SeanF

If the Tyrells spent six months besieging Storms End, that implies that Robert had, pretty much, lost the Stormlands, other than the family castle.

It occurs to me that both Aerys and Rhaegar showed quite spectacular incompetence, in fighting this war. Ned Stark was the only lord paramount who had the full backing of his vassals. The Vale, Riverlands, and Stormlands were all divided. The Reach, Dorne, and the Crownlands were loyalists. The loyalists should have had no difficulty crushing the rebels. Rhaegar may have been a good fighter, but he was no general.

I would imagine that losses from WOT5K run above one million, once you take famine into account. Cersei and Jaime each bear a lot of the blame for the war.

That's an interesting counter-factual. However, I do think that an uprising against Aerys was bound to have taken place at some point.

Internally, he comments about not making threats you won’t carry out. He’d have killed the baby. I also think he’s interesting. But, I think his redemption is (at this point) not far advanced.

He ought to have sent out Arianne to seduce Dany. In effect, Dany would have had to carry out a great purge, in order to marry Quentyn, at this point. It would have meant war to the death. Had Quentyn come with the Dornish army, well, that would have been an option. But, he did not.

I don’t condemn him for killing Aerys. The man committed one enormity after another. And, the rebels would have tortured him to death, had they captured him. Failing to protect Elia and her children is a weightier charge. He knew what his father would do.

Manderly likes people to view him as a slave to his appetites. That means, they underrate him.

It may all have been completely innocent, but a less paranoid ruler than Aerys would have been concerned. IMHO, it was Egg who put the Targaryens in danger, with his reform programme that the nobility pushed back against. Egg was considered a “tyrant”, by many lords. I do see these marriage alliances as creating a power block to oppose the crown, and to defend aristocratic “liberties”, even if the overthrow of the dynasty was not contemplated at this stage. None of that justifies Aerys’ cruelty, or Rhaegar’s stupidity, however.

Breaking off her betrothal to Hizdahr, a day before the wedding, would have been … brave (in the Yes Minister sense).

Killing Aerys was to Jaime’s credit. The rest? Not so much.

Along with Cersei’s miscarriage. I guess the showrunners couldn’t really find a way to justify Jon killing his own child.

IIRC, it was three day's march from the Trident to Kings Landing, by season 8. I'm quite sure the distance was several times greater in Season 1. Not to mention, 108,000 soldiers (plus horses) were apparently fed and supplied by Dragonstone.

The thing is, redemption has to involve more than feeling bad about the bad things you’ve done. He does some good, like protecting Pia, and rescuing Brienne, but he has no qualms about breaking the terms of Catelyn’s release, and threatening her brother and his unborn son.

The show runners kept shying away from the implications of what they were showing. Sansa was not “the smartest person I’ve ever met”. But, she was sly and manipulative and good at sowing discord. Sam was a self-promoting coward, who treated Gilly with disdain. Tyrion was (at the very least) trying to ensure that his siblings did not lose the war, in breach of his duties as Hand. Varys was a weathervane who had loyalty to no one, but claimed he did it “for the Realm”. And, Bran was objectively evil. As I said upthread, I could have lived with the ending, had final seasons been written by @Joe Abercrombie, as a grimdark tale. The showrunners just could not pull that off.

I would have concluded that Tyrion was a traitor - based upon his actions, rather than what we were told. The gist of his advice is that Dany should sacrifice her allies and soldiers, in order to spare his siblings. Tyrion’s execution is something that all factions should have agreed upon at the end. Grey Worm, the Prince of Dorne, and Yara for betraying Daenerys. The others for bringing Daenerys and her soldiers to the capital. The Starks and Edmure, for serving, at the highest level, a regime that brought terror to the Riverlands, and perpetrated the Red Wedding. I can only conclude that Bran chose him, Bronn, and Sam, because they would be entirely his creatures.

Volantis is the regional superpower that the slavers can call upon, in times of danger. If Volantis goes, and the slaver coalition is beaten outside of Meereen, then the game is up for slavery in much of Essos. The slavers are heavily outnumbered, and once they lose their monopoly of violence, it's very hard to see how they would get it back. If Dany is able to get the Dothraki (or at any rate, a large proportion) to stop taking slaves, then the trade will shrink hugely. That does not mean that slavery will vanish from the East (Qarth, Lys, Myr, Tyrosh, Qohor, remain slave powers). No doubt there will be Dothraki who are committed to the old ways, and probably the Jhogos Nhai would take up slave raiding, but it will be a major blow to the practice.

I’d have no issue with the Starks executing Jaime. They have good reason too.

The Romans did it.

Thanks. I did write a Death of Stalin fanfiction, with a Sansa-type character in it, but the plot is nothing like that in the dream!

Out of nowhere, I had the weirdest GOT-related dream last night. I'm an actor, and a member of the Communist Party, in a Soviet-occupied England. Then, I'm taking part in a television spy drama, as the lead male character, along with Sophie Turner and Maisie Williams. I'm actually the "villain", a senior KGB officer, who's secretly working for the CIA, and trying to bring down Soviet rule. Sophie is the young intelligence officer who's trying to catch me out. The drama is enormously popular, and we both turn up at some big convention organised by the Communist actors' guild. Where the hell does that come from?

Among the fandom, I think that Jaime is generally held in higher regard than he deserves.

And all the time, Tyrion failed upwards. Until he became Hand, and got to work establishing new brothels, staffed by impoverished peasants.

Jaime is pretty well hated across the Seven Kingdoms. Partisans of the Starks, Tullys, Targaryens, as well as the Dornish, would all string him up on the spot. And, he is widely viewed as a despicable traitor to his king. While his motivation for killing Aerys was based upon more than self-interest, he has no qualms about his and Cersei’s selfishness sparking off a civil war, and likely condemning his children to death. Nor is he bothered about breaching the terms upon which Catelyn released him.

It also made Daenerys, Jon, and others, look stupid for continuing to listen to someone whose plans constantly failed. Tyrion, in real life, would have been dismissed in disgrace, after the destruction of Yara’s and the Dornish fleets.