Alester Florent

The real Benjen died during the Rebellion after choking on a sausage. Arthur Dayne assumed his identity and joined the Watch under his name. Then he recruited Jon to keep an eye on him. But when he heard Dany was getting married he decided he'd better go and check that out. On the way, he adopted a new disguise and had got fully into character by the time he got there, abandoning his former identities and becoming Strong Belwas.

How does Jaime's outliving Cersei suggest he will not be the valonqar?

I think the text makes reasonably plain that Daemon II wasn't a bad guy, he was just a bit naive and foolish, and arguably not a strong enough character to play the part that he needed to. He's not a bad guy, but some of the people around him are, and while they'll acknowledge his ostensible authority, it's pretty clear that Gormon Peake et al are really the ones running the show: would that change were he to become king? Seems doubtful. His movites are sound enough: as you say, he believes he is the rightful king, and he's even attempting to win support on merit by establishing his prowess at arms as his father did, then reveal his identity. He doesn't seem to be fully aware of the shenanigans going on around him to rig the tournament in his favour - again perhaps a mark against him in the kingship stakes, or perhaps he's just doing a very good impression of not noticing. So overall, I think I agree with your take here, @Lord of Raventree Hall But good intentions or not, he's dangerous and he has to be taken out. If it's any consolation, he was probably treated relatively well by Bloodraven: obviously he's still going to live out his days in prison in relative isolation, but there isn't a lot of useful information that Daemon can provide that BR can't already get from the other conspirators, so there's not a lot of point in torturing him. And whatever BR's feelings about the Blackfyres generally, he's a pragmatist who knows that it's in his interest to keep Daemon alive, so mistreating him pointlessly would be counterproductive. He probably wasn't kept in the Black Cells, and may even have had an "apartment" in the Red Keep proper, albeit under close guard. I wouldn't be terribly surprised to learn that his death was associated with some kind of plot or escape attempt, though.

Tyrion certainly isn't as big a deal as Joffrey - nobody is - but he's not some random schmuck either. He's still a member of the Small Council, Tywin's son, a member of the royal family, the ostensible heir to one lord paramountcy and a serious claimant to at least the regency of another, jure uxoris. He does still have at least one major political ally - the High Septon - not counting Tywin himself or indeed Jaime, who isn't present but is on his way. Oberyn clearly considers him someone worth getting to know and not antagonising. Even if nobody actually cares that much about Tyrion personally, he is a man of status and at least ostensible influence. Indeed, his importance is evident to some extent by dint of the way that Littlefinger, no fool, thinks he's someone worth going to trouble to antagonise and eliminate. So if he suddenly and dramatically chokes to death in the middle of the king's wedding feast, it's going to cause a commotion. The whole hall isn't just going to stand there and watch him die and then carry on Mos Eisley cantina-style with him still lying there. That's the case even where a random schmuck is concerned! If some hedge knight or merchant chokes to death in the middle of the feast, it's going to cause at least a bit of localised disruption even if it doesn't actually interfere with the high personages. But Tyrion is among the high personages: his death would be inevitably disruptive, at least to the extent that Sansa might be able to make a getaway. There are people of decency present who would see it as their general duty to go to his aid: even if Garlan is in on it (which he may not be), it's hard to imagine someone like Balon Swann just watching on impassively. Apart from anything else, if there's the suspicion of poison having reached Tyrion, then the implication is - given the geography of the room and Tyrion's status, that the king was in danger. FWIW, I see no particular reason to doubt the official story we've had revealed to us in the books. We can second-guess the text all day but we're given no real reason to in this case. GRRM's plotting doesn't tend to be that intricate or deceptive. People do things which aren't necessarily perfectly rational, or which carry a degree of risk, both in real life and in these stories, and where we can say "but what if this happened, and then what if this happened?" sure we can poke holes in the plan, but the fact is, if the plan was to kill Joffrey, permit Sansa's getaway, and escape the blame, then it worked perfectly. That there was a small chance it might not have done is irrelevant - assasssinating kings is never a risk-free business!

You probably want to look at 6mm wargaming terrain, although even that may be a little on the large side for you. There are a few manufacturers out there, depending where you are.

