Lord Lannister

I can't recall it being specifically stated. Ideally they should've been storing for winter well before the series even started being it was an abnormally long summer. Given how swiftly Winterfell fell to Theon, any food stores there would've been captured by him as well. So any food stores would've either been burned or looted by the Boltons when they captured the castle. As food reserves seem to be an issue in the winter campaign against Stannis, it was either destroyed or there just wasn't much to begin with. The latter may well be the case as other cities/castles seem to have limited food supplies during sieges and campaigns despite the fact they should've been storing for winter as well.

Somehow this fortification that stops EVERYTHING from the south has no defense against the North. Guess the Northmen don't bother keeping watch that way either. Not like they were at war with a power with a large fleet in Lannisport or anything.

People love to crunch the numbers and logistics of the various lords and lands of Westeros, but in the end they're largely varied and plot dependent.

Whatever government the Others have.

Bots are easy, incentives for reviews are easy, it happens. In the end it's just opinions and you shouldn't let yours be influenced by other people's. If you enjoy season 8, more power to you, I'm not going to try and take that away from you.

Meh

Yeah, ok. Maybe if you got over your kneejerk reaction to defend George and stopped putting words in my mouth for a moment to bother reading the posts you'd realize I wasn't. Yes, they screwed up and could've done better. But the fact of the matter is George signed off the rights to them so he hears his share of the responsibility for the end product. Every TV adaptation is going to have it's quirks and cuts due to limitations of the medium. Personally I think they did well enough up through season 4 when the source material started running out. So either way you look at it, George sold them an incomplete product regardless of if he intended to finish Winds by the time the appropriate seasons rolled around and just failed or not. D&D definitely should've had an idea of what was(or wasn't in this case) coming and had some sort of plan to make due and they definitely failed as well, especially in seasons 7 and 8. I'm not "excusing" anything. I'm giving Martin his fair share of the blame though. He should've known what D&D were about well before he signed on the line. Or maybe he did and just was paying more attention to the paycheck next to it. Either way it's on him too.

I have to imagine the rest of the remains are at the bottom of the Trident.

It would be war. Suddenly the Mountain clans have the wealth to assert themselves. The other northern houses are going to want to muscle in on this too if they have the strength. Hell, the Ironborn suddenly will have a reason to start reaving again. Maybe even the Lannisters via sell sword proxies. Robert would almost have to get involved and help Ned clamp all this down. So... war.

Who says he didn't? Obviously Ned can't be running around with a mystery child named Aegon, Aemon, etc up north though. So... Jon it is regardless.

Basically Ned keeps Jon even more out of sight, maybe with the Reeds or fostering for a year here and there with his various banner men. He also probably lets the rumors about Ashara not quite die. But at least Cat is happy that Jon isn't around to blame for Ned's supposed infidelity. Or maybe she just doesn't have a target to lash out at and has to stand up to her husband about it.

Wow even this is turning into a Stark love vs hate thread?

That title would've looked good on Tyrion's tombstone. Maybe if Tywin sent a contingent of Lannister guards and household, enough to populate Winterfell, he could've effectively ruled it. Projecting any meaningful authority outside of it? Nope.

Tywin didn't need to threaten Jaime. He grew up around Tywin. He didn't have to be a genius to know that bad things happen to the people who defy Tywin. If there was any doubt, what happened to Tyrion's would've confirmed that.

Maybe that's the example Martin had in mind when he first signed off. Perhaps Martin had every intention of having Winds and Dream beating out the show before their respective seasons aired but certainly isn't how it worked out and that's not D&D's fault.