Groo

I agree. I can't blame Renly for not knowing about Melisandre's Magical Assassin Shadow Babies® but I can blame Renly for bothering going back to Storm's End just to deal with Stannis' rabble rather than just marching on King's Landing.

It can be difficult when a society doesn't give you examples to follow or positive reinforcements. The songs and stories are all about physical bravery and the Kingsguard are all praised for it. They're also constantly told that nothing is more important than loyalty to the king. You're correct about the moral failure but the internal hurdles are even higher when you have few examples to follow, won't be rewarded for it, and it seems to contradict the absolute loyalty you're supposed to give the king. On a related note, Jamie could have turned this all around if he'd bothered to tell everyone why he killed Aerys. It would have been easy to prove and he could have been called a hero. I guess his pride got in the way.

Stability and peace are not the same thing. If the clans raided on a daily basis for hundreds of years they would have been wiped out or conquered long ago. They likely only occasionally raid and many of the raids are likely only a nuisance to the Vale. If their lands had any value they would have been occupied already by Vale lords. So the stable situation is every now and then the Vale mounts a punitive expedition to put down the clans when they cause too much trouble - minimum long term effort and a periodic chance for the Vale lords to practice their martial skills for real.

So, you think it's strange that one 15 year old boy is no match for Jamie Lannister, a 32 year old man who is widely considered one of the best swordsmen in the realm. You also think it is strange that another 15 year old boy couldn't defeat Qhorin Halfhand, one of the most widely feared and respected men in the Nights Watch. I'd say that's more meeting my expectations than subverting them.

Tyrion's biggest flaw is vindictiveness. It goes beyond the serious wrongs done to him and it clouds everything he does. It's why he can do something like threaten to rape Tommen, his own nephew whom he actually thinks is a sweet boy. I says this despite Tyrion being one of my all-time favorite fictional characters.

Personally, I'm convinced that Aegon is a fake but this is the best and most plausible description of the baby switch that I've read. Hats off to you, sir!

Not sexual, but the image of Harys Swyft strutting around in a yellow doublet, yellow cloak, yellow breaches, and a chicken sigil on his breast always cracks me up. All hail the Knight of the Yellow Chicken!

That's a definite improvement over what Aerys did. The difficulty with a question like this is it amounts to asking what a sane person would do if suddenly thrown into a paranoid person's mess. It's hard to answer that without immediately thinking, "Well, I wouldn't have made that mess in the first place."

Thankfully, GRRM isn't writing some Hollywood nonsense where a character is fit as a fiddle 5 minutes after a serious injury with nothing but a cool decorative scar to show for it. So, the answer to the first question is Wyman won't be riding out of Winterfell right away. As for the second, a personally think Wyman won't be surviving much longer. I think whatever plans he had are already in motion and he's now in reckless don't give a damn mode.

Or it could just be Varys sticking to his story. If it were a slip it would imply Doran only mourns the loss of the one child because he knows the other is still alive. The Martells don't know that, however. They thought Gregor killed Aegon.

That's very individualistic thinking. If you're responsible for protecting your people and land and an invader is coming then you can't just avoid the battle. It isn't some random rock in the air that you're free to run from. Also, the full analogy would be that Jojen had a dream of you getting hit by a rock. Jojen claims the dream can't be changed. If he's right then you can't simply duck because you know it's coming. My point is that Jojen might be right but that other important aspects of the event might be changed if you know the rock is coming. This would make the prophesy both useful and unavoidable. Keep in mind that every writer has to deal with the basic issue that it isn't "prophesy" if the event doesn't actually occur. If you were warned that a rock was coming and you ducked then it wasn't prophesy. It was a warning.

Don't forget that Stannis was going to take many of the wildings with him to the Dreadfort until Jon talked him into going to the mountain clans instead. I don't think Bowens' biggest fear is the wildings. I think his biggest fear is the Watch meddling in the affairs of the kingdom. I think that's the main reason he finally decided to act against Jon. I suspect he's hoping he can somehow send the wildings away or maybe just stop feeding them. He might even be planning on lying to the them and saying Stannis called for them to follow him into the mountains.

Jojen insisted the dreams were true and couldn't be changed. As CamiloRP quoted above, Meera couldn't understand what use the dreams were if you couldn't change them. I always thought the problem was they thought only one of them could be right. For example, after a battle the field looks much the same in victory or defeat. Corpses, blood, scavengers, mud, etc. The vision of the bloody aftermath could be telling you that a given battle is inevitable but knowing about it ahead of time might still let you change the outcome.

The other way to look at it is to contrast their mistakes. Danny's biggest mistake was locking up her dragons. They are the ultimate source of her power. Jon's biggest mistake was isolating himself. We understand why those choices were made but they were still mistakes. I think Danny will be forced to quickly learn from her mistake. It's not so clear if Jon will. Jon's could be a persistent leadership problem. It's hard to rule if you keep sending away your best and most trusted people.

“I am not questioning your honor, I am denying its existence.” Hard to believe there have been no Tyrion quotes yet.