Runaway Penguin

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.

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.

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.

One thing re. foreshadowing... And "having a reason". Compare Dany to another flame-happy lady... Mel. When we are down to nitty gritty... What is the difference? We saw Mel mostly in the reference point of Davos Seaworth, an extremely down to earth character. He does not approve of people being burned alive - even if said people are traitors to his King to whom he is fully commited. He is horrified by the shadow babies, even if their use ends a civil war between Stannis and Renly at the cost of two lives. He wants to murder her after Blackwater - and she knows. Does she burn him? No. She has him locked up so that he does not try to do something rash in front of Stannis, as then he would have to die. He thwarts her plan to burn Robert's bastard son (books and show alike) and he gets promoted to Hand. Heck, she had a reason to burn Shireen, in her frame of reference - it was necessary to stop the Darkness. However we saw her in reference of people who strongly disagreed. Dany is always viewed through her own eyes. She is burning traitors. Fine. Then evil wizards. Great. Then evil slaver (and unleashing her new army to murder anyone looking like a slave master). Yay way to go good girl! Then there is the atrocity of 163 crucified kids - so let's go eye for an eye and crucify 163 random guys. They are all guilty. They are all enemies. Then feed a random guy to the dragons because his social class was conspiring against her. Again, no matter if she got the culprit or not. She captured enemy soldiers and gave them choice, kneel or die. She burned their general and his son alive... All in all, the only person where she did not go for fire as go-to weapon was the slave sentenced to death for murder. She was one of "hers", one of her worshippers, so he got the sword. If you put Mel and Dany side by side, you can see that there is a lot of parallels, the difference is in the observer. With Mel, we see rather inner thoughts of people who disapprove of her, with Dany we see her inner thoughts that view all her steps as fully reasonable and justified. What if we swapped this and had Mel as the hero and Dany viewed by eyes of, say, another fellow traveller who is not part of the Cult of Khaleesi? When we get in books a look at her through the Dornish eyes, she isn't looking as good as she believes she is.

Sorry but this is plain wrong. She was able to get there only because of everything else that happened. Would she ebe able to sneak in if Viseryon was not disabled and distracted? If Theon did not convince Night King he defeated the last obstacle on the way to Bran... If Beric did not save her. If Hound did not save her. And they would not save her if not drawn there by Jon. Same way she would not have everyone keeping the ice zombie s busy. It's kinda like saying that without Red Leader, Han et al we still have Luke who can destroy the Death Star ALL BY HIMSELF And as for the prophecy at hand, PTWP does not have to kill the big bad personally. He is to lead people against the darkness - and win. Additional qualifiers may or may not apply, but they do not point to Arya. Now expecting that defeating the darkness or leading people against it would actually involve directly AAR delivering the final blow would be a bit fairy tale formulaic. Same way Aragorn became a king and led the armies of Men against the darkness... But he did not slay Sauron. Sneaky ninja halflings did that. By the beginnign of the Shadow war I expected Sheridan to win by defeating Shadows... but it ended by him publicly shaming both Shadows and Vorlons into leaving the Milky Way alone for good. Same here. I do not mind Arya leading the final stab, it fitsd - where brute force and dragons fail, a sneaky assassin wins. It does nto invalidate the efforts of the others.

Wasn't it mentioned that there were little to no losses among them due to Pale mare, probably because they bath every day? Loss of a quarter o their force would be noted.

Ironborn are overrated. Large land battle is different to raids or boarding parties. What I wonder about more is where are the 3000+ Unsullied who are not accounted for.

3000 are Ser Granddad's tactical reserve in case Shavepate tries something.

5000 Unsullied are participating in Sortie. But I bet Shavepate is told all 8000 are leaving. 3000 are a reserve inside the city if things go pear-shaped.

Vic blows horn three times, part of Selmy's army retreats, Selmy despairs - and at that moment Second Sons turn coats and join the Ironborn. Credit for victory goes to Vic and he gives the Kinkingslayer Devil Monkey Imp the 1st to Selmy...

Well, Stormcrows may fly towards the storm same as away. They know they have to win as their former employer won't be too happy with them. And as far as command goes, if I was mercenary and saw on one side herons and chained slaves, I gues you'd wish to be on the other side ;) Tyrion is miserable because "curses! Foiled again!"