All Activity

Great idea for a thread - theories that I think are wrong but I would love to be correct! For me....I'd have to say the parentage of the Lannister children is tops. There's decent cases and evidence that either Tyrion or Jaime/Cercie are half Targ. I don't think any of them are....I can't imagine Tywin, as proud as he is, tolerating that level of betrayal. So, no, I don't think any of his children are secret Targs. It's a great idea though, and if GRRM were to include it and explain it....i'd be on-board.

I finally watched Michael Mann’s Manhunter for the first time last night. Good stuff. I think William Peterson was probably the best Will Graham out of the three actors that portrayed him. Tom Noonan also made a great Francis Dolarhyde, too. His size alone made the character that much more imposing. I’ve seen people say the film is a bit dated, but I actually really liked the 80’s synth music, and the atmosphere overall.

Interesting thread! I love the idea. Arys Oakheart swapping Myrcella with Rosamund before dying. The girl that was attacked by Darkstar was not Myrcella, but Rosamund. I like this theory a lot, but I don't know what it would do for the overall plot. Real or not, tales of Myrcella's injury have already spread.

I haven't watched LML in a few years. Great insights on his part, just....eh. I won't get into it, that's not for here. Interesting that he had similar ideas tho. I suppose, in the end, it boils down to WHY the others were created. They appear to exist prior to dragons. What were they designed to fight, if not the army of the Bloodstone Emperor? A mystery, i suppose.

That's EXACTLY right. Sorry to keep you waiting. Well done.

I didn't mean to imply he'd solve the entire continent's issues....clearly he cant. But if he takes control of King's Landing and releases the stored food, he could at least alleviate the suffering of that one city. The one city that Dany dearly wants to be in charge of.

I....don't think so. If anything, Benjen might be re-discovering what the Night's Watch was originally for, making him the opposite of a deserter. Love me some Order of the Green Hand theorizing.....they tend to step a bit out of the norm and field some of the wilder theories. That's really good....very useful. I think mostly they're wrong....but they have introduced a lot of good stuff to get people talking.

There have been reports like this already, saying Big Oil knew this since the 1960's. Nobody's paid attention even when on the WaPo. Quite like Big Tobacco.

Don't know how's that possible with the Lannisters and Euron still running amok and the North being its own separate theater. Young G ascension will not stop any wars, unless plot, it'd simply mean new alliances are made, whatever the Riverlands are still burning either way. I simply do not know why people sincerely believe Aegon has the capability to solve Westeros' huge problems by himself.

My favorite reference is definitely GRRM's allusion to the Others as "like the Sidhe." That's a very interesting reference. In Irish myth, after an invasion of humans, the Sidhe agreed to a pact with humans....to go underground. In ASoIaF, the Children signed a pact with the humans and appear to live underground, in the caves and root systems of the Weirwoods. The Sidhe were spirits of the trees. I think it's likely that's exactly what the Others are too....only given physical form via warg-sacrifice against a Weirwood.

No. He waited for too long to take action. Now Arianne has all but dragged Dorne into war with her Queen Myrcella plot. If he wanted revenge, he should have joined earlier when Robb rose against the Lannisters. If anything, removing them from power would have prepared the realm for a returning Targ, be it Dany or Young Griff. His plans just do not seem to work. Arianne is way over her head and Quentyn failed. Unless George has something planned that we do not know about, I cannot see Martells winning.

This is probably the most confusing topic in the entire series. Bran becoming king is confirmed by GRRM.....but....king of what? King of Westeros? Or the new Night's King? King of Winter? It would be very much GRRM's style to say Bran becomes king....but leave out what he is King of. For that matter...even if Bran did become the new Night's King....does that make Bran bad? We don't know, because we don't know why the Others came back in the first place. We don't know why they came into being either. Clearly they are meant to fight something.....but is that dragons? Or was it the Bloodstone Emperor? Maybe Euron's birth (3 years prior to the tragedy at summerhall) woke them? Euron mirrors the Bloodstone Emperor in his actions... We just don't know.

