#asoiaf ending

[eruherdiriel]

Who's getting married at the end of ASoIaF?

Marriage, alliances, and heirs are all tied together in Westeros and are important parts of the nobles' lives. Since A Dream of Spring is never seeing the light of day and The Winds of Winter is a big fat probably not "we'll see," I will go to my grave haunted by this question. So I decided to reason it out. My Jonsa brain wants it to be them but that seems potentially too "happy." But who else could it be?

George made the comment in May 2016.

Yes, I mean, I did partly joke when I said I don’t know where I was going. I know the broad strokes, and I’ve known the broad strokes since 1991. I know who’s going to be on the Iron Throne. I know who’s gonna win some of the battles, I know the major characters, who’s gonna die and how they’re gonna die, and who’s gonna get married and all that. The major characters. Of course along the way I made up a lot of minor characters, you know.

I've decided to look at living POV characters, except for the one-offs, some as individuals and some as couples. Many POV characters are not "major characters" in my eyes and there are some non-POV characters who are more important, but this was the most objective way I could find to decide who made the list. POV characters are bolded in blue.

I initially read George's comment as meaning two mains are getting married, but as I wrote this, I second guessed myself and thought maybe he meant a main character and someone else. But since marriage is transactional and important to the highborn characters in this story, most of them will get married eventually (unless they die or join a celibate order), which brought me back around to thinking GRRM did mean the marriage would be between two key characters. And it would be relevant to the plot, and not mentioned as an afterthought in an epilogue or family tree. Otherwise, why call it out? With that in mind, let's begin.

Sansa and Tyrion are already married, but GRRM spoke in the future tense so he wasn't referring to an existing marriage. The relationship was unconsummated, their stories have diverged, and they are headed for an annulment. I can't see anyone we know ending up with Tyrion. His plotlines with women have involved prostitution, assault, unfulfilled desire, and violent anger. He seems more likely to kill another partner than marry again. More on Sansa later.

Bran is a possibility plot wise, but who would he marry? Meera is significantly older when they meet in the books, so I don't think that match is realistic in this context. And if Bran is the Summer King, he will likely have to marry a southerner for political reasons (unless there is a new succession plan and/or he can't have children). So it's probably someone we don't know yet or has been mentioned in passing. The last book would also need a time jump to make Bran of marriageable age, or the last two books would need to cover much more time than the previous five.

Arya's arc isn't about who she marries. In fact, she tells us whose plot is about marriage.

“You,” Ned said, kissing her lightly on the brow, “will marry a king and rule his castle, and your sons will be knights and princes and lords and, yes, perhaps even a High Septon.” Arya screwed up her face. "No," she said, "that's Sansa." (A Game of Thrones - Eddard V)

But if further convincing is needed that Arya's storyline isn't about marriage, know that a search for "Arya" and "marriage" or "marry" in the books mostly returns results for Sansa talking about marrying Joffrey and then talking about Arya, lol. There's a few other contexts, particularly with fArya, but this one jumped out at me:

Robb was to marry one of their aunts, and Arya one of their uncles. "She never will," Bran said, "not Arya," but Maester Luwin was unyielding, so there they were beside Rickon. (A Clash of Kings - Bran III)

She's not going to be old enough at the end of the series anyway, unless there's a time jump. Next.

Arianne and Aegon/Young Griff: This seems like one of the most possible impending marriages to me, no matter who the Young Griff is in truth. A strategic Dorne marriage is plot relevant and makes sense with Arianne's arc. However, I think it is possible the Young Griff dies before the end of the story. He also doesn't qualify under my slightly arbitrary logic for who a major character is. And Arianne barely qualifies.

Daenerys is dying. Take it up with George. Though technically still married to Hizdahr zo Loraq, maybe she marries a Greyjoy (Victarion or Euron) before she dies, but it won't be relevant long term. Next.

Cersei and Jaime are doomed, as a couple (not that they can marry anyway, as much as they have wished to) and probably individually. Cersei is also vehemently against getting married again, and there's no more Tywin to force her.

