WHAT IS DEAD MAY NEVER DIE

this is sweet of you to say about me thank you ~

in this scenario rodrik is still dead so that moves maron up to son and heir. this keeps asha as a marriageable political pawn and keeps theon as a spare

i don't think robert baratheon could have been swayed by ned stark to spare theon if maron was still alive. even if they took maron to ward at winterfell (unlikely. he was too old to be molded into a northern/mainlander pawn) theon would probably be killed so that balon wouldn't be able to have a spare viable heir to groom into another rebellious king of the iron islands.

any son being left the balon would be raised into a threat, so i think both theon and maron would have been killed. even if ned could still have convinced robert not to kill theon and maron (i don't think that's likely since maron was a full grown adult who was part of the rebellion and not a little boy) they wouldn't have been allowed to grow up on the islands

my thoughts on ned and robert and how they came to the decision to take theon to winterfell and what the purpose of this decision was are here:

i love how I’m not the only one because you’re just stirring trouble and not even really updating shit! not even with hotd but with dany v Sansa people! what the fuck are we doing??!!!?!?!!?!!?

WHAT ARE WE DOING???? WHY ARE HAVING A WILL WE-WONT BE SITUATION?????

i'm not mad about george stirring shit btw dany and sansa people because i don't really care about either of those characters or their stans i'm mad because george is a professional working in the entertainment industry but is instead behaving like a very small child throwing a very large tantrum and badmouthing the people who are actually responsible for creating the extremely successful and well executed hbo series based on his bullet point list nothingburger novelty book

like hotd is good against all odds but it certainly isn't good because the text it's based on is good

also spending fifteen years getting more and more grouchy in the public eye while fretting about what your legacy will be is just a bad and annoying look. if you want to solidify your legacy you have to publish the remaining two novels in your seven novel series.

if you don't want to publish those last two novels that is more than fine but that means you have to stop bitching about how your legacy is being ruined by hbo while selling all the rights to your work to hbo over and over and over again and while also not finishing your seminal work. which is what will decide your legacy one way or the other.

he's throwing a very big having your cake and eating it too kind of tantrum which would be frustrating enough if he were not also badmouthing his collaborators and generally acting a fool and a nightmare

none of this really matters at the end of the day because george is not a close personal friend of mine but rather a wealthy and successful celebrity stranger who will never know i exist. but it does leave a bad taste in my mouth and make me not want to engage in his work or in the works based on his work.