screamin

The NK's armies would have swelled by the entire population of the North...and the NK doesn't hesitate to conscript every man, woman, and child. Not to mention that the NK has already shown himself quite capable of dealing with dragon attacks. As others said, it would be bad form for Dany to go against her word to Jon to save the North even before he offered her his crown, just because the Northerners weren't as NICE as they might have been in accepting her rule. But besides that, it would be a really bad strategic mistake that I don't think the neck's strategic advantages would offset. Thermopylae is often held up as a moral victory of a small, determined, well entrenched force over a much larger force, but in the end they lost - and they didn't have the disadvantage of having each of their dead soldiers join the enemy, invulnerable to exhaustion, hunger and conventional weapons.

IMO, faking a warmth you absolutely do not feel is likely to come off as even more offputting, like serving up a cup of treacle and vinegar...it's a pretense likely to be seen through and thus will add an additional bit of insult - ie, "You think I'm such an idiot I'd fall for that saccharine smile?" Cool politeness is more honest under the circumstances, without giving any open offense.

We haven't seen any indication that Sansa is treating Dany with anything but the courtesy due a queen and ruler. If she lacks warmth, that's not actionable. Questioning her brother in private about his motivations is a family's prerogative.

Not to mention she's bringing 2 different varieties of foreign army with her, as least one of which has a Mongol horde-like reputation.

Oooh, oooh, I know this one! Dany braided Sansa's hair for her while they were bonding and put a little bell in it for killing Ramsey, the way Dothraki do! I read it in a fanfic once....*slinks off*

I don't have a problem, per se, with Jon and Dany going for a dragon ride - it's important to use dragons in strategic ways in coordinated attacks, and it would be an especial public sign of favor and trust that she allows Jon to take that role - one that might reassure the North that even though Jon demoted himself to Warden, she's not going to treat him (and the North) as just another flunky. To use the dragons as weapons effectively, he has to learn to ride one. What DOES bother me is that it's freakin' WINTER in the North already. It's one thing to find a stunning snow-covered landscape to admire, maybe exchange a few kisses in front of before going home to hot cider and a warm bed. But finding a gorgeous landscape that's ALSO warm and inviting enough for a more extended romantic interlude and sentimental yearning to settle in and stay forever? Either they flew all the way to the Summer Isles, or they just HAPPENED to find another cozy cave conveniently heated with hot springs like Jon did with his first love. Both would be unbelievably silly, IMO.

I agree - the part where Elizabeth fell into the hands of a stepfather figure at age 14 who apparently started molesting her with intention of 'grooming' her for a future romantic relationship to furthur his political ambition as well as to satisfy his own perviness seems a direct parallel.

Well, after the reappearance of the Others after Tyrion mocked them as mythical snarks and grumkins, I'd guess he'd keep an open mind. But mainly I'd think he'd use the prophecy the way he used his concerns about burning KL to the ground to dissuade Dany from attacking with dragons: yes, it has the potential to burn thousands of innocent people and be a PR disaster that would permanently hobble Dany's reign. These are all things that are true and that do genuinely concern him, but his MAIN, less worthy reason that he withholds from Dany is that he wants to spare his sister's life. The same way, I'd expect that he'd hear the prophecy, and keep it in mind as possibly true - a lot of prophecies are coming true right now and a lot of magic being done - it would be a foolish man who'd reflexively deny the possibility under those circumstances. But then, if he sees an opportunity for a Targaryen kamikaze attack to get some critical goal needed for eventual victory, I don't think Tyrion would be above using the prophecy to talk Jon into making that attack, the same way he used humanitarian concerns to dissuade Dany from attacking KL. Yes, Tyrion believes the prophecy is suggestive, it may even be true - but Tyrion's main concern in talking Jon into it is that he wants his queen to come out on top. I think that would be in character. But as I said, I expect the outcome will probably be St Tyrion the Martyr instead. *sigh*

While I expect option 2, I'd dislike it because it gives the finishing touch of whitewash to the statue of St. Tyrion the Martyr that the show has made of Book Tyrion. What I would LIKE is option 4 with a side of Machiavelli; that Tyrion gets wind of the prophecy that ONE of the Targaryens has to be sacrificed to enable the other to save the world, and decides on his own that he wants the sacrifice to be Jon, concealing the info from Danaerys and using the prophecy to talk Jon into being the sacrifice, for very good reasons: Dany is pregnant and is the future of the dynasty, and Jon is a dead man walking, living on borrowed time already....but also because he wants Danaerys and his cushy role as Queen's Hand. He intends his meddling to be secret (maybe Bran's dead by then) but it comes out. He defends his reasoning at his trial but is defeated.

