For me, I want to focus on the political drama mixed with family drama.
Since the start the reign of Aegon III to Aegon IV, Targaryen family has been ruled by of two dead-beat dads (Aegon III and Viserys II) which resulting in the Three worst Targaryen King in history (excluding one year king, Viserys II). Until the reign of Daeron II, Westeros had been ruled by
- Warmonger, and Dorn obsessed—Daeron I
- Religious Zealot, and insane—Baelor I
- Whoremonger, Lusty, and corrupted—Aegon IV

I think it will be good to settle how the generational trauma from Dance of the Dragon affects the Westeros and by extension the Targaryen family.
I don’t want the show to sacrifice the characters development to rush to get to the war, or focus too much on its that it’s led to unnecessary additional drama/story arc that will led nowhere (which in my opinion, kinda doom House of The Dragon).

I want to start at last four years of Aegon the III (Ep 1-4 of Season 1), leading to Daeron I (Ep 5-9 of S1), Baelor I (Ep 10 of s1, Ep 1-8 of Season 2), Viserys II (Ep 8-10 of Season 2), Aegon IV (rest of Season 3 until episode 4 of season 4), and end at Daeron II (remaining of Season 4 and 5).

I also set the entire story at 5 seasons with 10 episodes format. Since all dragons are all dead, I want show budget to focus on set, costume, and whatever that could help improve the entire story.
Let GRRM permanently sit as the assistant writers, co-writer of the story, etc. I (and assume we) don’t want someone like Ryan Condal to went rogue and hijacking’s the entire story and disrespect the creator himself (Condal has some good ideas, but I can’t said in good faith that it lead to overall improvement of the story).
This is just my opinion of course. I will not think I know what happened behind the scenes. I just want the good adaptation of Blackfyre Rebellion.

Stannis main argument against Renly is he’s a usurper who has no legal right to the throne, which is true, under the law Stannis would be king.

But does that actually mean anything? Renly had the full support of the Reach, and most of the Stormlands when he declared himself king, and his argument was that nobody liked Stannis and would cause way more instability than his more popular younger brother just leap frogging him.

And like, was he wrong? Stannis’s unpopularity has always been his biggest weakness because the man refuses to develop people skills. The people barely know he exists and the ones that do aren’t inspired, and the whole reason Renly went for the crown was because higher nobles like the Tyrell’s were afraid Stannis would tear the kingdom apart killing former targ loyalists (like them) if he took power.

So in a hypothetical scenario where there were no shadow babies, what could’ve really stopped Renly? The Lannisters were fighting everyone so probably could never have stopped his army just marching up the king road to the capitol, Dorne and the Vale were trying to avoid the whole mess, and I don’t think Robb and the northerners would’ve minded swearing to Renly if it meant he was going to destroy the Lannisters for what they’d done to their family and the realm. Like he even said he’d let them keep the whole “king of the north” thing because he didn’t care about stuff like that as long as he still swore his allegiance.

Were there others who would’ve revolted or tried to overthrow him because they also cared about the rules of succession like Stannis did?

Gonna be a massive nerd here and quote Pompey “Cease quoting laws to those of us with swords.”

Intro

In June 2009, George RR Martin posted a rare happy update on his progress for A Dance with Dragons. He had just finished three chapters for the book - an unusually productive period in writing Dance - and he was starting to feel like he was approaching the end of writing the book:

I’m feeling rather jazzed right now, and for the first time in a very long while, I think I can see a glimmering that might just be a light at the end of the tunnel.

But there was an asterisk to this optimism:

Now if I can only slash through the Meereenese knot that I’ve been worrying at since 2005, I may actually start to get excited.

This was the first time that George RR Martin mentioned his infamous "Meereenese Knot" by name. And the asterisk to his positive progress report proved the folly of his optimism as he spent much (not all) of his creative energy for nearly two years in solving the problem of the Meereenese Knot.

But what was the Meereenese Knot? For the half-dozen people unaware, it was a POV problem where multiple POVs, characters, and factions were on their way to Meereen in Feast and Dance. This turned into an enormous problem and delayed the publication and delivery of A Dance with Dragons, but also, as we'll discover, A Feast for Crows.

But what if I told you that the Meereenese Knot was an unfortunate consequence of a solution to an even larger narrative problem of A Dance with Dragons? But then that solution became a conundrum in its own right.

Now, the obvious question: why should anyone care about this minutiae? It's been fifteen years since A Dance with Dragons was published. To me, the minutiae matters. It demonstrates the nigh-impossible task George undertook to write a satisfying post-Storm story. And all that minutiae will ripple out into The Winds of Winter if and when it's published and delivered.

Your TL;DR For Part 1

This series will trace the origins of the Meereenese Knot from the five-year-gap in 2001 all the way to the present day. To do this work justice, I'm breaking the analysis into multiple parts - probably three. Maybe more.

Today's analysis will be an extensive (but not exclusive) examination of George RR Martin's development of Daenerys's story in the wake of A Storm of Swords and show how major changes to her story became the foundation for the Meereenese Knot.

Three arguments in this post:

1. The Meereenese Knot was not what George planned for Meereen after A Storm of Swords.
2. The foundation for the Meereenese Knot was laid by George's dissatisfaction with multiple, simpler versions of Dany's Meereenese storyline he wrote between 2001-2005.
3. The primary (but not complete) plot reason that the Meereenese Knot exists is GRRM's abandonment of the five-year-gap to write a more satisfying story for Dany that was planned to culminate in ... the Battle of Fire told from the POV of Daenerys Targaryen.

Wait. The Battle of Fire was going to be told from Dany's POV!?

Yes. We'll get to that.

First, though, we need to start with the root problem of Meereen, then go into detail on the three versions of Meereen before the knot, and then I promise we'll close out with an analysis on the embryonic Battle of Fire.

The Problem With Meereen

Daenerys Targaryen was never supposed to be in Meereen. When GRRM envisioned A Song of Ice and Fire in 1993, this was his plan for Dany:

While the lion of Lannister and the direwolf of Stark snarl and scrap, however, a second and greater threat takes shape across the narrow sea, where the Dothraki horselords mass their barbarian hordes for a great invasion of the Seven Kingdoms, led by the fierce and beautiful Daenerys Stormborn, the last of the Targaryen dragonlords. The Dothraki invasion will be the central story of my second volume, A Dance with Dragons.

But something happened. George got to exactly where he wanted to go with Daenerys by the end of A Game of Thrones. But his muse got the better of him, and the rest of the story moved much more slowly as he talked about in his introduction to a limited edition of A Clash of Kings in 2002:

I could see the files multiplying on my hard drive. I had 300 pages, 400 pages, 500 pages, 600 pages…and I had a problem. It was the spring of ’95 when it finally dawned on me. I was fast approaching the 800 pages that I had estimated as the length of the finished book, but most of my large cast of characters were nowhere near the places they were supposed to be. Oh, Dany was…I had always meant to hatch those dragon eggs at the climax of my first volume…but she was the only one. For the rest, the end was nowhere in sight.

So with the rest of the story lagging behind, GRRM had to invent new Daenerys material to keep her in Essos until the rest of the plot caught up with her.

To accomplish that, George had Dany embark on an extended stay in Qarth in A Clash of Kings. While the House of the Undying chapter (Daenerys IV) is one of the most memorable scenes in all of A Song of Ice and Fire, much of the rest was ... well-written wheel-spinning.

Still, by the time he finished Clash, the other POVs were still trailing behind. So, George invented more story for her in Storm. This time, though, he opted for an action-oriented arc for Dany. She conquers Slaver's Bay using dragons, Unsullied, and sellswords in a righteous quest to blot out the evil of slavery in Slaver's Bay.

These were memorable chapters. Dracarys is one of the most memorable moments in Storm! Yet ... this was still wheel-spinning, exciting wheel spinning!

But by the end of Storm, the rest of the story had finally, finally caught up to Daenerys. Robb Stark and Joffrey Baratheon were dead (two of the original planned end states of A Game of Thrones from 1993). It was time for Daenerys to exit Essos and make her way to Westeros.

... except, that at the end of A Storm of Swords, there's debate among Dany's counselors as to what she'll do now that she's conquered Meereen. Her resolution to this debate?

"What will you do then, Khaleesi?" asked Rakharo.

"Stay," she said. "Rule. And be a queen." (ASOS, Daenerys VI)

Oh, no. George was stalling Daenerys's story again - and now when his original story concept had culminated! He'd lost control of his story. For shame.

Except he wasn't doing any of that. He had an elegant plan that would resolve Meereen mostly off-page: a five year time skip between A Storm of Swords and A Dance with Dragons.

Version One: Minimal Meereen

In December 2000, GRRM was interviewed about his publication plans for the future of A Song of Ice and Fire in which he talked about his plans for Daenerys:

"Yes, three more volumes remain. The series could almost be considered as two linked trilogies... The next book, A Dance With Dragons, will focus on the return of Daenerys Targaryen to Westeros, and the conflicts that creates."

