"Rank in order who you think will win the Iron Throne. " Topic

Each different choice you give will necessarily demand a different plot line.
So, here are mine.

1. Aegon Targaryen, ne Jon Snow
2. Danaerys Targaryen

The above assumes conflict once they both realize that Dany is his Auntie.

3. Both. They got over it.

4. Tyrion "Lannister". Maybe Lord Tywin meant it when he cursed the Imp with "You are no son of mine! Arrrrrgh….."

5. Gendry. I've thought for a long time that he's Cersei's firstborn. The tough little black haired baby whose body she never saw. This already skippered the witch's prophecy, but isn't in the books. So he's a Baratheon. And Dany or Jon/Aegon can legitimize him. After all, the Stormlands need a Lord, and Gendry and Stannis are ineligible being dead. Not that that matters if you are an Author's Favorite. In addition, the Baratheon line claims descent from a possible illegitimate son of Aegon the Conqueror.

6. The Night King. His line goes further back than the Targaryens. Is he a Stark?

7. Sansa. By the Old Gods and the New, she's absolutely gorgeous!

8. Arya. Badass.

9. Sam.

10. The field. Bronn, Edd, Hotpie, Podrick, Sandor Clegane…

Dear Editor. Please run this before April 14. It would be kind of pointless to run it in July.

Vote totals can rank the odds.
We will of course be wrong.

How about everyone dies so we never have to hear about it every again.

For Gendry to be plausible, we need a strange plot with obscure intentions.
Step forward Lord Varys. Job well done.

Morgoth.

What if Dany and Jon have a child?… have he/she more rights to the throne than Gendry?….

I suspect that Tyrion made a deal with his pregnant sister…

Sansa can married Gendry… another throne posibility…

Did Bronn go to war with his Lannister friend to the North…?

Arya has some job pending…

Amicalement
Armand

You are all speaking in tongues.

The Wall?

Whoever actually "wins" only wins for as long as he or she can hold the throne. A real victory is one in which the military winners set up a system in which all of the factions benefit more from recognizing the king in the south as an emperor than from trying to capture the throne themselves.

I'm not sure the author is up for writing those particular concluding chapters.

If he doesn't, though, he might as well end the series the same way Eddison ended The Worm Ouroboros.

Who cares, I don't watch Lord of the Thrones.

Who cares, I don't watch Lord of the Thrones.

Thank you so much for your friendly helpful contribution.

Thats ok John, you don't mind having your say on something that does not interest you so thought I'd return the favour. lol

The Night King. It just seems to fit with how dark and depressing that world is.

Jorah Mormont.

The Mountain.
He kills everyone and "wins" by default.

Do you mean the tv series or the books?

No doubt who "wins" in the forthcoming tv shows will not do so in the final books………… the next of which will no doubt appear shortly after the final televised episode.

I rather think that Mr Martin will let the tv shows finish to great acclaim and then say "now this is what really happened".
What a great way to sell even more books and make loads more money……….. or an I just being cynical??

Either way I can't wait for both the final tv series and the next book.

Dany dies, Jon just walks away from it all.

Tyrion would make the perfect hand.

Sansa with Arya to back her up with lethal force ninja assassin style while Bron or the Hound if his redemption continues gets to be head of the Queen's guard.

Tyrion will survive because he drinks and knows things, and he will turn out to be a Targaryen (he did get along with the dragons). Sansa will survive as she learned well from the intrigue she has experienced. The white walkers will kill Jamie, Bron, and John (but John will kill the dragon white walker). Dany will die in the big battle between her and Cersie's forces. Arya will seem to die, only to appear at the end and off Cersei. Gendry is dead meat. Sam will offer up an important tidbit to seal the demise of the white walkers. Bran will wander off to join a tree and serve to only explain things about John and Tyrion. The Dragons will all die. Dany and Johns love child will be protected by the Hound and rise to be the new ruler.

What a great way to sell even more books and make loads more money……….. or an I just being cynical??

