astarkchoice

They may be one pf the few orgs that understand or have records of how the valyrian empire crumbled etc so they may undertand the stark bloodlines gifts etc.

Their meeting has been discussed here before and seems to suggest a central org monitering many different areas worldwide. Again her overt power, even if she was mistress of winterfell is of 0 use to a shadow orgainisation like theirs. Theres.nit much difference in undercover agent and undercover asasin but she was being groomed to kill and has already carried out one hit for them! Their org is all about killing and gathering info..their agents collect info and deal out death too. Her skills will be on another level to most recruits , she is well educated thus can fit in at all levels of society from lady to serf, has trained in basic weaponry (sword, archery etc) around winterfell and trained a lot under the 1st sword of bravos...how many other orphans do you think come through their doors educated and with basic martial training under tutors? Jaquen has also see her operate under pressure (the fire and the soup plot) and knows she can assume new indenties to survive, knows shes killed and finaly knows her sad life story means she could be pliable to their ideology

No asoiaf is all about plans going wrong. Just as you are planning so are other people and other non related events arr usualy in motion altering things! Doran wants revenage BUT as we see esp reinforced vy his love of the children he wants it clean and surgical...he wants no massive war if he can avoid Problem is the more complex you make a plan the more that can go wrong! He keeps waiting for everything to be exactly right and things keep changing while he waits thus will fail badly PLUS his original.targets are dead now so what remains is just petty anger being carried out by much more flawed tools than the red viper was

They dont need any great house members they can kill or become one at will.,nor do any of their schemes require such naked power when they already are a seemingly international level shadow organisation...no her name is meaningless. Talent like arya probably doesnt come along often for them, they are probably use to training up uneducated bravosi orphans, ex slaves or utterly lost adults. Shes educated , has martial training ,has killed , already was assuming new identities to escape , clearly brave/fearless and has tasted enough bitterness in her short life to be open to their ideology!! Being sorta magic himself may also have detected her unique warg bloodline powers too.

Some.aspect yes but hes in a wide open cage watched by those outside and inside even a master escape artiswould struggle under those conditions. Its hard to know he may simply have been caught out in the open by multiple goldcloaks and simply been forced to bide.his time. Bottom lime the FM strike without a timeframe so he can bide his time,. Scouting a talented recruit (arya) along the way before continuing onto oldtown

He wasnt a bad king per say at all , a short rebellion put down efficently and he was merciful in victory but the rest of his reign was stability and peace....thats no minor thing. He was lazy but has an active small council to fill his role The debt was bad yes but its manageable and we know LF has been investing the crowns money smartly all over westeros and essos to help cover the debts (knock on effect is this will boost trade) , we dont know 100% whats caused il the debt as it cant be all drink and tourneys alone ....robert may have been overly generous with say tax breaks to lords as he has a pathalogical need to be liked , the cost of the ironborn rebellion and ship rebuilding, And as for corruption its always been bad in KL as the centre of power, roberts.only problem there is letting too many of thr corrupt types be one the side of his in laws. The real rot is the spymaster he inherited (whom he has no reason to suspect) and the seemingly very efficent master of coin(with his own agenda) whos actualy boosted income but just not enough to cover outgoings at present Overall peaceful non tyrannical.rule with the puritan stannis, savvy jon arryn and empathatic renly to balance the corruption of the lannsiters, kl varys and lf in general getting out of hand. Huge spender on who knows what but a debt his in laws dismiss as easily payable outright and one he can manage even without them.

Keep hearing robert ned and john didnt rule well which is actualy b.s the more you reflect on it! Robert didnt like ruling but he left a decent team.in charge of affairs , decades of peace interrupted by one quickly quashed rebellion! If it wasnt for varys and LF fucking around itd be a dynasty that lasted with 3 illegitimate kids being married off In his stead stannis has purged dragonstone and most of the surrounding islands of filthy targ loyalists to set up a stable 2nd baratheon house on the islands and reestablished a strong royal fleet. His brother has kept the normaly troublesome stormlords in check in his stead and even built bridges with the powerful tyrells while stannis marriage to the florents holds a stick to renlys olive branch The kingdoms have had decades of peaceful food gathering to try and survive what is set to be one of the the longest winters yet! Now he has put the crown in debt but its a debt easily swallowed by his in laws or a reduction in the amount of tourneys and/or tax increases!