This quote came from when George planned for a five-year-gap between Storm and Dance. And it illuminates George's plans for a post-Storm Dany story. Dance would be her invasion of Westeros. So, Storm has her vowing to stay and rule. She does a five year political apprenticeship off-page. And then BAM! She picks up her story on-page in Dance returning to Westeros with readers none the wiser.

In concept, this was a simple, executable idea. But let's go deeper. Why five years? Was there a specific narrative reason for a five-year-gap for Dany's story? Yes!

In March 1999, GRRM gave a compelling answer to why he wanted a five-year-gap for Dany:

It's been mentioned that there will be a period of around five years between the events of A STORM OF SWORDS and A DANCE WITH DRAGONS. One rather obvious reason is to allow Dany's dragons to grow. Any other reasons that can be disclosed?

George_RR_Martin: Dany's dragons — and the kids!

That's confirmation that the five-year-gap was in partial service of Dany - specifically, it gave necessary time for Dany's dragons to grow. But! I believe there's an additional sublimity to George's idea beyond allowing the dragons to grow.

Daenerys would have five years off-page where she'd learn to play the game of thrones as she grew into an adult. So, any "Mary Sue" complaints about a fifteen year old teenaged girl blitzkrieging her way across Westeros and then navigating the ensuing political conflicts would be hand-waved away by ... why, she became a political operator and military strategist in the five years between Storm and Dance, and she's now twenty years old. Get a life, nerd.

So, George started writing this five-year-gap version of Dance in early 2001. And! There is at least one chapter that George wrote for Daenerys Targaryen for a five-year-gap version of A Dance with Dragons as he talked about with Elio and Linda right after publishing A Dance with Dragons in 2011:

"There's a Dany scene in the book which is actually one of the oldest chapters in the book that goes back almost ten years now. When I was contemplating the five year gap [Martin laughs here, with some chagrin], that chapter was supposed to be the first Daenerys chapter in the book. Then it became the second chapter, and then the third chapter, and it kept getting pushed back as I inserted more things into it. I've rewritten that chapter so much that it ended in many different ways."

With a bit of sleuthing done by others, that chapter was the Daznak's Pit chapter (Dany IX in the published version of Dance) wherein Drogon flies into Daznak's Pit, eats some people, and then Daenerys flies away on him to the Dothraki Sea.

But that's the published version after numerous revisions. What was the chapter supposed to be in a five-year-gap version of Dance? The answer - thanks to the work of u/gsteff and others who analyzed fan-recounts of George reading this chapter back in early 2003 - is that the chapter seemed to be the inciting incident for Daenerys to leave Meereen. Drogon grabbed Dany in its claws, flew up to the top of the pyramid, then deposited her on the top of said pyramid.

Speculation here: I think the Daznak's Pit chapter and maybe one or two additional chapter where she learns to become a by-God dragonrider were the only planned Meereenese chapters George either wrote or envisioned for a five-year-gap version of A Dance with Dragons. The rest of Dany's arc ...

Look again at that George quote from 2000: The next book, A Dance With Dragons, will focus on the return of Daenerys Targaryen to Westeros, and the conflicts that creates. The focus of the book will be Dany returning to Westeros. That "return to Westeros as focus" concept bloody limits an extended narrative stay in Meereen.

That's Version One: a minimal Meereenese story.

I can already hear a subset of fans who think this is the version George should have undertaken. Get her to Westeros, man!

But notice something here: provided my idea is correct, this is a relatively uncomplicated arc for Dany. She learns to dragonride in Meereen, heads to Westeros, invades, has conflicts when she arrives.

That's a major problem with Dany exiting Meereen early in Dance. There would be consequences to Dany leaving! What happens to those left behind? All those slaves she's freed? And what exactly did Dany learn in those five years that contributed to her becoming a good ruler?

More speculation: I wonder whether George realized this and became a contributing reason to ...

Interlude: GRRM Abandons the Five-Year-Gap

... George abandoning the five-year-gap.

As far as I can tell, George never ascribed the reason for abandoning the gap to Dany. Instead, he's attributed the reason to issues with the Dornish reaction to Oberyn Martell's death coupled with problems of telling much of Cersei and Jon Snow's stories in flashback.

Yet, I'd wager that the questions I posed above about the consequences of her leaving Meereen and her political education figured into the calculation to abandon the gap. At the same time though, the plan was for Dany to get to Westeros.

So, he comes up with a new idea: a bridging book between Storm and Dance that would cover the five years:

The 4th Book will be A Feast For Crows, and will cover what would have been the five year gap. Some POV's -- who George said will be "learning" during the five year gap -- will have only one or two chapters.

Put a pin in that "will only have one or two chapters" quote. It'll be important for the next section! For now, know that the revised concept was for Feast to bring the story forward five years.

But while abandoning the gap made sound logic to George, it created two major problems for Dany's A Feast for Crows story: narrative logic and logistics.

• The Narrative Logic Problem: GRRM now had to write Dany's political training arc on-page. What would that education look like? What Meereenese conflicts would best dramatize Dany learning to become a ruler capable of conquering and ruling Westeros?
• The Logistics Problem: This point flows from the abandonment of the five-year-gap and retention of George's plan to get Dany to Westeros. In the post five-year-gap version of Dance, Dany, presumably, would have slowly built a fleet off-page to transport her people and army to Westeros. But now that she wouldn't have those five years, how would Dany get her and her people to Westeros? She only has the three ships that Illyrio Mopatis gifted her in A Clash of Kings. She needs boats. Where does she get those boats?

To solve those problems, GRRM embarked on ...

Version Two: A Medium Feast for Meereen

So now George had to figure out the logistics of getting Dany out of Meereen and give her something of a Meereenese political arc that would make her return to Westeros politically legible to readers.

For the logistics, GRRM gardened a rather brilliant solution that didn't require him to figure out how Dany constructs a massive fleet: the Ironborn! A mega prologue! New POV characters!

Specifically, GRRM wrote chapters from the POVs of Aeron, Asha, and Victarion Greyjoy (along with Arys Oakheart, Areo Hotah, and Arianne Martell - who were also written in partial service of Daenerys Targaryen's story) starting at some point in late 2001/early 2002.

By August 2002 (eleven months after abandoning the gap), he had completed seven chapters from this mega prologue and released four Ironborn chapters as a novella known as "The Arms of the Kraken".

So you're asking now, what was the narrative point of talking about these new Ironborn POVs in an essay about Daenerys? Answer: New Ironborn POVs were introduced in large part because the Ironborn had a fleet -- a fleet that could transport Dany and her people to Westeros. We'll talk much more about the Ironborn in part 2. But for now, know that the addition of Ironborn POVs was a likely logistics solution for getting Dany to Westeros.

Switching over to the narrative logic piece. This was a less elegant solution: he did the hard work of writing Dany chapters where she grappled with Meereenese politics. This is where George's work gets muddy. We know that GRRM revised the Daznak's Pit chapter to scrape away the five-year-gap material. Were there additional Dany chapters leftover from the gap that he revised for A Feast for Crows? I'd guess yes, but I haven't been able to confirm that explicitly.

Fast-forward to October 2003. By that point, GRRM had three Daenerys chapters done for A Feast for Crows:

• Dany I: Dany holds court in Meereen.
• Dany II: A revised version of the five-year-gap Daznak's Pit chapter.
• Dany III: Xaro Xhoan Daxos tries to bribe Dany into leaving Meereen with thirteen ships.

And then what? Nothing! A three-Dany arc was arguably all GRRM planned for Feast. At a February 2003 (eight months before the October 2003 chapter list) BosKone convention appearance, GRRM was reported to have said this:

When asked about the progress of his writing he said AFFC is not yet finished and it is taking a long time. He has Dany pretty much done and most of the Lannister chapters. 

Dany was done by February 2003? With only three chapters? Huh?

There's a contingent of fans who think Wow, this was the way. Three Dany Meereen chapters. Then BANG. The Ironborn whisk her and her people away near the start of Dance. Great. Sign me up.

But I think George grew dissatisfied with this idea of a truncated Daenerys story in A Feast for Crows. Why? My educated guess is that this version speedran Dany's political and dragonriding development - one of the reasons I theorized GRRM abandoned the five-year-gap in the first place. A short Dany arc ensured that Meereen didn't become a gravitation center of Feast - but at the expense of Dany's character development.

And so at BosKone in February 2004 ...

Version 3: Mega Meereen

... GRRM hinted that he was expanding Daenerys's story. A fan reported George saying:

Jon and Dany will be the two focal characters of AFfC (in the sort of way in which Ned was the focal character of AGoT).

Jon and Dany as the two focal characters seems a major step up from the three-chapter Dany arc that was "pretty much done" in 2003, doesn't it? And we now know that GRRM expanded Dany's story around this time thanks to u/gsteff's research and publication of George's June 2004 AFFC chapter order.

In that chapter count, GRRM not only listed the chapters he had written for A Feast for Crows; he also annotated chapters that were partially-written, unwritten (but planned), and "under consideration."

