Groo

Yes and No. For example, it is amazing how good a job Martin did in making Jon's ascension to Lord Commander feel like a surprise to readers and to the characters in the story. However, unliked boy hero joins military order on eve of apocalypse and rises to command it when the great enemy appears is exactly what anyone who has ever read a fantasy novel would have expected.

To me, the questions of when do you kill and why are a central part of Arya's story. Killing the stable boy in Kings Landing was pure survival, as was the fight against Lorch and his men. Weese and the Tickler were killings of personal vengeance. Dareon's death was supposedly enforcing the penalty for desertion. The ship insurer was the first time she killed because someone told her to and was potentially for justice. With the Faceless Men, Arya is all but guaranteed to be responsible for many more deaths, likely for many different reasons. I don't think Martin is looking to write about the development of a psychotic serial killer. I think he intends to deeply explore these questions with Arya. Looked at from the perspective of politics and war, you're right. Not having Jaqen kill someone important was a big mistake. Looked at from the perspective of Arya's evolving reasons for killing, however, I'm not sure this even stands out.

This is a tough one. Personally killing Robb is the kind of big move where he could expect a big reward from Tywin. Would working quietly behind the scenes to help Tywin be enough to get Winterfell?

Stannis. A middle son who normally wouldn't inherit anything. He becomes Lord of Dragonstone and gets a seat on the small council as Master of Ships. He acts like he's been locked in a broom closet and fed scraps his entire life. Family didn't love you as much as you wanted? Welcome to the human race. People don't seem to like you? Either change how you act around them or accept the fact and cherish the few that do. King seemed stingy in his rewards to you? Most subjects feel that way.

Let's put killing Rickard Karstark as Robb's second worse decision.

Yes, but he had other options besides tipping off Cersei. Here's an obvious one: arrest Cersei, seize the children, and send the children to Winterfell for safekeeping while Cersei is tried. Ned was foolishly hoping that Cersei would make everything easy for him. If she ran away it would confirm her guilt, keep the children safe, and avoid a showdown with Robert about killing the kids. Wishful thinking always imagines great and easy outcomes.

In thousands of years, the Iron Islands had never been ruled by a woman. Calling a kingsmoot and championing Victarion was not an obviously bad move. Victarion got a lot of support and it could have worked. When I think of bad decisions, I think of moments that left me stunned as they were happening. Top of my list is Ned tipping off Cersei. Even on my first reading, I was gob smocked by the stupidity of it. I have that same reaction to much of what Cersei does so it's hard to pick a "winner" for her. I'd probably go with arming the Faith, like you said. I thought that was blindingly stupid as I was reading it.

Came here to say exactly this. Theon would be in a dramatically improved position if he had just taken hostages and gone back to the Iron Islands.

While the potential might be there, these are pretty small examples. Look at the huge differences in Jon and Arya's storylines. Jon's story arc is very explicitly about leadership: making hard decisions that affect large groups of people, his own personal desires to rule Winterfell, trying to get opposing groups to work together, dealing with conflicting agendas, feeling the need to not appear to be playing favorites, etc. Whether you think he's done a good job or a poor one, his whole story arc is centered on leadership. I don't think you can say anything like that about Arya's story. One could argue that your examples just show that Arya is good at making personal friends. I approach the original question from just looking at the flow of the story. Think of the questions that people naturally ask and wonder about with Jon. Will he still lead the Nights Watch, assuming he's still alive or gets resurrected? Will he become King of the North? Will he unite the Wildings and the North? If he discovers his true parentage, would he want to claim the Iron Throne? Would he put himself before the Stark children? Would he put himself before Daenerys? Imagine how weird it would feel if Jon's story ended with him taking a ship to go sail the seas and have adventures. If Jon lives, he ends up with one of the top spots just because that's what his story has been about. I wouldn't say that's what Arya's story has been about.

Didn't listen to her own advice, did she? She threw her body in front of Greywind to protect the Freys. Does it require much insight or wit to realize that a hostile person wearing hidden armor at a wedding is a threat?

So, to hide the fact that she was in the Riverlands, she publicly arrests Tyrion in the middle of the Riverlands? Sure. Arresting Tyrion was nothing but rash. The danger this put Ned and her daughters in wasn't even the biggest issue. Hoster Tully's daughter arrests Tywin Lannister's son in the middle of the Riverlands using Tully bannermen. She then takes Tywin Lannister's son to Hoster Tully's other daughter, who puts him on trial for his life. Catelyn started an obvious war between the Lannisters and Tullys. She wasn't trying to protect Ned. She could have accomplished that by sending Rodrick Cassel riding back to King's Landing to warn Ned that she'd been spotted by Tyrion. No, the future Lady Stoneheart wanted to get her hands on the man she believed tried to kill her son. Consequences be damned.

