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Originally Posted by goofball
How would you set a line of the following:
Who ends the series on the Iron Throne?
1. Any of the stark children (Jon, Sansa, Arya, Bran)
2. The field
Is this thread still no bookreaders? Even though the show has moved past the books in terms of the plot, there are bits of foreshadowing and prophecy in the books that aren't in the show. I'll avoid anything major below, but will mention some non-spoiler stuff from the books.
Arya is 0%. It doesn't fit with her character or her arc. There are big hints in the books what will end up happening to Arya, she has heavier foreshadowing than any other character, probably. I recommend
the Alt Shift X video on Arya if you're interested in knowing about this (contains details of the foreshadowing, obviously).
Bran also 0%. He's too heavily involved in all the stuff with the Wall, the Walkers, the Old Gods etc. His ending will relate to that, not the Seven Kingdoms. The wall was raised by "Bran the Builder", this is unlikely to be a coincidence.
Sansa is a small chance. She is one of two possibilities for the "younger, more beautiful" queen in Maggy the Frog's prophecy to Cersei:
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Aye. Queen you shall be... until there comes another, younger and more beautiful, to cast you down and take all that you hold dear.
The other (more likely) possibility is Daenerys (and it's weird to me that you've got her in "the field", more of which later).
It's difficult to see a path for Sansa to the Iron Throne, though, and it would be a bit of a weird track for the story to take. She probably ends up ruling Winterfell.
Jon is obviously a possibility. There's plenty of foreshadowing in the books that he will be a king, but that is already fulfilled with him becoming King in the North in the show (but not yet the books). I tend to think it is unlikely though; this isn't the sort of story where downtrodden bastards discover they have secret king's blood and then rule happily ever after. It would be like Frodo becoming king at the end of LOTR. Jon is very important in the story, but he's more likely to be a Jesus-type figure (or like Frodo, in fact) who saves the world but at personal cost. GRRM is on record as saying the ending to the story will be "bittersweet" and I suspect more bitter than sweet for Jon.
Daenerys is probably the "younger, more beautiful queen" who will arrive to cast down Cersei, so she probably sits the Iron Throne at some point. She is, after all, the rightful heir (unless we find out at some point that Lyanna and Rhaegar were married and Jon is trueborn). But the story probably won't end there.
The actual answer is that the Iron Throne is unlikely to exist, in its current form, at the end of the story. In the show, when Dany has visions at the Tower of the Undying, we see her walking through a burnt-out, destroyed Red Keep. It would also just make sense for the story to chronicle transformative events in Westeros. "And then Dany won the throne and ruled happily ever after" is a super unsatisfying ending. Things will be a bit more cataclysmic than that.
With that in mind, there's a final dark horse who might either sit the Iron Throne or have a role in destroying it:
Jaime. He is on a redemption arc and will be one of the clearest good guys by the end of the story.
I'm not sure if it's mentioned in the show, but in the books when Ned comes into the Red Keep after King's Landing is taken, he finds Jaime perched on the Iron Throne, having killed King Aerys II Targaryen. Ned orders him off the throne. This could be foreshadowing that Jaime will eventually sit the throne. Also, Jaime is very pointedly known as "Kingslayer", so it would also make sense for him to have a hand (no pun intended) in killing not just the king but the entire institution of the Iron Throne.
If you were to guarantee me that the Iron Throne exists and has someone on it at the end, I'd set lines a bit like this:
Daenerys: 50%
Jon: 20%
Jaime: 10%
Sansa: 5%
Arya: 0%
Bran: 0%
The Field: 15%
However, I think it's a heavy fave (90%ish) that the answer is "nobody".
Last edited by ChrisV; 06-01-2017 at 10:22 PM.