Alright so I saw a post yesterday saying it is Brienne, and the valonqar, the "little brother", is Jaime. It was a very good post. You can read it here. I want to point out that this isn't the first instance of someone bringing up the Brienne/Jaime theory. This has been said for years now, even Alt Shift X talked about it in his Cersei video.

I'll admit that the Brienne/Jaime interpretation is extremely appealing. Brienne is mockingly called “the Beauty,” yet is arguably far more beautiful in character than Cersei. Jaime is literally Cersei’s younger twin. And there is wonderful potential irony in Cersei hearing that a younger woman will destroy her and immediately declaring that she will have her brother kill that woman—only for Jaime ultimately to choose that woman over Cersei and even go as far as to kill her. I get it and it works.

But there is a more ironic woman in a very ironic situation whom I wholeheartedly believe is the one who will cast our nasty queen down and take all that she hold dear. And I will tell you who the little brother is too. George has physically left certain characters at the unresolved Riverlands plot, and be warned that this theory is more literal than the Brienne/Jaime interpretation, but like I said it carries a level of irony that is so in line with the style of writing we see in ASOIAF.

But first, we need to answer some questions.

Where is the Blackfish?

At the end of the siege of Riverrun, Brynden BFish escapes. We do not know where he went. But Jaime is sufficiently worried about him that when ser Forley is ordered to escort Edmure west, Jaime doubles Forley’s original force from one hundred men to two hundred specifically because he fears the Blackfish (marry me I'm gay) and a certain band of outlaws may attempt a rescue/attack.

That is obviously not an insignificant detail. Jaime creates a military precaution because he expects a strike against the westbound column escorting Edmure and the Westerlings (the mother Sybell Spicer, Robb's widow Jeyne Westerling and her sister Eleyna, and their little brother who was Robb's squire, Rollam Westerling).

Note that Jaime goes even further. He tells ser Forley that if there is an escape attempt, his archers are to kill Edmure and Jeyne.

And where is the Brotherhood Without Banners?

Still operating in the Riverlands. And not randomly. By this point the Brotherhood is under Lady Stoneheart, and its war has increasingly become a campaign of vengeance against Freys, Lannisters and collaborators with the Red Wedding. More importantly, the Brotherhood has already penetrated the Riverrun situation. Tom of Sevenstreams, the singer whom Edmure abhors (lol) is inside Riverrun.

Tom O’Sevens is not simply a convenient singer who happens to be present. He is one of Stoneheart’s men. He has spent time embedded with Ryman Frey’s forces and remains around Riverrun after its surrender. He was the one who informed the Brotherhood that Ryman was heading back to the Twins, thus they captured and hanged him en route.

So while Jaime is arranging the departure of Edmure and the Westerlings, Stoneheart’s Brotherhood has an intelligence asset inside the castle. And Jaime knows enough to fear an attack from the Blackfish (ah) or what he still thinks of as Beric Dondarrion’s outlaws. This is why myself and many readers think the beginning of The Winds of Winter is very likely to involve something happening to Forley Prester’s column. George did say years ago that Jeyne Westerling will appear in the TWOW prologue—not necessarily as the POV, but that she will appear. Plans can change, of course, but it is an extraordinary clue considering where she was last seen.

Next let's look at the road ser Forley and his entourage will be taking to reach the Westerlands from Riverrun:

Edmure’s destination is explicitly Casterly Rock. The natural westward route from Riverrun is the River Road: Riverrun > Golden Tooth > Sarsfield > Casterly Rock. The River Road connects Riverrun directly to the Westerlands through the Golden Tooth, the great eastern gateway into Lannister territory.

As for the Westerlings, they are traveling with ser Forley’s column and at some point they would presumably separate from Edmure’s Casterly Rock-bound route after passing through the Golden Tooth to reach their ancestral home, the Crag.

So this gives the Brotherhood and maybe also the Blackfish a very obvious window to rescue Edmure and the Westerlings: before the column gets safely through the Golden Tooth and deep into Lannister country. And again, Jaime himself seems to anticipate exactly such an attempt.

What happens to the convoy?

Here is my best guess, not a certainty—just the scenario I think the board is setting up for.

Forley Prester leaves Riverrun with roughly two hundred men, Edmure, and the Westerlings. They head west along the River Road toward the Golden Tooth. Before they become safely embedded in the Westerlands, they are intercepted. The obvious candidates are Lady Stoneheart’s Brotherhood and maybe the Blackfish, only because I feel like he couldn't have gone far away after escaping.

The Brotherhood knows what happened at Riverrun because Tom O’Sevens has been inside. And I'm assuming he informed Stoneheart of Jeyne's situation and her mother. We'll get to that.

So imagine the encounter if Stoneheart is involved. She would be confronted with Jeyne—the girl who genuinely loved Robb and Sybell—the mother who helped Tywin destroy him. Jeyne fought to keep Robb’s crown. Rollam served Robb personally. Sybell secretly prevented Jeyne from giving Robb an heir. If George ever wanted to put all the emotional poison of the Red Wedding into a single scene, this might be it. And Stoneheart should know the details from Tom, I believe.

