WearyTraveler

I don't have children, but my grandparents on my mother's side had 12 (yes, twelve). So, as you can imagine, there have always been two or three babies (or more) in our family as I was growing up. Just this year my cousin had a baby girl, and last year his brother had one, and two years before that, their sister had twins. All this to say that I know what a handful they can be! :D

I think your autocorrect is messing with you. It's wight, not wright. ;)

Maybe because I came up with the theory of Jon actually walking all the way to the end of the WF crypts when he "dies" and finds Ned there to explain to him exactly who Jon is, I think Jon seeing Ned as a wight (which is nothing more than a dead person appearing to be "alive"), might be another little clue of what happens after Jon is stabbed. Prophecies and dreams can't be taken to literally, after all: "The dragon has three heads" seems to point to three dragon riders, rather than a freakish dragon (even for ASOIAF's standards) with three actual heads.

Not so close, the Crossroads is roughly halfway between The Twins and KIng's landing. Here is a map from the books (which I consider the only official geography): The Crossroads is where the River Road and the King's Road meet. It's fairly close to Riverrun But not so much to KL. Obviously is closer than The Twins, but not so close that it would screw up military strategy. Also, when Robert started his war, he had the support of the Vale, so, his army was presumably larger than Rob's is at this point in the story. I think that once Rob had the North, the Vale and the Riverlands with him, he marched south and met Rhaegar at the Trident, which is right there at the Crossroads. Rhaegar presumably had all the houses supporting the Targs with him for that battle and defeating him there won Robert the war, even if there were more battles after that, because that's when he beat the largest force supporting the Targs. So, after that, marching down to KL's should have been a breeze.

American Horror Story used black and white to show a younger version of Jessica Lange (depicting a flashback 30 years or so in the past). With digital technology, they can erase wrinkles, and do all sorts of things to make an actor appear younger. I think if they do that, plus have Bean clean-shaven with a short hair style, they might be able to pull it off. That said, and as much as I'd love to see the actor back, I don't think there's a lot of hope for it.

I went to the original source of the ToJ news, a Spanish site called Los Siete Reinos (linked in the artile above), which translates to "The Seven Kingdoms". I read the report and some of the comment. One person asked the writer of the article how sure they were of this news, and if there was any possi bility it could be wrong. The author replied that the only way the news would be wrong is that someone deeply placed inside production was lied to. So, yes, ToJ is confirmed (SO excited!!!). Also they don't confirm Arthur Dayne 100%, they just say that based on all the other info they have, they believe the casting call could not be from anyboy else but Arthur Dayne. I agree. You have the ToJ, then a casting call for the best sword wilder in Europe. 2+2=4

I've said my piece and agreed to disagree (see my comment above: "to each her/his own"). So, as far as I'm concerned, we can stop the (Spoiler) discussion here and move on with the book.

Well, in terms of who is a better strategist between Tywin and Robb, the way I look at it is this: But, to each her/his own.

I think the photos / videos on the hard drive were not obtained during the large parties. Caspere just offered very morally questionable services to some of them, which he provided in that other house where the camera was hidden behind a two way mirror, IIRC (the house where Ray got shot by Birdman)

I think it's complicated. Robb never lost a battle, and up until , he was winning the war, which prompted Tywin to plot the unthinkable: what is, to my view, The Karstarks were being stupid. Even according to Westerosi warfare. Everyone knew and said you don't just kill as important a hostage as Jamie Lannister, yet Robb had to place special guards and protocols around Jamie because all the Karstarks wanted was his head on a spike. They were not looking at the big picture. Having an alive Jamie in their possession was key to keeping Tywin in line. Everyone else knew it, but the Karstarks wanted the immediate gratification of vengeance instead of thinking about the long game to a sustainable victory. Now once . But that's on Catelyn, not on Robb. Then we have people that swore allegiance to him doing other stupid things, like , which caused quite a lot of aggravation for Robb. But even then he was careful not to diminish publicly for his mistake. As for the , Robb lost them because is an ambitious, bitter old man. Easily offended. Granted, Robb's single moment of weakness of . But that was him being a 15 year old boy for the first time since he turned 15 in the series. And then he was caught between a rock and a hard place: Either way his honor is dinged. He chose what he thought was the lesser of two evils, honor-wise: thinking that he could make it up to somehow. The deal offered to after that was incredibly generous, and he got the freaking King in the North to . But still wanted more; he wanted when, in Westerosi culture, is certainly not unheard off. It happened frequently enough. Even Ned, when he decided to ship Arya and Sansa back to Winterfell, reasoned that Meanwhile Tywin and he got the support of , but, as we will see later on, this because more than an amazing strategist, Tywin is cruel and rules through fear, not respect. Finally, the Tyrells supported Tywin only after Renly died, which was an act Tywin had nothing to do with (he had Stannis to thank for that one), but even if they did, they were still I feel Tywin was able to get support because people feared him, not because he had the better strategy. They were afraid of him with cause, to be sure, given the history we know of Tywin when he's displeased: the Raynes, his father's lover, the murder of Ellia and her children, the total and ruthless destruction of the Riverlands... and those are only the facts widely known (let's not mention his cruelty toward his own family, which eventually ended in ). But power, and winning, through fear is not sustainable in the long run. Looking at where House Lannister and their supporters stand in the last book: I think many of these situations can be directly tied to Tywin's decisions and behavior early on. So, I don't think he was a brilliant strategist at all. *Edited because I remembered that our spoiler policy for this thread states that anything that happens after Book 1 is considered a spoiler.

