Fans of Game of Thrones — and the book series more properly called A Song of Ice and Fire — know that author George R.R. Martin has changed his mind about many things in it, not least of which is the number of books it contains.

But back when the still incomplete 7-part series was being sketched out as a trilogy, Martin had a few ideas that look rather strange with hindsight.

Not least of which was putting a 9-year old Arya Stark, played in the series by teenager Maisie Williams, in a bizarre love triangle with her sworn enemy Tyrion Lannister and her half-brother, Jon Snow.

The disturbing detail came to light as part of a pitch letter written by Martin to his agent in 1993, three years before the first Game of Thrones book became a reality. The pages were tweeted out by Waterstones, a major UK bookseller; they reportedly hang on the walls of Martin's publisher HarperCollins' new London offices.

Though the Waterstones tweets were later deleted from its account, HarperCollins has confirmed that the letter is accurate. These screenshots from the tweets were preserved by the fan site Winteriscoming.net.

Image: Waterstones, Winteriscoming.net

Here's the first page, which reveals itself as a cover letter with an early draft of the first 170 pages of the first book. (We hope Martin is still in the habit of sending his agent 170-page chunks, if only to assure anxious fans he's still writing.)

This is pretty much the Westeros we know, with Lannister and Stark at each others' throats, and greater threats to the north and east in the form of the Others and Daenerys, respectively. The other great houses of Martins' world are not mentioned — no Greyjoys, no Tyrells, no Martells. Martin's sprawling world used to be a much more simple place.

On page two, Martin reveals the five viewpoint characters he originally intended to survive the "trilogy": Tyrion, Arya, Bran, Daenerys and Jon Snow. Given that so much else has changed, of course, we now fear for the safety of all of them.

A sidenote: Song of Ice and Fire now has more than 24 viewpoint characters.

Much of this page is still remarkably familiar to Thrones fans: "Joffrey will not be sympathetic," Martin reveals. You don't say? But the first major change comes immediately below that: Sansa Stark was intented to actually marry Joffrey, bear his children, and make the regrettable choice to support her new family over her old one.

More changes follow. Robb Stark was supposed to die in battle and his mother Catelyn at the hands of the Others; no Red Wedding here. Tyrion burns Winterfell, not the Boltons. Jon and Bran become bitterly estranged; as it turned out, they haven't ever seen each other.

And then there's that underage love triangle. Nine-year old Arya "realizes, with terror, that she has fallen in love with Jon, who is not only her half-brother but a man of the Night's Watch, sworn to celibacy. Their passion will continue to torment Jon and Arya throughout the trilogy, until the secret of Jon's parentage is revealed in the last book."

That last part, at least, still seems like it could be on point. (And Martin has been quick to point out, in subsequent interviews, that underage affairs and brides were common in the medieval world.)

Over the page comes the other leg of the triangle: Tyrion. The Lannister Imp "falls helplessly in love with Arya Stark while he’s at it. His passion is, alas, unreciprocated, but no less intense for that, and it will lead to a deadly rivalry between Tyrion and Jon Snow."

One gets the sense that this version of Arya, breaking hearts across the Seven Kingdoms, has little to do with the scrappy revenge-filled tomboy she would become in the finished books.

Then we come to the wildly different end. Daenerys kills the Dothraki warlord Khal Drogo out of revenge, not compassion. Tyrion actually kills Joffrey, instead of being wrongly accused. And Jaime Lannister cuts his way to the throne, blaming his subsequent killings on his dwarf brother.

And all of this in the first book, supposedly. When you consider that these events, in very different form, now stretch out over the first three books of the series, you can start to see how Martin's epic spun out of control.

Finally, there's that last paragraph — redacted even in this eventually-deleted tweet. What mysteries might it contain? Presumably its plot revelations are still in effect? Did Martin actually have the end planned out from this very early stage?

We'll have to wait — until goodness knows what year — to find out.