Well, that's your opinion. I originally brought her up because Sansa dressing in armor was called a 'silly costume.' I pointed out that Elizabeth I dressed in armor not intended to be functional for a very not-silly purpose. That was the only reason I mentioned her. (BTW, attendance at Anglican church was required and Catholic mass punishable by death during her reign, so I don't think it's quite accurate to say she 'didn't care who you worshipped.' As for saying she 'tried to stay out of people's hearts', why do you say that?) Since you bring up other comparisons, though - Elizabeth's 'destiny' as queen was not something that she grew up knowing, since she was a long shot, behind her brother, then her sister, then her sister's possible children from her marriage to the King of Spain; indeed, she spent much of that time teetering on the edge of disgrace and sometimes even execution. I'd say there are certainly some paralels to Sansa's coming of age. As for her wonderful education making her incomparably superior...are you saying the Starks educated their children in an inferior manner to any people of their rank, destined rulers of the North and descendants of kings? AFAICT, they got as good an education as anyone of their own or higher rank in Westeros. As for all Elizabeth's other achievements that you cite to prove her superiority...ALL of them, from surviving the reign of her sister Bloody Mary onward, happened when she was already an adult, significantly older than Sansa is now. Her sister Mary did not become queen till Elizabeth was already twenty years old. Deriding Sansa because she hasn't equalled Elizabeth's lifetime of achievement when Sansa is only sixteen (more or less) and has spent her teenhood surviving in royal vipers' nests strikes me as singularly unfair. To me it seems that Sansa's survival in those courts is a fair parallel to Elizabeth's education in survival at the same age...and I don't think only a deluded stan would think so.

Will he, though? It would be the logical thing to do, given that he can't lie convincingly to save his life, but it means telling her the queenship she's built her whole life around and killed his BFF's family to protect the authority of is a lie. They've only known each other a short time, he can't know how she'll react to have that fundamental assumption kicked out from under her - not to mention how her armies may react. And he has no evidence besides creepy Bran's vision and Sam's old book - neither of which can be considered either conclusive or coming from an objective source. I think Jon will decide that, since he doesn't want the Iron Throne and letting the truth out will hurt his bride and start a quarrel among their forces about power transfers at the exact moment they need to be united, he'll keep this info quiet and consider it 'noble' of himself to do so. This will probably anger Sam, who's made up his mind (however unfairly) that Dany's a monster, and he may reveal the truth in public (maybe in some dramatic theatrical gesture the way he influenced the LC election in Jon's favor.)

I mean, Queen Elizabeth I wore armor in her famous speech at Tilbury to her troops, even though she never fought in her life and no one expected her to. It was a gesture of solidarity to the troops around her. Was it 'silly'? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speech_to_the_Troops_at_Tilbury

It's a signal of her state of mind. Is it 'silly' to inform us she feels the need to feel less vulnerable?

I don't see how the lack of martial arts makes her NOT smart or strong. Is physical strength the only kind of strength there is?

I think we're supposed to consider that Sam himself is not being objective or fair right now...he's too angry at Dany about his brother to look dispassionately at whether what she did was all that heinous from a non-relative's point of view. So he's weighing the scales in favor of his BFF as king, making himself believe things that aren't true to push Jon to take the power from Dany. It's sort of a dark parallel of him pushing Jon to success in the Lord Commander election - only this time he's going to try to push him into something that's going to upset the balance between Jon and Dany. And when Jon refuses to be pushed, he's going to go around him and let the information out publicly, which will seed distrust between Dany's court and Jon's.

But does he know that? It's a logical conclusion but I don't know that it was ever verified (though I suppose Bran can confirm it if he feels like it). Re: the trailer, thanks. I hadn't realized that. So Royce stays and - maybe - Robin comes with more men to negotiate his fealty to Dany, for a suitable price. I expect it may be Sansa's hand - after all, doesn't she owe him already for saving the Starks' bacon at the Battle of the Bastards? This is unlikely to put Sansa in a better humor.

I'd guess Robin comes into the plot because Royce will probably return to the Vale with his men under the excuse that he can't pledge allegiance to a new queen without the authorization of his lord. Dany and Jon would probably prefer that Royce's soldiers stay at WF, but I don't think Jon would be happy with threatening the man who saved his ass in the Battle of the Bastards, and Dany would likely follow his wishes and let him go. But the North needs those men to fight the NK, and the Vale's food to survive winter, so Robin himself must be courted into the new alliance.