Aeron Greyjoy: Can Drowned God priests get married? Doesn't matter. It's not him.

Areo Hotah has two chapters and only made this list because I checked ASoIaF wiki for POV characters to make sure I got everyone with more than one, lol. No weddings to see here.

Asha Greyjoy is sort of married already? Perhaps she gets out of it and later marries a Northerner to ease relations between the North and Iron Islands. A non-POV character likely, but maybe Jon??? Huh. It's not the least or most possible thing here. Not what I expected coming into this.

Brienne: Like Arya, marriage isn't the point of her narrative. It could become important for her to marry in the aftermath of all the wars. But for major characters as her suitor, there's none that make sense. Her interactions with Jaime serve to humanize him and complicate her, but they're not ending up together, even if Jaime ends up alive.

Theon's not getting married if he lives.

Sam is a member of the Night's Watch and technically can't marry. Maybe he gets released from his vows or there is no NW in the end and he is free to marry ... Gilly? Some rando in the Reach? Even if he's not in the Night's Watch, there's that whole maester thing that should prevent him from having a wife.

Davos is already married. Next.

Barristan Selmy is old and a long-serving member of a celibate order.

Jon Connington will be more focused on getting his "son" a match.

And we are back to Sansa. I won't go through all the potential suitors for her. See this brilliant post for that. Given Sansa's narrative themes and that she is headed for a leadership position, a good match for her will be extremely important. She has also been involved in too many marriage plots for one to not work out and be relevant to the larger story.

Jon and Sansa are undoubtedly two of the major characters of the series. Marriage and children are referenced explicitly and implicitly throughout the books for both of them, and they are two of the most romantic characters.

I would need to steal her if I wanted her love, but she might give me children. I might someday hold a son of my own blood in my arms. A son was something Jon Snow had never dared dream of, since he decided to live his life on the Wall. I could name him Robb. (A Storm of Swords - Jon XII)

Implication of bold text = he dreamed of it before, and here he is doing it again. Notice also that he's thinking less of Val specifically and more of what a marriage would give him access to. Sansa does something similar when thinking about Willas.

If I give him sons, he may come to love me. She would name them Eddard and Brandon and Rickon, and raise them all to be as valiant as Ser Loras. And to hate Lannisters, too. In Sansa's dreams, her children looked just like the brothers she had lost. Sometimes there was even a girl who looked like Arya. (A Storm of Swords - Sansa II)

(The parallel content of these passages is ... a lot. One sentence for finding love with Val/Willas, then multiple sentences [three for Jon, four for Sansa] about children. The opening sentences are flipped in order [purple and pink text], and there's the shared idea of dreams [in red] and wanting to name their children for people they've lost [orange].)

Who knows how much time the final two books cover, but Jon and Sansa are both of marriageable age by Westeros/George's standards and will be more so by the end of the series, with a much more appropriate age gap between them than a lot of other possibilities. A union between them makes sense, since Jon would get to become a Stark, something he has always wanted, thought not in the way he dreamt might happen. Sansa would get her true knight, though he is imperfect and not the fantasy version she imagined when younger. It solidifies Stark power in the North. The last book was originally A Time for Wolves, after all.

The questions it leaves though are when does this happen? What does Jon's punishment or social status look like if he plays a role in Daenerys's death (for kinslaying and potentially queenslaying)? Is forsaking the Targ name and kneeling to Bran enough, or does he have to serve an exile period? (Am I letting the show influence me too much with these questions?) Can he acknowledge any children he has, or does that get in the way of the Targ line coming to an end, even if the children are Starks (or Snows)?

The final possibility is George changed his mind since that comment. The garden grew in a different direction. This feels hollow and unfulfilling, especially if you take the view that GRRM is deconstructing tropes so he can reconstruct them. There has to be a hopeful marriage/romance after everything else. And marriage is a big enough point in the books for there to be at least one that helps wrap up the story.

