Universal Sword Donor

Nobody except the guy who knows best

So glad that Highlander won the Academy Award for best movie ever made

It's pretty clear to her: "It was too soon. My lady, you do not understand. As I've told the Lord Protector, a pinch of sweetsleep will prevent the shaking, but it does not leave the flesh, and in time . . ." "Time will not matter if his lordship has a shaking fit and falls off the mountain. If my father were here, I know he would tell you to keep Lord Robert calm at all costs." "I try, my lady, yet his fits grow ever more violent, and his blood is so thin I dare not leech him any more. Sweetsleep . . . you are certain he was not bleeding from the nose?" "He was sniffling," Alayne admitted, "but I saw no blood." Colemon literally tells her that it doesn't leave the body and it causes nose bleeds. She's sniffed out peter's games without much guidance (and recognizes that he's not someone to be trusted) but Colemon is being truthful by looking out for SR, which tells herself earlier in the chapter.

Because killing Tommen would make the realm even more fucked up than letting Cersei rule it. Ostensibly he's leaving the realm in just bad enough condition that the Targs can come back but not so bad it's fractured forever.

I wouldn't even categorize it as short term goals. She literally thinks it could easily be Robert's life or her life. Don't have the ebooks in front of me, but her conversations (and LFs) with the Maester make it pretty clear she knows what's happening to SR but it matters less than her survival

Bronn picked a fight on his terms because he could (and wasn't weighed down by armor). The tournament held at the Bloody Gate is, uh, not gonna be as vulnerable as people marching through a mountain pass.

He can speak for me too. It wouldn't surprise me if the Burned Men attacked someone near the tourney and then got wiped out by the knights of the Vale.

It was always Jaime. He says as much in ASOS when he gives Jaime oathkeeper

He didn't need to. At that point, Manderly was already building ships for months at that point. We know he has 20-25 ships when Davos visits and says he has double that. Any sellsails that Robb would want to hire would be farther away, have to face the Saan gauntlet if they aren't from Braavos, and are still untrustworthy mercenaries. We also aren't sure they seized any actual gold. Castermine has mines but it's a ruin and not actively mined. The other two places the GJ seizes are mines but we know nothing about them but their names. Capturing mines doesn't mean you capture significant amounts of gold, not even any. They could hold some scraps waiting to be sent to CR to be minted into dragons or just stored in the Lannister treasury. He'd already tried to acquire a naval presence from the IB and failed, and the Vale has power at sea too (if FAB holds true to the present day). You can criticize the results and methods, but he definitely realized the importance of naval power and hiring sellsails is basically a non-starter. I swore there was a SSM where Martin basically says "you won't be able to get mercenary companies across the narrow sea in time, so you fight with what's there", but for the life of me I can't find it. If Robb did hire sellsails, there is a very strong probability they would have gotten there after the RW -- akin to the Myrish crossbowmen for the Blackfyre rebellion -- or not come at all.

Pungent and missing the point as ever. I asked if there was evidence to backup the greenhouse roof being made of diamond shaped glass, which you didn’t provide, and I had to find by looking at the chapter. You showed examples of windows.

It's not. Frankly your theory doesn't really hold much water to me, even in a series as wrapped up in symbolism and foreshadowing as this series. My point is that GRRM can make his greenhouses work however he wants.

The Karstarks were post Rickard being executed / giving the order to find Jaime Lannister as well as some clearly other leaderless soldiers / broken men / awful people. The ones that come to mind would be survivors of Duskendale or the Bloody Mummers. The bloody mummers could well have pillaged the RL whilst "under Robb's command" as Roose would put it, but we have nothing onscreen to confirm it. Generally operating as an army under Robb, no they were not pillaging in the RL. Nor do we have any textual confirmation that the BWB is pillaging them either. Those closest we get is this: “Justice.” Thoros smiled wanly. “I remember justice. It had a pleasant taste. Justice was what we were about when Beric led us, or so we told ourselves. We were king’s men, knights, and heroes . . . but some knights are dark and full of terror, my lady. War makes monsters of us all.” And we have no idea if he's just talking about hanging random Freys and their men or if the BWB is actually just robbing people now.

Lol who the hell is she going to ask? Ashara is dead. Ned Dayne isn't alive, and the story he hears is about Wylla.

Right. However I didn't make the point. I asked a question about a point you didn't support. Thank you for clarifying. As to my evidence, well if you're going to make a greenhouse effective, you need to maximize the light coming in. Tons of little latticed diamond shapes -- like those often found in medieval stained glass -- in the roof are going to dramatically reduce the amount of light allowed in. Granted this is a modern example but the contrast in surface area take up is striking. In an area where it might be winter for half a decade, you're going to want the maximum amount of light possible. Throw that in with the knowledge it's a roof that needs to be able to hold the weight of winter snows and will have beams supporting it.... It's a fantasy story so obviously everything can be bent or outright fabricated, so it's kinda moot.

For sure political considerations are always in play, but that doesn't mean that they override military decisions or that someone just didn't make a bad decision. They definitely didn't override the military concerns because keeping his men together instead of bleeding strength was more important. Robb just made a dumb decision like he did with Lord Karstark. Politically and militarily it was more expedient to keep him as a hostage to make sure Harrion kept his men loyal and together. Robb's theme in the Wo5K is that he's militarily great and politically inept. So while political considerations might come into play, Robb's making the wrong decisions anyway.