The hairy bear

I'll definitely will be reading as soon as it comes out. Probably I'll reread the Republic of Thieves just before release, but I don't think it's necessary. I seem to recall that The Gentleman Bastard's books are more self-contained than most, and this one won't include flashbacks. It will start with Locke and Jean just moving to a new setting. With Abercrombie's A Little Hatred coming out in September, Lynch's Thorn of Emberlain around Christmas, and (one can hope) Martin's Winds of Winter not much later, it seems that the coming months will be busy ones!

The appendixes of ACOK included a section devoted to "The King in the Narrow Sea". Last we had heard from Stannis in AGOT, he hadn't claimed the Throne. There are plenty of other mild spoilers in the appendixes, such as Brienne being included among Renly's Rainbow Guard (she is not named until the book's chapter 22). As I see it, Aegon will become a clear claimant the moment he sets a foot in Westeros with the Golden Company. His intentions are clearly explained in the previous book, and it shouldn't surprise anyone. But I guess we are not in agreement here...

There's been only one King Stannis and only one King Renly. No need to differentiate. But AWOIAF says: "The pretender Haegon I Blackfyre died in the aftermath of battle, slain treacherously after he had given up his sword". The case of "Haegon I", who was raised in Tyrosh and never set a foot in Westeros before his failed invasion attempt, is not that different from our "Aegon VI". And after that, we are told Bittersteel "crowned Haegon’s eldest son as King Daemon III Blackfyre in Tyrosh" FWIW, I always refer to the character as "Aegon VI". I've seen many other 'ardent readers' do this. Prince Aegon makes it harder to disambiguate (it could refer to many other Aegons that have held this title).

I'm really struggling to follow the logic here. If all the claimants to the Iron Throne have used numerals regardless of whether they had come anywhere close to the Iron Throne, how can we deduce that the use of "Aegon VI" has any weight in predicting whether his attempt will be successful? I think the fact that Aegon will be a claimant during TWOW can hardly be called a spoiler. The boy makes very clear during ADWD that he pretends to invade the Seven Kingdoms. To his supporters, the second he sets a foot in Westeros with an army he is already Aegon the sixth. And Jon Connington openly refers to Aegon as "his Grace" during the meeting with the Golden Company... (Give Yandry and Ysilla our thanks. Their part in this is done. They will not be forgotten when His Grace comes into his kingdom.)

As said, we have several canon examples of pretenders (or even sons of uncrowned pretenders) using regnal numbers: Rhaenyra of House Targaryen, First of Her Name, Queen of the Andals, the Rhoynar, and the First Men. (Fire and Blood) Daemon of House Blackfyre, the Second of His Name, rightborn King of the Andals and the Rhoynar and the First Men, Lord of the Seven Kingdoms and Protector of the Realm. (The Mystery Knight) Viserys of the House Targaryen, the Third of his Name, King of the Andals and the Rhoynar and the First Men, Lord of the Seven Kingdoms and Protector of the Realm. (A Game of Thrones)

I don't think that Martin using "Aegon VI" merits this conclusion. Pretenders always use the numeral that would correspond them, and within Martin's world Viserys also styled himself "Viserys III".

In the words of Benioff and Weiss: "Themes are for eighth-grade book reports ".

A 1 is all they'll get from me.

As Vaith says, it would have been obvious to everyone that Cersei did it. The fact that she not only got away with it, but also managed to get crowned king (without any blood claim to the Throne) without any opposition is another testament of the show's absurd writing these past seasons.

Yeah, the time to put he show out of its misery had come years ago.

Which Bran are you talking about? Because, as much of the other protagonists of the show, he has been inconsistenly portrayed across all the show. He is not much of a character, but a tapestry of unrelated one-liners.

Inconsistent

I think it'll be remembered in a very similar way as Lost. A groundbreaking show, with huge following both from cult fans and casual viewers, that started very strongly, lost it's way along the way, its writers got tired of it and run out of ideas, and with a very disappointing last season and finale.

I think that they became bolder and bolder each season, and started to believe they were great writers instead of okayish adaptators. In the first season, they followed the original material extremely faithfully. In the second season, they dared to do a single major change: Dany's adventures at Qarth. The result was easily the worst part of the season, but that didn't rise any red flag. The more commercial success the show had, the more they were convinced that they were superb writers. And once they ran out of source material, the free fall started. The sad thing is that, since the ratings have continued rising (due to the excellent characters, acting and production values), they still seem to believe that their writing is genius and are convinced that they've done a superb work. I don't think that's the problem here. Most of the criticism, both from the fans and the professional critics, do not come from "what they did", but "how they did it". It's not that the resolution was unpopular, but that it was unearned. It came out of the blue. They preferred to surprise than to make sense.

In terms of scale, a crossbow bolt hitting Drogon would be the equivalent of a paper pin hitting us. Potentially annoying, but hardly lethal.