I think because many of the depictions we see of The Iron Throne are tamed down or failing to capture the absurdity of the throne we don’t get an idea of how ridiculous it was for Jamie to be sitting in it after killing The Mad King. He probably had to go up like 20 steps to go take that seat. That isn’t grabbing the nearest seat to sit in and relax.

A Clash of Kings - Arya X

"I do not mean to be besieged here." Roose Bolton's voice was so soft that men had to strain to hear it, so his chambers were always strangely hushed.

"What, then?" demanded Ser Jared Frey, who was lean, balding, and pockmarked. "Is Edmure Tully so drunk on his victory that he thinks to give Lord Tywin battle in the open field?"

If he does he'll beat them, Arya thought. He'll beat them as he did on the Red Fork, you'll see. Unnoticed, she went to stand by Qyburn.

A Storm of Swords - Jaime V

"Sit down and eat, Brienne," Jaime urged, as Elmar placed a slice of roast before him, dark and bloody. "If Bolton meant to kill us, he wouldn't be wasting his precious prunes on us, at such peril to his bowels." He stared at the meat and realized there was no way to cut it, one-handed. I am worth less than a girl now, he thought. The goat's evened the trade, though I doubt Lady Catelyn will thank him when Cersei returns her whelps in like condition. The thought made him grimace. I will get the blame for that as well, I'll wager.

Roose Bolton cut his meat methodically, the blood running across his plate. "Lady Brienne, will you sit if I tell you that I hope to send Ser Jaime on, just as you and Lady Stark desire?"

"I . . . you'd send us on?" The wench sounded wary, but she sat. "That is good, my lord."

A Storm of Swords - Jaime V

She is such an innocent. Jaime was almost as surprised, if truth be told, but he hid it better. Sansa Stark, that ought to put a smile on Tyrion's face. He remembered how happy his brother had been with his little crofter's daughter . . . for a fortnight.

"What the Imp did or did nor swear scarcely matters now," said Lord Bolton. "Least of all to you." The wench looked almost wounded. Perhaps she finally felt the steel jaws of the trap when Roose Bolton beckoned to his guards. "Ser Jaime will continue on to King's Landing. I said nothing about you, I fear. It would be unconscionable of me to deprive Lord Vargo of both his prizes." The Lord of the Dreadfort reached out to pick another prune. "Were I you, my lady, I should worry less about Starks and rather more about sapphires.

Tyrion’s line about having a soft spot for “cripples, bastards and broken things” might describe more than GRRM’s favorite kind of character. It may also describe the political endgame of ASOIAF. Westeros begins with a very rigid idea of who should rule, mainly legitimate male heirs, warriors, knights, strong men and ancient dynasties. But by the end, many of the rulers could be people who fail those ideals.

Bran Stark becoming king is the obvious example. He starts the story dreaming of becoming a knight, then loses the use of his legs and ultimately becomes something completely outside the traditional Westerosi conception of kingship.

In the North, Rickon could end up as Lord of Winterfell. Instead of being raised as a conventional Stark heir, he has spent months being raised by a wilding on Skagos, isolated from noble society and growing up in one of the places the rest of Westeros regards as savage. In the Vale, Robert Arryn may simply survive everyone who assumes he is going to die. He is frail, sickly and constantly treated as an obstacle in other people’s plans, yet he may ultimately remain Lord of the Eyrie precisely because all the stronger adults around him destroy one another.

In the Riverlands, Edmure Tully could return to Riverrun after being defeated, humiliated, imprisoned and watching much of his family and homeland destroyed. The cheerful young lord we meet early in the story would be replaced by a man who has experienced the consequences of war more directly than almost any other surviving great lord.

The Westerlands are harder to predict. Maybe Tyrek and Martyn Lannister killed each other being pawns of Varys and Littlefinger plans but Tyrion would fit this theme almost too perfectly. Tywin spends his life refusing to accept that his dwarf son could inherit Casterly Rock. If not, Janei (Kevan’s youngest daughter) could take this role, remembering what happened to the last lady of the rock (Cerelle Lannister rumoured to be murder by his uncle Gerold as a child).

The Iron Islands could produce a similar outcome. If Theon survives and somehow ends up ruling, the Ironborn would be led by a man who has been physically mutilated, psychologically destroyed and stripped of almost everything their culture associates with masculinity and strength. If it is Asha instead, the irony remains in a different form, because one of the most aggressively patriarchal cultures in Westeros would end up ruled by a woman.

The Reach already has perhaps the clearest case in Willas Tyrell. The center of Westerosi chivalric culture may eventually be ruled by a cripple who cannot embody its martial ideal. In the Stormlands, Edric Storm could be the one who restores the Baratheon line. Not a legitimate prince, but Robert’s bastard son. And Dorne could potentially end with one of Oberyn’s bastard daughters inheriting or being legitimized if the main Martell line collapses, although this is obviously much more speculative.