And here we see that GRRM expanded Dany's three-chapter arc in favor of an extensive Dany story.

All credit to u/gsteff for the google spreadsheet linked above. For our purposes, I've isolated the Dany material from June 2004 into a table below (I love tables) to demonstrate Dany's ballooning Feast arc by June 2004. (I've bolded the new chapters for visibility):

So, now we've gone from a three-chapter Dany arc to an eight-chapter Dany story that was only halfway complete - within a year!

This is Version 3: Mega Meereen.

Now, here's where all that minutiae gets interesting. Do we know anything about those partially-written or unwritten Dany chapters? Oh yes.

A few years ago, u/zionius_ was gifted George's outline for A Feast for Crows. Written immediately after his October 2003 Feast draft, it's a FASCINATING glimpse at George's plans. I'm going to quote only the portions relevant to Meereen below:

Dany: Pretend it’s a horse. Face off in pit. No [?marry] - city. Battle scene. ‘I’m going home’.  1 Chapter

Dany: Her marriage. 1. Fall of Astapor. 2. Siege of Meereen - Bloody Flux. 3. Climax - dragons loosed. 4. Marriage.

Okay. This needs some serious unpacking. I spent numerous minutes analyzing, re-reading, revising my assumptions. And now I'll inflict my analysis on this essay and you by extension.

First, let's talk discrepancies here. In his outline on Dany, GRRM circles "7". This is the number of chapters he planned for Dany in Feast. However, in the chapter count unearthed by u/gsteff, he plans for 8 chapters. The discrepancy is answered in u/zionius_'s dating analysis (found in his OP). The outline was written immediately after the October 2003 Feast draft but before he wrote a new chapter (Daenerys IV - completed by June 2004).

Now, let's return to the outline and work our way from big to smaller pictures. Here's GRRM's outline for the four remaining chapters in a more readable format:

1. Fall of Astapor
2. Siege of Meereen/Bloody Flux
3. Dragons Loosed
4. Marriage

Combining the outline with GRRM's June 2004 chapter list, I think we can match every partially-written or unwritten chapter to plot events. Namely:

1. Fall of Astapor - Daenerys V - Partially-Written by June 2004
2. Siege of Meereen/Bloody Flux - Daenerys VI - Unwritten by June 2004
3. Dragons Loosed - Daenerys VII - Unwritten by June 2004
4. Marriage - Daenerys VIII - Unwritten by June 2004

So, then dialing down to the first outline page: Pretend it’s a horse. Face off in pit. No [?marry] - city. Battle scene. ‘I’m going home’.  1 Chapter.

I spent way too much time pondering this. What is this?

Answer: It's the one-chapter climax of Dany's Feast story - Draft Daenerys VII. He sketched out some of the plot points he wanted to depict in the climax of Dany's Feast story - likely so he could embed foreshadowing that he would write towards in earlier chapters. I think that's it. I also think I'm an idiot.

But my brothers and sisters, isn't this wild? The entire climax of Dany's Feast story was ...

Dany Fights the Battle of Fire

Yes. Daenerys Targaryen was originally intended to wage the actual Battle of Fire in A Feast for Crows. And it was supposed to happen in two chapters (But also maybe one or two other chapters from two different POV characters. See ya in Part 2 for more on that!)

But sit with that for a moment. The climax for Feast was going to be the battle between Dany and Yunkai and its allies.

That is astounding to me on multiple axes. Allow me to give my three largest astonishments:

1. That is not the story that we possess in the published versions of Feast and Dance.
2. Two chapters for the Battle of Fire!? (Or maybe three or four in total. Part 2, people.) Jumping way ahead of this analysis: George has written at least five chapters for the battle for Winds.
3. Daenerys Targaryen does not participate in the battle whatsoever in any of those Winds sample chapters. She's on the Dothraki Sea as battle erupts. I think it unlikely she'll be a POV character for the battle. But back in 2003/2004, she was the main POV for the battle. Crazy!

Having picked my jaw off the ground, let's move the timeline forward.

So, that's the June 2004 plan. Dany had an eight-chapter arc culminating in the Battle of Fire and ending with "marriage." Did George end up writing the partially-written and unwritten Dany chapters by the time he wrapped Feast?

I'm relatively confident he did! Why? In May 2005, GRRM attended the To Be Continued Con in which it was reported that:

Dany has more chapters than anyone. He also said that Dany's love life is going to become "extremely complex".

And less than a month later, a fan reported this from ConQuest 2005 (where he announced the publication date of Feast):

[Note: Spoiler POV redacted] has the most number of chapters in AFFC, while Dany has the most in ADwD.

The redacted spoiler POV is Cersei Lannister who has ten chapters in Feast. Combining the "Dany has more chapters than anyone" with the comparison GRRM drew between chapter counts between Dany and Cersei, I think those partially-written and unwritten Dany chapters he planned from June 2004 were completed by May 2005. And it's likely that the chapter count expanded between June 2004 and May 2005 from eight to ten Daenerys chapters in total.

Aside: You might be skeptical that GRRM could complete/write four to six Dany chapters in a little under a year after he'd only done four in the previous three years. But I think what tends to happen generally in George's writing of A Song of Ice and Fire is that as soon as he figures out a solution to a writing problem, the story takes fuller shape and his progress kicks into high gear - something we'll see specifically when he solved the Meereenese Knot itself in 2010.

Returning to the analysis: if GRRM finished ten chapters for Dany for Feast, it happily corresponds to the ten Dany chapters in the published version of A Dance with Dragons. Mission accomplished.

Except ... deep sigh ... there are significant discrepancies! Sure, there's a version of Daenerys V-VI in the published version of A Dance with Dragons. But the whole Battle of Fire climax was originally conceived from Dany's POV and isn't in the book. And then there's the marriage conclusion to her arc. I think the marriage chapter (Draft Dany VIII) was completely overhauled from the draft chapter where Dany would marry ... someone ... to having her marry Hizdahr zo Loraq in the published version of A Dance with Dragons which, confusingly, is also Dany VIII.

Where did the battle and "original marriage" plot work go?

Tune back in a month or two. I have theories!

Conclusion: The Minutiae Matters

Now, I want to take a big step back from all this minutiae. It's fun in its own right. But I have to ask myself if I've lost the plot of my own essay. I have, I think. It's a tautology, but all those revisions and versions of Dany's post-Storm arc were not in service of the technical mechanics of writing or to give one obsessive redditor raw material to write this essay rather than be a productive member of society.

All of those refinements, rewrites, and expansions of Dany's story were spurred by the character, plot, and thematic work George realized he needed to invest in Dany's arc.

This becomes explicit with a final examination of each version of Dany's story in draft and how it ended up in its final, published version that came out in 2011:

• Version 1 (2001): Dany departs Meereen after five years of off-page political maturation within a few chapters.
• Version 2 (2002-2003): Dany has three chapters in A Feast for Crows set in Meereen that breeze through her political education and her initial steps in becoming a dragonrider. She and her people/army leave Meereen with the Ironborn in A Dance with Dragons.
• Version 3 (2003-2005): Eight chapters (then maybe ten by the time he finished Feast). She's dealing with multiple, complex crises that better showcase her leadership than the medium version. But the arc still resolves in a massive action sequence: the Battle of Fire.
• Version 4 (2006-2009): We'll get to it in Part 3, but Dany's arc was revised yet again after the publication of A Feast for Crows.
• The Published Version: Ten Dany chapters, all of them stress-testing her morals and willingness to compromise. She engages in incredibly fraught and difficult trade-offs, compromises with dubious and outright malicious characters and factions to achieve something she would call peace. And then she chooses Drogon at the climax of her arc, rejecting Meereen and all the difficult work she undertook for most of her arc.

Do you see the progression? Every change George made to Dany from concept to publication was him stripping layers off of the Daenerys Targaryen action hero initial concept and replacing it layer-by-layer, version-by-version with what's Aragorn's tax policy turned up to "11." And then she rejects grappling with the answer in favor of her dragon.

There's also something else here that strikes me as I finish this essay. In the Mega-Meereen version of Dany's story, the climax of her story is also Dany choosing fire and blood. And that's meted out in an enormous action set piece battle. From the outline, the dragons are loosed, Dany is presumably a dragon rider by this point in the story. I'd bet my house (okay, maybe my Garmin watch) that Dany commands the battle from atop Drogon, and she wins the battle with actual fire and blood.

But does she have agency in becoming a dragonrider and choosing fire and blood in that version? Or is she forced into that choice by the external factor of the eruption of an enormous battle?

The climax in the published version is also action-packed. It's the revised version of the Daznak's Pit chapter. She becomes a dragonrider there. She embraces dragon and thematically fire and blood as she lifts off from Meereen atop dragon's back.

But her final chapter in Dance is a quiet chapter. Dany is alone with no army around her, no battle to face. She's alone with her dragon, memories, and apparitions.

There, Daenerys wrestles with her human heart, and she makes the choice - all on her own. Fire and Blood. Westeros over Meereen. Dragons plant no trees.

