Alester Florent

You have our support through what must be a terrible existential crisis for you.

To be fair, as we all know, Scotland was invented in 1911 by the McGowan sweet company as a means of marketing highland toffee.

Even on this, you're wrong. The Kingdom of Italy was established in 1861. "Nation" and "state" are not synonymous.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingdom_of_Germany Kings of Italy continued to be crowned after Odoacer, with only brief intermissions, until 1814.

OK, I think the main issue here is a confusion of "nationhood" with political unification and state formation. They are not the same! It isn't a straightforward thing to explain but here is an article which may help: https://acoup.blog/2021/07/02/collections-my-country-isnt-a-nation/ But there are other issues. Spain was never part of the HRE (apart from, briefly, Catalonia, which was part of the kingdom of the Franks in its very early history). The concept of "Western Europe" as opposed to Eastern Europe goes back to Roman times and has little if anything to do with Charles Martel. France didn't attain it modern metropolitan borders until the 1860s. "England" as a political entity has for almost its entire history also included Wales, which would rightly be called another nation. A kingdom of Germany existed throughout most the Middle Ages (as did a kingdom of Italy) and for most of that time was arguably more unified than France was: it was only in the later 13th century that it started to disintegrate. And the HRE was known as the "Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation" from the 16th century onwards. Bismarck unified Germany (as an empire, including areas not strictly German!) but he didn't come up with the idea. So in short, no, sorry.

Uh, do you mean the Enlightenment? The Renaissance had been over for centuries by the time Napoleon was born. America isn't really a nation, in the sense that matters. Indeed, I'd query even the extent to which it "existed" in 1776, but I have learned from bitter experience that discussing American history with Americans on the internet is entirely pointless. The nation-state existed up to a point before the Enlightenment, but ethnonationalism as a meanintgful movement and political identity-basis only really took off afterwards. Hungary was either an empire (ruling Slovakia and Croatia, as well as other areas), or it was under foreign rule, or both. Its ethnonationalist identity as Hungary developed largely in the 19th century. There were no English before the Anglo-Saxons. According to traditional historiography, the Romans left in 410 by which time there were already Saxon mercenaries in Britain: there was a brief period of effective native rule under the partially if not wholly legendary Vortigern and Ambrosius, plus the certainly legendary Uther and/or Arthur, then Saxon conquest. But at this point they seem to have identified principally as British, not Roman. Spain was absolutely not a nation state by 1500. I would argue it isn't a nation state now. France wasn't either at that stage. I understand what you mean by Rome/Vienna but the way you talk about it suggests, with all due respect, you don't really know what you're takling about. And no, it wasn't just Germany. You only need to look as far as Italy to see that, without getting into Iberia, France, the low countries, Burgundy, the Balkans, Scandinavia, the Jagiellonian empire, etc. Which war? It's often the case that groups coalesce against an outsider threat, only discovering a shared identity when the interests of all of them are threatened.

Tea was pretty much introduced to India at scale by the British. The Brits were already tea-crazy but trade with China was unreliable, so tea plantations in India were established and then India was converted to the cause of tea to maximise the market. We did get "curry" from India, though (albeit in modified form) including our national dish, chicken tikka masala (actually invented in Birmingham iirc, but definitely Indian in inspiration).

I can see Jon/Val. Jaime/Brienne was something I never got from the books, and the show iteration felt forced because the hacks writing it at that point couldn't think of another way to process that relationship except romantically.

If I remember rightly, and I may not, Tyrion believed he needed Littlefinger to set up his plan to free Jaime, by opening talks with Cat. That got him out of the city, and by the time he got back Tyrion was no longer in charge. He also appears an invaluable asset for the BOKL regime, as he stopped Ned Stark's coup, brokered an alliance with the Tyrells which won the war against Stannis, and is best suited to bring the Vale back into the fold. Tyrion is alive to the danger but nobody seems to listen to him. I can also believe that the story of LF holding a knife to Ned's throat didn't get out, because it was a confused scuffle where the gold cloaks will have been blocking the views of most courtiers, LF probably immediately handed him over to them, and I imagine Janos Slynt was happy to take the credit for apprehending Ned. For most of those who were present at the event, witnessed it sufficiently clearly to be sure of it, and survived the experience (bearing in mind that Ned's supporters were all killed, and Renly presumably took many of the Baratheon loyalists with him) they may not have thought much of it, as it was just loyal Lord Baelish assisting in apprehending a traitor, not enough to make a point of mentioning it to Sansa. Anything that reaches the ears of Cat or Renly or the Vale lords he could dismiss as mere gossip, and challenge them to produce a reliable witness, so while the conversation might be uncomfortable he's probably confident of his ability to blag his way out of it. Sansa is the main danger, but she's something of a pariah, isolated from KL gossip networks. Still, there's time for her to find out yet. I don't think Sansa is betrothed to Sweetrobin? LF's plan is to betroth her to Harry, and that hasn't been accomplished yet. There may also be an element of show-contamination in our perceptions of LF. Book-LF is witty, yes, and we know he's a shit, but the whole mocking people to their faces thing I suspect may have been a show insertion. It's been a while since I've read the books, but I seem to recall thinking when the show came out - and seeing others comment - that LF was much more obviously slimy and creepy and smug and condescending on the screen than he had been on the page. GRRM himself has said that LF has reached the position he has because he's "friendly and helpful" and therefore people trust him.

