The "Queen" in TWoW Mercy I (Spoilers Extended)
Background
This chapter is about 25 years old I think and has undergone numerous revisions. I've posted about it in detail ranging from everything we know about the Braavos plotline (Let's talk about Braavos in The Winds of Winter) to a myriad of other things ranging from things going on in the background: Some "in the background" Thoughts on TWOW, Mercy as well as the ending: The End of TWoW, Mercy. In this post, due to a recent SSM I found I wanted to focus on the "queen" and the men hired by Harys Swyft.
If interested: The Braavos Info Dump in TWoW
Cersei's Return to Power
It has long been debated about whether this passage refers to Cersei's return to power or not:
"How long do you think we'll be here?"
"Longer than you'd like," the old man replied. "If he goes back without the gold the queen will have his head. Besides, I seen that wife of his. There's steps in Casterly Rock she can't go down for fear she'd get stuck, that's how fat she is. Who'd go back to that, when he has his sooty queen?" -TWOW, Mercy I
and while this SSM has existed for a long time I either never noticed it or forgot:
Q: Since you mentioned the long history and multiple revisions you've done for this chapter, I was wondering if you'd comment on something? There's a bit of a debate raging over whether this chapter spoils the return to power of a certain Queen, or if those references were inadvertent leftovers from earlier drafts. Can readers assume that this is, in fact, the final draft of this chapter? Or did something perhaps slip through from a previous understanding of the storyline?
GRRM: It is the current draft. I would not say it is the final draft. I always do one last run-through and polish when a book is turned in, and so eventually (NOT tomorrow, let's not start rumors here) I will do that with Mercy. Even before that, the chapter's placement in the novel often requires tweaks, and I do have a long history of moving chapters around and rearranging the chronology until I hit on the best possible sequence. It would have made ... a very good closure to the Raff subplot that began back in AFfC. I'm pretty sure everyone wondered why the hell Raff had suddenly returned to the story in Jaime's chapters...
Q: But the conversation between Raff and the other guardsman really feels odd in terms of Cersei's walk of shame. They must know about it, even if they did not witness it themselves, since Ser Harys was still in KL when Ser Kevan was killed And Raff only was hired by Harys after Kevan suggested that he should hire the Mountain's men who came with Ronnet Connington to KL, shortly before he was killed. Even if Cersei regains the Regency again, wouldn't the likes of Raff japing/talking about her walk of shame when she comes up, especially when they also make fun of poor Harys' old wife...?
GRRM: You should discuss these issues with other readers at Westeros or Tower of the Hand. As I've said below, I do not want discussions of story points here. If I allow those, they will take over the blog. -SSM, Live Journal: Mercy - 2014
and while GRRM does not directly answer the question, I just never knew that this had been brought up to him before. Also worth noting that from a narrative standpoint, does it just work best for Cersei to be in power (for a little bit at least):
Even when you kill a bad guy, it can be hard... he´s one of your ¨children¨too. Besides, good villains are hard to find, and you always have the nagging doubt that maybe you´ll need him down the line.
TLDR: GRRM made a non-comment on the Queen mentioned in TWoW, Mercy.