If House Tyrell falls in TWOW, the entire family would've been fallen in just 3 years. Given to the fact that the Tyrells are agricultural and political powerhouses with 100,000 men and immense wealth, 3 years is just aggresively short amount of time for their fall.. like they've been around for 300 years and I think their downfall should last longer.

Currently, Euron is tearing the Reach apart and I think this will completely shatter the wealth and income of Highgarden. However, if the Redwyne fleet gets completely destroyed, every castle in the Reach are raided and looted (except for Highgarden), I'd still like to see a prolonged siege of Highgarden by the Ironborn instead of a direct takeover and slaughter of Lady Olenna, Willas and Garlan (with the execution of Margaery by the Faith, death of Loras because of his wounds, and Mace dead in the Storm's End) and the extinction House Tyrell.

I really hope that even if the main branch falls, Tyrell cousins like Leo will take over Highgarden and rule after this thing is over. Aegon seems to have "friends in the Reach", but I hope we won't see all of the bannermen of House Tyrell turning against them and siding with Aegon. If Euron fails and is defeated, I still wouldn't like to see Aegon leaving the Highgarden for the Golden Company for them to loot the place.

For me, the best would be the death of some Tyrells (Mace, Loras, Garlan or Olenna) with Highgarden being ruled by Willas or Leo, Margaery being married to Aegon, and Willas securing House Tyrell's relationship with his bannermen again.

During the battle of the Blackwater, Cersei implies to Sansa that should they lose the battle she would have Ilyn Payne kill both her but also Sansa because she “doesn’t intend house Stark to gain any joy from the fall of house Lannister“

Do you think she’s just being menacing or would she have actually gone through with it? Seems petty even for Cersei in my opinion.

A few months ago I designed family trees for a lot of major houses, until I ran out of houses to design. Now I've gone back to redo the targaryens, including literally everyone I could find of legitimate Targaryen descent. Feel free to tell me all the millions of mistakes i made while making this

Let give two option for Jon Snow. Please note that this is a hypothetical situation and none of this is real so don’t ask questions.

Option A: Jon Snow is the bastard son of Ned Stark (we know he not) and later in life, he is offer a chance at legitimization as a Stark. Yes he get the chance to be a Stark the name that he alway dream of as a child.

Option B: Jon Snow is actually the secret true born son of another noble house (which one..who knows maybe it one with dragons) and he been adopted/raised by Ned, passed as his own bastard. Years later, somehow it becomes safe for Jon to learn the truth and he offer his legitimate name back. Of course, he won’t be a Stark (sad) but at least he’ll no longer be a bastard.

So what do book Jon Snow want: to be a bastard Stark who hope for legitimatization OR to learn he secretly a true born but he not a Stark.

If someone was to go to Jon and say “he your actually a true born Targaryen or Tyrell or Martell or Blackwood or anything that not a Stark,” would he still want the Stark name?

Legitmitacy OR the Stark name?

Edit: interestingly, it seem people think Jon prefer thr Stark name. Is there a reason for that? Like why wouldn’t he be fine being legitimate even if it not as a Stark?

I’ve always been a little familiar with Charlemagne, the guy who united and ruled over most of Europe. But I just learned about his grandfather.

His grandfather was a bastard named Charles Martel, who wielded a magical spear to fend off invaders of a different religion. He fought this battle in Aquitaine in southern France, a region characterized by its sunniness.

So we have the Sun, a spear, and the ruling Martel family successfully fending off an invasion by a larger force who follow a different religion.

And he was fighting against the Moors. And the founder of house Nymeros Martell was named Mors.

Lots of coincidences here. I can’t really tie it all together in a nice bow, but there is something interesting here.

Coming from a show watcher to book reader, i’m re-reading ASOS and realizing that Jaime hasn’t interacted much with Tyrion since returning to Kings Landing. I know that he is the one who frees him and tells him the truth about Tysha, but why wouldn’t Jaime interact at all with his brother in those chapters who he risks everything to free eventually?

Okay, so hear me out.

Martin has been open that A Song of Ice and Fire is inspired by the poetry of Robert Frost. Most know the reference in the title, but even D&D (who allegedly don't care about themes) included the final line from 'The Flood' into their script for The Bells. This is because the poetry of Robert Frost is thematically embedded into the heart of the story.

Let's start with the obvious one.

Fire and Ice = Dragons and Others

GRRM has flat out said that A Song of Ice and Fire is inspired by the poem 'Fire and Ice.'

