Lord Lannister

Either Robert personally spent all the money or he enabled the corrupt environment that allowed the people around him to spend it. If not both. Either way it falls on him as king. I really don't see how that's debatable.

Not really. You could just as easily make that argument for the Lannisters with the few disjointed facts we have. They were able to finance Robert's crazy spending with loans they collected interest on, they've funded non stop campaigns during the War of the Five kings, and Kevan mentioned in his POV they were just sitting on enough gold to pay off the Crown's debts to the Iron Bank. But none of these snippets form a complete picture of the world economy because there isn't one. These snippets are there just to support the needs of the plot.

Unknown. Martin tends to treat things like numbers behind economics and demographics as a means to support the plot. Illyrio was rich enough to buy off Khal Drogo, buy dragon eggs, finance Dany's ships and buy the Golden Company. He'll be rich enough to do what Martin wants him to. Just like the Lannisters and Tyrells.

You'd have to make an active effort to do worse than Ser Rodrik did.

I just always figured it was there were no major cities on the west coast of the North.

This is most wise indeed. Want to come to my wedding feast?

Tyrion would be a possibility in an Aegon victory. Otherwise both can probably find some distant Lannisport Lannister willing to turncloak.

Usually it irritates me when people use the forums to plug their pet projects... but I got to admit those pictures look awesome.

Thank you for oh so eloquently pointing out why the author often draws inspiration and parallels from other sources, sometimes it's best not to look too much into them.

I think it's as simple as this. There doesn't always have to be some grand complicated conspiracy behind every character's actions.

I'd take Mace Tyrell myself. He actively tries to promote their interests, has to know about Loras being gay but hasn't disowned him or anything, and really isn't a dick. So... puts him ahead of anyone on that list.

I agree the story likely would've been better with the five year gap. It'd create certain problems in some places, but resolve a lot more. Letting Sansa, Arya, Dany, Sweetrobin, Tommen, Bran, Rickon, (f)Aegon all grow up some would create so much more opportunities. To say nothing of the dragons. Sure there would be a lot of flashbacks and describing the past. But so what? The first novel had a lot of that. Brienne's arc would be mostly fruitless and maybe after years of searching for Sansa she returned home, vowing one day to find Sansa though. Littlefinger slowly consolidating power over the Vale and Riverlands while teaching Sansa the game would make sense. He was always patient. Stannis could winter at Castle Black and decide to march south during a false spring equivalent only to get sucked back into winter mid march. Euron could bide his time until he's ready, keeping Victarion in line. It's not impossible that a realm ravaged by the War of the Five Kings and limping along after that wouldn't be eager to build up a huge army and fleet to take back a bunch of worthless islands if they're not an immediate threat. Cersei's sparrow plot could just as easily pick up during the beginning of 5 year novel. All that said, and as better as I think it would've been. The ship has sailed. No petitions are going to change that. Besides, do you really want Martin to start over and be waiting another 10 years?

Renly was too focused on his own glory to worry about anything Stannis might do.

It probably wasn't. I read an electronic version of Feast/Dance that had all the chapters presented chronologically. It was wonky in places sure, but read more smoothly as one single story, if extremely slow paced. I really think the problem with the last two books is they seem to lack an over all direction and just seem to be all over the place. The first three seemed to know what they were doing, and where things were going. If we somehow ever get Winds, I expect there's going to be a lot of dangling plot threads all over the place as the last two books plot lines are consolidated into a single novel.

Asking for a friend?