I was pissed off for a full three days when Oberyn Martell got his skull crushed by the Mountain in this past season of Game of Thrones. Oh wait, was that a spoiler? Sorry not sorry I don’t feel bad for telling you that; this post is OBVIOUSLY one giant spoiler since we’re about to tell you who was supposed to live/die in George R.R. Martin’s original outline for A Song of Ice and Fire. Granted, the original outline has a STOOPID amount of changes from the current story we’ve come to know, but something tells me that the general end-game (i.e. who makes it through to the end of the series) probably isn’t that much different. I mean, you can’t have EVERYONE die and leave the series with fucking Brienne and Podrick wandering around, and I’m going to throw my Nook out a goddamn window if Sam lives and Jon Snow doesn’t.
But I’m beginning to ramble, and when that happens I need to cut myself off early or else you’ll be subjected to something like 5 pages of me whining about shit I can’t change.
So let’s cut to the point.
UK book retailer Waterstones (courtesy of Harper Collins UK) posted George R.R. Martin’s original outline for A Song of Ice and Fire onto Twitter yesterday. Because the world is an unfair and cruel place the tweet has been taken down, which leads me to believe that someone over at HC was like “Hmm oh wait, maybe let’s NOT leak shit” and then backtracked. Lucky for us, Variety managed to get a look at it and break down the biggest differences between the series we’ve currently come to know and what could have been:
Via Uproxx because they did a nice job summarizing and I’m not gonna sit here and write a third-hand summary,
1. The most surprising one was a love triangle between Arya Stark, Jon Snow, and Tyrion. In the original outline, Jon Snow fell in love with his half-sister, Arya, and that love was reciprocated. Their love was “tortured,” however, because of Snow’s celibacy pledge as a Night Watchmen (at least until Jon Snow’s true parentage was revealed in the final book).
No. Just so much “no” in this.
2. In the original outline, Robb Stark is killed on the battlefield in a showdown with Joffrey, who is maimed in the battle, which was the powder keg in the war between the Houses. It is Joffrey’s uncles, Jamie and Tyrion, however, that ultimately killed Robb Stark. Tyrion then burned Winterfell to the ground.
I could live with this going on, but Robb Stark is just such a better character than Joffrey that seeing him die at the hands of that little fuckwit would be soul-crushing. Also, the Red Wedding was badass…albeit still soul-crushing.
3. So fed up with the antics of Joffrey, Tyrion has him “removed” from the crown. Jamie Lannister then kills everyone ahead of him who has a claim on the throne and takes it over, blaming all the murders on Tyrion, who is exiled.
This is probably the most interesting out of all the changes, purely because Tyrion’s character is based in the whole “Everyone shits on me boo-hoo let’s overcome adversity!” schtick, whereas this implies that someone, somewhere actually gave a shit what Tyrion had to say and he has at least an ounce of power over the throne.
4. In exile, Tyrion switches allegiances to the Starks and decides to help them defeat his brother, Jamie. However, in doing so, he falls in love with Arya. The Imp and Jon Snow end up in a rivalry for Arya’s affections (Arya does not reciprocate Tyrion’s affections, however.)
I could live with this, minus the whole love triangle shit. The mental image alone is scarring.
5. In Martin’s original vision, Daenerys kills Khal Drago in order to avenge the death of her brother, Viserys (instead of being grateful that Drago killer her brother). After killing Drago, she flees into the wilderness, and discovers the dragon eggs. In that version of events, Daenerys launched a war against Westeros in the second novel, while the final book in the series would’ve featured a war against the Others and a climactic final battle at the Wall.
Fuck Viserys get dragons.
6. Originally, Sansa was supposed to have sold out her family, married Joffrey and borne him an heir (she would later regret doing so).
Well Sansa kind of sold out her family in the version we have, since she was the one that told Cersei that Ned Stark & co. were planning to flee the city, which then caused Cersei to throw Ned in a dungeon. Good going Sansa, way to fuck everything up as usual.
7. While Ned Stark’s death happens just as he did in the actual novels, afterwards, Catelyn, Arya and Bran seek refuge at the Wall, but Jon Snow is forced to turn them away. They are later captured by Mance Rayder. Catelyn Stark is ultimately killed by an Other (there is no mention of a Red Wedding).
Catelyn, Ara & Bran: Help us Jon!
Jon: lol no gtfo.
8. It had always been intended for Jon Snow to become Lord Commander.
Well, yeah. Jon Snow can’t be a scrub for life.
9. Arya, Bran, Jon, Tyrion, and Daenerys are the five characters who were originally intended to survive the series
THIS IS THE MOST IMPORTANT FUCKING THING. While everything else is just weird and full of contrived love triangles, I can 100% see all 5 of these characters making it to the end of the series. For one thing, Arya is doing some weird shit over in Braavos right now and if she doesn’t make it then all of her chapters in the 4th book were pointless. Bran is…I dunno. Crippled and learning to fly? Motherfucker better do something decent with his storyline. Jon is important as hell because of who Jon Snow’s real parents are, and as for Tyrion and Daenerys, those two have a FUCKLOAD of pages dedicated to them running around doing shit so if they both die, then goddammit all those chapters were a waste of my life.
Tl;dr: Arya, Bran, Jon, Tyrion and Daenerys probably live. Thank fucking Christ.