#serbronzefyre

First off I should note I don’t believe Varys was right about “Rhaegar’s intentions to depose his father” – I think he was deliberately stirring shit in House Targaryen as part of his Blackfyre restoration plans, and the supposed secret backer of the Harrenhal tourney being Rhaegar is a red herring placed in TWOIAF on purpose. (I think there’s a lot of things Yandel is very wrong about in TWOIAF, and while some like magic and the Others and such are obvious, there’s many political mistakes and oversights too. He’s a very unreliable narrator, deliberately so.)

Secondly, Varys is an excellent spymaster, but he doesn’t know everything. He only knows what his little birds can see or hear. (Like, Olenna had loud singing cover up her conversation with Sansa, Littlefinger had Sansa meet Dontos in the godswood specifically to avoid the little birds, and that’s why LF reported the Tyrell betrothal plan to Tywin while Varys hadn’t heard anything about it. Also Varys doesn’t seem to have had any awareness of Sandor and Sansa’s interactions.) Note that Varys was still fairly new to Westeros at the time of Robert’s Rebellion and almost certainly didn’t have a full spy network yet, certainly not in the Red Mountains where the Tower of Joy was, and probably not in Starfall either. Jaime relates that during the Rebellion “Prince Rhaegar could not be found”, which means people were looking but couldn’t find him, which means Varys didn’t know either. (Or if he did know, he wasn’t saying, again to stir shit.) The Tower of Joy was very out of the way.

But still, it’s possible that Varys does know about R+L=J, either from his spies back when or gathered knowledge since then. If so, he’s likely factored in the possible revelation of Jon’s parentage into his plans to bring Aegon to the throne. Whether Varys has false counter-information ready in case of a reveal, or if he’d simply be using a semi-truthful legal strategy (Aegon is older; even if Rhaegar married Lyanna it was bigamous and thus illegal; etc), or even if he doesn’t know and finds out when the secret is made public (if it’s made public), it probably doesn’t matter. Varys is very utilitarian: he’ll do what he must, whatever it may be.

Many people do think Patchface has encountered the Drowned God, and that he is the god’s true prophet (unlike Aeron, who hears only the inside of his head). I personally believe that there is no Drowned God as such, but rather a force of water magic that can sometimes be accessed via drowning, that some people have personified as the Drowned God but doesn’t truly have a personality or sentience. This water magic may be related to the water magic of the Rhoynar, with their personification being Mother Rhoyne; as well as the primitive beliefs of the First Men, personified by Elenei’s sea god father, the Lady of the Waves, etc. (FWIW, I also believe similarly about fire magic and R’hllor; and I’m fairly confident in this as GRRM has said no gods will appear and affect things in a deus ex machina.)

Nevertheless, Patchface, whose prophecies are true, has obviously tapped into something. But because I think this something, this water magic force, is not specifically related to the ironborn, his storyline doesn’t necessarily need to overlap with any ironborn. Although, tbf, Theon may enter his orbit at some point, as well as Asha, as they’re all in the North after all. It depends on what happens with them after the Battle of Winterfell and the Night’s Watch coup, but quite possibly they will intersect at the Wall or Winterfell. In which case it should be very interesting to see the broken Theon interacting with the mad fool Patchface, and what comes of it. Like, Theon’s thought patterns in his TWOW preview chapter fascinate me, and the way he makes connections to Euron, not to mention the fact that Bran (and Bloodraven?) are interested in him, tells me his plot should be much more on the magic side of things from now on, a side where Patchface is very definitely located. (edit: And Theon also had a prophetic dream about the Red Wedding, thank you for the reminder @darthgreyjoy.)

But generally I think Patchface’s storyline will mostly center around Shireen, as it has so far. Melisandre’s vision of him with bloody lips, surrounded by skulls, doesn’t bode well at all. I’ve thought that perhaps if Shireen is sacrificed, he may go mad (madder), and start tearing people apart in an attempt to save her? Other people have theorized that he may somehow be connected to the heavy foreshadowing re Shireen’s greyscale, that somehow he may set it free as a grey plague – and as greyscale and the grey plague are a form of water magic, there is a definite link to Patchface there.

Regarding a potential ploy, the book answers this for you:

Her name had been Hazzea. She was four years old. Unless her father lied. He might have lied. No one had seen the dragon but him. His proof was burned bones, but burned bones proved nothing. He might have killed the little girl himself, and burned her afterward. He would not have been the first father to dispose of an unwanted girl child, the Shavepate claimed. The Sons of the Harpy might have done it, and made it look like dragon’s work to make the city hate me. Dany wanted to believe that… but if that was so, why had Hazzea’s father waited until the audience hall was almost empty to come forward? If his purpose had been to inflame the Meereenese against her, he would have told his tale when the hall was full of ears to hear.

