Day 26. 52 pages, 24,048 words.

I recently wandered back onto Usenet through Google Groups, before the whole thing gets dropped off the Internet altogether. They’ve been saying this is going to happen for a long time and it doesn’t seem to have happened yet.

Anyway, it’s pretty quiet but I did notice that there had been a recent post to this thread in our ancient nemesis-newsgroup, rec.arts.sf.written.robert-jordan. The thread had ended up on Reddit and one of the denizens of rec.arts had thrown it back onto the newsgroup out of that special brand of bloody-minded compulsiveness that made me love them.

The original thread was from early 1998. George RR Martin’s A Clash of Kings came out in late 1998. It contains theories of how the A Song of Ice and Fire series was going to go, and it’s pretty interesting. Here is the Reddit summary, with my comments.

Spoilers, obviously, for those predictions that turned out to be right. And no, I am not covering the spoilers up.

R+L=J

Yes, everyone saw Jon being Rhaegar and Lyanna’s secret (and probably-consensual-sex-borne) lovechild coming. It hasn’t happened yet, though, so I’m holding out hopes that it won’t because I seem to be one of the only people who find the plot point boring and stupid.

SanSan

Sansa Stark and Sandor Clegane looked like being a thing for a while, then it wasn’t. I guess there’s still hope for them in some sense, given that I doubt the Hound is dead yet.

Jeyne Poole will become a hooker

This doesn’t seem to have happened, unless you count “being told to pretend to be Arya Stark and get married off to the Mountain” as “becoming a hooker”. Or am I completely mixing her storyline up with someone else?

It was a Westerling, wasn’t it, who married Robb Stark in the books? Jeyne Westerling? The implication was that she was the granddaughter of Maeggie the Frog? Something like that? And Jeyne Poole was being passed off as Arya?

Dany will start her conquest at the Eyrie

Hasn’t happened yet, but would make sense and be very cool. It would also allow us to see Sweetrobin getting incinerated.

Sansa will get killed while in captivity, like Lyanna (Lady’s death being foreshadowing)

Again, hasn’t happened yet and her improvement in the last book might make this less likely. Certainly less positive.

Jon will have children, possibly with Dany

Oh, they loved Jon + Daenerys so much in the Nineties. So very, very much. So very, very not caring that Daenerys is Jon’s aunt if the R+L=J plot is for real.

Ser Barristan knows of R+L=J so he will go help Jon

Well, he most certainly did this, after being fired by Cersei and Joffrey. There’s no sign of him knowing about Jon Snow, although he would have known “the real Rhaegar” and he did go to Daenerys.

Rhaegar did not rape Lyanna, it was a consensual relationship

See “R+L=J”.

Howland Reed will come into play later because he knows who Jon’s real parents are

We were waiting for this to happen ever since Jojen and Meera turned up, but it didn’t. Maybe Bran will now find out the truth, and tell Jon somehow. Although his communication is limited, maybe from warg to warg it will work.

Bran will learn magic

Yep. Well … sort of.

Bran will learn magic and will cure Dany of her fertility problems

Hasn’t happened yet and it looks doubtful.

The Night’s Watch will get wiped out (in ACOK), allowing for Jon to have kids

Sort-of-kind-of in the process of happening, but certainly didn’t happen in A Clash of Kings.

The Night’s Watch will ally themselves with Mance Rayder to fight the Others

This happened. Sort of.

Targs are immune to fire

Daenerys turned out to be immune, one time. Not sure if she is all the time. Actually I’m pretty sure she’s not.

Varys will attempt to put a Targ on the throne again

This certainly seems to be the case. Varys has turned out to have a large collection of Targaryen understudies to pick from.

Jon will get abandoned north of the Wall and will join Mance

This happened. Although “abandoned”, not so much.

The Night’s Watch and The Wildlings will be turned into Others that will invade the south

This would be awesome, but hasn’t happened. Maybe now Jon is “dead”, or at least recovering from terrible wounds or warged out in some way, they can do this with everyone else at the Wall. Or Jon can go Coldhands and lead the way.

Lyanna was raped by Rhaegar

Slight variation on “R+L=J”, we still don’t really know.

Joffrey, Sansa, and Cat will die in ACOK

Two out of three, albeit not in A Clash of Kings.

Jon will need to ask Robb for help against the Others. So, Robb will either sign a peace treaty, or will win the War of Five Kings extremely quickly

Well this didn’t even remotely happen.

Robb will make peace with Tywin by exchanging hostages. Robb will then fight the Others while Tywin fights the Baratheon brothers

Robb will die before the Others attack

Done and done.

Tywin will defeat Stannis and Renly and will force all POWs to join the Night’s Watch to help against the Others

That would be cool, if Tywin gave two short sharp shits about the Others and the Night’s Watch. Instead, he gave them a few prisoners from the black cells, Stannis defeated Renly and went to fight the Others and burn new and interesting people.

Tyrion will overthrow Tywin

LOL.

By book 3 Dany will be in Westeros

LOL.

Dany will align herself with House Martel after she lands

Could happen, they seem to hate Lannisters at least as much as she does. And with later books and the introduction of Doran Martell and Oberyn’s Sand Snakes, this is a very interesting mix. And they’re south / fire / reptiles, so that works.

Joffrey will die in book 3 after Tywin trades Joffrey for Jaime. If not Joffrey will get killed by the Lannisters regardless

No trade, and not by Lannister hands, but Joffrey did die. I call this a pretty easy one, though.

Roose Bolton will end up being a problem for the Lannisters

Not so much. Although having him as an ally – indeed, having him as anything but a corpse – might still classify as him “being a problem”.

Robb will get sellswords to sack Casterly Rock

Didn’t happen. How was Robb going to afford sellswords anyway? It would be too much a copy of Daenerys’s storyline (not that auguries of 1998 knew this).

Yoren will return Arya to Robb

Oh, bless him. He tried.

Tyrion will kill Tommen, Joffrey, and Tywin

One out of three. Although he has been blamed for pretty much everything that happened to all three of them.

Robb will sack Casterly Rock, drawing Tywin out. Tywin will leave King’s Landing unguarded, allowing Renly or Stannis to swoop in

Afraid not.

As a side note, look at how many of these predictions are about Robb Stark doing things. This was what happened around A Clash of Kings, when Ned was dead and people still didn’t realise Martin was going to kill everyone. “Oh, he wasn’t the hero, it must be the son.”

Tyrion will get framed for either the death of Joffrey or Tommen

Done.

Tyrion will get rid of Janos Slynt

Done. And it was glorious.

Jon isn’t a bastard and Lyanna married Rhaegar

See “R+L=J”.

Jon will fuck Cat and have a child with her

Oh dear God.

Although technically, in the books this could still happen.

Ser Hugh poisoned Jon Arryn under Cersei’s orders. Lysa knew about it but did nothing to stop it

Hmm, no. No, not really.

The legitimate child of a bastard gets the non-bastard parent’s last name

So if Jon Snow marries Auntie Daenerys, the kid would be Eddard (or possibly Rhaegar) Targaryen? Makes sense, because otherwise (unless bastards never married) there would be a whole lot of people called “Snow” or “Waters” who everyone would assume are bastards but are in fact legitimate.

In fact, how does that work? I assume bastards marry non-bastards at some point. Or maybe they marry bastards from other areas. Who keeps their name when a Stone and a Sand get married?

And is this whole weird system just for nobles anyway? Or do commoners have this legitimacy system as well? I think they do, but I’m not sure.

Varys killed Jon Arryn

Nope, Littlefinger and Lysa. Let’s not rule out the possibility that Varys masterminded it, though. Or that Lysa is actually Varys in disguise.