras

There is only one way to save Theon: he will confess the truth before the heart tree and ask to take the black. And that is how he will get himself a place among the people destined to the Wall including Jeyne. But they will not make it to Castle Black nor meet Jon in any way. They will get the news of the chaos at the Wall and want to avoid getting involved in that mess. Furthermore, both Theon and Jeyne will naturally want to avoid meeting Jon. In addition to that, Theon will take notice of Justin Massey’s dwindling faith in Stannis and desire to claim fArya for himself. After a brief consideration, Massey, fArya and Theon will decide to go directly to Eastwatch and from there to Braavos with Tycho. fArya will insist Theon come with them. In Braavos, Arya will see Jeyne and learn her story. By the way, Arya's rage over what Ramsay did to Jeyne will spill over the Narrow Sea and influence Nymeria such that she will take her pack and move North to hunt down Ramsay and his wolfhounds. Arya will kill Justin Massey and convince Jeyne to switch places with her. Jeyne will be accepted to the House of Black and White and Arya will go back to being Arya. Since Jeyne is way too much broken, I guess she might commit suicide at that sweetsleep pool, or maybe the Faceless Men might recover her enough to find her a place. Arya and Theon on the other hand will find a ship and return to Westeros. Arya will drop at Maidenpool to go deal with Lady Stoneheart whereas Theon will stay on the ship and eventually reach Oldtown to search for the daughter of Myraham’s captain. He will find her with the baby she got from Theon. From there, Theon will go to the Iron Islands to play the Latecomer card with the support of Rodrik Harlaw but Euron will be long dead by that time and Theon will be invalidating the new kingsmoot which will have elected Aeron as the new king. As for Asha, she is toast. Stannis will sacrifice her. See you in TWoW

Hate it all you want but this is what will happen in TWoW Harry is slain in the tourney. In his chamber, Littlefinger tries to talk Sansa into getting pregnant from him so that they can pass the baby as late Harry’s a la Ossifer Plumm. Sansa realizes that Littlefinger arranged the death of Harry just as he will eventually kill Sweetrobin as well. Sansa says no but Littlefinger tries to rape her and she slays him with that infamous dagger. Then Shadrich breaks in, reveals that he knows her true identity and proposes to take her North. Sansa decides to flee with him because she can't trust anyone in the Vale especially after killing Littlefinger. Shadrich betrays Sansa and brings her to King’s Landing where Cersei awaits. This is the point where GRRM will revisit the Purple Wedding. In her trial for regicide, Sansa blames Littlefinger and the Tyrells with the details she knows. This comes after Tyrells suffer huge losses elsewhere (such as the ironborn invasion of the Reach and Mace getting killed in battle against Golden Company). Cersei is already looking for an excuse to cut the Tyrells loose and Sansa’s testimony will provide just that. Marg will be arrested again and Tyrells will be summoned to the court to answer for the charges. Olenna will confess that it was her and her alone, though I don’t think that will be enough to save Marg.

The fandom assumes that GRRM is an infallible writer whose plots are bulletproof. This is the root of creating many elaborate theories in an attempt to fix real or imagined plot holes. I admit that it is not easy or productive to make theories that incorporate possible author errors or plot holes. But still, it is better to keep an open eye for such matters. I think the scenario that GRRM intended is the basic one where LF and Tyrells coordinated the plot to murder Joffrey. They brought in the poison via Sansa’s hairnet and someone slipped it into Joffrey’s wine. The plot hole in this scenario is LF’s characterization. Even in SSM’s, GRRM pointed the reasons why LF is trusted by so many characters although he betrays them over and over again. The readers know that he is a shady character. Then, why can’t the other characters see that? GRRM explained that LF is a witty and cheerful person who is always helpful to others. Since he does not have a big name or an army and since he always makes himself useful in need of help, he is never considered as a threat. LF always wears this Gatsby-like persona to the outside world. And that is the problem. The moment LF is involved in a conspiracy to murder a king at his wedding, this facade drops. I believe GRRM did not realize the ramifications of this when he wrote ASoS. Why should a major House like Tyrells get involved in such a risky plot with someone they thought they knew? How could they trust LF after seeing that he is not to be trusted because they witnessed his two different personas? I believe GRRM is weighing on whether he should leave it like that and move on; or remove the plot hole by retconning something into the scenario.