Ah! Then I got nothing to fanwank Shireen's hair color on the show, but in my OP I admitted it was flimsy anyway. Sometimes I have a hard time remembering what's in the show vs. the books, which is why I stick mostly to Book Talk threads (I don't want to inadvertently spill the beans for the unsullied). I can't keep it all straight, so, my head cannon is book cannon. I don't even remember the particulars of Ned's research on the show, so, I'll take your word for it. I remember Bean and a very large, ancient looking book. The visuals do stay with me, at least more than the dialog.

I thought the book made a point to show that Robb was, in fact, a good military strategist. The plan to split the army was his alone, and, as it turned out, it was a brilliant move that put him on top of Tywin, and allowed him to free Edmure and take Jamie prisoner. At the time the chapter takes place, his advisors were all advocating for one of the other two choices: march down the King's Road and face Tywin's army heads on with all his strength or head towards Riverrun to free Edmure and take the Riverlands. Robb's strategy, while sarificing part of his army (which everyone going down into it knew would be the case) allowed him to fool both Tywin and Jamie, thus making him the victor of that particular stage in the war. His mistakes were not strategic but those made because of his youth (sleeping with Jeyne - I get the feeling that even though it's not specified in the books, he was a virgin)

Nope, he specifically looked at Lannister-Baratheon unions. From AGOT (bold is mine for emphasis): It's clear from the context and the fact that the preceding sentences talk only of Lannister-Baratheon unions that ​gold​ = Lannister (as it so often does in the books, particularly the first one) coal ​=​ Baratheon

That would be beyond awesome!

Laurence Fishburne is white? :-O

She's playing dumb because she'd rather appear to have misunderstood the question (pretending she thinks she's being asked to explain the technical aspects of shooting the scene) than to admit there's some sort of conflict between the two actresses.

True, which is why I said: We don't need too much elaboration, anyway. It could be a minute of Ned and Robert as boys, then a minute or two on Robert and Ned discussing declaring war, then a minute devoted to Robert slaying Rhaegar in the Trident, and then Ned at the ToJ. If it's all in BranVision, the flashbacks could be quite quick. I'm not ruling anything out, specially now that they have announced an 8th season.

I think he's betting that if he gets his TBC, the other party will refuse, and thus concede, or be forced to negotiate. Dumb move, anyway, I doubt the courts will grant him that petition.

I know that Robert wasn't at the Tower of Joy, but I doubt one could get into the whole "rescue Lyanna" plot without a young Robert proposing it, which would then lead to other flashbacks of relevant events during Robert's rebellion and eventually to the Tower of Joy. My point was that the flashbacks would cover at least two different time periods in the series: Young Ned and Robert being fostered at the Eyrie and Robert's Rebellion.

It seems to me they are doing not one but two flashbacks next season. One for young Ned and young Robert, and one for the Tower of Joy (as per that location selected for next season). If so, we are going to need older versions of Ned and Robert, because I doubt that kid playing Ned could take out Arthur Dane. So, I was thinking this other guy could be an older Robert, not a contemporary of the kid playing Ned. Sorry if I wasn't clear. Now that I think about it, he could just be an older Ned, maybe they'll put a wig on him, or something. But he still gives me Robert vibes.

At first I was surprised, and then I realized it was bound to happen.... Crazy world!

I can fanwank Shireen's hair because Stannis married a Florent, and in the book Ned was reading, he traced back all the Lannister-Baratheon unions; I don't recall if he ever looked at Baratheon-Other Houses marriages. But, yeah, it's flimsy.

LOL at the ending ad on the video: "Suscribe and Jon Snow will come back in Season 6"

From the Red Dragon movie with Ralph Fiennes I remember a scene where he was yelling at the Dragon something along the lines of: "No, not her, you can't have her!" referring to Reba. What I can't remember is if this happened before or after the he ate the painting. I think it happened before, thus indicating to the viewer that Dolarhyde was trying to kill the dragon in order to keep Reba. Is that scene also in the books? The tiger changed color during the scene. I think it was done as a prelude to Reba being bathed in orange light, meaning I think it was completely intentional. For the record, I'm glad they appear not to have used a real tiger. No matter how well they treat them, tigers trained for our entertainment are still caged, wild animals that, IMO, should be left alone in the wild (/steps down from soapbox).

As to Fergus Leathem, could he be a young Robert? Renly was supposed to look like Robert, and this guy kind of looks like Renly: