shinynewrevulsions:

** I’m collecting all of my meta and GRRM quotes – more added soon **

Because David Benioff and DB Weiss know more than any of us, in these posts I rely on a mix of book and show evidence in an attempt to understand the larger themes of the story and the narrative from the perspective of reconstructed fantasy tropes. Since GRRM has said that he is not interested in writing an external battle against good and evil, and because he has referenced power as a corrupting force in his interviews, I believe that the show has dropped strong clues, backed by book evidence, that Dany will be the final antagonist. I also believe that Jon will marry his cousin Sansa – although this theory exists independent from the others.

TRAGEDY

• Daenerys as the last dragon – interpreting Dany’s dragon dream in Book 1
• The inevitable romance and conflict – TV critic on the unnaturalness of the Jon/Dany pairing
• Jon will lose an eye
• Jorah warned Dany – Political!Jon book foreshadowing. Pardon the sarcasm.
• To go forward is to go backward – Dany may return to her default state as a conquering antagonist in Daenerys VI (AGOT).
• Is Dany reliving Qarth all over again?
• Tolkien’s story of brother/sister incest
• Who she really is – Ygritte/Dany as the “violent/conquering” type, and why it may foreshadow tragedy for Dany
• Wide Sargasso Sea/Jane Eyre parallels – is GRRM offering a more feminist interpretation of the madwoman, just like Jean Rhys gave Antoinette more depth in the Wide Sargasso Sea?
• Dany’s humanity going forward – I argue that Dany is on a slow, downward slide with each plot point representing an incremental loss of concern for human life.
• Will Dany be eaten by a dragon? – foreshadowing for a very gruesome death, but this meta shouldn’t be taken too literally. The idea that dragons will be her downfall is the larger point.
• Different puppets, same strings – Tragedies rely on protagonists becoming someone they try not to become. In trying so hard to escape the past, they end up copy/pasting it. Show!Tyrion’s statement that “children are not their fathers” is contradicted by book foreshadowing from Tyrion himself
• Going to Westeros doesn’t make her a hero (not my meta)
• It’s a story about the decisions people make – summary of fandom reactions to a Jon vs. Dany ending
• Another dance – Ned protecting Jon from Robert’s wrath will be relevant again once Jon’s cover is blown
• The scouring of Winterfell – GRRM praised the ending of the LOTR for its pyrrhic victory. While the Shire was saved from Sauron and Orcs, humans destroyed it anyway. What does this mean for Winterfell?
• Becoming comfortable with violence – on the evolution of Dany’s character and her growth (mostly book meta)

POLITICS

• A man seducing a woman is an inverted trope
• I will not trust you but I need you – Pretty much Jon in S7
• A politician in five acts
• Dany is Mance+Stannis
• Jon’s efforts to form an alliance – Jon never got off the clock. He was always doing a job.
• They made him Lord Commander – and King in the North
• A tale of two voiceovers
• Jon Snow is playing cyvasse (and a response) – GRRM does love his game metaphors.
• Every political ship in Game of Thrones
• Aragorn mixing sex and politics – a funny thought
• Amuse the queen in the bedchamber – strong Political!Jon foreshadowing
• Jon as a deciever predicted in 2013
• Everything before the word “but” – analyzing Jon’s dialogue in S7
• Jon’s quest is a farce – Quentyn and Aegon were thrown in a quest for hand of “the most beautiful woman in the world.” Well guess what – Jon Snow isn’t on that kind of quest, even if Dany thinks he is.
• Jon has doubts about an ally
• Varys’ betrayal and what that would mean in S8 – If Varys does betray Dany as many predict he will, then he’s not going to be played by her for a fool.