Because of the abandoning of the 5 year gap, even Rickon risks falling into irrelevance. Who cares about a toddler?

He will die like a bitch when Sam puts an arrow through his smiling eye.

I raise the stakes higher. Grand Northern Conspiracy The orthodox line of thought about Grand Northern Conspiracy is that the Northern Lords are playing Roose and Stannis against each other to seat Jon or Rickon as the King in the North. I think this is all extremely wishful thinking that contradicts the facts on the ground. Citadel Conspiracy The orthodox line of thought about Citadel Conspiracy is that the Maesters have an anti-magic agenda and they are involved in a conspiracy to destroy the Targaryens and the dragons. I think this is all extremely wishful thinking that is based on a single line from a highly questionable source. Southron Ambitions The orthodox line of thought about Southron Ambitions is that Rickard Stark was conspiring with Jon Arryn and Hoster Tully to dethrone the Mad King. I think this is all extremely wishful thinking that is based on a single line from a highly questionable source. Eldritch Apocalypse The orthodox line of thought about Euron is the Eldritch Apocalypse theory. I think it is all fan fiction. Sam will slay Euron and the Wall won’t be destroyed by the Horn of Winter nor the dragonbinder will give a dragon to Euron. From Pawn to Player The orthodox line of thought about Sansa is From Pawn to Player theory. I think Sansa will slay Littlefinger when he tries to rape her; then Shadrich will kidnap her and bring her to King’s Landing. Jon’s Resurrection The orthodox line of thought about Jon is that he is dead but Mel will resurrect him. I don’t think Jon is dead or will ever die; he will fall into a coma and need supernatural healing. Mel won't have anything to do with it at all. The Night Lamp The orthodox line of thought about Stannis is the Night Lamp. I don’t think Stannis will defeat the Boltons like that. I think after winning a pyrrhic victory in the Battle on Ice, he will fake his death and go into hiding, only to emerge with the Manderly knights to join the Battle of the Bastards. fAegon and King’s Landing The orthodox line of thought about fAegon is that he will take King’s Landing and Cersei will die or flee. I don’t think anyone will take King’s Landing from Cersei; she will stay in charge till the bitter end when she finally burns the city. Dany and the Others The orthodox line of thought about Dany is that she will help defeat the Others. I think she will be involved in civil wars until she dies from childbirth. Victarion and Rhaegal The orthodox line of thought about Victarion is that he will soon get killed one way or the other. I am a heretic because I think Victarion will Rhaegal’s rider and won’t die so soon before accomplishing certain things to advance the plot towards Westeros.

