CrypticWeirwood

I fully expect the end of the books to be as like the end of the show as the two versions of everything that transpired in Qarth resembled each other -- from the spice king to the warlocks, from gay Xaro to Dany drinking shade of the evening, from dragonnapping to her visions in the House of the Undying. In other words, any similarities will be almost unrecognizable.

People forget that the secret of the Manderlies lies hidden in plain sight right there in their very name: the Mander lies!

Wait, when did they spread black lies about Stannis to defame his good reputation? That doesn't make any sense. Character Assassination refers to the slandering or vicious personal verbal attack on a person with the intention of destroying or damaging that person's reputation or confidence. In other words it is malicious verbal assaults designed to damage or tarnish the reputation of a person. ... It is a form of defamation.

No. Bran's destiny is linked to the name of his wolf, Summer. “Now is the winter of our discontent made glorious summer by this sun of York” For “sun of York” read of course “son of Stark”.

She wouldn't. That's the point. Hers is a powerful enough house that her children would take her name because she could only marry down.

Everybody writes that story, again and again and again. Martin wouldn't have wasted his time writing yet another storybook happy ending when there are already zillions of those out there. That doesn't break the wheel: it just wears it as a wedding band for a time so that Florian and Jonquil can live happily ever after.

The reason it was so important for Jon to have been the so-called rightful king yet not come to rule is because it shatters the hackneyed hidden-prince trope, just like killing off Eddard Stark, his protagonist of Game of Thrones shattered that hackneyed trope as well. It also proved Dany's whole life-mission goal to "take back" the Iron Throne because she was "the rightful heir" was always full of hot air. Then when she tried to keep living what she now knew to be a lie, she outed herself as always having been on a mission of wrathful revenge, never of righteousness, because she had no such right but didn't care. These were critical elements of the art form that Martin created. Lose that and you lose his messaging.

What do you mean it meant nothing!!?? It meant everything! The entire endgame requires it be true. Otherwise the entire story meant nothing. It was critical that Jon not Dany was the real heir. That's why she freaked out. That's why he had to be the one to kill her. SO IT WOULD HAVE MEANING! That's why he had to keep it secret and leave the kingdom. That's why his point about house words not being stamped on you at birth is so important. Otherwise Rhaegar's obsession with prophesy didn't wreck the kingdom and doom his family. And his Kingsguard friends. Or create Robert and Cersei. Everything is about this. Everything. Honestly, this is what it was all always about.

Enjoy your cool aid.

I think that's kins-laying then not kin-slaying. More than kin, less than kind. :->)

Bran doesn't follow "a different religion". He doesn't follow a religion at all. Just because he knows that men call all the children whose spirits live on in the trees "the old gods" doesn't make them gods and it doesn't make understanding them a religion. Bran is a greenseer himself, so he knows that this isn't a religion. He isn't a god and he knows it, and he wouldn't put up with people worshipping him. That's Dany, not Bran. He's already part of that network. It's just the underlying mechanics of how this universe works. No religion needed. But the Seven? Haha, that's a belly laugh. Just stuff to keep the masses in check. There's no there there. With the weirwoods, though, it's all real. Not religion.

Just wanted to say how stunningly excellent that all was! Thank you.

Aha! That would make Tywin Tyrion's first cousin once removed, since Tywin was Joanna's first cousin. Oops. Now that you mention it, we know that Jon and Tyrion and Dany killed their own mothers, all three of them.

I like to think that Tyrion wasn't actually a kinslayer because he and his brother Jaime only killed each other's father, not their own, but would never learn this themselves. Martin will have been familiar with Strangers on a Train.

Who then would Dany's heir be? Tyrion isn't the only one who would want to know that. You have to have an heir. Who would be the Prince of Dragonstone?