A Dance With Dragons: Speculation?

[TK-421]

While GRRM may have written off Rickon as the POV, as far as I know, he has not written off Osha, who is taking care of Rickon.

 

[Landroval]

And of course, notwithstanding previous promises and declarations of intent, an author is still entitled to change his mind! Trust ye not in any author! There has been so much speculation and prediction that perhaps the only true way Martin could surprise fervoured stalwarts would be to introduce something previously dismissed.

 

[Gry Wnd]

Love the POV conversation, I'd like to see Great Jon - Hey somebody has to tell Jon he is the King of the North..

Like the idea of Osha if not Rickon.

 

[TK-421]

OK, so I moved the POV discussion back here, if anyone cares to follow. So based on the intel from Wert and the postings in both threads, the list of possibilities now looks like this for the surprise POV:

Jorah Mormont
Brynden Tully
Edmure Tully
Jeyne Westerling
Auranne Waters
Osha
Alleras/Sarella
Darkstar
Qaithe
Barristan Selmy
Shireen Baratheon
Gendry
Thoros of Myr
Podrick Payne
Coldhands
Great Jon Umber
Sandor Clegane
Maege Mormont
Galbert Glover
Thormund Giantsbane

My own predictions are, in order:
Shireen Baratheon
Jorah Mormont
Sandor Clegane
Osha

 

[The Imp]

OK, so I moved the POV discussion back here, if anyone cares to follow. So based on the intel from Wert and the postings in both threads, the list of possibilities now looks like this for the surprise POV:

Jorah Mormont
Brynden Tully
Edmure Tully
Jeyne Westerling
Auranne Waters
Osha
Alleras/Sarella
Darkstar
Qaithe
Barristan Selmy
Shireen Baratheon
Gendry
Thoros of Myr
Podrick Payne
Coldhands
Great Jon Umber
Sandor Clegane
Maege Mormont
Galbert Glover
Thormund Giantsbane

My own predictions are, in order:
Shireen Baratheon
Jorah Mormont
Sandor Clegane
Osha

I'm still interested in hearing about your Sgireen theory

 

[The Imp]

I'm still interested in hearing about your Sgireen theory

That should, of course, reas as Shireen

 

[TK-421]

I'm still interested in hearing about your Sgireen theory

I choose Shirreen for the following reasons:

1) What gap is there in telling the whole story? I have a sense that there will be a gap created with Davos' departure from the Wall, Mel's uncertain future and Jon potentially also being off somewhere, perhaps beyond the Wall. She is currently at Eastwatch by the Sea with her mother.

2) Will it be interesting and add value? Stannis is a candidate for elimination. Maybe by Melissandre, maybe by Jon, maybe by someone else. If Stannis is dead, Shireen's standing rises. She is his only heir.

3) Have we seen her before? Yes, and I tell you that Prologue to ACOK where she appeared was excellent.

4) GRRM has an affinity for the POV of children. He also has an preference for the POV of "tortured souls" and Shireen fits the bill. Only 9 years old, a lonely girl with only Patchface as a friend, her face deformed from an illness, witnessing the death of her maester at the hands of Melissandre.

5) She is a Princess. The only true Baratheon princess. One of the oldest houses. She is also related (in name) to Tommen and Myrcella. But, yet she is forgotten.

6) In the Prologue to ACOK she has nightmares of dragons coming to eat her. This may be a preview or some foreshadowing for events to come. This is reinforced by the song she sings of late: "the shadows have come to dance, my lord."

7) She may take up the fight for R'hllor or she may help Jon or she may help Dany...as Arya's POV has shown us, the possibilities for a young girl trying to make it in a mean world are endless.

8) My gut tells me its her, so when all other arguments are refuted, you still have your gut.

 

[The Imp]

I choose Shirreen for the following reasons:

1) What gap is there in telling the whole story? I have a sense that there will be a gap created with Davos' departure from the Wall, Mel's uncertain future and Jon potentially also being off somewhere, perhaps beyond the Wall. She is currently at Eastwatch by the Sea with her mother.

2) Will it be interesting and add value? Stannis is a candidate for elimination. Maybe by Melissandre, maybe by Jon, maybe by someone else. If Stannis is dead, Shireen's standing rises. She is his only heir.

3) Have we seen her before? Yes, and I tell you that Prologue to ACOK where she appeared was excellent.

4) GRRM has an affinity for the POV of children. He also has an preference for the POV of "tortured souls" and Shireen fits the bill. Only 9 years old, a lonely girl with only Patchface as a friend, her face deformed from an illness, witnessing the death of her maester at the hands of Melissandre.

