A Song of Ice and Fire by George R.R. Martin has gained lots of fans from the time the first book in the series, A Game of Thrones, has been published in 1998. In the last two years, after the Game of Thrones series was released, that fan base grew even larger. Even though there are many fans of the series who won’t be bothered by reading the books, there are plenty of those who wanted to see more details and learn more about the world of Westeros, and it’s aristocracy – House Lannister, House Stark, House Targaryen, and others, and those indulged in the books.
A Song of Ice and Fire is far from over
Unfortunately, only five of the planned seven have been published so far. George R. R. Martin is known for not being a book worm who has no life outside his writing, so many fans sometimes feel outraged when he chooses to visit a comicon rather than sit in his room and write the books all day long. It took 6 years between the publishing of A Feast for Crows and A Dance with Dragons.
Now, the hardcore fans had nothing better to do while expecting the next installment in the series to come out than to re-read the books that were already out. When you first read a story, it’s easy to rush ahead to see what happened, so you might miss a lot of details that are important. George R.R. Martin is a master of such details. When re-reading the books, you come across many details that make sense only after you know what happens in the following books.
Since there are still two books to come out, The Winds of Winter, and A Dream of Spring, we are left with many cliffhangers. Never mind if you are a fan of the series, or the books, or both, you should be aware that George takes a lot of time to create the credible and realistic characters and story that we like so much, but also that he is coming to an age now, and that he loves his fast food. The worst nightmare of the fans is that he will die before he finishes the story. We hope that will not happen.
But even if it (God forbid) does, there are so many fan made theories that someone else could easily finish the story for him. We doubt it would be as ingenious, but it definitely would be interesting.
Popular fan made theories
If you are a fan of the Game of Thrones series who has no plan on reading the books, and doesn’t want to hear any spoilers, you should stop reading. Don’t say you weren’t warned!
Now that we are passed the warning, we can start with the first, and most interesting, theory. Jon Snow, a favorite character of many fans, is known as the bastard son of the noble Ned Stark. This is where the problem begins. Lots of fans wonder how someone as noble and just as Ned Stark would cheat on his bride so soon after the wedding. Also, nowhere in the book does Ned say that Jon Snow is his son – he always says that Jon is of his blood.
In A Game of Thrones, when Ned is left in the dark of the dungeon, he thinks of the past, he dreams, and eventually he hallucinates. So, we find out how the rebellion that made Robert Baratheon a king was made because Ned’s sister and Robert’s fiance, Lyanna, was supposedly kidnapped by Rhaegar Targaryen, Mad King Aerys II’s son. She died in the bed of blood, making Ned swear something to her.
So, the theory is that Lyanna was not kidnapped, but rather fell in love with Prince Rhaegar, and they had a baby. Since Robert Baratheon hated Rhaegar, Lyanna made Ned promise to protect the child knowing she will die after giving the childbirth. Ned Stark, being an honorable man and a good brother, raised that child, Jon Snow, as his own son.
The second theory concerns Ser Sandor Clegane, Joffrey Baratheon’s Hound. After the Battle of the Blackwater, the Hound escaped. During his wanderings across the Westeros, he meets Arya and takes her so he could ransom her from her mother Catelyn Stark, and brother Robb Stark. After that attempt fails, he tries to take her to Riverrun. He gets wounded in a fight, but instead of killing him, Arya just leaves him lying next to a tree. Everyone believes him dead.
Now, Brienne of Tarth is also wandering the Westeros, trying to find Sansa and Arya Stark. She comes to a little island where silent monks live. She sees a tall man in a hood who digs graves for all the victims of the war, and she also sees Hound’s fierce horse in the stables held by those monks. The main monk tells her how he found the Hound dying, and Hound told him the story of his life.The fans think that Sandor Clegane managed to tell too much of his story before he died, so they think that he’s not dead at all. He might be that silent monk who was digging graves, and he will still have a lot to do until the story of A Song of Ice and Fire is told.
Yet another theory concerns Sandor Clegane’s brother, Ser Gregor Clegane, The Mountain that Rides. He was killed in a fight with Prince Oberon of Dorne. However, many fans doubt that this is completely true. It is known that Maester Qyburn, Cersei Lannister’s man, was stripped of the Maester’s title for dealing with dark magic and performing experiments on people who were still alive to research death. Fans believe he used his fascination with death and dark magic to use Gregor’s body to create an undead, similar to wights created by the Others. After Cersei’s walk of shame, she is taken by a huge knight in armor. Nobody sees his face, and that is suspicious, since Gregor Clegane’s skull was supposedly sent to Dorne.
There are a few other theories as well, also not as developed. For example, that Coldhands, an undead who took Bran Stark, Hodor, Meera and Jojen Reed to the Children of the Forest, is actually Benjen Stark. Or that Yaqen H’ghar is now at the Citadel in the Oldtown, where maesters are trained.
We can’t discuss all these theories in detail here, but if you have read the books, feel free to tell us what you think of these fan made theories.
