"I can picture in my mind a world without war, a world without hate. And I can picture us attacking that world, because they'd never expect it." - Jack Handey, Deep Thoughts
@@awesomeaman113 I’ve always thought this would be the ending. You see someone like Bran make a poor peace deal with the Others, just to have both Bran and the Others killed by someone like Jon or Dany.
I seem to remember reading that when Craster didn't have a son to give to his gods, he'd give them livestock. I seem to remember that as being the reason Craster's sheepfold was empty when the Watch first stopped by.
@@carlosfigueredo5682 yeah cause it hurts, Benioff and the dude Screwed Martin wiped their behinds with his notes (cause the knew better) and tried to end three seasons in one so they could move into the Marvel Universe and make more money so they figured out if they Kill the Goose 🪿 they would get all the money 💰.
Hot Pie is Azor Ahai. His baked goods will convince the White Walkers to a peace agreement and the living and dead will coexist contractually by way of guest right.
At this point, my prediction is that the Long Night will deplete the armies of the protagonists we've been rooting for. In the aftermath, it will be a pyrrhic victory as they'll be too weakened to resist an opportunistic antagonist like Littlefinger, Cersei, or perhaps even a False Dragon. In Fire & Blood and A World of Ice & Fire, every age of peace was imperfect, often being founded after much bloodshed of good people. Aegon I had peace after he gave up his campaigns against Dorne that had cost so many lives, including his beloved wife. Jaehaerys I had the longest reign of prosperity, but it had to follow the nightmare that was Maegor's reign. He also lived so long that he created a succession crisis by outliving his heir apparent and heir presumptive. Even Daeron II reigned over an age of prosperity that required the death of Daemon Blackfyre and two of Daemon's sons. It would be entirely in keeping with Westerosi history to have an imperfect peace. With the rate things are moving, Daenerys may not arrive in Westeros in time to participate in the Long Night, finding the Iron Throne vacant, or occupied by Young Grif. She could 'peacefully' integrate herself into court at King's Landing by marrying whoever sits the Iron Throne, but may well be giving legitimacy to a 'False Dragon' who was also absent from the Battle of the Long Night. In chess, not every piece is critical to a grand strategy. Often times, the only pieces remaining to rule the board took little-to-no part in the endgame, simply inheriting the open space from the deceased.
Again, Im thinking a bit of options 1 and 3. I believe that the Night King needs to be replaced, and that's why the dead are coming. They seek a prince that was promised. But for that to happen said King needs to either die or pass the mantle. Keeping with that bittersweet vibe of humans fucking shit up further, lets get into what impressions your video gave me. I mentioned in the past video that something more clandestine than an all-out war is needed to deal with the Night King. Keeping to that Arya as a faceless assassin whilst the living draw the Night King out. They succeed... only to realize now that all of the dead are rising to attack the living. Not just by the Night Kings hand but in catastrophic fashion, every grave and every dead body in Westeros is rising. Oops. Bran realizes too late that the Night King keeps the dead from rising uncontrollably. The children of the forest did curse the living during that first war, and this ritual seen of the Night King being created was the means to hold said curse at bay. But Bran now knows how to create a new Night King. Jon Snow and Dany realize someone needs to be that magic anchor, and it has to be one with the blood of a dragon. And in a sad and bitter moment, the two rivals turned lovers have to decide who dies to become the next Night King. And more than likely, it's Jon. The prince that was promised to become the next Night King. Haven't gotten as far as to say what happens next, but this seems plausible. Keeping in line with the "war is bad" theme and has the bitterswet knife twist Martin is known for.
I love the idea of all the dead rising everywhere, all the pointless wars of the living coming back to bite them on the ass would be an excellent little piece of bitter irony. As for the Theory I do think ethier Jon or Dany will need to sacrifice themselves in some capacity. Thanks for watching as always buddy! Liam
I wouldn't be surprised if they did manage to achieve some type of peace agreement, but Bran with his seemingly lack of humanity now, overlooked humanity's senseless greed. In this case, Little Finger. The man causing the agreement to be voided after he tried to take advantage of it all. Both sides then have to fight till the death, leaving a bittersweet ending where humanity won, but the senseless genocide of the walkers still occurred.
I got to be honest that was probably the best video I've seen you guys do. This speculation was for some reason a whole lot more fun than most I've seen you guys did an excellent job on this one
Hmm, in regards to the first scenario of all out war going against George's anti-war theme, I prefer to look at the others as not an antagonist force in a typical way, but rather as an unyielding force of nature that all of humanity must band together to be able to stop. In that regards, the message is if we as humanity don't get our shit together and work as one instead of pursuing selfish goals, we're probably all gonna die. In that sense I dont really see a negotiation or peace ending work either, because there is no negotiation with a hurricane. Edit: my interpretation of a bitter sweet ending is an overall victory for the good guys (whatever that means in ASOIAF), but with huge sacrifice from the yhe characters we know and love
I definitely think that's a perfectly valid way of interpreting it. It has being said the others are akin to climate change. Bittersweet is quite a broad definition, your idea definitely fits and I have no doubt there will be some extreme sacrifice for the goodies (well the closest things to) Thanks for watching Nev! Liam
An all out war for survival where the living win is not necessarily against the anti-war themes of the series if you make the victory phyrric and meaningless. You could make the cost of war and victory so great that Westeros itself can no longer sustain life, for example.
And if the Others win it could show how much division and warfare between humanity paved the way for a bigger threat to swoop in. Fits the metaphor for climate change.
@1:52 I personally love the theory that ASOIAF meme pages have come up with: make hundreds of dragonglass daggers, tie them to a bunch of crows/ravens, and have the whole swarm dive-bomb the Others using Bran's warging powers (it actually makes Bran not useless FOR ONCE!) From what we've seen with Sam killing the Other, it appears getting stabbed with dragonglass is a one-hit-kill for an Other, so if 100 birds are coming at it with dragonglass all at the same time, the odds are not good for them
I think there is also a pretty good chance that there may not actually be a big glorious epic battle with the good guys winning... This is very well could end with the others winning or both sides being destroyed and the planet just being there to start over again on its own
Looks like i should rewatch part 1 has been a long week i hardly remember anything about the first video. Thank you guys you always make my Friday evening
@0:24 You should never give D&D the benefit of the doubt. They had all the budget they could ever need and their alleged deadline was self-imposed. HBO would have been completely down to make season 8 longer or make it a season 8 + 9 (and why wouldn't that be the case; it would have meant more money for them!) but D&D were impatient to move on to another project so they COMPLETELY RAN THE SHOW INTO THE GROUND WITH THEIR HASTE and that's how we ended-up with the travesty that is GoT season 8
Haha 😂 we are going a bit soft towards them that is true. Whenever I record myself praising them in any capacity my vomit reflex activates if that makes it any easier to stomach for you? 😂 thanks for watching as always mate! Liam
Perfect just got home from a long day of work and now i get to rest with a bowl of ice cream with a new video. from the fandom absolutely 👏 Thank you so much
Hey Hayden buddy! Good to see you as always! Hope you are well and enjoy the video! I just wanted to bring attention to a spelling error in your comment, I (and most sane people) know you mean NEW but there are idiots out there that might think your saying something offensive matey 😂 As always thank you for tuning in buddy! Liam
"King Aragorn, what is your policy on religion? Gandalf, who is in the room and is a literal angel who has been sent to Middle Earth by Eru Illuvatar for the SECOND time: Bruh"
I was just coming down to comment to that effect. Also the numerous elves who, unless I am mistaken, are ancient even by their species' standard and witnessed the creation of the world.
😂 They have to kill off Stannis im afraid....... eventually. This is due to my working theory is the others aren't refusing to march on the wall because of its magic but because they know the Mannis is on the other side of it! Thanks for watching Mogadishu Mateus! Liam
I think it would be interesting for Bran (and the audience through his POV) to discover the creation of the white walkers from the Children of the Forest to fight Mankind and then it backfiring so much because they sang a song of ice but were not strong enough to end it themselves with a song of fire and thus were forced to join the Humans in the final battle or they would all die. It would bring culmination to a problem they created, they might even go extinct with how few of them are left, and it would give enough of the leaders pause to realize their constant bickering over petty conflicts is worse than working together for a better world. The Realm could be turned into a unified country with seven distinct regions but now the fighting/bloodshed would become the exception not the rule. The world of GOT is based off of medieval history so this would essentially be the birth of their renaissance. Magic or its knowledge could be preserved in this fantasy world and possibly come into play later to advance Westeros or fight off an outside invader with the bigger stick, so to speak. This wouldn’t be an eternal peace of course (between forces within like Littlefinger or outside forces like Aegon the Conqueror) but it would show that the people/the world was changing. That it had changed, and they weren’t going back (and those that tried were quickly left behind and abandoned rather than thriving without competition). Just seems more interesting than “people killing people, then magical undead walkers, then back to killing people again”. Even in the history of Westeros/Essos people and technology advanced and changed over time. It’s not like the First Men, the Andals, or Aegon’s forces were armed and armored with the same technology/weapons for thousands of years. I think GRRM pointed out that the seasons last for years-decades rather than months so advancement would be slower. I don’t disagree with that but it wouldn’t be stagnant and immovable. I’d even wonder if the opposite could have been true, at least in different parts of his world. Sure some or most won’t fix a system that in their eyes wasn’t broken or served their interests, but I feel many would take advantage of that time such as the Valyrians or previous Empires to make their people work longer in the fields or in construction. We’re limited in our world for how little time we have but if we had decades from spring to fall who knows how many larger ancient monuments could’ve been made, or the walls, or cities, or again in the fields.
@@TheFandomeClipsBran already saw they created the White Walkers (or at least its leader with dragon-glass in his heart) but we don’t know why. Why would they create the walkers and then fight so hard against them by the time of ASOIAF? Unless they underestimated them, thinking they could be controlled when in reality they set off their equivalent of a Magical Nuclear Bomb that would only spiral further until no living thing was left, not even the plants. There’s also a connection with the sea people (they did break the land border between Essos and Westeros but failed to do so again and created the massive swamps just south of the north possibly through a song of water/seas/oceans due to their fading power). Wish George would finish his work or give it to passionate fans to do it for him.😅 Also my pleasure. Very fun to watch and theorize.
Jon will get a hot snow-elf wife, Stannis is secretly plotting to secure the throne for (F)Aegon, and the Others real goal is to stop all of these people from turning into horses.
This is without a doubt the most well reasoned and Iron clad theory I have ever read my lord of spud. FFS its so obvious its basically staring us right in the face 🤦♂️ HOW COULD WE BE SO BLIND??? Also thanks for watching buddy! Liam
Okay so it seems that RUclips ate my comment. So basically I had summed up what I thought would be a satisfying version of the third scenario playing out. I subscribe to the Bran will merge with the Night King through timey wimey bs theory. So I put forth the idea that after the Night Bran merge happens a truce is formed between the three Targaryen claimants. Faegon married to Ariadne Martel on one side and Jon and Danny on the other. The truce being that who becomes king will be decide by a great council after the white walkers are dealt with. They then get into an argument about how to deal with the WW. Faegon wants to attack and Jon wants to try and reason with Bran, being his only kin left on the stark side after some disastrous battle at Winterfel. They decide to let Jon and Danny try diplomacy, but when they leave Faegon immediately takes control of the allied army and marches on the WW. Jon and Danny are greeted surprisingly warmly by the Night Bran who seems more reasonable after his past and present selves merged. He explains how the last Long night ended with an agreement with house stark and offers the same deal to Jon as they are kin and Jon carries WW blood in his veins through his mother. As long as Jon’s line rules the land south of the wall there will be peace between the living and the dead. Danny is suspicious of how amiable Bran is being and insists there be a time period of peace for the realm to recover regardless of whether Jon or his heirs are king or not. Bran agrees with a satisfied smile spreading across his face. At the same time Faegon kills a WW with the same smile. Immediately afterwards the WW and wights depart north. So Faegon is declared king as he has “the better story”. Jon and Danny decide just to leave Westeros as no one believed their story of making peace with Bran. No one except for Faegon who demands to know the details of the peace agreement. They tell him to his horror and the last scene is the two arguing over whether Bran played Jon to take over Westeros later, or Faegon ensuring the safety of Jon and any children he might have by making Faegon have to unite their lines if he doesn’t want his descendants to be crushed by bran. In the end they decide it doesn’t matter as they will be long dead by then.