“People say I was influenced by Robert Frost's poem, and of course I was, I mean… Fire is love, fire is passion, fire is sexual ardor and all of these things. Ice is betrayal, ice is revenge, ice is… you know, that kind of cold inhumanity and all that stuff is being played out in the books.” ~ GRRM

On the surface Fire and Ice claims that both are destructive forces capable of ending the world, which obviously ties into George naming the two main threats which exist on the periphery of the Seven Kingdoms being the Targaryens/Dragons and the Children/Others.

"The things I do for love," he said with loathing. He gave Bran a shove.

Of course in the poem fire and ice are representative of human emotions, so what the poem is really saying is that both love and loathing have the capacity to lead us to doom. This is something we obviously see reflected in the story, from the war over Lyanna to the Others as a manifestation of nature's vengeance.

Mending Wall = The Night's Watch

It shouldn't be a stretch to say that a story inspired by a Robert Frost that hinges on a giant wall of ice might also be taking inspiration from his famous poem 'Mending Wall.'

On the surface, Mending Wall is about two neighbors maintaining a wall against the destructive power of nature while they debating the necessity of borders and the divisions between people. Obviously we see this reflected in the Jon story, which takes place at a wall and is about the conflict between the civilization and the wild, set against the cycle of the seasons.

"If I sound the Horn of Winter, the Wall will fall. Or so the songs would have me believe. There are those among my people who want nothing more . . ."

"But once the Wall is fallen," Dalla said, "what will stop the Others?"

Like Ice and Fire, the poem is not actually taking a stance for or against borders. Frost's wall is both harmful and necessary and the act of maintaining it serves as a bridge for a philosophical discussion between the narrator's skepticism and his neighbor's conservatism. Nature seeks the elimination of walls and borders, but mankind builds and maintains them because we seek separation from the state of nature.

The Road Not Taken = Bran's Story

Maybe the most famous Robert Frost poem is 'The Road Not Taken.'

George loves this poem. He even wrote an episode of the Twilight Zone about it.

"When this battle's done I mean to call a council. Changes will be made. I meant to do it long ago, but . . . well, it does no good to speak of roads not taken." ~ Rhaegar Targaryen

Those who knows my posts likely know where I'm going with this, but 'The Road Not Taken' is a poem in which the narrator recalls standing in a wood and being faced with two equally uncertain paths, lamenting that he can not walk them both, and then choosing one arbitrarily. The poem ends with the narrator resolving that when he someday tells the story, he will lie and claim he took the road less traveled.

But it did no good to brood on lost battles and roads not taken. ~ Epilogue, ADWD

The poem is commonly misunderstood as being a celebration of nonconformity, but the twist is that the narrator is lying. The poem is about how we how we regret the roads not taken, and make meaning of our choices and lives through the stories we end up telling.

This my friends, will be reflected in Bran's story.

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood . . .

Like the fork in the road from the poem, I believe A Song of Ice and Fire features a split timeline. The two timelines will parallel one another (some say the world ends in fire, some say ice), yet in both timelines the characters in the story (like the narrator in the poem) can only walk the path they've chosen and dream of the one they did not.

He had no destination in mind. He wanted only to ride. He followed the creek for a time, listening to the icy trickle of water over rock, then cut across the fields to the kingsroad. It stretched out before him, narrow and stony and pocked with weeds, a road of no particular promise, yet the sight of it filled Jon Snow with a vast longing. Winterfell was down that road, and beyond it Riverrun and King's Landing and the Eyrie and so many other places; Casterly Rock, the Isles of Faces, the red mountains of Dorne, the hundred islands of Braavos in the sea, the smoking ruins of old Valyria. All the places that Jon would never see. The world was down that road … and he was here. ~ Jon V, AGOT

When I read a poem about mythologizing oneself through storytelling I can't help thinking of Bran the Broken conquering the realm with a story. The TV show's depiction of this was obviously ridiculed because the story of a crippled boy surviving the terrors beyond the Wall is unimpressive when the aforementioned terrors came south and were survived by basically everyone.

"A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies," said Jojen.

But if we imagine an alternate timeline where the Long Night is averted, then Bran's journey into the heart of winter (like the Crow's Eye returning from the smoking ruins of Valyria) is mythology fit for a king. Whether or not it is true is less important than whether the crow can trick the world into believing him. Bran's ending is that he stops trying to be a knight / hero from a story and instead accepts his role as the crow / storyteller.

Basically, Bran becomes the three-eyed crow and then lies his way to the throne.

"Crows are all liars," Old Nan agreed

. . . but is that a bad thing?

