WhatAnArtist!

In my experience, it's critics that are the ones that will trash something based on its ideological/political undertones, not the regular fans.

I don't know about any objective judgements, but in my own personal opinion it's gotta be Arianne. Based on the absolutely exhaustive lengths that Martin goes to describe her physical appearance, I think he probably agrees too. Arianne is like a check-list of every single thing I find attractive in a woman. I certainly do not blame poor Ser Arys for dishonouring his vows.

I agree that they were poorly written plotlines - D&D were bad writers in general - but I don't agree with your sentiment that writers should write only what fans want to see. That's just fan-service, it's not real storytelling. As soon as a writer refuses to write something because he's scared of how people will respond, he loses integrity and credibility.

Ned Stark is like.... the last lord that would ever kick out family from his home so long as he was there.

One can only imagine just how frustrated and upset Martin himself is, but obviously he's far too professional and tactful to say those things himself.

Assuming that in this timeline Ser Stafford Lannister still dies at Oxcross, that still leaves Ser Devan Lannister to take command in the westerlands. Since he was later made the Warden of the West by Cersei in Feast, it's not far-fetched to imagine that he'd be an acceptable choice to take charge of the westerlands should there be no other Lannisters available. He seemed to do a decent enough job in Feast (though granted at that time the war was all but over).

Yeah that's what I meant. Obviously the Freys get plenty of hate for their involvement in the Red Wedding, and even the Lannisters to a lesser extent, but I was curious about how the Boltons are viewed, and if it's common knowledge that Roose was involved with it. That'd severely hurt his chances of pacifying the North, if that's the case.

I just reread the chapter where Dany rejects him, and I really felt bad for Quentyn. I could relate to him somewhat. The fact that Dany even thought how much hotter one of his companions was, and that she wishes he was the prince instead, was both hilarious and pitiable.

I don't know if this would have helped much, since Astapor rose up again after she left. What she needed to was conquer it - take the city, kill or expel the slavers, station some Unsullied and sellswords in the city, and add it to her little empire in Slaver's Bay. If all three cities were controlled by her and her soldiers, she'd be in a much better situation. Dany's problem was that she didn't fully commit - she needed to embrace being a Targaryen and emulate Aegon by conquering enough to make her too powerful to dislodge. Simply taking Meereen wasn't enough, she needed all three cities if she wanted to be self-sustaining.

With my current reread of Dance, I'll put forward the suggestion of Dany's "plan" to rule Meereen, which seems to boil down to "If I'm a really nice person maybe they'll just leave me alone". She receives good advice from several people around her - Barristan urges her to send the army out to fight their enemies in the field because they don't have the food to survive a siege, Daario urges her to massacre the slaver families after luring them in so she has no enemies inside the city, Skahaz urges her not to marry Hizdahr because he is almost certainly one of the Sons of the Harpy; a few people urge her to unleash her dragons on her enemies like a true Targaryen would have, since they're her best tool; even King Cleon urges her to join with him to help take down Yunkai, their common foe who has been plotting against them the whole time. She ignores all of it, because it would violate her plan on being "a really nice person" and just sitting in her Pyramid and sort of.... hoping it all just goes away...? I don't even know if it can be called a plan. She rejects every single proposed plan that could have put her in a better situation, and her own "plan" seems to be to throw away every possible advantage she has and instead severely expose herself and her people to danger from all sides because she wasn't willing to make the hard choices. Being all nice and diplomatic and patient might work if you're in the shoes of someone like Doran Martell or Rodrik Harlaw, but it doesn't work when you're surrounded by enemies in the most hostile place in the known world as Slaver's Bay is.

So long as Stannis puts aside his jealousy about Ned and Robert, he'd work with Ned immediately and there'd be no prolonged investigation that necessitates involving Baelish and Varys. Most of the work had already been done by Arryn. When Stannis and Ned are satisfied that they have the "evidence" they need, they'll argue about what to do. Ned would still want to warn Cersei so she can take her children and flee; Stannis would have no such qualms, and would tell Robert immediately. This would at best lead to Cersei and the children being imprisoned, and at worst executed. However, if Robert dies before this can happen, Stannis would do Ned tried to do and stage a coup, except he wouldn't be stupid enough to trust Baelish, he'd use Baratheon men-at-arms to do it. And then Cersei and the children would be imprisoned and/or executed. The Small Council would be purged, too; Varys, Baelish and Pycelle would all be removed (one way or another). If Stannis was smart he'd make Ned his Hand, but Ned would probably refuse because he wants to go back home, and because he's angry at Stannis executing Cersei's children. Stannis would need the support of powerful lords in the war with the Lannisters, so he'd need to keep Renly on side somehow. This might be more difficult than anything else, considering their very strained relationship and Renly's abition and complete lack of honour and loyalty. If Stannis really wanted a strong anti-Lannister government, he should invite the Dornish to send their representative to the city to become Hand. The Dornish would be practically salivating at the chance to get completely lawful revenge on Tywin and the Lannisters with the backing of the Iron Throne. The Tyrells are the wildcard here. I'm not sure if they'd be willing to rebel against the Iron Throne if Stannis has already seized it and wiped out the "rightful" heirs (i.e. Joffrey and Tommen); they'd have no pretext except "Stannis is cruel and his younger brother is nicer and cuter".