What if the night king is the prince that was promised an is actually a resurrected Ned or Rob starks and they want to punish the world for endless senseless slaughter. Can you imagine Ned Stark turning out to be the night king all along?
There's something narratively satisfying of Joffrey being the one to kill the savior of the world and then Ned coming back from the dead to seek vengeance and to come back to literally to haunt the Lannisters. The idea that the night king is Ned, and he is the prince that was promised and the endless war and blood shed is what made Ned want to destroy it seems narratively satisfying
I would also go as far as to say, ending the series on a happy ending would actually be a twist, or a surprise ending because we don’t expect the show or the bucks for that matter to resolve a happy ending. We expect a bitter sweet, one, so happy ending would actually be a surprise.
My personal theory on how the long night will go. (I would love to discuss some plot holes in this theory.) The wall is not only a physical barrier but a magic one. This was to stop the others from raising the dead from the south. I can see the "Night King" being none other than Brandon the shipwright. He, along with Ned and Robb, are the only Starks not buried in the crypts. During his journey to the west, he could have washed back up in the far north where he was found by the others. The Starks are possibly descendant of the others, so they may have turned him into the new Nights king. The wall will crumble down due to Sam using the horn of winter. He will most likely use it to help somehow defeat Euron in the reach. Not knowing the cost of it. Since the wall prevents the others from raising the dead now being destroyed the Great Other, who the others possibly worship will begin raising the dead from the war of the 5 kings. Ned's body would have been put to rest in the crypts by the time Jon/Stannis takes winterfell. Meanwhile, a certain King in the North shall rise again. Stoneheart will succeed in resurrecting Robb with the wolf head. However, due to her being a vengeful being her last kiss will make Robb ressurect under the great other's influence. I could see Jon and Stannis defeating The Night King at the cost of Stannis's life. Only for Robb to take his place. This story is about a song of Ice and Fire. Starks and Targaryens. The Great Other and Rhollor. Coincidentally, Robb, Jon, and Denaerys are born at the end of Robert's Rebellion. Robb is under the great other, and Denaerys is Rhollors champion. Jon being the both, hence the son of Ice and Fire, will be used as a way to bring peace by sacrificing himself to end the others and dragons. The weather will match with our worlds seasons, and Bran will rule as the King of Summer. I can see Robb and Denaerys being slain by Jon before he is sacrificed. Only reason I see Bran the Broken being King is beacuse he will be seen as the hero who told them the way to victory. His tittle as the broken King is obviously due to not only his cripple status but everyone who he lost on the way, his robotic personality, and him potentially creating republic of sorts therefore breaking the line of Kings in westeros.
greta video as always! one video suggestion for the future, how about: How Littlefinger could have won the game of thrones? would love to see what you come up with
One fan theory is that love that I haven’t heard you guys talk about much is the bran is the night king idea . Him warging to the past and getting trapped in the body of the original other gives a lot of purpose to the story.
We initially wanted to make this video about the various theories, but because we didn't feel we could bring anything new to them it felt like we would have just been stealing other peoples hard work and ideas :/ which is why its more of an opinion piece on the outcomes. That theory is cool though and Thom really stands by it! Thanks for watching! Liam
This video has planted so many thoughts in head it physically hurts including 1 if aria is lightbringer then her three weapons first needle and the obsidian weapon gendry makes dosent work the valkyria dagger attempted to kill bran does 2 the different nations of Essos fighting the others if Westeros falls specifically the faceless men and the shadow binders that aren't worshiping Rhollr 3 a peace could be possible if the others have become mindless and forgotten life if bran can restore those feelings maybe they could choose death restore balance to the world and seasons and end the madness through choice and acceptance not war there were more but my brain is currently leaking from overload sorry for the long comment and no punctuation
😂 100%. I think the issue is the story could not have resolved in the 8th season, they needed 10 at an absolute minimum. 1 season for the long night, 1 season to tackle cersei then the last season dealing with Dany having gone mad if that was the direction she was meant to go in. Thanks for watching Gabitza! Liam
Lets be fair..... the wheels began to fall off from the end of S4. S7 is almost as bad, and S6 is barely a tough better with the battle of the bastards being incredibly overrated television. S8 was incomparably worse, but what came just before had been struggling for quite some time.
@@neodigremothanks I was looking for this comment. The show was already in a slow but steady decline since 4 that accelerated deeply in 6, 7 & 8. But if we go down even further, there were already questionable decisions since season, despite its overall greatness.
The first step is properly mapping the parallels in the story and how they interact and inform each other. Most theory looks at each piece in isolation, and people seem to dislike the mapping of parallel themes and story elements. What are the Others, what is their point, how would they be used? GRRM leans much harder on parallels than most think, but they are in many cases very difficult to identify. However the most obvious and easy example is in fact that between Dany and Jon. While the details play out in unique ways, the basic underlying structure is the same. Jon marries the NW, Dany marries the Dothraki. They journey into a sea of trees/grass to an island or lonely hill (Fist/Vaes Dothrak). Their brothers are betrayed and murdered by someone that promised aid. Their leaders die as a result of conflict with their own people and they replace them. As we near the end of ADwD both are struggling to keep peace between Watch/Unsullied, Wildlings/Freedmen, Stannis/Ghiscari. Dany is forced to escape back into the grass sea, set to return to the island in it. As such something resembling this should happen with Jon in his version of the parallel. The simplest and most direct way would be for Jon to escape back into the Haunted Forest, with or on Ghost, and ending up back at his island (the Fist). As the side of fire in the story gains it's agency through Dany the side of ice should have agency in the story through a PoV. At this point the most likely one is Jon. This is not to say Jon will become evil. Only that he will likely have some form of reveal about the past and strike a deal for aid in his desire to regain his position of authority. How that's tinfoiled is entirely open, but a deal of sorts that sees the Wildlings at Hardhome safely passing south would make sense for the situation. The Others should be the counter point to Dany's dragons for some other character rather than an evil basic horde. Perhaps even with the goal of stopping Dany's invasion. The way GRRM tells a story the heroes and villains should be the PoV characters, or in their narratives. There are many other parallels in the story. The broken sons Jaime and Theon have identical underlying plot structures. The fisher prince narratives that give us an old/dead figure over a broken young figure on/in tower or tree (BR/Bran, LSH/Brienne, Selmy/Quentyn, Stannis/Theon). These parallels are painfully challenging to map and apply and I believe offer a better method of prediction than comparing literature.
I think even if Scenario #1 all-out war is how the story goes and there's no twist afterward, it's simply "we had no other choice but fight or die," the sheer amount of devastation and death from the war against the dead will still keep the tone of the series in-line with George's anti-war philosophy. Similar to the devastation from the War of the Five Kings shown in the series so far. Huge amounts of death, rape, pillaging, etc. etc. etc. We probably wouldn't have rape or pillaging in the war with the dead, but the amount of death being so much greater (plus the horror of seeing the dead come back in order to try to kill even more of the living) will be a horrific depiction that yes in case you had an illusions to the contrary, war is hell. Even when you win, the best you can hope for a bittersweet ending
For me I could see Jon leading a group through the dead to try and kill the Night king and die in the process only to be raised but keep his mind then assassinate him and maybe take his place with the prince becoming a king, taking the dead back to the north.
“ Budget they had” they were given a blank check, and we’re allowed to do as many seasons as they wanted to. They chose not to that’s entirely on them.
Maybe there is not a big army of the death at all, but there could be if the Northmen are not evacuated beyond the wall. In getting the evacuation done, they ensure the death cannot amass a big enough force to overcome the living and thus stay north of the wall or even retreat to try again once the population beyond the wall increases once more. In this scenario the book deals with bringing together the people of the free North and the seven kingdoms, trying to find a new balance
Regarding the previous video about how the Others get past the Wall in the books, for me it's got to be the Horn of Winter. It's just the most logical conclusion based on what's already been laid out in the text. GRRM spent a lot of time establishing the Horn of winter as a viable MacGuffin. It's been at the center of significant subplots in two of the five main novels so far, and has been mentioned no less than 27 times across all published A Song of Ice and Fire books. That's only two less mentions than lightbringer, which has been mentioned a total of 29 times across all published A Song of Ice and Fire books. Although the exact origins and current location of the horn are still ambiguous, what is not ambiguous is what all concerned parties believe it is capable of: bringing down The Wall. I imagine the reason that more people don't acknowledge the Horn of Winter as the most obvious means for the Others bypassing The Wall is that it wasn't included in the show, but by the time The Wall came down in the show the storylines had already completely deviated from the books. I mean does anyone who's read the books doubt that characters like Young Griff and Lady Stoneheart will be playing major roles in the upcoming books because they were excluded from the show? And as for how the Others will get their hands on the Horn of Winter? First of all, Sam's horn, which is absolutely the best candidate for the actual Horn of Winter (why else would GRRM keep reminding us that he still has it), is currently in Old Town. Which is almost certainly due a visit from a certain crazy pirate king who's eager to kick off an apocalypse that he thinks will make him a god. And unleashing an army of ice demons on the realms of men certainly qualifies as an apocalyptic event. For all we know Euron could already be in cahoots with the Others, who maybe are the ones that gave him the idea that he could become a god. Kind of like how Blood Raven drew Bran north of the Wall by promising to teach him how to fly. And finally as to why The Wall wasn't brought down any of the previous times the horn was blown? (As in Jon when he found it at the Fist of the First Men, or Joramun in the distant past) Maybe the horn's magic can only be activated under specific circumstances or by a specific person or kind of person. It's a magic horn after all, and magic usually has prerequisites. (Like how Bran has to drink weirwood paste before he can see through the weirwood trees, or how Melisandre has to have sex before she can make a shadow assassin, or how the dragonbinder horn has to be claimed by blood before it can bind a dragon to its owner) My personal head cannon is that the Horn of Winter can only be blown by the king beyond the Wall, who can only use it to bring down the Wall if that's what he actually wants, otherwise it does other things like "wake giants from the earth" (whatever that means). And if you've actually bothered to read the entirety of my ramblings, I sincerely thank you for your time and patience! 😉
My pet personal theory - there is a throne made of thousands of swords, a dragon queen who needs a reason to burn a city down, and a recipe for valerian steel that is highly implied requires human sacrifice. Danny burns down kings landing to make a load of anti-white weapons. Bitter sweet - peace deal is signed and the message never got through.
I like the idea of Dany inadvertently helping the cause, definitely fits the fulfilling the prohecy in an unexpected way! Thanks for watching Estaban! Liam
I'm still leaning towards the idea of the "bad guys win" angle in all this. Happy endings are the last thing I'd expect from the story at this point, and peace, even if it's a difficult one, would be a happy ending compared to the outright struggle and possible extinction of the living by the hands of the Others. Like you said, George doesn't give us what we want, and what we want is for our POV characters and everyone else to be okay by the end of this. George knows that, and so I've long suspected that that's how the story will conclude. No victory, no survival. Everyone goes. All the fighting we've seen for the Iron Throne and so forth will all have been for nothing, and the end point for all our faves is to be the losers of the Long Night :(
I agree that option 3 is most likely. But I do wonder if there is an allegory in there that humanity should not have been fighting each other this whole time and should have been focused on the existential threat of nature (The others).
Okay, hear me out. So, casters sons can create more others, but not a “king other”, because that requires kings blood. Therefore, the prince who was promised is the others new king. This prince hasn’t been delivered yet, because humanity has forgotten about this ancient pact, because the others life span is thousands of years old, but they remember. And since the new prince hasn’t been delivered yet, the others take it as a slight against the truce. Which the truce was already on shaky grounds due to Sam saving Gilly’s baby. But since the prince who was promised hasn’t been delivered yet, has the others in an uproar, as their current king is at the end of his life span. So, Jon may be the prince who was promised, and assuming he gets resurrected in the end, has to sacrifice himself again, but this time to save the world. Or it could be another baby of kings blood.
I'm not sure if that would be a bit too much of a downer ending. Reminds me of the build up to WW2 where it was less about keeping the peace for peace and more about both sides just trying to catch their breath to resume the war. But your idea is a grounded way to get to that point of cease fire! Thanks for watching Msmith! Liam
What if the Others are actually a response to the nonsense the Euron Greyjoy's upto (godhood by massacre), and they think the only way to stop it is to turn everyone undead to stop something even worse. It's not exactly original, but I can imagine it similar to the Reapers from Mass effect. One massively cruel act to prevent an even worse one from coming. Maybe the Prince that was promised could be given to the other's because he has some even more ancient magic to go whoop Euron when toggles god mode on. Probably an obvious theory, but it does give a bittersweet ending.
