Alester Florent

I don't think I've seen any valid or well-argued reasons for thinking that Dany is anything other than she believes herself to be. Tyrion, sure.

It's obvious that both of them have liabilities, but it's harder to point to actual mistakes. A risky move that pays off isn't a mistake. With Varys, his motives at any given time have been so opaque that it's hard to tell what he actually wanted to happen in any given instance. There are a few times where something he put in motion doesn't seem to have gone according to plan: doing a deal for Ned's life while underestimating Joffrey's input; the unsuccessful assassination of Daenerys; letting Tyrion into the tunnels where he was able to murder Tywin... but were these all just part of the plan? LF's biggest and most obvious mistake is historic: believing Cat was in love with him. That then leads to the duel with Brandon and so forth. I suspect that he thinks he made an error somewhere in setting in motion events which ended with Cat's death: for all that he's a shit, I don't think he wanted her dead. Biggest recent mistake was probably kissing Sansa in the garden: that triggered the situation where he had to kill Lysa, and thereby led to the business with the Lords Declarant and so on. While Lysa was annoying, he had probably intended to keep her around for a while longer.

This is my reasoning, yes. But I also agree that Lyanna probably didn't give him a name at all.

I don't think you can just treat the seven kingdoms as each existing in a vacuum, though. The relations between the great houses is a key factor, irrespective of the dominance of the crown, if nothing else because geography is important in determining relative power structures within a given kingdom. The Freys, for example, are rich and powerful because they control a key crossing, but if you ignore the Vale and the North, that crossing doesn't really go anywhere. In Riverlands terms it's out on a limb and can be cut around to the south. Most of its importance is because that crossing is strategically important given the proximity to the North and the Vale. Which in turn means that the Starks and Arryns have an interest in what happens at the Twins whether they're already allied to the Tullys or not. And the ability to keep the Freys in line may have been a reason why Hoster formed alliances with those houses in the first place. Simply abolishing the crown is one thing, but cutting off cross-border politics as an applicable factor renders the entire exercise unhelpfully artificial, because the great lords will have managed their alliance network for generations with at least one eye on managing their own vassals.

Tywin certainly could make a will to settle his affairs on Kevan or the like, but he hasn't. So if he dies suddenly, say from an attack of diarrhoea, or his son shooting him with a crossbow, he's leaving behind a disputed succession. I do see what you mean about the Lannisters versus the Tullys, though. I suspect the Tullys might be able to hold the Riverlands for a bit on the basis that they're pretty inoffensive, though, and are therefore an acceptable compromise candidate to the other major houses of the Riverlands, particularly the Brackens and Blackwoods. The Tullys also have an advantage which the Lannisters don't: a strong alliance with a neighbouring great house (in fact, two!) If the Freys - the most powerful house in the Riverlands, and probably the one most likely to rise up against Tully rule in the aftermath of a 7K breakup - rebelled, Edmure could call on support from this brothers-in-law and between them they could quite easily smash the Freys and either take the Twins for themselves or at the least install a pliable Frey ruler at the Twins who'll more reliably support them (with encouragement by taking hostages and wards, of course). Then the addition of the Frey strength to the Tullys would be sufficient to overmatch any other Riverlands house. While that's not exactly native Tully strength, it's certainly a factor that can't be discounted.

I'm sure he's just fine. He probably just got lost on his way to Winterfell. Have another slice of pie.

There are lots of male Lannisters, but unless Tywin amends the succession, only Tyrion is in the direct line of succession, and Tywin seems to want to cut him out. After Tyrion, his heir is Cersei and after that her children. Tywin apparently hasn't clarified the succession so the most likely outcome is an argument between Cersei and Tyrion. On the basis there's a dispute, which there surely would be, the king can decide, but on the basis that Tywin would expect Robert to still be king by the time of his death, the most likely successor to Tywin is probably Tommen. Obviously we know that the BoKL kids are actually Lannisters, but on paper at the start of the series, house Lannister is realistically due to lose Casterly Rock pretty soon. There's a degree of early instalment weirdness in all this. You'd expect someone as diligent and careful as Tywin to have got this sorted out because it's an easily foreseeable problem. It's not clear that GRRM had made up his mind on whether women can inherit at the start of the books when this was immediately relevant. But Tywin still seems to be pinning his hopes on somehow getting Jaime to succeed him, which is a legal impossibility, and so long as he keeps waiting for that to happen, he's ignoring the realities of the problem. And indeed it does all go to toss after he dies, even without Tyrion around to interfere. Hoster may be ill but he at least has a solid, competent, undisputed male heir who's reached the age of majority. (I don't buy this "Edmure is too soft" business; he'd defeated Tywin on the battlefield and psychologically shrugged off the effects of two periods of captivity, one of them particularly obnoxious). The Tully succession, qua Tully, is more secure than the Lannister one, I think. This is why the question of "control of the region" and "stability of the succession" are I think two fundamentally different questions.