But aren't you raking Lyanna over the coals simply for displaying a lack of decorum? That is, simply for openly speaking her mind to her erstwhile King who is now just the landless Warden of the North, the flunkey of the Dragon Queen and her Lannister Queen's Hand, both of whom are now his superiors - and hers - in their own land? You're castigating her for disregarding rank and etiquette and daring to speak out of turn, instead of carefully noting who is now the highest ranking person and faultlessly curtseying and toadying to that person. Is decorum bad or is it good? Should Lyanna be regarding it or not? Pick one. Myself, I think Lyanna's character has always been lacking in decorum, ever since she first brusquely insulted Sansa and Jon to their faces and would have rudely brushed off their request for aid if Davos hadn't skillfully appealed to her fierce-little-girl sense of honor and heroism. To say a character is a "Scrappy" means, I suppose, that they are not three-dimensional characters; just annoying cartoons written solely to provide plot obstacles at critical moments. IMO, Lyanna has been more than that; she's been written consistently as a personality. They haven't changed her arbitrarily simply to turn her into a plot obstacle. I mean, we first hear of her when she sends a message rudely flipping off Stannis because the North is only faithful to one king; no polite 'decorous' decline there. Even from that message, we already get a sense of her personality - bumptious, disregarding of pleasantries, fiercely loyal to a deceased king, brave even to the extent of some foolhardiness - after all, Stannis could be victorious, or even just invade Bear Island in the course of his wars, and punish her for her excessive rudeness. That didn't stop her, though. Her character remains consistent with that first impression when we see her thereafter, her rudeness and bravery in casting her lot with the Starks against Ramsey, when scolding the Northern lords out of their doubts, when telling Jon that she thinks his leaving the North is a bad idea. So when Jon says to the North - to Lyanna, "You know back when I told you that it was worth dying a horrible death rather than be ruled by a tyrant, to convince you to rebel against Ramsey? Forget all that. It's totally OK to grovel to ANYONE just to stay alive, so please commence with the ass-kissing of Her Grace, who for all you know is Ramsey with tits and dragons, AND her new Lannister Hand, who we are now both subordinate to. Oh, there's also a Lannister army on its way North - yes, like the ones that slaughtered so many Northerners. This MAY give you the impression that even groveling to a tyrant won't save you from a horrible death, but don't worry - we can TOTALLY trust the Lannisters now." Presented with that, IMO, it's absolutely in character for rude, forthright, brave Lyanna to burst out to Jon "WTF are you doing!?" - thus giving voice to all the Northerners who have exactly the same worries but not the nerve to say it - and somebody needs to, to get those fears properly addressed. I don't think it makes much sense to say that a character is OK when she's being rude and brave and forthright to Jon's benefit but suddenly becomes a 2-dimensional 'Scrappy' when she's behaving in exactly the same rude, brave, forthright manner in a way that happens to embarrass Jon in a totally consistent manner with the plot.

It would be funny if Sansa had a slapstick death like Wile E. Coyote and Sophie hung that storyboard panel on her living room wall because she thought it was absolutely hilarious.

Not to mention that Jon happily demoting himself to "Warden of the North" means that Tyrion Lannister, Hand of the Queen, now technically outranks Jon in his own former kingdom. The North can't look at that in the absence of other info and NOT feel that Jon got played.

Who came to them and told them not to be afraid of a tyrant, to rebel even if a horrible death is certain if they fail? Jon did, to tell them to rebel against Ramsey. And Lady Lyanna was brave enough to do that. Now that bravery that was a virtue when she was fighting for Jon is a bad thing that you're castigating her for. Is that fair to her? I think it's very significant that the showrunners got rid of the character of Glover and chose the character of Lady Lyanna to deliver the message of the North's unhappiness with Jon's actions. Glover didn't fight Ramsey for Jon's sake. Any complaint of his about Jon giving his rule to a possible tyrant would have no weight - he had no problem sticking with Ramsey, a KNOWN tyrant. We the TV Viewers would know that anything he says is a cowardly villain's point of view, thus easily discounted. But the showrunners chose Lyanna to express the North's unhappiness. She fought for Jon from the start, risking death by flaying to rebel against Ramsey and make Jon King. If anyone has earned the right to speak frankly to Jon, and be credibly brave enough to do so even in the face of a dangerous and possibly tyrannical Dragon queen, it's her. I think the showrunners chose her quite deliberately to speak for the North. We're not supposed to consider her a cowardly villain. We're supposed to take her message seriously. IMO, the showrunners are using little Lyanna, the stalwart brave symbol of the North resistance, to tell us - We the TV Viewers - that Jon really did cock up the introduction of Dany to the North, at a really critical time. Things are only going to get worse from there.