As for how the Long Night will end? I think it's going to be some version of peace with the Others. I don't think that peace is going to hinge on making sacrifices to the Others or anything like that. I think it will be more about finding a balance between the different spheres of civilization and magic, which I believe are connected to the seasons, which have obviously been out of balance for some time. When you think about it every kind of magic that's on display in A Song of Ice and Fire is connected to some naturally occurring phenomena, such as fire, ice, water, flora and fauna. So the dynamics of magic in A Song of Ice and Fire are apparently the result of an interplay between people and the natural forces of the world they live in. But without the balance of the seasons, these natural phenomena cannot occur or function at their natural frequencies. I believe this imbalance of natural and supernatural forces is a key factor in the decline of magic and the chaotic nature of the seasons. The history of Planetos indicates that humans are the cause of this imbalance. By cutting down the weirwoods and decimating the elder races the humans weakened the natural forces that likely contribute to or even create the magic of Westeros. The incursions of the Others seem to me like a reaction to the imbalance created by humans. The first Long Night occurred after The First Men took most of Westeros from the elder races, and is apparently the only reason humans don't control all of Westeros. It's a good bet that the first Long Night was ended by an arrangement between the First Men and the Others that satisfied the balance the First Men had compromised in the first place. And now that that arrangement seems to have been forgotten the Others have returned. I don't think that Azor Ahai and or the Last Hero actually defeated the Others last time around. I think they only held them at bay long enough to broker a deal. An imperfect deal that led to things like people being stranded north of The Wall and sacrificing babies to the Others. I think the ideal resolution of A Song of Ice and Fire is Bran, Jon, and Daenerys making a better deal with the Others than the First Men. After putting up one hell of a fight to keep them at bay(and to satisfy the warmongers in the fan base). And as for this perfect deal, I think that between the icy magic of the Others, and the fiery magic of the dragons, the balance of nature and civilization in Westeros that likely governs its magics could be achieved. Especially with someone like Jon in the mix, who can represent ice and fire (Stark and Targaryen). Anyway that's all I've got. And I know I got pretty deep in the Weeds on this one, so I'm genuinely appreciative if you bothered to read this whole thing. 😊
The others want either Jon for his Statk blood or Lady Stoneheart to be the new ice queen. Both are already dead, so both might have to go (Caitlyn is going to hate being stuck with Jon for eternity)
Lightbringer could always be a metaphor kind of like the pen is mightier than the sword... And the ink could have been nissa nissa's blood and the dawn could have been the contract or pactl that they made with the others that has been broken
So, i know its a bit silly, but i am kinda hoping for a "fairy tale"-ish ending of asoiaf. At least with Jon. Obviously assuming he comes back, and I'd prefer that the other Stark children live, but whatever my main focus is Jon. (I also only say this as someone half way through the books myself, so bear with me) Firstly, Jon is the Prince that is Promised, and through whatever means (barring baby sacrifice) the Others no longer exist as a problem. Everybody celebrates. "Hell yeah! We did it! More importantly, Jon did it. He brought us here. If not for him, all would be lost. He should be king!" Everybody agrees. Its unanimous, paralleling him to Aragorn. Unlike lotr: Jon refuses. He never wanted power, once he was in charge of the Watch, he tried getting two (historically hostile) groups together, and it al.ost immediately got him a mutiny and several stab wounds. So he walks away, shouting "by the gods, pick someone else!" So they sit there, wonder who should rule them. Someone power hungry steps forward and is immediately shot down. "You seriously think you're as good as Jon? No? Then sit the hell back down." So they come to another unanimous agreement, with no one worthy willing to take the throne, then it shall sit empty until Jon or someone of similar character comes to take it. Or alternatively, they decide that the iron throne, a symbol of greed, ambition, unchecked power, conquest, murder, and death, maybe shouldn't exist as a seat of power any longer (possibly literally destroyed like say by dragon fire *cough cough*). Either way, the seven kingdoms become truly independent again, and are free from the often tyrannical seat of power above them, but also free to declare wars and plot against their former "allies" like the days before Aegon. Would also accept Jon taking the throne only to be sooner or later taken out by some power hungry menace. The Others may no longer be a problem, but the Game continues. Also a small part of me thinks it'll be a bit funny for "He subverts fantasy tropes." GRRM to instead go against what people expect of him for the conclusion. I just feel like there's a limit to where "real world-ism and trope subversion" can turn into narrative dissatisfaction, even if well built and well written. Though i suppose i just want that bittersweet ending to land favoring the sweet side.
I think the Walkers might not necessarily want babies so much as they do just new members of their species. Castor always sent them his male children because he’s a real piece of work who wanted to keep his daughters around so he could… Well you know. I think there’s a possibility that in the event of a ceasefire, the Walkers could be given adults to be converted, either people willing and consenting or possibly on the more bitter side, dangerous criminals who would normally take the black
Not to be like, “uhm actually” but right off the bat you mentioned they are “dead anyways” in the books it’s very clear that they have anatomy. George has even said they are a “different kind of life” but not wholly dead like the wights they control.
Yeah, a lot of the show is gray, but there is some black and white. I think Jon Snow is a good guy. He makes mistakes, but his intentions overall is to save lives. Whereas Joffrey and Ramsey are both pretty evil with little to no redeeming qualities, or at least not enough to matter. And making the white walkers pure evil does not diminish anything because they are a force of nature with no ability to reason, and they only seek to destroy so calling them pure evil is actually quite accurate.
If we go with the view of the Others and the army of the dead as some kind of allegory to climate and natural forces, I'm thinking that the savior or hero isn't someone who will WIN the war per se, but prevent the [climate/undead] catastrophe by convincing others to set their selfish goals aside. Or, possibly, failing to do that and just having a battle for survival.
I think you could be onto something there, I definitely think the saviour will at least try for peace, George is as much a hippie as he is a blood thirsty sadist lol. Thanks for watching Viper! Liam
I think most, if not all, of Dream will concern the Invasion. This has been building since literally the first page-not Dany or Young Griff or Jon Targ or whoever will sit the Iron Throne. The Others are portrayed as a force of nature rather than a conventional threat. How do you fight a hurricane, let alone try to negotiate? The best you can do is prepare for the storm-something the people of Westeros have utterly failed to heed. Here’s my whacky theory: the Others win. Westeros is reduced to a protectorate, the humans only being allowed to live to sustain the ranks. Bran is their puppet king as well as their partner as the Three Eyed Crow. Mankind must learn from their failures.
That is bloody dark Warlord 😳 but damn if I don't love the idea. Ethier way the living really need to take at least 1 major L in the books for the others to live up to the threat they've been hyped up to be thats for sure! Thanks for watching! Liam
What if George Reading Riting Martin just decides to write it exactly how D&D did it?like we all spent years clowning on D&D but really whats talking so long is George is astounded that they pieced it together word for word how he was gonna do it???? Now he doesnt want to seem like hes copying them????
The anti-war message of the books is how the civil war in westeros (which most of the text has been devoted to) undermined their ability to respond to collective threats like the Others (who really do hate all life, per GRRM's pitch letter in 1993). He hasn't put the Others on the page much because they're not complex characters comparable to the Lannisters. GRRM said he wanted the ending to be bittersweet... explicitly citing what Tolkien did in Lord of the Rings in comparison. That did NOT end with any revelation that Sauron or Saruman had peaceful intentions, nor was there any pact/peace between the two sides. The baddies really were completely defeated in a giant war won by destroying a sort of magical MacGuffin. The Others aren't ghouls, just consuming what's already dead. They kill Waymar Royce, and laugh while they do so. If that's not representative GRRM wouldn't have written that, or the later attack by the Others at the Fist of the First Men.
What if Alistor Thorne was with Jon at hardhome instead of Ed as it would be way better that the lord commander and first ranger are there to broke peace (even though Thorne will kinda still be an ass) this would allow Thorne to see the dead and the mutiny would not happen, (and he wasn’t even part of it in the book), ut let’s just say he still gets stabbed by others who weren’t there, it junk there is a chance he could convince the nights watch wildling to fight together in the battle of the bastards as Ramsey is threatening to butcher them all (and should be illegal but not sure) and he’d have another seasoned commander to help him. I find this kinda funny for 1 reason house Thorne are Targaryen loyalist and Jon is a Targaryen it’d be funny as 💩 to see Thornes reaction when he finds out 😂
I hope he goes for some sort of peace agreement with the others. It sounds a lot more interesting than victory through an all-out war. Perhaps instead of the living continuing to sacrifice babys, Perhaps "the chosen one" must sacrifice themselves
That seems to be the prevailing theroy. The Prince who was promised is a line of weasel wording. It never states who the Prince is promised to. Thanks for watching! Liam
What if the prince that was promised was promised to the others/ww and becomes the new night's king and is a natural part of the other's life cycle and after he is sacrificed by marrying the nights Queen or whatever they return to peace for a few thousand years?
@michaeltalksaboutstuff did outline a really smart sollution, that involves the need to make piece with the Others, but at the same time ending their existence and in the end an entire shifting of tbe societal structures of westeros, probably abandoning the "old ways" of worshipping the Weirwoods & stuff
I disagree that EVERYTHING is grey is ASOIAF. There are definitely characters who are truly evil: the Mountain, Joffrey, Ramsey, and Euron for examples. Ramsey we don't know much about before his mother brought him to Roose and Roose claimed him, but the others we have evidence that they were just always evil. Gregor burned-off half of his brother's face when he was 11 or 12 years old, Joffrey gutted a cat when he was a young child (BTW, cruelty to animals is one of the 3 traits of the MacDonald Triad that are generally-accepted (GENERALLY, don't @ me) as being indications of future violent mental illness,) and he would do...... something to Tommen (the ambiguity about what Joffrey did to abuse Tommen, the fact that Tommen has never been able to tell anyone about it, and the fact that when he almost finally told someone when he started to tell Jaime only to immediately shut-down when Cersei arrived..... all imply we should assume the worst.) And lastly EURON. It is heavily-implied that while still a young person, Euron sexually abused his brothers Aeron and Urrigon and would psychologically-torment them with that abuse as a kicker, and he killed 2 other brothers (Robin and Harlon) while young as well. There is of course raping his brother's wife, which considering Victarion's personality, he probably KNEW would lead to Victarion killing his wife, but he did it anyway, for the lolz and the evulz. And then of course there is the "planning a massive blood sacrifice, 3 of the victims of which will be his brother, the mother of his child, and said unborn child, in order to (he believes) awaken a Lovecraftian monster that will kill untold numbers more people and cause heretofore-unseen amounts of destruction and suffering." So yes, while totally-good people might not exist in the ASOIAF universe (anymore at least, since Ned Stark is dead,) EVIL definitely does. I think it would not be out of line with the rest of the story for an entire continent of people and groups who are various shades of grey to have to fight-against a force of ultimate evil. It has been well-established that the Others represent the antithesis of humanity and life: cold, dark, silence, death. Maybe no matter how bad humanity can get (and they can get VERY bad,) the Others are EVEN WORSE because they are NOT human, they are a supernatural evil force that humanity has forgotten about and therefore forgotten that there is something even worse out there: the antithesis to life itself: death, cold, darkness, silence. (I'm serious about the possibility of this, but so y'all know I realize how this sounds: this message paid for by The Money of the Servants of the Temple of the Lord of Light. The night is dark and full of terrors.)
You make some pretty good points mate 👍 When I think of those characters you mentioned though I do think there is a greyness to them in the sense their evil stems from influencing factors (they aren't just born evil and act evil for the sake of it) Ramsey and Gregor are almost certainly both hardline on the ASPD spectrum (and so is Jofferys show iteration) Ramsay is likely sociopathic and his behaviour has been influenced by his upbringing and I think Gregor going by his behaviour is potentially a born Pyschopath (as in he was born with abnormal qualities in his brain that prevents the experiencing of sensations like empathy) Joffery in the books is a spoiled kid and the constant neglect from his father (Bobby B) had a profound impact on his need for approval (he cut open the cat thinking it would impress his father if I remember right) and to appear strong, formidable and powerful, which is why his evil acts are usually him trying to exert dominance over someone Euron.................Euron..........oh bollocks, yep you've got me there 😂
The problem I have with grounded stories... is that they're more 'mundane' than actual reality. People want to say that reality is grounded and gritty, but it's only like that if you deliberately and blatantly ignore the downright regular miracles of all stripes that happen on the damn near regular.