If you ignore the making money part, books and tv are two different media and lend themselves to different types of storytelling, which tends to also lead to telling different stories. So there is certainly something on the non-profit motive side to be said for telling the best story you can in a given medium, independent of correlation across the media.

The two stories have already had enough deviation to whip people (well, OK, the Internet …) up into an outrage over the differences. Do we think Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was a sell-out for reviving Holmes? Before he killed him he explicitly journaled that doing so was personally necessary and possibly fiscally suicidal. Other media do this all the time.

In the end, very little of human behaviour can be clarified down to a single, simple motivation. People's lives are complex, and their personalities even more so. In the end, there were probably multiple criteria that drove Martin to make the choices he did about the stories, criteria that both caused and reacted to the changes.

Too cynical? Nah … I think you would be naïve to think money played no part in the writing decisions of a professional writer. If might be a bit oversimplified to take a position on either extreme of its influence.

Oberindes Sol LIC: That same thought occurred to me as well. Or some variation on the theme.

John "Hannibal" Smith
He has a plan and he loves it when it comes together.
Sure it would require HBO to clone and age George Papard but it would be worth it.
Faceman makes perfect Hand. BA would be a just military commander (he pitties the fo)
And Howling Mad Murdoch could easily handle the dragons with his piloting skills.

What about the people of the Iron Islands…?

Amicalement
Armand

The two survivors show little future in the required "breeding a new heir" department.

Meh? Bubba?

Hodor

Sansa has received a real education in How to be a Queen.
Lessons in what not to do from Cersei. She also got some helpful advice from her.
Littlefinger was also helpful in opposite ways.
Seeing her in action running Winterfell and the North in Jon's absence was reassuring.

Danaerys is very close to being a true Targaryen tyrant, if she isn't one already.
Jon just wants to brood.
If those two take each other out, I'm rooting for Good Queen Sansa, with Tyrion as Hand and Brienne as Lord Commander of the Queen's Guard.

I don't think that the show and the books will have different endings. They will just take a different path to arrive at the same ending. Benioff and Wise, and Martin have said as much.
But for the vast majority, the show will be Canon. The books will not. I've said they will be fanfic in the past, but that was unkind. The books will simply not have the same relevance. Like that has never happened with books and movies before.

11) What's an Iron Throne?

Looks itchy.

1. Aegon Targaryen, ne Jon Snow
2. Danaerys Targaryen

The above assumes conflict once they both realize that Dany is his Auntie.

I would bet that he is the first son of…

Robert Baratheon

Who I believe raped his mother in a drunken rage and she went to Rhaegar Targaryen for protection.

Ned Stark knew this and is why he did not want to serve Robert and as Ser Arthur Dayne stated knew that if this got out there would be war.

Just look at Jon Snow hair and the fact that Ned found out about the Baratheon's.

They only have dark hair.

So yes your first 2 are correct and they will rule for many years as King & Queen.

So that would be a…

3

The books will give us the true version – and the one long remembered. About 5 years after the books are complete look for a screen remake which will cause the current TV show to fade into a curiosity.

But who will sit the Iron Throne – Martin perdictors have a mixed track record but do seem to have gotten Jon's parents correct.

Tyrion remains a wild card and my have Targaryen blood. He seems like a survivor type. Jon an heroic death type. Dany & Sansa also seem like survivor types but as Dany is too predictable an outcome so I'd hedge my bets. On the other hand do not discount Dany + Jon on throne Targaryen marry their kin all the time (or did see Fire & Blood – a great read by the way).

Fun to see if it will be the same on book & screen. Either way what a fantastic run it has been (and will be for years to come). If you don't know what an Iron Throne is – I envy you go to a book store buy A Game of Thrones and start reading – your in for the literary ride of your life.

TomT

Hot Pie for the win.

I'm with Gearpilot, The dead win, I think George R R Martin is just pessimistic enough in his allegory( for climate change?) that the squabbling short sightedness of much of the living to unify and address the commmon cause will be the death of all.

That is why he won't finish the books. He knows Cassandras don't often succeed (or sell books) but he still knows what the ending should be.

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