Now let's talk specifically about the Westerlings.

To do this fully, we need to start with the giver of the prophecy herself, Maggy The Frog. Maggy was not some random witch Cersei happened to meet. She married a wealthy spice trader and their son was ennobled and founded House Spicer. Maggy was the grandmother of Sybell Spicer, Jayne & Rollam's mother. Meaning Maggy is Jeyne & Rollam’s great grandmother. And one more thing to note, the Lannisters always looked down on Maggy’s descendants. Kevan once rejected Jeyne as a possible match for one of his sons partly because of the Spicers’ “doubtful blood”—their descent from a merchant and his foreign maegi wife.

Tywin uses Sybell Spicer as part of the political machinery that destroys Robb. Sybell and her brother Rolph had conspired with the Lannisters to trick Robb into marrying Jeyne, thereby breaking his alliance with the Freys. Sybell provides some herbal tea to Jeyne every morning claiming it will make her fertile, which we know that Jeyne did not know the truth of, that it was a potion that prevents pregnancy. We know for a fact that Jeyne and her siblings had nothing to do with Sybell's secret negotiations with Tywin Slimy Lannister.

Jeyne really loved Robb and she was utterly devastated to know of her mother's secret plot. She goes into mourning for Robb, to the chagrin of her mother. She refuses to give up the crown that Robb had given her, and when Sybell forcefully takes it away, Jeyne fights her. And when they leave with ser Forley from Riverrun, Jaime notices that she has ripped her expensive clothing in an act of mourning for Robb and defiance against her mother. The girl refuses to accept any of this.

Now what exactly are the Spicer family getting as reward for helping the Lannisters? Sybell's daughters, Jeyne & Eleyna, are to marry lords or heirs (but Jaime does say that Jeyne must remain unmarried for two years first). And, Sybell's brother Rolph Spicer is granted Castamere.

Castamere. The single most famous monument to Lannister supremacy. Tywin annihilated the Reynes there and turned their destruction into a warning that echoed across Westeros. Now the castle belongs to Maggy’s grandson. I am not saying Rolph will heroically join Jeyne. He did help betray Robb. I am saying the symbolism is extraordinary. The family Tywin used to destroy the Young Wolf is rewarded with the ruins that symbolize Tywin’s greatest victory. And if the next generation of that same family ultimately helps destroy Tywin’s family, then “The Rains of Castamere” becomes an irony. Castamere no longer symbolizes the permanence of Lannister power. It becomes part of the road to its extinction. That feels very GRRM to me, very ASOIAF.

So I think you've guessed it already. I believe the younger and more beautiful queen who will cast Cersei down is Jeyne Westerling.

Once you look at her plainly, without assuming the answer must be one of Cersei’s major female rivals, she fits Maggy’s words almost embarrassingly well. Cersei asks whether she will be queen and Maggy tells her she will—until there comes another, younger and more beautiful, who will cast her down. The natural implication is another queen. Jeyne is a queen. Not metaphorically. Not potentially. Not through some complicated future marriage scenario. She was Robb Stark’s queen. Catelyn explicitly thinks of the “pretty little girl” before her as a queen. Robb calls Jeyne beautiful and “most fair.” And regarding Jaime's judgment on her, that she's merely pretty and “not a girl to lose a kingdom for”, I don't personally think his judgment/opinion of her override those descriptions; it gives us Jaime's subjective judgment. And we also know Cersei has begun to lose her beauty during Dance.

Narratively, Jeyne looks finished. Robb is dead and her kingdom is gone. Her mother betrayed her and she has no army. Finally she is being sent home to be rid of. Except Jaime himself tells us she is not unimportant. He orders ser Forley to kill her rather than allow her to escape, regarding Robb’s widowed queen as an extraordinary political danger. And more importantly, she has not surrendered his memory to the people who murdered him.

And the valonqar... Cersei has spent almost her entire life assuming valonqar means her little brother. First Tyrion, and many readers have understandably moved from Tyrion to Jaime. But Maggy never says “your valonqar.” She says “the valonqar.” Cersei later learns the word means little brother and supplies the possessive herself. But what if the little brother belongs to the woman Maggy has just warned her about? Jeyne Westerling has a younger brother. Rollam Westerling.

Rollam is not an entirely meaningless child attached to Jeyne’s family tree. He was Robb’s squire, and when Robb was becoming increasingly isolated during the war, the Westerling kids were among the few people around whom he found comfort: Jeyne, Raynald, and young Rollam. He therefore has his own personal connection to Robb. His king was murdered and his sister was widowed. His brother Raynald apparently died trying to free Grey Wind during the Red Wedding. Edwyn Frey and Walder Rivers reveal that Raynald surrendered his sword to ser Whalen Frey but then freed Grey Wind from his chains in the stables when several Frey men tried to kill the direwolf. While doing so, Raynald was hit by a crossbow bolt and fell into the Green Fork. Raynald's body was not identified among the thousand corpses afterward, but his trail of blood led to the river's steps.

