Harry was absolutely an ass to Alayne, the only difference between him and other Vale lords is that they might be refined enough in their ettiquette as to be an ass behind her back. 

As to the other Vale lords, only the Waynwoods get to make the call, so they might be pissed but they can’t do much about it. 

Yes. According to the legends, the Rhoyne froze, Yi Ti was assaulted by an army of monsters, etc. 

A mission beyond the Wall? Yes. Jon and co are bound for the Heart of Winter, so I see that happening.

This mission? No. The books already established that wights who go south of the Wall stop being reanimated and rot away. The show dropped that little plotline, but it’s there in the books. 

Don’t care either way. 

My dude, this is not the way to ask someone a question and get a civil response.

But, because I’m feeling charitable, I’ll give you a civil answer. 

No. 

Fandom doesn’t work that way, because anyone can start up a blog and start writing, and hell with the death of the author, not even the author can tell someone to stop writing what they want about a book or a show or a movie or whatever. 

But even if you believed in that idea (like a certain Youtuber I won’t give the satisfaction of namedropping), I don’t think I qualify. I’m not Elio or Linda, who have a direct line to the man himself and co-write books. I don’t write for any major outlets anymore, and even when I did it was never a regular gig. I don’t have a regular podcast anymore, and even when I did it was one of the smallest ones out there. 

I’m just a guy with a blog who writes essays, no different from anyone else out here. I don’t make decisions on who’s in and who’s out, no one does, because fandom doesn’t work that way. 

withbriefthanksgiving:

racefortheironthrone:

One thing I’ve never understood is even though the people living Beyond the Wall have been sequestered from the rest of Westeros for the past eight thousands years, somehow the Common Tongue is still widely spoken by many of its inhabitants. Not only that but there’s also no discrepancy from their vernacular compared to the rest of the continent. In fact quite a few Wildlings we’ve encountered such as Ygritte, Mance and Tormund are able to speak the Common Tongue better than many smallfolk and Mountain Clans in the Vale who seem to speak a completely different dialect from their unsophisticated lingo and gibberish.

Now I get that for Jon’s story to work he has to be able to communicate with the Wildlings, hence we have this Aliens speak English trope going on in his arc. But realistically this shouldn’t be possible. I mean it only took a few centuries for Latin to evolve into completely new languages of many distinct variations such as French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese etc, and the people who spoke these languages were still more or less in contact with one another after Rome fell. Yet even after eight thousands years of being cut off from the rest of civilization without much interaction with the people south of their region, many Wildlings can still speak the Common Tongue unaltered and indistinct from their southern neighbors.

Do you think there is an explanation for this?

This is a case where narrative convenience seems to have trumped coherent worldbuilding, but I say seems because I’m not clear on why or how necessary it was. GRRM’s got no problem inventing multiple languages in Essos, although he does cheat a bit with how Valyrian dialects are mostly mutually coherent, after all. 

(However, if I was to give a No Prize, I’d say that because the wildlings steal women all the time from the North, they’re constantly importing women who teach the Common Tongue to their kids.)

So how hard would it have been to decide that, because the North held off the Andal invasion, the Old Tongue survived north of the Neck, although after thousands of years where Andal was an incredibly useful linga franca for trade and diplomacy with the rest of the continent, and three hundred years of Targaryen unification, they’ve gradually merged the Old Tongue and the Common Tongue into a creole like Scots, but where the nobility learn to speak proper Old Tongue (to keep up their traditions) and a more Received Pronunciation Common Tongue as well? That way, Jon could speak easily with the Wildlings because he can speak their language, whereas your average Night’s Watchman might not speak their language at all if they’re southron (hence adding to the Othering going on), or only haltingly in a limited pidgen if they’re a Northerner. 

Likewise, why isn’t the Common Tongue in Dorne absolutely peppered with Rhoynish loan words and grammatical constructions, as well as having a distinctive accent? Why don’t the residents of the big cities use a bit of Valyrian loan-words which are handy in commerce, which the rural folk find a bit too foreign for their liking? 

what I wanna know is, on the show, WHY is Davos a Geordie lmao he seems so misplaced

I’m going to go with Liam Cunningham, originally of the north side of Dublin, might not do the best Cockney accent. 

It didn’t escape exactly…the map is more depicting degrees than a binary safe/not-safe. So Poland lost 25% of its population, Milan only lost 15%, so they’re in grey on that map. 

As to Poland, there are a couple of factors noted. 

• First, Poland was further off the beaten path in terms of trade routes and the like compared to southern and eastern Europe, so there were fewer vectors there. 
• Second, as a result, Poland had a bit more time to prepare, and King Casimir (III) the Great set up external and internal quarantines, where any travelers had to remain outside the walls of the city for a given number of days until it was clear they weren’t contagious.  

That is a good question.