@@TheFandomeClips Your quite welcome, and if you want to see a seriously deep and fascinating rabbit hole, look up real life mysticism, it's hard to understand at first since all the actual records are generally crouched in story and symbolism, but if you can decipher it... it's insane and incredible stuff. Records that go back to when humans stopped being animals and became people, the difference between left hand and right hand magic, otherwise known as Black and White magic or the Magic of Kings and the Magic of The Gods. We have mystic explanations dating back thousands of years that are accurately predicting bleeding edge modern science.
My original idea was that Jon and Sam become rappers, Aegon 3000 and Big Boi, and form Outkast. And as stupid as that was, it was not nearly as stupid as the show's finale.
@@TheFandomeClips Thank you 🤗 really enjoy the videos and it's a great way to keep inside the world of ASOIAF since I promised myself I would not read the books AGAIN until Winds of Winter is anounced WITH a date 😒
Alt Shift X did a video some years back that theorized of an ancient pack between the starks and the white walkers that would need to be renewed to end the long night. From that I always imagined either Jon Snow or Bran Stark (probably Jon) having to give themselves up to the White Walkers as a sacrifice for humanity; possibly even becoming the Night King (we do know of a Night's king who tried to marry a white) and leading the walkers back up to the land of always winter. Then again that does clash with the idea that the wall never worked as you devised in last weeks video so maybe I'm blowing some smoke up my ass.
Ive got an idea (it might be a bit overt but ive only seen the show so i apologize if i mess something up) For this we need to look to the origins of the others - they were created from the first men by the children of the forest to protect them against the men. What if the others true goal is getting back to their human state - finding a cure. My idea is they break through the wall somehow and one of the walkers a new one preferably made from the babies from Crasters for example as they have been taken to some sort of wierd ceremony which i assume makes them either into others (or experiment subjects for them so they can find out how to reverse it), is healed by the obvious choice - Bran and during the "fixing" which would probably consist of removing teh Dragonglas from the others inside it catches fire and explodes thus lightbringer and the turned other could be the prince that was promised as in convincing all the rest of the others to get fixed as well, now to the bitter part because the others are healed not destroyed the whites dont fall apart but gain a mind of their own and once all the others are healed its realized that now they have a gigantic horde of whites that know what they are doing and as barely intelligent undead probably want to destroy what is living but not in a zombie horde kind of way - in a silent attack at night invisible kind of way or take revenge upon the ones that were hurting them - the nights watch and the wildlings. They could be defeated with the complete eradication of the Nights watch, healed others and ALL wildings and ofc sizeable casualties of the north. Thus the others are given greyness the prophecies kinda come true and a bittersweet ending achieved
I think with its anti war messages and how grrm writes his charaters which arent all good but also not fully bad. Morraly grey. Even the most righteous people make dark choices. The lesson is balance the both extremes. So i think its gonna be all out war, the living win, but find out the walkers need to exist for the world to function and remain in balance. And jon sacrifices himself to become the new night king. He becomes the prince that was promised/azor ahai, but not for the living for the others.
I've seen that idea floated around. Almost like the others are less a race in their own right and more of a personified force of nature. We'll never know until we get those last two books though.........so I guess we're never going to know 😂 Thanks for watching Mr Smith! Liam
Wellllllll.......... Given The Night King doesn't exist in the Books it's going to be completely different that past is obvious There is a character in the books called "The Night's King" but he's a completely different character than the one some people are thinking of
Ok, I'm going to make sure I copy this comment when I'm done with it to not lose it this time. Saying D&D did what George will makes me physically ill, so let's not go there. As for doing the same, George might, it'd be vaguely funny to see the online reaction, but uh, no. 10 to 20 of 1000? Makes sense. As for what the Others want... yeah, no comment because I can't say shit. Not surprised that this is the most we can say about it because it's such a mystery that I don't think George even knows yet. Show ending, Tywin forces Cersei to marry the Night King ending, and the ending that probably hits too close to home for me. Let's go. Those maybes all work. Bran's part might also be to see how they won the first time and then he uses his Greeneer abilities. This ending it very good but, and I'm still at the why it's good part btw, given how anti war George is, I doubt it'll be the end. That little part of the Red Wedding I did not know. It makes sense to have to have the deaths set in stone. The deaths of Robb and Cat were perfect and they needed to happen. I knew it. I knew this'd be the why it doesn't work. Goes against George's ideas. No comment on war is bad, I think you know why. Also, George not giving us what we want? Adds up with him not giving us Winds. Not gonna lie, that rug pull of "Oh, they were actually peaceful all along" is kind of... I dunno, weak? Not sure how else to put it. Show Jon is Azor Ahai and I will not accept any other answer. Would be a funny subversion if he does go with this though, not gonna lie. "You're my daughter! You will do as I command and you will marry the Night King." Jokes aside, yes, just skip to the thoughts because it does not work. If we're going with realism... uh, no what, not going there because if I talk about how I feel about war... moving on. This might work. I've seen an idea where the Great Other agreed not to attack so long as a Stark was King of Winter but when Torrhen knelt to Aegon who wanted to join the Kingdoms to fight the Others, the Others now can attack. Cultural misunderstanding? Heh, not gonna lie, that'd be kind of funny. I'm gonna say maybe it's a means of survival. They have only a handful of Others that exist and, in order to get what they need, they started reanimating the dead to form an army to be able to attack the living. Maybe the original Long Night was purely Others vs The Living and when the Others were beaten, their numbers were reduced so badly they never fully recovered, leaving them a fraction of what they once were, and now they have to reanimate the dead to form the army they need to attack for whatever reason they have (probably lack of resources). Bran being the king to communicate with the Others... know what, better than "Who has a better story than Bran the Broken?". Then again, a literal wet fart would've been better than that. You know, I really should've expected all the war talk before I went in here. Not bothered by it btw, just hits home. So, for the slight counterarguments to the beginning: I say the wights attack the living because they have no mind of their own. Taking a page out of the Scourge from World of Warcraft, if they aren't guided, they go off instinct and their instinct is to fight and "live". As for sadistic fucks? If we go with the Others were driven to near extinction by humanity, well, just a case of revenge. Plus, if the Others have a distorted sense of time like I said in the comment that disappeared (hate it when that happens), maybe they think this is one of the survivors who ended their race. Oh, continual sacrifice of babies? I mean, feels like it fits the tone, but yeah. Maybe it's just a set amount of babies that need to be given so they can repopulate their race after humanity wiped them out? Eh, maybe a bit too much, never mind. Also, where did you get that Jon and Night King holding hands thing? I vaguely remember Aragorn wiping out a bunch of orcs in his reign, so... uh, I think we know his border patrol policies. That last bit of Prince who was Promised? Gonna go with Jon becomes the Night King and holds the Others at bay with his force of will until it runs out. Let's go with that. Loved the vid, great stuff.
George complaining about not knowing l the tax policies of Aragon also seemed like such a nit pick to me. 1 that’s not what the book was about and two you could do the same thing to his books.
I personally never liked Martin's take on how LotRs ended. He wants political depth to the story, when that isn't the moral story involved. I mean, take the Others. If they weren't just a forgotten legend, but an active threat beyond the wall for hundreds of years, the political depth would be lessened because they have an actual threat to deal with. And his criticism on how Aragorn would rule dont really matter because its at the end of the story. Should we spend a whole book learning about how the final ruler of Westeros governed the land?
ah, always nice to see another Indoctrination Theory connoisseur I think the war will end in a some sort of revelation of the entire thing being built on a misunderstanding of history and motives, and then a war resulting in the extinction of the Others. A peace treaty or negotiated peace might happen instead, but I think that'd be very hard to pull off in a satisfying way and it'd lessen the costs of the misunderstanding that caused the war in the first place.
I absolutely loved those games. The Indoctrination Theory was the only way I could reconcile that bloody ending until the extended cut came and ruined it 😂 I definitely agree with you about peace been an exceptionally hard thing to pull off, I think its a big part of why George seems to be struggling so much to make progress. He can't tie all his threads together beyond just having the others attack in force and rendering all the conflicts of the living as irrelevant. Thanks for watching as always my tactical sea mammal! Liam
Thing is we know Aragorn is a good king and has an age of peace and prosperity because he is blessed by Eru the actual god of the LOTR universe. Gandalf a servant of that god crowned him, Tax policy: Same as Gondor's before. Faith policy: worship of the Valar and Eru like Numenor before and what all good races worship. Border policy? Well he takes back the old Arnor lands, let's Rohan continue to be ruled by Eomer, allows Mordor to be run by the now former slaves there and he forces Rhun and Harad into vassal status to him after warring with them. People forget Aragorn was a chieftain of the last dunedain rangers in the north, educated and raised by Elrond to be a leader and king. So ruling Gondor is a task he has been raised to do soon childhood.
The fact no white walkers actually fought in the final battle vs the deliberately distributed valerian steel swords was absolutely shocking. We saw them so deliberately stole, gifted, made into two, etc etc and yet no single white walker encountered anybody in the battle. Just whytes vs gay dragon glass. Ridiculous!!!! It made the whole John killing one in hand to hand combat for nothing! Why Sam stole his dads blade is beyond me. Arghhhhh!!!!! Ridiculous!!!!
Option 4: A peaceful solution is almost made, only for the others to be tricked, betrayed, and defeated by humanity.
In yet another statement of how shitty we as humans can act....yeah that checks out! 😂 Thanks for watching my awesome friend! Liam
@@TheFandomeClips anytime
"I can picture in my mind a world without war, a world without hate. And I can picture us attacking that world, because they'd never expect it." - Jack Handey, Deep Thoughts
@@awesomeaman113 I’ve always thought this would be the ending. You see someone like Bran make a poor peace deal with the Others, just to have both Bran and the Others killed by someone like Jon or Dany.
@@clownpendotfart That sounds so deliciously demonic! I gotta look up who Jack Handey is. 😁
I seem to remember reading that when Craster didn't have a son to give to his gods, he'd give them livestock. I seem to remember that as being the reason Craster's sheepfold was empty when the Watch first stopped by.
Got ending series was the worse ending not because it was bad, but because it destroyed what could of been the best epic series in tv history.
Exactly….some bloody long night it was over by about 11.30
Oh but it was bad, what you said just made it much worse.
@@carlosfigueredo5682 yeah cause it hurts, Benioff and the dude Screwed Martin wiped their behinds with his notes (cause the knew better) and tried to end three seasons in one so they could move into the Marvel Universe and make more money so they figured out if they Kill the Goose 🪿 they would get all the money 💰.
Hot Pie is Azor Ahai. His baked goods will convince the White Walkers to a peace agreement and the living and dead will coexist contractually by way of guest right.
@scott3113 Hot Pie is a legend. All hail Hot Pie, King of the Andals and the First Men.
At this point, my prediction is that the Long Night will deplete the armies of the protagonists we've been rooting for. In the aftermath, it will be a pyrrhic victory as they'll be too weakened to resist an opportunistic antagonist like Littlefinger, Cersei, or perhaps even a False Dragon. In Fire & Blood and A World of Ice & Fire, every age of peace was imperfect, often being founded after much bloodshed of good people.
Aegon I had peace after he gave up his campaigns against Dorne that had cost so many lives, including his beloved wife.
Jaehaerys I had the longest reign of prosperity, but it had to follow the nightmare that was Maegor's reign. He also lived so long that he created a succession crisis by outliving his heir apparent and heir presumptive.
Even Daeron II reigned over an age of prosperity that required the death of Daemon Blackfyre and two of Daemon's sons.
It would be entirely in keeping with Westerosi history to have an imperfect peace. With the rate things are moving, Daenerys may not arrive in Westeros in time to participate in the Long Night, finding the Iron Throne vacant, or occupied by Young Grif. She could 'peacefully' integrate herself into court at King's Landing by marrying whoever sits the Iron Throne, but may well be giving legitimacy to a 'False Dragon' who was also absent from the Battle of the Long Night.
In chess, not every piece is critical to a grand strategy. Often times, the only pieces remaining to rule the board took little-to-no part in the endgame, simply inheriting the open space from the deceased.
So the Mannis will loose his army saving the realm from the Others. Sounds like Stannis.
