6 Secrets of the Seven Kingdoms We’d Love to See on Game of Thrones Season 5

The World of Ice and Fire provides a detailed, nuanced history of the Seven Kingdoms (and beyond), and it is a feat of intricacy. Written as if by a Maester at the Citadel as a gift to young King Tommen, this lushly illustrated tome walks you through the history of the Seven Kingdoms and beyond, all the way up to Robert Baratheon’s reign and its aftermath. There are battle descriptions, ruler biographies, amusing historical notes from a fool named Mushroom, and the most complex, multilayered family tree in all of fiction (thanks, Targaryens).
The book is a treasure trove of nerdbait. So to welcome the new season of the TV show, here are a few of the side plots and tidbits of backstory we’d love to see play out on the small screen. The show has diverged from the books a bit recently, and looks to do so to a greater extent this season, but if you’re not caught up on both there be spoilers ahead.
The Starks and the Targaryens have unfinished business
During the Dance of Dragons, an epic Targaryen power struggle, a Pact of Ice and Fire between House Stark and House Targaryen called for a marriage to unite the families. But then, as is their way, people started dropping dead, and the pact remains unfulfilled—until that righteous fan theory about Jon Snow and Daenerys comes true, or Bran stumbles upon a rogue Targaryen among the tree people.
There are dragon eggs in that there Winterfell
Or so the legend goes. Yandel categorically dismisses the notion, perpetrated by Mushroom, that a Targaryen dragon left a clutch of eggs in Winterfell’s crypts while its master treated with Lord Cregan Stark. But Yandel is also the old codger who actually wrote the phrase “fair son and heir Joffrey” in earnest, so his opinion counts for little and less. As we glimpse in one of the Season 5 trailers, Sansa seems to be making a trip back home to Winterfell, so maybe it’s time for a creepy crypt treasure hunt.
Nymeria was a journeywoman
We’ve heard the folklore surrounding Nymeria, the dragon-queen who fled the all-consuming destruction of Valryrian dragonlords and founded “modern” Dorne. She is also the namesake for Arya’s direwolf. Here we get her full backstory: she set out from Essos with 10,000 ships to find a new home for her people. Her voyage was long and horrific, and eventually, she washed up in Dorne. Who’s to say Nymeria the plucky direwolf couldn’t pull the same trick, find her way to Braavos, and bring some small speck of happiness into Arya’s godsforsaken life? Who’s to say?
Tywin Lannister could almost be sympathetic (almost)
There were few tears shed last season when Tyrion so unceremoniously dispatched his father, that ruthless old lion. But The World of Ice and Fire gives Tywin’s life story a few shades of grey. Since we know he will appear in this season in some form or fashion (and that there is at least one flashback for Cersei), it would be nice to explore the softer side of the Lord of Casterly Rock—his loving marriage to Joanna Lannister. As Grand Maester Pycelle wrote of the relationship: “I do avow that I have even observed her make him laugh, not once, but upon three separate occasions!” Upvote for a flashback to any of those three occasions.
The Tullys are Muppets
Edmure Tully, brother of Catelyn Stark and Lysa Arryn, has always hovered near foppish in personality, but who knew his lineage was felt-ish? Per the history of House Tully, at the Great Council of 101 AC that decided the successor of Jaehaerys I, one Lord Grover Tully was in attendance. His grandson? Ser Elmo. Elmo’s son? Lord Kermit. If the HBO showrunners want to correct a major injustice, this Muppet revelation could be the answer: give us a haggard, wretched puppet Lady Stoneheart, or give us death…except they’ll do that anyway.
Everywhere else in the world is insane
Not that Westeros is stable or Mereen is Eden, but the locales beyond the Free Cities run the gamut from wonderful to horrific. And since more characters will be venturing farther out than ever before this season, it’d be swell if we could catch sight of some of these lesser-known exotic properties.
Take, for instance, the Summer Isles, which come about as close to utopia as you can get. Besides their verdant, fertile landscapes, the isles are astonishing in their beauty because, “the Summer Islanders have never once invaded any lands beyond their own shores, nor attempted the conquest of any foreign people.” It’s like a cold drink of water, isn’t it? Nearby, however, lie the Basilisk Isles, chockablock with, “the worst of humanity,” including, but not limited to: pirates, slavers, murderers, swellswords, and plain ol’ monsters. The largest of the Basilisks? The Isle of Tears. But that’s nothing compared with Sothoryos, an incubator of awful that could kill you in any number of colorful, colloquial ways—“blood boils, green fever, sweetrot, bronze pate, the Red Death, greyscale, brownleg, wormbone, sailor’s bane, pus-eye, and yellowgum” [emphasis mine] are just a few Yandel names. If you survive pus-eye, you can take your summer vacation in the Sothoryos’ lush Green Hell region, with its 50-foot-long snakes and rigidly efficient vampire bats.
Maybe we don’t have to visit Sothoryos…
How are you whiling away the hours until Game of Thrones returns?