WindyNights

It won't be Daenerys. I'm absolutely certainly of that. Reason being that Cersei

Honestly the not that I think it's her. Also eeeeh on

@Imp That hasn't shown up yet. Spoiler tag that.

The prophecy isn't explained in full until near the end of AFFC.Right now, I think shimpy has only got pieces and bits of it so don't jump too ahead of yourself.

Well they did remove all the fluids, bowels and organs. The Silent Sisters and Pycelle have gone through this before and King Robert had a gut wound and there was no mention of him stinking this badly so presumably this was unusual for some reason. There has to be a reason for that. @John Well even if we were to say that Oberyn didn't poison Tywin, why did Oberyn want a confession out of the Mountain? I mean I don't think one would Influnce the other. To my mind, he just wanted to humiliate the Mountain and possibly make Tywin look bad in public. Also from what I remember, the found him pretty fast. I believe ASOS mentions what time Tyrion leaves and I believe AFFC mentions that they found Tywin at the hour of the wolf which correspond to 3am - 4am. I'll have to check later but Tyrion definitely leaves after midnight when the castle was asleep. I'm not saying it's true but I feel GRRM definitely wanted us to consider this. @Dev F But it's not just Cersei. Even Pycelle notes it. Edit: But yeah, maybe we've spent too much time on this. It's just an intersecting theory.

The thing about Tywin smelling is that well other than poison there's no explanation for it. Pycelle is confused about it. He's gone through this process before and they did everything that would stop a corpse from smelling. So then why does Tywin's body stink so badly? Anyways here's the text people look at: Tywin Lannister: Dead Man Shitting? “Where will I find my lord father?” “In the solar with Lord Tyrell and Prince Oberyn.” Mace Tyrell and the Red Viper breaking bread together? Strange and stranger. —Jaime and Ser Meryn Trant, upon Jaime’s return to King’s Landing “Widow’s blood, this one is called, for the color. A cruel potion. It shuts down a man’s bladder and bowels, until he drowns in his own poisons.” —Grand Maester Pycelle, during Tyrion’s trial “To be sure, I have much to thank your sister for. If not for her accusation at the feast, it might well be you judging me instead of me judging you.” The prince’s eyes were dark with amusement. “Who knows more of poison than the Red Viper of Dorne, after all?” […] “Your father,” said Prince Oberyn, “may not live forever.” Something about the way he said it made the hairs on the back of Tyrion’s neck bristle. Suddenly he was mindful of Elia again, and all that Oberyn had said as they crossed the field of ashes. He wants the head that spoke the words, not just the hand that swung the sword. “It is not wise to speak such treasons in the Red Keep, my prince. The little birds are listening.” “Let them. Is it treason to say a man is mortal? Valar morghulis was how they said it in Valyria of old. All men must die. And the Doom came and proved it true.” —Prince Oberyn Martell and Tyrion, in Tyrion’s cell He found his father where he knew he’d find him, seated in the dimness of the privy tower, bedrobe hiked up around his hips. […] For once, his father did what Tyrion asked him. The proof was the sudden stench, as his bowels loosened in the moment of death. Well, he was in the right place for it, Tyrion thought. But the stink that filled the privy gave ample evidence that the oft-repeated jape about his father was just another lie. Lord Tywin Lannister did not, in the end, shit gold. —from Tyrion’s assassination of Tywin during his escape from the black cells The King’s Hand was rotting visibly. His face had taken on a greenish tinge, and his eyes were deeply sunken, two black pits. Fissures had opened in his cheeks, and a foul white fluid was seeping through the joints of his splendid gold-and-crimson armor to pool beneath his body. […] Red-eyed and pale, Cersei climbed the steps to kneel above their father, drawing Tommen down beside her. The boy recoiled at the sight, but his mother seized his wrist before he could pull away.“Pray,” she whispered, and Tommen tried. But he was only eight and Lord Tywin was a horror. One desperate breath of air, then the king began to sob.“Stop that!” Cersei said. Tommen turned his head and doubled over, retching. His crown fell off and rolled across the marble floor. His mother pulled back in disgust, and all at once the king was running for the doors, as fast as his eight-year-old legs could carry him. “Ser Osmund, relieve me,” Jaime said sharply, as Kettleblack turned to chase the crown. He handed the man the golden sword and went after his king. In the Hall of Lamps he caught him, beneath the eyes of two dozen startled septas. “I’m sorry,” Tommen wept. “I will do better on the morrow. Mother says a king must show the way, but the smell made me sick.” This will not do. Too many eager ears and watching eyes.“Best we go outside, Your Grace.” Jaime led the boy out to where the air was as fresh and clean as King’s Landing ever got. Twoscore gold cloaks had been posted around the plaza to guard the horses and the litters. He took the king off to the side, well away from everyone, and sat him down upon the marble steps. “I wasn’t scared,” the boy insisted. “The smell made me sick. Didn’t it make you sick? How could you bear it, Uncle, ser?” —Jaime, Cersei, and Tommen, during Tywin’s funeral. I’m just saying: means, motive, opportunity. ------------------------------------------------ And there's this: Pycelle sputtered. “This man is... he is unfit...” “Do not presume to speak to me of fitness. Not after the stinking mockery you made of my lord father’s corpse.” “Your Grace cannot think...” He raised a spotted hand, as if to ward off a blow. “The silent sisters removed Lord Tywin’s bowels and organs, drained his blood... every care was taken... his body was stuffed with salts and fragrant herbs...” “Oh, spare me the disgusting details. I smelled the results of your care. Lord Qyburn’s healing arts saved my brother’s life, and I do not doubt that he will serve the king more ably than that simpering eunuch.”