–ADWD, Daenerys II

Furthermore, we’ve seen in historical stories like the Dance of the Dragons that dragons have very little regard for human life and will kill and eat people as well as animals, especially if the people are in between them and their food, especially if the dragons are wild.

Even for a son of House Targaryen, there are always dangers in approaching a strange dragon, particularly an old, bad-tempered dragon who has recently lost her rider. His father and mother would never allow him to go near Vhagar, Aemond knew. […] Later he would say that he was so afraid of being caught that he forgot to be frightened of being burned to death and eaten.

–The Rogue Prince

Sixteen men lost their lives during an attempt to become dragonriders. Three times that number were burned or maimed. Steffon Darklyn was burned to death whilst attempting to mount the dragon Seasmoke. Lord Gormon Massey suffered the same fate when approaching Vermithor. A man called Silver Denys, whose hair and eyes lent credence to his claim to be a bastard son of King Maegor the Cruel, had an arm torn off by Sheepstealer. As his sons struggled to staunch the wound, the Cannibal descended on them, drove off Sheepstealer, and devoured father and sons alike.

–The Princess and the Queen

The smell of blood roused the dragon, who sniffed at Her Grace, then bathed her in a blast of flame, so suddenly that Ser Alfred’s cloak caught fire as he leapt away. Rhaenyra Targaryen had time to raise her head toward the sky and shriek out one last curse upon her half brother before Sunfyre’s jaws closed round her, tearing off her arm and shoulder. The golden dragon devoured the queen in six bites, leaving only her left leg below the shin “for the Stranger.”

–The Princess and the Queen

And considering what Drogon did, later:

Barsena’s blade was running red, but the boar soon stopped. He is smarter than a bull, Dany realized. He will not charge again. Barsena came to the same realization. Shouting, she edged closer to the boar, tossing her knife from hand to hand. When the beast backed away, she cursed and slashed at his snout, trying to provoke him… and succeeding. This time her leap came an instant too late, and a tusk ripped her left leg open from knee to crotch.A moan went up from thirty thousand throats. Clutching at her torn leg, Barsena dropped her knife and tried to hobble off, but before she had gone two feet the boar was on her once again. Dany turned her face away. […]Above them all the dragon turned, dark against the sun. His scales were black, his eyes and horns and spinal plates blood red. Ever the largest of her three, in the wild Drogon had grown larger still. His wings stretched twenty feet from tip to tip, black as jet. He flapped them once as he swept back above the sands, and the sound was like a clap of thunder. The boar raised his head, snorting… and flame engulfed him, black fire shot with red. Dany felt the wash of heat thirty feet away. The beast’s dying scream sounded almost human. Drogon landed on the carcass and sank his claws into the smoking flesh. As he began to feed, he made no distinction between Barsena and the boar.“Oh, gods,” moaned Reznak, “he’s eating her!” The seneschal covered his mouth.

–ADWD, Daenerys IX

…I have no doubt whatsoever about the circumstances of Hazzea’s death.

I don’t think Euron’s murder of his youngest brother Robin has any connection to an obsession with silencing people? None of Euron’s words about the killing imply he did it to quiet him. (Also, Robin wasn’t a baby when he was killed; he was a “sickly idiot boy”, apparently severely physically and mentally disabled.) And since Euron’s first murder was that of his eldest brother Harlon, who was already silent because greyscale had turned his mouth to stone, I think his murders only imply a desire to kill people – because he could, because he wanted to see what would happen. And picking on the weakest, those unable to fight back or raise an alarm, whose deaths wouldn’t be recognized as murders, so Euron could escape punishment or even anyone realizing what he’d done.

I can see a couple of different possibilities.

They die in the process of Lady Stoneheart’s revenge on the Freys, during the theorized Second Red Wedding and its aftermath

They die during the new Long Night and War for the Dawn, fighting for survival against the Others and wights

A few survive to the very end, and help establish a better, more pro-smallfolk government as civilization is rebuilt and order is restored

All of the above – which is probably the best answer, as there are many members of the Brotherhood, and certainly they all shouldn’t share the same fate. Thoros, for one, may die helping Jaime and Brienne escape, but it’s possible he may survive that as his expertise as a miracle-working red priest could be helpful in the fight against the Others, and that’s the fight he won’t outlive. Whereas Gendry I’m nearly certain will survive to endgame… but truly, we’ll just have to see.