"A Corpse at the Prow of a Ship": A Look at a Changed Plotline and the Effect on a Vision (Spoilers Extended)

Background

In this post I thought it would be interesting to take a look at part of one of the visions that Daenerys receives while tripping on Shade of the Evening inside the House of the Undying. Due to various reasons GRRM has seemingly switch up different characters that were going to head to Daenerys, which has caused part of this vision to not make as much sense anymore. This post looks in the "corpse at the prow of a ship" that was one of the three characters in Dany's "Bride of Fire section".

The Bride of Fire

In this vision section (her "Bride of Fire" visons), she sees a corpse (with grey lips) smiling at the prow of a ship:

Her silver was trotting through the grass, to a darkling stream beneath a sea of stars. A corpse stood at the prow of a ship, eyes bright in his dead face, grey lips smiling sadly. A blue flower grew from a chink in a wall of ice, and filled the air with sweetness. . . . mother of dragons, bride of fire . . . -ACOK, Daenerys IV

and with the first likely representing Khal Drogo and the third likely being Jon Snow, the middle identity has seemingly been debated much more often.

The Abandoned Plotline

From the 2003-2004 Outline and the Visits to Cushing we know that:

• Euron/Victarion ("Crow and Kraken") were both originally going to go to Slaver's Bay together this was switched to ("Kraken and Darkflame") after GRRM chose to keep Euron in Westeros
• Euron originally was going to have Victarion marry Daenerys (his gifts are poison)
• The Forsaken would have likely taken place there as well as an Aeron reveal after the Kingsmoot in the bowels of Euron's Silence
• Victarion was originally going to die

With the above in mind, I think that we can at least envision at least that GRRM originally intended that corpse to represent the Greyjoy arrival in some way and her marriage to secure the Ironborn fleet.

If interested: A Quick Look at Some Changes to Victarion's Plotline

Hizdahr

It was likely that GRRM originally intended Dany's stay in Meereen to either be covered by a 5 year gap or be short and sweet. Who she ends up marrying (Hizdhahr zo Loraq) was seemingly going to be given some pretty tough tasks (if interested: The 3 Labours of Hizdahr) that would instead be accomplished by Victarion (or Euron).

With Dany choosing to marry Hizdahr, unless Hizdahr end up as the "corpse at the prow of a ship" (which at least to me is much less poetic than a Greyjoy), it makes this vision much less "neat". Arguments can be made that this wasn't a "wedding of fire, it was a wedding of trees" but imo GRRM chose what he thought would be a better story over keeping the vision a perfect representation of what would happen.

If interested: Fates of the Bride of Fire's Suitors

What Gives?

Instead of what would have seemingly been a vague reference to the Greyjoys arrival in Slaver's Bay and Dany's marriage to Victarion (or Euron) now has a few issues:

• Dany's marriage to Hizdahr
• GRRM's choice to keep Euron/Aeron in Westeros

and while the reference can now potential be completely shifted. Some examples:

• Aeron lashed to the prow of the Silence

If Dany ends up wed to Euron this could fit the requirement for us:

“Bind them to the prows,” Euron commanded. “My brother on the Silence. Take one for yourself. Let them dice for the others, one to a ship. Let them feel the spray, the kiss of the Drowned God, wet and salty.” -TWoW, The Forsaken

but I really don't think that is where the story is headed. I think someone else is likely Euron's "mate":

He saw his brother on the Iron Throne again, but Euron was no longer human. He seemed more squid than man, a monster fathered by a kraken of the deep, his face a mass of writhing tentacles. Beside him stood a shadow in woman’s form, long and tall and terrible, her hands alive with pale white fire. Dwarves capered for their amusement, male and female, naked and misshapen, locked in carnal embrace, biting and tearing at each other as Euron and his mate laughed and laughed and laughed 

• Young Griff (JonCon/Greyscale)

I have also read great theories that now GRRM has shifted the identity in that vision from the Greyjoys to an upcoming alliance/marriage with Young Griff/Aegon VI and the greyscale that JonCon could spread. Dany could arrive and marry Young Griff as they fight Euron in the Second Dance before being betrayed, etc. and having to kill him.

If interested: A Bride for Young Griff

• Other

I've read other theories as well ranging from Daario to it being completely abandoned, etc. but I think those fit even worse (open to ideas).

The Constant: Victarion

The constant in all of this is Victarion Greyjoy.

No, to make an heir that's worthy of him, I need a different woman. When the kraken weds the dragon, brother, let all the world beware."

GRRM always planned for him to go to Meereen and be involved in a plan to marry Dany (whether it be for him or his brother). That was true in the abandoned plotlines and it remains true now. While it can be likely deduced that Euron never planned to let Victarion marry Dany (Victarion probably wouldn't have gone along with it if she was a "gift", the general plotline remains the same.

"Where else? The dragon queen awaits me in Meereen." The fairest woman in the world if my brother could be believed. Her hair is silver-gold, her eyes are amethysts.

