GRRM confirms that fans have guessed ending!

[Boaz]

A buddy texted me that Martin has acknowledged that some readers have correctly predicted his bittersweet ending to ASOIAF. Link.

Here are GRRM's quotes...

"I want to surprise and delight my reader and take them in directions they didn't see coming.

"But I can't change the plans. That's one of the reasons I used to read the early fan boards back in the 90s but stopped. One, I didn't have the time, but two is this very issue.

"So many readers were reading the books with so much attention that they were throwing up some theories and while some of those theories were amusing bulls--- and creative, some of the theories are right.

"At least one or two readers had put together the extremely subtle and obscure clues that I'd planted in the books and came to the right solution.

"So what do I do then? Do I change it! I wrestled with that issue and I came to the conclusion that changing it would be a disaster, because the clues were there.

"You can't do that, so I'm just going to go ahead.

"Some of my readers who don't read the boards, which thankfully there are hundreds of thousands of them, will still be surprised and other readers will say: 'See, I said that four years ago, I'm smarter than you guys'."

I read AGOT and ACOK almost exactly fourteen years ago and I've been pondering the plot of the story ever since another friend introduced me to R+L=J twelve years ago. The eighteenth anniversary of AGOT's publication was a week ago today and that means that other people have been thinking about and discussing Jon, Dany, Tyrion, The Other, Azor Ahai, baby Aegon, Aerys II, Lyanna, Rhaegar, the Wall, TPTWP, R'hllor, and "promise me, Ned" far longer than I.

So, do you think are the one who solved it?

I know we have threads on Jon Snow, the Three Heads, the Valonqar, and who will sit on the Iron Throne...

...but this is your chance to state your unified theory regarding who lives and dies, who rules, who rides a dragon, who faces The Other, who Arya kills, who the valonqar really is, who were Jon's parents, who marries Sansa, and how Tyrion's story ends.

This is your opportunity to unequivocally state, "I am the smartest person ever!"

Or at least, "I'm the smartest poster here."

Or more likely, "In the end, I'm smarter than Boaz. He thought Myrcella was Dany's niece, that Jon had to become a zombie in order to defeat The Other, that Jaime was the valonqar, that Sansa would be a dragon rider, and that Bronn and Shae were working for Varys all along. What a maroon!"

 

[Groot]

Short crazy answer for now.

Fire dragons: dany, aegon, Tyrion
Vs
Ice dragons: Jon, bran, hodor

Ice wins and cleanses Westeros of all andals.

I know it sounds mad, but we need an epic ending, this could be it?

 

[Jo Zebedee]

No idea about all the nuances but as far as I'm concerned, Jon Snow lives. The series started with him, it was based around him, if GRRM is saying those hints were there at the beginning, then I think it's not believeable that Jon isn't ice. And in that case, I think Danys is fire.

 

[Deɑth.]

We've course we've guessed the ending.

GRRM isn't going to use the same RW trick twice because it'd be predictable. Besides, with such a large fanbase, it was bound to happen.

 

[Groot]

I've seen or read most of his interview, I find him fascinating, I haven't heard him say anyone has guessed the ending.

He says that in about 1998 to 2001, he went on an Australian site called handoftheking and read the forums some peoples theories where right. I believe he was referring to Jon snow parentage. He said after that he hasn't read them.

 

[Ursa major]

Troubles is, there are so many guesses out there, GRRM's unspecific acknowledgement doesn't help us at all.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

And he knows it...

 

[soulsinging]

Troubles is, there are so many guesses out there, GRRM's unspecific acknowledgement doesn't help us at all.

Kind of what I was thinking... I'm not surprised someone out there has pegged it. Just on this board alone people have proposed just about every ending possible short of having Darth Vader drop down on Westeros to conquer it with an army of Sith Lords.

 

[JoanDrake]

We've course we've guessed the ending.

GRRM isn't going to use the same RW trick twice because it'd be predictable. Besides, with such a large fanbase, it was bound to happen.