I don't think similarity of real name to fake name entered into Ned's mind when he named Jon. He just named him after Jon Arryn. After all, his goal wasn't to drop a clever hint at Jon's real identity, but rather to keep Jon's identity a closely guarded secret from literally everyone including Jon himself. If anything, you'd think similarity would be a reason not to pick a given name. It's far from certain, I think, that Lyanna had any say in his naming at all. GRRM has previously commented that Jon was probably named by Ned, albeit that could just mean that Ned gave him the "Jon" name and doesn't rule out Lyanna's having named him something else first.

Well it depends what question you're asking. Are you asking "who has the strongest control over their region?" or "who is the most vulnerable should something go wrong?" On paper, the Starks are one of the most secure houses at the start of ASoIaF. Ned should have plenty left in the tank and he has three sons. Only the Tyrells have multiple adult male heirs, and the Starks don't go round riding in tourneys or whatever and running the risk of getting a lance in their face. As you say, Sweetrobin is sickly and this is a potential problem for ultimate Arryn control of the Vale. Renly has no obvious heir at all, and Stannis's isn't exactly a banker. Robert has (by common understanding) two legitimate sons, but neither is an adult, Robert knows Joff is a liability, and indeed upon his death Cersei and Joffrey completely dismantle the standing and credibility of BoKL. If something happens to Tywin, control of the Westerlands is going to be subject to a heatedly disputed succession between his two eligible children. Doran's succession is also likely to be disputed, and Balon's even more so. Only Ned, Mace and Hoster should really be sleeping easily regarding what'll happen should they fall off a horse or the like. But none of this seems to have any real bearing on the great lords' ability to actually exert power over their respective kingdoms before the war makes a mess of everything.

My problem with this sort of thing is always that the demands of a battle game, whether tabletop or video format, tend to conflict with the “realistic” portrayal of the armies in question. In practice, most armies from mainland Westeros (outside Dorne) will feature the same troop types equipped in almost exactly the same way as each other, with the differences coming in the numbers (both relatively and absolutely) that they’re able to field. Visually, though, these armies will superficially look extremely internally diverse, because what uniforms there are (and there won’t be many) will be associated with whichever lord has brought the troops. This is the opposite of what you want in a gaming situation: you want there to be a wide variety of available units which provide diversity of choice for players at the factional level, while at the same time being generally balanced against a central point system, and you also want those armies to be visually cohesive, generally by colour scheme, despite the variety in unit type. Even where unit types are nominally different, this may be a distinction without a difference. We know, for instance, that the North doesn’t have a lot of knights. But we also know, per Maester Luwin, and borne out by the campaigns of both Robb Stark and (previously) Roddy Ruin, that the North is still capable of fielding heavy cavalry effectively equivalent to knights, in sufficient numbers that the actual units will be functionally identical in gaming terms. Even the Iron Islands, with a different force composition to the mainland, is still going to have what is effectively the same heavy infantry as the mainland, just in greater proportions, with fewer cavalry. This isn’t to say that you might not get the odd specialist unit: crannogmen or mountain clansmen or whatever. But these would just be small units to add a bit of colour, not major force components. This is indeed my main issue with the ASOIAF game by CMON. Some of the miniatures are quite attractive, but (in my view) focus way too much on “thematic” units, without the bulk of everyday soldiery that will comprise the majority of the army. What’s more, the “thematic” units often seem to be chosen on a fairly flimsy basis: for instance, the Baratheons have a theme of using large warhammers. Now we all know where that comes from, but there’s no reason to suppose that hammers are any more common among the rank and file of Baratheon troops than anywhere else just because one guy was famous for using one. Indeed none of the actual Baratheon commanders in the WotFK (who the game represents on the tabletop) are known for using hammers. The Boltons have a flail unit, presumably in part because the Boltons are evil and flails are a nasty weapon. If we actually wanted to represent Westerosi warfare, I think we’d have units largely comprised of men with polearms and swords with the occasional hammer or flail, and that choice wouldn’t be faction-dependent. Sure, in a TW game there’d be a place for the Gold Cloaks as a substantial basis for a King’s Landing army, but these should be, in TW terms, garrison units rather than parts of field armies; likewise the Night’s Watch would only operate in the Gift and north of the Wall, not across the whole North. TW isn’t always very good at representing that kind of thing.

