You: Italics, Me: not

Yes but there was no point where he recognized or expressed his realization of the identity of the knight. Tyrion had no "aha" moment that would explain his shift. Sloppy editing would be my bet.

Agreed. Sloppy.


Read again the chapter where Brienne learns of his death, and pay attention to the description of the brother digging the grave in that same chapter. He's not dead. Even if he does stay out of things from now on, however, I think he has still fulfilled a purpose in illustrating the need for a cause and meaning, and how you need a reason to fight, rather than simply being good at it. Kind of an interesting arc to accompany Arya shortly before she goes off to become an assassin with her teacher constantly reiterating that she must forego all those reasons and causes and make herself into a neutral instrument of death. That's more or less what Sandor was - he struck and killed as his masters bid, while raging against the hypocrisy and futility of his profession, as he saw it.

Agreed. He serves that purpose for narrative, for sure, and if he's not dead, then it addresses my confusion over the fact that he could die when there were so many signs (including R'hllor sparing him) that he was supposed to live for some unidentified purpose (or the identified one of killing his brother).

Probably a ploy by Ramsay to get his captives back by bluff.

Yeah, but that seems like a fairly weak explanation, and still leaves alot to speculation. Even if it's a bluff, does that mean that he was lying about catching Mance? Was there some sort of subterfuge to give him lightbringer and make him think Stannis is dead, perhaps by Manderly? Was there even a battle? Why is Ramsay writing instead of Roose? Etc. The point is that, while I agree with you that reading the story with even a mild critical eye will render it 'predictable' in the very basic sense of who stays alive and who dies, it seems to me that your initial criticism implied that this predictability was a lame sign of Martin trying too hard. So I guess I'm agreeing somewhat that the attempted trick of constant surprises is a bit eye-rolling, but I'm trying to make the point that who lives and who dies is not the only intrigue in the book, and the more layered stuff is still interesting and intriguing. So perhaps we're in agreement...



Yes. Also, there is no indication that Varys is after anything other than restoring the one House that could truly unify the realm. His goals are purely political. Also his confession to Tyrion about his hatred of magic rang a little too true for me to accept that he's operating on that prophecy.

Well, I'll reserve judgement on Varys' motivations until revealed in the book. If Dany does seem redundant in the end, I owe you a Coke.

You're operating under the mistaken assumption that this unification is a good thing. It might be fine for the Riverlands and West and Reach and Stormlands who are so culturally similar that they are effectively one nation, even when they were divided into separate kingdoms, but why should the North, the Iron Isles and Dorne not be allowed to go their own ways? They are different cultures and geographically discrete, so why should they and their people be forced to bow down to a foreign king simply because he has the Westeros equivalent of nukes?

I'm not operating under the assumption that unification is a good thing, I'm saying that Varys is. You said now 'what is supposed to be the appeal of Dany', which I assumed to mean the appeal of her to anyone who wants to control her or the realm. I think if you want to control Westeros, you're not going to listen to your 'why should the north etc. be allowed to go their own ways?' If you're asking what her appeal is to me as a reader, then I completely agree with you, although Aegon's appearance doesn't make her any less appealing to me than she was before.

Which brings me back to the same answer I give whenever someone brings up the teenage girl excuse for a character's deplorable behavior - if a teenage girl can't help it, she has no business being put in charge of so much as a Chinese fire drill! I once supervised a store that paid minimum wage, which meant most of our workforce was composed of teenage girls, and you could barely trust them to straighten up the shelves properly. I have no problem accepting the premise of their emotional instability and vapid mentalities. But I also live in a country that sensibly requires its head of state to be twice as old as any teenage girl in order to take office. Fine, Dany can't help herself anymore than Tyrion can help being short, but that means Tyrion doesn't get to play basketball or joust, and it means Danerys should not be allowed to rule squat.

Right. I don't think I said anything that disagrees with that. I just disagreed with your assertion that there's a feeling of 'yay! girl power' rammed down our throats. I don't think she's a good human being just because she has dragons and rules a large city, but I do think she's an interesting character. That doesn't mean that I endorse her political moves, but it also doesn't mean that she's some vapid one-dimensional chicklit idol. Not that I really think Buffy was either, but again I think that criticism speaks more to the prevailing fan opinion than it does to the actual character.

So she is qualified to rule seven kingdoms because her attempt to rule a single city has been a case of epic fail?! I can see someone won't be applying for the link in his chain that denotes mastery of logic anytime soon.

I dunno, her biggest problem in Mereen was that she wanted to abolish slavery, and I think her second biggest problem is that she was a completely foreign conqueror that didn't understand how to appease various factions and eventually vacillated herself into irrelevance (and luckily for her, escaped on a dragon to leave the city in more capable hands). The first problem will not be a problem in Westeros, and for the second, once I can ride Drogon and burn my enemies to a cinder, I probably will be less likely to be so wishy-washy. Note that I'm talking about her success as a ruler rather then her fitness to rule, which I think is what you're talking about. So we might be arguing about different things completely.