I really enjoyed reading your insight BR! As a fellow chess lover I enjoyed your analogy! Also good to see you in here!
Thanks for watching mate! Liam
My prediction is we will never find out ;)
Again, Im thinking a bit of options 1 and 3. I believe that the Night King needs to be replaced, and that's why the dead are coming. They seek a prince that was promised. But for that to happen said King needs to either die or pass the mantle.
Keeping with that bittersweet vibe of humans fucking shit up further, lets get into what impressions your video gave me.
I mentioned in the past video that something more clandestine than an all-out war is needed to deal with the Night King. Keeping to that Arya as a faceless assassin whilst the living draw the Night King out.
They succeed... only to realize now that all of the dead are rising to attack the living. Not just by the Night Kings hand but in catastrophic fashion, every grave and every dead body in Westeros is rising. Oops.
Bran realizes too late that the Night King keeps the dead from rising uncontrollably. The children of the forest did curse the living during that first war, and this ritual seen of the Night King being created was the means to hold said curse at bay. But Bran now knows how to create a new Night King.
Jon Snow and Dany realize someone needs to be that magic anchor, and it has to be one with the blood of a dragon. And in a sad and bitter moment, the two rivals turned lovers have to decide who dies to become the next Night King. And more than likely, it's Jon. The prince that was promised to become the next Night King.
Haven't gotten as far as to say what happens next, but this seems plausible. Keeping in line with the "war is bad" theme and has the bitterswet knife twist Martin is known for.
I love the idea of all the dead rising everywhere, all the pointless wars of the living coming back to bite them on the ass would be an excellent little piece of bitter irony.
As for the Theory I do think ethier Jon or Dany will need to sacrifice themselves in some capacity.
Thanks for watching as always buddy! Liam
I wouldn't be surprised if they did manage to achieve some type of peace agreement, but Bran with his seemingly lack of humanity now, overlooked humanity's senseless greed. In this case, Little Finger. The man causing the agreement to be voided after he tried to take advantage of it all. Both sides then have to fight till the death, leaving a bittersweet ending where humanity won, but the senseless genocide of the walkers still occurred.
That bastard is always undermining the starks so that makes a lot of sense in fairness 😂
Thanks for watching! Liam
I got to be honest that was probably the best video I've seen you guys do. This speculation was for some reason a whole lot more fun than most I've seen you guys did an excellent job on this one
Thanks Voicenerd. We're looking into more What If and Speculation based videos in the future.
Thanks for watching! Liam
Hmm, in regards to the first scenario of all out war going against George's anti-war theme, I prefer to look at the others as not an antagonist force in a typical way, but rather as an unyielding force of nature that all of humanity must band together to be able to stop. In that regards, the message is if we as humanity don't get our shit together and work as one instead of pursuing selfish goals, we're probably all gonna die.
In that sense I dont really see a negotiation or peace ending work either, because there is no negotiation with a hurricane.
Edit: my interpretation of a bitter sweet ending is an overall victory for the good guys (whatever that means in ASOIAF), but with huge sacrifice from the yhe characters we know and love
I definitely think that's a perfectly valid way of interpreting it. It has being said the others are akin to climate change.
Bittersweet is quite a broad definition, your idea definitely fits and I have no doubt there will be some extreme sacrifice for the goodies (well the closest things to)
Thanks for watching Nev! Liam
What’s amazing is this dropped exactly when I finished the first part. Great timing
It was all part of the Lord of lights plan!
@19:40 Imagine Bran trying to make his case to be king in THAT circumstance!
An all out war for survival where the living win is not necessarily against the anti-war themes of the series if you make the victory phyrric and meaningless. You could make the cost of war and victory so great that Westeros itself can no longer sustain life, for example.
And if the Others win it could show how much division and warfare between humanity paved the way for a bigger threat to swoop in. Fits the metaphor for climate change.
@1:52 I personally love the theory that ASOIAF meme pages have come up with: make hundreds of dragonglass daggers, tie them to a bunch of crows/ravens, and have the whole swarm dive-bomb the Others using Bran's warging powers (it actually makes Bran not useless FOR ONCE!) From what we've seen with Sam killing the Other, it appears getting stabbed with dragonglass is a one-hit-kill for an Other, so if 100 birds are coming at it with dragonglass all at the same time, the odds are not good for them
This is the ASOIAF version of Legolas shooting the Ring into the volcano lol.
I think there is also a pretty good chance that there may not actually be a big glorious epic battle with the good guys winning...
This is very well could end with the others winning or both sides being destroyed and the planet just being there to start over again on its own
Looks like i should rewatch part 1 has been a long week i hardly remember anything about the first video.
Thank you guys you always make my Friday evening
@0:24 You should never give D&D the benefit of the doubt. They had all the budget they could ever need and their alleged deadline was self-imposed. HBO would have been completely down to make season 8 longer or make it a season 8 + 9 (and why wouldn't that be the case; it would have meant more money for them!) but D&D were impatient to move on to another project so they COMPLETELY RAN THE SHOW INTO THE GROUND WITH THEIR HASTE and that's how we ended-up with the travesty that is GoT season 8
Haha 😂 we are going a bit soft towards them that is true. Whenever I record myself praising them in any capacity my vomit reflex activates if that makes it any easier to stomach for you? 😂 thanks for watching as always mate! Liam
They will never get past the wall without the help of Craster
It's the reason How Could Craster Win the GOT hasn't been made yet guys, it's just too easy for us to do mate
Hell yeah! So awesome we get a new video today!!
Perfect just got home from a long day of work and now i get to rest with a bowl of ice cream with a new video. from the fandom absolutely 👏
Thank you so much
Hey Hayden buddy! Good to see you as always! Hope you are well and enjoy the video! I just wanted to bring attention to a spelling error in your comment, I (and most sane people) know you mean NEW but there are idiots out there that might think your saying something offensive matey 😂
As always thank you for tuning in buddy! Liam
@TheFandomeClips ohh I didn't mean to put that. Dam keyboard. Thank you as always
"King Aragorn, what is your policy on religion?
Gandalf, who is in the room and is a literal angel who has been sent to Middle Earth by Eru Illuvatar for the SECOND time: Bruh"
😂
I was just coming down to comment to that effect. Also the numerous elves who, unless I am mistaken, are ancient even by their species' standard and witnessed the creation of the world.
What do you mean how will it end? We know how! Stannis is the hero of light who will cast out the darkness!
😂 They have to kill off Stannis im afraid....... eventually. This is due to my working theory is the others aren't refusing to march on the wall because of its magic but because they know the Mannis is on the other side of it! Thanks for watching Mogadishu Mateus! Liam
I think it would be interesting for Bran (and the audience through his POV) to discover the creation of the white walkers from the Children of the Forest to fight Mankind and then it backfiring so much because they sang a song of ice but were not strong enough to end it themselves with a song of fire and thus were forced to join the Humans in the final battle or they would all die.
It would bring culmination to a problem they created, they might even go extinct with how few of them are left, and it would give enough of the leaders pause to realize their constant bickering over petty conflicts is worse than working together for a better world.
The Realm could be turned into a unified country with seven distinct regions but now the fighting/bloodshed would become the exception not the rule.
The world of GOT is based off of medieval history so this would essentially be the birth of their renaissance. Magic or its knowledge could be preserved in this fantasy world and possibly come into play later to advance Westeros or fight off an outside invader with the bigger stick, so to speak.
This wouldn’t be an eternal peace of course (between forces within like Littlefinger or outside forces like Aegon the Conqueror) but it would show that the people/the world was changing. That it had changed, and they weren’t going back (and those that tried were quickly left behind and abandoned rather than thriving without competition).
Just seems more interesting than “people killing people, then magical undead walkers, then back to killing people again”.
Even in the history of Westeros/Essos people and technology advanced and changed over time. It’s not like the First Men, the Andals, or Aegon’s forces were armed and armored with the same technology/weapons for thousands of years.
I think GRRM pointed out that the seasons last for years-decades rather than months so advancement would be slower.
I don’t disagree with that but it wouldn’t be stagnant and immovable. I’d even wonder if the opposite could have been true, at least in different parts of his world.
Sure some or most won’t fix a system that in their eyes wasn’t broken or served their interests, but I feel many would take advantage of that time such as the Valyrians or previous Empires to make their people work longer in the fields or in construction.
We’re limited in our world for how little time we have but if we had decades from spring to fall who knows how many larger ancient monuments could’ve been made, or the walls, or cities, or again in the fields.
Im not sure about creating them but those sneaky little leafy bastards are a piece to the puzzle I think.
Thanks for watching as always buddy! Liam
@@TheFandomeClipsBran already saw they created the White Walkers (or at least its leader with dragon-glass in his heart) but we don’t know why.
Why would they create the walkers and then fight so hard against them by the time of ASOIAF? Unless they underestimated them, thinking they could be controlled when in reality they set off their equivalent of a Magical Nuclear Bomb that would only spiral further until no living thing was left, not even the plants.
There’s also a connection with the sea people (they did break the land border between Essos and Westeros but failed to do so again and created the massive swamps just south of the north possibly through a song of water/seas/oceans due to their fading power).
Wish George would finish his work or give it to passionate fans to do it for him.😅
Also my pleasure. Very fun to watch and theorize.
Ah another Fandome vid... Tis a good day indeed😌. Thank you guys🔥✊
Jon will get a hot snow-elf wife, Stannis is secretly plotting to secure the throne for (F)Aegon, and the Others real goal is to stop all of these people from turning into horses.
This is without a doubt the most well reasoned and Iron clad theory I have ever read my lord of spud. FFS its so obvious its basically staring us right in the face 🤦♂️ HOW COULD WE BE SO BLIND???
Also thanks for watching buddy! Liam
Okay so it seems that RUclips ate my comment.
So basically I had summed up what I thought would be a satisfying version of the third scenario playing out. I subscribe to the Bran will merge with the Night King through timey wimey bs theory. So I put forth the idea that after the Night Bran merge happens a truce is formed between the three Targaryen claimants. Faegon married to Ariadne Martel on one side and Jon and Danny on the other. The truce being that who becomes king will be decide by a great council after the white walkers are dealt with. They then get into an argument about how to deal with the WW. Faegon wants to attack and Jon wants to try and reason with Bran, being his only kin left on the stark side after some disastrous battle at Winterfel. They decide to let Jon and Danny try diplomacy, but when they leave Faegon immediately takes control of the allied army and marches on the WW.
Jon and Danny are greeted surprisingly warmly by the Night Bran who seems more reasonable after his past and present selves merged. He explains how the last Long night ended with an agreement with house stark and offers the same deal to Jon as they are kin and Jon carries WW blood in his veins through his mother. As long as Jon’s line rules the land south of the wall there will be peace between the living and the dead. Danny is suspicious of how amiable Bran is being and insists there be a time period of peace for the realm to recover regardless of whether Jon or his heirs are king or not. Bran agrees with a satisfied smile spreading across his face.
At the same time Faegon kills a WW with the same smile. Immediately afterwards the WW and wights depart north. So Faegon is declared king as he has “the better story”.
Jon and Danny decide just to leave Westeros as no one believed their story of making peace with Bran. No one except for Faegon who demands to know the details of the peace agreement. They tell him to his horror and the last scene is the two arguing over whether Bran played Jon to take over Westeros later, or Faegon ensuring the safety of Jon and any children he might have by making Faegon have to unite their lines if he doesn’t want his descendants to be crushed by bran. In the end they decide it doesn’t matter as they will be long dead by then.
Banger vid as always (didn’t watch it yet)
BROOOOO TYTYTY i swear i left a comment that got u to do this video! thank YOUUUUUU! awesome video dude! love your content!
You may have matey, we do check for suggestions and add them to our list!
Thanks for watching! Liam
What if the night king is the prince that was promised an is actually a resurrected Ned or Rob starks and they want to punish the world for endless senseless slaughter. Can you imagine Ned Stark turning out to be the night king all along?
There's something narratively satisfying of Joffrey being the one to kill the savior of the world and then Ned coming back from the dead to seek vengeance and to come back to literally to haunt the Lannisters. The idea that the night king is Ned, and he is the prince that was promised and the endless war and blood shed is what made Ned want to destroy it seems narratively satisfying
Leave it to Joffrey to doom the world completely by accident
Some one tell the fandom this for me since I cannot seem to reach them or make their chat channels work
Our is the fury our is the fury our is the fury our is the fury
I would also go as far as to say, ending the series on a happy ending would actually be a twist, or a surprise ending because we don’t expect the show or the bucks for that matter to resolve a happy ending. We expect a bitter sweet, one, so happy ending would actually be a surprise.
