Given the not so subtle hints that Lem Lemoncloak is in fact Rhaegar’s former squire and companion Richard Lonmouth, do you think he might shed some light on Rhaegar and Lyanna’s meeting and the beginnings of Robert’s Rebellion from the Targaryen side?

I know that there are a bunch of people who are into the Lem = Lon thing, but I have to admit it’s never been a favorite of mine. I don’t think that’s how the relevations about Rhaegar and Lyanna are going to come into the narrative, and I don’t think the BwB will be connected to that part of the story.

At least in the show, whenever characters talk about Lyanna’s death it always seems to be an extremely vague “she died.” What do the general public, or even just the rest of the Starks, think happened to Lyanna down south?

In both the book and the show, I don’t think anyone knows how she died – because Eddard and Howland aren’t about to blab – just that she did die.

Dance timing anon here. Both TPatQ and TWoIaF state Daemon’s death was on the “22nd day of the 5th moon” (5/22 for ease) and Rhaenyra’s “22nd day of the 10th moon”. The Muddy Mess wasn’t until 131, hence the ~6 months to it from the 2nd Tumbleton. How and why was Rhaenyra stuck in Duskendale for so long, and when Lady Meredyth didn’t want her there? Elmo Tully died on a march 49 days after Tumbleton – what were they doing? I hope a Regency novella covers the last missing months of the Dance!

Ah, good catch!

This sort of loose plotting is why I’m not such a big fan of the Dance, but well done.

It’s said (in AGOT I think) that a long summer precedes an even longer winter, meaning that the coming winter should last at least 9 years. However, we know that this is no ordinary winter. Do you think there’s a link between the long summer and the coming of the Others? Is it a requisite for their approach, or is it purely coincidental? Also, do you think winter will continue, to a lesser degree, after the Others are defeated as it naturally would, or will the heroes’ sacrifice bring spring?

I think it’s more a bit of GRRM looking for places to do foreshadowing and thematic parallels/inversions more than anything in-universe.

As to your final question, what’s the title of the last book?

Could Patchface’s sayings be considered prophecy in its purest form? Rather than try to interpret his visions as others do, Patchface just seems to blurt out descriptions of whatever crazy, surreal, nightmarish visions happen to pop into his head. And while some of what he sees does foreshadow later events, it’s only clear what they foreshadowed in retrospect.

Rhaenyra fled King’s Landing not long after Daemon’s death (5/22), but it was more than four months until her own (10/22). Do you think this is a mistake? If not, were her and her party stuck in Duskendale waiting for a ship all that time? And what was everyone else doing? Sure there would be confusion with neither a Black or Green open claimant, but for that long with everything dropped? E.g. the Riverlanders twiddled their thumbs in the cold/snow for ~6 months after the Second Tumbleton?

I didn’t know that we had that detailed a timeline for the Dance. What source are you using?

How much of the Dead Ladies Club can be explained by GRRM possibly making a deliberate point about women’s lives and contributions being minimized or outright erased in a deeply sexist society such as Westeros and how much is simply incompleteness/author oversight or error?

I don’t like trying to read people’s minds with so little evidence to go on.

However, if it was GRRM’s intent to make “a deliberate point about women’s lives and contributions being minimized or outright erased in a deeply sexist society,” it hasn’t really worked, compared to other of his efforts to make such critiques (think Cersei’s walk of shame).

Do we know if slavery is, or ever has been, practiced in Lorath?

Unlikely.

On the one hand, the Lorathi settlers were Valyrians, and Valyrians were a slave society. On the other hand, the worshippers of Boash “believed that all life was sacred and eternal; that men and women were equal; that lords and peasants, rich and poor, slave and master, man and beast were all alike, all equally worthy, all creatures of god,” which suggests dissent, as does the fact that “the islands became a refuge for freedmen and escaped slaves from Valyria and its proud daughters, for the priests of the Blind God taught that every man was the equal of every other.”

If Richard Lionheart had a son, who would become king of England when Richard died, the son or John Lackland?

The son is supposed to inherit (see Richard II as heir to the Black Prince), but might not depending on the circumstances (see Richard III vis-a-vis the Princes in the Tower).

What alternative story lines would you have given the members of the Dead Ladies Club that wouldn’t (majorly) change the plot of ASOIAF but give them a bit more dignity/integrity? I could see Rhaella surviving a bit longer to perhaps give Dany a better start in life even if she didn’t live to see the dragons.

Well, for Lyanna (who’s probably the Dead Lady we know the most about wrt to her thoughts about marriage to Robert, the whole Knight of the Laughing Tree business, etc.) I’d like to know more about what happened to her between the Tourney and her death, and I imagine we will learn in TWOW through Bran’s visions: what was the character of her relationship with Rhaegar? How did that relationship change when she found out about her father and brother? Did she try to escape the ToJ or did her pregnancy rule that out? Etc.

For Rhaella, I’d like to know more about her role in Aerys’ court. We know, for example, how she felt about his philandering among her ladies, but not about what she thought about Aerys’ “grand schemes” or his growing madness and violence, or how she tried to raise her kids, or what her relationship with Rhaegar was like, etc.

For Joanna and the Unnamed Princess, I’d definitely like to know more about their marriage pact and what they wanted to achieve with it – after all, linking the Hand’s family to the Crown Prince’s in-laws might have created a significant alternative power bloc in King’s Landing in opposition to both the Southron Ambitions bloc and Aerys’ sycophants.

And so on.