History of Westeros

On the Daeron the Drunken page: http://awoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/Daeron_Targaryen_(son_of_Maekar_I) appears the following line: "He also told Ser Duncan about a dream he had. A great red dragon would fall on Ser Duncan, dead, but the knight would walk off alive." The word "red" should be removed. Daeron's dream did not specify a color for the dragon, and that makes it seem like some sort of red/black dragon (i.e Blackfyre) reference. GRRM doesn't seem to have even invented (or fully invented) the idea of the Blackfyre Rebellions until after the Hedge Knight.

Shavepate can't pull that off because Barristan left 3k Unsullied inside the city.

GRRM once said, (and it wasn't that long ago so I could probably find it if necessary) that Barristan and Arthur Dayne, both in their primes and equally armed, would be too close to call. If Dayne gets to use Dawn then he'd win. So Barristan was as good as it gets. Now of course he's just very very good, it seems.

Victarion's POV screams and begs for an epic one-on-one fight. He's already had one excellent one, but it was short and Serry wasn't really his match. Now he has his special burned hand and he specifically yearns to fight the best of the best: He would give half his teeth for the chance to try his axe against the Kingslayer or the Knight of Flowers. That was the sort of battle that he understood. and the Company of the Cat seem to be the fighting the Ironborn (perhaps with the Long Lances), so if he aims to seek out the best of theirs, no doubt he will notice this large red bearded man: Bloodbeard, the savage commander of the Cats, was a roaring giant with a ferocious appetite for slaughter. I'm calling it now, Victarion vs. Bloodbeard in single combat. Vic wins.

The Crusader Kings II mod is probably the best Game of Thrones game out there, which is pretty funny yet somewhat predictable. Various game studious tried to make a good GoT game, and the best is an unofficial fan made mod. I have played it a *lot*. It's a dynasty/bloodlines game (genetics, titles, intrigue), rather than a war game, though obviously there is plenty of war.

There is The Sword, who have a song called "To Take the Black". Great song.

No, another that fits is "unMelisandre," or even "unMoqorro." There is plenty of evidence that one or both of those two are undead. Or it could be someone we haven't figured out. There is zero evidence that Brienne is undead. Literally zero. It's a guess, and I won't say it's impossible, but you should call a spade a spade.

Trebla :( left us hanging!! lol

Oh very strong chance there, I'd say. Good call.

Since there are exactly 10 "tendrils/tentacles", and squids/krakens have 10 tentacles, it's extremely likely we're talking about Euron.

The answers here are very straightforward. They didn't save Rhaenys because there was no way to do so without it being known. If you save them both, Robert etc know they are alive, and thus there is danger. If you save Aegon and not Rhaenys, then no one is likely to suspect Aegon is still alive. It's pretty easy to get one baby to pass for another (especially with a smashed head). Also, Varys' motivations to save Aegon may have nothing to do with Rhaegar. And as another posted pointed out, sadly Rhaenys is not nearly as important as Aegon. Aegon is/was the real heir.

Also, Martin planned the red wedding before starting the series, so when you suggest that he wrote Robb's death because he couldn't think of a better way.. You're wrong. :) That said, I hope there are fewer POV's in tWoW.

That's a stretch IMO.

Sorry, it did not. :(

As for historical references.. Wales had Eryri (Snowdonia), the Vale has the Eyrie. Both are high up and essentially impregnable to assault.

There have been several mentions of Memory, Sorrow and Thorn in this thread.. but there are quite a few more that deserve mentioning. 1) Forget King Arthur and the sword in the stone. Arthur Dayne is Camaris from MST. Both were the finest knights in the realm, known as much for honor as for martial skill. **Both wield a sword forged from a meteorite** (Looney theory based on this connection about to be posted after I finish this one). 2) Pryrates, a fire mage who comes from a far off land, is closest advisor to the king and wields undue influence. An obvious Melisandre. Also, said king was the unpopular younger brother of a popular king. 3) There is an ancient evil that arises in the frozen north. I don't need to explain that one. :) 4) In MST there are good elves (hidden from humanity and thought extinct) and bad elves (ancient evil in the north). I suspect that the Children of the Forest are the good-guy counterpart, "hidden good guy elves" (even if they are all dead in aSoIaF. I bet they are not, however). This also makes me suspect that the CotF and the Others have similar origins. 5) If R+L = J is true (I think it is), the main character of MST is a "hidden heir" a la Jon Snow. This is by itself, not much since the hidden heir thing has been done a million times, but considering all the other parallels, it goes to show how much Martin was inspired by MST. 6) Also, though it certainly isn't unique to the two series, MST used shifting POV's as the narrative style. I recall that there are even more parallels, but I read MST more than 5 years ago. When I read it, I had already read the pre-Feast books at least 4 times each. Reading MST was fun.. it wasn't great, but there was a wealth of similarities to aSoIaF which enhanced the experience.

I am the one making the claim, I don't think GRRM ever did. However, I am not doing so lightly. Two reasons: 1) I don't recall exactly where I found it, but there is a quote somewhere that goes like this. GRRM: "[i was reading] Memory, Sorrow and Thorn and I stopped at one point and said, 'yes! epic fantasy can be good!'" I wish I could find that quote but I haven't been able to. It was made well before Feast was published, so it's no surprise I can't find it. But here's a quote from 2000 that helps: "Tad William's fantasy series, that was very influential. It was good work. When I read his books, it was one of the things that got me to think of doing one of my own." There are references all over the internet that have Martin naming Tolkien, Vance and Tad Williams as his main inspirations. Since he borrowed a ton from the War of the Roses, perhaps I should say it was his main epic fantasy inspiration. Or just "main fictional inspiration". Two: The main evidence comes from actually reading MS&T. If you do/have it's super obvious that GRRM borrowed a lot from it. If a few ppl request it, I will make a short list of similarities. There are tons. Mostly just surface level stuff, but several are extremely straight forward.

Whenever I can't figure out something about this series, I think of The Dragonbone Chair. It was Martin's main inspiration for this series. There was a race of ancient, elf-like good guys who were in a hidden faerie kingdom of sorts. iirc, they couldn't leave. They are the equiv of the CotF in my mind, even if the CotF are extinct. My guess is that the 3EC is bound to a specific area, like those elfy guys in TDC, perhaps because it is safe from The Others, or because of magic similar to that of the Wall, which prevents magical beings from passing. It's a little bit on the high-magic side of things, but that is sorta the direction the series is heading. Not high magic necessarily, but a good deal more than there has been to this point.