You say that like it's a bad thing. Actually, I find Dorne and its storylines to be the least interesting parts of the books and that includes the Sand Snakes. I think part of the problem is that the other Dornish houses play almost no role in the story. We've got Umbers, Freys, Blackwoods and Brackens, Florents, Boltons, and on and on. Yet in Dorne the other lords are barely mentioned. All the power plays so far involve either the Sand Snakes or some young clueless noble kids. None of them have lands, titles, armies, or experience. Sure, Dorne is more tolerant of bastards but that doesn't make the Sand Snakes some kind of royal court that controls Dorne.

I agree with your general point, but everything has a limit. Olenna is very sharp and she thought from the beginning that Mace was too caught up with wanting Margaery to be queen. They didn't know that when they decided to declare for Renly. The world thought Joffrey was the legitimate heir when the Tyrells decided to make Renly king. The Tyrells were making a bald-faced power play against the Lannisters. Mace could have picked his time and place when deciding who to support and walked away with a small council seat, advantages for his House, etc. He could have done some reasonable "social climbing", but he wanted the big brass ring of Queen Margaery, so he made a much riskier aggressive move. The fact that they survived the transition from Renly to Joffrey doesn't change how risky the move was.

It doesn't have to be internal squabbling. The Riverlands don't really have a strong unifying sense of identity. Contrast them to the North or Dorne or the ironborn in terms of strong sense of identity and culture. Geography is their biggest weakness, but I would argue their weak sense of unity is their second biggest problem. They spent long years under foreign (i.e. ironborn) occupation. Relatively speaking, their ruling house hasn't held that position for long. Two of their main houses, the Blackwoods and Brakens, have perhaps the longest and most famous rivalry in the realm.

Prior to modern antibiotics, gut wounds were all too often fatal. The wound itself wasn't life threatening but the inevitable infection that followed was. Many people feared the slow painful death from a gut wound more than they feared the gory but quick death of bleeding out from a more serious injury. Martin is big on gruesome realities so I'm sure he's fully aware of this. Pouring over the few details we have about Jon's injuries is like trying to read the future from tea leaves.

How is this unpopular? Isn't this the most common opinion? This fits the bill for unpopular but Brienne is all kinds of awesome so you have truth on your side.

Does Shiera get to use magic? Is this a death match or just hair pulling and stuff like that? Actually, there's a 0.0% chance of Shiera actually appearing in the main series while Ashara has a 0.0001% chance, so Ashara wins the cage match in a close fight.

I think we're just reacting to different connotations to words, especially slang terms. Objectively, Gerold is obviously dangerous. He's also willing to do bad (i.e. terrible) things. I'm just reacting to the usual connotation that a "badass" isn't just someone who is strong, or powerful, or dangerous, or whatever. A badass is supposed to be "cool", have some impressive swagger, and be imposingly charismatic. Badass might not have those same connotations for you. Such a difference wouldn't make either one of us right or wrong. On the other hand, if you think someone calling themselves Darkstar and spouting lines like "I am of the night" is cool, then you obviously need to sit back and have a drink.

Not only is everyone secretly a Targaryen, everyone is also secretly Atreides and/or Harkonnen. Shiera Seastar is, of course, the Reverend Mother Gaius Helen Mohiam controlling everything from behind the scenes. A Song of Ice and Fire theory isn't properly stupid unless it has Shiera Seastar.

Bittersteel is a more realistic sounding nickname but Bloodraven is more evocative. Bloodraven works better in a fantasy novel. Bittersteel is kind of one dimensional.

I can't help thinking of him as Dorkstar, which means Martin has definitely failed to make him look like a badass. That being said, I don't think Gerold has been thrown off his stride as much as people think. As cruel as it was, his plan to assassinate Myrcella was simple, direct, and almost certain to kick off the war he wants. Maiming her is almost as good. Look at how much effort Doran is having to make to delay the war from immediately breaking out. Gerold was already defying Doran by taking part in Arianne's plan and killing Myrcella was only going to make that worse. I suspect that Gerold was already anticipating a strong reaction from Doran.

We don't know anything about Steffon and Cassana's relationship. Politics is the primary consideration for noble marriages, but it isn't the only consideration. There are plenty of instances of nobles marrying for love or other reasons that don't make political sense.

The only thing worse than an immoral plan is a stupid immoral plan. Jon's whole plan ultimately depends on Melisandre taking him at his word that he switched the babies. That might have worked if he told her shortly after Gilly was safely away, but he seems to be sitting on it, presumably intending to say it if Melisandre actually tries to do anything. That would be the worst time to say it. She might think he's desperately lying to save the child. She might even think her cause is so important that she's willing to risk sacrificing a non-kingly child just in case Jon is lying. I don't think Jon significantly reduced the risk of a child being sacrificed. He certainly didn't eliminate the risk. He just changed which baby was at risk.

Just pick one of Tyrion's many quips. I'll go with "I'm not insulting your honor. I'm denying its existence."

Petyr Baelish challenging Brandon Stark to a duel for Catelyn's hand. Even if he won, Hoster wouldn't have agreed to it. Catelyn didn't agree to it and clearly rejected him. There was no possibility of a win here.