EggBlue

yes, they did. but what the show lacked was what Jon did not like/understand in wildling culture and his inner conflict when it came to him and Ygritte , what he thought about wildlings and NW , etc. which was shown pretty well in the chapter that after completely warming up to Ygritte and the others ,they talk and he goes further in his identity crisis when he thinks how different they are , before deciding he is definitely a man of NW in the next chapter I believe (and seeing Sword of the Morning by the way!) . the way wildlings were depicted in the show , you'd think they were complete victims of NW that's been totally oppressed by Westeros without any moral justification. while in the books although wildlings are an oppressed nation , after forgetting whatever happened some thousands yrs ago, NW had good reason to consider themselves noble and gallant for protecting the realm against them . they were a militant , quarrelsome , women stealing lot in the books , whereas they were a democratic nation with gender equality (although you'd see canbial Thenn of all houses among them!) .

honestly , I had never thought about CONFUSED Ygritte and neglectful Jon! but that does seem about right from her perspective! lol

are we sure none of them have last name? I mean if no one has a last name among smallfolk why would commoner bastards (like ser Rolly) without noble blood should have bastard last names? ps. Janos Slint has a last name too and unlike Clegane or Seaworth , it doesn't seem like a proper name he had chosen later in life...

I don't remember if HBO's still working on Dunk and Egg project but imagine it does... then HBO will have three Targ projects with three Targ heros... and how depressing is that?!... Daenerys snaps into madness and is killed by her nephew, Rhaenyra gets depressed and is torched by her brother and Egg burns down himself and almost his entire family...

well , it's settled then @The Bard of Banefort

I think ... I think she's talking about you @Ran

so, when are we finally taking this sensible petition to GRRM?

I suspect there will be more blood involved than blow

I've long been thinking that by the end of the book the Wall will be destroyed . but do you think it'll cause a terrible avalanche or will it magically turn to winds?

worry not . Aerys II forgets it too.

yeah but he was still a misogynist nonetheless I think there is no scenario where Cersei doesn't blame Tyrion for something... if it's not Jefferey's death , it's Tywin's , if not Tywin , Jaimie's love , if not Jaimie , Casterly Rock, etc. but yes I do think Tyrion could have ended up lord without any problem ; he was legally the heir , he was smart enough to put every one of his vassals in their humble place and he was the king's brother in law

I've got a long thought:) in SoS , Jon looks up and names 4 stars he shares with Yigrete in name: "...he was old friends with the Ice Dragon, the Shadowcat, the Moonmaid, and the Sword of the Morning. All those he shared with Ygritte..." now in my latest re-read ,I can't help but think of Jon , Arya and Sansa when reading Ice Dragon (duh!) , Shadowcat (dangerous , quite killer) and Moonmaid (shy and beautiful) . then I thought these are Stark children ! does that make Bran the Sword of the Morning? .. I searched Sword of the Morning in the books . there are two occasions that this star appears in the books , both in Jon chapters : first in this chapter when Jon has a bit of an identity crisis and later in the next chapter in the morning when he allows himself to hope and sees Sword of the Morning still hung in the south . then I searched for the Ice Dragon (my better candidate for Jon Snow's star). apparently the ice Dragon is the northern star and it keeps leading Bran to his destiny beyond the Wall. ... so in second glance , Jon's the Sword of the Morning and Bran is the Ice Dragon= tied to the Others (beautiful magical Ice creatures) and opposite of Dany and her fire dragons (beautiful magical fire creatures ) so , what does it mean? ... the first thing that comes to mind is Jon's parentage debate . as much as I like Jon to be Arthur Dayne's son for the symmetry it makes between father and son and their celibate brotherhoods and their broken vows , I think there's unfortunately a slim chance that it's the case(unless George gives us more clues in WoW) . however , Dayne bastard or not , I think Jon will get Dawn (or not) and takes up the role that perhaps the first Sword of the Morning had : ending the Long Night and "hope" he allows himself when seeing Sword of the Morning is the dream of spring that he will represent .

