Maximum Taco

I think he has big events planned out and he tries to build towards them, but he doesn't plan out anything inbetween those big events, he just tries to write his way there. Like the first big event was Ned's Death, then the Battle of the Blackwater, then the Red Wedding and now the Battle of Meereen. But he has no clue what to put in the middle. That was fine at first, because the big events happened every book. Ned died in AGOT, Blackwater happened in ACOK and the Red Wedding happened in ASOS. It was easy to fill in those little gaps because he knew where everyone needs to be during the big events. But the Red Wedding and the Battle of Meereen have 2 whole books inbetween them, and that's why it feels like nothing is happening. He just couldn't find a way to put the Battle for Meereen in the giant book that would've been AFFC/ADWD (hence the infamous Meereenese Knot) and therefore it just dragged because there's two whole books of what is essentially filler between his big events.

It's so weird not seeing Bran/Isaac Hempstead Wright in the cast list. I miss him already. I hope everyone isn't like "Who's that guy?" when he comes back in season 6.

Both approaches have merit. I love the wait sometimes. But I don't deny that I always binge the season of House of Cards on a lazy Sunday and I love that Sunday. This 4 episodes at once leak isn't at all appealing to me though. You just get ahead of everyone else, and then you get a 4 week long cliffhanger. That could kill me.

Movies get leaked a lot. You can find the critic screeners pretty easily for any movie that sends them out if you're so inclined. A lot of critics are unfortunately not very careful, usually the story is some lend them out to friends/family or the screener is "borrowed" by friends/family and ripped. It happens a lot less with TV shows cause most TV shows don't screen their episodes beyond maybe the season premiere. I'm guessing you are right that some critic was either less then careful with their copies or deliberately uploaded them, and the leaked episodes are the screeners sent out. The biggest leak I can remember (beyond this one) was actually a book, the 7th Harry Potter was leaked about a week ahead of it's release date IIRC. This is probably the easiest leak to pull off cause for a big release book stores get tonnes of copies in stock very early and books are rarely shrinkwrapped so it's easy for an employee to scan and upload them and be able to return the copy before anyone notices. I guess it doesn't happen very often cause few books carry as much hype as Harry Potter. Maybe the last ASOIAF will end up leaked as well though.

GRRM has already said if he dies the books die with him. Not sure if that was just him being pissed off because everyone was asking him to hurry the hell up and bringing up Jordan's recent death as he reason he should hurry the hell up. But if you follow his blog (yeah I don't care what he says, it's a friggin blog) he's very against other people writing his characters. Before the HBO show debuted he actually had his staff go around to fanfiction sites around the internet and ask the writers (read: teenagers) to cease and desist. I don't think he'd ask Sanderson (or anyone) to finish his books. Personally my biggest fear is the books never get finished cause he's so protective of his characters. Atleast we'll get the TV ending though.

Episode Leak! Link to Spoiler Free News Story: http://gizmodo.com/nearly-half-of-game-of-thrones-season-5-just-leaked-1697305966 First four episodes were leaked by some no doubt unsavoury individuals. So anyone who's wary of spoilers should be extra careful for the next few weeks.

Lack of virginity might have just delayed the wedding a bit. In the case of non-virginal widows, the King (or Lord) would likely want to wait a little while (probably half a year-a whole year) to make sure his prospective bride wasn't pregnant with the recently deceased man's child before the marriage. This is similar to what Jaime says about Jeyne Westerling. They are happy to arrange a marriage for her, but the marriage needs to wait so there's no tongues wagging about any resultant child actually being the child of the dead man, in that case the dead man being the King in the North and the resultant child being his heir.