Aegon VI, surely? But why would they call him Aegon when Rhaegar already has an older son by that name, who he believes to be the PtwP, etc?

You seem to have forgotten the Martells! Pre-Wot5K, all the great houses seem to have a pretty much iron lock on their kingdoms, with the exceptions of Stannis, the Tullys and possibly the Tyrells. We don't get an insight into internal Lannister politics, but they seem to raise their entire feudal contingent without a problem at the war's start. The Starks get universal acceptance of their rebellion against the Iron Throne from their vassals, and apparently unanimous support for the declaration of independence. The trivial pushback from the Umbers they get at the start is directed at Robb (then not the actual lord) and in any case immediately and permanently quashed, bolstering the Stark position in the process. Despite his claim's being unquestionably the weakest of the three Baratheon challengers, Renly seems to muster the whole of the Stormlands without argument, and not one of his vassals defects to Stannis despite Stannis's having a better argument. We hear of no dissent within the onshore Crownlands that I recall. And Balon seems to bring the whole of the Iron Islands along with him without issue. Lysa is able to keep the Vale out of the war with a word. Despite the apparent appetite on the part of the Vale lords to get the old band back together, not one of them goes against her wishes. The Martells likewise: even on the Marches there doesn't seem to be a peep out of those you might otherwise expect to take advantage of distraction by the Storm/Reach lords. The exact strength of the Tyrell position is unclear, but it seems they may not have quite such tight control over the Florents and Hightowers as they might ideally like. The Tullys obviously have a Frey problem. And while Stannis seems to command personal loyalty, his decision to abandon the Seven and burn the Sept alienates some supporters, with the Sunglasses for instance opposing him. With the house whose internal support collapses most spectacularly - the Starks - this was I think largely if not entirely a product of the war itself and not an indictment of their prewar position, which was extremely strong. Robb makes a few well-known strategic errors which alienate key allies and erode his authority. In an alternative scenario, one where he doesn't lose Winterfell to Theon, doesn't marry Jeyne Westerling, and Cat doesn't release Jaime from captivity, it's likely that the Karstarks, Freys and Boltons remain on side, and any remaining cracks are easily patched as they appear, as with the Umbers. Elsewhere, the same pattern seems to hold. Outside the Sunglasses, Stannis only loses support when he basically loses the war. The Tullys go down with the Starks. Any waverings in the Westerlands are triggered by Robb's invasion. Arianne's "rebellion" against Doran is triggered by events in the war, too. The Greyjoys seem to be fine in the Iron Islands until Balon's death, at which point other houses feel able to challenge for the throne, albeit the key protagonists in the Kingsmoot are all Greyjoys themselves. While I don't think ranking is an exact science, I'd posit a rough order, taking into account issues not apparent at the time, of: 1) Lannister 2) Arryn 3) Stark 4) Baratheon of Storm's End 5) Martell 6) Greyjoy 7) Baratheon of King's Landing 8) Tyrell 9) Baratheon of Dragonstone 10) Tully I think one could bump Baratheon of Storm's End up a bit, but I'm allowing for the fact that some Stormlords did at least meet with Stannis's guys, even if none of them sided with him. But it's also worth noting that BoSE and Stark retain lasting loyalty from some of their vassals even after the house itself is believed extinct (in BoSE's case, despite its being the youngest great house!) That tells us something, too.

I doubt Lyanna named Jon Rhaegar. I would expect Jon's name was meant to be Viserys, but she might not have named him at all.

How do we know the Brackens are Riverlands natives? They could originally be from the Reach for all we know.

There's Cersei, of course. Also Amerei Frey. Both of them around drung the time of the novels.

Aegon IV's unstinting, single-handed efforts to re-establish the Targaryen dynasty and repopulate Westeros after the Dance have gone tragically unappreciated.