If you take a bite of a pie and there's a hard stone in it, you spit it out. You don't suck or swallow it such that it dissolves inside you. If it's already dissolved in wine, you just drink the wine.

Up to a point... There is a cadre of posters who are hardcore Dany-stans and will post any old nonsense about the "evil" Starks, whether in original threads or in other people's discussions. It gets extremely tedious. Occasionally they give themselves away by calling Dany "Khaleesi". You'll get to know who they are.

Good luck with that.

I may have underestimated the size of direwolves. If they're of similar size though I would still give the lion the edge. Firstly because of its claws: wolf claws are not really combat weapons. They're used for gripping but the paws are not well articulated and the claws themselves are smaller: wolves rely almost entirely on their jaws (and prey exhaustion) to tackle large animals. Lions are a different story. Their claws are fearsome weapons in their own right and they're ambush hunters which use all parts of their body, including its bulk, to overpower prey while it's still at full capacity. Male lions in particular are specialist brawlers adapted for fighting other large carnivores. If we consider a spotted hyena - about the size of a grey wolf, but much stronger and with more dangerous jaws, a male lion will kill it without apparent effort. In a straight fight, even if a direwolf is a bit bigger than a lion, I'd still back the lion. Of course, a brown bear would make short work of either, so there's a limit to the sigil comparison.

The Night's Watch are bound to defend the realms of men, not just Westeros. They shouldn't be siding with the Iron Throne against the Triarchy or Braavos, if we take their "take no part in politics" vow seriously. Of course, their vow doesn't actually say that. What they actually promise to do is "take no wife, hold no lands, father no children. I shall wear no crowns and win no glory. I shall live and die at my post." The duties of the Night's Watch have been traditionally interpreted more restrictively than that: to take no part in southron politics; complete chastity, not just celibacy (by a strict interpretation of those terms). But we're also seeing that those traditional interpretations of the vows are starting to break down. The Watch has for centuries seen its duty as containing the wildlings but the Watch is now beginning to realise that that's not what they're for at all: the real enemy is something else, and if the wildlings somehow present a threat "to the realms of men" then they should be repelled, but so long as the wildlings are part of the realms of men (as those who have passed through the Wall have become) then the Watch owes a duty to protect them just as it does anyone else. This opens the door to a more critical examination of the vows overall, which I think would pretty quickly establish that Jon didn't break any vow with Ygritte, and he didn't break any vow by hosting Stannis, sending Mance to rescue Arya, etc. He was given the chance to break his vows - to take a wife, to hold lands, and wear a crown, and he turned it down, choosing instead to live (and indeed possibly die, depending on the outcome of the coup attempt) at his post. He hasn't broken his vows yet.

Individually, lions are stronger than direwolves, but a pack of direwolves could take down a lion. When the Lannisters were united in a pride, they were stronger, but the males have largely deserted and all that's left is one lioness alone with her cubs. Not promising! The kraken may be invincible at sea, but is entirely helpless on land. The mightiest of all sigils, of course (if we're not counting the Sun), is the Titan, which is big enough even to see off dragons. Don't count Littlefinger out yet.