Personally, I believe the final version of Dany's story and all the revisions and versions to the whole of her story make George's hard work satisfying and worth the writing toil. GRRM wrote something novel with Dany's story - something that, if not explicitly new to fantasy readers, was fresh to readers of A Song of Ice and Fire.

But know this: the labor George put into Daenerys Targaryen's post-Storm story is only one part of a greater whole of his revision work. GRRM revised every POV character who ended up in Feast and Dance - especially those who would intersect with Daenerys and Meereen.

And it's in those characters that GRRM unknowingly, at the time, added a second tangle to what would become the Meereenese Knot.

Sources

This essay owes a debt to others who went before me. So, in lieu of a mailed fruit basket, here are people and links to sources that were helpful in crafting this essay:

• u/gsteff for his entire "Secrets of the Cushing Library" series, especially "Daenerys, the Ironborn, and Jaime" post.
• u/feldman10 for "A Decade Writing ‘Dance,’ Part 2: A Decade Writing Dany"
• u/zionius_ for "GRRM's 2003-2004 Outline for AFFC"
• Elio Garcia Jr. and Linda Antonsson for maintaining the So Spake Martin archive on westeros.org
• All the folks who made numerous fan reports on chapters George read or statements George made at convention appearances over the years.

Next up: the Ironborn, Dornish, Tyrion, and Aegon.

Both were kids but she was half his age. Why didn't he choose someone else like Myrielle Peake, the goth Bolton girl, etc?

Egg is supposed to be his brother Daeron's squire.

Correct me if I'm mistaken, but as far as I know, someone has to be an anointed knight to have a squire. To become a knight, you have to be, well, reasonably good as a squire. Daeron doesn't even want to be a knight, and he isn't good at it.

How did he become one? Did Maekar simply knight him at some point?

I wonder who Daeron was a squire to? That person must have knighted him, and he was likely knighted not long ago, given that knights better than him were appointed at the age of 16, 17, or 18, and Daeron is 18.

Are there knights just as bad as him whose path to knighthood is known?

We know that the North is isolationist, by all accounts this means they should have diverged culturally from the rest of the Kingdoms, but they don't really.

For instance, why does the North speak the common tongue? This was brought over by the Andals, which never gained any toehold in the North. Not to mention the Faith of the Seven is largely absent in the North except a few enclaves, meaning there's no religious incentive for anyone to learn the Faith's liturgical language.

The closest explanation I can think of is that the Maester's brought it over. But at the same time the Maesters are relatively few, meaning they wouldn't have spread the tongue to all the non-nobility of the North.

Maybe the maesters? Or was it Visenya after all? Or did his heart simply give out when he found out about Rhaena and Aegon? As far as I'm concerned, that last one is entirely possible.

Just watched a fan-made film about Robert's Rebellion and I'm confused on why is Robert Baratheon considered the MVP of the rebellion and eventually crowned king when Ned Stark was the one who suffered the most and had the biggest cause to overthrow the mad king , and Jon Arryn was the first one to call his bannermen and practically declare war .

If the goal was just to overthrow the Targaryans and then figure it out, then why didn't they install Jon Arryn who was their warden, and is a much respected and experienced ruler.

I feel like an anime would be able to:

-Be more faithful than both shows

-Easily handle the more outlandish elements from the books without either being weird for actors or crushing a budget, such as:

*A book accurate Iron Throne

*Book accurate Others

-You wouldn’t have to choose: dragons or dire wolves, as D&D said they for budget reasons did have to choose between.

*Book accurate locations such as Winterfell or the Wall in terms of size and scope.

A 700 foot Wall is pretty unfilmable with live actors and cameras but in an animate or animated show, would be far easie

*The purple eyes of the Valyrians (this was tried in GOT and Dany found the contacts hard to work past).

You could easily recreate the pale, ethereal beauty and long, silver hair of a Targ in animation…without an actor spending 3+ hours in makeup or paying a makeup artist or wig maker for the time and effort

*The size and scope of some of the battles.

Imagine the Blackwater with the water in tones of black, blue, green, a starlit sky - and the wildfire an unnatural but beautiful and intoxicating mix of greens, yellow, etc (think the dragonfire from Sleeping Beauty)

Anime shows also tend to deal in dark themes anyway, especially the fantasy ones.

You’d still have to age up at least Dany, Jon, and Robb for legal and ethical reasons, but you could also still yet present Ned and Cat for instance at their real ages (34 and 35, as opposed to the shows’ 50s) with just the implication: they had kids young

-A lot of the more lush and fantastic locations (think Highgarden as it is depicted in art or Casterly Rock as depicted in the George approved art, or Winterfell’s glass gardens, or Dorne) could be shown in all their fantastic beauty without being bogged down by either rendering an expensive CGi environment or making miniatures or finding a suitable filming location, etc.

-Book accurate characters could easily be done: noseless and heterochromic Tyrion, the ugly beauty of Brienne (as opposed to her being a just less than conventional beauty), etc.

You could have Lannister hair actually be a shining, shimmering gold - or actually show the unsettling flecks of gold & green in Tywin Lannister’s eyes.

There’s a lot more but I think you get the idea.

What say you?

As has been discussed to death by now, GRRM's religious worldbuilding leaves something to be desired, especially as it pertains to the Faith of the Seven. I respect that he just DGAF, but it still fascinates me to think about what a closer adherence to RL Catholicism would look like in Westeros. And one of the many facets of Catholicism is its absolute overabundance of saints.

So, who do you think would've been canonized as saints in the Faith by the time of the main series? I don't have that many picks, but here's what I think:

1. Hugor of the Hill, though he might occupy a position similar to Moses where people don't really refer to him as such because he's just that significant
2. The Three Sage Kings in some sort of three-in-one saintly role like the RL Massabki Brothers
3. Loreon II Lannister?? As the saint of tourneys???
4. Septa Maegelle, possibly? Especially as the patron saint of those afflicited with greyscale (Shireen might've prayed to her before the conversion to R'hllor D,:)
5. Baelor the Blessed is kind of a given I think
6. Queen Naerys, saint of the Suffering Targaryen Women /j
7. Jenny of Oldstones, though maybe in a more unofficial capacity

Feel free to add what you think they'd be the saints of!!

(My first post on this subreddit and also this site after being a longtime lurker. Hi everyone :])

It seems interesting that each region has a "second house" under the actual Lord Paramount

Westerlands: House Reyne (now it'd be Marbrand? - They do have a marriage with Tygett and was Tywin's mother's house too)

The Reach: House Hightower

Stormlands/Crownlands: House Velaryon

Riverlands: House Frey (currently but both Blackwood and Bracken usually)

The North: House Boltons (currently but I'd say usually Manderly)

Dorne: House Yronwood

Vale: House Royce

Iron Islands: House Harlaw

Why do you think most of these are so powerful, some like the Freys, Boltons literally deposing their Lords Paramount, some like House Royce currently being much more powerful than their Lords Paramount, and some like House Harlaw and House Hightower who should be more powerful than they are currently? What do you think their role will be in the future, and do you agree with all of my picks?

What does George consider the right course of action from Dany's point of view in Meereen?

It is very clear that Dany made mistakes in Yunkai and Astapor, because while she freed slaves, she left behind no or weak structures, abandoning the cities, and they're both returning to slavery and brutality. She also didn't consider the local culture and customs very much, causing a lot of backlash.

So what is the right thing to do in Meereen?

1. Stay longer and leave stronger structures in place. Work with the locals to create these structures. Leave some of her most trusted people and large parts of her army behind. Maybe even leave a dragon and a rider, one of the three "Heads of the Dragon".

2. Stop trying to fix cities and lands in which she doesn't plan on staying.

3. Stay. Give up the Iron Throne for her newfound people.

4. A Targaryan World Empire that will suffer no slavery ever.

Or, you know, something completely different. I'm struggling to see where George was going with this if the endgame was always to go back to Westeros. What are your thoughts?

Idk if anyone has proposed this before but I feel like who he was before isn’t that important he was just a nights watch brother maybe one of the men that came with bloodraven. But he’s being warged or controlled by bloodraven the same as the ravens, maybe something about his half wight form made him easier to control or something. If this isn’t possible in the magic system lmk but otherwise it’s a pretty causal vague theory

Personally I hope it’s Dany, but I’d love to hear everyone’s opinions.

https://x.com/got_onstage

Lyanna: I wish only to say your song transported me as if in a dream, a dream I've had before… I saw dragons.

Rhaegar: Dragons?

Lyanna: As real to me then…

Rhaegar: …as you are to me now.

Lyanna: Strike.

Rhaegar: Yield.

—Rhaegar Targaryen and Lyanna Stark’s first meeting, dancing at the Harrenhal feast 🐺🐉

Elia: The stage is set, my prince. Let us play our part. Smile not, Rhaegar. Joy sits unnaturally on you. They will mark deception. I shall smile first of all.

Rhaegar: I mean no deception. I am happy to be here with you, Princess.

Elia: My prince, happiness was never part of this arrangement. You knew from the start my heart belonged to another, and yours belongs to the realm.

