Hi! I’m a big fan of your meta! Question: I’m currently rereading ADWD and notice that GRRM continues to plant (tend to already planted?) seeds regarding Jon and Arya’s deep connection. Do you think Jon/Arya as a romantic couple will appear in ASOIAF as the original outline foretold? The set up in the first 12 chapters is there, but GRRM has since said that that initial outline has been scrapped. Yet the intense bond between them established so early on continues through ADWD. Thoughts?

poorquentyn:

Thanks! To be honest, I really, really, REALLY hope this does not happen. It strikes me as a terrible idea on multiple levels, from our emotional relationships to the characters to the ethics of what you’re asking your audience to root for. It was in the original outline, true, but GRRM has rethought so much of the series since then, including character motivations and relationships; basically the only narrative element to survive completely intact from the pitch letter is the Others. Even if GRRM still had this in mind as of ASOS, that he then abandoned the five-year age-up for the Starklings makes me think and hope he’s abandoned this as well. 

As far as the writing goes, I feel like GRRM went consistently out of his way to emphasize that Arya and Gendry have a mutual crush that neither of them know how to handle, whereas with Arya and Jon, it always felt to me like a very close and platonic relationship between siblings who loved each other best in the family, full stop. 

Hmm…this raises an interesting opportunity to go back to the Ur-Text and ask ourselves what remains from the original pitch:

• The Others. Absolutely there as the “greatest danger of all.”
• A clash between the Starks and Lannisters.
• A Dothraki invasion led by Dany….well, not in ADWD, GRRM. Maybe in TWOW, but you’d better hurry up!
• The Jon Arryn murder mystery. 

What hasn’t:

• Catelyn and Arya escaping to Winterfell when Ned is executed.
• Sansa bearing Joffrey a son and siding with the Lannisters.
• Tyrion befriending Arya.
• Robb maiming Joffrey on the battlefield.
• Tyrion burning Winterfell. 
• Benjen being the Lord Commander of the NIght’s Watch.
• Catelyn, Bran, and Arya taking refuge at the Wall.
• Jon and Arya’s tragic love affair.
• Catelyn, Bran, and Arya meeting Mance Rayder north of the Wall.
• Dany killing Khal Drogo out of revenge for Viserys.
• Tyrion removing Joffrey from power.
• Jaime becoming King on the Iron Throne.
• Tyrion falling in love with Arya and hating Jon Snow as a result.

So I wouldn’t say that GRRM ditched everything, but he definitely changed A LOT in his gardening way, and you can see areas where he’s switched things up for narrative purposes (can’t have Benjen’s disappearance if he’s the Lord Commander, so you need a Jeor Mormont to fill the role, for ex), or where different characters have been handed particular plot duties (Ramsay burns Winterfell rather than Tyrion, or Tyrion marrying but not falling in love with Sansa), and so on.