All Dragons Must Fly

Sam’s quite optimistic in general, bless his heart. I don’t think he has any illusions about Randyll, though. I think his reasoning that Randyll will be pleased Sam is at least manly enough (ugh) to get a woman pregnant is probably pretty sound. Having a strong grandson around is the kind of thing that he would think would reflect positively on himself. Sam’s also probably thinking/hoping his mother will feel sympathy for Gilly and the baby and will do what she can to try and bring Randyll around on this.

Personally, though, I don’t think Randyll’s going to be around to cause problems. It’ll be up to Dickon, who might still be an okay guy.

I don’t see any reason Aemon and Gilly won’t make it to Horn Hill. And, because there’s a pretty good chance Randyll won’t make it out of King’s Landing (CRISPY-FRIED JUSTICE, as far as I’m concerned), they’ll have a nice life there. Sam’s mother and sisters sound like very kind people. And the only thing we’ve heard about Dickon’s personality is that he’s the one who heard about the cruel wager over Brienne and reported it to Randyll. Randyll put a stop to it because military discipline is important to him, but Dickon was only a pre-teen at the time, and a kid that age is more likely to be motivated by right and wrong than by an understanding of unit cohesion. So maybe his awful father hasn’t ruined him just yet and he’ll be decent to his supposed nephew.

As for Monster, I want desperately to be wrong about this, but....Val is the only person at Castle Black who knows that he’s not a prince. I know everyone thinks Melisandre will sacrifice Shireen to wake Azor Ahai, but Stannis seems doomed to go full Agamemnon, and Shireen isn’t tied into Jon’s own decisions in the same way Monster is.