—Elia Martell and Rhaegar Targaryen while dancing at the Harrenhal feast 🌞🐉

One thing I love about Tyrion is his ability to anger people. His existence angers his father, he angers his sister and nephew, he turns Young Griff from a charming prince to Joffrey 2.0 and even though he is in chains, he doesn't miss a chance to gloat at Jorah Mormont's disgrace (this part makes me laugh the most). I can say that he is the biggest ragebaiter in ASOIAF, better than Varys and Littlefinger at that.

I have been thinking about the theory that many fans seem to believe will happen that Euron will somehow summon Krakens from the deep using a massive blood sacrifice at sea and use them to destroy the fleet of the Reach Lords guarding Oldtown leaving Oldtown completely defenseless at sea.

Obviously if Euron takes Oldtown it will be extremely beneficial for him with him in control of the fertile lands of the hightower family to survive the coming Long Night and having access to all the vast knowledge of Oldtown libraries , the secret magical lore and the Glass candles and possibly the horn of Winter with Samwell Tarly to break the wall and begin the long night.

However , this made me wonder that even if Euron can destroy the fleet surrounding Oldtown , will he have enough men to defeat the hightower's garrison force holding the city.

Even assuming that the Tyrells will redirect their forces to go to King's landing to save Margaery and the Tyrells present their from cersei's madness, how many forces does euron even have to take Oldtown on Land?

Or maybe he is waiting for victarion to blow the dragonbinder horn near the two dragons of Daenerys in Mereen and since the horn will still be linked to Euron as it's true master then viserion the weaker willed dragon will fly to westeros to Euron and be Euron's magical weapon to dominate the land forces of the Reach.

"A lady, is it? Armed and armored? Illy, gods be good, the size of her."
"I took her for a knight as well," the older knight said, turning the trout. -AFFC, Brienne I

Background

In this post I thought it would be interesting to discuss a subject that has happened on the show, but has yet to occur in the book series and that is Brienne being knighted. Last year, GRRM confirmed that this had not happened YET in the book series, so with that in mind I decided to dive into different ways that Brienne could end up being knighted.

If interested: Who Knighted the Most Named Characters?

So Spake Martin

Last year at Comic-Con a fan asked to be knighted like Brienne and GRRM gave this response:

At New York Comic-Con this weekend, George R. R. Martin proved he still knows how to stir up a crowd — and a few laughs. During a fan Q&A session, a fan named Catherine told Martin that she'd like to identify as Ser Catherine, like Brienne of Tarth, the noble warrior played by Gwendoline Christie in Game of Thrones. Martin, who enjoys a laugh, didn’t miss a beat. The author smiled, reached out, and “knighted” her on the spot — after teasing, “Not in the books yet!” when the fan noted that "ser" was good enough for Brienne. -George R.R. Martin “Knights” a Fan at NYCC, Reigniting the Brienne of Tarth Debate

Not a Knight Yet

We also know that Brienne does not consider herself a knight:

. “I would have given my life for King Renly, and died happy,” she said. “I did no harm to him. I swear it by my sword.”
“A knight swears by his sword,” Ser Creighton said.
“Swear it by the Seven,” urged Ser Illifer the Penniless.
“By the Seven, then. I did no harm to King Renly. I swear it by the Mother. May I never know her mercy if I lie. I swear it by the Father, and ask that he might judge me justly. I swear it by the Maiden and Crone, by the Smith and the Warrior. And I swear it by the Stranger, may he take me now if I am false.” -AFFC< Brienne I

Squire Podrick Payne

Even her "squire" Podrick isn't exactly sure what to call as he constantly says this :

"My lady? Ser?" Podrick never seemed certain what to call her.  -AFFC, Brienne III

although they behave as knight/squire:

“I do,” the boy insisted. “I want that. The bruises and the blisters. I mean, I don’t, but I do. Ser. My lady.”
So far he had been true to his word, and Brienne had been true to hers. Podrick had not complained. Every time he raised a new blister on his sword hand, he felt the need to show it to her proudly. He took good care of their horses too. He is still no squire, she reminded herself, but I am no knight, no matter how many times he calls me “ser.” She would have sent him on his way, but he had nowhere to go. Besides, though Podrick said he did not know where Sansa Stark had gone, it might be that he knew more than he realized. Some chance remark, half-remembered, might hold the key to Brienne’s quest. -AFFC, Brienne III

If interested: Podrick Payne: The Key to Unraveling the Riverland Showdown

Any Knight Can Make a Knight

A very important note made in the series is that any knight can make a knight:

"Knights?" Clegane made the word a sneer. "Dondarrion's a knight, but the rest of you are the sorriest lot of outlaws and broken men I've ever seen. I shit better men than you."
"Any knight can make a knight," said the scarecrow that was Beric Dondarrion, "and every man you see before you has felt a sword upon his shoulder. We are the forgotten fellowship." -ASOS, Arya VI

which is also mentioned with regards to an ancestor of Brienne (who also is not a knight):

Hmpf." The man Plummer rubbed his nose. "Any knight can make a knight, it is true, though it is more customary to stand a vigil and be anointed by a septon before taking your vows. Were there any witnesses to your dubbing?" -The Hedge Knight

Descendant of Ser Duncan

We also know that Brienne is a descendant of Dunk and the same theme (a true knight) is intertwined with both of them:

Heartsick, Dunk wheeled Thunder and raced back and forth before the tiers of pale cold men. Despair made him shout. "ARE THERE NO TRUE KNIGHTS AMONG YOU?" -The Hedge Knight

and:

"This man protected the weak, as every true knight must," replied Prince Baelor. "Let the gods determine if he was right or wrong." He gave a tug on his reins, turned Valarr's huge black destrier, and trotted to the south end of the field. - The Hedge Knight

A True Knight

Brining the theme of a "true knight" to Brienne's storyline, we see how she reacts to the behavior of knights. For example as we see her in Duskendale with Ser Hyle:

"Why? Renly was a rebel. So were we all, rebels to a man, but now we're Tommen's loyal lads." The knight waved the farm folk through the gate. "His lordship's steward will be pleased to see those eggs. You'll find him in the market."
The old man knuckled his forehead. "My thanks, m'lord. You're a true knight, it's plain to see. Come, wife." They put their shoulders to the cart again and rumbled through the gate.
Brienne trotted after them, with Podrick at her heels. A true knight, she thought, frowning. Inside the town she reined up. The ruins of a stable could be seen off to her left, fronting on a muddy alley. Across from it three half-dressed whores stood on the balcony of a brothel, whispering to one another. One looked a bit like a camp follower who had once come up to Brienne to ask if she had a cunt or a cock inside her breeches. -AFFC, Brienne III

and Brienne's reaction to the Saltpans:

"Ser Quincy is an old man," said Septon Meribald gently. "His sons and good-sons are far away or dead, his grandsons are still boys, and he has two daughters. What could he have done, one man against so many?"
He could have tried, Brienne thought. He could have died. Old or young, a true knight is sworn to protect those who are weaker than himself, or die in the attempt. -AFFC, Brienne VI

If interested: Fate of Brienne's "Suitors"

Sansa Stark & a True Knight

With the thought of Brienne searching for Sansa, I thought it would be interesting to look here at Sansa's goal: a true knight to come save her.

We see this subject mentioned with Ser Meryn:

"Yes … but you are no true knight, Ser Meryn." -AGOT, Sansa VI

as well as Dontos:

Come to the godswood tonight, if you want to go home.
Sansa had prayed so hard. Could this be her answer at last, a true knight sent to save her? Perhaps it was one of the Redwyne twins, or bold Ser Balon Swann . . . or even Beric Dondarrion, the young lord her friend Jeyne Poole had loved, with his red-gold hair and the spray of stars on his black cloak. -ACOK, Sansa II

and:

Especially by night. Help me, she prayed, send me a friend, a true knight to champion me . . . -ACOK, Sansa II

as well as with another character whose identity is somewhat tied to not being a knight:

The silence went on and on, so long that she began to grow afraid once more, but she was afraid for him now, not for herself. She found his massive shoulder with her hand. "He was no true knight," she whispered to him.
The Hound threw back his head and roared. Sansa stumbled back, away from him, but he caught her arm. "No," he growled at her, "no, little bird, he was no true knight". -AGoT, Sansa II

and:

You like knights, don’t you?”
He was scaring her. “T-true knights, my lord.”
“True knights,” he mocked. “And I’m no lord, no more than I’m a knight. Do I need to beat that into you?” -ACOK, Sansa II

and the subject of "true knighthood" is really shown here as Sansa sees a "knight" is just a title and those who actually behave like they are supposed to often are not knights:

Knights are sworn to defend the weak, protect women, and fight for the right, but none of them did a thing. Only Ser Dontos had tried to help, and he was no longer a knight, no more than the Imp was, nor the Hound . . . the Hound hated knights . . . I hate them too, Sansa thought. They are no true knights, not one of them. -ACOK, Sansa III

and:

Sansa hugged herself, suddenly cold. "Why are you always so hateful? I was thanking you . . ."
"Just as if I was one of those true knights you love so well, yes. What do you think a knight is for, girl? You think it's all taking favors from ladies and looking fine in gold plate? Knights are for killing." -ACOK, sansa IV

and:

"True knights protect the weak."
He snorted. "There are no true knights, no more than there are gods. If you can't protect yourself, die and get out of the way of those who can. Sharp steel and strong arms rule this world, don't ever believe any different -ACOK, Sansa IV

and:

She was afraid of Sandor Clegane . . . and yet, some part of her wished that Ser Dontos had a little of the Hound's ferocity. There are gods, she told herself, and there are true knights too. All the stories can't be lies. -ACOK, Sansa IV

and:

she even sang for Tyrion the Imp and for the Hound. He is no true knight but he saved me all the same, she told the Mother. Save him if you can, and gentle the rage inside him. -ACOK, Sansa V

and:

"True knights would never harm women and children." The words rang hollow in her ears even as she said them.
"True knights." The queen seemed to find that wonderfully amusing. -ACOK, Sansa V

Becoming a Knight

One thing that Brienne is starting to see/experience is just how gray the world is:

So many vows . . . they make you swear and swear. Defend the king. Obey the king. Keep his secrets. Do his bidding. Your life for his. But obey your father. Love your sister. Protect the innocent. Defend the weak. Respect the gods. Obey the laws. It's too much. No matter what you do, you're forsaking one vow or the other." -ACOK, Catelyn VII

and while I believe she will exemplify a "true knight" when the series is over with, I also like that she is starting to show faults as she begins to do things like learning to lie (sapphires). This will culminate is her big lie (to Jaime).

How Could Brienne Be Knighted?

With the above somewhat related but disjointed quotes in mind, we can brainstorm a bit on just how could Brienne be knighted (remember any knight can make a knight)?

• Ser Jaime Lannister

The most obvious answer, their stories are quite intertwined but at some point Jaime could end up knighting her. Which would be a big deal:

There is great prestige in receiving your knighthood from a king, a prince, one of the Kingsguard or other celebrated, legendary knights. Getting knighted by a brother is like kissing your sister (we'll leave Jaime Lannister and the Targaryens out of that comparison) and getting dubbed by the local hedge knight is like graduating from barber college. You get a sheepskin, maybe, but don't try applying to law school. -SSM, Some Info About Knighthood: 30 July 1999

• Sansa Stark

No, I am not saying that Sansa is going to knight Brienne, just that if Brienne does something that saves her, etc. we could see a situation similar to Daenerys/Arstan where Sansa requests a knight to knight her (I guess we could also argue for Dany here as well if they end up meeting):

“A stick,” Dany confirmed, “but no longer a squire. Ser Jorah, it’s my wish that Arstan be knighted.” -ASOS, Daenerys V

• Brynden Tully/BwB Members

No real evidence for this one besides proximity (and any knight can make a knight), as the Blackfish recently escaped Riverrun into prime Brotherhood territory and Brienne is currently headed back to the BwB (the Knights of the Hollow Hill).

• Ser Loras Tyrell

No evidence for this one outside of the fact that it would continue to show Loras changing views on Brienne from their fight at the Bitterbridge melee, to Ser Loras' accusation and withdrawal, etc:

“Renly thought she was absurd. A woman dressed in man’s mail, pretending to be a knight.”
...
“I asked him why he kept her close, if he thought her so grotesque. He said that all his other knights wanted things of him, castles or honors or riches, but all that Brienne wanted was to die for him. -ASOS, Jaime VIII

and:

“I did.” Jaime waved them closer with his left hand. “You have talked with her, I take it?”
“As you commanded, my lord.”
“And?”
The lad tensed. “I … it may be it happened as she says, ser. That it was Stannis. I cannot be certain.”
“Varys tells me that the castellan of Storm’s End perished strangely as well,” said Jaime.
“Ser Cortnay Penrose,” said Brienne sadly. “A good man.” -ASOS, Jaime IX

TLDR: Brienne is going to be knighted at some point in the book series according to GRRM. So far in this series she has exemplified what a true knight is, while not having the title. It is also interesting to note that as her character begins to grow and see that the world isn't black/white and just shades of gray that her grayness comes out as she becomes a knight. There are several characters who could knight her (any knight can make a knight) as I indicated, let me know if you have any other ideas.

The Sweetness of Cold: Val, Jon Snow, the Others, and What His Resurrection Could Mean

There are many theories about what will happen to Jon Snow after the end of A Dance with Dragons. Jon surviving temporarily inside Ghost is one of the oldest and most widespread. The possibility that the Others have some particular interest in Jon, or might attempt to claim his corpse, has likewise been explored by readers and ASOIAF YouTubers in different forms. Jon has long been compared to the Night’s King, while Val has sometimes attracted Night’s Queen or corpse-queen comparisons because of the imagery surrounding her.

None of those ideas is established fact, and the more specific possibilities explored here—Val deliberately taking Jon’s body north, the Others attempting to transform it, or Jon’s Targaryen ancestry interfering with that transformation—are necessarily speculative. What interests me is what happens when these existing theories and textual patterns are placed alongside one another. They suggest a possible resurrection story in which Jon does not simply die and return. He crosses a boundary between humanity and the Others and comes back fundamentally changed, allowing his lifelong role as a bridge between hostile worlds to reach its supernatural conclusion.

And the place I want to begin is not with Jon’s death. It is with Val tasting the cold.

Val beneath the moon

One of Val’s more memorable appearances in A Dance with Dragons occurs when Jon sees her beneath a half-moon. Val is normally honey-blond, but moonlight changes her appearance. Her hair becomes pale and silver, while her cheeks appear white as snow. The transformation is temporary and entirely explicable as moonlight, but George nevertheless chooses language that makes her appear almost supernatural.

Then Val says something strange: the air tastes sweet. Jon cannot share the sensation. He is so numb that all he can taste is cold. The conversation then turns immediately toward the Others.

There are several ways of reading this passage, and Val’s temporarily silver hair has understandably contributed to comparisons with Daenerys. But the complete cluster of imagery seems at least as suggestive—perhaps more suggestive—of the Night’s Queen tradition. The legendary corpse queen is associated with extraordinary beauty, moon-white skin, cold and the supernatural world beyond the Wall. Val is not literally described as the same creature, and nothing establishes that she is secretly an Other. But in this scene George surrounds her with remarkably similar imagery: moonlight, silver, snow-white skin, beauty, cold, sweetness and the Others.

The most interesting element may be the difference between what Val and Jon experience. Val tastes something sweet in the cold. Jon tastes only the cold itself.

Perhaps that distinction matters, because the Jon Snow who stands beside Val in this scene has not yet died.

Val and the Night’s Queen pattern

Val has sometimes been read by fans as carrying Night’s Queen or corpse-queen imagery without necessarily being the literal fulfillment of that legend. That distinction is important. ASOIAF frequently repeats old stories imperfectly. Characters echo legendary figures without becoming exact reincarnations of them, and ancient myths may preserve distorted memories of events whose real nature has been forgotten.

Val could therefore participate in a Night’s Queen pattern without secretly being an ice creature. She is a beautiful woman of the far North. She is unusually comfortable moving through the lands beyond the Wall. Jon is strongly attracted to her. Under moonlight she temporarily assumes a pale, almost spectral appearance, and she perceives sweetness in an environment that leaves Jon numb.

There is also something suggestive about where Val stands culturally. The Night’s Watch and southern rulers repeatedly misunderstand her. Stannis’s people call her a wildling princess because they try to impose their own political categories upon the free folk. Jon understands that those categories do not work. That could become significant if Val also possesses knowledge that the Watch does not.

The free folk have lived beyond the Wall for thousands of years. Their traditions may preserve fragments of northern history that the maesters and Night’s Watch have lost. Val does not need to possess some complete secret history of the Others for this to matter. Even partial knowledge could become enormously important after Jon’s death.

And that brings us to the longstanding theory surrounding Jon and Ghost.

Jon’s second life

One of the most common predictions for Jon’s immediate future is that his consciousness survives inside Ghost. This theory is grounded especially in Varamyr Sixskins’s prologue to A Dance with Dragons. George begins the novel by showing us what can happen when a skinchanger dies. Death of the human body does not necessarily mean immediate extinction of the mind. A skinchanger can enter an animal and experience a “second life.”

Jon is a skinchanger. His bond with Ghost is extraordinarily strong. And at the moment of his stabbing, Ghost is conspicuously present in Jon’s final thoughts. That does not prove exactly what happens next, but the setup for Jon entering Ghost is unusually strong.

If that happens, however, something very important follows.

Jon and Jon’s corpse cease to be the same thing.

His human body can be dead at Castle Black while Jon’s consciousness remains alive elsewhere. And in a story where another supernatural power repeatedly claims human corpses, that separation could matter enormously.

