Stefan's Theory Hour, part 44

Thursday is Theory Day!

This is the fourty-fourth article of the series. Since there are a lot of theories floating out there and I'm asked often enough what I think of them, I thought I write it down. You can then laugh about me when I am totally proven wrong by "The Winds of Winter" or something like that. Rules are as follows: you put a question about any theory or plot element (really, let's stress "theory" a bit for the sake of interesting questions) either in the comments of any theory post or by mail (stefan_sasse@gmx.de) and I will answer them in an upcoming post. And if you now ask "Stefan, isn't this a shameless rip-off of Sean T. Collin's "Ask me anything"?", I would tell you to shut up, because you are right.

Prepare for part 44. Spoilers for "A Song of Ice and Fire", obviously. 

Which Targaryen was Olenna Redwyne betrothed to?

That's a question almost impossible to answer. The subject comes up only once, when Olenna Tyrell tells Sansa that she was to be betrothed to a Targaryen once but "put an end to that", then going on about regretting not having hit Mace Tyrell with a wooden spoon more often. Since this is the Queen of Thorns we are talking about, we can't even be sure if there ever was this mysterious Targaryen betrothal. It could just be trolling on her part. On the other hand, Martin really loves these little clues of ancient history, so it's likely that it's true. The reason why answering the question is almost impossible, though, is that we have no clue at all who it could be. "A Targaryen" fits many people, and we don't have a comprehensive family tree of those guys. Could have been some second son of a second son or something, could have been a really important player. Somehow, though, I doubt that it was a Targaryen that grew up to become a king because it seems to me that the Queen of Trolls, eh, Thorns, would then go around how she was supposed to marry a king and how she stopped that and why that makes her a wise-ass compared to everyone else.

Is Ramsay's mother still alive?
Perhaps, but unlikely. Ramsay really, really hates to be reminded that he is a bastard. He wants to be Ramsay Bolton, the son of lord Roose Bolton. The common wench that born him somehow disrupts this nice picture of aristocratic family purity, so I guess it's likely that Ramsay dispatched of her. The question here is when he did it. After Reek was given to him as a servant? Here again we face the question of whether Reek tainted Ramsay or the other way around, because it's easily imaginable how killing the mother to become a trueborn Bolton would appeal to Ramsay and Reek on basis of what we know, quite simply because it's the same ass logic that drives most of Ramsay's actions. Perhaps his mother even was the first victim he hunted down, who knows? Ramsay's a sick, sick mind, and somehow I doubt that being the reason why he is alive and kicking in the first place disposes him kindly towards her.

Will we see Alliser Thorne again?

Sure we will. I mean, it's Alliser Thorne. I guess it's not really concidence that they let him tell the story of his bad-ass-cannibal-ranging in the TV show, since it will make his ranging later in the show more of a "he guy's coming back at you, Jon" moment. The same is true for the books, though. We already lost Jon's first menace, Janos Slynt, in a rather abrupt and anti-climactic fashion. It seems unlikely to me that Thorne will just be M.I.A. It would be a really interesting turn of events if he somehow encountered the whights and/or Others and is now as convinced of the necessity to defend against them as Jon is - only he still hates his guts. That would be an interesting dynamic, provided Jon remains anything like a Lord Commander when he returns from his intermission in Ghost's body.