Red Raven

Lyanna Mormont for Queen in the North!

I don't think Euron is in service to anyone other than Euron. His overlarge ego and unruly self-grandiosity would prevent him from being an agent of anyone other than himself. As for going to Valyria, if anyone was crazy enough to try and actually pull it off, Euron is that person. I think he's sailed to places that are beyond the known boundaries of the world. That said, it doesn't mean that I necessarily believe his claim that he actually did go to Valyria.

1) Overweight, middle-aged but looks old and weary beyond his years, probably has bags and shadows under his eyes, feet so swollen with fluid that they look like they're about to pop. Pained and moves like a rusty hinge. 2) Siddig is now Doran in my mind, even for book!Doran. I started watching the show before reading the books so if the TV character exists, the looks of the actor in the role becomes how I picture the character in the book. 3) I've seen him in Da Vinci's Demons and remember him from Star Trek. Love him. I was thrilled when he was cast. 4) The only GOT-related interview I've seen him do is the brief "New Characters" one for HBO.

Sean Bean has something like a 90% death rate for his characters. Casting him is virtually a spoiler for a character's fate. Pedro Pascal was on the Mentalist this season for several episodes. He played an agent tangled up in a love triangle.

She was yelling at him to stop. He didn't. That's rape.

Not another role but a cameo. I got around to watching Brian Cox's lecture "The Science of Doctor Who" and Charles Dance was in the audience. It took me a minute to recognize him because he was smiling and I'm not used to seeing Tywin do anything except scowl.

Just because they're not exact it doesn't mean that there wasn't some influence. It's not all or nothing. GRRM said that his influences aren't a 1 to 1 relation. The Dothraki aren't exact copies of the Mongols, nor is the Red Wedding an exact copy of the Black Dinner. It's possible that GRRM gave a few of Hughes's characteristics to Aerys while drawing on other things for other parts of Aerys's background, physical appearance, and psychological profile.

And being fearful of leaving his home. Aerys may not be exactly like Hughes but the few things they have in common are things that are distinctly remembered about Hughes. Hughes is probably a more likely influence than some random Indian Yogi. Just for fun: Hughes had a phobia of germs, Aerys had a phobia of blades. Hughes collected jars of urine, Aerys collected pots of wildfire.

I disagree. If Dany had been killed by the locusts, Barristan would not have stayed in Meereen, also the Freedmen remain together because they think Dany is alive. Without that belief, they disband and the Shavepate's power base crumbles. The Shavepate needs Dany being alive as a rallying point; poisoning her would have destroyed that. Blaming it on the Yunkai'i when there are multiple factions inside of Meereen that want her dead (and everyone knows it) would have been empty and impotent, and how would the Yunkai'l have gotten access to the kitchens to poison the locusts in the first place? It was obviously an inside job. ETA: If the Shavepate did poison the locusts then I think his target wasn't Dany but Hizdar.

I don't think the Shavepate poisoned her. He needed Dany alive (or thought to be still alive) to make the moves he did. Killing her would not have served his cause. I also wouldn't be surprised if he were genuinely loyal to her.

I think he'd dare. The Brazen Beasts and others used by the Shavepate are better suited for cloak 'n' dagger attacks that an urban setting would virtually demand. The Unsullied are great in the field with their phalanxes, but haven't fared well in sneak attacks against them by the SotH. As for freedmen, I mean anyone who was a slave in Meereen and is now free.

I wouldn't be entirely surprised if Barristan won his battle, turned around and found the city gates locked to him. OOPS. Since the Shavepate ostensibly supported Dany's free-the-slaves campaign, his power base would be the new freedman, and there are a lot of former slaves in the city. He could dispatch his brazen beasts to kill the rival families (I doubt many of the freedmen would object to that) and solidify his power base from there.

Nope. Barristan is out trying to motivate his troops, no mention of anyone stuffed in jail.

I think Jorah will muster up the strength to deliver the kill shot without external distractions to help. I don't expect everything to be resolved but I'd like to think the "I did it for love" thing would have a good payoff.

Victarion and Jorah end up mortally wounding each other, that makes sense. Jorah would start at a disadvantage, being starved, beaten, and exposed to drought and illness, while Victarion is a well-fed death machine with an extra boost from his magical arm. However, like he was with Lynesse's favor, Jorah's emotions for Dany would be enough to drive him on and put up a solid battle against Victarion. Love ends up being Jorah's greatest strength and his greatest weakness. "The things we love destroy us every time, lad. Remember that." — Jeor Mormont.

Pretty much. If I lived anywhere on the eastern continent I'd be packing my bags for Braavos. Just about everywhere else is hosed. Now there's an interesting thought.

Probably not going to happen. The elites have a stranglehold on power and they're not going to give it up. They already are trying to mount an offense against Dany so her Valyrian bloodline means nothing to them. I doubt the slaves (4/5 of the population) are going to be forgiving to the people who enslaved them - no Nelson Mandelas in that bunch. I expect there to be a revolt and a bloody one at that.

Resident Evil: Extinction. He's also in the last few minutes of RE: Apocalypse.

I got a kick out of seeing Jorah Mormont as a mad scientist who turns into an uber-zombie. Even after his monstrous transformation, while standing he still leans on his right hip the same way Jorah does. It's almost cute.

Unfortunately I don't think Jorah is long for this world. His primary purpose was as the Exposition Guy to explain the Dothraki and Essos in general to Dany (and to the reader). Then along comes Barristan who is a fountain of knowledge about the Targ family and is now in the company of Dany. Narratively Dany still needs Barristan but doesn't need Jorah anymore. In ADWD Jorah was little more than a plot device to get Tyrion from Volantis to Meereen. Unless GRRM plans on Jorah meeting up with Sam somehow (and I wouldn't count on that), I think Jorah is just about done and I don't see him surviving TWOW. Also, Iain Glen said he was contracted for "five or six years" so assuming season 5 is spent dragging Tyrion around, I think he gets killed sometime in season 6. I hope I'm wrong, if only to see Iain Glen sign another contract and stick around longer.

That's probably more plausible

The arakhs the Dothraki carry look much like a khopesh. This may be a stretch but I wonder if Martin called the weapon an arakh because the khopesh was wielded by the sun-worshipping ancient Egyptians, and in the real world the Arakh are a people in India who at one time had worshipped the sun.

The graves of the Romanovs were found and all of them were accounted for. Anastasia was killed with the rest of her family in 1918 and there were no survivors. The women who later appeared and claimed to be Anastasia were all frauds. Re: Tywin's smelly corpse. The body of Pope Alexander VI (Rodrigo Borgia) was also reported to have been bloated, discolored and rotting, though that was due to being left unburied for too long.

Looks like it. I was speculating that Tyene would be successful in sticking Marge with a guilty verdict in order to keep Mace's troops in King's Landing and further drive a wedge between the Tyrells and the Lannisters so Aegon and JonCon can run around the Stormlands largely unopposed, but it looks like Aegon is about to face his first real battle. Oh, and it provides a juicy situation for a greyscale plague to begin.