Ashara doesn't, she has dark hair, and I'm not sure about Allyria either. I actually have thought that the pale hair may be a male only trait amongst the Daynes. Since all the male Daynes we know do have silver hair (Edric, Darkstar and Ser Arthur.) But all of the ones we know about have violet eyes. In regards to Howland passing Ashara off as a crannogwoman, in the book appendix Howland's wife is listed as "Jyana, of the crannogmen" probably because Jyana is not of a noble house and has no last name, which would not be a large issue for the hermetic crannogmen who probably wouldn't have a problem with their lord marrying a commoner. So while he might not be trying to pass her off as a crannogwoman to his own people, he is saying outwardly to the rest of the public that he is married to a crannogwoman. Here's the theory I read: http://asoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/topic/89012-howland-reed-ashara-dayne-meera-jojen/ It's a ridiculously thin argument in my opinion, even though it is very lengthy. It tries to be another R + L = J, but in the end there's a lot of very compelling evidence for that theory, and this one has much much less.

I don't think it makes very much sense. The theory as I read it seemed full of a lot of holes. My big problems, in addition to your ones about why all the secrecy, are, 1) Why don't Meera and Jojen have any Dayne characteristics? By all accounts the Daynes traits are heavily hereditary with almost everyone having violet eyes, and many having silver hair. 2) How is Howland passing off the tall, strikingly beautiful Ashara with her violet eyes, as being a crannogwoman? It seems very convoluted, and also unnecessary to the story. Not that everything has to be necessary to the story. But if GRRM invented such a convoluted mystery, you'd think it would be more important to the story. I mean R + L = J has less work put into it than this and has much further reaching implications.

GRRM said in a Q&A that the High Septon can set aside a marriage done under the Faith of the Seven, that has not been comsummated, but one of the parties must request the annulment. There would obviously be considerable danger in Sansa making such a request with the Lannisters in control of King's Landing. Not sure how it would be done for vows said under a Heart Tree. I assume the High Septon might be able to annul those too though. Maybe he'd require you to profess your changed faith? The current High Septon/Sparrow might require proof of your claim as well. But since Sansa is a virgin, she might actually have that proof.

Can Tommen consummate his marriage? Remember Book Tommen is currently 9.

Giving a lot of credit to Sweetrobin there. I just assumed Lysa poisoned her son against Harry. Just like she terrified him of the outside world. I don't think Lysa wanted Sweetrobin to like anyone outside of her (and maybe her most loyal supporters like Vardis Egen), and Baelish. She definitely didn't want him all chummy with the kid who wasn't hers who was set to inherit the Eyrie, and looks and acts much more the lordling then poor Sweetrobin.

It's probably her first chapter in this book, and when we last left her Littlefinger had to pretty much walk her through his plan. I know it's been years since we had a Sansa chapter, but it in book time it was been not nearly that long. You might be expecting a little much from her so early. She's not going to go from naive pawn to magnificent bastard in one chapter.

I could be misremembering, but I believe he makes a remark about sending her to Casterly Rock after Joff's wedding. Mainly to prevent Joffrey from tormenting her further.

They probably could've gotten the one guy who actually committed the crime if the Prof hadn't gotten greedy and tried to get every guy in every frat in trouble. Just goes to show that if you want justice, you need to be upfront about things. Also don't go changing your story every 6 seconds and broadcasting it. "One guy raped me" "Four guys raped me" "Six guys raped me" "One guy raped me, but a different guy from the one I originally said raped me" Not trying to blame the victim here, but at the end even she has to realise she isn't a credible witness. She'd get ruined in court on cross examination.

Bran would definitely still get tossed, and thusly Arya and Sansa would still go to King's Landing. But other things could easily change. I do think it's unlikely, but Myrcella could remain at Winterfell. If she does it would obviously give Robb a decent amount of leverage against the crown. More likely is a change in Sansa's behavior. Since Sansa is not to be wed to Joffrey it's less likely he spends as much time with her, especially once they reach King's Landing. It's also less likely Cersei spends as much time with Sansa, and Sansa wouldn't trust her as much. Sansa is more likely to become more infatuated with Loras Tyrell and might forget about Joffrey entirely. This means she has much less of a reason (and possible less means) to betray Ned to Cersei (she only really warns Cersei because Ned wants to break off the engagement), and Ned can get the girls off to Winterfell much more easily. Ned probably still loses his head in this scenario, but it's because he refuses to recant his statement about Joffrey, Myrcella and Tommen's bastardy, which is what he would do if he knew Sansa and Arya were safe. Spoilers for ACOK/ASOS

