Runaway Penguin

Not really - Lutetia was a town already before the Roman conquest, then Rome built it as a city. The King held court there because it was already an important city by the time the Frank empire broke in two and it was a natural center of the Western half. Note that when it was decided to move the capital from Paris to newly built Versailles, there was not much migration...

Note that to revive unCat, Beric had to give his own flame. To revive UnBrienne thus, UnCat would have to cease to exist. TANSTAAFL. And I doubt UnCat wants to leave her murder quest alone - if for no other reason that Brienne has no quest regarding Freys that would compel her to continue hanging her (or even Lannisters in general). So Brienne survives because she was cut down - and I doubt she would go to fetch Jaime if Pod and Ser Hyle died.

Yes, that is still more than exist on Trident and its major tributaries - and in few centuries, not 8000 years. the Romans also routinely employed large pontoon bridges. Especially if the Twins are told to be the only crossing point for hundreds of miles, and other lords being jealous of the wealth it brings - it would make sense for the lords or even the Targ King to commission another bridge across the Green Fork. And the rest of tributaries. Esp. around the Ruby Ford...

The lack of cities and towns in Westeros is commented upon enough. Especially around major trading routes. That being said, King's Landing position is similar to say Hamburg, Bremerhaven, Le Havre (Harfleur), Saint-Malo, Belém, New York, Norfolk, Hull, Edinburgh... It is not so unlikely. It is not in a river delta (then again say Saint Petersburg is THE river delta), but on a border of estuary, so there may not even be marches etc., at least on the rockier side of river. And at the same time the floods may not be that much of a problem - I would just assume the Southern bank is the flood zone and if the hovels between the walls and the river get washed away, who cares? In general Medieval cities were built on the first plateau above the river, with the area next to the river that was flooded on a regular basis being left to poor. So if there is something iffy it is "flea bottom" being inside the city walls instead of between the city and the river - then again major port there would explain why that estate, while risky, is valuable. So the King's landing position and even size are not suspicious - lack of other large cities is. And lack of notable bridges over large rivers.

I think the #3 moment was the King's Landing BBQ (or in geenral Dany's coin finally falling and showing which side is up). I think in the books it will also be KL, but maybe not with Cersei, but with fAegon. To be honest... There is a lot of complaints about the last seasons being too rushed, but if GRRM sticks to just two final books, they would have to be rushed far more to fit these 3 "big" moments as well as the whole Others arc and so on...

Jon was elected because the two major factions would rather see him than the other faction there I suspect something like that would happen. Kinda Brexit plan voting situation: Not only no single candidate would get majority support in the Council, but every single candidate will also be unacceptable to at least few of the other factions. After some time of deadlock... Sam and Tyrion start to do the same Sam did in the NW election, quiet words with leaders of the factions, embellishing the facts, playing on their animosities with the others etc. (or maybe only Sam as Tyrion would play up to be another unacceptable faction). It just won't happen in few minutes among 12 people or so, but it will happen.

Somehow belatedly the hread title clicked... Spinoff series opening narration: "West of Westeros: the final frontier. These are the voyages of the sailship Nymeria. Its five-year mission: to explore strange new worlds. To seek out new life and new civilizations. To boldly go where no one has gone before!"

Then she will sneeze at them and they will die of common cold. It is known.

Not that taken by ending, but I presume this is the GRRM's ending. And considering he has more story lines... If the last two books are to be two and manageable, I am afraid he will have to rush even more than the show did.

This is again trying to shift blame from Dany. Cersei did not make her nuke the city. Sansa did not. It was Dany's action, Dany's decision. Dany made it pretty clear it has nothing to do with any "tax" or so - it has to do with expressing love for her. Westeros didn't, so she will rule by fear. And to drive the fear home, she will immolate the biggest city. She did not want to make the people of King's Landing afraid. She wanted to make the whole continent afraid.