Martin will do exactly as he pleases, and if you say he won't be predictable then you've just predicted that. My feeling is that we will still be waiting for the 10th, 11th or 12th volume when he passes some decades hence


Robert Jordan did that and he had MUCH less real substance to his story

 

[Winters_Sorrow]

We've course we've guessed the ending.

GRRM isn't going to use the same RW trick twice because it'd be predictable. Besides, with such a large fanbase, it was bound to happen.

I think that's why in AFFC or DoD he has some characters discuss Jon's parentage and state Wylla as the mother. So later on when it's confirmed R+L=J he can say he tried to throw people off the scent with false narrative. The more worrying version is that some fans have correctly worked out the whole ending but he's right in saying that there's so much noise that it might be drowned out among the wrong answers.

Anyway today he did a reading from The World of Ice & Fire (companion book due out in Oct) regarding the sons of Aegon the Conqueror (Aneys & Magor btw) and the "squabbles" between them following the Conquest. Great stuff (as usual GRRM wrote too much and had to edit downwards) and I recommend all ISoIaF fans get it as its got juicy backstory everywhere in it

 

[Anushka Mokosh]

And so we embark on the quest to find those lucky sobs. Somehow. I vote for the use of Witchcraft if all else fails.

 

[Koopa]

This new forum was hard for me. It logged me out, and i no longer knew my password. So i tried to reset my password, only to find the mailadress i used is linked to a chronicles profile i never actually used (and long since forgot about), so i had to find what mailadress i used at the time to create this particular chronicles profile. Then remember the password of that mailadress, since i no longer used that mailadress in years.... . ugh, glad i'm finally properly logged in again.

 

[Boaz]

Just on this board alone people have proposed just about every ending possible short of having Darth Vader drop down on Westeros to conquer it with an army of Sith Lords.

There are only two real Sith Lords: Dendo Chun-Cavendish, aka Revan, and Ranzo Vanderhuge, aka the Exile.

Martin will do exactly as he pleases, and if you say he won't be predictable then you've just predicted that. My feeling is that we will still be waiting for the 10th, 11th or 12th volume when he passes some decades hence


Robert Jordan did that and he had MUCH less real substance to his story

Come on, Joan. Just because this the Martin forum, we don't have to bash Jordan. His first book in the series had young people from a pastoral setting fleeing for their lives from dark creatures. They were fortunate to have a powerful wizard and a heroic ranger (who was secretly the last heir of the lost kingdom) looking out for them. They were also fortunate enough to find a ferry to use to elude the dark creatures so they could get to a town where the chosen one could inexplicably slip up and expose himself to the enemy. Then they took a shortcut through an ancient ruined city and woke a demon. Then their group split up... That's a lot of substance. The exact same plot worked for Tolkien, so why wouldn't it work for Robber Forgen'... err, Robert Jordan?

Poor Kiwi.

I wonder why Kiwi logged in to tell us his woes regarding the new format. He did not even address the topic of this thread. Could he be trying to change the subject because he knows the ending?

Kiwi, did Martin mean you? Did you figure it out?

 

[Koopa]

Yes, i told him with so many ppl already dead, the ending whatever it was, was gonna be bittersweet. He quietly confirmed that.
Then i dropped in a bunch of theories . He said at least one of them was mostly correct. There where so many of them i'm still not sure which one i told him, so he in turn told me: Pick out the most predictable one from the ones you mentioned, since i'm only human and even my imagination has it's limits and i'm not intending to pull a king. I'm hoping he'll end up changing his mind on that one though. Pulling a king is always funny if only for the author itself. Cause (and i told him this) a renewed balance of fire and ice, more regular seasons, magic more or less gone from the world sounds too much like our own world which would be kinda boring and tolkien-like to end the books with. unless the intended sequel (which he will announce if he ever gets around to finishing this monstrosity) at least has mechanic dragons in them.