Cersei is not more powerful now. After the wars the South has been through and the North's alliance with the Vale, they're in a more even position. As for the North being quiet under Bolton's rule - the North has PTSD. They went to war to get revenge and freedom from the tyrant who murdered their beloved lord. They enjoyed some success - until their new Stark king stopped thinking with his head and started thinking with his heart (or dick, whichever). Remember that - triggers are a problem for PTSD sufferers. We all know what happens next...the Lannisters slaughter the Northerners and give them to the psychotic Boltons, where they hunker down and just aim at surviving. Then Jon comes with his rousing La Pasionaria message, "It's better to die on your feet than live on your knees!" Dying (horribly) is exactly what they'll do if they rebel against Ramsey and fail - but some of them DO bravely rebel anyway. The rest follow the advice some have given here - that surviving under a tyrant is better than dying - and stick with Ramsey. Against all odds Jon succeeds, and the North is rewarded with a king who is not a tyrant, who lets them have a say in their ruling! There's hope. They even trust him enough to believe in the NK when they've only got secondhand reports of such a creature of legend. Then Jon leaves. And when he comes back, he drops the news on them that he's not the King anymore. They have a new ruler now of whom they know nothing except she has dragons and comes from a family of subjugators and tyrants, and her Hand is a Lannister and they're now allies with Lannisters (trigger warning) and a Lannister army is coming North (trigger warning) to help! And while he's saying these dubious things, he's giving every sign when he's with Dany that he's thinking with his heart instead of his head. (Trigger warning!) I think it's totally predictable and understandable that Lyanna and her ilk would be dismayed, and say so. And I think it's weird that people are castigating her now for not immediately kneeling down and accepting her new unknown ruler when her accepting Jon's warcry "It's better to die on your feet than to live on your knees," and fighting agaist tyranny was praiseworthy not long ago. Now she's supposed to just forget all that and meekly and silently accept a new ruler who for all she knows is Ramsey with dragons? Expecting that reaction at the start is expecting WAY too much. Jon mismanaged this.

Yes, he did. It was the point of his idea that Dany arrives with him by boat and not flying on her dragon, to "send a better message", show that they're allies. It would have shown they're allies if they'd actually arrived as allies - the King in the North hand in hand with the powerful Dragon Queen, who magnanimously fights their common enemy at his side as an equal. Instead, they arrived as Dragon Queen and her devoted lackey, the Warden of the North. Arriving on a ship doesn't change that. It didn't have to happen that way; it was Jon's call to squander that opportunity to show the North the generous side of Dany to greater advantage.

I think we also have to take into account what you can reasonably expect a relatively small company of mercenaries (who haven't seen the living dead and therefore won't believe in them) to do for money. "Go into the farthest freezing north and fight at the side of the woman with the huge army and the dragons...and when and if you survive her enemy, attack her army and dragons head on!" Don't think so. "Hold the Neck in the dead of winter in a famine-stricken land as long as it takes for the lady with the dragons and army to get around to fighting you head on!" Probably not. That's why I think that the GC's aim will be to destroy WF's stores, grab hostages and flee by ship. Dany's armies will still be able to fight the NK for a little while, but many will starve in the winter eventually, leaving Cersei in a better bargaining position with her hostage(s). Or so she hopes. Jaime's going overland, isn't he? The GC would travel on Euron's ships...much faster than by land. It's possible they'd arrive before him, get access to WF by presenting themselves as Cersei's promised army...then attacking at some unguarded moment and fleeing again.

That's just the problem. He's NOT King anymore. He gave up the title himself, that they had bestowed on him with no little cost in their own blood. He can't expect the respect for his decisions due to the King when he just demoted himself to Warden of the North. He's earned the blowback. Yes, Jon saw that. Yes, she's what the North needs. But he's also in love, and that IS affecting his judgement, IMO...not because he's fundamentally wrong about her, but because he assumes everyone will see what he sees in her, when he's made absolutely NO effort to convey it to them. "Yes, you've been so wonderful, I'll bend the knee, come to the North as our queen, everyone will love you." No they won't. They didn't go through what he went through with her, he's not told them of it, why should they love her as he does? And now, the news about the Tarlys will shock and frighten everyone - as per the leaks, it will even shock JON - which also shows he's idealized her because he's in love with her. Lemuria remarked that Jon bending the knee to Dany is inevitable anyway because she has dragons and an army and will therefore inevitably conquer. This is true are far as it goes (though Qyburn's crossbow shows that even dragons aren't invulnerable). But it makes a great deal of difference to a conquered people whether their conquerer is the kind who will leave pyramids of skulls in their wake...the Targaryens have had that kind. If Jon had brought Dany as an ally, showing her might AND her graciousness in allying herself with them instead of demanding their surrender in their weakness, she could have allayed that fear and reassured the North that their eventual ruler was humane and forebearing. Jon pre-empted that by surrendering. It was a miscalculation in his part, that may cost the North dearly. You may say that the North deserves whatever they get for not blindly trusting in Jon and bending over with a smile. But Jon agreed to be the king of that crowd, and he therefore agreed to take responsibility for them all. He should know by now, after his stint as Lord Commander of the Watch, that crowds are easily frightened, and are dangerous when they panic.