I'm not convinced that the Lannisters do have "infinite money", for what it's worth. If they were infinitely wealthy and money was everything, then their star would never have fallen so far under Tytos (and latter-day Gerold) and needed restoring under Tywin. Nor does his financial status necessarily give him influence over the other great lords. The crown is indebted because of Littlefinger's gearing, in order to sustain the high-spend approach that Robert uses to maintain popularity - and because the crown's revenues are relatively meagre relative to the perception of power and status it's forced to project. The other great houses aren't likely to be anywhere near as indebted, if at all, so there isn't the opportunity for Tywin to buy up their debt or lend them money on terms that give him an element of control in the same way as the crown. And some of them - under Robert, Ned, Doran, Renly and Stannis at minimum - are going to be immediately suspicious of any attempt to inveigle his way into their ledger books. Colour me also unconvinced that there are armies of hundreds of thousands of mercenaries just hanging around Essos waiting for Tywin to hire them and that this is a potential instawin button. This isn't a video game where there's a bottomless pit of soldiers ready to pop up anywhere on the map on your say-so. I think the mercenaries are in the tens of thousands at most, and he'd have to hire them individually as companies (accounting for massive price inflation once they cottoned on to demand), somehow get them all to Westeros under the nose of Stannis and/or the Redwynes, then get them to a position where he can link up with them, and find a way to supply them, all without anyone noticing what he was doing before he was ready to deploy. Hoster starts getting suspicious and calls his own banner as soon as Tywin starts assembling his bannermen inside the Westerlands. If he's shipping over multiple mercenary companies he's obviously preparing for war and you can bet Ned and Mace would be watching closely. Supplying massive armies is also a real problem: there's a finite amount of food in Westeros, and you can't eat money. So Tywin would have to move quickly once he had his troops assembled, otherwise his huge mercenary army is just going to starve, or start raiding his own lands for food. And he'd probably still be smashed by the united armies of the crown if he tried anything. He might capture parts of the Riverlands (as he does in the WotFK) but the Westerlands is vulnerable in two directions and he's got the armies of the North, Vale, Stormlands and Reach bearing down on him. But let's say he wins somehow and all the lords recognise him as the new king. What's he actually gained? Nothing. He's now in charge of a bunch of kingdoms that hate him and will take the first opportunity to rebel. He doesn't have any more real power than he did when he was the king's father-in-law and creditor (or Hand, under Aerys). Going back before Tywin, we know that thanks to the mismanagement of Tion and Tytos, the Lannisters were barely masters of the Westerlands, and Tytos had no interest in anything more anyway. Before that, Gerold and Damon lived in the time of more formidable Targaryens: Daeron II, Baelor Breakspear, Maekar, Bloodraven. Opportunities for trouble were limited. We don't know about the Lannisters during the period between the Dance and Daeron II, but they took a thorough beating in the Dance when they tried throwing their weight around, and that probably had an impact on the next generation or two. And, of course, the Reynes were still around. It's unlikely that any Lannister prior to the destruction of Castamere could be quite so dominant within the Westerlands as Tywin became - and control of the Westerlands is a prerequisite for dominance outside it. Either they have to have the Reynes on side, which means concessions and a weakening of their position, or they run the risk of the Reynes bankrolling their enemies, which nullifies a lot of their supposed financial advantage. Even if Tywin wants power above all else (which I don't think he does), he's far better off in a stable and broadly contented kingdom, either pulling strings from Casterly Rock or operating as Hand from King's Landing. Rampant conquest is not the way to go about it. So what I'm not getting here is (a) what does "masters of Westeros" actually look like, in this scenario - and (b) why is it an improvement on what Tywin already has, to the extent it's worth chasing?

I think it's easy to overestimate the power that money can buy in Westeros. It's a feudal society and a feudal economy, with a relatively static technology level, so in terms of ability to exercise power, land, food and people are at least as important as gold, if not moreso. Prestige matters, and if Tywin were to raise his banners against either the Targs or Robert without an exceptionally good reason, he'd rapidly find himself on the receiving end of a kicking. I suspect the fans are often also guilty of overestimating how much richer the Lannisters are than the other great houses. They are certainly the richest house, but all the great houses are phenomenally rich by the standards of the average person in Westeros, and the ability of Tywin to manipulate them through money is going to be limited. They also probably didn't gain much more absolute money - if any - from defeating the Reynes. Tywin flooded the Castamere gold mine, and it doesn't seem to have reopened. The event may have led to other recalcitrant Lannister debtors paying up, but the mine itself is pretty much worthless now, at least without a massive effort to drain it that for someone already as rich as Tywin may be more trouble than it's worth. And how much more power does Tywin need? Relatively soon after defeating the Reynes, he's Hand of the King, and widely recognised as the most powerful man in the kingdom.

If I remember rightly, Mance himself acknowledged that Mormont could have held the Fist against him, had he been foolish enough to attack.

Darkstar, you mean? That is interesting, although I'm not sure where the information about Maegor's hair has come from. I've googled and another wiki has shown up, but it doesn't cite any sources and appears to be fanfic. Maybe there's a SSM that hasn't been linked to the wiki, though.