CrypticWeirwood

"Then I shall have enjoyed the pleasure of your company, little griffin."

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.

I'm pretty sure that the reason they stare at her like she's an outsider is because she actually IS an outsider. Hard to fault them for calling a spade a spade.

THIS is why we can't have nice things. Childish name-calling has no place in civil discourse. Its constant barrage of disrespectful insults is a falling tide that lowers all ships. A common space littered by such trailer trash is not merely unproductive. It is unhealthy to the mind and ultimately dangerous to the body politic. In this way we do deliberate harm both to ourselves and to our commonwealth. To what end? Silver-tongued Pericles you may never be, but why not crawl on up out of the gutter to engage one another not with bile but with grace?

It's called reasoned, civil discourse, a rarity in a internet world dominated by rudeness and rabble rousing, by viciousness and mindless sloganeering. Attention spans are no longer capable of grasping the longer thoughts needed to debate rationally. See the Lincoln-Douglas debates. The majority can no longer even follow what was said in them. Postman was a prophet.

I don't believe I've ever read someone link the themes of ice and fire with the themes of duty and love before. When you put it that way, it seems almost self-evidently obvious in hindsight. I'm convinced. Thank you for that insight.

Her food? They even took her food? I don't remember that part at all! What happened, did the Westerosi customs officials confiscate her lifetime supply of Meereenese honey spiced locusts? :-)

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”.

Which explains why Bloodraven, as the eldest surviving true-born male Targaryen, is now the lawful king. Hurray! Sure is (l)awful good that he’s who got himself elected to the catbird seat at the end. Wouldn’t want anything unlawful would we now. Pretty convenient how that all worked out if you ask me.

The Dance of Dragons once and for all settled that Targaryen females cannot inherit but their male children can. See Aegon III. Sorry, no queen.

The first book in the set is Shadow of the Torturer. He wrote all 4 of them at once before the first was published, so they make sense as a coherent whole. All told it's still under a thousand pages, so each book is short and well worth the effort. But it does make much more sense on a reread because it's full of clues you don't notice at first. You can get them a pair at a time in print.

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.

You mean she could have wished him good fortune in the wars to come. :-)