The reason Renly doesn't appear on any of the hero/villain wikis is that none of them have a category worthy of his virtue and majesty.

I disagree entirely. Too many fake-outs, and the number required for "too many" is not that high, and the reader quickly realises that what they're reading from page to page has no importance or meaning, and can be revoked at the drop of a hat by the author going "fooled you!" The occasional super-fan might enjoy going back and raking over the coals to find all the clues, but it shows a degree of contempt for your readership that most readers don't like, drains off suspense and therefore drama, and is (at least in my somewhat informed and not at all humble opinion) straight-up bad storytelling. For an example of how to do this kind of thing badly, take a look at The Rings of Power (not a book, but same principle). By getting the balance wrong with the feed of information to the audience, prioritising guessing-games and cliffhangers over consistent narrative, and on occasion just straightforwardly lying to them (take another look at that scene when the "humans" attack the inn in the village!) the writers robbed the whole thing of its credibility and ultimately its investment. I wanted to like it, and did defend the first couple of episodes, but by the end was thoroughly sick of the whole thing. I'd hate for the same to happen to ASoIaF.

The inverted commas around "Osmund" in the second page are interesting. Was GRRM originally intending for the Kettleblacks to be interchangeable or easily confused somehow? Is there something we're still missing about their actions and intentions?

I don't think Baelor is based on Jesus. He's more of a highly-religious, unworldly king who commands respect for his piety but is ultimately ineffective, an exaggerated Edward the Confessor or Henry VI, or Tewdric in his later years. Jesus is a very different character, really. There is obviously a comparison to be made between Daeron and Alexander but I think we can also look at people like Sebastian of Portugal, Wladyslaw III of Poland, even Cambyses II (the army that goes missing is a clear nod to the Lost Army of Cambyses). I don't think anyone does. I'm not sure this adequately follows from the above, though, and I'm not sure the definition and concept of colonisation has been queried sufficiently in this thread for this disparaging statement to carry any weight. But in any case, I shall repeat my earlier implied question: why does it matter? Is colonisation the ultimate evil somehow? Is violent conquest - something the Targs inarguably did - not bad enough? Why are you so anxious to defend them from the charge of "colonisation"?

The head sent to Dorne was really that of Gregor Clegane. We know Cersei likes to have fun with names. She named her first son after a notorious bastard and dared anyone to notice. And it's surely not a coincidence that her new sworn sword shares a name with Rhaenyra's favourite/lover. In fact, Robert Strong is basically her ideal man: he has no ideas of his own, does exactly what he's told and can't answer back. If only Robert Baratheon had been so compliant. So whose head is it under Robert Strong's helmet, if not Gregor's? It's right there, hidden in plain sight. It's Robert's. This is Cersei's final revenge.

Is it possible that the Hand's authority doesn't stretch to matters concerning the royal family personally, or at the very least that there's a big grey area there? While it's a bit different in Baelor's case, of course, I can imagine that kings wouldn't be keen on the Hand having the authority to dispense justice concerning their sons and grandchildren without their express say-so. Baelor tells Dunk that there will have to be a trial, with three judges, in which he would only be one of three, so apparently can't dismiss the charges out of hand once they've been brought. Rather like Tywin's trial of Tyrion, in which Tywin is also king in all but name, but apparently still needs Mace and Oberyn to sit alongside him. There is surely also a consideration that Dunk's actions were extremely public and some process of justice must be seen to be done. I suspect that if he'd had a completely free hand Baelor would still have punished Dunk, but given him a relatively light punishment: a day in the stocks or whatever, rather than the death or mutilation Aerion was pressing for. The whole scenario in that story is extremely contrived though, even so.