The Spider's from Mars!

[Timm]

Well, not Mars actually, but space – welcome to the “Varys is a spaceman” thread.

Sorry if this has been done before. I have looked, but I can’t find any dedicated threads on the show forums, although there are several on the book boards and plenty of hits on you tube etc.

Spoilers for GRRM works other than ASOIAF do follow, but the books are at least twenty years old.

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Before he started ASOIAF, GRRM wrote some Sci-Fi stories. Some of them were set in his “Thousand World” universe – essentially our universe far in the future, where humans have escaped earth and travelled through space finding new worlds to colonise. They took with them seed ships – enormous space craft that they used to terra form / “seed” planets and make them suitable for human occupation.

Eons later, man is scattered across a myriad of planets and the seed ships have fallen out of use. The last one is acquired by a space trader called Haviland Tuf. A number of Tuf stories are brought together in the book “Tuf Voyaging” and cover Tuf going to various planets and attempting to help the populations with problems that they are having. These problems are usually self-created, and whilst Tuf generally does solve them, the residents are often unhappy with the solution. His seedship has the power to genetically alter organisms, to the point where he can basically create any creature or plant that he desires. He can also use it to control the weather of the planet below. The seedship is so large that it appears as a star or a comet from the ground. He has psychic cats that he uses as spies. He is described as fat, bald, tall and has an unemotional and stolidly calm disposition. He likes to knit his hands together across his belly and moves remarkably gracefully for one so fat.

Various readers of that book have wondered if “Planetos” from ASOIAF is also set in this universe and obeys the same rules. Many have also commented on the similarities between Tuf and Varys, including GRRM, who has suggested that if Tuf Voyaging is ever filmed, then Conleth Hill, who plays Varys, would be ideal for the part. Aside from a similar physical appearance, Tuf also shares some character traits with Varys, including an ethos of social utilitarianism and an attitude that the ends justify the means along with a certain reticence in telling people what the means are going to be. 

For the avoidance of doubt, and although I think there is some link between the books (other than the author), I think the chances of Varys being revealed as Tuf are miniscule. 

But the reason for posting this here, and posting it now, is that it would allow D+D to tie up the series with the minimum of fuss, fill a huge amount of plot holes, give explanations of almost everything and create a howling twitter storm, the likes of which only real world politics now appears to be capable of. The following are some rambling examples that I can think of that must have at least tempted them to do it - “because we wanted to”:

What is the red comet all about? Its a spaceship. Dragons come out of it. It is known.

Easy (lazy) explanation for the dragons and the white walkers: The dragons were created by Tuf to burn off the Ghost Grass, which was threatening to over-run the planet. The white walkers were created to deal with the out of control dragons who were threatening to burn the planet (as we have seen on the show, WW are quite effective against dragons). Side consideration: Humans enslaved the dragons and locked the WW up behind the wall. This has broken the natural equilibrium in the system and allowed the ghost grass to start advancing again. So Tuf makes more dragon eggs and gives them (via Illyrio) to Dany. 

Talking of which, how did Dani get fireproof heat retardant? Simples - Varys genetically altered her in the Bravos years.

And the lemon tree? Yup, genetically altered. 

What were those patterns the WW made in the snow? They were signals to the spaceship. In fact, the first one looked very much like the symbol Phi, which funnily enough, is the logo on the side of Tuf's spaceship. And also, Dark Sansa's "clasp".

How does Varys know everything? As well as his little birds, he has psychic cats roaming the corridors of power. He probably has mechanical drones as well, at least until the dragons owned the sky.

Of course, there are problems. Apart from the fact the whole thing is completely mental.

Problem: We are likely to see a young Varys next season, so he can’t be from space. 

Solution: Varys is a clone of Tuf, who removed his ability to father children. The voice in the flames was his own.

Problem: The whole theory is stupid.

Solution: So? D+D…

Problem: Tuf’s seed ship was not red.

Solution He is very very rich (he is) and vain (he is) and he fancied a paint job. In fact, near the start of Tuf Voyaging, someone says that a “plague star” should be red, not white. He is also on record as having commissioned vastly expensive works to the ship already.

Problem: The red comet does not look like a spaceship.

Solution: This is a bit of an issue. Even if I think up a solution, the fact is that D+D did not show a comet that could later be revealed to be a spaceship. This is a clear indication that they are not going to do this.

But can you imagine if they did do it? If the biggest Fantasy TV of all time turned out to be Sci-Fi? It would be a genuine WTF moment. Forget the disappointing Hodor and R+L=J reveals. Forget even the death of Ned and the Red Wedding. I would love it, but many would react with fury and rage. Some would feel a sense of bereavement, in that their perception of what the story was had been stolen from them. And yet, there would be a simple logic to it all, that would explain everything in a way that many other stories have failed so miserably to do. LOST anyone? In the end, the whole story would be an essay on the smallness of political ambition in the context of the universe as a whole.

 

And on the pedestal these words appear:
'My name is Ozymandias, king of kings;
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!'
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

Percy Bysshe Shelley

 

[Bradam]

Reminds me of Dragonriders of Pern novels. Starts out with a feudal society that has dragons, then eventually.. surprise! It's the far future, earth travelers landed and settled the planet, genetically engineered dragons, and eventually forgot their history.  Even their spaceships orbiting the planet appeared as stars to them. 

[Essan]

This was/is one of my favourite theories - and would nicely clear up a few loose ends.   Don't think it'll happen but it'd be great if GRRM left something in the final book that remained ambiguous enough for folk to ever wonder .....  (maybe the red comet briefly reappearing, after which Varys is never seen again?) 

[Timm]

On 5 April 2019 at 4:05 AM, Bradam said:

Reminds me of Dragonriders of Pern novels. Starts out with a feudal society that has dragons, then eventually.. surprise! It's the far future, earth travelers landed and settled the planet, genetically engineered dragons, and eventually forgot their history.  Even their spaceships orbiting the planet appeared as stars to them. 

Damn - I'd never realised this!

I even read a couple of those books when I was a kid - obviously not the right ones.

I suppose this makes my theory slightly less outlandish but far less likely...

 

(Though there is also the MapGuy idea that GRRM is referencing / homaging a vast amount of popular culture and that he got a bit too close to some of it, which has needed serious ret-conning. (Specifically that the Star Wars prequels introduced things that meant that Meera can't be Jon's twin, hence the Meeranese Knot.)