Well Jaime at one point thinks about so I hold reservations at how good of a Hand he'd make.

In an interview GRRM has confirmed that the undegaoler was Varys.

well everything was done that was normally done to make Tywin's corpse not smell. It wouldn't have normally smelled.There's a theory for this actually but apparently (I'll put this in spoilers just in case because Im not sure whether to reveal it)

Sam and Jon's farewell was pretty kind heart-breaking: "So do you, Sam. Have a swift, safe voyage, and take care of her and Aemon and the child." Jon smiled a strange, sad smile. "And pull your hood up. The snowflakes are melting in your hair." Jon's last image of Robb was the snowflakes melting in his hair.

@Dev The watching children's play is extremely important actually. It's thematically singnificant and plays into I wouldn't say Areo doesn't care. He obviously cares about the Martells especially Arianne a lot. It's mentioned in his narrative.

The thing about this is that you

@John That character only had 44 pages not 100 pages. I just counted them myself.

She's not so much stupid as her personality is so flawed that it impairs her.

1/6 is actually quite a lot. I don't think book Tywin ever actually calls out Cersei on being dumber than she actually thinks she is Anyways Cersei isn't actually dumb so much as

Interesting, but I will say that GRRM originally thought his story would have time fly by. His original plan was to show all the Starks growing from kids to adulthood but then he realized that he had to keep following up each event and couldn't time-skip as far as he wanted so in an attempt to remedy this he planned a time-skip between ASOS and AFFC. Then he realized he couldn't make it work as hard as he tried. And that lead to AFFC getting delayed so much until he decided to get rid of the time skip altogether and power through it.

No love for Also there's something deeply hilarious about him meeting the pre-requisites

It's funny because I thought the Ironborn chapters were some of the best in the book. On my first read through,

No Tywin's youngest brother tried to find the sword a while back. The Lannister's Valyrian sword has been lost for hundreds of years though.

Okay and I was just leafing through the end of ASOS and I just read through my third favorite burn in the series. Bowen Marsh: Who better to command the black cloaks than a man who once commanded the gold, sire? Stannis: Any of you, I would think. Even the cook. The only ones that beat this are

@Terra Nova You're getting your Targs mixed. The Targ that Olenna Tyrell was supposed to marry was

@shimpy Just a heads up but originally there was going to be a 5 year timeskip after ASOS but GRRM realized after he finished that book that he couldn't make it work which is why AFFC and ADWD took so long to be written. Many of those events were meant be skipped over and flashbacked to.

Eh, I would disagree because think she'll need to read Dunk and egg just to understand why or rather the way he does things. Also another person who was doing a first read on the series did the first books and then the Dunk and Egg novels. I think that's the way it should be done especially since it gives a lot more oomph to a particular reveal.

I would say read Dubk and Egf first. They're quick reads. And it does add some thing to the story.

Regarding your season five spoiler, I think many people have forgotten this because of GOT's massive succes, but when they started out in season 1, fantasy wasn't mainstream popular on tv. I remember several articles quoting D&D saying that Game of Thrones were The Sopranos in Middle Earth. So I think they made a commitment to the court intrigues and the politics of man, rather than the fantasy epic people who read the books were expecting. And once they were on that path, they couldn't turn back.... GRRM has said that he has the right to change his mind and his plot points aren't set in stone. He just won't change them just to shock people. They have to grow out of his characters. He's already mentioned And he's already said that there are characters that are dead on the show that will live in the books to the end. Honestly it's not that the journey is shorter and less complicated. It's that journey is completely different with the book series ending tacked on which may or may not make sense considering all the gymnastics and idiot balls they had to hand to get Sansa hitched to Ramsay.