The Sleeper

He kind of did, by making the former stewards lords paramount, while there were many other, far more prominent houses. That meant that unity and effective leadership would be hampered. And it kind of worked. In historical conflicts, the Reach along with the Riverlands are the kingdoms most often divided.

Not really. Sansa in the Vale is behaving more or less like she was in early Game chapters. Think of how she dealt with Renly and Barristan. That is her baseline personality when she is feeling secure. It is not a behavior of bastard but of the lady of the house. Compare Maya Stone and Jon. They are much more reserved and defensive. She was subdued in King's Landing due to grief, danger and awkward social position.

Neither Littlefinger or Sansa, are trying to kill Sweetrobin. Littlefinger is Lord Protector because of Robert. He just has written him off as a future asset, so he is drugging him to keep up appearances with complete disregard about his long term health. As a method for murder it is hardly untraceable, unless he plans to kill the maester, too. Sansa is, however, in denial. Maester Colemon has been quite clear about the eventual outcome of giving him sweetsleep.

It's Ramsay and an attempt at blackmail. He wants Jon to keep the Arya fraud a secret and threatens to expose Mance if Jon reveals Jeyne's identity. Of course as Theon and Jeyne have not arrived at Castle Black Jon has no idea what Ramsay is talking about. From Ramsay's perspective it is not such a bad deal. Jon has to turn over a bunch of strangers, a steward's daughter and Theon, who Jon has every reason to hate. And because he is Ramsay he peppers it with threats. One issue, that generally isn't brought up, is whether Mance is cooperating involuntarily or not. He has no loyalty to the Watch, Jon or Melissandre. There is nothing stopping him form making a deal once caught.

I don't doubt that he could get Tywin, but you can't say that he could get him then and there, particularly with the restrictions of not killing anyone other than Tywin and obviously escaping undetected.

Connington regrets not burning the Stony Sept down in order to kill Robert, instead of going door to door to find. He wants to be more like Tywin. That is a solid set up for him causing mass destruction. During that battle the town's bells rung, which he is haunted by. As for the wildfire cache, any battle will do.

That’s the point. This is speculation. You don't when and if such an opportunity would arise.

I wasn't answering particularly your post in particular, but the set up in the books about the destruction of King's Landing in the books revolves around the wildfire cache that Jaime neglected to tell anyone about. Since no one has the full picture, the greatest probability is that it will go off accidentally. In terms of characters, the one who is preoccupied with bells is Connington who coincidentally is itching to burn towns. There is zero set up for Dany.

The show isn't really a good guide. They obviously mixed and matched isolated plot points out of context and let's face it they probably mined the fandom in the process with the only scope of keeping the hype running. Connington's set up is a much better fit for the destruction of King's Landing based on the points that Op has laid out.

Tywin is attended and guarded 24/7. He is a much harder target than Chiswyck or Weese to assassinate. You could argue that Jaqen could have gotten him then there, or that he would eventually get him in a year. From that point on lies fan-fiction.

The Hound.

Kind of missing the point. In terms of who is dully appointed to dispense justice, this is largely dependent on one's current allegiance. Jaime for instance is acting knowingly on the orders of a usurper and as conspirator of said usurper; therefore anything and everything he does in an official capacity is illegal. This applies literally to everyone in the story. They are all considered rebels and traitors by someone. The only person you could say has undisputed claim on being the source of law based on what is commonly known, in the sense that are no other known or confirmed heirs of house Targaryen, is Dany, but then she proceeds to savagely violate the customs of the Dothraki and then proceeds to assault sovereign states. Not that I really blame her for it. In terms of culpability, Dareon's is indisputable. Since you mentioned it, whether it is immoral or not applies not just to Dareon and Arya, but to desertion in general. And universally deserters face very severe punishments with death being very common. And I am not talking about ASoIaF but the real world, now. You can't really lay this on Arya, she is acting on what she has been taught. The issue of jurisdiction has no bearing on the facts. Sure, Arya has no business killing people in the streets of Braavos, but on the other hand Dareon remains a deserter as any perpetrator remains guilty of the crime he committed regardless of his location. Furthermore the legality of the action never comes up since she wasn't caught and the punishment the Faceless Men inflict is independent of the righteousness of Arya's action or lack therefore. In other words it never becomes an issue in the story. In terms of the characters in question, Arya is an eleven year-old that has grown up in a warrior society and a war zone recently. This means she is not old enough to grasp the nuances and has witnessed and suffered gross injustice on behalf of the authorities of her country and justice as hse knows it is dispensed by individuals determined by birth based on their own personal judgement. On the other hand Dareon is a dick who in his way has probably been a victim of circumstance. (I doubt that had Mathis Rowan believed that Dareon had raped his daughter, he would have allowed him to simply take the black). Does he deserve death? I don't think so but Westeros by and large does. I don't think the series promotes vingilantism, but it does examine justice in a greater context. In light of all that, the only issue that arises from Arya's murder of Daeron in terms of legality is that of jurisdiction. It would be interesting to see what would have happened if Sam reported Dareon to the Braavosi authorities. Another relevant issue would be the actions taken by the Braavosi regarding the Lyseni ships from Hardhome. Did they arrest the Lyseni? After all Hardhome is not under Braavosi jurisdiction. Unfortunately, it hasn't come up. So I come back to my original question. What if it was murder? It hardly seems relevant.