Does anyone know that it was Roose Bolton that killed Robb Stark? I know Martin described him as wearing his armour when he did it, but does that mean he was wearing a helmet too, to obscure his face?

There aren't any major battles in Feast/Dance like there were in the first three books. There's no Green Fork or Whispering Wood or Blackwater or the Wall. The largest battle is the taking of the Shield Isles, which could be done easily by just having a couple of ships knocked into each other, 30 or 40 guys in a moshpit, and some CG burning ships in the background. All of the other action setpieces would be very small-scale, basically just fights, not battles, e.g. Brienne vs the Brave Companions, Arys vs Hotah. The siege of Riverrun doesn't involve any fighting, just a big army camped out around it (pretty easy to use CGI with).

But Jaime knows that the "Arya" in Winterfell isn't the real Arya. Or do you mean that he'd intentionally mislead Stoneheart? I don't think the Night's Watch ranges as far north as Bran is. Bran and co. are basically in the Land of Always Winter, unmapped territory; that's too far for the Watch to range, who usually limit themselves to the Haunted Forest.

I can't see that happening until she beats Aegon. He seems to be better positioned to gathering Westerosi support; he got there first, and he has a better claim. Dany will need to unleash some fire and blood on him first, but that might make her lose potential supporters. An interesting dilemma.

Frankly, I think Martin went too far in making the Dothraki so primitive. Even their historical inspirations - the nomadic Turks and the Mongols - used shields, armour and sophisticated tactics because of their proximity to more developed civilisations (e.g. China, Persia). That's how they were able to eventually beat them. They took things from their enemies and adapted them into new and innovative variations. The Dothraki adapt nothing and learn nothing. The history buff inside me desperately wants them to cross the Narrow Sea and be effortlessly exterminated in a single battle by a Westerosi army that actually wears armour and uses spears and shields.

This would actually be a pretty amazing twist.

You keep saying this but there's no evidence.

Well that's on you for not being familiar with the types of names in other countries.

This is a strawman. The majority of people do not "hate Essos and its plotlines"; they might prefer the storylines in Westeros, but that doesn't equate to hating the other ones. It's not a binary situation. People can enjoy both, but prefer one. And just because people have criticisms of one, doesn't mean they hate it. They're good, but I don't think they're quite on the same level as the best regions of Westeros (i.e. the North, King's Landing). Perhaps, but again, I don't think they're on the same level as the characters in the most interesting regions of Westeros. Not similar at all. A lot of the names in Westeros are directly derived from real-world names, some with only very minor alterations (e.g. Jaime instead of Jamie, Jon instead of John), and others are identical (e.g. Robert, Brandon). I don't see how one could consider most Westerosi names "strange" compared to the Essosi/Meereenese ones. To me they're like night and day.

Since Mel is the only living PoV at the Wall, that sure as hell makes for an interesting ship

The fact that you've consistently failed to respond to my actual point says as much as I need to know, and says a lot about you. Enjoy your pointless arguing about something that can't be confirmed either way. If that's the type of thing that makes your day feel fulfilling, go right ahead. What a joke.

I tire of this already. It's clear you seem to relish in this type of argument, hence why you seem unwilling to call a truce here and accept the obvious: This is a pointless debate, because any one of us could be entirely correct or entirely incorrect about everything. Even Martin's own statements aren't even a guarantee of accuracy, since the man has repeatedly over the last two decades rewritten large chunks of the books and restructured the PoVs drastically in the process of writing them. This pointless argument is just a symptom of the extraoardinarily long wait for Winds; nobody would sit here arguing semantics and the difference between one or two PoVs if the wait hadn't been as long as it is. You and @$erPounce can continue this argument for months and it won't matter - not until we actually have the book in our hands and can count up the number of PoVs.

I would be very surprised if Martin added any new PoVs, and even if some were to be added, I highly doubt it'll be a Sand Snake. We already have Cersei's PoV in King's Landing, and we will soon have two that are nearby (JonCon and Arianne in the Stormlands). You said that @StarksInTheNorth's sarcasm about Dany and Bran being unimportant "missed by a mile". I said that it didn't, since I picked it up immediately. I implied that you hadn't read his comment carefully enough, if you thought he wasn't being sarcastic, since anyone claiming that Dany and Bran are unimportant obviously hadn't read the books, which surely isn't the case for anyone posting here. This entire argument has been about exactly how many PoVs will be in Winds based on claims that Martin has made. My point was that it's futile to debate such things, since Martin constantly changes his plans and rewrites his books. He may have said there'll be 13 PoVs a while ago, but that could change any time. We won't know until we have the books in our hands. Yes they are. They want to murder innocent children and start a war which will kill many other innocent people. The people actually responsible for the crimes they want "justice" for are already dead. They just have a bloodlust.

Considering that Martin is well known for his extensive rewrites of his books, I'm surprised that people here are sticking so dogmatically to the believe that what he said in this interview or that is gospel and something that he will strictly adhere to. The guy has practically rewritten entire books and restructured the series in the past, midway through writing a book. Why is it so hard to believe that at some point he'll have changed his mind about how many PoVs will be included in Winds? Only to people unable to read things carefully, it seems. I picked up on it instantly. Only someone that hasn't read the books would say that Dany and Bran aren't important.