Rickon is destined to be new Lord of Winterfell

[KingMudd]

On 4/19/2019 at 1:29 AM, Damon_Tor said:

I doubt it.

I think there's a problem with Ned's kids, all of Ned's kids, that keeps them from counting as "Starks" for the purposes of the mostly-forgotten treaty between the Children and the First Men. I suspect the problem is Catelyn's Whent genes, genes that propagate the Harrenhal anti-magic effect in a small radius even apart from Harrenhal itself.

As such, the Lord of Winterfell has to be a Stark descendant without any Hoare blood: in other words Jon, or more likely, Jon and Daenery's eventual child.

As to what Rickon's purpose could be in a narrative sense, I rather suspect he doesn't have one. The gardener planted a seed, and lo, it did not sprout.

How do you know that the Whents have Hoare blood? They were made lords hundrered of years after House Hoare was extinct. Also marriages between houses is very common. The Starks have married Blackwoods and Royces before, who most likely have married other riverlands houses that have connections to Harrenhal. Jon and Dany will also have blood in their line that has connection to Harrenhal. The Targaryens have married the Blackwoods and other Riverlands houses so will have Harrenhal blood.

[Damon_Tor]

1 hour ago, KingMudd said:

How do you know that the Whents have Hoare blood? They were made lords hundrered of years after House Hoare was extinct.

The idea came to me by working backwards from the House of the Undying prophecy, particularly the line nobody else has a good explanation for: "From a smoking tower, a great stone beast took wing, breathing shadow fire." Other lines the the prophecy show past events, so it occurred to me that this one might as well. Harrenhal is the best candidate, and because we have reason to believe house Hoare survived via the World of Ice and Fire and the story of Harren the Red it seemed to make sense the prophecy is telling us what happened to them. So I figured it was using heraldry, as prophecy often does. The name "Lothston" is apparently fictional, an invention of GRRM not based on a real-world family name as far as I can tell, and it appears to mean "Hateful Stone" or "Reluctant Stone". Their sigil is a bat. Hence "Stone beast takes wing". "Shadow fire" could be a reference to house Blackfyre, Damon Blackfyre and the other Great Bastards born from a lust cultivated in Aegon IV by Lucas Lothston.

Admittedly, it requires some leaps of faith, but it holds together well enough, and accounts for every word of that line of prophecy.

However, it's requires no such leap to conclude that house Whent is descended from house Lothston: the Whent coat of arms is a clear derivation of the Lothstons', something that usually implies a cadet branch. And of course there's the geneological evidence GRRM seems to like so much: the red hair. Red hair which, incidentally, brings us back to Harren the Red. Why was he called that? It's not clear, but it feels like a bread crumb to me.

 

1 hour ago, KingMudd said:

Also marriages between houses is very common. The Starks have married Blackwoods and Royces before, who most likely have married other riverlands houses that have connections to Harrenhal. Jon and Dany will also have blood in their line that has connection to Harrenhal. The Targaryens have married the Blackwoods and other Riverlands houses so will have Harrenhal blood.

That's true, which is why important genes can pop up in unexpected places and people we might expect to have certain genes might not. But the gene still needs a way to get from its point of origin to the person in question, and furthermore, the author will feel obligated to explain the lineage. "Oh, this one Blackwood must have had Hoare blood and nobody knew it" is reasonable from a genetic perspective, but not from the point of view of a narrative.

[Quillon]

On 5/10/2019 at 1:49 AM, The Snow Queen said:

There is a lot of foreshadowing towards Jon/Sansa ending up marrying. Sansa's first love was Waymar Royce:

Spoiler

 

He was a handsome youth of eighteen, grey-eyed and graceful and slender as a knife.

- AGOT, Prologue

Jon's eyes were a grey so dark they seemed almost black, but there was little they did not see He was of an age with Robb, but they did not look alike. Jon was slender where Robb was muscular, dark where Robb was fair, graceful and quick where his half brother was strong and fast.

- AGOT, Bran

Should Sansa and Jon meet in the next book, and I believe they will, the chances she will be attracted towards him is very high.

He would father no sons who might someday contest with Catelyn's own grandchildren Winterfell.

- AGOT, Catelyn

Interesting choice of wording. It would be hilarious and ironic if Catelyn's grandchildren end up being Jon's children too.