5) She is a Princess. The only true Baratheon princess. One of the oldest houses. She is also related (in name) to Tommen and Myrcella. But, yet she is forgotten.

6) In the Prologue to ACOK she has nightmares of dragons coming to eat her. This may be a preview or some foreshadowing for events to come. This is reinforced by the song she sings of late: "the shadows have come to dance, my lord."

7) She may take up the fight for R'hllor or she may help Jon or she may help Dany...as Arya's POV has shown us, the possibilities for a young girl trying to make it in a mean world are endless.

8) My gut tells me its her, so when all other arguments are refuted, you still have your gut.

Interesting. She is definitely the only "legal" Boratheon heir. SHe becomes much more important if Stannis is killed. I also pay a lot of attention to dreams in all of the series, so what you say about that is also interesting.

Thanks for taking the time to elaborate.

 

[Culhwch]

6) In the Prologue to ACOK she has nightmares of dragons coming to eat her. This may be a preview or some foreshadowing for events to come. This is reinforced by the song she sings of late: "the shadows have come to dance, my lord."

I've just finished reading the novella The Mystery Knight, in which much is made of certain Targaryens having the gift of prophetic dreams. And of course the Baratheons have a touch of Targaryen blood...

 

[whiskeyntattoos]

Red Hair

I mentioned awhile back that everyone that seems to come back from the dead has red hair. Seeing one of the HBO trailers they show the weirwood tree in the courtyard standing tall over Winterfell, Red contrasting stark against the grey brick. It struck me again that the Red god is playing a bigger role than it appears. We know the weirwood can talk it did so under the wall, what else can they do. Maybe blowing the horn doesn't bring down the wall but raises the trees to fight. One thing is sure is that they don't know what really happened thousands of years ago history has faded away just like in our life.

 

[the smiling weirwood]

I think the new POV is Quentyn Martell.

I've always had the suspicion that Mellisandre is actually a priestess of the Other God, the one in opposition to R'hllor. I think she's just leading Stannis to the Nightfort in order to make bad things happen. Something is up with that place. Besides being home to the Night's King, it also was the setting for all sorts of awful things. Samwell recounts some of them during his chapter there. It might have something to do with the Black Door. Obviously the door itself is the same kind of magic as the Wall, so not evil in itself, but magic things seem to attract other magic things.

 

[juleska]

Greetings! Brand new to the board and jumping into this thread that is now 18 months old. I recently became a fan of this series thanks to the HBO presentation of Game of Thrones. I didn't get to watch it as I live and work abroad and don't have HBO, but all my friends were going on and on about it so I picked up the first book to see what all the fuss was about. A week later I went back for the 2nd and 3rd books and a week after that bought A Feast for Crows and resolved to wait until I arrived at my new job in Afghanistan (I'm a US Army contractor here) to read it. I'm about 40 pages away from finishing AFFC now and have already pre-ordered ADWD (shipped today! yay!!!)

Anyhow....just dying with anticipation to start the new book I have been feverishly googling speculation and discussion about the series for the last few weeks. I stumbled onto this thread and your site today so I'm happy to be here just in time for the new book. Really have enjoyed this thread, no serious spoilers which I appreciate, but good discussion and insight.

I only wanted to comment on this:

And we don't know that the surprise PoV is a new one right? So it could be someone like Jaime or Brienne who's been around but we weren't expecting to see in this book...

Are there any savvy guesses as to who we'll be seeing? Our first Tyrell PoV mayhaps (I keep thinking that family's lack of a PoV representative bodes ill for them...)

I have to say that the multitude of POV chapters devoted to the Stark family hasn't exactly bode well for them, now has it?

I'm really angry with GRRM right now. I mean really? Really, George? It wasn't enough that you had to kill off Arya's father and eldest brother, that you had to turn her mother into a walking corpse and scatter the rest of her siblings (WTF ever happened to Rickkon anyway??) so she'd likely never see them again. It wasn't enough that you had to take away her wolf, burn down her home, kill off everyone who had a hand in raising her or caring for her, and take away all her friends thereby making her so emotionally detached that she won't tell anyone who she really is.....even Sam who was her best prayer of reuniting with what's left of her family.....all of that wasn't enough. You had to make her blind, too? You suck.

Oh and Illifer, I also have held out hope that Nymeria was going to come to the rescue of Arya or that the two of them would at least be reunited. I love the wolves and throughout the books it has troubled me greatly whenever some ill befell one of the wolves. I think that's why I wanted Arya and Nymeria to be reunited so badly, because I've been rooting for Arya all along and now it seems that all hope for her is truly lost. I'd much rather that Sansa was stricken blind since she's utterly useless anyway.