Nope his ship went down in an area literaly called shipbreaker bay..not suspect at all

True Remebrr the bulk of sellsword companies will be essosi born and bred and they wear armour. The pit fighter barristan fought had never e countered plate but we do see they can make armoir for pit fighters , slave troops and even the man belwas kills outside mereen! Seems.more that pitfighter just hadnt seen plate, his niche was rippimg out and esting hearts so he was probably.never matched vs armour wearers either! Says the forts have fused stone walls 1000ft high! Just like westeros its clear something horrible.came.to essos a long lomg time.ago

Which is why part of the deal was soo many marriages ! Roose and tywins sister already married into the freys pre betrayal then there were 3 manderly- frey marriages and 3 more to lannisters (one being a bastard though) on top of house frey of riverrun being created. The red wedding planners would give a world where theres: House lannsiter of winterfell (sansa and tyrion) House frey of riverrun and house frey of the twins House bolton of hornwood (ramsay would need something) and bolton of the dreadfort lord of the north! House lannister of darry (gatehouse ami and lancel) House baelish of harrenhall overlord of the riverlands and husband + actining lord of the vale Devan lannnister to marry a frey and 3 manderlyd to do the same in a merling vourt filled with frey spies and kiss asses A bastard frey to joy hill (probably has a sweet dowry provided by uncle tywin) The remaining free karstarks plotting to have karrion killed to set up a pro bolton karhold Its an ugly future they set up, thankfully they couldnt have forseen that its unwinding due to all kinds of insane circumstances !!!

Its scummy as hell but its not just revenge, its a calculated ambush spurred by both wanting revenge and walders cold cowardly reassasment of robbs chances to win , its a massacre to end the war utterly and be tied deeply into the winning regime

Hmmm well the ironborn have slaves. The finest armour is supposedly made in essos and most of the sellsword companies men will be essosi born and bred.Numbers would be interesting Securiry wise you sre right but wallwise we dont hesr much of the huge essosi wall and its 5 forts to make a comparsion!

I dont think mereen is any more militarised its just a bit bigger and its harpy movement has ex gladiators to bulk its ranks. Yunkais elite seem to be stupidly giddly with an assured victory over danys mereen hence they have turned vast parts of their army into a joke carnival parade of clowns... but their inital stance vs dany outside their city by contrast seemed competently handled and winnable for them. As for troops outside the niche gladiators and assasins slavers bay seems to produce 3 types of troops the stupidly niche unsullied mass produced 'not worth the swords they carry' that the clanker lords have dressed up sections stupidly ..although we do hear of a lot of crossbows among them (tyrion mentions as useless vs the dragons) which are a good way to make even worthless troops semi effective And the cities guard + military forces, like the volantis tiger guards professional and probably way better treated than most slaves to the point the masters can trust them to put slaves down to keep the status quo intact! New ghis seems to be the exception and for it is far more martial, being largely cut out of the constant swathes of slaves driven by the dothraki to the bay has stopped them going as soft!! Other than that we see the man who fought on horseback vs strong belwas seems.to be a leftover of what was once a military /martial culture among the slaver nobles!

Well they do have assasin cults , ex gladiator muscle , roboticly obedient unsullied guards , sellswords etc to help stamp out growing slave rebellions! Volantis leaders for example seem to be leaning towards the golden company to wipe out the fire priests for them. The sudden and slick organisation of the harpies seems to hint maybe the slavers have done something similar before to keep slaves down just probably smaller scale (and without so many ex gladiators to employ as extra killers)

Itd be hard to see how the logistics of a new slave trade get set up given how dramaticaly the old one is about to burn. If most of the cities move to a bravosi model theyl be richer anyway prevebting slavery resurection. Ig may not go away altogether like westeros with the ironborn thralls but bar a huge essosi wide economic collapse it seems unlikely to ever reemerge at the same industrial scale it is depicted as now

Id say again the slavers are done, their revival seems highly unlikely The dothraki are an essential slave 'gathering ' part of slaver machinery and they are about to either follow anti slavery dany or shel possibly toast large numbers of them before she flees! Mereen is about to be resolved brutaly by the anti slaver forces victory and the fighting forces of the slavers themselves being disease ridden when they flee home. That leaves slavers bay ie the place where almost all slaves get processed/trained up an anti slaverly zone for some time. No slave training = no slaves The free cities we see slaves outnumber freemen 3 or 5 to 1 and are majority fire worshippers all ready to pop ans follow theit anti slavery messiahs example. In Volantis we see half the guard are fire worshippers, the head priest is there with his own 1000 strong force. The widow can get inside the inner black walls , has her own armed forces and says the entire slave population is ready to rock. Add in we know most mercs would be in the disputed lands (varys says they are heating up in 1st few books) and swarming towards bravos for stannis iron bank backed contact for 20k men so most will be too far to intervene in any way. Finaly we know the faceless men and bravos dont like slavery , they were in a position before where tbey had to accept it but now they are in a position to stamp it out anywhere it threatens to emerge

Hes shown himself to be a bad commander once! He shouldnt have diluted his forces so much pre jamies attack! The other command issue .... his inability to read robbs mind! Not a bad commander issue plus he did sucessfuly repel all of tywins pushes even one backed by a 7ft superhuman! Shit if we are talking a tully who fucked up leading its hoster! Utterly failed to bring lord frey to heel , pushed the blackfish away , left edmure unmarried and of course could not have handled the lysa/LF issue worse.....left her bitter and possibly messed up her fertility while tossing away what could have been the son in law to turn his family around!