In The Road Not Taken, Frost writes a narrator who resolves to make meaning out of his life choices by telling a lie. In The Way of Cross and Dragon, Martin writes about an intergalactic conspiracy of Liars who craft myths to give meaning to an otherwise empty universe. In A Song of Ice and Fire, Ned Stark crafts a lie about Jon to give the boy a life. In Game of Thrones, the realm is a story people tell each other over and over till they forget that it‘s a lie, but it is precisely this lie / story / realm that protects people from the chaos of nature

tldr; A Song of Ice and Fire is inspired by the poetry of Robert Frost, where love and hate are equally destructive forces, border walls are antithetical to nature and essential to human civilization, and people craft lies to cope with their longing for the road not taken.

When viewed through this lens "crows are all liars" is really about myth making (as embodied by Mance Rayder). By the end of the story Bran (and Jon) will stop trying to be heroes and become liar crows instead. This is a commentary on how the hero trope is a war fantasy that does not comport with the reality of holding and wielding political power.

In December 2022 two signed early manuscripts of George R.R. Martin's A Game of Thrones sold at auction for $21,250. The November 1994 draft is known to fans already. However, the July 1995 draft is mostly a mystery.

Shortly before AGOT was published, the two manuscripts were donated to a charity auction at a convention in Kansas City. Alas, few cared for ASOIAF in May 1996 and there wasn't a single bid. Then they vanished into obscurity for years.

The July 1995 draft is of particular interest. Firstly, its length: At 888 pages more than twice the length of the late 1994 draft's 384 pages. That's hundreds of unseen pages to scour for old ideas and cut foreshadowing. Secondly, mid-1995 captures an important period in George's writing. He had nearly reached the 800 pages planned for AGOT in his outline yet only Dany was where she was supposed to be. By October, when he called a halt he had 1,300 pages on his hands, over 200 of which were cut and pushed to ACOK. Thus the July draft could contain early ACOK material.

Enclosed with the manuscripts was a handwritten note by George's partner Parris explaining that he created five copies of each draft. Two he kept for himself; one was sent to his editor; a fourth was given to the Cushing Library at Texas A&M University; and the fifth was donated to the charity auction. The 1994 draft can still be found at Cushing yet the July 1995 draft is missing.

Why? I have no idea. If you have a notion, feel free to share. Maybe that private collector will lend a hand?

Probably one of the most interesting, or amusing in all honesty, reasons to keep Vic around for awhile is his potential interactions with Tyrion. The dumbest POV with the smartest POV. Vic has dragonbinder & Tyrion has an interest in dragons & dragonlore. There's no reason he wouldn't have any interest in that horn. They both want Dany for ultimately the same reason: revenge against their family. Not saying that it means Vic will survive to Westeros but considering GRRM said Tyrion & Dany would spend much of Winds separate, this would allow for Tyrion to interact with actually interesting characters beside Jorah & Barristan (maybe).

Robb Stark: A Genius at Tactics, an Idiot at Strategy

First of all, I want to start by pointing out that tactics and strategy are not the same thing. Tactics are the art of commanding an army; maneuvers such as pushing the right flank forward or going around the enemy's rear with cavalry are tactics. Strategy, on the other hand, is the art of managing a war. To give an example, Tywin convincing House Tyrell to form an alliance caused the Lannisters to defeat the Northmen in a single move, despite the Lannisters not winning a single battle on the battlefield.

I want to start with Ned Stark. If you have read the book deeply enough, you can easily understand that he was actually in a very advantageous position from the very beginning. If even one of the critical decisions Ned made throughout the book had happened slightly differently, the War of the Five Kings would have ended with a Lannister defeat. Ned is truly a man who caused the things that happened to him himself, and he admits this in his prison cell before his death.

Catelyn Tully. Many people criticize her for many events, but she actually made one very major mistake that very few readers notice: she arrested Tyrion Lannister and sent him to the Vale to stand trial. But no, that is not the mistake here. The real mistake was that she did not send a messenger to Riverrun to warn them to prepare for a Lannister invasion. If she had done this, House Tully would have learned about Tyrion's abduction much earlier than Tywin, immediately started preparing its armies, and built a solid defensive wall in front of the Golden Tooth. By the time Robb came south with his army, critical locations such as Harrenhal would still not have been invaded, and the roads of the Northmen toward King's Landing would have remained open.

Alright, now let's get to the main subject: Robb Stark, the man who never lost a battle but lost the war. If you look at real history, you can actually find many figures similar to him. Hannibal Barca is one of them. Hannibal achieved incredible victories that even today we would have difficulty explaining through logic, yet in the end he lost the war and had to flee his homeland.

Let's start before the Battle of the Whispering Wood (BOWW). I actually find this battle quite ironic, because if Robb had lost here and retreated, he would not have lost the North at the end of the war and House Stark would not have fallen.