Problems with “Seven Days of Battle” and “Three Days’ Ride” Medieval battles did not last for days. The actual engagement between two armies may take hours, even a whole day. But usually, one of the armies is routed and the victorious army starts chasing down the routed army, which is the part that might go on for days. In some historical battles, actual fighting went on for days, by giving a break during the night. But I don’t think this will be the case for the Battle on Ice. As a side note, sometimes it would take many days for armies to meet each other, especially if they do not know where the other army was. The armies would keep moving, with scouts and possible skirmishes, which might have lasted for days until a preferable battleground is decided. But this is not the case for Stannis. He is not moving anywhere, even if he wants to. Roose knows where to find him thanks to the map sent by the Dreadfort maester. The letter also claims that Stannis is three days from Winterfell. According to the Pink Letter, Stannis was defeated in seven days of battle. The ongoing assumption about the seven days of battle is that the fighting lasted for a day and the remaining six days account for the arrival to and the return from the crofter’s village as it is stated to be three days ride away. Regardless of whether the battle really happened like this or not, the fandom considers this as the best explanation for the mindset of the author of the Pink Letter. This distance of three days ride is problematic for me. Let us have a look at where it comes from. It appears that at the thirty-second day of the march, Benjicot Branch claimed that they were three days ride from Winterfell. First of all, I don’t have any reason doubt his word. All the scouts and hunters given to Stannis by Lady Sybelle Glover seemed capable at their job. They know their wolfswood. This might be trivial but in the series, when the distance between two places is stated in units of horse riding, it goes without saying that the horse should be a healthy horse being ridden by a healthy rider under normal weather and road conditions. Sometimes a “hard ride” is mentioned in the text. This means the rider is in hurry (like delivering a message) and riding the horse to its limits under normal conditions. Reconsider the words of Richard Horpe and Corliss Penny. Branch certainly said that they are three days ride from Winterfell. But did he also add the condition that if they leave the weakest men behind or is it a commentary by Corliss? The “If” is italic in the original text and it is possible to read the text such that Branch indeed added this condition to his calculation. This brings the question: did Branch use the three days ride (with or without the leaving the weakest men condition) under normal weather conditions or in the blizzard conditions they are currently in. Remember that at the beginning, they were able to cover some 20 miles a day. When their march came to a halt, they could only cover a mile or two in that terrible winter storm. Are we absolutely certain that the crofter’s village is some 60 miles away from Winterfell (based on the usual use of the unit “three days ride”) instead of some 6 miles away from Winterfell (based on the unusual and specific use of the unit “three days ride under their current condition”)? By the way, the winter storm is so severe that even the fresh troops of the Freys and Manderlys will not be able to come to the crofter’s village in three days. The snow is waist deep and the Freys will be extra slow and careful in their march after the death of Aenys Frey. Moreover, the green boys of Crowfood will give them further troubles on the road. Also it is not clear how much time passed between Tycho Nestoris finding Crowfood at Winterfell and coming to the crofter’s village from there with Theon and fArya. Tris only said it took “some time” to find the place. Another point is that even if the storm stops and the snows miraculously melt for some reason, it will still not be a three days ride journey for the Freys and Manderlys. So much snow melting so rapidly means that streams will be swollen and the roads will turn into mud. Remember they have to carry their baggage train to the battle and they can’t pull those carts across the mud. Speaking of which, if the Freys only took 7 days of provisions in their baggage train for the campaign according to the letter of Roose, they will definitely starve if the crofter’s village is not around 6 miles away from Winterfell according to the specific interpretation of the distance. Am I reading the text wrong? Even if this is the result of prematurely publishing ADwD without a proper editing, what is the correct way to solve this mystery? Did GRRM give enough consideration to the fact that it is impossible to cover the distance from Winterfell to the crofter’s village under those conditions within only three days? Finally, Roose commanded only the Freys and the Manderlys to march. But that is not necessarily his final saying in the matter. Theon said that Ramsay will be coming too and I have no reason to disagree with him. The march will be very slow due to the weather and extra caution they have to take because of Crowfood’s traps. This provides many days for the Boltons to torture Mance/spearwives and catch up with the marching armies later. My solution I think the distance is within the 60 miles scale and it took far more than three days for the Freys to reach the crofter’s village, followed by the Manderlys and finally Ramsay riding in a row. As for seven days of battle, the first day saw the actual fighting which ended with the army of Stannis being routed (despite a lot of Freys drowning in the ice lake). I also expect desertion especially from the Peasebury men and Karstarks before the battle (will come to that in a moment). More should have fled at the night of the first day. During the following six days, Ramsay hunted down the routed army, killing and taking prisoners wherever he can. From these prisoners, and also possibly from Mance and the spearwives, Ramsay picked up the necessary terms in the Pink Letter (such as the wildling princess and the wildling prince). It is very unlikely that anyone who has not been to the Wall recently should know their existence. Furthermore, the way Ramsay refers to them speaks of the ignorance of the southrons about the wildlings. That should mean that the source of Ramsay on the existence of Val and Monster should be some southron knight in the army of Stannis, probably one of the queen's men. Furthermore, there is a significant gap between the impending execution of Theon, and Ramsay thinking that Reek is alive and well at the Wall and demanding him in the Pink Letter. Therefore, fArya (and Theon as I believe) left the village many days before the battle with the group of