The hairy bear

Ser Alliser certainly has an interesting story, but your sugar-coated version of him misses several key aspects. He stayed loyal to a king that kept murdering people on a whim, and planned to burn alive all the citizens of King's Landing. If you chose to support objectively evil and deranged monarchs, you can't complain much when the tables turn against you. Exile at the Wall was a much better fate than the one Aerys' victims received. When at the Wall, he frequently bullied and abused the recruits under his care, giving them insulting nicknames and encouraging the stronger to prey on the weak. And while it's true that Jon has sent him on a mission that has a certain danger, this is nothing compared to when him and Janos Slynt ordered Jon to murder Mance Rayder at a parley (which was 100% suicidal, not to mention highly dishonorable).

It makes plenty of sense to me. Viserys was just seven when he was lost on the Gay Abadon, and I don't see why we should presume that he was deeply connected to her mother (he was a fifth son who would have been raised by servants). And I don't see why you take for granted that he was a good man. He is described as stern, shrewd and calculating. His wife left him, he forced her daughter to a loveless marriage, and we all know how his heir turned out. And if I can see Viserys defending the idea that women can't sit on the throne out of self-interest, there's even less of a doubt that Aegon IV would have no trouble championing that cause. How can you ignore a huge civil war that took place within your lifetime? That's a herd of elephants in the room! Even if you don't mention it, establishing that women can't inherit and justifying it with precedents from before the Dance clearly renders Rhaenyra as an usurper. We really can't know. Baelor certainly didn't plan to die before Viserys (he was 22 years younger), and I'm not sure he would have been fond of prince Aegon. And Baelor the Blessed wasn't a particularly responsible king, and he could have refused to name a heir. He might have believed that after his death the gods would intercede to show the realm who should rule, or whatever. But yes, it's perfectly possible that Baelor had named his uncle as his heir. And still, that doesn't mean that Viserys II and his heirs wouldn't have a vested interest in discrediting the idea that women could become monarchs. I think it's telling that this is the exactly the same tale that the blacks used to oppose Rhaenyra. That she was a slut and mother to bastards. Yeah, that's the image that history has of Aegon III's daughters. And this is, surely not by coincidence, the legacy that is most convenient to Visery's line.

I'm convinced that's what we'll read in Fire and Blood II. We can't draw definite conclusions from this specific justification not being mentioned in AWOIAF. The summaries covering the era are terribly succint, and probably with very little actual input from George. It's a logical argument that in any realistic scenario someone in Westeros would make. And when George writes about that time with a little depth, that will surely be mentioned.

That would be my guess too. Not only they have a lesser title, but also their lands are adjacent to Winterfell and are the ones that the Starks have controlled for the longest time (the Wolfswood was where the Blackwoods were supposedly expelled and at the Sea Dragon Point the Warg King was slain millenia ago). So it'd make sense to assume that those lands are Stark "core lands" while other areas where conquered to the Kings of the First Men, the Marsh King, the Red King or others at a much later time. So Ned would be just giving orders to his closer lords (both geographically and politically). Not necessarily. There are Hedge Knights that are ranked amongst the most powerful lords of their regions (Templeton, Fossoway, Connington...), while there are noble houses that rule over just a few small hamlets.

The sample chapters that are being released stress that they have huge eyes, small noses and long necks. So, yes, they won't be the standard high fantasy elf.

If you assume, as it seems that you are doing, that Orys was the first person that used the name Baratheon, then the logical assumption was that "Theon" was his legal father. Regardless of who was his biological father, nothing prevents Orys from receiving the name of whoever acknowledged him. (Just as Joffrey Baratheon has no Baratheon blood). But I'm not even sure that we need to take for granted that there wasn't a lineage of Baratheons before Orys. I know that AGOTs appendix says that Orys was the founder of House Baratheon, but that could easily be interpreted as "House Baratheon of Storm's End" (just as we could say that Aegon the Conqueror founded the Targaryen dynasty). If you are open to that interpretation, then the Baratheon name could come from many generations ago, either through Orys mother (if she was a single mother) or through whoever married her. The truth is that there are far too many unanswered questions to make sanse out of the origins of House Baratheon...

