Everyone loves Archmaester Marwyn. He’s a tough dude, a hella cool guy who doesn’t play by the “rules” of the “Citadel.” He prays to queer gods and has probably killed some people.

He should also be taken with more than a few grains of salt.

Judge a Man by his Company

One of the basic writing tricks is to flesh out your characters by having other people orbit around them. GRRM does this to the extreme in AGOT with Stannis. Stannis never appears on the page, but we get reactions to him from a variety of characters, all of whom have been characterized in their own right. Ned likes him, Cersei fears him, Renly mocks him.

Marwyn is given the same treatment. Way back in AGOT, Mirri Maz Duur tells Dany that she learned of her healing arts from a Maester named Marwyn (aside – it’s likely that “Maz Duur” is just a Lhazarene corruption of “Maester.” Also – there’s some cool stuff gong on with Mirri. Her name sounds liky “Mary,” Lhazarene sounds like Nazarene, her people are lamb people…there’s an odd early-Christian link there).

Anyway! Mirri starts off as a healer, but eventually does some CRAZY magic. Seriously dark stuff. Demons come to life thanks to Mirri Maz Duur. She’s involved in dire dark magic. And if Marwyn taught her stuff…

But that’s not that bad. Marwyn’s a scholar! He was part of an exchange of knowledge! So who else talks about Marwyn?

Qyburn.

Qyburn praises Marwyn; he says that Marywn is one of the few who understood his experiments. Like Marwyn, he refers to the majority of Maesters as “gray sheep.” And this is a man who performs Mengele-esque experiments on the living, a man who is the living embodiment of the “WE’VE GONE TOO FAR” scientist trope.

So honestly, going by Marwyn’s peers, he seems more than just mildly eccentric. He seems – well, frankly, potentially dangerous.

The thing is, people love to romanticize the fringe. The Rebels in Star Wars are a good example – taken objectively, they’re terrorists. But the fringe is romanticised, the weirdos made the good guys. For an even better example, peep the X-Files – specifically the Lone Gunmen. A group of well-meaning conspiracy theorists and weirdos, who are really sweet at heart and don’t pose much of a threat to anyone. Just some harmless loonies who happen to be right about the aliens sometimes!

But the thing is, in the real world, conspiracy theorists – real fringe folks – aren’t all sweet and cute and fun. They’re 9-11 truthers, they’re Sandy Hook truthers, they’re the kind of people who turn to a fictionalized version of reality in the most dangerous and frightening way.

(this isn’t to say there are no real conspiracies. I’m not trying to disparage anyone, either).

Judge a Man by his Words

So in the last chapter of Feast, we meet Marwyn face-to-face. Sam has a particularly wonderful conversation with the man, as he spills all the secrets he’s ever learned – Bran is alive, the babies were swapped, Dany is the Prince that was Promised. Marwyn makes an offhand comment about the “gray sheep” killing Aemon because they believed him dangerous. Specifically, he says –

“Ask yourself why Aemon Targaryen was allowed to waste his life upon the Wall, when by rights he should have been raised to archmaester. His blood was why. He could not be trusted. No more than I can.”

Okay, let’s unpack that. First off – Aemon goes to the Wall for a reason. A specific reason. To quote the eternally-wise wiki:

Aemon then chose to go to the Wall to take the vows of the Night’s Watch for fear that he may be used in a plot to usurp his brother.

Aemon *chose* the Wall. Because *he* feared his own blood. It had nothing to do with a maester conspiracy theory. But how would Marwyn know that? He wasn’t even born at the time – this was the mid-230s AC, and Marwyn ain’t THAT old.

So Marwyn is projecting his own conspiracy theories onto someone else’s life. Good sign! But there’s more to unpack: “He could not be trusted. No more than I can.”

Some people have taken this to mean that Marwyn too has magical blood, that he’s someone of import. But I really, really doubt it. I find it more likely that Marwyn has been made paranoid and bitter after a lifetime of harassing and quiestioning everyone around him. Some of it, I’m sure, has been justified. But this is Marwyn embiggening himself, comparing himself to a Targaryen. He’s not saying he has special blood, he’s saying that he’s so cool and edgy that he’s just as dangerous as a dude with special blood.

And this is the guy heading off to advise Daenerys Targaryen.

Referring for a second to the most accurate ASOIAF timeline, Marwyn departs Oldtown on 5/15/300 (arbitrary placeholder month/date). The Battle of Meereen happens on 7/19/300, about two months later. For reference, according to Quhuru Mo (captain of the Cinnamon Wind, Marwyn’s new ship), it takes him about “half a year” to get from Oldtown to Qarth. So we should expect to see Marwyn pop up in Meereen about a month or two after the Battle of Meereen. Maybe just in time for Dany to return with a Dothraki army.

A Man on the Fringe

Earlier I talked about how people like to romanticize the fringe. It’s an incredibly common fantasy trope for the weirdos to be right – for information to come from the unlikeliest sources. From a narrative perspective, this makes sense. When you’re writing about alien abductions, the crazy abductee theorists are the first ones to recognize what’s happening. Look at Independence Day, for crying out loud. OL CRAZY RANDY ISN’T SO CRAZY AFTER ALL, EH? The same holds true for fantasy – when you’re dealing with ancient prophecies, it’s the eccentric scholars who remember these prophecies.

But in real life, those people aren’t just eccentric. More often than not, there are other, personal reasons for why they think the world is out to get them. A lot of times, real conspiracy theorists have their theories as a stand-in for a personal problem with the world. In other words: sometimes it’s easier to believe that everyone is out to get you than it is to admit that you’re a dick.

Now let’s look at GRRM, a dude who plays with common storytelling ideas the way a kid plays with LEGO. What do you think is more likely: that GRRM is playing Marwyn straight, a la Independence Day, or that he’s going to portray him like a human?

Marwyn isn’t a hidden genius. He’s probably accidentally right about some stuff. And he did light a glass candle. But he’s also a man on the fringe, and it wouldn’t really be very ASOIAF-y if GRRM played that one straight for some reason. He’s been associated with necromancers and dark witches, with the dangers of unbounded curiosity. And he’s about to go join up with a nihilistic dwarf genius and a dragon queen with an army of savage warriors and a reinvigorated penchant for burning the shit out of her opponents.

I’m sure nothing could go wrong.