Massey. Not many people in the army of Stannis can be expected to see them leaving or know where they are going. For all they know, the people leaving the camp might be going to some northern castle or the Wall or across the sea or somewhere else or someone leaving the group on the way. Stannis does not share his plans with every single man in his army. Any random soldier Ramsay cannot be expected to tell him of their whereabouts. Until after the battle, Ramsay will have no reason or proof to believe that Stannis sent fArya and Theon somewhere else. He will not find any trace of them because of the winter storm. Besides, with deserters and the routed army all over the map as I argued, even if there were any tracks of Theon and fArya, Ramsay will not be able to tell who left them. Only after hunting down Stannis and the remnants of his army, Ramsay will be able to piece together that Stannis sent Theon and fArya to the Wall before the battle. But by this time, a couple of weeks will have passed since they left the village and it is impossible to hunt them down especially with this winter storm making it near impossible to leave tracks or dogs to pick up scent. Recall that even without winter, Bran evaded being captured by Ramsay's hunters because they evaded the kingsroad. The idea that Ramsay would go hunt Theon and fArya before such a proper setup stems from the failure to realize that the characters in the story cannot read the books just like the readers. Ramsay does not have these books. He has no way of knowing the whereabouts of Theon and fArya. His major evidence will be the confessions of Mance under torture plus the prisoners he will have caught from the army of Stannis who are privy to the plans with the departure. That is how Ramsay will know the involvement of Jon and be convinced that the runaways might have gone to the Wall. The Upcoming Desertion Before the Battle on Ice takes place, Lord Peasebury will desert with his remaining men and the leaderless Karstarks. Above is all the textual evidence needed to understand that the four Peasebury men caught in the act of cannibalizing a corpse were not the only cannibals in the camp; in fact, Lord Peasebury was also eating human flesh along with his other men. Up to this point, cannibalism seemed like a “don’t ask don’t tell” thing in the camp. As long as it was done secretly, the men in the camp were ignoring cannibalism. What about Stannis though? I give this as metaphoric evidence that Stannis is not really aware of everything that is going on in the camp. Of course, this will come as blasphemy to those who gave themselves into the popular wishful theories according to which Stannis knows everything before they happen, is playing 10-D chess and will totally stomp the Boltons effortlessly. But the truth must be told and the truth is, Stannis had not left his watchtower in the last four days until he appeared to observe the burning of the cannibals and he quickly returned afterwards. Specifically, Justin Massey has become “as formidable as a loose stool”. But of all the people, Stannis chooses this man and sends him away to Braavos. Massey is aching for a way out. This shows how clueless Stannis has become about his men. He truly became half-blind by isolating himself into his solar and staring into the fires. Every night, the men let out all sorts of treasonous talk but Stannis is not notified about them (unless you want to argue that Stannis knows all about the cannibalism and the talk of defeat but lets it slide). I won’t give all the quotes but if you have a quick look at The Sacrifice chapter, you will see how desperate the situation seems to a lot of men. Those who think like Justin will not simply sit down and embrace death (unlike the northmen). Among the southrons, there are red god fanatics and there are brave men. These might be expected to stick with Stannis till the bitter end but there are also cravens and cannibals. They are the weakest link in the army. Cravens are cravens. After the burning, the cannibals also lost faith. After the Karstark leadership is apprehended, the camp starts boiling. Stannis thinks that the Karstark treachery is averted but these Karstark men are now leaderless, suspected of treason by the other men in the camp. Traitors or not, Arnolf was their leader and the Karstark men will not like the execution of Arnolf, no more than the Karstarks reacting to the execution of Lord Rickard by Robb. As a result, at the very night of the Theon sample chapter from TWoW, the Karstark men, the cravens and the cannibals who would do anything to escape burning at the pyre will desert. This will be revealed at the beginning of the fragmentary Asha chapter we saw. But the fate of the deserters is another matter. The deserters, much like the mutineers at Craster’s, will try to go separate ways. One of the greatest benefits of this desertion scenario is that just as mentioned in the Pink Letter, the battle will truly take seven days. The Battle on Ice will be concluded one way or the other in a quick manner. The rest of the “seven days of battle” will be reserved to Boltons tracking down and killing the deserters and survivors who make it out alive from the Battle on Ice. In the process, Ramsay will take southron captives from the deserters he tracked down like the Peasebury men. It is very important that Ramsay catches and flays such Southron captives. This is perhaps the only reasonable source from where Ramsay would catch the terms “the wildling princess” and “the wildling prince” as mentioned in the Pink Letter. I think Mance and the spearwives are definitely caught by the Boltons but they will not refer to Val and Mance’s son as such. Ramsay needs a Southron mouth for that. Finally, seven days long skirmishes and hunting of the deserters/survivors will provide Stannis the chance to flee and fake his death by leaving fLightbringer behind as proof of his death. Only after that Ramsay will return to Winterfell to write the Pink Letter. The Battle on Ice According to the Pink Letter, * Stannis dies off-screen, * Stannis would normally execute Theon but he is reported to have fled (again off-screen). All of these really suck. The most important reason why the readers are looking for additional explanations for the Pink Letter is that we obviously do not have all the pieces for this mystery. Even if the Pink Letter is not meant to be a mystery, it is still a failure of editing because that intent certainly does not work for most of the readers. If we had the above chapters in ADwD, the Pink Letter would have worked much better. The immediate impression of the readers would be that the Pink Letter is true. Only in rereads, some fans might consider that the Manderlys might have attacked the Freys instead of Stannis, which would put the contents of the Pink Letter under suspicion.

