Maximum Taco

That's the point though. The fact that you can't see it as any other way is what makes it a great deception. If he just changes the story and it doesn't fit with what happened previously that's bad writing, but if he can explain all the clues he left before and still trick everybody? That would be fantastic. Personally I don't see it working out any other way either, but I'd be pleased if it did, and it made sense. I'd be be very upset if it didn't make any sense though.

I agree, there is no reason. Which is why if they could guess that, and also if GRRM could make it work with either Ned/Wylla or Ashara/Brandon I'd be very impressed. Really everyone thinks R + L = J. I just think it'd be nice if he managed to fool us all.

The particular question was in regard to sex scenes though. There are plenty of happy couples in the books who are obviously having sex with each other, but most don't have sex scenes because they aren't POV characters. For this reason couples like don't count when answering the question. And for some who are POV characters, they aren't around their partner like

HA! That would be hilarious, if they were the ones who figured out that R + L = J is a bunch of bullshit and GRRM deliberately planted clues to send everyone down the wrong path. I honestly would be kind of impressed if George/D&D could explain it in a way that made sense. Or what if they said Ashara and Brandon?? Now Jon's still a bastard, but not Ned's.

You need to be more specific with your question. The answer to "What's up with Margaery?" could be a very long response, and may not answer exactly what you are asking.

Each chapter in the book is written from the point of view of a character, so only these "POV" characters will get things like sex scenes since usually they'd happen in a private setting. So unless the character is a POV character, or is having sex with a POV character, or is watching, there's not gonna be a sex scene depicting him/her in the books. Oberyn

Great Houses perhaps, but a lesser House (especially a lesser House under Ned's jurisdiction) would've likely done it happily cause it would be a favour done for the Warden of the North. Asking him to be fostered at the Eyrie, or Highgarden was likely out of the question, asking for him to be fostered at White Harbor, Deepwood Motte, Last Hearth or Bear Island would've been the simple matter of asking. Actually fostering his bastard would've been a great way to form a connection with Ned, since they knew he was fond of Jon Snow, he would've come to visit every so often (like Robert visited Edric Storm every year at Storm's End.) It would've actually been a good opportunity for a lesser House, who would probably have no chance of fostering a trueborn son of House Stark. Gendry Waters (not Stone) and Ramsay Snow are completely different cases from Jon Snow. Jon was acknowledged by Ned as his bastard from the start, according to everyone he is the son of Ned Stark. Contrarily, Gendry was never acknowledged by Robert as his bastard, Robert likely didn't even know about him. The only bastard Robert ever acknowledged was Edric Strom, who was sent to foster with his uncle Renly at Storm's End. Ramsay likewise wasn't acknowledged by Roose, until after Domeric Bolton was killed, and by that time there was no reason to send him to foster anywhere.

The only ones (that I can recall) that are definitely wholly consensual and based solely off their love for one another are I think all of the other sex scenes atleast partially fall into your categories of arranged marriage, espionage, blood magic, prostitution or coercion.

It's not an issue of weight, it's an issue of length. Unless you are abnormally tall, a greatsword worn at the hip (or for a short man, or adolescent a bastard sword worn at the hip), would be too long and would drag on the floor.

Any greatsword necessitates being worn on the back, unless you are Gregor Clegane sized. If a normal sized person wore a greatsword on their hip it would drag against the floor, and likely would impede their movement considerably. I believe in the books Ned wears Ice on his back and I think (but am not sure) that Jon Snow wears Longclaw on his back as well, because even though Longclaw is a bastard sword, not a greatsword, it is longer than Jon is used to and Jon is like 14, and likely shorter than a grown man.

Unless they are making him the Sword of the Morning (Sword of the Evening?) in the show, Darkstar does not carry a legendary sword. Side note: I'm not even sure if Darkstar can become a Sword of the Morning, because while he is a Dayne, he is not a Dayne of Starfall, instead coming from the cadet branch of High Hermitage. The only arguably legendary fighter who carries an arguably legendary sword and is still living in the books/show is perhaps Randyll Tarly (who carries Heartsbane) and Lyn Corbray (who carries Lady Forlorn) And there's already a casting call out for Tarly.

