onceandneveragain yes, the original concept was that humanity would squabble over the throne while ignoring growing existential threats to mankind - ice from the North and fire from the East. I seem to remember that GRRM wasn’t sure in the early days of the outline whether physical dragons would even form part of the story, although the metaphorical ones certainly would.
It seems the showrunners wrote themselves into a hole with the Others the moment they introduced the Night King character. As soon as you introduce a traditional fantasy ‘big bad boss’ they then have to be disposed of as a ‘big bad boss’. This was completely clear from Hardhome onwards. I never really got all these ‘Bran is the Night King’ theories. Bran was always a main character in GRRM’s story, and there never was a Night King.
I definitely think Bran will be instrumental in pushing back the threat of the Others, although it is likely to be at the Isle of Faces. The World of Ice and Fire briefly mentions a Green King of the Gods Eye from the Age of Heroes, but nothing else is mentioned. Coincidence?
As far as Cersei just ‘sitting out the war’ goes, it was a very sound strategy. However, why would she ever have ‘come together’ with the North/Targs when they were only going to overthrow her afterwards? It was a stupid, contrived and poorly written plot with the whole intention of getting a dragon to the Night King so the wall could fall and the AotD could come south.
I firmly believe that fAegon will probably have the same strategy. While Dany and dragons are working with the North to push back the Long Night, the Mummer’s Dragon will usurp the Lannisters and be installed on the Iron Throne with his Cheering Crowd. Thus, the final destruction will take place in KL - a place largely untouched up to this point. This is the ‘scouring of the shire’ ending that GRRM is trying to point to.
The evidence for this comes from the HOTU visions about the Mummer’s Dragon and also from the show. In S4 E2 Bran has his big weirwood vision. He sees two things:
- the shadow of a single dragon flying over an intact KL.
- a throne room destroyed from above
This episode was written by ........GRRM.
GRRM’s plans have changed radically since he started the series. It’s gone from a trilogy, to six book and now to seven+. The between-chapter time jumps were replaced by a planned five year time jump to no time jump and a telling statement along the lines of ‘if a 12 year-old has to conquer the world then so be it’.
In ADWD we see Bran attaching himself to the tree and Dany becoming more like a dragon (particularly in her final chapter). I think we will see POV chapters from them in Winds - maybe up until the point that Bran leaves the tree and Dany unites her Khalessar. However, I think we won’t see many more of their POVs after that as Dany becomes the ‘dragon’ and Bran becomes the 3 eyed crow.