I don't think Stoneheart will go with them. She will be abandoned behind as a creature consuming itself with vengeance until Arya returns and puts it out of its misery.

There is an interesting reveal in Fire & Blood. The Northmen who came south to fight in the Dance of Dragons did not return to their homes after the war. They stayed in Riverlands and caused a revival of the faith of the old gods in the region through arranged intermarriages with the locals. This old gods revival in Riverlands made me realize that GRRM did something similar in the main story too and he was making a point that I do not remember much discussed. Lacking prohibitive defensive borders, Riverlands is like a natural battleground and it is usually the first place to face the devastation of wars. ASOIAF is a wartime story. GRRM repeatedly emphasizes that war brings the worst in people and makes beasts of them. Being through such unbearable tragedies and atrocities has a certain effect that is most visible in Riverlands due to getting ransacked by wars so often: people turn to religion. The old gods revival during the Dance of Dragons was probably neither the first and definitely not the last example of a swift movement of religious cults in Riverlands. It happened during the main story twice and both are mainly centered in Riverlands where the War of the 5 Kings hit worst. The first one is the spread of the cult of Lord of Light thanks to Beric and Thoros. The other one is the sparrow movement. Both cults took root rapidly in Riverlands because the local people were traumatized enough to embrace these new faiths and find comfort in the idea of making sense of all the misery in their war-torn country. But there is more to come. We can already see that the Brotherhood without Banners is going downhill since the leadership changed from Beric to Lady Stonheart. People are getting desperate and discontented again. Their new faith is not making sense anymore. They are losing their belief that their cause is just, something they sincerely believed in with Beric in charge. They started breaking the guest right too. In short, the scene is quite ready for a new religious shift in Riverlands. Enter Sam. I bet a huge money that he will not spend the rest of his days forging useless chains at the Citadel. That part of the story will come to an abrupt end, one way or the other. I think he should and will return north where the true threat is. While returning north, I am proposing that he will travel by land and pass through Riverlands. On the way, he will try to find more recruits by telling the people of the true threat. Jon sent him to be a stand-in for Aemon but Sam will return as a stand-in for Yoren/Dareon. His plea will be ignored and ridiculed most of the time but in Riverlands, he will find willing ears. There will be many reasons why Sam will recruit the majority of the Brotherhood without Banners. Some of them will sincerely believe in him. After all, they can’t discredit Sam when he says that the dead are coming back to fight the living. They’ve all seen Beric and Thoros. They’ve seen the dead rise. For some of them, even if they don’t believe in Sam’s story, his plea will be a chance to get free from the grasp of Lady Stoneheart. Normally, they could not have escaped or left the brotherhood, not without risking execution for treason. Now, Sam will be providing them a face saving, honorable discharge and they will not miss the chance. Sam will surely play the religion card too. Sam will probably cite Melisandre on the Battle for Dawn to appeal to the believers of the Lord of Light. For all gods and all faiths, there is only one fight that matters, that they must fight together. Finally, there is some clever foreshadowing for the brotherhood eventually going north to help/join the Night's Watch:

Roughly speaking, AGoT covered almost 2 years, ACoK covered 9 months, ASoS covered 5 months, ADwD and AFfC covered the same 6 months with an extra few months passing in ADwD because it had space left. Starting with ACoK and especially ASoS, momentum dominates the story and things happen one after another in a very quick succession. I guess all the high fantasies suffer from this problem. The domination of the momentum was the reason why GRRM first needed to create a 5 year gap and then failed to do it. TWoW will feature all the POVs in a limited page space, suggesting a period of 6 months at the best case scenario. This is a serious problem. To understand the gravity of the situation, remember that it took about 6 months for Drogo’s khalassar to travel from Pentos to Vaes Dothrak after the wedding of Drogo and Dany. By the way, the story times mentioned above are rough estimates. When you delve into the details, you will see that different parts of the story are not synched in time. For example, if we take the Epilogue of ADwD as the “present time”, the last we heard from Jaime/Brienne was more than a month ago, meaning that they have a month of story to tell from the previous volume. On the other hand, the POVs in the North and in Slaver’s Bay are ahead of the Epilogue of ADwD by a month or two. That means there are 2-3 months of disparity in time among some threads left to TWoW. This complicates the process even further. Last but not the least, there is always the need to make dramatic sense while playing around this overly complex mess of knots. I would suggest thinking about the ramifications of 6 months of story time with each POV getting an average of 4 chapters in TWoW.

Aeron’s dreams in the Forsaken chapter are not prophetic dreams or true visions. It is just Aeron’s subconscious speaking up under extreme duress and torture in the hands of his abuser. His religion (his only source of strength and stability and sanity) is failing him, hence the title Forsaken. What makes the whole thing worse is the use of a potent drug (shade of the evening) which gives him very vivid, nightmarish acid trips. Every element in these dreams can be explained by everything Aeron knows and fears about Euron, even if it is wholly in his subconscious. Let me start with a brief chronology. After the Kingsmoot, Aeron is captured and chained deep in the bowels of Silence. They set sail to take the Shields. On the Silence, Aeron has his First Dream. Once the Shields are taken, Aeron is transferred to Lord Hewett's dungeon in Oakenshield. This is the first dungeon he is referring to in this chapter. Victarion leaves for Meereen. Falia Flowers brings food to Aeron in the dungeon and tells him that Victarion is gone. Aeron is taken to the Silence again and they leave Oakenshield. On the Silence, Euron confesses killing his brothers to Aeron. Euron takes the Isle of Pigs and uses it as one of his bases to raid the Reach. Aeron is thrown to the dungeon at the Isle of Pigs. This is the second dungeon he is referring to in this chapter. This is where the warlocks and other priests are thrown to his cell. Aeron has his Second Dream in this dungeon. At the end of this chapter, they take him out and tie him to the prow of Silence. First Dream This dream happened not long after the Kingsmoot. Therefore, Aeron still had some defiance and sanity left in him. The despair had not fully kicked in and Aeron still had some hope for deliverance by the hands of Victarion and Drowned God. He was a long way from realizing the extent of his hopelessness. However, doubt was already eating away his faith given Euron’s victory at the Kingsmoot and brazenly blaspheming the gods without any consequence. As a result, this dream was bad but not as bad as his second dream was going to be. The imagery in this dream is mostly about Euron offending every god and blaspheming in every faith, yet none of them smites him down, which is why Aeron’s fear of Euron keeps growing constantly. No doubt, Euron is doing this on purpose and with malicious intent. He enjoys tormenting his victims and he is trying to break Aeron’s faith. In ACoK, Aeron thought that the bleeding star was a sign from the Drowned God telling the ironborn to set sail for plunder, conquest and victory. In fact, he prayed to kill all those foreign gods as in the dream in the name of the Drowned God and conquer the green lands by taking the Iron Throne. Now, that belief is crushed by Euron as even the Drowned God becomes his victim, at least in Aeron’s subconscious. The creepy horn blowing at the Kingsmoot and Euron’s talk about dragons, plunder, conquering the Iron Throne etc. all bleed into this nightmare. Second Dream This time, Aeron was in a far worse state than the previous one. He had learned that Victarion was gone. He had no hope left for deliverance. Clearly his god had forsaken him or his god was a lie all along. The burning longships of the ironborn result from Aeron’s realization that Euron does not even care for the ironborn or the Old Way. Just recently, he had told Aeron about the Shields and why they are poisoned gifts. Aeron realized that Euron did not care about the lives of the ironborn as long as he got what he needed. That is why Euron sheds the last bit of humanity Aeron could attribute to him in this dream and appears as a monster. The shadow in woman’s form is the dragon queen. Previously, Falia Flowers told Aeron about Euron’s plan to wed the dragon queen (the most beautiful woman in the world), who would rule all Westeros at his side. That information bleeds into this dream. The dwarves are just subjects beneath Euron and they only exist for the amusement of Euron and his mate. In short, don't get carried away.