It gets a bit of an uptick in quality when Balon Swann and Loras Tyrell are added: they're both worthy KG knights by the usual standard. As usual, though, Cersei doesn't really care about competence, only loyalty (to her).

Oh, it would float, but there's a big difference between "passable seaworthy" and "practical for use in warfare". It would have been far too cumbersome for use as an actual warship, not to mention a resource-hog since the crew it would require could instead crew several smaller, more effective ships.

He's in his 40s. Jaime considers him an adequate fighter. Robett's Kingsguard is of pretty low quality by the standards of KGs, mind, so I don't know how much reliance we can place on it or its members as a representative sample.

Wasn't there an implication that the older Freys - Walder's elder sons and some of their sons - still place a lot of value on family because Walder has drilled it into them, but some of the younger ones, especially those with a fighting chance of succeeding to the Twins, have gone off the rails a bit? Aenys and Hosteen seem genuinely angry about Wyman's apparent murder of their kinsmen. It's possible to see some trace of familial feeling in Merrett, I think. Emmon and Cleos are a bit different because they're functionally Lannisters, but they're loyal to their adopted family and Cleos is even kind of honourable. Stevron is alright.

I think there are two ways of reading it. "Whatever the truth, there was never any doubt. King Viserys did xyz" doesn't necessarily imply that he did xyz because of the rumours. Rather, one could read it as Viserys designating the Velaryon boys as his heirs by ordering the dragons' eggs placed in their cradle, irrespective of the rumours, just because it was a normal thing to do with members of the royal family. In any case, "whilst in the cradle" is unambiguous. I guess it's not impossible that Jace was still "in the cradle" when Joffrey was born, but those Velaryon boys were big lads, and he'd surely have graduated to a proper bed by then.

They were all given eggs while "in the cradle". That rather suggests to me that they were indeed given them when they were born, sequentially, rather than all at the same time.

If the "forty" was actually ever built, it wasn't a practical warship, and the 7000 crew figure would still include both rowers and marines.

Tywin's position at the end of the Rebellion is more precarious than probably at any stage since he became Lord of Casterly Rock. This isn't the Tywin of the end of Robert's reign or the start of the WotFK, who in the words of the show is "probably the most powerful man in the kingdom" (an overstatement perhaps, but not much of one). This is a man desperate to try to win Robert's favour. He's tied up in the Targaryen regime by association, but he's also been the only great lord not to take sides in the war. He has, by all appearances, been dithering, waiting to see who won. Even the Ironborn pitched in. So he doesn't have any friends on the rebel side, but if Robert turns on him, it's hard to imagine that the loyalists would come to his aid either given that he hadn't committed his forces sooner. He is vulnerable and needs the new king's favour. This is surely why he turns on Aerys when he does, i.e. when he recognises that the war is lost for the loyalists and that their best hope (Rhaegar) is dead anyway. And in particular it's why - as indeed he tells Tyrion - he ordered the deaths of Rhaegar's family. Tywin is a ruthless, pragmatic, man, but I don't think we can assume this was easy for him. Although Aerys had done his best to push him away, he and Tywin were friends. Tywin is not a man who had many friends, but Aerys was one of them, and Tywin had served him loyally and well even as Aerys heaped indignity upon him. He seems to have liked and admired Rhaegar, too. It may be that the reason he hung back and didn't join Robert sooner (at a point when his contribution would surely have been decisive) was because of his personal reluctance to turn on the people he still on some level had an emotional connection to. And if it wasn't that, then the fact that Jaime was an effective hostage of Aerys's can't have helpd, and he'll have known that attacking King's Landing had a good chance of killing his favourite child. Ordering the attack on King's Landing was probably the hardest decision Tywin ever made, and he does it because he's desperate. Cersei becomes queen because Jon Arryn thinks a marriage alliance with the Lannisters will be helpful to shore up the new regime and Cersei is by far the best eligible bride available (there are no women of appropriate age available from the senior branches of any of the other great houses). But Tywin can have no expectation of Robert marrying Cersei, and if Robert marries someone else instead, Tywin can and will do squat. He'll still be lucky that Robert doesn't take Jaime's head and possibly his own.

Gregor Clegane has redeeming features! He has headaches! It's tragic! That's why he's only Near Pure Evil on the only scale that matters (VillainsWiki).