Breaking Game of Thrones
By: Leo Charles M.
Tags: Game of Thrones, Televison, Fantasy, Essay, Books

I have a bad feeling about this

It has been a long time since the last book in this series was released. A Dance With Dragons hit shelves in 2011, which is a decade ago, wtf, and since then we’ve gotten nearly 80 TV episodes, a couple vanity projects and history books, but not much else. Fans of the novels still wonder when, if ever, we’ll get the final installments of this series.

The last dance

I believe we should stop waiting and give up on this series altogether. George R.R. Martin will not finish the series. He may never even release Winds of Winter, that’s how deep a hole he’s written himself into.

Now if you’ve read my lengthy essay on Rhaegar and Lyanna you might have some idea where I’m going with this. I would recommend giving that a read before continuing this essay, as my following assumptions might be jarring otherwise.

The most important thing to take away from that essay is that I assert the foundation of the entire series is R + L = J. There are dozens of storylines and scores of characters with more going on than any single storyteller could ever keep track of, but none of the saga ever gets written if it weren’t for the relationship between Prince Rhaegar and Lyanna.

Reverse engineering the series from that singular moment is necessary to explain virtually everything else that happens in GoT, and indeed the books are slowly lifting the veil of mystery surrounding this situation.

Math with letters, what is this?

I acknowledge that the show seems to disagree, and frankly I don’t blame them. The Jon in the show had to play too many characters from the books to keep track of them all, anyway. Having him play “Aegon” is silly and nonsensical. Think about it: if Lyanna named her son Aegon, that would mean both of Rhaegar’s sons would be named Aegon, as he already had one by that name with his wife Elia Martell, right? So, expecting Jon to have a satisfying ending while not really even telling his own story is too much to ask from any storyteller, let alone flunky hacks like D & D.

Personally I believe Lyanna gave birth to twins, but that’s not the point.

The point isn’t “who is Aegon” for me at least, rather, why would Rhaegar and Lyanna get married in secret? The longer this question has gone unanswered, the more I’m afraid there is no satisfying answer out there. And what’s worse, I fear George realizes it.

He’s had enough time to figure out by now that he cannot have it both ways: he cannot have R + L = J be the foundation of GoT and have them fall in love and elope, which is where the story seems to be heading.

Rhaegar is in the “finding out” stage here

George has admitted that he’s not the kind of writer who likes to know the ending before he writes the story. He considers his process like that of a gardener, planting characters and watching them grow into plot. It’s an interesting way to draft a story and has a lot of applications in a writer’s room. However, this method of writing usually leaves you at a disadvantage when crafting a satisfying ending to an epic.

I feel confident opining that GRRM did not have a solid ending in mind when he began publishing these books. If he did, he almost certainly does not have one anymore.

Now at this point you’re thinking, okay Leo, if you’re so smart and good looking, why don’t you fix this mess?

No. I don’t want to. Don’t get me wrong, I could. It’s actually a very simple fix, but I don’t like it.

The story supports a basic change away from how it was told in the shows that could right the ship. My problem is that it’s a horrible, awful alteration that I am pretty sure GRRM intended when he first started writing, but has since changed his mind about…

Okay fine, I’ll tell you, because obviously it’s the only reason I wrote this essay, but I just want it to be clear that I hate this.

Rhaegar and Lyanna cannot be allowed to elope. Rhaegar has to kidnap Lyanna after their little tryst at The Inn at the Crossing, and he has to impregnate her illegitimately.

When Rhaegar took Lyanna away from the Inn someone noticed it and sold that information to a young Littlefinger, who then weaponized it by handing it over to Brandon Stark, Ned and Lyanna’s older brother. Perhaps Lyanna actually wanted to runaway and fall in love with Rhaegar at first, but that doesn’t matter in the end. What matters most is that Rhaegar had to keep Lyanna against her will.

I know how much this sucks, but if it helps at all I’m 99% sure that’s how GRRM wrote it initially. Yeah, I know it doesn’t help.

If we can go back to assuming Rhaegar didn’t really love Lyanna as much as he just wanted to use her for her good breeding, Robert’s Rebellion makes sense again. It makes sense that Rhaegar would keep her away from King’s Landing, even in the midst of a world war. It makes sense that House Stark would go to war against House Targaryen to save Lyanna, rather than celebrate her new position as princess in the King’s court. What if Rhaegar won the war and killed Ned and Robert, how could he return to Lyanna and expect her to love him knowing his actions resulted in the deaths of her father and two brothers?

It even makes sense that an imprisoned and isolated young woman would die of complications at childbirth, rather than surrounded by the best medical care a Prince of House Targaryen could afford. As much as I hate the message of this plot point, you cannot change it without usurping the entire saga’s world building.

cute

There will be backlash for this revelation, of course. Fans of the show have seen the lovely images of riverside nuptials thanks to Bran’s green sight and you cannot un-ring that bell.

So GRRM has come to this dilemma, knowing he cannot go forward with the story as it is and paralyzed to return to the way it once was. Thus, I believe we will never get the finale to this series as long as GRRM lives, and maybe it’s better that way.