Sure, it was murder. You could argue that all of her kills were murders. After all, since Cersei's coup she's been on the wrong side of the law. Killing Raff the Sweetling also qualifies as murder. It is obvious why it hasn't been mentioned. While it does qualify as murder, it is quite difficult to defend Raff. As far as she is concerned, Dareon needed to be punished and she was the only one to do it. She did personally and took responsibility for it, she had established his guilt, as well as his unwillingness to return to his duties and had observed his behaviour and character and found no extenuating circumstances. According to what applies in Westeros Dareon's life was forfeit. Jaime, on his way to Riverrun discovered some deserters squatting in an abandoned tower and promptly had them hanged. This incident took barely half a paragraph, while Dareon occupied large portions of Sam's and Arya's chapters where his actions and character are examined. The contrast is jarring, yet Jaime was legally empowered to do so. This is not the only example. We have various lords summarily dispensing justice, including Ned, often inflicting death and horrendous punishments with little thought. So what if it was murder?

Illyrio pretty much says they weren't ready. They were counting on the Dothraki to do some damage. My guess is that Varys wanted the twincest to blow up at the time of his choosing, probably when they were ready to invade, while building some bridges to the North. But it also depends who they preferred to face, Tywin or Stannis.

The description sounds similar to Stannis's shadows in both Renly's camp and Storm's End. These are all events are meant to be handed third hand or more, so taking that into account, we can't really be sure of anything. So it could still be a legend. Still : That description is too specific and there is the fact that Syrax was a fully grown and free dragon. Dreamfyre died because the dome of the Dragonpit fell on her. It doesn't seem plausible that Syrax could have been dealt a fatal blow by less than siege weapons. Picturing the scene from a distance, one could hear that the Shepherd was shouting or chanting and assume he was praying to the seven without hearing the exact words, while not failing to notice a thirty-foot tall shadow. Another option is that maybe one can summon a shadow by invoking the seven, the sacrifice paid being the hundreds of people having died in their name. After all, Dany birthed her dragons playing it by ear.

There isn't really another candidate than the Shepherd, is there?

There could well be. It describes the Swords as sorcerers at some point. Magic used to be a lot more common. Maybe it was mostly forgotten, except to certain sects within the faith and it is nothing most priests would concern themselves about. Thoros himself doesn't consider what he does as magic, but rather R'hlor acting through him, so we could have a similar attitude to adherence to the seven.

"till the Warrior himself took form, thirty feet tall. In his hand was a black blade made of smoke that turned to steel as he swung it, cleaving the head of Syrax from her body." This is highly reminiscent of Mel's shadowbabies.

Shadowbinding.

Ideally, he would want to be on the winning side without having Dorne involved in any of the fighting. I do agree that there will come a point where either he will be able to keep out, or it will be as dangerous or more to stay neutral than to get involved. Quentyn might have screwed him in that regard and Arianne is set up to complete what he started.

I think the stuff he told Arianne and the Sand Snakes, that he worked with Oberyn and his plans for vengeance, is bullshit and that his actual policy is like house Swan's, to keep Dorne out of the war as much as possible and have a foot in each camp. The reason he says otherwise is that he doesn't have the political clout to control Oberyn, Arianne and the Sand Snakes directly.

As mentioned previously, there are men of the Liddle clan present. One of them could well have been the person Bran and company encountered on their way, or at least that person could have relayed the story. This is something that only Bran would know, allowing him to confirm his identity. Something else suitably supernatural and spooky could also occur, like a cloud of ravens clawing all at once to put them all in a receptive mood. It might harder to convince people that Bran is actually alive and not a ghost haunting Theon.

The Nymeria reference is about her being a commander and a leader rather than a warrior and her relationship with Moros has no bearing. Aegon's problem is with him being accepted as Rhaegar's son and not an impostor not with the strength of the claim itself. They all consider it stronger. The very reason they recruited Connington to begin with is to lend validity. Varys refers to him as a king and they raised him to be one. Dany was not included in their original designs. The reason they want her now is the dragons not her claim. They don't intend to share power. And Connington's dream is to sit him on the throne.

@Oana_Mika Jaehaerys passed over Rhaenys in favor of Baelon and still had to hold a great council for Baelon's son to succeed. The situation is identical with the exception of the genders being reversed. Viserys also had a clearly chosen heir and the result was a civil war.

That might have been what Aerys intended, but assuming the dynasty had progressed in any normal fashion, that would have blown the succession line out of the water. It still is a moot discussion, because it was done at the last few days of a failing dynasty, had no practical effect and Aerys was essentially powerless with no way to enforce his will. Dany was Viserys's heir essentially in a vacuum. And that pretty much will be the framework within which Dany's versus Aegon's claims will be contested. Rhaegar's popularity and primogeniture, which is the most accepted rule, favor Aegon. But by and large these will serve as rationalizations to cover people's actual agendas.