I have been thinking that Sybell Westerling used love potions on Robb for a long time. Many readers object to this idea by claiming that it would cheapen the story (not because it would be improbable). However, there has to be a reason why George decided to make Sybell related to Maggy the Frog (who was said to be selling love potions and who also seems to have used one succesfully, given that she "enchanted" a rich merchant who took her to wife).Recently I came to the conclusion that maybe we are looking at this from the wrong side. Perhaps the love potions were used on Jeyne, not Robb. It is highly implied that Tywin had some back and forth communication with Sybell Westerling while arranging their betrayal to Robb. What Tywin meant is that Jeyne was an opportunistic and ambitious person like her mother. Tywin was most probably relying on firsthand knowledge he got from Sybell. However, that is not the Jeyne we saw in the story. Even after Robb’s death and the apparent defeat of the Stark cause, Jeyne was weeping for Robb and saying that she loved him, which was making her mother very angry.I think this was due to the side effects of long term use of love potions. We have never seen the real Jeyne Westerling in the story. What we see is a Jeyne pretty high on love potions. Maybe when used with the contraceptives Jeyne took, the effects of love potions did not leave the flesh. This can easily be revealed if Sybell Westerling becomes the Prologue of TWoW.

KHaLEeSI diD NoThiNG wROnG

There was a Targaryen family tree dating circa 1998 in which Alysanne was the daughter of Maegor. Then GRRM changed the family tree and Alysanne became daughter of Aenys and sister of Jaehaerys. As a result, in the quote above, Dany meant that she was a direct descendant of Maegor and it was true at that time. This also has ramifications on the deformity of Rhaego. Before this retcon, Rhaego's deformity was a unique case, implied to be caused by MMD's magic. But later, GRRM created lots of deformed Targaryen babies and MMD's part in the condition of Rhaego is now dubious.