 

[juleska]

Thank you Wert and those are very good possibilities as well.

Since GRRM seems to have a leaning towards POV's of children, I would also suggest Shireen Baratheon. We were introduced to her in another POV and she brings an interesting perspective. She may also play an important role.

This is of course a possibility as we know Davos is sent away on a mission for Stannis and R'hllor knows where Mel is going to end up. And if Stannis dies, Shireen gives us another great insight into what is happening up there.

I thought Davos was killed by Cersei's lot?

Speaking of Cersei, I'm hoping that ADWD shows her being roasted by a dragon. That would be nice.

 

[Ursa major]

Cersei has received a report that Davos was killed at White Harbour (where Rickon and Osha were heading when we last saw them in ACoK) and his head and hands put on show.

Presumably ADwD will let us know if this report was accurate.



And Welcome, juleska!

 

[IlliferThePenniless]

I thought Davos was killed by Cersei's lot?

What Ursa Major said. I'm holding out hope that the mounted head is a fake if for no other reason than tipping off the death of a PoV character (one everyone seems to like a lot) that way seems like a waste. Say what you will about GRRM's propensity for killing folks off, but he gets his money's worth out of all that mayhem. Killing Davos in a letter to the queen in a book in which he doesn't appear is the opposite of that.

 

[Needle]

Welcome, Juleska! Always glad to see a new convert!

I kinda agree with you about Arya, except I think all the ills that have come her way actually mean good things for her! With a few exceptions, no one else saw it coming, they were good one minute, dead the next! Surely GRRM has to much invested in her to just kill her! That is my fervent hope anyway!

Oh! and when Arya is ready she will be back, and Nymeria will be waiting!

I am not a fan of Sansa (usually refer to her as the potted plant in the room!) yet I think she may end up being the core of any Stark future.

 

[juleska]

Welcome, Juleska! Always glad to see a new convert!

I kinda agree with you about Arya, except I think all the ills that have come her way actually mean good things for her! With a few exceptions, no one else saw it coming, they were good one minute, dead the next! Surely GRRM has to much invested in her to just kill her! That is my fervent hope anyway!

Oh! and when Arya is ready she will be back, and Nymeria will be waiting!

I am not a fan of Sansa (usually refer to her as the potted plant in the room!) yet I think she may end up being the core of any Stark future.

Thanks for the welcome Needle & Ursa Major.

I sure hope you're right about good things being in store for Arya....but then every time some awful thing has happened to her I have had exactly that hope and expectation, yet her lot just continues to get worse. I don't see how she's going to come back from this unless he just invents some magic that will make her not blind....and *that* would be a cheap trick.

You're probably right about Sansa, I just keep wishing for her to grow the &$#% up! Her younger siblings are all so much more intelligent, mature and enlightened than her. How did she end up with all the looks and none of the brains or courage of the family? Most of her problems right now are her own doing.

 

[Tansy]

Wasn't the potion Arya drank from the kindly man the reason she is blind, I just assumed it was the next part of her training, to get her to open her other senses, once she completes this part of the training another potion will restore her sight? I hadn't ever thought it was a permanent state.

 

[whiteblade]

I agree with Tansy
The reason Arya is blind is probably so that she can progress in her training. Perhaps she will learn how to use her third eye now that her other two are useless. I believe the blindness is only temporary.
And yes, i am fairly positive that GRRM will not kill off Arya. Bran, Jon, and Arya all have skinchanging ablilities but so far only Bran knows how to use them. I dont think Arya will die before she learns how to use her abilities and meet Nymeria...

Also, in stories, wargs and skinchangers are normally "evil", but now, the "good guys" seem to have this ablity hinting that not all skinchangers are evil.
SO heres a thought: What if the Others are not the bad guys? I mean just like humans there may be some good and some bad. And the actions of the "bad" or "evil" Others has resulted in everyone thinking that the Others are evil.
The reason this thought popped up is because I believe that the three eyed crow and/or Coldhands is an Other that will teach Bran.

Since magic seems to be closely related to dragons and that dragons and the Others seem to be natural enemies, it makes sense that the essence of magic is related to them. It therefore makes sense (to me) if an Other were to teach Bran.

This thought occurred to me recently and there may be several flaws in the theory so I would like to know what you guys think!
Im new here btw

 

[juleska]

I sure hope you're both right about Arya's blindness! I've got a soft spot for that kid and I want her to come through all this nastiness shining like a great beacon on a hill.