My personal theory on how the long night will go. (I would love to discuss some plot holes in this theory.)
The wall is not only a physical barrier but a magic one. This was to stop the others from raising the dead from the south.
I can see the "Night King" being none other than Brandon the shipwright. He, along with Ned and Robb, are the only Starks not buried in the crypts. During his journey to the west, he could have washed back up in the far north where he was found by the others. The Starks are possibly descendant of the others, so they may have turned him into the new Nights king.
The wall will crumble down due to Sam using the horn of winter. He will most likely use it to help somehow defeat Euron in the reach. Not knowing the cost of it.
Since the wall prevents the others from raising the dead now being destroyed the Great Other, who the others possibly worship will begin raising the dead from the war of the 5 kings.
Ned's body would have been put to rest in the crypts by the time Jon/Stannis takes winterfell. Meanwhile, a certain King in the North shall rise again. Stoneheart will succeed in resurrecting Robb with the wolf head. However, due to her being a vengeful being her last kiss will make Robb ressurect under the great other's influence.
I could see Jon and Stannis defeating The Night King at the cost of Stannis's life. Only for Robb to take his place.
This story is about a song of Ice and Fire. Starks and Targaryens. The Great Other and Rhollor. Coincidentally, Robb, Jon, and Denaerys are born at the end of Robert's Rebellion. Robb is under the great other, and Denaerys is Rhollors champion. Jon being the both, hence the son of Ice and Fire, will be used as a way to bring peace by sacrificing himself to end the others and dragons.
The weather will match with our worlds seasons, and Bran will rule as the King of Summer. I can see Robb and Denaerys being slain by Jon before he is sacrificed. Only reason I see Bran the Broken being King is beacuse he will be seen as the hero who told them the way to victory. His tittle as the broken King is obviously due to not only his cripple status but everyone who he lost on the way, his robotic personality, and him potentially creating republic of sorts therefore breaking the line of Kings in westeros.
greta video as always! one video suggestion for the future, how about: How Littlefinger could have won the game of thrones? would love to see what you come up with
One fan theory is that love that I haven’t heard you guys talk about much is the bran is the night king idea . Him warging to the past and getting trapped in the body of the original other gives a lot of purpose to the story.
We initially wanted to make this video about the various theories, but because we didn't feel we could bring anything new to them it felt like we would have just been stealing other peoples hard work and ideas :/ which is why its more of an opinion piece on the outcomes.
That theory is cool though and Thom really stands by it!
Thanks for watching! Liam
This video has planted so many thoughts in head it physically hurts including 1 if aria is lightbringer then her three weapons first needle and the obsidian weapon gendry makes dosent work the valkyria dagger attempted to kill bran does 2 the different nations of Essos fighting the others if Westeros falls specifically the faceless men and the shadow binders that aren't worshiping Rhollr 3 a peace could be possible if the others have become mindless and forgotten life if bran can restore those feelings maybe they could choose death restore balance to the world and seasons and end the madness through choice and acceptance not war there were more but my brain is currently leaking from overload sorry for the long comment and no punctuation
You gotha give it to got season 8 its a masterclass in how not to end a show
😂 100%. I think the issue is the story could not have resolved in the 8th season, they needed 10 at an absolute minimum. 1 season for the long night, 1 season to tackle cersei then the last season dealing with Dany having gone mad if that was the direction she was meant to go in.
Thanks for watching Gabitza! Liam
Lets be fair..... the wheels began to fall off from the end of S4. S7 is almost as bad, and S6 is barely a tough better with the battle of the bastards being incredibly overrated television.
S8 was incomparably worse, but what came just before had been struggling for quite some time.
@@neodigremothanks I was looking for this comment. The show was already in a slow but steady decline since 4 that accelerated deeply in 6, 7 & 8. But if we go down even further, there were already questionable decisions since season, despite its overall greatness.
The first step is properly mapping the parallels in the story and how they interact and inform each other. Most theory looks at each piece in isolation, and people seem to dislike the mapping of parallel themes and story elements.
What are the Others, what is their point, how would they be used? GRRM leans much harder on parallels than most think, but they are in many cases very difficult to identify. However the most obvious and easy example is in fact that between Dany and Jon.
While the details play out in unique ways, the basic underlying structure is the same. Jon marries the NW, Dany marries the Dothraki. They journey into a sea of trees/grass to an island or lonely hill (Fist/Vaes Dothrak). Their brothers are betrayed and murdered by someone that promised aid. Their leaders die as a result of conflict with their own people and they replace them. As we near the end of ADwD both are struggling to keep peace between Watch/Unsullied, Wildlings/Freedmen, Stannis/Ghiscari. Dany is forced to escape back into the grass sea, set to return to the island in it. As such something resembling this should happen with Jon in his version of the parallel. The simplest and most direct way would be for Jon to escape back into the Haunted Forest, with or on Ghost, and ending up back at his island (the Fist).
As the side of fire in the story gains it's agency through Dany the side of ice should have agency in the story through a PoV. At this point the most likely one is Jon. This is not to say Jon will become evil. Only that he will likely have some form of reveal about the past and strike a deal for aid in his desire to regain his position of authority. How that's tinfoiled is entirely open, but a deal of sorts that sees the Wildlings at Hardhome safely passing south would make sense for the situation.
The Others should be the counter point to Dany's dragons for some other character rather than an evil basic horde. Perhaps even with the goal of stopping Dany's invasion. The way GRRM tells a story the heroes and villains should be the PoV characters, or in their narratives.
There are many other parallels in the story. The broken sons Jaime and Theon have identical underlying plot structures. The fisher prince narratives that give us an old/dead figure over a broken young figure on/in tower or tree (BR/Bran, LSH/Brienne, Selmy/Quentyn, Stannis/Theon). These parallels are painfully challenging to map and apply and I believe offer a better method of prediction than comparing literature.
I think even if Scenario #1 all-out war is how the story goes and there's no twist afterward, it's simply "we had no other choice but fight or die," the sheer amount of devastation and death from the war against the dead will still keep the tone of the series in-line with George's anti-war philosophy. Similar to the devastation from the War of the Five Kings shown in the series so far. Huge amounts of death, rape, pillaging, etc. etc. etc. We probably wouldn't have rape or pillaging in the war with the dead, but the amount of death being so much greater (plus the horror of seeing the dead come back in order to try to kill even more of the living) will be a horrific depiction that yes in case you had an illusions to the contrary, war is hell. Even when you win, the best you can hope for a bittersweet ending
I really do love this channel
Appreciate the love Juan! 🙏 - Thom
For me I could see Jon leading a group through the dead to try and kill the Night king and die in the process only to be raised but keep his mind then assassinate him and maybe take his place with the prince becoming a king, taking the dead back to the north.
“ Budget they had” they were given a blank check, and we’re allowed to do as many seasons as they wanted to. They chose not to that’s entirely on them.
Maybe there is not a big army of the death at all, but there could be if the Northmen are not evacuated beyond the wall. In getting the evacuation done, they ensure the death cannot amass a big enough force to overcome the living and thus stay north of the wall or even retreat to try again once the population beyond the wall increases once more. In this scenario the book deals with bringing together the people of the free North and the seven kingdoms, trying to find a new balance
Regarding the previous video about how the Others get past the Wall in the books, for me it's got to be the Horn of Winter.
It's just the most logical conclusion based on what's already been laid out in the text.
GRRM spent a lot of time establishing the Horn of winter as a viable MacGuffin. It's been at the center of significant subplots in two of the five main novels so far, and has been mentioned no less than 27 times across all published A Song of Ice and Fire books. That's only two less mentions than lightbringer, which has been mentioned a total of 29 times across all published A Song of Ice and Fire books.
Although the exact origins and current location of the horn are still ambiguous, what is not ambiguous is what all concerned parties believe it is capable of: bringing down The Wall.
I imagine the reason that more people don't acknowledge the Horn of Winter as the most obvious means for the Others bypassing The Wall is that it wasn't included in the show, but by the time The Wall came down in the show the storylines had already completely deviated from the books. I mean does anyone who's read the books doubt that characters like Young Griff and Lady Stoneheart will be playing major roles in the upcoming books because they were excluded from the show?
And as for how the Others will get their hands on the Horn of Winter?
First of all, Sam's horn, which is absolutely the best candidate for the actual Horn of Winter (why else would GRRM keep reminding us that he still has it), is currently in Old Town. Which is almost certainly due a visit from a certain crazy pirate king who's eager to kick off an apocalypse that he thinks will make him a god. And unleashing an army of ice demons on the realms of men certainly qualifies as an apocalyptic event.
For all we know Euron could already be in cahoots with the Others, who maybe are the ones that gave him the idea that he could become a god. Kind of like how Blood Raven drew Bran north of the Wall by promising to teach him how to fly.
And finally as to why The Wall wasn't brought down any of the previous times the horn was blown? (As in Jon when he found it at the Fist of the First Men, or Joramun in the distant past)
Maybe the horn's magic can only be activated under specific circumstances or by a specific person or kind of person. It's a magic horn after all, and magic usually has prerequisites. (Like how Bran has to drink weirwood paste before he can see through the weirwood trees, or how Melisandre has to have sex before she can make a shadow assassin, or how the dragonbinder horn has to be claimed by blood before it can bind a dragon to its owner)
My personal head cannon is that the Horn of Winter can only be blown by the king beyond the Wall, who can only use it to bring down the Wall if that's what he actually wants, otherwise it does other things like "wake giants from the earth" (whatever that means).
And if you've actually bothered to read the entirety of my ramblings, I sincerely thank you for your time and patience! 😉
My pet personal theory - there is a throne made of thousands of swords, a dragon queen who needs a reason to burn a city down, and a recipe for valerian steel that is highly implied requires human sacrifice.
Danny burns down kings landing to make a load of anti-white weapons.
Bitter sweet - peace deal is signed and the message never got through.
I like the idea of Dany inadvertently helping the cause, definitely fits the fulfilling the prohecy in an unexpected way!
Thanks for watching Estaban! Liam
I'm still leaning towards the idea of the "bad guys win" angle in all this. Happy endings are the last thing I'd expect from the story at this point, and peace, even if it's a difficult one, would be a happy ending compared to the outright struggle and possible extinction of the living by the hands of the Others. Like you said, George doesn't give us what we want, and what we want is for our POV characters and everyone else to be okay by the end of this. George knows that, and so I've long suspected that that's how the story will conclude. No victory, no survival. Everyone goes. All the fighting we've seen for the Iron Throne and so forth will all have been for nothing, and the end point for all our faves is to be the losers of the Long Night :(
I agree that option 3 is most likely. But I do wonder if there is an allegory in there that humanity should not have been fighting each other this whole time and should have been focused on the existential threat of nature (The others).
I still don’t understand the backlash, I loved the ending. Obviously it was rushed but the framework of the ending is great.
Okay, hear me out. So, casters sons can create more others, but not a “king other”, because that requires kings blood. Therefore, the prince who was promised is the others new king. This prince hasn’t been delivered yet, because humanity has forgotten about this ancient pact, because the others life span is thousands of years old, but they remember. And since the new prince hasn’t been delivered yet, the others take it as a slight against the truce. Which the truce was already on shaky grounds due to Sam saving Gilly’s baby. But since the prince who was promised hasn’t been delivered yet, has the others in an uproar, as their current king is at the end of his life span. So, Jon may be the prince who was promised, and assuming he gets resurrected in the end, has to sacrifice himself again, but this time to save the world. Or it could be another baby of kings blood.
The belrog vs the long night who wins?
Stannis is the Mannis=Alfred the Great
Robb Stark=Robert De Bruce
Both absolute Giga chads
Well, if the whole point is to make humanity, the bad guys have them winning doesn’t really diminish anything.
What if both sides ended up destroying eachother so much that they both must agree to a ceasefire for survival?
I'm not sure if that would be a bit too much of a downer ending. Reminds me of the build up to WW2 where it was less about keeping the peace for peace and more about both sides just trying to catch their breath to resume the war.
But your idea is a grounded way to get to that point of cease fire!
