Mithras

Dorne was last year's filler. Riverlands and Iron Islands will be this year's filler.

  Thursday means Thor's Day in reference to Thor. Its German is exactly the same. Donner comes from Donar, Germanic name of Thor.

There is a Lord of Winterfell called Donnor Stark. I think George thought of German "Donnerstag" (Thursday) while coming up with that name.

  I discussed this matter in this thread.   Even before the coming of the Andals, the Wolf's Den had been raised by King Jon Stark, built to defend the mouth of the White Knife against raiders and slavers from across the narrow sea (some scholars suggest these were early Andal incursions, whilst others argue they were the forebears of the men of Ib, or even slavers out of Valyria and Volantis).   I think these slavers and raiders were early Andal incursions as some scholars suggest. Andals started exploring the coastlands of the Narrow Sea and Hugor was the first warlord who successfully raided Westeros. Much like Ragnar Lothbrok, Hugor became a subject of legends and myths. I think these slaver raids of the Andals started 5000-6000 years ago.

  That is no mistake. Andals were slavers once.    :)

  Lady Dustin is not a Dustin by birth :S

(2) is my vote as well. I also take the fall of Old Ghis being 5000 years ago as a solid date as George himself said that the books trump WOIAF in such cases. The only exception is the phrase "a thousand years". It is used frequently and unless we have good reasons, we should take it as equivalent to “long time ago” instead of dating stuff.

There was a Samwell Dayne known as the Starfire who sacked Oldtown. This happened safely in the pre-Andal period. It is unknown whether the Daynes had Dawn or the title Sword of the Morning was formed at this time. Yandel says that the origin of Dawn is lost to legends.

I have made an entire thread about an inconsistency regarding the Yi Ti dynasties. Assuming the list of the God-Emperors of Yi Ti is chronological, the problem is that there are not enough dynasties to fit in a period stretching from the fall of Old Ghis (which happened 5000 years ago) to present time. The only reference to the fall of Old Ghis being 5000 years ago comes from Dany. Possible solutions are:   The list is not chronological (although it does feel like chronological, not to mention there is no point in giving an unchronological king list in a history book unless you are covering up a mistake :P) The sources of Yandel about Yi Ti are contradictory as he himself briefly mentioned (but considering that there is such an apparent inconsistency, Yandel either did not assess the accuracy of his sources about Yi Ti enough, or he did not care much) Dany misremembers the fall of Old Ghis. In order to remove this inconsistency, the fall of Old Ghis should have taken place around 3000-4000 years ago. This would have many consequences to the history of Valyria and other histories related to Valyria.

How about Mel's visions of Bolton banners burning and her roaming in the crypts of Winterfell? The thing about Mel in the books is that her visions are true but her interpretations suck.

The plans for the "assassination" of Jon started long before the Pink Letter in the books. What they tried to do was murder in the books as well.

In George's original draft, he planned to have Dany murder her husband because he would murder her brother and not be committed to the invasion of Westeros. George changed this into what we have today: Dany comes to the point of suicide due to the abuse and rape from Drogo but she has a dream about dragons and suddenly, she is strong! The original plan was much better. I never see any feminist criticism about this stupid turn of events in the books.

Except it is all but confirmed that Rickon will be the first Stark to return to Winterfell (at least physically :)). He will be Stannis' public figure to bind the North to his cause. George promised us that Stannis is one of the lies Dany is supposed to slay; so, he should empower Stannis enough so that he could be a challenge to Dany when she comes. The only way to do that is to give him the North and that Manderly Fleet in the making.

Although I believe the Others are the ultimate bad guys, I think there might be a few good Others who do not want to kill people and turn them. George is the writer of Fevre Dream and that was exactly the case for the vampires there. A good vampire and his followers were trying to find a cure that would release them from being addicted to human blood.