Boaz, are you more than addicted? or do you need 5000 for the next plateau?

 

[Koopa]

PS: i'm liking this new forum. Even sleeker than old one.

 

[soulsinging]

There are only two real Sith Lords: Dendo Chun-Cavendish, aka Revan, and Ranzo Vanderhuge, aka the Exile.

Come now, if GRRM goes the Sith route, you know he will turn up a Sith lord or two we never saw coming

 

[Yog-Sothoth]

Every theory thread should have a spoiler alert then!

 

[ArstenWhitebeard]

Come on, Joan. Just because this the Martin forum, we don't have to bash Jordan. His first book in the series had young people from a pastoral setting fleeing for their lives from dark creatures. They were fortunate to have a powerful wizard and a heroic ranger (who was secretly the last heir of the lost kingdom) looking out for them. They were also fortunate enough to find a ferry to use to elude the dark creatures so they could get to a town where the chosen one could inexplicably slip up and expose himself to the enemy. Then they took a shortcut through an ancient ruined city and woke a demon. Then their group split up... That's a lot of substance. The exact same plot worked for Tolkien, so why wouldn't it work for Robber Forgen'... err, Robert Jordan?

Ive never read any Robert Jordan, but I THOUGHT that plot line sounded awfully familiar.

Every theory thread should have a spoiler alert then!

Even the one that says Ned isn't actually Dead?

If martin does go the way of King, maybe The Others will turn out to actually be giant evil spiders and Arya will realize she had a bag of oranges in the back seat the whole time!

 

[Young stormlord]

A buddy texted me that Martin has acknowledged that some readers have correctly predicted his bittersweet ending to ASOIAF. Link.

Here are GRRM's quotes...

I read AGOT and ACOK almost exactly fourteen years ago and I've been pondering the plot of the story ever since another friend introduced me to R+L=J twelve years ago. The eighteenth anniversary of AGOT's publication was a week ago today and that means that other people have been thinking about and discussing Jon, Dany, Tyrion, The Other, Azor Ahai, baby Aegon, Aerys II, Lyanna, Rhaegar, the Wall, TPTWP, R'hllor, and "promise me, Ned" far longer than I.

So, do you think are the one who solved it?

I know we have threads on Jon Snow, the Three Heads, the Valonqar, and who will sit on the Iron Throne...

...but this is your chance to state your unified theory regarding who lives and dies, who rules, who rides a dragon, who faces The Other, who Arya kills, who the valonqar really is, who were Jon's parents, who marries Sansa, and how Tyrion's story ends.

This is your opportunity to unequivocally state, "I am the smartest person ever!"

Or at least, "I'm the smartest poster here."

Or more likely, "In the end, I'm smarter than Boaz. He thought Myrcella was Dany's niece, that Jon had to become a zombie in order to defeat The Other, that Jaime was the valonqar, that Sansa would be a dragon rider, and that Bronn and Shae were working for Varys all along. What a maroon!"

I win.
The ending is this: You are not reading a book of heroic fantasy. You’re reading a hard science fiction book, about a colony world in which electricity doesn’t work and with it, most of the technology. (Donall Noye said about Renly:"He is like copper. Pretty to look at but basically useless." In a world without electricity, that's true)Thousands of years ago, people came from the stars in their moon-sized spaceship and released the only form of advanced bio-technology that can work on such a world: dragons. That technology gave them enough of an edge to build an empire, despite being newcomers. Those people were ancient Valyrians. And, because our only points of view in the whole story are from the people who live hundreds of thousands of years after the fact, we call that sufficiently advanced technology that can work on that technology-free world MAGIC!
Thing is, that is not the first time GRRM did that. Look for Windhaven, the book he wrote with Lisa Tuttle.
You heard it here first, people! And I said it here http://www.sffchronicles.com/threads/547468/

 

[ArstenWhitebeard]

Stormlord, no offence intended, but I would really hate if you are right.

like... REALLY hate it.