There's knowing and knowing. It's one thing to believe Big Oil has been systematically hindering any progress on climate change, and it's another to have a treasure trove of documents that prove it, detailing internal positions and strategies, curtesy of the US Congress. There's also a few names being named in there... The final sentence isn't surprising in itself, but it is a bit surprising to see it in a congressional report: I don't know how far this'll go. Maybe the Republicans burry the whole thing next year.

In those fields one develops expertise in things that can potentially make major contributions in that speciality as one grows in knowledge and experience. Entering politics at 18 as a career only makes you become expert in being a politician. I would rather our best and brightest do anything other than politics for their early adult life. Not to gain life experience, but to contribute to the progress of society in a myriad far better ways than becoming a full time politician.

On another site, a now-deceased poster - a former astrophysicist - mentioned how he'd worked out the mechanics of greenhouse gasses back i the 60s.

No. Doran thinks he's clever but his ENTIRE plan is just to marry into the Targaryen family....which is about to experience another civil war, between Dany and Faegon. I suspect Faegon will be....displeased....when he finds out that Doran is playing both sides. I suspect Dany will be....displeased....when she finds out that Doran is playing both sides. Basically, Doran is just....not very smart. His entire schtick is to hedge his bets, play both sides, and try to ride on the coat-tails of the powerful. All he does is wait....and he always waits too long. He waited too long to tell his daughter his plans, so she made her own and Princess Myrcella got f'd up as a result. He waited too long to send his son to Dany....and she was already betrothed once he arrived. To make up for his father's failure, Quentyn tried to woo Dany by interacting with her dragons without permission, and now he's extra crispy. Doran is exactly what the sandsnakes think he is. He hasn't had a single plan work. His most successful machination was with his brother. Oberyn died, and the Lannister family was destabilized...but by that point, Varys and Illyrio had already identified the fact that Viserys was insane, rendering Doran's planned marriage of Arianne/Viserys moot. Doran had no idea about Young Griff. Now he'll try to take advantage of THAT....except the people behind Young Griff already know Doran is incompetent. Basically the dude thinks he's super clever but he's got no idea about any higher-level stuff going on because he doesn't have any kind of reliable spy network. All he does is wait.

So Rowling and Musk are the source of the gametes large (or small) to shut-down the discussion as to who is what and why?

That's rich, ol' Assassination Coordinates himself pushing for more positive content

Well, one must wonder then, what your assessment is of a talented, ambitious young -- o, I dunno, chemist, musician, writer, historian, pastor, financier, entrepreneur, designer, etc. -- who enter their fields hoping to become a force to be reckoned with?

I think he would have died. He'd probably been planning some way of escape throughout the trip, after King Joff rendered-moot his original mission of ensuring Ned Stark wasn't able to tell the people up North about Baelish's treachery. Things escalated too quickly due to the resulting war and he had to rely on his personality to convince Arya to help him.

A great win for Lando Norris in Miami. He definitely got some luck with the timing of the safety car playing into his hands perfectly but he had good pace before that and afterwards managed to comfortably pull away from Verstappen. Newer tyres would have helped Norris, but it seems surprising that Verstappen wasn't able to threaten him at all. Piastri was also driving a strong race in the first stint so things seem to be looking good for McLaren.

Well, we haven’t had a world war in 80 years. And indeed, the ICC has prosecuted numerous war criminals. Slobodan Milosevic died in his cell in The Hague, and he didn’t care at all about our norms or conventions either. If your standard is “bad people and bad governments still do bad things,” then sure, there’s no way any international org is ever gonna stop everything. Just like no amount of law enforcement is going to stop all crime.

Regardless of competence, anyone seeking to enter politics at eighteen with ambitions of high office should be viewed with the utmost suspicion.

By the time Dany gets to Westeros, the food stockpiles in the Vale will either be part of the deal to join F-Aegon or local. the horses can always grace, they also eat horses but as usual, the smallfolk will bare the brunt of it and have what little they have to eat, taken from them and worse with the Dothraki coming to town, especially the women.