*planting a bomb Red Wedding is more like killing a hundred people by planting a bomb under their dinner table and watch them explode

for me, there's more than one reason to be happy about the latest blog post "THE WINDS OF WINTER is going to be a big book. The way it is going, it could be bigger than A STORM OF STORMS or A DANCE WITH DRAGONS, the longest books in the series to date. I do usually cut and trim once I finish, but I need to finish first." sooo, I know there is still hundreds of more pages and it doesn't mean Winds is anywhere close to being finished , but he wouldn't write that if he wasn't close in length to Dance , which is a lot! right? then : "I saw rough cuts of a couple more episodes of HOUSE OF THE DRAGON, and was just as pleased as I was with the earlier episodes. Ryan and Miguel and their cast and crew are doing great work. Those of you who like complex, conflicted, grey characters (as I do) will like this series, I think. There will be plenty of dragons and battles, to be sure, but the spine of the story is the human conflicts, the love and the hate, character drama rather than action/ adventure." grey characters ... that's exactly what I've been worried about! if George is happy with season 1 and thinks it's more than dragon fight then I'm happy as well! "There’s more, there’s more, there’s always more. But that will need to do for now." and this is just the most hopeful thing George has written in his last posts...

well , they were . just because we don't hear Arthur Dayne level stories about him doesn't mean he wasn't good . in fact , we relatively know little about Aerys's kingsgaurd . we don't know when and how any of them donned the white cloak aside from Barry and Jaimie and it's only Arthur ,Barry and Gerold Hightower who have their reputed nicknames. anyways , small house or big , Darrys are known to be of biggest Targaryen Loyalists . this , his big brother's word and his warrior skills must have been the reasons he was accepted in Golden State Warriors team . right?

should D&D sue George for lying about endings some 20yrs before he writes them? would we? !

I still think there's going to be a cute little story about them (as big a story as Rogar's brother's marriage to daughter of Archon or at most something like Sara Snow) but nothing substantial.

dude , that's like one of the big mysteries of the series

I really don't know what to make of Jon/Dany romance .. yes, it was on the show but neither their romance nor the notorious stabbing were any of the 3 big spoilers . then looking at the characters, they are not really each others' type : Dany is into dangerous bad boys (something that unfortunately might drawn her towards Euron before realizing he is a psychopath) . in my opinion , even a cold badass Jon will probably be more of a solemn Allaric Stark than Dany's type of man . meanwhile, Jon likes the warrior tough girls. granted, Dragonlord Dany could be counted as a warrior queen and she isn't ladylike enough to sit a court without throwing her sandals away , but still, on the surface she is the girly girl type that Jon hasn't shown any interest in before . even if Jon kills Daenerys at the end , I doubt there will be a relationship between them . besides, I find it possible that these two characters never properly meet at all . especially that in their dreams Jon fights the wights with a burning sword on the Wall and Dany fights the Others on Drogon's back at the Trident.

how have you missed the conflict between Patchface, Moonboy and Old Nan?... you know , the puppet masters of Baratheon , Lannister and Stark courts... " Unbeknownst to all, it was the jester who ruled them now, an invisible king in motley"

I think if it was arranged by Egg and Betha , it wouldn't have been a match with someone from a minor house . a match as such could offend cousin Stark of Winterfell. so , I think it's safe to assume it was a Rhaena situation . maybe even Branda was the cousin who was suppose to marry heir to Winterfell instead of her younger sister.

well , see? there is new material if you look hard enough! though, I'm still more interested to know why it's ok for a Targaryen heir apparent to marry a Dondarian but not a Blackwood messing with us , are ya? !

I guess

what a major douche . what ... ? is there a reward reserved for him , if he'd be the first to come up with theories?!

Feast /Dance could easily be stretched out up to two years , with some storylines (such as Dany's) starting later in the timeline and some stuck in slow paced travels (such as Stannis's) or slow paced actions (It's utterly stupid that Cersei messes up a new thing every week . that could be reduced to messing up once a month)