[SPOILERS] 603 Promo and Synopsis

At the moment I'm more inclined to think Mace the Ace comes back in 604. But it'd be great to see His Brilliance once again. The sooner the better.

I wonder if his mission to the Iron Bank will be mentioned?

From ASOIAF reddit.

Okay so I've seen a theory popping up recently online, and I've got to say, I think it is true.

It looks like R+L=J will be revealed in next episode. We've all been thinking that Lyanna asked Ned to protect Jon and bring him up as his own, but what if she didn't? What if she told Ned to put him on the throne? Maybe she bought into Rhaegar's prophecy stuff on top of falling for him? She could be all "Rayray said the baby will be king and save the world" and Ned promised he would do that. He obviously doesn't though. Why? Not only would it be suicidal, but it also keeps with Ned not wanting to see dead kids. Lyanna's request would basically doom the baby to an early death.

It gets better though. I have A Game of Thrones here on my desk and just checked the chapter where Robert was on his death bed. Ding ding! Ned thinks of Lyanna's "promise me" during it, because, of course, Ned is listening to people on their death beds. When Ned doesn't tell Robert about his kids he thinks "the lies we tell for love" and "may the gods forgive me." We think this means the lies he told to Cat, Robert, and everybody about Jon being his. The parallel is more direct than that. In both cases he is lying to the person about what he is going to do.

The oathbreaker won't just be Jon, it will be Ned too! What is even better is that Jon will probably think that abandoning the Night's Watch and fighting to unite the North against the White Walkers would be something Ned wouldn't do because Ned would likely view that as breaking your oath, but in reality it makes Jon more like Ned than he could ever imagine.

And we the viewers learn that while Rhaegar may be Jon's father, Jon will always be Ned's son.

Yes, that's why I've changed my mind and I think we will see ToJ in its entirety coming Sunday, because the title also refers to Ned breaking his oath to Lyanna.

I could get behind this plot twist if that's what ends up being revealed. They may have hoped for one last 'surprise' for all the long-time rabid fans who thought they had the whole story figured out.

I'm not sure there's as much evidence to support this 'double lie' from Ned as there is the straightforward lie that he passed Jon off as his own and nothing more. It would definitely be an 'oathbreaker' moment for sure though - considering how upstanding Ned always was - his life of living a lie to protect his sister's child was enough of a misery for him whereas many wouldn't really have thought that much of it or felt guilty really. 

The fandom will be divided on this theory because it depends on whether or not you want to see Jon (potentially) on the Iron Throne. I personally don't want to see him there and feel he's much better suited to being the "hero" who unites the realm to fight the Others. He doesn't have to be the king to do that. In fact I prefer Daenerys on the throne because she's more the "politician" (despite her numerous quotes to the contrary) that the Nobles can relate to. If they are are allies (and I think they will be) then it works out much better to have them cooperatively ruling and uniting Westeros as the Ice and Fire theme goes.

Ultimately, I'm still hoping the Iron Throne gets melted into a blob of metal by the dragons and everyone moves on to rule as 7 true kingdoms again. That would be a nice ending.

I hate quoting myself but whatever.

There is also this line when Ned is in the dungeons: When he slept, he dreamed: dark disturbing dreams of blood and broken promises.

If it was just about not telling the truth about Jon's father, shouldn't that read blood and lies, not broken promises? I don't recall that husbands are forced to give a vow to never lie to their wives. In other words, Ned would feel bad about lying to Cat but not about breaking a promise with her.

I think KL burns, including the keep.

I think the many asses on the throne thing will include Myrcella's whose death will play out differently in the books. ie, she will, very briefly, wear a real gold crown. My favorite theory for how this happens is that Dorne uses Myrcella's claim to give fAegon access to KL rather than Arianne sealing their deal.

After her will come either fAegon (if my off-beat concept of Dornish strategy doesn't play out) or Euron. If fAegon, Euron will still IMO follow him.

I could see Cersei marrying Euron to cling to power after her kids are dead, provided Euron's plan to marry Dany has by then clearly failed, and provided she has something Euron needs to make it worth his while. But maybe Dany will somehow be compelled to marry Euron, who knows.

I am not going to predict the next step. The next step is endgame territory and there are too many unknowns.

Yeah I put spoilers in the thread title, just in case. As for the post-discussion thread, the only spoilers there should be in tags and so far it's been pretty successful. So hopefully nobody writes