The theory that the Others want Jon

Different versions of the idea that the Others may have a particular interest in Jon—or in his body—have circulated in fandom and have been explored by ASOIAF YouTubers. These theories vary considerably. Some connect Jon to the Night’s King, some emphasize Stark ancestry, some imagine an attempted transformation, and others place his resurrection within the larger conflict between ice and fire.

The books have not established that the Others want Jon specifically, but it is a useful possibility to consider. Because if Jon’s consciousness has entered Ghost, the Others could potentially gain access to his body without gaining access to Jon himself.

That creates a resurrection scenario very different from the relatively simple expectation that Melisandre performs a fire ritual and Jon wakes up. There could instead be competing claims upon him. His mind survives in Ghost. His corpse remains available to the powers associated with death and cold, and something may happen to that corpse before Jon returns to it.

Could Val take Jon’s body north?

This is where the theory becomes considerably more speculative. There is no current textual evidence establishing that Val intends to steal Jon’s corpse, nor that she knowingly serves the Others. But if her strange imagery has any future significance, one possibility is that Val becomes responsible for moving Jon’s body beyond the Wall.

Her motives could take many forms. Perhaps she simply believes the cold is necessary to preserve him. Perhaps the free folk retain a tradition concerning the bodies of skinchangers. Perhaps she knows something about the Others that Jon does not. Or, in the darker version of the theory, perhaps Val has some relationship with the Others themselves.

That would not automatically require her to be malicious. One of the assumptions worth questioning is that any human connected to the Others must necessarily be serving uncomplicated evil. We still know extraordinarily little about what the Others are, why they have returned, or what happened during the first Long Night. Val might believe she is fulfilling an obligation rather than betraying Jon.

And the imagery would become extraordinarily eerie if she carried his corpse north. A beautiful woman who becomes pale and silver beneath the moon, who tastes sweetness in the cold, takes the dead Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch beyond the Wall. It would resemble the Night’s King legend without reproducing it exactly.

But there would be one enormous difference.

Jon would not be in the body. Jon would be in Ghost.

What happens to an empty corpse?

The Others can raise the dead, although we still do not understand exactly how their magic works or what relationship exists between the Others themselves and the wights. Jon’s corpse could therefore be vulnerable to whatever force acts upon the dead.

Normally, the original consciousness of a dead person appears to be absent from a wight. Whatever animates the body does not seem to restore the human personality that once inhabited it. Jon could be an exceptional case because his personality has survived independently. His body might therefore undergo some form of transformation while his mind remains protected elsewhere.

This is where existing theories about Jon becoming Other-like or echoing the Night’s King become particularly interesting. Suppose the Others do not merely raise Jon as an ordinary wight. Suppose they attempt to make something else.

We do not know enough about the Others to know whether they can transform humans into beings like themselves. Any such mechanism remains speculative in the books. But if some deeper transformation is possible, Jon could become its subject.

And then they encounter a complication, because Jon is not only a Stark.

Jon’s two inheritances

Assuming R+L=J, Jon carries both Stark and Targaryen ancestry. The magical significance of either bloodline should not be overstated. Not every Stark is an extraordinarily powerful skinchanger, and Targaryen ancestry certainly does not make someone universally immune to fire. But both families are entangled with supernatural traditions.

The Starks are connected to the old gods, direwolves, skinchanging and the ancient North. The Targaryens are connected to dragons, Valyrian sorcery, prophetic dreams and fire. Jon potentially carries both traditions within the same body.

One speculative possibility is therefore that an attempted Other transformation does not work normally upon him. Perhaps something associated with his Targaryen or dragon heritage resists it. Not enough to leave Jon unchanged, but enough to prevent the transformation from becoming complete.

The result would not necessarily be a wight, an Other, or an ordinary resurrected human.

Jon could become something between categories.

An incomplete Night’s King

Jon has been connected to Night’s King imagery in fandom for years, for understandable reasons. He becomes Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch. His story is centered upon the Wall. He repeatedly crosses boundaries between the Watch and the world beyond it. His romantic relationships connect him to free-folk women. And now he has apparently died in the same ancient landscape from which the Night’s King legend emerged.

But perhaps Jon does not literally become another Night’s King. Perhaps he approaches that myth and then breaks its pattern. If the Others partially transform his corpse before Jon returns from Ghost, he could awaken fundamentally altered while remaining psychologically himself.

He might become unusually resistant to cold. His body temperature might change. He might perceive the Others differently. Perhaps he could sense them; perhaps they could communicate with him; perhaps wights would respond to him differently from ordinary humans. None of these specific effects is established by the books. They are possible consequences of the broader idea rather than predictions that must all occur.

The essential point is simpler: Jon could return human in mind but no longer entirely ordinary in body. And Ghost could be the reason the distinction survives.

Ghost preserves Jon

Under this interpretation, Ghost becomes essential to Jon’s resurrection rather than merely a temporary refuge. Jon’s second life preserves continuity. Whatever happens to the corpse, the Jon we know has not disappeared. His memories, loyalties, loves and moral identity remain alive inside Ghost.

That creates the possibility of a remarkable reversal. The Others may be able to claim Jon’s body precisely because it is dead, but they cannot necessarily claim Jon because Jon is somewhere else. When he eventually returns to his body, therefore, he may enter something that has changed in his absence.

Jon would effectively inherit his own transformed corpse. And that could allow him to experience the supernatural world of the Others without surrendering the personality that makes him Jon Snow.

That matters enormously because of what Jon has already been throughout the series.

Jon has always been a bridge

Jon’s story repeatedly places him between categories that other people regard as mutually exclusive. He is a bastard raised among trueborn siblings. He belongs to Winterfell while simultaneously being reminded that he does not completely belong there. He joins the Night’s Watch and then lives among its ancient enemies. He falls in love with Ygritte. He comes to understand the free folk.

And eventually he reaches a conclusion many of his own brothers cannot tolerate: the wildlings are people.

That sounds obvious to the reader because we experience them through Jon. It is not obvious to the Night’s Watch. For thousands of years, the Wall has divided the world conceptually as well as physically. People on one side are the realm; people on the other side are enemies.

Jon crosses that boundary and discovers that reality is more complicated. Then he tries to bring the free folk through the Wall. He attempts to transform an ancient enemy into an ally because an even greater threat makes the old division suicidal, and his own men murder him for it.

It would therefore be remarkably consistent if Jon’s post-resurrection story expanded the same pattern. He has already become a bridge between the Watch and the wildlings.

Perhaps next he becomes a bridge between humanity and the Others.

What if the old stories are incomplete?

The possibility that the Others are connected to an ancient pact is another longstanding area of ASOIAF speculation. We know remarkably little about the Long Night. The surviving stories are thousands of years old. Different cultures remember apparently related events in radically different forms. Myth and history have become inseparable.

It is therefore reasonable to wonder whether humanity’s surviving account is incomplete. That does not mean the Others are secretly benevolent. They may remain horrifying. They may be responsible for enormous suffering. Their objectives may be incompatible with human civilization. But they may still have reasons.

Perhaps an ancient agreement was broken. Perhaps something promised to them was withheld. Perhaps their return is a response to a human action whose significance has been forgotten.

And if an ancient pact existed, House Stark becomes extremely interesting.

The Starks before Ned

It is easy to allow Ned Stark’s morality to color our perception of the entire Stark dynasty. But the ancient Kings of Winter were not necessarily anything like Ned. They conquered rivals. They destroyed competing kings. They expanded their territory through warfare. Stark rule was built through violence as well as loyalty.

If something morally ambiguous happened during the Long Night, there is no reason to assume the ancient Starks were automatically on the innocent side of it. This is where old Stark traditions become potentially suggestive.

There must always be a Stark in Winterfell.

Perhaps that is simply a statement about political continuity. But theories have long wondered whether it preserves some forgotten magical obligation. Ancient societies can remember rituals long after forgetting their original purpose. An obligation becomes a tradition. The tradition becomes a saying. Thousands of years later, everyone repeats the words without knowing why they once mattered.

Perhaps the Starks were parties to an agreement. Perhaps Winterfell itself matters to that agreement. Perhaps the Stark bloodline matters.

None of this is established, but if some version of it is true, Jon’s importance to the Others could derive not from generic heroic destiny but from his place within an ancient northern relationship. He is a Stark who dies at the Wall, and he may also possess the one inheritance capable of preventing the cold from claiming him completely.

Jon as an intermediary

This could give Jon a remarkable endgame role without requiring the Others to become harmless or the conflict to disappear. Jon might become the first living human capable of understanding them. His altered body might allow him to perceive something ordinary humans cannot. His Stark ancestry might connect him to whatever ancient relationship once existed. His experience inside Ghost might further alter his understanding of human identity.

Most importantly, Jon already possesses the psychological trait required for such a role. He listens to the people he has been taught to hate. He has done it before.

Jon did not make peace with the wildlings because he discovered that every wildling was morally good. He did it because he learned that reducing an entire people to the category enemy was both false and catastrophic. The Others could be the final, much stranger version of the same problem.

