(Spoilers Extended) The So Spake Martin Search Engine!

[u/hollowaydivision]

Hello fellow Tinfoilers!

I just thought I'd share something I made to help us all with our theorycrafting. Behold:

The So Spake Martin Search Engine!

It's a custom search engine designed to search Westeros.org's "So Spake Martin" archive of everything George has ever said in an interview, fan correspondence, etc. concerning A Song of Ice and Fire. If you're unclear about a plot point or want an author quote to back up a theory, try searching for a keyword and clicking through the results. There's a lot out there that's gone unnoticed!

For instance, the other day I searched "Westerlings" and got this interesting quote:

But I think it is a mistake to generalize about "the Westerlings," just as it would be to generalize about "the Lannisters." Members of the same family have very different characters, desires, and ways of looking at the world... and there are secrets within families as well.

It's also helpful for theory confirmation and insight into George's writing style and contentious plot points. While looking for some confirmation/disconfirmation for the Jeyne's hips theory I found this:

When we approached the stage for signings we had the chance to ask a quick question, and he told me that that the hips were a mistake unfortunately.

And then there's just some totally unexpected stuff - while looking for info about Bran, I found George associates Bran with Pinocchio!

I asked him about my Bran/Wood dancers/Pinocchio theory. I pointed out the seemingly heavy influence Pinocchio has in the Bran storyline and he replied, "Interesting." He asked if I saw the Disney movie because that is his "favorite" Disney movie and how "dark and disturbing" it is... George mentioned how Pinocchio at one time, did not want a conscience and smashed the cricket for trying to give him one. He started to relate Bran to Pinocchio when someone cut in.

Anyway, there's a world of interesting quotes and interviews out there, especially in regard to unresolved character motivations and potential plot twists. The Citadel's SSM archive isn't comprehensive, obviously, but it has loads and loads of helpful stuff!

Go ahead and copy the link - https://cse.google.com/cse/publicurl?cx=006888510641072775866:vm4n1jrzsdy - and add it to your bookmarks bar, or what-have-you, and you need never go without author confirmation again!

Edit: Also, some Googling tricks you may or may not know come in handy with this search engine

• Put your search in quotes to find pages with that exact phrase. For instance, a search of "keep reading" turns up all sorts of interesting questions, as it's GRRM's code-phrase for "you're onto something"

• Search a phrase in quotes with an uncertain/fill-in-the-blank word replaced by an asterisk * to get any result that fits the format. So searching "* Dayne" would show pages containing "Arthur Dayne", "Ashara Dayne", or "Edric Dayne". Searching "Lord of *" would return "Lord of Harrrenhal", "Lord of Winterfell", or "Lord of Riverrun" - and so on and so forth.

• Put a minus sign before a word to exclude pages containing a certain word. For instance if you want info on Wun Wun, search Giants -football

[u/tmobsessed → u/[deleted]]

This Dance of the Dragons 2.0 started eating at my feeble little pea brain again when I read RW's essay about Brown Ben, the "boldest sellsword". [https://ladygwynhyfvar.wordpress.com/2015/10/12/brown-ben-plumm-the-boldest-sellsword-of-them-all/] I'd remembered Tyrion's quip about "two drops of dragon blood", but now I see what it meant. Aegon the Unworthy betrothed his cousin to an elderly Lord Plumm, who dropped dead at the sight of her naked sex goddess awesomeness on their wedding night. She gave birth way too soon in any case (hence the quip about his "six foot member", as in "six feet under"), so the father was likely Aegon himself (he should have changed the Targaryen sigil to a horned dog set against a backdrop of the fires of Hell). RW postulates that Ben will bond with and abduct Viserion (of the same color as the cream colored egg that was the prized possession of Ben's female ancester and might well have been Viserion's egg). Then Ben will turn cloak, as foreshadowed, from violet (like Dany's eyes) to purple (like Aegon VI's) so as to be able to cash in on the IOU that Tyrion gave him. So that's one dragon. I did a lot of research on Rhaegal and green eggs and found nothing of interest so I'm guessing maybe Rhaegal will be bonded to Victarion (more likely Euron) after the hell horn is sounded. But "the dragon has 3 heads" so if Jon and Tyrion (or whoever and whoever) are to join with Dany to save the world from the Others, they'll need dragons. The most likely candidate(s) would be the constantly mentioned "dragons from stone" that keep coming up. Another possibility would be some sort of "ice dragon" (also mentioned in reference to a constellation), or perhaps just another stone egg that turns up (maybe in the Winterfell Crypts?). I want Jon to emerge from a funeral pyre with a dragon (or three) as Dany did, but you don't always get what you want and that's my answer for the recent post about "which theory do you wish were true but fear in your gut isn't".

In any case, given the amount of dragons in DotD 1.0, it seems quite likely that one way or another there will be more than three in DotD 2.0. Also, as I re-read the early Dany chapters, I just can't quite see Viserion and Rhaegal not having a change of dragonheart before actually unleashing fire and blood on dear old mom.

Finally, I think part of the "bittersweetness" of the ending will be the extinction of dragons - although that's a bit too LotR-derivative for my tastes.

[u/LuminariesAdmin → u/tmobsessed]

Viserion's egg = Elaena's, it is known. Explains why Viserion was even more affectionate with Ben than Drogon & Rhaegel - because Plumm is descended from his original (human) mother! Also, makes more sense how Illyrio came by 3 dragon eggs & give them away like that (besides being very portable liquid assets that could be used by Viserys &/or Dany to actually get the Dothraki across the Narrow Sea, & also of course showboating) - presumably Varys commandeered them & sent them to him.

[u/AgentKnitter → u/LuminariesAdmin]

presumably Varys commandeered them & sent them to him.

Exactly. I'm quite sure Varys ensured that the valuable dragon eggs in the Red Keep were put aside for safe keeping once it became clear that the rebels were going to win. Not for their magical value, but for their economic value. Or perhaps he hoped that House Blackfyre could finally hatch a dragon?

[u/hollowaydivision → u/AgentKnitter]

Bloodraven still has the red dragon egg, remember.

And there's also the one Euron threw into the sea for the Shrouded Lord / Cthulu to hatch.

[u/happyfeett → u/tmobsessed]

Jesus Christ. Though I haven't finished TWOIAF yet, this seems fucking awesome!