Summary of potential matches between two named characters (does not meet full criteria):

Arianne and Aegon/fAegon

Sam and Gilly

And between POV characters (meets full criteria):

Asha and Jon? (Once again, huh.)

Sansa and Jon

But since Sansa is the character I am most confident in having a plot-relevant marriage, Jon x Sansa wins.

This was not rigged, I swear.

#a song of ice and fire #a dream of spring #asoiaf ending #who's getting married #long post #jonsa #i did this mostly to reassure myself there's hope #there is nothing new here but i needed to play this out #except new crackship asha and jon haha #ignore me #let's pretend my analysis of the greyjoy brothers isn't so pathetic #asoiaf meta #my asoiaf meta #my text

[nightswatchdisbandmentera]

You know what, props to Jon Snow for being the greatest wedding planner of all time. My boy managed to arrange a wedding that broke like every social norm in the north, between groups that have warred for MILLENIA!! and officiated by a foreign religion! Crazy that no one died like there wasn’t wasn’t even a lil scuffle. Some people can’t even get through a wedding without murdering their guest which btw indicates a lack of skill on the planner’s side I'm afraid. After the events of the past year, his services are desperately needed because how were people getting anything done before him??

#jon snow #asoiaf #valyrianscrolls #I know a lucrative career for ol boy if the whole nights watch thing doesn’t work out actually #yalls wanting your faves to make it to the end and have happy weddings #better pray jon makes it out alive so he can plan them 🤨

[daenystheedreamer]

ive been thinking about "there must always be a stark in winterfell" as a threat... i love the theory that the starks had some hand in the others, i LOVE the theory that the starks MADE the others in order to become the kings of winter. i think the idea of winterfell as a prison is so fun the idea that the starks MUST stay there as divine punishment for their choices. "if you leave, you will die, you will stay here forever". it's so antithetical to everything the starks and winterfell mean to the characters and i think that's fun! winterfell is so warm and loving and the castle that feels most like a true home for its inhabitants, the one LEAST like a prison. but its got that ominous crypt of corpses beneath it...

#yinnie #valyrianscrolls #house stark #asoiaf #the eyrie so high and lonely casterly rock such a focal point for horrors to cerseijaimetyrion the red keep being the red keep #storm's end as the huge and lonely cave with three brothers who could never really love each other as they should #and winterfell - warmth in its walls. catelyn the southerner who never quite fit....

[emprcaesar]

no no YOU don’t get what they mean to me

#brienne my beloved #grrm they better end up together #or i’ll die #asoiaf books #asoiaf #jaime lannister #brienne of tarth #jaime x brienne #house lannister #grrm #game of thrones #makes me go feral #chat if they don’t get a happy ending

[shieldofmen]

A local child and his lovable companion

#rickon stark #shaggy dog #shaggy dog the direwolf #asoiaf #asoiaf fanart #asoiaf art #need all the ‘rickon stark is going to die’ truthers to leave #he’s making it to the end i dont care #my dany and arya drawings have some company besides my 30 jon drawings lol

[duckytree]

brienne come get ur man

#she’s everything he’s just jaime #<-written by jaime #idk who wrote the got tv ending but brienne is gonna beat u up #jaime’s life is just a series of bad decisions #jaime lannister #jaime x brienne #brienne of tarth #got #game of thrones #asoiaf #a song of ice and fire #art #fanart #comic #song: a sadness runs through him #braime #cersei lannister #duckytree

[ofeverykinnetre]

One thing I do find very interesting about how George RR Martin describes fashion in Westeros specifically is that like. He was so meticulous about historical research, and had a very clear thought process when throwing historical accuracy out the window. And so like while it seems like just sloppiness and maybe a hint of misogyny that all the women in asoiaf are described as having their hair down, shoulders bare, etc it’s pretty clear based on some of his descriptions that in his mind Westeros looks like Pre-Rafaelite paintings of the Medieval era, specifically Edmund Blair Leighton’s stuff. Which of course is a Victorian era romanticized view of the Middle Ages, but I very much think it’s in line with Martin’s writing style to contrast this beautiful, romantic looking place and these beautiful, romantic looking people with the violent and gritty realities of life