If Jeyne is rescued and Rollam remains with her, that child has every conceivable reason to grow up despising what the Lannisters did, and from a mystery-writing perspective, Rollam’s age and obscurity are exactly what allow him to hide in plain sight. So suddenly the prophecy becomes beautifully symmetrical. It is acted on by descendants from the woman who spoke it. That is what makes this theory so much more compelling to me than simply identifying another character who technically satisfies one half of the wording. It closes the circle.

The prophecy could have been staring at Cersei through Maggy’s own bloodline. But how will all this play out??

Now let's turn to Cersei.

This is where the geography becomes, imo, extremely interesting.

At the end of Dance, Cersei is not really ruling anything. She has completed her walk of atonement and is under house arrest in the Red Keep awaiting trial. Kevan has stripped her of political authority and replaced her guards, and Kevan has a very specific plan for what happens afterward: send Cersei back to Casterly Rock and make sure she stays there.

That is important because now we know George has already planted Cersei > Casterly Rock. Even before her arrest, Kevan had told her that Tywin intended her to return west and rule as Lady of Casterly Rock rather than continue governing Tommen from King’s Landing, but then Kevan is murdered. Varys kills him because Kevan is fixing Cersei’s mistakes. He is reconciling Highgarden and Casterly Rock, stabilizing Tommen’s regime, repairing relations with the Faith. Varys explicitly wants that stability destroyed so Aegon will have an easier path to the throne.

By the end of Dance, Aegon and the Golden Company have invaded Westeros. In the released Winds Arianne material—obviously still subject to revision—Aegon has reportedly taken Storm’s End, and an army from King’s Landing believed to be Mace Tyrell’s is descending to meet him. Suppose Aegon defeats that army, then what? King’s Landing becomes extraordinarily vulnerable. All of Cersei's supporters are gone or dead, the Tyrell alliance is strained, the Faith remains powerful. If Aegon eventually takes King’s Landing, Cersei will have only one overwhelmingly obvious refuge: Casterly Rock. The strongest fortress of her house. And she is already legally Lady of Casterly Rock.

Now look at the map, Jeyne is moving to the westerlands, and Cersei, if driven out of King’s Landing, would naturally move to the westerlands. So George does not need to invent some ridiculous reason for Jeyne to travel across the continent to King’s Landing and confront Cersei. He can do something much better. Cersei can come to Jeyne. Cersei can spend Winds desperately trying to recover the power she lost... only for Aegon to drive her west... back into the very region where payback is waiting.

The younger queen does not need to personally conquer King’s Landing and sit the Iron Throne to fulfil the prophecy and cast Cersei down. “Cast you down” does not necessarily mean take Cersei’s crown in a conventional succession. Cersei could lose King’s Landing to Aegon. She could lose Tommen and her position as queen regent. She could flee home believing she still possesses the one thing no one can take from her: House Lannister. Casterly Rock. The Westerlands. Her father’s legacy. Cersei has spent her life believing she's the most fit to carry on her father's legacy. This legacy and carrying it on is the one thing that she has always wanted to do. The legacy is the very thing she holds dear.

Jeyne’s storyline will reach her. Aegon can destroy Cersei’s national power, but Jeyne can destroy what remains. There is no rule saying only one political force may contribute to the fulfillment. In fact, prophecy in ASOIAF usually becomes interesting precisely because characters misunderstand how it will happen.

Once Cersei is in Casterly Rock, Jeyne and Lady Stoneheart's Brotherhood, and maybe Blackfish, might be waiting for her. A confrontation between the two could occur.

___________

I still love the Brienne theory. But it is almost too satisfying. Her being mocked “the Beauty.” And Jaime is Cersei’s younger twin who is moving morally away from Cersei and toward Brienne. Cersei even responds to Maggy’s warning by saying she would have her brother kill the threatening woman. That is terrific foreshadowing if Brienne/Jaime is correct. But George may be deliberately building a storyline in which Brienne really does take Jaime away from Cersei emotionally without Brienne being Maggy’s prophesied queen, because I really do believe the "another" means another queen.

Nobody views Jeyne as a threat, in-story and outside of the story by the readers themselves. They said she could be Sansa, maybe Margaery, or definitely Dany, or ironically Brienne, even Jaime looks at Jeyne and thinks she was hardly worth losing a kingdom over. Her exacting vengeance would be so much more satisfying imo, and the irony of it all is her family being awarded Castamere, only for children of that family to turn around and wipe out the house that eliminated the previous owners of Castamere.

I personally think Brienne will kill Jaime under his own request. Tyrion was never looked at as a Lannister by his own family, so the only Lannister remaining will be Cersei. Once she's eliminated, it's like even the Reynes themselves took revenge.