Also the goal. Tywin wanted to take the King's Landing and present it gift wrapped to Robert to get him to marry Cersei. This means that sacked or not, the city astill has to stand (and it is implied the sack did not last that long as Ned's Northerners arrived pretty soon). Tywin did not want to send a message to all Westeros to fear him (I mean people already feared the Lannisters after the whole Castamere affair :)).

That would be my take as well. Her speech to Tyrion, her talk with Grey Worm... Showed that she sees all inhabitants of KL guilty of not overthrowing Cersei and that she wants them to suffer. With Jon she accepts that she will never be loved and so she'd make sure everyone fears her. When the bells started to ring, she was at crossroads. She could follow last Jorah's advice and trust Tyrion and ascend to the unsure unloved throne... Or she could teach everyone a lesson as she wanted. Also a note for anyone believing burning down Red Keep would be enough - not in her view. Her goal is not to frighten the people of King's Landing, but to frighten the entire continent by burning it's biggest city to crisp.

@Arakan Well written. Additional lesson I would say, is "Who does unusually bad things to bad people will sooner or later do it to the good ones as well, if left unchecked". There is a fascination with "antiheroes" who brutally murder the "deserving", but... You can see the same in every dictatorship that is run by any ideology. It may start with drastic punishment for the thieves and traitors, but soon enough everyone who does not cheer enthusiastically enough is a traitor. So... Beware those who promise to go out of their way to torture and murder the "deserving" because ultimately it may be you.

The progression is fairly clear, TBH. Indifference to her crappy brother being killed in a very brutal fashion. Burning a very evil witch (Was she though? She was taking a revenge on her rapist. MMD just did what Sansa did to Ramsay. EDIT: To clarify: Figurative rapist of her town and her folks. I know she was not raped by Drogo directly.) Threatening to burn a city unless they let her in. Burning a very evil warlock. Leaving her evil handmaiden and evil sugardaddy to die in a locked vault. Reneging on a deal, burning a cartoonish villain and releasing her new army to eradicate a social class. But hey, they were slavers (all of them? Narrative does not care). Going "eye for eye" by crucifying random members of a social class, not caring if they were the ones responsible for the atrocity she wanted to avenge. Feeding a random member of a social class to dragons. Noteworthy: When one of "hers" had to be executed, did she roast him alive? No, she went the way of quick beheading. Threatening to destroy not one, but three cities with all that entails. Worse yet, knowing full well these cities would be also full of slaves and (as she learned while trying to rule Mereen) non-slavers. The progression is subtle, going from burning cartoonish villains to brutally executing people who she saw as her enemies just because of their social class, without caring about their guilt or lack thereof. What's the next step? Either snapping out of it, ceasing to be a dragon... Or fully embracing it. Both would be surprising plot twists, and she might have decided to leave the dragon behind if she felt loved same way the freshly liberated slaves loved and adored her. But free people of Westeros are not the same as slaves. They are also not the same as Dothraki awed by her unburtness and dragon - they are wary of dragons and people who are a bit too fire-happy. So... Fear it is. It was not a "180° turn". She just came to a junction where she could go 90°either way.

Not usually. Because everyone knew how much is such fealty worth while the conflict rages. It was far more usual to either execute them outright, or hold them for ransom. Such things would be done after the war, if prisoners were taken - and often in such case the punishment would be exile. It is even a tactical thing: If you demonstrate your enemy there is no escape, they will fight harder. And the justification - "I will not enslave people" as a response to suggestion to lock them up and use them as leverage / give them time to think - is hollow if the alternative is death. Dany's biggest thing with Tarlys was not whether it was legal/justified or not. It is the form. She did exactly what her father did - and in his favourite form. It was worse than a crime, it was a mistake. It demonstrated all the nice talk abour not being Aerys II was just talk. Perhaps she is not getting a hard-on from burning people alive, but she seems to be totally oblivious to how is such punishment seen. Though... I guess not. She burns her perceived enemies. When she has to execute her ally - the former slave - he gets a swift beheading.