#asoiaf #a song of ice and fire #ramblings #ended up kinda long

[swordmaid]

dany!! 🐉🥰

#daenerys targaryen #asoiaf #mine. #dany for my warmup !! she turned out rlly cute so i ended up colouring her lol #idk what she's wearing tbh .. ill draw u a proper design someday queen 🙏

[daenerysies]

something something ‘feminine’ female characters being deserving of all things good and righteous and holy because of them overcoming their suffering by working within the system that hurts them using their wiley feminine attributes and charm something something ‘masculine’ female characters being villainized for fighting outside the constraints of the system they’re still subjected to in a more hands on approach and being victims of similar if not the same circumstances as their ‘feminine’ female peers but it doesn’t count for some reason because they don’t suffer as prettily as their counterparts something something

#asoiaf #rhaenyra targaryen #daenerys targaryen #arya stark #lyanna stark #brienne of tarth #can we like. not do this shit ever again? #i *loathe* the feminine v masculine arguments #why are you appropriating harmful stereotypes onto women? #wack ass #women are women at the end of the day #whether they’re gnc or trans or any other label #all deserving of a better life #what’s not clicking

[ceriseo]

everyone thinks the showrunners have a team green bias bc they made alicent sympathetic(emphasis on pathetic)(also emphasis on simp).. but i KNOW they have a team black bias because they changed rhaenyra's ugly ass banners. no reason for that other than they knew it was too embarrassing. they knew the illiterate hotd tiktok girlies would nawt be able to defend it. they knew that it would give team green ammo the likes of which has never been seen before in the discourse. 'team black murders children' 'yeah well so does team green!!' 'ok well at least our banner FUCKS. at least it SERVES CUNT. imagine having quartered banners. imagine having quartered banners with the arryn sigil. imagine supporting rhaenyra's claim, going to war for her, and having to raise that fugly ass carpet... we may have lost but at least we served!!!'

#^^ real conversation between whatever brackens and blackwoods were left at the end of the war btw #hotd #rhaenyra targaryen #alicent hightower #asoiaf #got #house of the dragon

[melrosing]

👀

end of year wips!

#helaena targaryen #jaehaerys targaryen #jaehaera targaryen #maelor targaryen #asoiaf #end of year wips 2023 #house of the dragon #the proportions of characters next to one another just felt way off in this so I gave up really late on into colouring LMAO #melrosing art

[imjustapoorwayfaringgeek]

someone asked for end of year wips and i lost the post where i answered them 😭 i dont remember their name but i'm posting the wip again...

might be my biggest 'project' from this year which i will eventually get done with and post

i absolutely hate doing backgrounds

#end of year wips #jaime lannister #cersei lannister #tommen baratheon #asoiaf #wip #dont post this anywhere shhhh #ask. #my art.

[fromtheseventhhell]

George did not write Arya naming babies in Winterfell and taking care of a child in the middle of a WARZONE just for y'all to say she's not going to end up with kids/family because she's "not that type of character" 😒

#arya stark #asoiaf #a character centered around family and /pack/ who spent the entire story wanting to return home to/with her family isn't #going to end up with a family of her own (outside of siblings) because she doesn't want to be a trad-wife...okay #she was 9 years old on the run and worrying about how to fix Weasel's hair can we bffr for two seconds #Weasel latching onto Arya's leg...Arya using her name as an alias in Harrenhal...that's literally mother and daughter #impact so great she has her future love interest taking care of kids in her memory when he initially wanted to leave weasel #which is funny because people always want to project onto Gendry as the /family man/ type who has to convince Arya when it's the opposite #Arya is going to have a romance and family as a non-conforming woman on her own terms and I think that's beautiful #the unfeeling detached persona y'all try to project onto her is never going to stick she literally thrives off of community #it's very obvious when you speak on a character without having read their chapters btw