I agree that the Legendary Fighter is likely Arthur Dayne and the first Northern Lord is an Umber, either Mors, Hothor, recast Greatjon or even the Smalljon (who would be the Lord if the Greatjon died), also it'd be cute for them to call a huge guy "Smalljon." I know in the books Smalljon died at the Red Wedding, but I don't know if that's true for the show too, I don't remember it if he did. Frightening Lord could be Manderly, but by all accounts Manderly is outwardly a very amiable fellow with a big booming laugh. Calculating and ruthless perhaps, but he's not all that frightening, atleast not outwardly. Perhaps it's Arnolf Karstark and they plan to still do the Alys Karstark storyline? Tormund could perhaps take the place of Sigorn of Thenn in that story. But it seems like a minor story to include, and I don't know how it would work with Jon Snow and Stannis already dead. That storyline kind of revolves around Jon as LC and the Karstarks betraying Stannis for Roose Bolton.

I don't believe so. The Presidential line of succession is necessary because there can never be a point where the Presidency is vacant, there must be an absolute authority. There doesn't need to be a VP at all times. It doesn't really make sense to shuffle the roles around. After all if everyone is gonna move up one spot, then you'd need to find a new Speaker while the Speaker is filling the role of Veep. I think the Vice Presidency just remains vacant until the President makes an appointment that can be confirmed by the House and Senate.

In the case of Nixon and Ford, Nixon reportadly asked the Democratic congressional leaders who to choose, and they suggested Ford. The Democratic Speaker of the House at the time Carl Albert goes so far as to say that they gave Nixon no choice other than Ford. There were rumours too that the Democrats got a promise from Ford not to run in 1976 (if he did make that promise he broke it.) If he had kept his promise though that would've been a good deal for the Democrats, especially since they probably suspected Nixon was on the way out. Ford would become President upon Nixon's impeachment/resignation and then as incumbant he would not run against them.

There's more to Valyrian Steel then just being dragon forged. There's apparently spells woven into the steel and it's a folded blade similar to the real world Damascus Steel. The techniques of crafting Valyrian Steel were lost when the freehold burned. They could not make more even when the Targaryen Dragons were in the Seven Kingdoms. So there's obviously more to it then just the dragons. So while it is true that the blades of the iron throne were melted with dragonfire that doesn't make them Valyrian Steel or give them any special "Anti-White Walker" properties. Also obsidian is not necessarily made exclusively from dragonfire, the maesters claim it can be made volcanically from the fires of the earth. So far there's been no distinction made between the two types and their effectiveness of combatting White Walkers.

If the VP resigns, the President nominates a replacement candidate who must be confirmed by majority vote in both the House and the Senate. This is interesting if the President is from the opposite party as the one that controls the House and Senate. For instance if current Veep Joe Biden were to resign, Obama would likely want to nominate a powerful or popular Democrat, But he would have a lot of trouble getting confirmation since the House and Senate are both controlled by the Republicans. The Speaker is not a bad choice though if the President wants the Speaker to be his Veep, as the Speaker would be guarenteed to win the vote in the House atleast.

This interferes with Aemon's understanding of Lightbringer though, Lightbringer is supposed to radiate heat, that's why Aemon dismisses Stannis' Lightbringer. While I'm sure Jon produces the same body heat as a normal human, I don't think this counts.

Senators serve for 6 years each (unlike Congressmen who serve for 2 year terms), and elections are staggered so only 1/3rd of the Senate would be up for election at this time. So they could be projecting a Democratic Senate based on the Senators who are still in the middle of their terms and also the current races. With a Democratic Senate, Meyer's team can be assured that Tom James, the Democratic candidate will be elected to the Office of VP, this is because unlike the House vote (which is 1 vote per state) each Senator gets a vote in the Veep election. This would make James VP Elect, regardless of who is made President Elect (or even if nobody is made President Elect) Basically it's a lot easier to predict how the Senate vote will go. The House vote would be a lot more difficult to predict, since the entire House is up for election and the votes are based on State delegation, so even a House Majority for the Democrats could result in the election of the Republican candidate (or the election of no candidate) depending on the distribution of the representatives.

