Was Arthur Dayne acting on his own when he granted concessions to the smallfolk in the Kingswood? I can’t imagine Aerys thought of the idea or Tywin would approve of it.

Yes.

Different anon: What in the books so far has hinted at the possibility of JonxDany? I thought Jon was into redheads and/or warrior women, and Dany was into hyper-macho warrior-kings and morally loose rogues.

It’s all about the HOTU, my friend:

““…mother of dragons…child of three…three heads has the dragon…three heads has the dragon…the ghost chorus yammered inside her skull with never a lip moving, never a breath stirring the still blue air…mother of dragons…child of storm…The whispers became a swirling song…three fires must you light…one for life and one for death and one to love…Her own heart was beating in unison to the one that floated before her, blue and corrupt…three mounts must you ride…one to bed and one to dread and one to love…The voices were growing louder, she realized, and it seemed her heart was slowing, and even her breath…three treasons will you know… once for blood and once for gold and once for love…”

And again:

“Her silver was trotting through the grass, to a darkling stream beneath a sea of stars. A corpse stood at the prow of a ship, eyes bright in his dead face, grey lips smiling sadly. A blue flower grew from a chink in a wall of ice, and filled the air with sweetness…mother of dragons, bride of fire…”

Plus all of the constant R+L=J stuff in HOTU, which suggests that Dany’s destiny is bound up with Rhaegar’s child of prophecy.

What is it that comes to your mind when you hear GRRM talk about a “bittersweet end”?

“The weight of this sad time we must obey;
Speak what we feel, not what we ought to say.
The oldest have borne most: we that are young
Shall never see so much, nor live so long.”

So, you, PoorQuentyn, and GoodQueenAly all seem to subscribe to JonxDany. If it indeed does occur, what would you say to someone who might be turned off the books by two protagonists engaging in an incestuous relationship? I mean, I really like ASOIAF, but the two engaging in an action that is, by all reasonable accounts, abomination seems really depressing to me. And its really depressing since it appears to be very likely. Do Targs have some inborn psychological predisposition towards incest?

Well, just as I don’t want to yuck anyone’s yum, it’s awful hard to yum someone’s yuck, you know what I mean?

Speaking as someone who isn’t super into shipping, given how much really questionable/problematic sexuality that there is in ASOIAF,at least the relationship might be between two people of basically the same age, involve enthuastic consent, and lack the toxic dynamics that relationships founded on direct defiance of the Westermark effect seem to have.

And hey, we’ve had uncle/niece relationships in ASOIAF (looking at you, Jonnel One-Eye and your larger dynamic of trying to reconcile the competing claims of the daughters of Rickon son of Cregan by way of Arra Norrey with the sons of Cregan by Lyanara Stark), so at least there’s gender parity there. And hey, when has uncles and aunts marrying nieces and nephews ever caused a problem?

To answer your second question, I think it’s a cultural thing, a deep memory of the need to preserve the dragonrider DNA that ultimately comes from the strange blood magics that fused the ancient Valyrians to the dragons. That’s right tumblr, Dany’s a cryptid.

isnt the general consensus that the younger more beautiful queen is actually arianne martell? or you dont subscribe to that theory?

I think there will be something of a threefold revelation: Margaery, Arianne, Daenerys.

I don’t think Daenerys and Cersei will meet in the books at all.

… “I will be queen, though?” asked the younger her.
“Aye.” Malice gleamed in Maggys yellow eyes. “Queen you shall be … until there comes another, younger and more beautiful, to cast you down and take all that you hold dear.”

Disagree.

Do you think the Dragonpit scene will be in the books? If yes, how will it differ from the series and whom will be there? If no, how do you see Cersei and Daenerys meeting taking place?

1. No.

2. Significantly more warlike.

1. Do you think both Dany and Jon survive the end? Just one of them? Which one of them? 2. Do you think we might get a romance between them as in the show? 3. If so (and if both survive), do you think it’s realistic to expect a “happy ending” for them (as in raise a family, continue targaryen rule, whatever)? I’m asking because I see a lot of people think this is possible, but what about the “dragons plant no trees” thing, and the fact that Dany is probably the Messiah figure in the story.

1. Maybe one, not sure which.

2. Yes.

3. No, bittersweet is the rule.

Imperialist paradigm? Can you elaborate on that please? Why would it prevent them from eliminating a hostile force within their lands?

Sure. See here.

The paradigm is that the Andals sailed to the Vale and seized the land by force, violently converted the remaining population to a foreign religion, and then drove the resisters into the high mountain valleys, as the “steepest places have been at all times the asylum of liberty.”

There’s not much of a basis for peace. The Andals aren’t going to give up their lands, the Mountain Clans aren’t about to stop raiding their lands. So the status quo is vile, and “eliminating a hostile force within their lands” even more so.

You said you don’t think the wight hunt will take place in the book but that you do think Jon will lead a mission beyond the wall. What purpose do you think his mission will have and who will follow him north?

Ok, I’ve mentioned this in bits and pieces here and there, so I might as well do it in one place.

So, Jon’s definitely getting resurrected. Although I think it’s going to have a more profound effect on him than in the show:

Burning shafts hissed upward, trailing tongues of fire. Scarecrow brothers tumbled down, black cloaks ablaze. “Snow,” an eagle cried, as foemen scuttled up the ice like spiders. Jon was armored in black ice, but his blade burned red in his fist. As the dead men reached the top of the Wall he sent them down to die again. He slew a greybeard and a beardless boy, a giant, a gaunt man with filed teeth, a girl with thick red hair. Too late he recognized Ygritte. She was gone as quick as she’d appeared.

That screams fire wight and/or Azor Ahai to me…Anyway, once that happens, the question is, where does his story go next, what are the marks he needs to hit?

He needs to deal with the crisis at the Wall.
He needs to reunite with at least some of his family.
He needs to meet Daenerys and reunite with Tyrion.
He needs to deal with the Army of the Dead.

I’m not sure where and when and in what order that happens, but at some point the Wall is going to come down – although, like @poorquentyn I think this is going to involve Euron blowing the Horn of Winter, probably from the top of the Hightower – and the Army of the Dead will begin marching south.

At which point, we have to ask: where does Jon go when that happens? I don’t think his story is the defense of Winterfell, that’s Stannis’ story. Rather, I think Jon’s story involves going on a ranging north to the Heart of Winter where the Great Other dwells – because the “kill the one who raised them and the wights die” actually is a pretty good fantasy-style hook for a party of adventurers.

Who’s in the party, I’m not sure on. But if I’m right about the Last Hero story, having Jon go into the Heart of Winter with a group of characters we care about is an interesting parallel plus a way for GRRM to do the whole Fellowship of the Rings but no one has plot army thing. So the story is: Stannis holds the Army of the Dead at Winterfell (i.e, distracts the eye of Sauron) while Jon goes into the Heart to try to slay the Great Other and destroy the Army in one fell swoop (i.e, take the One Ring to Mount Doom).

But unlike in LOTR, I think the body count on this mission is going to be high indeed.