Ref was letting LaRusso get away with everything. Clearly the fix was in. LaRusso steps out the ring in that fight (usually a free point for the other guy) without penalization even though he was warned against it previously. Also when the match is tied 2-2, Johnny Lawrence lands a clean, controlled (non full power) punch to LaRusso's head and is for some reason, not awarded the point, even though he should be, because head shots are legal in this tournament. Anyway in most karate tournaments you aren't allowed to strike at full power, you could seriously injure or kill someone that way; you need to land controlled pulled strikes (like the kind Johnny Lawrence hits LaRusso with which should've won him the trophy.) The Crane Kick was a reckless, full power strike directly to a kid's face. LaRusso could've broken Johnny's nose if he missed, heck he could've killed Johnny if he snapped his neck (also very possible.) This should've resulted in immediate disqualification, at the very least he shouldn't have gotten the winning point. LaRusso's a cheating jerk. Here's an article that explains it better: http://www.overthinkingit.com/2008/12/08/disqualify-daniel-larusso/ Obviously Miyagi knew about none of this or he probably would've committed ritual suicide. As Miyagi said "No bad student, only bad teacher." It's not your fault though Miyagi, Daniel-san is just a jerk.

I love that once again the Karate Kid is interpreted so LaRusso isn't the hero. He's the worst guy in that movie. He's a jerk who tries to steal someone else's girlfriend and then uses illegal crane kicks to win a tournament he shouldn't have been able to enter in the first place cause he isn't a black belt cause he started learning karate less than a month before the tournament started. Miyagi is the hero cause he somehow trained a kid to win in less than a month against actual black belts, even though he trained a cheater. Good work Community for getting it right.

Well I think they'd have to. Myrcella doesn't really have anything to do in Dorne without the plot to crown her. And if they weren't going to do anything with Myrcella I don't know why they'd have bothered recasting her.

No the only King to die in ACOK is Renly.

In regards to the most recent chapter we're discussing, I'm frequently of the opinion that GRRM is sneaking things into the books so upon rereads we just yell at the pages when an opportunity comes about to avert the upcoming disasters. The one I'm pointing to here is the ultimately meaningless moment between Robb and Myrcella. It seems like such a throwaway line and has still ended up sparking a few fanfictions from the "happy ending" fanbase, desperate to save

I assume they'd be able to. I mean they ride dead horses don't they? Don't know if they'd be able to do it with just the skeletons though. If they manage to get to a dragon that is freshly dead though...

Any thoughts on who

You should've known that as soon as Ramsay showed up in the first episode.

You are correct, at the end of ADWD Aegon and the Golden Company are at Griffin's Roost, the seat of House Connington and their next target is Storm's End as Aegon announces that he will lead the attack himself. There's no way Aegon would go for Dragonstone. While it would be symbolic to take the ancient stronghold of the Targaryens, it is an entirely useless stronghold when it comes to conquering the Kingdoms by army, which is what Aegon has and is planning to do. Even Robert captured all of the Kingdoms before turning his gaze to Dragonstone during the rebellion. Aegon would break his army against even a token garrison at Dragonstone, and after he took it, he'd have no army, no navy and only a rock in the middle of the sea. It smacks more of a move that Daenerys (who seems to be trying to be the Conqueror reborn) would make, as opposed to Aegon who has been councelled on the subtleties of warfare, and knows that it is not a smart move. Fortunately Dany also has Dragons and a navy so it is a much more reasonable move for her to consider. Also, unlike Aegon, who already has a foothold in the Kingdoms at Griffin's Roost (and possibly now Storm's End) Dany still needs one, and Dragonstone could make a passible one as opposed to striking directly for King's Landing. Storm's End is strategically is a much better target for Aegon, a castle that is known to be easily defended (by land and sea) and that is in close proximity to King's Landing by foot/horse. And while it isn't Dragonstone, it is still a great castle and the seat of his enemies, House Baratheon. Both Stannis and Tommen should theoretically rankle at having it taken when by right's it should belong to them.