Can we?? Why Orys's grandfather and not his father, or grand-grandfather, or some ancestor from dozens of generations ago??

I'm not the biggest fan of the Tywin being poisoned theory. He died at a few weeks (at least two, probably a little bit more) after Oberyn's death. By then, Elia would have been gone for long, so you'd need a poison with very long-lasting delayed effects. Besides, Tywin knows Oberyn's reputation and would have been careful with what he ate/drank those days. As for the smell during the funeral, although that could be easily explained by his bowels being punctured, my favorite possibility is that Rohanne and Cyrelle Tarbeck (the last living members of house Tarbeck that Tywin forced to join the silent sisters after murdering their familes) were the ones that took care of Tywin's body. They would be in their early sixties at the time, so it would fit nicely.

Or perhaps people fully understand the subtleties, but they just think that your position is untenable? Being the first wive of a young Lord of White Harbor you get a good (not great) status. There would be dozens of more wealthy and more pleasant courts in Westeros, but it would be a good (not great) match for a Targaryen princess. But being the wive of an old lord with heirs? Bad deal. Whatever limited status you may achieve, it's fleeting. Viserra would soon find herself a widow on a foreign land. Compare it to what Alysanne did when she wanted to marry Daella, she offered her to choose between the childless lord of Storm's End, the childless heir of Casterly Rock, and the Lord of the Eyrie (with two sons). All of them Lords Paramount. Most of them, without heirs. And Daella gets to choose!! Viserra had every right to be angry at their parents for this double standard. Yes. Of course I can see it. And you must see that wanting to ensure that Viserra's children cannot inherit anything is a huge slap in her face. And as always, double standards: Daemon gets to marry Rhea Royce (so that his potential children would be the lords of Runstone). And Daella could have chosen to be the mother of the future lords Baratheon or Lannister. It's not a planned political strategy or a global policy. It's just meanness targeted at a 15 year old girl. Your ramblings about House Manderly being related to house Belmore and Tyrell just because Theomore resembles Belmore and Theo Tyrell (conveniently ignoring Theo Wull, Theo Carlton, Theo Frey, Theo Teague, Theo Bolling, and house Moreland) are absurd. But even if you bought that... we know that the marriage did not happen. And we know that the North did not revolt, and that there was no significant conflict with the crown or with the neighboring regions, and that the entire reign of Viserys was calm and peaceful. It seems clear that the marriage was not a necessity. And still, Viserra's parents wanted to force her into it against her will.

In your previous post, you were trying to convince us that Viserra's marriage was a political necessity. You said that "From our modern point of view forced marriage of a young girl to someone unattractive is the ultimate betrayal of a parent. We struggle to see beyond the needs and desires of individuals to the needs of the Kingdoms." When I try to explain that even only considering politics, there would be much better marriages available, then you say that Theomore was the best option because they didn't want Viserra to have any kind of power. So... as we were saying all the time, it was not a political necessity. They just judged the character of a 15 year old girl, they decided that she was not to their liking, and they sentenced her to a loveless marriage to a remote land, with no power of any kind and awful prospects for her and her future children. If that's not bad parenting, I don't know what it is.