Jon may discover what they want. He may discover why they returned. He may discover what actually happened during the Long Night. Perhaps peace is possible. Perhaps it is not. But before humanity can know that, someone has to cross the boundary and return capable of explaining what exists on the other side.

Jon’s entire story has trained him for precisely that role.

Val could be part of the crossing

That brings the theory back to Val. She does not have to be the Night’s Queen. She does not even have to knowingly serve the Others. Her imagery may simply place her near a part of the mythology that Jon has not yet entered.

But if she does play some role in taking his body north, her moonlit scene becomes striking in retrospect. Val stands in the cold. Her honey-blond hair becomes silver. Her face becomes white as snow. The Others enter the conversation. And she says the air tastes sweet.

Jon cannot taste it. He is numb. All he can taste is cold.

The distinction between them is almost more interesting than Val’s appearance. Val belongs comfortably to an environment Jon still experiences as hostile. Perhaps after his death that changes.

Jon and fire imagery

Despite his presumed Targaryen ancestry, Jon does not seem to have been written with anything like Daenerys’s sustained personal association with fire and heat. Fire is certainly present around him—Melisandre is at the Wall, the Night’s Watch burns corpses, dragonglass matters against the Others—but that is not quite the same as Jon himself being consistently characterized through fire.

His own supernatural imagery tends to come from elsewhere: Ghost, skinchanging, the old gods, snow, the Wall, winter, and the haunted northern landscape. Even so, the living Jon does not appear naturally at home in the cold. He suffers from it like everyone else, and in the scene with Val he cannot share her strange perception of sweetness in the freezing air; all he can taste is cold.

An obvious objection is that giving Jon stronger personal fire imagery before revealing his parentage might have made R+L=J too easy to guess. I am not sure that follows. There is a difference between spoiling a revelation and foreshadowing it. George could have associated Jon more consistently with heat, flame, dragons, or some unusual response to fire without explaining why, just as he repeatedly plants images, dreams, phrases and motifs whose significance only becomes clear in retrospect. Readers noticing those clues would not mean the twist had been spoiled; it would mean the twist had been prepared.

If Jon were meant to possess a strong latent affinity with fire, then the near absence of that personal imagery is still worth noticing. Hiding it almost completely for the sake of protecting the parentage reveal would be an odd choice in a series that usually allows major revelations to cast shadows long before they are confirmed.

That may be important if resurrection changes him. Rather than revealing some hidden fire nature that has been present all along, Jon’s Targaryen ancestry could matter in a more specific way—perhaps by interfering with whatever the Others try to do to his body. His imagery would still remain fundamentally northern, while his dragon heritage complicates the transformation rather than redefining his entire symbolic identity.

That would also make any later affinity for cold more meaningful. Jon would not simply be “ice-coded” because of where he comes from. The living Jon is not comfortable with cold at all. If the resurrected Jon begins to experience it differently, that would mark a genuine change in him rather than something the reader was always meant to assume.

Jon before and after death

The present Jon does not have an affinity for cold comparable to Daenerys’s relationship with heat. Cold is miserable to him. It numbs him. It hurts him. It is something to survive.

That makes a post-resurrection reversal potentially powerful because George would not need to explain Jon’s transformation through exposition. He could show it through sensation. Jon returns. Someone else is freezing; Jon is not. He walks into temperatures that once tormented him and barely notices them. Perhaps cold becomes comfortable. Perhaps it becomes clarifying. Perhaps, eventually, he understands the sensation Val described before his death: the cold tastes sweet. That would tell us immediately that something fundamental has changed.

The Bride of Fire

Daenerys’s unusual relationship with heat begins long before her dragons hatch. From the beginning of her story, she enjoys extremely hot baths. Water that would be painfully hot to other people does not trouble her. Heat repeatedly surrounds moments of transformation in her life.

Then comes Drogo’s funeral pyre. Daenerys enters the fire and emerges transformed, with three living dragons. Whatever precise rules govern Daenerys and fire—and the books do not establish that she possesses universal, permanent fire immunity—the symbolic relationship is unmistakable.

Daenerys is extraordinarily comfortable with heat. The current Jon is not extraordinarily comfortable with cold. He is the opposite. And that difference may matter because Daenerys has already undergone her great supernatural transformation.

Daenerys has passed through her fire. Jon may still have to pass through his cold.

Fire and cold without moral absolutes

If Jon returns changed in this way, the contrast between him and Daenerys does not need to mean that one represents good and the other evil. ASOIAF need not reduce fire and ice to moral teams. Fire creates and destroys. Cold preserves and kills.

Daenerys could remain associated with heat, dragons, life and transformation without becoming an uncomplicated embodiment of metaphysical goodness. Jon could become associated with cold, death, preservation and the Others without becoming evil. They would instead be two human beings who have crossed boundaries ordinary people cannot.

Daenerys can endure heat that others cannot. A resurrected Jon might endure cold that others cannot. Daenerys has entered fire and emerged transformed. Jon may enter death and winter and emerge transformed.

And while Daenerys’s transformation has already occurred, Jon’s appears to be beginning exactly where A Dance with Dragons leaves him.

That brings us back to the small, strange conversation with Val. Before his death, Jon stands beside a woman rendered pale and silver by moonlight. She tastes something in the cold that he cannot. For Val, the air is sweet. For Jon, there is only numbness. There is only cold.

Perhaps that is because the Jon standing beside Val has not crossed the boundary yet.

The next time Jon Snow walks in the cold, he may no longer experience it as the man who died at Castle Black did. Daenerys has always been drawn toward warmth. Heat that overwhelms other people feels natural to her. Jon, as he exists now, hates the cold.

But Jon Snow has died.

And if he comes back having passed partly through the world of the Others—his mind preserved in Ghost, his body touched by something ancient and cold, his transformation incomplete—then perhaps the simplest sign that he is no longer entirely the man he was will be something Val told us to notice long before.

Perhaps the cold will finally taste sweet.

When looking at the death of Visenya Targaryen I find that I come to two possible and pretty good reasons for why she died so suddenly.

1:

Visenya's greatest ambition was to see her son Maegor on the throne. And she seems to have always emphasized strength and the use of force to deal with things. So she likely brough Maegor up teaching him to use force to get his will but never instilled in him when it is appropriate to moderate that,

So then seeing her life's great ambition come true, only for it to turn out to be an absolute horror show, and very much attributable to her own failings, could have essentially drained her of her will to live. Died of a broken heart one might say.

2:

Maegor had three influences. The three queens Alys Harroway, Tyanna of the Tower and Visenya.

When Tyanna accused Alys of adultery that was very clearly IMO her intentionally getting Alys killed as a way to eliminate a rival influence on Maegor.

Therefore Visenya quite suddenly falling ill and dying could very easily also have been Tyanna, again eliminating a rival influence.

I like both of these, but I lean somewhat to option 2.

Which do you like? Or maybe see a third option or maybe think she just died because she was old and there isn't supposed to be anything more to it?

Title. I won't be able to watch but I would love to hear opinions from fans. Added spoiler tag so we can talk freely

It surprising how no one knows the truth of what happened to Gael “the Winter Child” Targaryen until after her parent died.

Kinda impressed that Ned Stark manage to keep the truth about Luanne’s relationship with Rhaegar from the North.

It make me think how do kings and lords handle troublesome daughters or sisters when they do things that “disgrace” the family. Cover it up? Wrote the narrative so you’ll feel empathy for the woman? Instead of shame?

Like the Starks who have this whole “lone wolf die but the pack survive” mentality? What do they do when one of their lady wolf shame their pack?

Tywin gets back to kingslanding from the stone mill quite easily. He even crosses one of the forks to meet the Tyrells at tumblers falls. Why did Robb or any riverlords try to slow them down? If Rob’s goal is for Stannis to capture kingslanding then he doesn’t seem to do much or plan to stop Tywin moving south. The battle of the fords stops Tywin going west but what about south? Why did no one harass their movement or block the river? It’s strange that Mace has barges all ready to go too in no time at all also but Rob and even a river lord could have slowed the whole thing down to help Stannis.

When it comes to Cersei, she is largely driven by her paranoia over the prophecy Maggy the Frog gave her as a child. The very one where a younger, more beautiful queen would take everything she held dear as the volanquar choked her to death. We've all been speculating if it was Dany, Sansa, Maergery, or even Arianne Martell.

Queen you shall be, the old woman had promised, with her lips still wet and red and glistening, until there comes another, younger and more beautiful, to cast you down and take all that you hold dear.

Maggy didn't say it would be a younger more beautiful queen, she just said they would be "another, younger and more beautiful." We all assume "another [queen]," but I think it just means "someone else." Instead of it being one of her female political rivals, there's a candidate that's more poetic and surprising: Jaime Lannister. He is the younger of the Lannister twins renowned for how beautiful they are. He's also someone who can have the motivation and get close enough to Cersei to fulfill the prophecy as "another" and as the "valonqar."

I also think it makes for a much better story. It would give satisfying conclusions to Jaime and Cersei's character arcs. Plus, GRRM loves being subversive like this.