The payoff for Jon Conn's greyscale

[Universal Sword Donor]

 

10 hours ago, talvikorppi said:

For now, I think the more important thing is the effet on JonCon's character, the ticking clock. He wants to achieve his life goal of the past dozen or so years, to find personal "redemption", as he sees it.

His musings about how he should've been more like Tywin at the Battle of the Bells doesn't bode well.

However, GRRM put a lot of mentions and explanations about greyscale/grey plague in ADWD so I think some kind of an epidemic seems likely. Maybe from Shireen and JonCon, north and south. As if the situation in Westeros wasn't bad enough already!

Having an epidemic during a prolonged pre-modern war is realistic.  Apparently more soldiers and civillians died from disease (infected wounds, cholera, dysentry, typhys etc. etc.) than actual battle.

He had grey plague references going all the way back to AFFC and grey scale going all the way back to ACOK. Think it's pretty safe to say that he was banking on a plague or several when he was planning his trilogy. They were a very common aspect of medieval life much like the the numerous references to poor areas or armies suffering from dysentery because of bad sanitary conditions and overcrowding. 

[James Fenimore Cooper XXII]

On 11/11/2020 at 3:13 AM, Alyn Oakenfist said:

So every plot point has an eventual pay off, that is at least in the works of GRRM and not of Dimwit&Debrained. So what is the payoff of Jon Conn's greyscale? The way I see it there are 2 options

- Jon Conn's character. Jon Conn is a character who's single driving motive is putting Aegon on the Throne. Add that the ticking death sentence of the grey scale and you get a potent mix of a man who would do anything to win the war and win it fast. The eventual payoff would be him breaking guest right to take Storm's End and massacring the prisoners at the end of Stormlands Agincourt. In short the mix of his regret and possible PTSD of the Bells and the Greyscale would transform him into Tywin come again.

- The Grey Plague. There are a lot of theories that Jon Conn will bring about an outbrake of the Grey Plague. Now besides the fast that most post war winters in the past seemed to be accompanied by some sickness (The shivers, the winter fever, the Spring Sickness), there isn't anything to this theory, but a lot of people (probably Dany fans) support it as an excuse of why Aegon's reign will not be good and he will just have to be removed by Dany. No way Dany could be an usurper.

So which one do you think is the case?

There is no payoff for any side within the story.  It will be miserable for every person on Essos and Westeros.  Dany cares deeply for her people, The Unsullied and the Dothraki.  It will definitely make her think twice or thrice before taking an army to Westeros.  The Pale Mare will teach her how to manage an epidemic.  Though I believe it may result in only Dany, a small force, and Drogon making the trip to Westeros.  She will want to avoid the risk of The Unsullied catching grey scale.  

[Aldarion]

Back on topic, but I found this:

And while it is much more detailed than what I developed, it agrees with my own thoughts as of late: characteristic of greyscale to drive people insane near the end will come back hard, and will majorly bite Aegon in the ass through Jon Connington. Connigton will have sacrificed everything to secure throne for Aegon, only to become a cause of Aegon's fall. No need for either Aegon or Daenerys to turn into monsters, or even make a rash decision: Connington will take care of that.

[Alyn Oakenfist]

1 minute ago, Aldarion said:

And while it is much more detailed than what I developed, it agrees with my own thoughts as of late: characteristic of greyscale to drive people insane near the end will come back hard, and will majorly bite Aegon in the ass through Jon Connington. Connigton will have sacrificed everything to secure throne for Aegon, only to become a cause of Aegon's fall. No need for either Aegon or Daenerys to turn into monsters, or even make a rash decision: Connington will take care of that.

There is one more thing to support this. In the abomination the trigger for Dany seems to be the Bells. I wonder, which character has bell related PTSD

[Bloodraven’s Spider]

On 11/11/2020 at 3:13 AM, Alyn Oakenfist said:

So every plot point has an eventual pay off, that is at least in the works of GRRM and not of Dimwit&Debrained. So what is the payoff of Jon Conn's greyscale? The way I see it there are 2 options

- Jon Conn's character. Jon Conn is a character who's single driving motive is putting Aegon on the Throne. Add that the ticking death sentence of the grey scale and you get a potent mix of a man who would do anything to win the war and win it fast. The eventual payoff would be him breaking guest right to take Storm's End and massacring the prisoners at the end of Stormlands Agincourt. In short the mix of his regret and possible PTSD of the Bells and the Greyscale would transform him into Tywin come again.

- The Grey Plague. There are a lot of theories that Jon Conn will bring about an outbrake of the Grey Plague. Now besides the fast that most post war winters in the past seemed to be accompanied by some sickness (The shivers, the winter fever, the Spring Sickness), there isn't anything to this theory, but a lot of people (probably Dany fans) support it as an excuse of why Aegon's reign will not be good and he will just have to be removed by Dany. No way Dany could be an usurper.

