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atopvisenyashill · 3 months

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why do you think jonsa is happening tho? jonerys is different bc they are going to be enemies, but i don’t see what jonsa does for the story

so let me first lay out roughly what i think is going to happen should jonsa become canon. I personally love going down meta and graphic spirals, so I'm including links to other people’s theories/explanations/graphics of events too - also I would like to shout out @istumpysk because half these metas and gifsets were stuff I found on their blog initially, and also was the one who really convinced me that jonsa is less of a crackship and more of a contender for an actual canon theory, and from there i really found my niche in this fandom. specifically this meta about jon being the mummer's dragon is what pulled me out of my "we're never getting twow and if we do it's just gonna be that stupid dany has jon's magical baby while tyrion watches, then they all die theory" slump and lit my brain on fire again. let's goooo:

The Ashford Tourney Theory - Something Shady goes down at the tourney Petyr has planned that requires Sansa to make a quick getaway, and likely causes her to run into Brienne while fleeing. This theory for me is about hinting at Sansa's romantic future, allies, and how she's getting the hell out of the Vale: both the dark haired, Not Targ Looking Targ Prince that is the son of A Great Prince That Never Was being her romantic endgame but also it's about Brienne (/Dunk) getting her the hell out of there and becoming Sansa's number one ally and protector (with Sansa's number two being Bronze Yohn!! But he's not fleeing with her - if he helps her get out of the Vale, it'll be to cause a distraction or a fight so Sansa can slip away unnoticed. Bronze Yohn is coming with the knights of the Vale later to help defend his girl!).

The Girl In Grey - Out of options on where to go, Sansa & Brienne makes a long, fast, and dangerous trek to the only family she knows is still alive: Jon Snow at the Wall. No, I don't think Alys Karstark is the girl in grey on a dying horse; I think she's a red herring, the same as the scene where Sweetrobin destroys the snow castle, and that the real girl in grey (who slays the savage giant) is Sansa. Melisandre says that she sees "Jon's sister" but doesn't specify more than that, or how she knows it's Jon's sister, even - why would she assume Alys is Jon's sister and not some random Northern girl? Why was she so sure that it was his sister? It's because Alys isn't the girl in grey, it's Sansa, her horse dying because she's traveled halfway across the continent with Brienne and Pod, desperately trying to keep ahead of the dozens of people hunting her down.

The Blood of Winterfell - Sansa and Jon will reclaim winterfell together. This one is similar to above; just like Alys was a red herring, the scene where Sansa rebuilds the castle has a lot of foreshadowing (imo) but that isn't the moment in the prophecy Arya hears. The Savage Giant is Littlefinger, the castle of snow is Winterfell, and Sansa is going to liberate her home alongside Jon and what's left of the Northern lords.

Stone and Snow Remains - THIS is where Sansa and Jon will fall in love while fighting for the North. This is also the part where you lose a lot of people, because they think the evidence is real weak sauce but like, I also think the Jonerys "evidence" is weak af too (and no wonder, we have at minimum 2k pages left to get through!!). There's several believed foreshadowing points to this one, bare with me for this weird ass formatting because I can't do sub bullet points on tumblr:

1. Sansa's linking of snow with love and affection - "drifting snowflakes brushed her face as light as lover’s kisses, and melted on her cheeks...She could feel the snow on her lashes, taste it on her lips. It was the taste of Winterfell. The taste of innocence. The taste of dreams." along with her snow maiden and snow knight.

2. Bael the Bard and the Rose of Winterfell - the chapter where Sansa gets her period for the first time, Cersei refers to it as “flowering” a dozen times, linking being a maiden (a young girl, not quite of age or just barely of age) to flowers and several people refer to sex as ~plucking. Also notice the one who stole her from KL is Lord BAELish.

3. Aemon the Dragonknight & Queen Naerys - Sansa compares herself to Naerys, Joffrey to Aegon, and wishes for an Aemon, among the many similarities between her life and Naerys'. Jon not only calls himself Aemon, he has a deep connection with a different Aemon Targaryen. And if you’re thinking “Sansa isn’t Naerys, X is Naerys” I would remind you that Sansa as a character existed first, George purposefully had her compare herself to Naerys, and parallels don't belong to just one character.

4. Jenny of Oldstones and The Prince of Dragonflies - there's honestly a lot of parallels between them but like the Aemon/Naerys parallel, the Jenny/Duncan one stands out to me.

5. Janos Slynt - I mean. Iconic. This was the scene that made me first think about what their relationship could be in the future and there’s a reason Jonsas fixate on it. It’s about Sansa being desperate for a hero and the hero she dreamed about being Jon the whole time. 6. Societal Alienation - There's the bastard parallels here, the "it would be so sweet to see him again", the "Winterfell belongs to my sister, Sansa." It's about how Jon, through circumstances of his birth, finds himself alienated from the rest of society and reconnects with his prim and proper sister Sansa, who finds herself alienated from the rest of society as well but for vastly different reasons.

Robb’s Will - Howland is going to show up in the North, along with Maege and Galbert, with some WILD news about why Jon can’t rule Winterfell. There’s a lot of contention around this. Bran probably shows up around this time too, and Arya gets to the Riverlands to discover Lady Stoneheart and give her the gift of mercy. This is where all the inheritance stuff is going to happen and I have no idea how it's going to go down besides it's going to be messy as all fuck.

The Pact Of Ice And Fire - Jon & Sansa get secret married bc they’re in love, not siblings, & jon is the only man she trusts not to steal her claim. This isn't the only possible foreshadowing instance of a marriage either - some believe the Sandor/Sansa scene during the Battle of the Blackwater is foreshadowing as well (personally I feel that's a bit of a stretch but I wanted to include it anyway).

Jon As An Envoy - I talked about this in my "what's Jon's ending" a little but I believe Jon will act as an envoy for either Sansa or Bran to Aegon VI, essentially playing out a similar story that he does in the show with Daenerys. By which I mean, Jon is not the King because the ruler themselves do not go as an envoy, that’s stupid and dangerous, but he goes as an ambassador for Sansa or Bran, to treat with a new claimant to the Iron Throne that is gaining support - Aegon VI & Jon Connington. They will probably clash, Jon will probably have yet another identity crisis, there had BETTER be gay incest subtext, then Aegon dies, and Jon has his sixth quarter life crisis in a row.

“King” of the Gift - again, something I touched on in my Jon meta is that I think he’s going to have a hand in resettling the Gift. Personally, I think it's likely that Jon leaves to protect the claims of his siblings (see: Duncan and Jenny) and goes to the Gift to help resettle it to keep out of the way. This ending is typically referred to as the "bael the bard" ending but i like to think of it as the "brandon's gift" ending instead - though he is not physically with his family, Jon feels fulfilled having confirmed his family loves him through reclaiming Winterfell and marrying Sansa, being reunited with Arya, and being given the Gift by Bran. Sansa claims her children were fathered by a wolf.

So…what does all this do for the story?

Well, in my opinion, several things.

I think the main barrier here is that most people in the greater fandom describe Sansa's story as ~growing past childish wants~ and Jon's as ~rejecting love~ and I do not agree with either of those takes even a little bit. This is where (imo) the dividing line between Jonsas and the rest of the fandom is. I don’t think the answer to Sansa’s question “will anyone ever marry me for love” is going to be “nah" - that's not just a sad story to me (wanting to be married isn't childish! craving intimacy and understanding isn't childish! it's also not wrong for a child to be childish!), I think the idea that Sansa (or Jon) will not find another love just doesn't line up with how George approaches his story. Who Sansa's husband will be has been such a big question, and her story is so heavy into the more romantic tropes like courtly love and chivalry and the line between politics and love and identity, that the question of Sansa's hand in marriage will be plot relevant. I also think it's kinda naive of people to pretend like George isn't very interested in the sexual dynamics of the characters he writes about (yeah, sure, no woman needs a man but "needing a man" is not what this is about. look at everything this man wrote in F&B and tell me he is going to write a female character that longs for sex and desire and doesn't get it!).

After AGOT, nearly every time Sansa thinks about marriage involves her longing for love but believing she will never get it because a man will only ever love her for her claim. Giving her a man - like Jon - who not only will not steal her claim and in fact has defended it twice over already, who will love her for who she is and not what she can give him, is a really important aspect of her story in my opinion.

As for Jon, I am even more firmly against the opinion that his story is about rejecting love; Jon’s story is about wanting to be a good man, to measure up to his father ~despite~ his bastard blood. When Aemon asks if Ned would choose honor over love and Jon stubbornly says yes, Jon is wrong and it’s important to not forget that. Ned has never once in his entire life chosen honor over love; he chooses his daughter’s life over his honor, he chooses his sister & her son’s life over honor, he chooses Arya & Nymeria over honor, and on and on!!! Ned chooses love at almost turn but none of his children know that just yet - look at Robb choosing Jeyne’s honor over his own and how upset he is at the idea that Ned would be disappointed despite the fact that Ned would have understand Robb’s decision! Jon's whole arc is tied up in realizing that it is not wrong or dirty to feel and choose love, passion, and desire and if he never has another romantic arc again, I think you lose the second part of that lesson which is "you are responsible for how you act when you feel love but that doesn't mean that simply choosing love makes you a bad person."

There's also the fact that George has talked a lot about "who lives, who dies, who gets married" and yet we have not one marriage at the end of the show AND there's not a lot of guesses at what "who gets married" means besides Jon/erys (and even if Jonsa doesn't happen, I simply do not see Jon/erys happening. they are not similar enough, they will not be in the same space for long enough, and they are on wildlly different trajectories for their story, they are not getting married let alone having sex). I think Jonsa fits that bill very well.

These various theories - from Sansa being queen, Jon living in exile, The Ashford Tourney Theory, the secret marriage, every one of them - are ideas and themes that I have really been thinking about for about 12 years now. I think Jon and Sansa's relationship could fit with the themes in their stories, the overarching themes in the books, and my own personal opinions. I think it gives George a great opportunity to delve into the courtly love aspects he enjoys so much, as well as delve into inheritance, legacy, legitimacy, honor, incest (yes, that too), and above all, what George himself has said the whole series is about - love. The human heart in conflict with itself is what I think Jon and Sansa as a romantic couple does for the series.

#okay if i don't post this now it's going to continue to sit in my drafts while i make minor edits oh my god #anyways behold my jonsa manifesto with sources. i'm gonna go kms now bye #jonsa meta #jonsa #jon snow #actually jonsa #sansa stark #getting on my soap box #stone and snow remains #twow speculation #ados speculation #asks #anons #also stumpy's post being reblogged to asoiafuni just so people could dogpile her. is exactly why i stopped engaging with asoiaf fandom #after the show ended because it was just these obnoxious ass people dogpiling on fans with theories they didn't like over and over #annoying and not conducive to theory and analyzing!!#i hope i'm not missing some important meta here don't tell me if i am i'll die

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shadow-the-crow · 7 days

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Michael never really fit in anywhere. Maybe that's part of why i like him so much. Or maybe i'm just projecting lol – but hear me out.

Michael Shelley maybe really didn't have a purpose in life. Maybe doing research on his trauma was all he had. He was too good, too pure for his human life - a life that probably just wasn't great in general.

Now other people without other purpose in life than supernatural trauma reasearch become happy fulfilled avatars, like Mike Crew. But Mike Crew chose to serve his entity. Michael, on the other hand, was sacrificed to an entity that didn't fit him, that was the opposite of him. He was naive and kind and would never lie to anyone, and the Spiral is the incarnation of gaslighting and lies. Which means the Spiral wasn't good for him, but he also couldn't become a good Spiral avatar vessel. Helen seems to be able to coordinate humanity and inhumanity. Michael wasn't, because Michael Shelley wasn't made for becoming this.

In general - i'm still thinking about how Gertrude stopped the ritual by making Michael the Distortion. Maybe it was just because it disturbed the ritual and it needed to get used to its new identity. Or maybe it was because Michael just wasn't a good distortion. He wasn't strong or talented or spirally enough to complete the ritual. God, i made him tragic.

I gotta say: This seems to contradict what i’ve said before, but i’m only talking about Michael and Michael Shelley as one person to simplify this. What i really mean is the Distortion could never be good at being itself while having Michael’s mind.

Can you imagine? Not only being tied to the embodiment of your failure, but still being your failure. Thinking with a mind that represents the opposite of what you are, that contradicts your very essence. That stops you from living up to your full potential, that stops you from being good at being you.

#okay i have like 3 different michael analysis posts ready by now #i'm gonna put them in my queue so i don't flood you with all of them at once #so yeah in case you're wondering: i wrote them directly one after the other. at 2 am.#can you tell the way i view michael the distortion's identity changed halfway through this post?#i hope not #but yeah i wrote the first half before coming to the realization that i talked about in my last michaelpost #tma #the magnus archives #tma podcast #michael distortion #tma the distortion #michael shelley #tma thoughts #tma spoilers #and yes i know - the ritual was probably just stopped because the distortion was forced to take a human-ish form.#but i like to think if it had been a different person it would have managed to do it anyways.

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