The Grand Maester Conspiracy: what are the maesters up to?

"Maesters are supposed to be politically neutral" GRAND MAESTER PYCELLE BURSTS OUT LAUGHING.

Sometimes when reading GoT and associated lore I sometimes stop myself and think, "Wait, none of this is real"

It's a shame HBO are gonna rush the next 2 seasons. Edited 07/08/2020: Wow I hate being right.

Guess you could call it their...Maester Plan

You missed a pretty important detail, which is that in a Dance with Dragons, Tyrion mentions that somewhere in the Citadel is a book explaining how to kill dragons. It's heavily implied that that's what Jaqen is looking for, and why he needs an archmaester's key. The Faceless Men hate Valyrians and dragons even more than the maesters do, so it would make sense that Jaqen's mission is to figure out how to kill Daenerys' dragons. But the fact that the maesters even have that book in the first place backs up Marwyn's claim that they killed off the Targaryen dragons.

I don't think Maester Aemon's statement that he came to be the Maester of the Night's Watch of his own will and Marwyn's words contradict each other. The text says "Ask yourself why he was ALLOWED to waste his life upon the Wall". I'd say it was Aemon's own choice and the other Maesters didn't oppose it, because it seemed convenient to them: The Targaryen removes himself from the picture. It implies that they would have argued against someone like Aemon going to the Wall if he WASN'T a Targaryen, because they wouldn't want someone as talented/knowledgeable "wasting" himself on the Night's Watch, when they would need/want him as an archmaester

It's so easy to forget the depth of these books when we complain about Martin taking so long to write them...

"killing the dragons" means "killing the Targaryens" which Pycelle directly oversaw and virtually succeeded in doing at the end of Robert's Rebellion, when he got Aerys to open the gates to Tywin, who he knew would kill them all.

What if grand maester Pycelle is actually Jon Snow's mother?

Most of the maesters we've met are extremely loyal to their appointed or chosen lords. Pycelle is devoted to the Lannisters. Aemon is loyal to the Night's Watch. Sam is loyal to Jon. Leuwin to the Starks. Cressen to Stannis. Even vile Qyburn seems loyal to Cersei. It seems that every maester has his own agenda based on his own loyalties -- like everyone else is Westeros.

For there to be a big 'maester conspiracy' it doesn't mean that all maesters would have to be in on it. It could just be a relatively small, but powerful, contingent of elites within the maesters. So guys like Crennen and even the Grand Maester may have no idea, and their ignorance of any grand plot could even be something by design. For a conspiracy to work, I imagine you don't want a whole heckuva lot of people to know about it -- because each additional person is a risk. IMO, you'd want as few as possible to be successful.

Cressen was a good person, I actually felt sad when he died. Plus, if I was him, I would also fear Melissandre and her black destructive magic.

Dany is known as the "Breaker of Chains." The maesters all wear a heavy chain, almost like it's their sigil = MINDBLOWN!

Jet fuel can't melt obsidian beams.

6 years later and we still waiting on that next book to find out what the maesters are up to

Knowing that the the first 3 books were planned to be a trilogy, I think a lot of the newer plotlines like this maester conspiracy are newer ideas from Martin. Thats why I dont think Cressens POV had any references to the glass candles or being anti magic rather than purely pro stannis.

Point of order (@ about 7:25mins), regarding the growth of Dany's dragons. 'A Dance with Dragons' clearly tells us that while the dragon Drogon is free and flying around, he grows much bigger than the other two, who are kept in chains in a closed pit. So, captive dragons indeed do NOT grow as large as one left free.

I have never been more baffled at GRRM's attention to detail than I was when I saw the names of 21 archmaesters, one of which we've actually seen in the books. This man is freakishly into detail.

So they're like the Illuminati of Westeros?

Maester Pycelle is shown to be quite manipulative in the deleted scene where he and Tywin have a conversation. He drops the character and speaks freely, showing his intelligence and capability in a conspiracy.