Was it too much to hope that for once Euron had told it true? Perhaps. Like as not, the girl would prove to be some pock-faced slattern with teats slapping against her knees, her "dragons" no more than tattooed lizards from the swamps of Sothoryos. If she is all that Euron claims, though … They had heard talk of the beauty of Daenerys Targaryen from the lips of pirates in the Stepstones and fat merchants in Old Volantis. It might be true. And Euron had not made Victarion a gift of her; the Crow's Eye meant to take her for himself. He sends me like a serving man to fetch her. How he will howl when I claim her for myself. Let the men mutter. They had sailed too far and lost too much for Victarion to turn west without his prize. -ADWD, The Iron Suitor

it is also worth noting that Victarion is aware of her wedding to Hizdahr:

He had seen the wench wed too, but what of it? She would not be the first woman Victarion Greyjoy had made a widow. -ADWD, The Iron Suitor

and while others believe Dany to be dead, Victarion is confident she is alive due to Moqorro:

The war for Meereen was won, the captain claimed; the dragon queen was dead, and a Ghiscari by the name of Hizdak ruled the city now.

Victarion had his tongue torn out for lying. Daenerys Targaryen was not dead, Moqorro assured him; his red god R'hllor had shown him the queen's face in his sacred fires. The captain could not abide lies, so he had the Ghiscari captain bound hand and foot and thrown overboard, a sacrifice to the Drowned God. "Your red god will have his due," he promised Moqorro, "but the seas are ruled by the Drowned God."

and:

And like the captain of the Ghiscari Dawn, the captains of the galleys repeated the lie that Daenerys Targaryen was dead.

"Give her a kiss for me in whatever hell you find her," Victarion said. He called for his axe and took their heads off there and then. Afterward he put their crews to death as well, saving only the slaves chained to the oars. He broke their chains himself and told them they were now free men and would have the privilege of rowing for the Iron Fleet, an honor that every boy in the Iron Islands dreamed of growing up. "The dragon queen frees slaves and so do I," he proclaimed.

before he finally finds out what happened to her:

Later that same day, a fishing ketch was taken by Seven Skulls and Thrall's Bane. She was a small, slow, dingy thing, hardly worth the effort of boarding. Victarion was displeased to hear that it had taken two of his own ships to bring the fishermen to heel. Yet it was from their lips that he heard of the black dragon's return. "The silver queen is gone," the ketch's master told him. "She flew away upon her dragon, beyond the Dothraki sea."

"Where is this Dothraki sea?" he demanded. "I will sail the Iron Fleet across it and find the queen wherever she may be."-ADWD, Victarion I

and while it is just as likely he could die in the attempt (keep in mind he dies in his first non mega prologue chapter originally)

“There is no need. The Lord of Light has shown me your worth, lord Captain. Every night in my fires I glimpse the glory that awaits you.”
Those words pleased Victarion Greyjoy mightily, as he told the dusky woman that night. “My brother Balon was a great man,” he said, “but I shall do what he could not. The Iron Islands shall be free again, and the Old Way will return. Even Dagon could not do that.” Almost a hundred years had passed since Dagon Greyjoy sat the Seastone Chair, but the ironborn still told tales of his raids and battles. In Dagon’s day a weak king sat the Iron Throne, his rheumy eyes fixed across the narrow sea where bastards and exiles plotted rebellion. So forth from Pyke Lord Dagon sailed, to make the Sunset Sea his own. “He bearded the lion in his den and tied the direwolf’s tail in knots, but even Dagon could not defeat the dragons. But I shall make the dragon queen mine own. She will share my bed and bear me many mighty sons.”

that Victarion is actively making blood sacrifices, etc. as well in order to hasten his speed towards Daenerys:

For himself, Victarion claimed the seven choicest girls. One had red-gold hair and freckles on her teats. One shaved herself all over. One was brown-haired and brown-eyed, shy as a mouse. One had the biggest breasts he had ever seen. The fifth was a little thing, with straight black hair and golden skin. Her eyes were the color of amber. The sixth was white as milk, with golden rings through her nipples and her nether lips, the seventh black as a squid's ink. The slavers of Yunkai had trained them in the way of the seven sighs, but that was not why Victarion wanted them. His dusky woman was enough to satisfy his appetites until he could reach Meereen and claim his queen. No man had need of candles when the sun awaited him.
...

Near the end, before the smoking ketch was swallowed by the sea, the cries of the seven sweetlings changed to joyous song, it seemed to Victarion Greyjoy. A great wind came up then, a wind that filled their sails and swept them north and east and north again, toward Meereen and its pyramids of many-colored bricks. On wings of song I fly to you, Daenerys, the iron captain thought. -ADWD, Victarion I

and:

All that was done and gone now, though. Victarion would have his due at last. I have the horn, and soon I will have the woman. A woman lovelier than the wife he made me kill. -TWOW, Theon I

If interested: Revisiting the Victarion Fragment & TWoW Victarion I: An Extremely Small Known but Potentially Forgotten Detail

TLDR: When GRRM originally wrote Daenerys' "Bride of Fire" vision in the House of the Undying it likely originally referenced the Ironborn's arrival and a marriage to Victarion (or more likely Euron) in order to gain access to the Iron Fleet. Due to changes in the plotline we now have Euron/Aeron staying in Westeros and Dany marrying Hizdahr zo Loraq in Meereen. No matter what, the "Bride of Fire" vision (which also seemingly references Drogo and Jon Snow) is now a bit off (unless Hizdahr is the corpse at the prow of the ship) and GRRM may have shifted it to Young Griff (and the greyscale surrounding JonCon) or Aeron (currently strapped to the prow of the Silence). The one constant in all of this is Victarion Greyjoy's arrival in Meereen and attempt to marry Daenerys.