So which one do you think is the case?

Varys will find out somehow and kill him. Jon conn Santa’s his revenge on the spider but Varys will easily destroy him

[Aline de Gavrillac]

On 11/11/2020 at 1:11 PM, Only 89 selfies today said:

I am a fan of Daenerys Targaryen.  But you don't need to be a fan to believe the greyscale will spread from Connington and Shireen.  It's too good of a plot device for George to not use. 

Shireen will spread the disease at the wall.  Jon, if he comes back on two legs will get infected and become the "stone beast" breathing fake fire.  Jon is a stone crow. 

[Mad King Bolton]

I'm surprised that the show is so often completely ignored in many of these threads. This topic is very interesting (what would we do without your threads Oakenfist?

While the faegon storyline is omitted from the show and no time is spent on Storm's End, I think a number of elements from the show's final few episodes do apply though how much remains to be seen.  A greyscale outbreak from Jon's recklessness would be interesting and might make sense for Dany arriving at the gates of Kings Landing to decide to decimate it and burn it away. 

Jon Con's lesson and PTSD From the Battle of the Bells I think would play out better in Kings Landing than Storm's end as well though you could be right that the result of the BotB lesson might lead to dishonourably taking Storm's End.  The impression I got from the preview of tWoW was that Aegon took Storm's End without Jon Con's help. I don't remember why, but was just the way I remembered feeling about it but I guess we'll see.  

The main takeaway is that Jon is indeed on a ticking clock and rushing war is never a good idea. He's traumatized by past failure's and it may be semantics, but whether Jon's main goal is to get Aegon on the throne, or to atone for failing Rhaegar, may be important. I see a difference much like playing to win or playing to not lose. It creates a difference in tactics and attitude. Anyway, has me thinking.

[Rondo]

The immediate consequence is bad decisions.  With his limited time ticking away, Jon agreed to proceed without Daenerys and her dragons.  

[Alyn Oakenfist]

15 hours ago, Mad King Bolton said:

I'm surprised that the show is so often completely ignored in many of these threads. This topic is very interesting (what would we do without your threads Oakenfist?

While the faegon storyline is omitted from the show and no time is spent on Storm's End, I think a number of elements from the show's final few episodes do apply though how much remains to be seen.

Yeah, thing is the abomination fucked things up so hard, especially in Aegon's case mixing his story with Cersei's to the point that it's hard to say which is which (it is safe to say however that it's all awful). I do agree however you can draw snippets of information from the abomination as long as you take it all with a pinch of salt.

15 hours ago, Mad King Bolton said:

A greyscale outbreak from Jon's recklessness would be interesting and might make sense for Dany arriving at the gates of Kings Landing to decide to decimate it and burn it away. 

So the way I see it there are 5 possible payoffs for the wildfire, though it could be possible for the story to contain 2 at the same time

- Cersei being Cersei and not giving a shit about using wildfire. It would certainly pay off the Mad Queen ark, with the added bonus that Cersei probably knows about the wildfire from Jaime. Basically some saner and more logical version of the abomination

- Someone cleansing King's Landing of greyscale), probably Dany

- Dany fucking up when usurping Aegon and lighting the whole city on fire again going further in the "Dany's gonna have a hard time in Westeros" thing. Again a saner version of the abomination (or at least the original script of the abomination)

- Someone (either Dany or Jon) as a desperate measure bait the White Walkers into the recruitment ground that is King's Landing and light the whole thing on fire, destroying the Long Night in a final desperate gambit. No evidence for this except that it would make all the tactical sense, both the WW going into KL and Dany/Jon using the wildfire to kill them

- And finally Euron doing some weird eldritch blood/fire sacrifice, because why the hell not

One thing is for certain though, King's Landing will burn

15 hours ago, Mad King Bolton said:

Jon Con's lesson and PTSD From the Battle of the Bells I think would play out better in Kings Landing than Storm's end as well though you could be right that the result of the BotB lesson might lead to dishonourably taking Storm's End.  The impression I got from the preview of tWoW was that Aegon took Storm's End without Jon Con's help. I don't remember why, but was just the way I remembered feeling about it but I guess we'll see.  

The main takeaway is that Jon is indeed on a ticking clock and rushing war is never a good idea. He's traumatized by past failure's and it may be semantics, but whether Jon's main goal is to get Aegon on the throne, or to atone for failing Rhaegar, may be important. I see a difference much like playing to win or playing to not lose. It creates a difference in tactics and attitude. Anyway, has me thinking.

Yeah, given that the ground is perfectly set for Agincourt in the Stormlands, odds are, the battle is going to end the same way as IRL Agincourt did, with the slaughter of thousands of prisoners of war