I just lol at these wishful theories about Stannis. That Night Lamp theory was pulled out of thin air by a Stannis fanboy, and it is already more or less debunked at this point but people cannot stop treating as canon. If only GRRM releases that Asha I chapter from TWoW as sample … Stannis is written like the villain he is since day 1. Only biased fanboys twist the text and try to paint him like some sort of tragic hero. It is all BS. The blabber of Stannis about heroism and duty is as fake as Mel's tits. The King Who Cared my ass. Wyman Manderly instantly saw the BS in that claim and pointed that Stannis came to the north as a beggar because he did not have any place to go (save fleeing across the Narrow Sea). Stannis is motivated by ambition for the IT and vindication for his imagined slights. He is not a major character in this story. He is just an inconvenience for the actual major characters. He is just a plot device. He does not get to have an arc. His case is a simple Faustian bargain. He sold his soul to the devil for power and it is leading him to his doom. Here is what awaits Stannis: First, Stannis will bring Theon before the weirwood tree for execution but Theon will confess the truth about the Stark boys and then ask to take the black. His story will be confirmed by the survivors from the Battle of Winterfell. Also the Liddles will confirm that at least Bran survived Winterfell and was spotted on the way to the Wall. Stannis will agree and send Theon with Justin and fArya. After they leave, many days will pass before the Battle on Ice starts. Cold count will skyrocket. Sickness, starvation and cannibalism will run rampart. The morale in the camp will get worse and worse. Desertions will start, mainly from Karstark and Peasebury men. Finally the Freys will arrive and the Battle on Ice will start. The Frey vanguard will easily break the ranks of Stannis at the first charge. The deadbeat host of Stannis will get routed. Survivors will chaotically flee all over the frozen lakes. Freys will give them a chase. This is when the ice will break. Both the fleeing men and their pursuers will drown by the hundreds. The Freys will still have their reserves and supply train intact. This is when Manderly knights will arrive and join the battle. To the surprise of Asha and Stannis, they will attack the remaining Freys and finish them off. The Manderly commander will reveal the truth about Davos to Stannis. At this point, Stannis will be left with a very little host. He will make a deal with the Manderlys and go to Wolf’s Den for hiding. After he leaves, Ramsay will finally arrive to the battlefield. Manderly Commander will tell him that they could not find Stannis or his bride and Reek. Ramsay will start hunting the survivors, deserters and broken men for seven days as he will later mention in the Pink Letter. He will capture some southron men (such as the Peasebury men who deserted before the battle). He will eventually question them in the Bolton way and catch the terms “wildling princess” and “wildling prince” from them, which he will later mention in the Pink Letter as we know. Finally, he will come across a corpse armed with the gear of Stannis and still having fLightbringer. This is actually Arnolf Karstark as a ploy devised by Stannis and the Manderly commander. Ramsay will buy the deception and finally return to Winterfell to question the captives and write the Pink Letter. Stannis will hide at Wolf’s Den with Asha and his remaining men but it will be off-screen while GRRM takes his time to build the conflict between Ramsay and Jon. Because as I said before, Jon is the major character here, not Stannis. The conflict between Ramsay and Jon will culminate in a battle at Long Lake. Jon will try to defeat Ramsay with his army of wildlings but will fail at that. Just as he is about to lose the battle, Stannis will arrive with the Manderly knights and finish the Boltons. By the way, Stannis will sacrifice Asha at Wolf’s Den and that will provide the good weather due to which Stannis will be able to use the Manderly ships to sail up the White Knife to join the battle in time. After that, Winterfell will be liberated and a council will discuss what to do next. Stannis will have Rickon brought by Davos but it will be common knowledge that Bran also survived and he is the rightful Lord of Winterfell. Recall that Manderly promised to bend the knee to Stannis only if he brought his liege lord back, which is Bran. As a result, Jon will offer to lead a ranging party beyond the Wall to bring Bran back or confirm his death. He will tell them that if they fail to return before a prescribed time, they will all be declared dead and Rickon will be the Lord of Winterfell and Stannis will get his way. We will follow this ranging mission while Stannis takes Dreadfort off-screen. The ranging mission will run into huge troubles and they will be too late. When they finally return through the Gorne’s Way, they will learn that they were declared dead in their absence and Stannis took the Northmen south to bring Vale under his rule. At the same time, this will be the moment when Dany takes Pentos and looks for a proper place to start her invasion of Westeros. Vale will be her natural target as well. This is the root of the battle between Stannis and Dany as foreshadowed in the HotU. This will be a naval battle where Dany will defeat Stannis and slay one of those lies, though she will lose her first dragon in this battle. I also have a theory that she will give into rage and fly Drogon to White Harbor, burning houses and ships until she cools off. After this defeat, Stannis will return to Winterfell with the survivors but the Northmen will abandon him and produce a new King in the North (BraN tHE bROkEn). That is when Stannis will leave the Great Hall with fury and retreat to Nightfort. At the Epilogue of TWoW, Stannis will sacrifice Shireen at Nightfort to get a dragon by which he will want to punish all those who wronged him in his mind. This sacrifice will break the magic ward of the Wall through a very loud crack.