Thanks for watching Msmith! Liam
What if the Others are actually a response to the nonsense the Euron Greyjoy's upto (godhood by massacre), and they think the only way to stop it is to turn everyone undead to stop something even worse. It's not exactly original, but I can imagine it similar to the Reapers from Mass effect. One massively cruel act to prevent an even worse one from coming. Maybe the Prince that was promised could be given to the other's because he has some even more ancient magic to go whoop Euron when toggles god mode on. Probably an obvious theory, but it does give a bittersweet ending.
As for how the Long Night will end?
I think it's going to be some version of peace with the Others. I don't think that peace is going to hinge on making sacrifices to the Others or anything like that.
I think it will be more about finding a balance between the different spheres of civilization and magic, which I believe are connected to the seasons, which have obviously been out of balance for some time.
When you think about it every kind of magic that's on display in A Song of Ice and Fire is connected to some naturally occurring phenomena, such as fire, ice, water, flora and fauna. So the dynamics of magic in A Song of Ice and Fire are apparently the result of an interplay between people and the natural forces of the world they live in.
But without the balance of the seasons, these natural phenomena cannot occur or function at their natural frequencies.
I believe this imbalance of natural and supernatural forces is a key factor in the decline of magic and the chaotic nature of the seasons. The history of Planetos indicates that humans are the cause of this imbalance. By cutting down the weirwoods and decimating the elder races the humans weakened the natural forces that likely contribute to or even create the magic of Westeros.
The incursions of the Others seem to me like a reaction to the imbalance created by humans. The first Long Night occurred after The First Men took most of Westeros from the elder races, and is apparently the only reason humans don't control all of Westeros. It's a good bet that the first Long Night was ended by an arrangement between the First Men and the Others that satisfied the balance the First Men had compromised in the first place. And now that that arrangement seems to have been forgotten the Others have returned.
I don't think that Azor Ahai and or the Last Hero actually defeated the Others last time around. I think they only held them at bay long enough to broker a deal.
An imperfect deal that led to things like people being stranded north of The Wall and sacrificing babies to the Others.
I think the ideal resolution of A Song of Ice and Fire is Bran, Jon, and Daenerys making a better deal with the Others than the First Men. After putting up one hell of a fight to keep them at bay(and to satisfy the warmongers in the fan base).
And as for this perfect deal, I think that between the icy magic of the Others, and the fiery magic of the dragons, the balance of nature and civilization in Westeros that likely governs its magics could be achieved. Especially with someone like Jon in the mix, who can represent ice and fire (Stark and Targaryen).
Anyway that's all I've got. And I know I got pretty deep in the Weeds on this one, so I'm genuinely appreciative if you bothered to read this whole thing. 😊
The others want either Jon for his Statk blood or Lady Stoneheart to be the new ice queen. Both are already dead, so both might have to go (Caitlyn is going to hate being stuck with Jon for eternity)
I believe when the others are gone magic will cease and the world of ice and fire will slowly shape into ours
Ah so a little like middle earth? Not sure George would want to pay homage but i like the idea! Thanms for watching! Liam
Lightbringer could always be a metaphor kind of like the pen is mightier than the sword...
And the ink could have been nissa nissa's blood and the dawn could have been the contract or pactl that they made with the others that has been broken
07:16 Mollymauk Tealeaf is a great example of this.
Had to Google who that was 😂
Thanks for watching Bill! Liam
@@TheFandomeClips Some of your fans might know :) ty for looking it up. :D
strong belwas gets up and rolls through the undead like leto 2 falling off his platform DONE. think people will hate that ending as much as the show?
7:37 The fact that Rob took his entire army to the twins is one of the many dumb decisions Rob made that pisses me off
Blackfyre the sword must make a reappearance, only for it to be nothing important.
The Black Talks. They find a way to communicate with them, bring the Others to the peace talks, only to rain a Thousand Dragon Glass Arrows on them.
😂 well the living have definitely shown themselves to be capable of such shitty behaviour.
Thanks for watching Noek! Liam
So, i know its a bit silly, but i am kinda hoping for a "fairy tale"-ish ending of asoiaf. At least with Jon. Obviously assuming he comes back, and I'd prefer that the other Stark children live, but whatever my main focus is Jon.
(I also only say this as someone half way through the books myself, so bear with me)
Firstly, Jon is the Prince that is Promised, and through whatever means (barring baby sacrifice) the Others no longer exist as a problem. Everybody celebrates. "Hell yeah! We did it! More importantly, Jon did it. He brought us here. If not for him, all would be lost. He should be king!" Everybody agrees. Its unanimous, paralleling him to Aragorn. Unlike lotr:
Jon refuses.
He never wanted power, once he was in charge of the Watch, he tried getting two (historically hostile) groups together, and it al.ost immediately got him a mutiny and several stab wounds. So he walks away, shouting "by the gods, pick someone else!"
So they sit there, wonder who should rule them. Someone power hungry steps forward and is immediately shot down. "You seriously think you're as good as Jon? No? Then sit the hell back down." So they come to another unanimous agreement, with no one worthy willing to take the throne, then it shall sit empty until Jon or someone of similar character comes to take it. Or alternatively, they decide that the iron throne, a symbol of greed, ambition, unchecked power, conquest, murder, and death, maybe shouldn't exist as a seat of power any longer (possibly literally destroyed like say by dragon fire *cough cough*). Either way, the seven kingdoms become truly independent again, and are free from the often tyrannical seat of power above them, but also free to declare wars and plot against their former "allies" like the days before Aegon.
Would also accept Jon taking the throne only to be sooner or later taken out by some power hungry menace. The Others may no longer be a problem, but the Game continues.
Also a small part of me thinks it'll be a bit funny for "He subverts fantasy tropes." GRRM to instead go against what people expect of him for the conclusion. I just feel like there's a limit to where "real world-ism and trope subversion" can turn into narrative dissatisfaction, even if well built and well written.
Though i suppose i just want that bittersweet ending to land favoring the sweet side.
I think the Walkers might not necessarily want babies so much as they do just new members of their species. Castor always sent them his male children because he’s a real piece of work who wanted to keep his daughters around so he could… Well you know. I think there’s a possibility that in the event of a ceasefire, the Walkers could be given adults to be converted, either people willing and consenting or possibly on the more bitter side, dangerous criminals who would normally take the black
Not to be like, “uhm actually” but right off the bat you mentioned they are “dead anyways” in the books it’s very clear that they have anatomy. George has even said they are a “different kind of life” but not wholly dead like the wights they control.
Yeah, a lot of the show is gray, but there is some black and white. I think Jon Snow is a good guy. He makes mistakes, but his intentions overall is to save lives. Whereas Joffrey and Ramsey are both pretty evil with little to no redeeming qualities, or at least not enough to matter.
And making the white walkers pure evil does not diminish anything because they are a force of nature with no ability to reason, and they only seek to destroy so calling them pure evil is actually quite accurate.
Honestly I would prefer an ending where the Others win than one where Dany goes crazy and Bran becomes king.
As would we all Paul.......as would we all.....
Thanks for watching! Liam
If we go with the view of the Others and the army of the dead as some kind of allegory to climate and natural forces, I'm thinking that the savior or hero isn't someone who will WIN the war per se, but prevent the [climate/undead] catastrophe by convincing others to set their selfish goals aside. Or, possibly, failing to do that and just having a battle for survival.
I think you could be onto something there, I definitely think the saviour will at least try for peace, George is as much a hippie as he is a blood thirsty sadist lol.
Thanks for watching Viper! Liam
I miss Thom in the videos 😢❤
I think most, if not all, of Dream will concern the Invasion. This has been building since literally the first page-not Dany or Young Griff or Jon Targ or whoever will sit the Iron Throne. The Others are portrayed as a force of nature rather than a conventional threat. How do you fight a hurricane, let alone try to negotiate? The best you can do is prepare for the storm-something the people of Westeros have utterly failed to heed.
Here’s my whacky theory: the Others win. Westeros is reduced to a protectorate, the humans only being allowed to live to sustain the ranks. Bran is their puppet king as well as their partner as the Three Eyed Crow. Mankind must learn from their failures.
That is bloody dark Warlord 😳 but damn if I don't love the idea. Ethier way the living really need to take at least 1 major L in the books for the others to live up to the threat they've been hyped up to be thats for sure! Thanks for watching! Liam
What if George Reading Riting Martin just decides to write it exactly how D&D did it?like we all spent years clowning on D&D but really whats talking so long is George is astounded that they pieced it together word for word how he was gonna do it???? Now he doesnt want to seem like hes copying them????
We already now how it ends
The real song of ice and fire was the friends we made along the way
What if Jon has to give the Night's King, Danys dead body so she can be his Nights Quren. Then the pack starts over
The anti-war message of the books is how the civil war in westeros (which most of the text has been devoted to) undermined their ability to respond to collective threats like the Others (who really do hate all life, per GRRM's pitch letter in 1993). He hasn't put the Others on the page much because they're not complex characters comparable to the Lannisters.
GRRM said he wanted the ending to be bittersweet... explicitly citing what Tolkien did in Lord of the Rings in comparison. That did NOT end with any revelation that Sauron or Saruman had peaceful intentions, nor was there any pact/peace between the two sides. The baddies really were completely defeated in a giant war won by destroying a sort of magical MacGuffin.
The Others aren't ghouls, just consuming what's already dead. They kill Waymar Royce, and laugh while they do so. If that's not representative GRRM wouldn't have written that, or the later attack by the Others at the Fist of the First Men.
Alfred “the Fairly alright”
Could Dany tame Smaug?
What if Alistor Thorne was with Jon at hardhome instead of Ed as it would be way better that the lord commander and first ranger are there to broke peace (even though Thorne will kinda still be an ass) this would allow Thorne to see the dead and the mutiny would not happen, (and he wasn’t even part of it in the book), ut let’s just say he still gets stabbed by others who weren’t there, it junk there is a chance he could convince the nights watch wildling to fight together in the battle of the bastards as Ramsey is threatening to butcher them all (and should be illegal but not sure) and he’d have another seasoned commander to help him. I find this kinda funny for 1 reason house Thorne are Targaryen loyalist and Jon is a Targaryen it’d be funny as 💩 to see Thornes reaction when he finds out 😂
I'm still hiding out hope Thorne does find out in the books eventually 😂
Jon Marries the Night King?
Anything is possible Jonathan.........anything except the winds of winter being released in our lifetime!
Thanks for watching! Liam
I hope he goes for some sort of peace agreement with the others.
It sounds a lot more interesting than victory through an all-out war.
Perhaps instead of the living continuing to sacrifice babys, Perhaps "the chosen one" must sacrifice themselves
That seems to be the prevailing theroy. The Prince who was promised is a line of weasel wording. It never states who the Prince is promised to.
Thanks for watching! Liam
What if the prince that was promised was promised to the others/ww and becomes the new night's king and is a natural part of the other's life cycle and after he is sacrificed by marrying the nights Queen or whatever they return to peace for a few thousand years?
@michaeltalksaboutstuff did outline a really smart sollution, that involves the need to make piece with the Others, but at the same time ending their existence and in the end an entire shifting of tbe societal structures of westeros, probably abandoning the "old ways" of worshipping the Weirwoods & stuff
I hope it plays out almost exactly the same so we can all have a laugh.
😂
"I did it for the memes"
-GRRM
Thanks for watching Ron! Liam
@@TheFandomeClips The content would train would never stop!
Ceasefire is the most likely scenario.
I disagree that EVERYTHING is grey is ASOIAF. There are definitely characters who are truly evil: the Mountain, Joffrey, Ramsey, and Euron for examples. Ramsey we don't know much about before his mother brought him to Roose and Roose claimed him, but the others we have evidence that they were just always evil.
Gregor burned-off half of his brother's face when he was 11 or 12 years old, Joffrey gutted a cat when he was a young child (BTW, cruelty to animals is one of the 3 traits of the MacDonald Triad that are generally-accepted (GENERALLY, don't @ me) as being indications of future violent mental illness,) and he would do...... something to Tommen (the ambiguity about what Joffrey did to abuse Tommen, the fact that Tommen has never been able to tell anyone about it, and the fact that when he almost finally told someone when he started to tell Jaime only to immediately shut-down when Cersei arrived..... all imply we should assume the worst.)