[visenyaism]

targaryen restoration literally dystopian nightmare ending that based on historical precedent cannot culminate in anything else but another targaryen girl in the immediate or distant future finding out she’s pregnant on her fourteenth nameday. mad queen daenerys ending reactionary overtired uncompelling. only way out is right on through to becoming a daenerys nettles escaping the narrative ending truther

#or she dies. sad. #but like house with red door nettles ending dany PLUS wildling jon ending now that would be sooo. #asoiaf

[francy-sketches]

kofi request n°3 ft. aurane (and mini cersei)

#aurane waters #asoiaf #a song of ice and fire #valyrianscrolls #my art #done w these finally ^_^ sorry 4 the wait I have poor time management skills 😔 #he ended up not loooking like rhaegar all that much but. look the haunted porcelain doll look wouldn't fit him

[soyboywenzie]

i think we as a fandom need to talk about the fact that the targtower children’s resentment and disdain for rhaenyra is not just the work of viserys lack of parenting but due to everyone else too.

it’s from otto doing everything in his power to stop rhaenyra from getting the throne so his blood can get it, not because he thinks aegon is or would be a good king, not because he thinks his grandson deserves it, but because his blood would take the throne, not rhaenyra’s, not daemon’s. HIS.

it’s from alicent’s every conversation on screen with aegon revolving around rhaenyra. how, in ep.6, his mother stops his session to tell him he needs to be better to his brother in public so we can be a united family against her, how if rhaenyra takes the throne, she’ll have no choice but to kill them to keep her throne, how in ep.8, alicent is mad at his continuous behaviors but only this mad because rhaenyra is about to be in town.

the talk before his coronation is explicitly about how much his father wanted rhaenyra on the throne, how he had twenty years to change it and never did. it’s about alicent telling him not to not be swayed by judgements to kill rhaenyra, how above all the terrible she’s done, she still his sister. yet no one has ever acted like she is.

it’s from aemond’s eye being taken out and it ending with his mother yelling at rhaenyra about duty and sacrifices, how she can do all and never get in trouble, how she does as she pleases and is happy, yet she, the queen, is dutiful and isn’t. aemond’s eye is used to get back at rhaenyra, his mother is mad that his eye is gone but it’s more because RHAENYRA’S sons took it then it being taken at all. how he has to soothe his mother even if he’s the one bleeding.

it’s from criston cole bullying and tormenting rhaenyra’s sons because they are rhaenyra’s sons. It’s about them being lesser because they came from her indecency, them being worse because they came from her. her sons being lower than them because of them being a direct connection to rhaenyra and him feeling mad about not being the one she choose.

the targtower children entire world revolved around rhaenyra. it wasn’t just viserys who preferred her, everyone did! rhaenyra’s stepmother would rather fight her than love them! their mother’s sworn sword would rather mess with her children as an act of vengeance than genuinely be interested in them, their grandfather’s every political move was to stop her husband from being near power. love or hate, those children never had a chance to see rhaenyra on their own before or after Driftmark.

their father, her father, loved her more. their mother, her stepmother, hated her more than she cared for them. their grandfather, who has no connection to her, would rather deal with politics through them against her than for them. their mother’s sworn sword, who was rhaenyra’s sworn sword first, hates her more than he likes them.

these kids, again, never stood a damn chance!!

#house of the dragon #hotd #rhaenyra targaryen #my original work #alicent hightower #otto hightower #criston cole #viserys i targaryen #this family did more damage to rhaenyra’s name more than she did! #‘her bastard…’ that no one cared about but them #‘her husband…’ that they hated more than anyone else in the realm #team black #asoiaf #it started with viserys but it didn’t end with him #they hate her because everyone around them is obsessed with her #with her children. with her husband. with her honor #with her vagina. with her associates. with her maidenhood. #everyone is obsessed with her yet can’t even bat an eye for them #the dance isn’t just viserys fucking up #it’s everyone being fuckin obsessed with her that those obsession negatively impacted the next generation #anti team green #anti alicent hightower #anti otto hightower #anti criston cole