Aejohn the Conqueroo

I'm kind of looking forward to the development of Tyland Lannister. He's one of the characters that makes me hope they keep going after the dance and into Aegon III's regency. The actor they have playing the Lannister brothers is perfect too. 5 or 6 seasons from now, grizzled, twisted and veiled his relationship with Aegon III as his Hand could be some compelling TV.

I think the fact that Ned didn't tell him shows us that Ned himself had no faith that it would have mattered. So he took it upon himself to amend King Bob's will - which didn't matter either.

HR is still a lord. Slumming as Shadrich, stomping all over the Riverlands and the Vale is just so beneath him. I understand he's an eccentric of sorts, but that seems a little far to me. I could get into a "Shadrich is and agent/ family member/ ect. of Reed's" theory but not Reed himself. I like what you did here though and kind of regret being the naysayer in the group. I just can't get past the idea of a lord of Westeros playing hedge knight for any significant period of time and in the war ravaged riverlands of all places.

In the books though she's described by people who are wise to portray her as a greedy grasper. Yeah, what would a Dothraki say? They aren't Dothraki though and I think that the killing of Joffrey could have been seen as enough of a buzzkill that they decided to step things up and skip a lot of the ceremony. Considering hte way they featured jousting in the first episode it's fitting to me that they took this killing indoors. Laenor is going to be devastated and I don't think anyone would have expected him to hang around the capital for a week smiling and celebrating. This episode could have been called 'no accident's don't happen - people get killed' but that may be a bit wordy.

Joffrey made some pretty slanderous accusations about the heir to the throne. Maybe Cole will be chastised for ignoring due process, but down the road we're going to see people's tongues ripped out over the same crime on order of King Viserys. The fact that Joffrey spoke the truth isn't relevant and it's not a point he's going to be in any position to bring up.

Now you're talking.

Very cool introduction to Bloody Ben. I have to admit I'm really enjoying this show so far, especially the relationship between R and V and that bad uncle D. I like the way they did the whole Cole thing. One of the things I wondered about the show was would we see Mushroom capering in corners or otherwise witnessing some of the events that he reports in his telling. So far there's no Mushroom whatsoever. I wonder if we'll ever meet the author of the book written in his name or get some explanation. I find Otto Hightower to be less offensive than I thought I would, I really like the way he's portrayed. The same can be said for Alicent. It was funny to hear R's little joke about babies in front of Aegon. Keep your voice down girl, he's going to feed you to his dragon some day.

Kinda got a kick out of what a tough guy Laenor is. I liked the implication that Daemon was just farting around in the Stepstones because he wasn't welcome in KL and he didn't feel there was anything for him in the Vale. As soon as the threat of support from (and possible first step to rapprochement with) the Iron Throne was announced he made busy and got the situation sorted out. I liked that he did it, but I didn't care for how the battle unfolded on TV. I liked the grotesqueness of the Targaryan hunt. Can you imagine Robert Baratheon witnessing that scene? At the same time though, how much better would things have gone for him if he had let Lancel and Selmey do the real work? I can't help but wondering if there's not some foreshadow in the constant emasculation of Viserys the dragonless contrasted with Daemon's big swinging dragon and all he does with it. Are we really going to be surprised when it's Daemon's line that holds the throne when it's all said and done? Anyway, other than the over the top battle at the end - the idea that Dark Sister was going to be relinquished to anyone was a nonstarter and the daemon superman stuff was... dumb- I thought it was a pretty good episode. One of the things I find with this show vs the other big fantasy fare available right now is that the characters have so much more life in them. Milly Alcock is brilliant as little R and it's a shame we're going to lose her soon. I kind of like what they're doing with Alicent as well, I thought it was an interesting touch that in the beginning they have her speaking up for Rhaenyra's rights and try to make her more than just a schemer. I hope they manage to pace these two women's respective descents and keep them sympathetic for as long as possible.

Brown Ben Plum has a piece of paper that says it's his.

Yeah, but it makes sense so I'll call it another good catch by OB. I think it's interesting but don't care either way. Vargo Hoat has seriously enriched my life. Back when I read Storm for the first time I would sometimes loudly exclaim "Kingthlayer!" and then happily snigger to myself for a good 2 or 3 minutes when I thought I was alone. Ok I still do sometimes, and I throw in the odd 'thapphireth' too.

Haida Gwaii

Who's in the brown this episode?

In the first 3 books she was still checked by her family. Feast and Dance are Cercei on her own without Tyrion to manipulate her or her father to intimidate her or Jamie to whatever he did for her (which didn't seem to be working anymore anyway). Her small council are yes men and graspers and her primary fixation is on her brother, not the kingdoms. I think the pace of collapse in that light is right on target. She's drinking more and she wouldn't recognize good advise if there was anyone around her to give it. Not a sustainable situation.

I like to tell myself that a year in Westeros is a little longer than our own years. I think if you dig enough this can be disproven or at least challenged, but I chose not to dig.

Yeah I had to skip through to the payoff so I didn't get to hear much of his support. I'll give it a proper viewing later. It's funny because on one hand it's moot, but at the same time these characters exist now and they have their own origins. I don't know how much to read into what might have happened to characters had the gap remained, but we do get a sort of preview of how the author originally intended these characters to develop by looking at their Esossi doppelgangers.

I much prefer reading to listening, but my interest is piqued. Tatters is a compelling dude. Got a link? Couldn't wait and did some hunting. That's Joe the Magician you're talking about, huh? Very interesting theory of his. I kind of wish Martin kept the gap now...

First reason's good enough. For some reason I had it in my head that Daemon was the older. Corrected. Thanks

Daemon wasn't first? Clearly I never caught that. Thanks

Hmmm, I remember making a similar argument years ago that the Walking Dead wouldn't kill off Glen right after bringing him back from a faked kill off... This is far better written though, you may have a point.

Why wasn't Daemon given the Iron Throne as the first born legitimate son of the king regardless of Daeron's parentage?

Can't help but think that Pretty Maris would have been Brienne in exile had the gap taken place. That might have been an interesting tale. It's also why I think that if anyone gets killed in the care of LSH it will be her (as her second act has been given to another). I'm a big fan of Brienne, so if she's a casualty of the 5 year gap that's a strike against it for me.

Sometimes it bothers me that people throw these things around without supplying any textual evidence at all. I want to say 'you read it on a webpage and believed it because you liked it'... but I'm probably guilty of that sometimes too ( I read something the other day that made me question Jojen paste and I don't know what I believe anymore). Yeah, Rhaegar might have ended up in the pie but if someone's going to tell me it happened for certain, I want to see some support.

Actually, yeah. Unless woman riders turns out to be an idiosyncrasy of the Targaryans abroad (and I don't think we've seen anything to suggest that's the case) it's hard to see how women wouldn't have been able to establish equal footing. I guess it's possible that they began something new in Westeros that wasn't practiced in the Freehold, the other possibility would be that the vast multitude of Valarians didn't ride dragons and faced the same sort of relations that we've seen in the real world. Smallfolk would still have all of these examples though and it wouldn't take that many dragonriding princesses developing a gender consciousness to make things pretty messy. Maybe this will be elaborated on.

Where does it say that?

Aegon the Fool with the bells in his antlered helmet... THAT was some loaded scene, huh? I'm pretty sure he's referring to the Rhaegar Frey who Manderley called a 'smirking worm who wears a dragon's name' and the theory that Manderley put him in the pies. Aegon's probably the closest we get to a Frey with a single redeeming quality. I don't know why Rondo'd focus on Rhaegar when we've got Cat 'red handed' as it were.