And lastly EURON. It is heavily-implied that while still a young person, Euron sexually abused his brothers Aeron and Urrigon and would psychologically-torment them with that abuse as a kicker, and he killed 2 other brothers (Robin and Harlon) while young as well. There is of course raping his brother's wife, which considering Victarion's personality, he probably KNEW would lead to Victarion killing his wife, but he did it anyway, for the lolz and the evulz. And then of course there is the "planning a massive blood sacrifice, 3 of the victims of which will be his brother, the mother of his child, and said unborn child, in order to (he believes) awaken a Lovecraftian monster that will kill untold numbers more people and cause heretofore-unseen amounts of destruction and suffering."
So yes, while totally-good people might not exist in the ASOIAF universe (anymore at least, since Ned Stark is dead,) EVIL definitely does. I think it would not be out of line with the rest of the story for an entire continent of people and groups who are various shades of grey to have to fight-against a force of ultimate evil. It has been well-established that the Others represent the antithesis of humanity and life: cold, dark, silence, death. Maybe no matter how bad humanity can get (and they can get VERY bad,) the Others are EVEN WORSE because they are NOT human, they are a supernatural evil force that humanity has forgotten about and therefore forgotten that there is something even worse out there: the antithesis to life itself: death, cold, darkness, silence.
(I'm serious about the possibility of this, but so y'all know I realize how this sounds: this message paid for by The Money of the Servants of the Temple of the Lord of Light. The night is dark and full of terrors.)
You make some pretty good points mate 👍
When I think of those characters you mentioned though I do think there is a greyness to them in the sense their evil stems from influencing factors (they aren't just born evil and act evil for the sake of it)
Ramsey and Gregor are almost certainly both hardline on the ASPD spectrum (and so is Jofferys show iteration)
Ramsay is likely sociopathic and his behaviour has been influenced by his upbringing and I think Gregor going by his behaviour is potentially a born Pyschopath (as in he was born with abnormal qualities in his brain that prevents the experiencing of sensations like empathy)
Joffery in the books is a spoiled kid and the constant neglect from his father (Bobby B) had a profound impact on his need for approval (he cut open the cat thinking it would impress his father if I remember right) and to appear strong, formidable and powerful, which is why his evil acts are usually him trying to exert dominance over someone
Euron.................Euron..........oh bollocks, yep you've got me there 😂
4th! I feel like Book Stannis
The problem I have with grounded stories... is that they're more 'mundane' than actual reality. People want to say that reality is grounded and gritty, but it's only like that if you deliberately and blatantly ignore the downright regular miracles of all stripes that happen on the damn near regular.
That is in fact true my arcane adept! I think maybe gritty is a more apt term for the world of ice and fire! Thanks for watching as always matey! Liam
@@TheFandomeClips Your quite welcome, and if you want to see a seriously deep and fascinating rabbit hole, look up real life mysticism, it's hard to understand at first since all the actual records are generally crouched in story and symbolism, but if you can decipher it... it's insane and incredible stuff.
Records that go back to when humans stopped being animals and became people, the difference between left hand and right hand magic, otherwise known as Black and White magic or the Magic of Kings and the Magic of The Gods.
We have mystic explanations dating back thousands of years that are accurately predicting bleeding edge modern science.
My original idea was that Jon and Sam become rappers, Aegon 3000 and Big Boi, and form Outkast.
And as stupid as that was, it was not nearly as stupid as the show's finale.
EPIC!
😂 I don't why but whenever I say that word that effect just happens.
Thanks for watching Nathan! Liam
@@TheFandomeClips Thank you 🤗 really enjoy the videos and it's a great way to keep inside the world of ASOIAF since I promised myself I would not read the books AGAIN until Winds of Winter is anounced WITH a date 😒
Alt Shift X did a video some years back that theorized of an ancient pack between the starks and the white walkers that would need to be renewed to end the long night. From that I always imagined either Jon Snow or Bran Stark (probably Jon) having to give themselves up to the White Walkers as a sacrifice for humanity; possibly even becoming the Night King (we do know of a Night's king who tried to marry a white) and leading the walkers back up to the land of always winter. Then again that does clash with the idea that the wall never worked as you devised in last weeks video so maybe I'm blowing some smoke up my ass.
The others: -Here, I revived your grandma! No need to thank m....
The living: AAAAAHHH!
😂😂😂 brilliant that gave me a good chuckle, I hear all puddles wanted to do was give people a hug 🤗 thanks for watching Ledanoir! Liam
Ive got an idea (it might be a bit overt but ive only seen the show so i apologize if i mess something up)
For this we need to look to the origins of the others - they were created from the first men by the children of the forest to protect them against the men. What if the others true goal is getting back to their human state - finding a cure. My idea is they break through the wall somehow and one of the walkers a new one preferably made from the babies from Crasters for example as they have been taken to some sort of wierd ceremony which i assume makes them either into others (or experiment subjects for them so they can find out how to reverse it), is healed by the obvious choice - Bran and during the "fixing" which would probably consist of removing teh Dragonglas from the others inside it catches fire and explodes thus lightbringer and the turned other could be the prince that was promised as in convincing all the rest of the others to get fixed as well, now to the bitter part because the others are healed not destroyed the whites dont fall apart but gain a mind of their own and once all the others are healed its realized that now they have a gigantic horde of whites that know what they are doing and as barely intelligent undead probably want to destroy what is living but not in a zombie horde kind of way - in a silent attack at night invisible kind of way or take revenge upon the ones that were hurting them - the nights watch and the wildlings. They could be defeated with the complete eradication of the Nights watch, healed others and ALL wildings and ofc sizeable casualties of the north. Thus the others are given greyness the prophecies kinda come true and a bittersweet ending achieved
I think with its anti war messages and how grrm writes his charaters which arent all good but also not fully bad. Morraly grey. Even the most righteous people make dark choices. The lesson is balance the both extremes. So i think its gonna be all out war, the living win, but find out the walkers need to exist for the world to function and remain in balance. And jon sacrifices himself to become the new night king. He becomes the prince that was promised/azor ahai, but not for the living for the others.
What if the white walker/others exist as a force to create change and prevent stagnation?
I've seen that idea floated around. Almost like the others are less a race in their own right and more of a personified force of nature.
We'll never know until we get those last two books though.........so I guess we're never going to know 😂
Thanks for watching Mr Smith! Liam
@@TheFandomeClipsDo you think a balrog or ring wraith be able to defeat a white walker?
Wellllllll.......... Given The Night King doesn't exist in the Books it's going to be completely different that past is obvious
There is a character in the books called "The Night's King" but he's a completely different character than the one some people are thinking of
Ok, I'm going to make sure I copy this comment when I'm done with it to not lose it this time.
Saying D&D did what George will makes me physically ill, so let's not go there. As for doing the same, George might, it'd be vaguely funny to see the online reaction, but uh, no.
10 to 20 of 1000? Makes sense. As for what the Others want... yeah, no comment because I can't say shit. Not surprised that this is the most we can say about it because it's such a mystery that I don't think George even knows yet.
Show ending, Tywin forces Cersei to marry the Night King ending, and the ending that probably hits too close to home for me. Let's go.
Those maybes all work. Bran's part might also be to see how they won the first time and then he uses his Greeneer abilities. This ending it very good but, and I'm still at the why it's good part btw, given how anti war George is, I doubt it'll be the end. That little part of the Red Wedding I did not know. It makes sense to have to have the deaths set in stone. The deaths of Robb and Cat were perfect and they needed to happen.
I knew it. I knew this'd be the why it doesn't work. Goes against George's ideas. No comment on war is bad, I think you know why. Also, George not giving us what we want? Adds up with him not giving us Winds. Not gonna lie, that rug pull of "Oh, they were actually peaceful all along" is kind of... I dunno, weak? Not sure how else to put it.
Show Jon is Azor Ahai and I will not accept any other answer. Would be a funny subversion if he does go with this though, not gonna lie.
"You're my daughter! You will do as I command and you will marry the Night King."
Jokes aside, yes, just skip to the thoughts because it does not work. If we're going with realism... uh, no what, not going there because if I talk about how I feel about war... moving on.
This might work. I've seen an idea where the Great Other agreed not to attack so long as a Stark was King of Winter but when Torrhen knelt to Aegon who wanted to join the Kingdoms to fight the Others, the Others now can attack.
Cultural misunderstanding? Heh, not gonna lie, that'd be kind of funny. I'm gonna say maybe it's a means of survival. They have only a handful of Others that exist and, in order to get what they need, they started reanimating the dead to form an army to be able to attack the living. Maybe the original Long Night was purely Others vs The Living and when the Others were beaten, their numbers were reduced so badly they never fully recovered, leaving them a fraction of what they once were, and now they have to reanimate the dead to form the army they need to attack for whatever reason they have (probably lack of resources).
Bran being the king to communicate with the Others... know what, better than "Who has a better story than Bran the Broken?". Then again, a literal wet fart would've been better than that. You know, I really should've expected all the war talk before I went in here. Not bothered by it btw, just hits home.
So, for the slight counterarguments to the beginning: I say the wights attack the living because they have no mind of their own. Taking a page out of the Scourge from World of Warcraft, if they aren't guided, they go off instinct and their instinct is to fight and "live". As for sadistic fucks? If we go with the Others were driven to near extinction by humanity, well, just a case of revenge. Plus, if the Others have a distorted sense of time like I said in the comment that disappeared (hate it when that happens), maybe they think this is one of the survivors who ended their race.
Oh, continual sacrifice of babies? I mean, feels like it fits the tone, but yeah. Maybe it's just a set amount of babies that need to be given so they can repopulate their race after humanity wiped them out? Eh, maybe a bit too much, never mind.
Also, where did you get that Jon and Night King holding hands thing?
I vaguely remember Aragorn wiping out a bunch of orcs in his reign, so... uh, I think we know his border patrol policies.
That last bit of Prince who was Promised? Gonna go with Jon becomes the Night King and holds the Others at bay with his force of will until it runs out. Let's go with that.
Loved the vid, great stuff.
George complaining about not knowing l the tax policies of Aragon also seemed like such a nit pick to me. 1 that’s not what the book was about and two you could do the same thing to his books.
I personally never liked Martin's take on how LotRs ended. He wants political depth to the story, when that isn't the moral story involved. I mean, take the Others. If they weren't just a forgotten legend, but an active threat beyond the wall for hundreds of years, the political depth would be lessened because they have an actual threat to deal with.
And his criticism on how Aragorn would rule dont really matter because its at the end of the story. Should we spend a whole book learning about how the final ruler of Westeros governed the land?
ah, always nice to see another Indoctrination Theory connoisseur
I think the war will end in a some sort of revelation of the entire thing being built on a misunderstanding of history and motives, and then a war resulting in the extinction of the Others. A peace treaty or negotiated peace might happen instead, but I think that'd be very hard to pull off in a satisfying way and it'd lessen the costs of the misunderstanding that caused the war in the first place.
I absolutely loved those games. The Indoctrination Theory was the only way I could reconcile that bloody ending until the extended cut came and ruined it 😂
I definitely agree with you about peace been an exceptionally hard thing to pull off, I think its a big part of why George seems to be struggling so much to make progress. He can't tie all his threads together beyond just having the others attack in force and rendering all the conflicts of the living as irrelevant.
Thanks for watching as always my tactical sea mammal! Liam
Thing is we know Aragorn is a good king and has an age of peace and prosperity because he is blessed by Eru the actual god of the LOTR universe. Gandalf a servant of that god crowned him, Tax policy: Same as Gondor's before. Faith policy: worship of the Valar and Eru like Numenor before and what all good races worship. Border policy? Well he takes back the old Arnor lands, let's Rohan continue to be ruled by Eomer, allows Mordor to be run by the now former slaves there and he forces Rhun and Harad into vassal status to him after warring with them.
People forget Aragorn was a chieftain of the last dunedain rangers in the north, educated and raised by Elrond to be a leader and king. So ruling Gondor is a task he has been raised to do soon childhood.
The fact no white walkers actually fought in the final battle vs the deliberately distributed valerian steel swords was absolutely shocking. We saw them so deliberately stole, gifted, made into two, etc etc and yet no single white walker encountered anybody in the battle. Just whytes vs gay dragon glass. Ridiculous!!!! It made the whole John killing one in hand to hand combat for nothing! Why Sam stole his dads blade is beyond me. Arghhhhh!!!!! Ridiculous!!!!
Khal Drogo vs Westeros when
Its in the works buddy, north is up first and its a gigantic video that will likely touch up to the hour mark
Thanks for watching! Liam