I think there's some towers along those cliffs as it is. Balon is said to have climbed them as a boy and went into a lords tower possibly the keep at house flint!!!

Cant see how it would occur lady olenna has the reach region nicely tied up with the way the family is married. The tyrells have the claim to the region, they are tied to the powerful fossways , hightowers and redwynnes. She (queen of thorns) was a redwynne married to a tyrell. Her son mace married a hightower, her daughter another redwynne and a further daughter married to a green apple fossaway! Maces uncle is lord commander of oldtowns city watch and grandson garlan (the one whos apparently better than loras with a sword) to another fossway.... unkown red or green! If none of these marriages existed somehow and everyone else still existed itd come down to the hightowers vs the redwynnes! Two financial powerhouses...id lean towards rewynnes due to the flexibility their huge fleet gives and the defensive advatage of being an island off the coast. Therrs no such thing as marines at this stage so the fighting men on the redwynne fleet will be familiar with weapons theyl just need to redrill on the arbor for large scale battle drills in case ome is need to decide the war. The tarlys have randyll tarlys leadership but dont strike as an above adverage strength(by reach terms) numbers wise Minus their lordship of the reach the tyrells arent that strong themselves BUT the cunning of lady olenna and willas cant be discounted nor the martial prowess of garlan and loras to turn even a lopsided battle. But overall itd probably be house redwynne

They travel much much further to raid essos and so on, its got fresh water and food and trees and probably space and rich soft soil for those things to exist on (all things they are short on) , sounds bigger than most of the other ironislands and yes they most certinly do sow...in fact they do better when they 'sow' and only raid essos , its only the arrogant priviligend greyjoys who can afford to not 'sow'! Besides no one else is there..the north has no western fleet, so theres no one to contest them adding this new ripe large island to the bleak stoney iron islands!!

https://awoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/Aegon,_Rhaenys,_and_Visenya_(islands)

Red wedding 2.0 will virtualy exterminate the freys , the tullys will retake riverrun. Id doubt the lannsiters will keep darry nor littlefinger keep harrenhall.

I literaly take this as canon! The entire dorne arc and the viper going and clearly wanting revenge makes little sense without it. It ties in perfect with dorans entire niche of caring for innocents etc, he wants revenge but it has to be surgicaly precise not all out warfare

Yeah Essos has a lot of issues but the main one for me is we seem to be stuck in the less developed half...far eastern essos sounds far more interesting ...shit its even got proper horse nomads! Which is odd in a world where gods might actualy sorta exist!

Agreed i think the issue there is the fact feudal/peasant levies are largely confused with poorly trained consripts. We know the phrase itself means to literaly raise troops from the peasant class (anyone who isnt nobility or 99.999% of westeros) and sometimes this was mixed with what we would call consription but not always...medieval era covers a vast timeframe and a giant area. Now westerosi forces do seem to be very well trained based on thier performance in combat , stafford literaly keeps his fresh recruits 100s of miles from the from any frontline in a camp to be trained up alongside remnants of jamies 2 losses, even the northerners dont expect to see these forces for some time! That and almsit to a man they are helmeted, chainmailed and well armed..not the sort of stuff given to fodder. George doesnt detail any sort of society where 'conscripts ' as we know them that non professional levies could even come.from either!!! ....theres no talk of serf mandatory training, no archer/crossbow guilds in every small town or nationwide forced sunday training. We dont hear of farmers getting together to drill pike and sword and wrestling or boxing etc. Large towns doing mock battles followed by food and drink etc Instead we are told to the lowest feudal level george will go into (landed knight) that landed knights must arm,train and provide men at arms or other mounted forces....this all hints at professional to semi professional forces! Forces raised by vassals and vassals of vassals and so on etc but all pro or semi pro! Backed as we see in tywins force by limited numbers of wandering sellswords, hedge knights and even light armoured horse archers...but thats a few hundred vs the 45k he can raise in total!! What annoying with george here is he literaly creates another side of the world that DOES do conscript fodder, the slavers we are told can raise you a quick army of slaves ' not worth the swords they hold' or unsullied..or of course anything in between those 2 extremes!!! The church we are told fustratingly liytle about to..just that they are rich enough to lend the crown a fortune and thats it!