Prince of the North

No-Head Ned is second only to Ned With A Head for me!

Sure! ChatGPT doesn't have an agenda or any ulterior motives. Uh, at least...not yet

KC just metriculatin' the ball down the field!

Since you wish it, I wish it for you, too! I mean, if we never get the rest of this wonderful story, I'd be very disappointed, of course. But my life would go on and I'd simply move on to some other wonderful thing.

Exactly! And any one of these legendary fighters could be undone at any time by some bit of randomness. "There's a reason they still play the games", indeed!

The only time I was able to read more than one book in ASoIaF in immediate succession was in 1998. Yes, I read AGoT and ACoK right when latter was published. I was certainly a much younger man then! Collectively, I have been waiting for these books for what seems a very long time. I have never really been much for making predictions for when the books will be published. But I remain optimistic that GRRM very much wants to finish the series and that he will. So, when these books become available, they will be just a little more icing on the cake of my life ETA: It occurs to me that I came into a thread asking for predictions...and didn't post one, which seems kind of rude, in hindsight. So...I'll go ahead and say November, 2024!

I think it'd be alright to be born into a house sworn to the Tyrells in the Reach. But it would be best to be inland somewhat so I'm thinking...House Ashford? It's reportedly a nice, relatively safe little town and area where one could probably fly under the attention of the high lords and their "game of thrones" most of the time

Thanks, @Jaime L! Certainly a strange final! But, as always, that's why they/we play the games, right?

Agreed. Whatever's decided by is fine with me. The players in the league I've run for over 20 years made things very easy on me (for which I'm very grateful). The two teams in the title game and one team in the 3rd place game had players going in the Bills-Bengals game. I offered the idea of simply having co-champions and having the teams playing for 3rd tie (splitting the winnings in each case). However, they didn't like that idea and, really, looking at the contests there was almost assuredly only one way things were going to go in each case. So, the team that was probably going to take 2nd and the team that was probably going to take 4th said as much and just accepted those outcomes. It's nice playing with a good group and, of course, it makes things a little easier for me. But, in the end, I'm just glad there are no hard feelings, etc. because, in the end, this league is just supposed to be a fun way for old friends to keep in touch maybe a little more than they otherwise would.

I don't think it was shoddy execution at all regardless of people's dissatisfaction with the resolution. But I do completely agree with you that this plot thread is not coming back because, to Martin, it's completely resolved.

I just had this same scenario come up in a league I run (except it's because a player basically rage-quit). They dumped their team into the free-agent pool and quit. So, I put all the players back on their team and will just run it on autopilot, so to speak, as you describe. There's really no other way to do it since we're not only commissioners in these leagues but also players.

"Accidentally?"

Yep, pretty much how my proposal went. We'll be celebrating our 20th in about a week

Very much agreed. [Paraphrasing] "If we believe something to be real, it is real in its consequences" - W. I. Thomas

That works!