Thinking that forcing a teenage girl witness how his father gruesomely kills his lover may actually do some good to her education is beyond stupid. I honestly don't think Jaehaerys was that stupid. He wasn't really hoping that "the message sunk in". He was just being cruel and sadistic. Is it your point that if she had not been discovered, she would not have been punished? It' funny how you have been able to write two consecutive posts only 18 minutes apart... that contradict each other. This statement misses a couple of key issues: Lord Manderly being "unattractive" has never been the problem with the ones who claim that the match is awful. The main problem is that the match is a very bad one from a political perspective, because Lord Manderly is old and has plenty of heirs. Which means that you'll spare a valuable asset (a very beautiful Targaryen maiden) to seal an alliance that won't last very long. In a decade or so, you'll find White Harbor ruled by Manderlys unrelated to the Targaryens again. It would be much more politically savvy to marry Viserra to a childless lord, or a heir, which would ensure a long-term loyalty. The books do not support your idea that Jaehaerys had a planned policy of using Targaryen marriages to weave alliances. He married Aemon and Baelon within the family. Maegelle and Vaegon found their callings by themselves. And he dealt with the Daella, Saera and Viserra situations on the spot, improvising as it went. If he had really planned beforehand, he would have educated her daughters accordingly (so that they wouldn't take it as a given that they'd marry their brothers), the bethrotals could have been negotiated in advance (so that great matches could have been available) and the marriages would have taken place earlier (to avoid the scandals that came to be due to the lack of foresight). Jaehaerys had really intended to use her daughters to weave alliances

It's much more easy to keep track of them in the way that George does, which is giving them cool monikers. We can easily distinguish all the Aegon Targaryens in the story: the Conqueror, the Uncrowned, the Elder, the Dragonbane, the Unworthy, Egg,...

No. Tywin is a completely horrendous human being, and no one in his right mind should give him a pass for his actions. It's not only what he did to Tysha. It's how during the Tarbeck-Reyne massacre he disregarded the rules of war and proceed to murder entire families and households (including infant babies, women and non-combatants). It's how submitted King's Landing to a needless bloody sack inflicting murder and rape upon innocent citizens. It's about how he responded to Catelyn arresting his sons with burning defenseless hamlets and murdering the smallfolk. It's about his unrestrained pride, his cruelty, and his misogyny. Are you really claiming that Tywin is a good guy because he didn't murder a newborn baby after the mother died in childbirth?

There's bits of many participants in the War of the Roses in many characters from Asoiaf. You can see bits of Richard III in Ned, but also in Stannis, Maekar or Tyrion. I'd say that Stannis is the closest parallel. That said, regarding the real Richard III: The basis for declaring Edward's sons as illegitimate was not whether they had been sired by him (no one questioned that), but whether his marriage with Elizabeth Woodville had been valid. And that's a complex issue based on technicalities that is really open to interpretation. Shakespeare's play is not Richard's point of view. Is the Tudor point of view. Basically propaganda against the previous regime to justify having seized the throne by force. If a Lannister funded playwright wrote a piece titled "Eddard of Winterfell", Ned would also be portrayed as "rotten to his core". Richard III didn't reach power through a "palace coup". A couple of bishops started to claim publicly that Edward V was a bastard, and the public opinion was convinced. A delegation representng the citizens of London, nobles and commons, drew a petition beggin Richard to assume the crown. He did not accept until a few days later. I'm not saying that it's not possible that Richard had orchestrated the whole thing. The bishops and the delegates could have been bought. But in any case, Richard didn't reach the throne by force, but because most Londoners were convinced that he should be the king. It's not a fact that Richard ordered the death of the boys. He was not in London when they disappeared. It's a debated issue among historians. That was completely made up by Shakespeare. There's no contemporary record mentioning that Richard had anything to do with George's execution. It was Edward IV who personally summoned him to court, accused him of treason, and sentenced him to death.

Just saw it yesterday. To be honest, I was pleasantly surprised. It's far from what I would call a good movie, but given the context (made just to avoid losing the rights, an invented Mary Sue for the protagonist, rushed animation,...) I wasn't expecting to be entertained. And at any rate, it's clearly better than what they've given us in the Rings of Power. I respect the fact that, even though they felt the need to center the plot around an invented character, they stuck to the lore and didn't deviate from Tolkien's template. It's almost as this could have happened in-world. I also agree that it's not a bad thing to portray Helm's shortcomings. For me, the weaker parts were the appearences from big creatures from the trilogy: the eagles, the mûmakil and the Watcher of the Waters. They were distracting, strained credulity, and completely unneeded.