"Sweet one," her father said gently, "listen to me. When you are old enough, I will make you a match with a high lord who's worthy of you, someone brave and gentle and strong. This match with Joffrey was a terrible mistake. This boy is no Prince Aemon, you must believe me."

- AGOT, Sansa.

She shouted for Ser Dontos, for her brothers, for her dead father and her dead wolf, for gallant Ser Loras who had given her a red rose once but none of them came. She called for the heroes of the songs, for Florian and Ser Ryam Redwyne and Prince Aemon the dragon knight, but no one heard.

- ACOK Sansa.

They were not little boys when they fought, but knights and mighty heroes. "I am Prince Aemon the dragon knight," Jon would call out, and Robb would shout back, "Well, I'm Florian the Fool." Or Robb would say, "I am the Young Dragon," and Jon would reply, "I'm Ser Ryam Redwyne."

- ASOS, Jon

Notice how almost all of Sansa's heroes match with the ones Jon used to pretend to be as a child.

"I've never lain with any woman but Cersei. In my own way, I've been truer than your Ned ever was. Poor old dead Ned. So who was shit for honor now, I ask you? What was the name of that bastard he fathered?" Catelyn took a step backward. "Brienne." "No that wasn't it." Jaime upended the flagon. A trickled ran down unto his face, bright as blood. "Snow, that was the one. Such a white name ... like the pretty cloaks they give us in the Kingsguard when we swear our pretty oaths."

- ACOK, Catelyn

When she crawled out of bed, long moments later, she was alone. She found his cloak on the floor, twisted up tight, the white wool stained with blood and fire. The Sky outside was darker by then, with only a few pale green ghosts dancing against the stars. A chill banging the shutters. Sansa was cold. She shook out the torn cloak and huddled beneath it on the floor, shivering.

- ACOK, Sansa

A foreshadowing to Sansa marrying a certain Snow who has Targaryen blood? I would say yes. 

"Frog-faced Lord Slynt at the end of the council table wearing a black velvet doublet and a shiny cloth-of-gold cape, nodding with approval every time the king pronounced a sentence. Sansa stared hard at his ugly face, remembering how he had thrown down her father for Ser Ilyn to behead ... wishing she could hurt him, wishing that some hero would throw him down and cut off his head. But a voice inside of her whispered. "There are no heroes..."

- ACOK Sansa

"I will not hang him," said Jon. "Bring him here." "Oh, Seven save us," he heard Bowen Marsh cry out. The smile that Lord Janos Slynt smiled then had all the sweetness of rancid butter. Until Jon said, "Edd, fetch me a block," and unsheathed LongClaw."

- ASOS, Jon

The implication is very simple and bold: Jon will be the hero and true knight that Sansa always wanted.

 

 

IMO from these only the last one could have been a clue/foreshadowing/whatever and I noticed it particularly in my last re-reading and looked it up, turned out GRRM initially wrote it as Jon's hanging Janos (in a sample chapter before ADWD), then fans complained or something so he changed it to jon behading him.

[nyser1]

I think he will be, even if it is a brief period of time and he is killed.

[Quillon]

I wonder if we'll see a permanent dead stark/Jon with its direwolf still alive.

George shouldn't have killed Grey Wind  RW was bad enough as it. GW could have kept LS company, besides protecting her, he could have supported her as a character, as she is now; a walking abomination giving orders and somehow men follow her, however many they are.

[Lord Vance II]

I think there's a good chance that Rickon is brought back and becomes Lord of Winterfell, and I'm excited as hell to see The Black Wolf. I do think hes been "cared for" by the Skagosi, but I think he's still going to return as a wild boy, raised by (essentially) wildlings and angry as hell at the world for taking his home, his mother, his father, his brother and for all he knows his sisters. There has seemed to be a connection between Stark warg  powers and their closeness to their wolves, and I think it's likely Rickon comes back as a powerful skinchanger. I think he would HAVE to have Jon (or maybe Sansa) as his regent to reel in his darker impulses. Once he grows a bit and if he can get past his (presumptive) anger, I think he would be a perfect Lord/King in the North. 

As for Sansa, I think there is a good chance she does not come back to the North. If she does, I think it will be as Sansa Arryn or Sansa Hardyng at the head of a relief army. 

And I'm not even going to touch this magic blood business.