There's no real time limit to forging a maester's chain, you don't need to study for a preset amount of time, you just need to be able to pass the Archmaester's test to forge the link. So if someone has a high knowledge base they could forge their chain very quickly. You need to also account that Sam has spent years learning under Maester Aemon as well. I imagine Sam could possibly earn links in Ravenry (Black Iron), History (Copper), and Economics (Gold) on arrival, or shortly after. He might also have a decent knowledge base in the principles of Warcraft (Iron), because despite his not being an accomplished warrior, a base in history could provide a good knowledge of tactics. And I imagine researching the White Walkers would provide him with a good base to earn his link in Magic and the Occult (Valyrian Steel) Those two links, Warcraft and Magic, would be two that Sam would focus his learning around too, because they would be most helpful in fighting the White Walkers. Smithing (Pale Steel) would also be a good one for Sam to pick up, just to gain a bit of knowledge about the mysteries of Valyrian Steel.

Hey I got what I wanted! Did not expect that. That was awesome, if Jon stays dead that is.

Is he? I thought he resigned and just kind of assumed Meyer appointed James in his place. Must have not been paying close enough attention. I guess she just replaced him on the ticket and left Doyle as the current VP. Anyway it doesn't really matter. As a Democrat, Doyle would likely vote for James if asked to cast the tiebreaker. Unless he just feels like he's in a shit disturber mood, which I guess is possible in this crazy world.

Not the VP elect of the President, just the VP elect. If there's an electoral college tie, the House votes on the President with each state delegation getting 1 vote. To be elected President the candidate must recieve 26 votes. This election could end in a 25-25 tie, or could suffer from one or several states being unable to cast a vote because of internal splits between the representatives of the state preventing one of the candidates from reaching the required 26. The person who wins this election would become the President Elect. The Senate elects the VP in a seperate election, here there cannot be a tie, because each Senator gets a vote and would obviously vote with their party. And even if the Senate is split 50/50, the incumbant VP (which in this world is Tom James) would cast the tie breaking vote, and obviously would vote for himself. The person who wins this election would become the VP elect. By the way, yes, this means that there CAN be a scenario where a Republican President is elected with a Democratic Veep or vice-versa. This would've likely been the case if Barack Obama and Mitt Romney had tied in the electoral college. At the time the Republicans controlled the House and would have elected Romney, but the Democrats controlled the Senate and would have elected Joe Biden. So Romney would have become President with Biden as his Veep. Also the Veep is the only person that CANNOT be fired by the President, it requires both a House and Senate vote (and obviously the Senate that elected the Veep would not allow the President from the other party to dismiss him), so the President would be stuck with a Veep of the opposite party if this happened. Anyway, if the House happens to tie, then the VP elect, who was elected by the Senate in a wholly seperate election and could be of either Party would become President. In this world the House is close, but the Democrats control the Senate, so they are positive James will be elected VP, but they aren't sure if Meyer will be elected President or if there will be a tie.

I think at first they just wanted Ethan, but then when Theresa and Ben came sniffing around they felt like they may as well take them too. That assumes that SS guy is fully clued in to the Wayward Pines plan though. Maybe he was just a lackey. We haven't seen him in WP yet, so he may not have really been an integral part of the plan and Pilcher was just duping him. I don't think Pilcher was ever shown being worried about Theresa and Ben (anyone who has the early episodes DVRed or whatever feel free to correct me), it was just Ethan's boss who was worried, and I don't know how much Ethan's boss knew. For all we know after Pilcher was notified about Theresa and Ben he could've been like "Cha-ching! Three for the price of one baby!"

The interactions are pretty easy to explain. Nobody goes back, it just seems that way because of the editing. When Pilcher is interacting with Ethan's boss he's explaining Ethan's freezing/hibernation inducment. You should note that he's never really specific with what he has done with Ethan. So Pilcher has Ethan frozen, then he interacts with the boss, then Pilcher freezes himself and finally roughly 2000 years later Pilcher has himself unfrozen. Ditto with Pope. Pope interacts with Theresa and Ben before he himself is put into hibernation. Pilcher tells Pope that Theresa and Ben are snooping around Wayward Pines (this is WP in 2014) and Pope puts them on ice. Then at a time in the future Pope himself is frozen. Then 2000 years later Pope is unfrozen. No going back and forth everyone is frozen once and defrosted once. Or maybe Pilcher and his team are frozen and defrosted multiple times so they can check up on everything? Just hoping 2000 years will go as planned seems pretty foolish. Your scientific arguments about the rapidity of the (d)evolution and the shelf life of the gasoline have a lot of merit. But I'm thinking that's just inaccuracies to do with the writers either not caring or not knowing the sciences. Either that or the chopper is running on alternative fuels, and the d(evolution) was "helped" along, maybe by Pilcher.