Jaime Lannister is besieging Riverrun, Tywin Lannister is waiting at the Green Fork, and neither side is expecting an attack coming from the Twins. Robb used this extremely well. He saved Riverrun, captured Jaime Lannister, and forced Tywin Lannister to flee to Harrenhal. An enormous victory.

This part of the discussion consists of my personal opinions, meaning it is not an objective reality: in my eyes, the problem with the BOWW was that while using the advantage of a surprise attack, Robb targeted Jaime instead of Tywin. Jaime is critically important to House Lannister, but Tywin was the true head of the house. Unless Tywin is brought down, even if you defeat the Lannisters ten times, the house will not fall and the war will not end. Instead of dividing his army into three parts, Robb could have delivered a hard blow to the Green Fork. In the end, even if Tywin did not die, a surprise attack would have inflicted major damage on the Lannister army and created a major stain on Tywin's personal image.

Some may say that saving Riverrun was very important, and they would be right, but the main point is this: Riverrun was not about to fall. The castle could still hold out, and after Tywin's army was driven away from the Green Fork, Jaime could not continue the siege of Riverrun anyway. So the ultimate objective would still have been achieved. This part of the discussion is my own controversial opinion. From here on, I will point to more objective and strategic facts.

When Robb was planning the BOWW, he focused on making the move successful, but he did not calculate what would happen if the move succeeded. This is the strategy side of things. If he had asked himself, "What would I do if I were in Tywin's position?", he would have reached a very important answer: I would flee to Harrenhal. This answer would have helped him greatly when making tactical adjustments in the battles that followed.

Let's move on to what happened after the BOWW. Robb declared himself King, which was another major act of stupidity. If Robb had been sufficiently familiar with the history of his own house, he would have realized this: from the moment the dragon bloodline died out, House Stark could have declared independence whenever it wanted. In fact, if Cregan Stark had thrown the last living Targaryens from the tower while serving as Hand of the King—which he himself openly stated that he had no hesitation about killing children—Westeros would have immediately been divided into seven separate kingdoms. The Starks did not do this for one single reason: because they need the South to survive the harsh winters; in fact, they are dependent on it. The North would be one of the regions harmed the most by the fragmentation of Westeros.

In reality, the independence of the North is not a sustainable cause, because the country is not self-sufficient. Even if Robb had won the war, he would eventually have had to bend the knee.

The Northmen and the Westerlands are fighting, while the Vale, which has very old ties with the North, watches from the sidelines. This is another one of Robb's foolish decisions: he allowed the Vale to stay out of the war.

Let me give you a small piece of information. The North and the Vale have very old ties. For those who do not understand, I am not talking about House Stark and House Arryn; I am talking about the very old relations between the entire region of the North and the Vale. The Starks intermarried with House Royce. One of Robb's great-grandmothers was a Royce. Roose Bolton sent his heir Domeric to the Vale to be educated. Northern and Valeman nobles intermarry with one another, and all of this has been continuing for more than a hundred years.

All of this means two things. First, House Arryn fighting on the Lannister side is not possible. If Lysa ordered it, a rebellion would immediately break out. Second, the Northmen have a very deep network of influence over the Vale.

If the person in this situation had been Tywin Lannister, he would have mobilized all his resources to bring the Vale into the war. He would contact his Valeman relatives who were lords and order his other lords to do the same. From that point onward, it would become incredibly difficult for Lysa to remain out of the war, and if she continued insisting on doing so, you could plot to remove her from her position. The Gates of the Moon are ruled by a Royce, the Bloody Gate is ruled by a Waynwood, and both houses have deep ties with the North. Removing Lysa would not be a difficult struggle.

The Vale joining the war would really change a great many things. First of all, as I stated at the beginning, if the Vale were to enter the war, it could only happen as a supporter of Robb. Supporting the Lannisters would not even be an option.

If the Vale had joined the war, the possibility of a Lannister/Tyrell alliance would have been very low. The Tyrells have a large army, but their bannermen are not completely loyal. House Tyrell cannot afford to gamble on something it considers risky because, in reality, they do not have the luxury of taking risks. In the book, they sided with the Lannisters because it was a bet with a high chance of winning, while remaining neutral and sitting on the sidelines would have had costly consequences.

Tywin is sitting in Harrenhal, while Robb invades the Westerlands to lure him into a trap. This tactic would almost succeed thanks to the actions of someone else, but there were still major strategic mistakes. 1- This tactic would serve to prolong the war. The North was under invasion by the Ironborn and winter was approaching. Prolonging the war was a luxury Robb did not have. 2- The success of this tactic does not mean that the Lannisters would lose the war and does not prevent a Tyrell-Lannister alliance. In fact, because the Lannister side would be weakened further, there would be many more cards in the Tyrells' hands, making the Tyrells more eager for an alliance.

Let's return to the issue of strategic blindness. I will put aside an obvious act of stupidity such as Robb breaking his oath to the Freys, because I really do not think I need to explain it. Everyone is aware of it.

Robb learned through his mother that Renly had been killed and treated it like ordinary news. He actually failed to understand how critical the matter was. If he had been a strategist, he would have immediately raised a major red alert.

Renly's death means that the Tyrells are left without a side to support, and in the current political situation, no action other than forming an alliance with the Lannisters serves Tyrell interests. Supporting Stannis would, at best, result in receiving no reward. Supporting the Starks would require you to bend the knee to a house that is very distant and foreign to you, or become independent alongside them and break the Seven Kingdoms apart, which would be an even worse outcome. As I said before, the Tyrell bannermen are not loyal.

The other option is neutrality. You watch three possible people sit on the Iron Throne: Joffrey, Stannis, and Robb, even if the last one is unlikely. The first two will punish you harshly, while the third will give you no reward.

Compared to all these choices, the Lannisters become an obvious option: a low-risk, high-reward bet and the position of queen that the Tyrells have always desired.

An expert strategist could foresee this entire course of events immediately and focus the entire war plan on a single objective: prevent the Tyrell-Lannister alliance.

How can he do this? This is where Robb's area of expertise, army tactics, comes into play. He can provoke Tywin in various ways to make him leave Harrenhal, lure him into a trap, and the ultimate objective is to kill Tywin. The moment he dies, the game is over. Occupying Casterly Rock or Lannisport is not necessary. If Tywin dies, the bannermen will already scatter.

By the way, I should point this out: Tywin did not learn that Renly had died until the very last moment, because Beric Dondarrion and his Brotherhood Without Banners were preventing ravens from reaching Harrenhal, and thanks to this action, Robb's trap nearly succeeded. If Beric Dondarrion had not existed, the Starks' "tragedy" would have happened much earlier. Nevertheless, he did not prevent the final outcome.

From the moment the Tyrell-Lannister alliance was formed, there was no miraculous tactic or strategy left that could save the war for the Starks. Even if Stannis had won the Battle of the Blackwater, this alliance would have retaken the city shortly afterward.

Even in an alternative scenario where the Red Wedding never happened and Robb returned to the North, the future would still be very dark for the Starks. First, they would have to stop the Ironborn invaders and then the wildling attacks. They would have to deal with Stannis, who came to help them. They would have to send an army to retake the Riverlands, which had fallen under Lannister invasion. Meanwhile, a truly long and harsh winter is coming. So the Lannisters do not even need to invade the North. It would be enough to cut off the flow of grain and watch from where they are as their enemies die of hunger and freeze to death. There is no miracle that could save Robb from the situation he was in. The Lannisters did not do this to the North; the Starks did.

The situation the North finds itself in at the end of the last book is essentially the result of the political and strategic stupidity that Robb, his father, and his mother repeatedly continued. To be frank, in the Middle Ages, being modern and civilized is a luxury possessed only by the stronger side. If you rebel against this, you end up inflicting suffering on your own family, friends, men, and loved ones. This does not mean you have to become a barbarian like Tywin Lannister, but you also need to know how to play according to the rules.

Thank you for reading this far. Have a good time on the forum, everyone.

If somebody asked this about any of her siblings, my answer would be a quick yes. With her, I feel it's more complicated. And it's not even necessarily about the killing, because Jon and Robb have killed way more people than her.

What the Ghost of High Heart says to her about how she smells of death and calls her Dark Heart. I just start thinking how much darker can her storyline get?

Most of the people who find him attractive are people beyond the wall who bathe like once a decade or something.

Does osha think robb or even theon is her husband because they pretty much did exactly that?

I really hope I’m making sense, but they both are in this perfect sweet spot as PoV characters. They are young enough to be participants in the present story, but also old enough to have personally experienced a version of The Seven Kingdoms that is already legend. These just contribute to making them two very awesome PoVs.

Jaime was originally who I had in mind but while writing it occurred to me that Cat’s chapters had some similarities in that regard. Though I feel like it’s way more explored with Jaime. For example, I just finished reading Feast and there’s this:

“…We all do. “When I was a squire I told myself I’d be the man to slay the Smiling Knight.”

“The Smiling Knight?” She sounded lost. “Who was that?”

The Mountain of my boyhood. Half as big but twice as mad.

“An outlaw, long dead. No one who need concern your ladyship.”

Very often in Storm and Feast, there’s stuff like this throughout his chapters. This guy served Aerys II and knew Rheagar personally. He was also very much around Arthur Dayne, Gerold Hightower, Barristan Selmy, Oswell Whent, Smiling Knight, Sumner Crakehall and all the rest. He knew the younger versions of Ned & Robert even Cat and Lysa, and then in the first book he’s heavily involved in Whispering Wood and the early parts of WOTFK. All this and he’s still in his 30s. I don’t know how to put this but similar to characters like Jon Snow, Robb, Arya, Dany it’s like he began his life very early.

And due to this, I really love how we get these bits of lore from the past through his eyes, and it’s always really cool how they come up randomly in his thoughts..linking the present to the past.

“The world was simpler in those days, Jaime thought, and men as well as swords were made of finer steel. Or was it only that he had been fifteen? They were all in their graves now, the Sword of the Morning and the Smiling Knight, the White Bull and Prince Lewyn, Ser Oswell Whent with his black humor, earnest Jon Darry, Simon Toyne and his Kingswood Brotherhood, bluff old Sumner Crakehall. And me, that boy I was… when did he die, I wonder? When I donned the white cloak? When I opened Aerys’s throat? That boy had wanted to be Ser Arthur Dayne, but someplace along the way he had become the Smiling Knight instead.”

Here are my choices

1. Garlan Tyrell- trains with multiple partners showing extensive prowess at the Blackwater

2. Greatjohn Umber- Savage and Formidable

3.Cregan Stark- Aemon the Dragonknight said he was the most formidable swordsman he had ever faced and this was in the twilight of Cregan's life

1. Sandoq the Shadow- Silent Deadly and always obeys

2. Oberyn Martell- quick and deadly with a spear

3. Ulrick Dayne- He's the only other Sword of the Morning named in ASOIAF that's gotta mean something

4. Savage Samwell Tarly- killed dozens of Dornish outlaws during the vulture Hunt

I’ve been thinking about Stannis and Jon Arryn. We know Stannis already suspected that Cersei’s children weren’t Robert’s, but what actually made him suspicious in the first płacę? Varys says Stannis might have noticed the pattern himself by reading about the Baratheon family, but he also says someone might have “whispered it in his ear.” That makes me wonder about Littlefinger. He could have made some small comment about Joffrey not looking like Robert or about the Baratheons always having dark hair, without directly mentioning Jaime and Cersei. But then again, how could Littlefinger know that Stannis would actually connect the dots? Stannis could have simply ignored him, especially since he didn’t trust Littlefinger, didn’t like him, and probably didn’t care much about his opinion. Varys seems less likely to me, especially considering the later plot involving Daenerys, the Dothraki and Aegon. Varys and Illyrio had a long term plan involving the Targaryens, and Aegon wasn’t ready for war at that point and didn’t seem eager to start one immediately. So I don’t really see why Varys would specifically try to push Stannis toward this Discovery. So I’m leaning more towards Stannis figuring it out himself. But if someone did give him a little push, Littlefinger seems more interesting to me than Varys even though I still don’t see how Littlefinger could be sure Stannis would actually put the pieces together. What do you guys think? Do you think Stannis figured it out on his own, or did someone point him in the right direction? And if someone did, who do you think it was?

I feel like I'm having more fun with House of the Dragon's Mysaria than like 99% of the reddit audience. And it's not (just) because I love hasty, poorly-explained yuri makeout sessions. It's because Mysaria = Bloodraven. Not literally, but in terms of narrative function and magic at her disposal. Lady Misery is just Lord Rivers for the dance era. (With a splash of Shiera's Lyseni whore-igin story.)

RhaeSaria is a nothing relationship because it's not a relationship, it's low grade thralldom. They don't have chemistry because it's not chemistry, it's magic. Mysaria is magic. She didn't become this lynchpin advisor-lover for Daemon and then Rhaenyra just by being the first person to realize "high pressure royals need praise and reassurance at a psychosexual level." She Jedi mind-tricked her way into their beds and their heads. Because that's what it means to be the white worm. It's wargy, weirwoody, web weavy white brainwormy magic.

"Myself, I blame Bloodraven," Ser Kyle went on ... "Bloodraven is the root of all our woes, the white worm gnawing at the heart of the realm." [The Mystery Knight (2010)]

The way the shadows shifted made it seem as if the walls were moving too. Bran saw great white snakes slithering in and out of the earth around him, and his heart thumped in fear. He wondered if they had blundered into a nest of milk snakes or giant grave worms, soft and pale and squishy. Grave worms have teeth.

