chandraReborn

I like Penny as well. She's a lot like Brienne in some ways--naive, dead brothers, but takes care of herself even though society views her as freakish--and like Brienne, she serves as a mirror for a Lannister brother in their journey. Jaime sees in Brienne the kind of youthful faith in chivalry that he lost--in Penny, Tyrion realizes how much worse his life could have been.

I think the idea behind Moon Tea is more that it wasn't the kind of thing noble girls were really told about. Girls like Asha, who are more traveled, and Cersei, who is older and more cosmopolitan, know that it's a fairly reliable way to end a pregnancy. But girls like Lysa and Jeyne Westerling don't really realize they're being dosed with it, likely because anyone who could tell them about it is discouraged from doing so. It's the Westeros version of the girl who thinks it's impossible to get pregnant before getting married and winds up a teen mom.

I think the reason Jeyne Westerling was thinner when Jaime saw her was because she'd lost weight. The detail is there to show us that she hasn't been eating much since Rob died--along with how she tears her clothing on purpose.

I'm of the opinion that Lyanna had a major crush on Rhaegar and didn't particularly like Robert, so she decided to lose her virginity and render herself un-marriageable. She ran off with Rhaegar probably because she figured there would be no repercussions--her father would probably demand the head of whoever 'abducted' his daughter, unless they were the Crown Prince. But she didn't know (and who could blame her?) that the Mad King would be crazy enough to execute her father. And I'm also of the opinion that Rhaegar had given the order not to tell her about her father and brother's death, since he feared the news might cause her to lose the baby.

Yeah, I never saw Xho as a joke--maybe I was just missing things? He seemed to be in a pretty similar position to Viserys.

On Harma . . . at the end of ASOS, one of Stannis's knights cuts her head off and sticks it on a pole (it's just mentioned in one sentence, so you might have missed it). You could call it . . . karma.

They were part of anthologies he'd been asked to contribute towards. It's a pretty standard thing for writers to do.

shimpy, do you plan to read the excerpted chapters from book six after book five?

On the mention of Catherine of Aragon, I always got the feeling she held out so long for her daughter's sake. An annulment would have meant declaring Mary a bastard, thereby ruining her marriage prospects and her future. So while Catherine may have lived out her days in relative comfort, she chose to sacrifice that (and really ruined her health) for the well-being of her daughter. She was also a devoted Catholic who likely believed that agreeing to an annulment would be sinful. She and Catelyn Tully could have some good conversations...

Yeah, the sex scenes are rarely sexy, but I appreciate that about them. It makes them more realistic. If I wanted porn-y stuff, I'd just go watch porn.

As an author, I think it's more of a middle ground. When you sell someone the first book in a series, you're making a promise to write the rest. Not a contract for a pound of flesh, but a promise. In the terms of ASOIAF, it's the honorable thing for an author to do, finishing what they start. If a bestselling author took the money made for the first two books in a series and moved to the Bermudas, all the while shouting "SUCKERS!" at their fans, the fans would have every right to be upset. But Martin's working as fast as he can, and there's no reason to be mad--especially not if the rumors hold true and TWOW comes out soon.

You know, I didn't even think about it that way, but you're right--Kevan has plenty of reasons to blame Tywin's kids for his death

I think it could even be

I think the reason people speculate about the younger, more beautiful queen is that Margery in the show is shown to be scheming directly against Cersei, but in the books, Margery's behavior is more ambiguous.

Yeah, such as Keep an open mind where the High Sparrow is concerned. Also,

Cersei becomes more interesting if you read her as someone struggling with gender dysphoria in a society where an extreme gender binary exists.

Feast is the book I've reread the most, but it's one that really divides the fandom.

I think the thing with "Your sister" instead of "Only Cat," is that so much had been changed from the books that little, unnecessary changes started bugging people. Like by that point it was pretty clear we weren't getting UnCat on the show, and then they started changing little things for no reason?

Yeah, we were kind of waiting for her to pop up in the show ever since the end of season 3. The season finale titles for 3,4, and 5 have all had something to do with parenthood: "Mhysa" "The Children" and "Mother's Mercy." And every year at that time, people start speculating that she's going to pop up. There's even some people speculating that she'll show up in season 6...

The whole thing with Jeyne Westerling

I think the thing with the arrow that kills Ygritte is that, even though Jon knows he didn't shoot it, he knows he was firing at the same group of wildlings and, had they been positioned differently, it would have been his.

Yeah, that wasn't what I thought you said--just clearing up the reasoning behind the whole "Carol" thing. Can't wait to hear your thoughts on Cersei going forward!

The whole 'Carol' thing isn't because Show Cersei is a badly-written character--she's just extremely different from book Cersei in all ways, so much that it's easier to think of her as a different person.

Yeah, Hoat may not be the most realistic villain, but he's certainly scary. Reminds me a little of a Batman villain. Locke was less theatrical about his villainy, but I didn't find him terribly realistic. At least Hoat is seen to have a thing for chopping off limbs--he's deranged, and that's why he does it. Locke's motives for The Chop seemed to be out of a twisted version of an Occupy Wall Street protest. But Locke is a yeoman--as we see in his S4 meetings with the Boltons, he's trusted by his lord and good friends with the lord's bastard son, who has status and authority and a good chance of receiving lands, property, and a potential knighthood for his kids, if not himself. So Locke is well on his way to joining the Westerosi 1% and securing a good future for himself/family. What does he have to gain from maiming Jaime? After all, if the war goes badly and the North loses, Tywin will probably call for his head, and Roose Bolton will have to deliver. Locke has a valuable highborn prisoner--he'd gain status in Roose's eyes for delivering Jaime, perhaps even enough to earn property of his own. Cutting off Jaime's hand means risking Jaime's life--he could easily die of infection, robbing Locke of any reward he'd get for delivering him. And if Locke is deranged enough to want to cut off Jaime's hand with impunity, why not just kill him afterwards? So yeah, Vargo is crazy and weird and foreign, but I think he has to be, if we're to find an outlaw to de-hand Jaime. Someone integrated in the economic system of Westeros would never maim Tywin Lannister's son and leave him alive afterwards.

Yeah, book Mace is kind of vain and easily flattered, but he's still averagely competent.