POWER

• Comparing the throne rooms
• Westeros’ graduating class – who I think will make it to the end
• No one will burn – Jon acting like a king
• Nonetheless they were slaves
• Tell me again what you saved – Mirri’s lesson
• Plato on tyranny – and the eerie parallels to Daenerys
• Going to Westeros doesn’t make her a hero (not my meta)
• The world lashing back (not my meta)
• No Targaryen baby at the end – in the past the lords of Westeros have removed a Targaryen infant heir from the line of succession

POV TRAPS and PROPHECY TWISTS

• Beware the perfumed seneschal – It’s not just Varys. Too obvious.
• No POVs react to Dany in present-time – a curiosity in POV structure for Dany’s chapters. What does it mean?
• The word “exult” – interpreting Dany’s dream fighting the Usurper’s host armored in ice
• Fandom reactions to Dark!Dany
• The final twists make us reconsider everything these narrators told us so far
• The ASOIAF/Smaug connection – building on a contemporary theory in the fandom. Azor Ahai is a destroyer, not a savior
• 3 treasons: All by One Person? or All in Dany’s head?
• Self-defeating vs. self-fulfilling prophecies
• The optimistic moment – audiences understandably fall for it, but need to watch for it
• Blue flower in a wall of ice: Odd Shae/Sansa wording, The Oracle at the Houses of the Undying, Sweet for Dany, Cold for Jon
• Anti-saviors – why the 3 heads of the dragon theory is a step backwards for the fantasy genre

HONOR

• Jon as white/black/grey
• Jon Snow’s Top 10 Lies
• Jon, Sansa, and Arya are the only Starks to go South and survive
• Jon fooled Mance
• Jon’s enemy is too easy – it can’t just be the Others/White Walkers. Everything he does is morally perfect if this is his main antagonist.
• Jon lies no matter what he does
• Family, duty, dishonor – Jon is Robb’s foil
• A Targaryen cannot be trusted – is this referring to Dany? Or Jon?
• A turncloak would tell you what you wished to hear
• Once a man turns his cloak
• Switching sides like a sellsword
• Fake ID’s – a list of all the pretending that’s going on across the series
• Political!Jon again
• Sparkling clean Gary Snow would be dead by now – The game itself is neither good nor bad. It’s about the struggle of ideals vs. realpolitik.

ROMANCE

• On Jon Snow’s Type
• Another Grey Girl Meta Part 1 Part 2 – Yes, I believe Sansa is the grey girl.
• Knights Watch – Sansa’s biggest crush so far in the story is Loras Tyrell, a sworn member of the King’s Guard. Who else is a sworn member of a knightly order?
• The rose and the direwolf
• All notable references to cousins in the books
• Littlefinger, Jon, and Sansa – its set up like a love triangle with Sansa in the middle. Of course we know she’s not going to choose Littlefinger. But she will use him.
• Lord Byron inspiration – Byron’s own torrid affair with his half-sister could be a an echo of a future Jon/Sansa romance
• Foreshadowing in the Vale
• The cruel and the weak
• Broken betrothals in ASOIAF and in the show
• Is Jon even a brother? – Jon is usually forgotten in the story as a brother to Sansa, even in other people’s POVs
• Who is missing from this list?
• Jonsa on Westeros.org (not my meta)
• It’s not just about duty anymore – its seems important that Sansa is there after Jon’s death, because if it wasn’t for her he’d be on a beach in Dorne somewhere, brooding.
• Who is Florian in the story?
• Jon/Garlan Tyrell parallels – Jon and Garlan both fight 3 a time on the practice field, and Sansa takes note of the latter
• Response to a Robb/Jon theory

WORDS FROM GRRM

• Commentary on resurrections
• On who got Dany right
• On grey characters
• With great power comes great responsibility
• The fantasy POV trap
• Are dragons a force for good?
• On Targaryen inbreeding
• On dragons 1 2
• Jon Snow: GRRM’s self-insert Byronic hero
• Statement on Meereen/Iraq War
• On weak political institutions in Westeros
• On a great house ending
• On subtleties in writing 1 2
• On Sansa
• On unpredictable plots and challenging reader expectations 1  2
• What a good king should be
• On Targaryen fire immunity
• Critiques of Tolkien imitators
• On rationalizing morally questionable actions
• People are not heroes
• Unreliable narrators