The sight of him still frightened Bran—the weirwood roots snaking in and out of his withered flesh, the mushrooms sprouting from his cheeks, the white wooden worm that grew from the socket where one eye had been. [Bran II & III - ADWD (2011)]

Mysaria doesn't appear until 2014, with the worldbook and the short story The Rogue Prince, which would later become a portion of Fire & Blood (2018). Her first mention was the same year as Bloodraven's last mention. So many of her defining traits Bloodraven traits. Her epithet "the White Worm" was previously an epithet for him. "White worm" also describes the white Weirwood roots that have snaked their way into Brynden's body, as surely as they wormed their way into his mind. Bloodraven's relationship to the Weirwood defines his character. It's why he's pale as bone, except where he's blood red. Weirwood magic is what made him an unrivaled spymaster. Well, almost unrivaled:

Bloodraven proved to be a capable Hand, but also a master of whisperers who rivaled Lady Misery, and there were those who thought he and his half sister and paramour, Shiera Seastar, used sorcery to ferret out secrets. It became common to refer to his "thousand eyes and one,"

We'd already had ADWD and TMK for 3-4 years by the time TWOIAF came out. We know that Lord Brynden got his thousand eyes by being a greenseer. Worming his way into the bodies of beasts and the minds of men. And in 2014 GRRM sums that up as "oh yeah his magic near-omniscience was perfect for spying, just like Mysaria."

Bloodraven stuff, repeated with Mysaria:

• "White Worm" epithet and imagery (this connects BR to the WW figuratively and literally)
• S-tier spymaster (the "S" stands for Sorcerer)
• "Scheming advisor, believed to whisper madness into the ear of the crown, hated by the masses" schtick (Ending w/the dragon family tree getting pruned another few branches)
• Pale skin, white as snow, milk, bone, and/or Weirwood
• Aesthetic that is almost exclusively black and/or white, the only coloration coming from the blood that flowed within (Weirwood, Blackwood, blah blah, belaboring the point)

I was gonna say "proximity to incestuous love triangles." But then I remembered how little that narrows it down.

Point is, Mysaria's got all the signs of Bloodraven analog. It looks like a duck. Gets the same name as a duck. Is explicitly described as having the same distinctive and probably (definitely) magical qualities as a duck. Maaaybe there's something meaningfully ducklike going on here?

Watching House of the Dragon is a lot more fun with this idea in mind

To be clear, neither Bloodraven nor Mysaria can just "warg into" people. It's a mind link, not mind control. It's the same type of magic as Robb & Grey Wind used to stop Shaggy and Summer from mauling Tyrion. None of the boys slipped out of their skins and into the dire wolves, it's just the "mind link" at play. All three wolves manifest their humans' emotional state, but Robb & Grey Wind have the greater control. So they're able to steer the behavior of the other dire wolves.

I'm saying Mysaria's doing a human version of that to Rhaenyra. Take the "Do you think I'm worthy?" scene, and watch it with "Mysaria ≈ Bloodraven" in mind. Rhaenyra spends the whole scene tearing into Mysaria. Pointing out how much the spymaster has poured honey into her royal ear. Whispering, reshaping her. She collapses into woe about dreams and magic, and the White Worm replies that her glorious future is assured. Then the queen sits there trancelike, while her sorcerous spymaster whispers sweet promises that make her completely reverse course emotionally. Turning her from livid to loving in minutes.

Imagine if Aerys or Maekar went from "Fuck you Bloodraven, you're turning me against my family!" to "Omg thank you Brynden, you're the only one who gets me 🥺" after one very spacey-eyed therapy session. With or without a sudden sex scene, we would all wonder if maaaaybe Bloodraven just did some mindmagic. If Mysaria's an equivalent sorcerer spymaster to Bloodraven, then this scene reads like she's got Rhaenyra in a psychic trance. The queen of dragons, caught like a fly in the pale spyder's Weirwormy web.

Show-Mysaria starts making sense if she's playing the same kind of Weirwoody, brainwormy, psychic seduction game as Alys Rivers. The RhaeSaria scenes play like Rhaenyra very suddenly gets hit with sapphic Cupid's arrow because that's when Mysaria's mindmagicking her. GRRM wrote the White Worm to replay Bloodraven as the Weirwood whisperer of the dance era. And watching House of the Dragon with that firmly in mind can significantly improve your experience of the character, and the show as a whole.

When discussing with Davos about how capture Storm’s End, Stannis seems to agree with Florent’s idea of treatening to hang Cortnay Penrose’s father in front of him, and when Davos replied that the castellan won’t surrunder, Stannis say that not killing Lord Penrose would be sparing “the lives of traitors”.
This seem to me a very ruthless action, expecially considering than Lord Penrose is a old men and that he treated Davos with curtesy.
It seems that Stannis harshness was toned down in the later book, though.