Author: stevenattewell

Why did the Lannisters and Renly make no effort to fight each other outside the slow King’s landing march? The Westerlands is more vulnerable from a southern approach, and Tywin didn’t leave a strong defending force, judging by Robb’s campaign. Renly could also easily gain the Riverlands to his side by sending a army to aid them. He does have around 100,000 troops meaning he has a lot to spare.

  1. The Lannister forces are all up in the Riverlands or in King’s Landing – Renly is marching from Highgarden. They’re separated by hundreds of miles. So there’s not going to be a reason for them to clash until he gets to King’s Landing.
  2. Invading the Westerlands doesn’t get Renly on the Iron Throne nor does it get Margaery made Queen, so it doesn’t particularly advance his political interests and it runs the huge risk of someone winning the Iron Throne before him. 
  3. Renly’s not going to get the Riverlands on his side; they’ve already pledged themselves to Robb and he’s hundreds of miles away from them. 

Yeah but wouldn’t Roose be worried about any kids Sansa could have? So why didn’t he just demand her in exchange for his role in the Red Wedding? According to the theory you gave Roose was in contact with Tywin just after the Blackwater and Sansa’s marriage to Tyrion didn’t occur until at least a few months after the Blackwater and the Red Wedding had been planned by then.

Of course Roose would be worried, but he doesn’t have infinite leverage to demand anything he wants, and he both has a lot he’s already asked for and has to worry about the timeline more than Tywin does. Remember, after Blackwater, Tywin has options other than Roose, but Roose doesn’t have options other than Tywin. 

What Villains do you think should be in MCU Spiderman movies after Homecoming?

To start with, I would give Spiderman villains who’ve been done before – the Green Goblin, Doc Ock, Venom, the Lizard, etc. – a bit of a rest, unless some creator has a distinct enough vision for them to warrant their use so close to the ASM movies. Hobgoblin and Jack O Lantern kind of bite the Green Goblin’s style a bit too much, so hold off on them.

Chameleon would be a great insiduous villain, not your main physical threat but a great social/mental threat. Ditto Mysterio, if you can figure out how to make his signature costume work on screen. Vermin would work as a more physical/horror threat.

And I do have a fondness for Kraven the Hunter…

The original plan with having Tyrion marry Sansa was that the Lannisters could use her claim to take control of Winterfell and the North, correct? If so, was Roose Bolton being named Warden of the North and the business with fake Arya the result of Tywin Lannister being forced to go to plan B after Tyrion and Sansa being implicated in Joffrey’s murder forced his hand?

Well, no the Wardenship was always part of Plan A, with the idea being that the Wardenship and Winterfell were being divided up. 

Fake Arya was due to Plan B/the Purple Wedding. 

About Bowen Marsh’s campaign against the Weeper, how many men do you estimate he had under his command at the Bridge of Skulls ? With 100 brothers dead, how could it even count as a victory ? Anyway, how could just 300 wildlings deal this much damage to the Watch force, considering the watch usually has a clear metallurgical & cavalry edge over the wildlings ?

According to WOIAF, Bowen had 400 men against 300 and lost 100 while inflicting more severe casualties on the Weeper. 

As to how, it’s a fight on a bridge – you can’t really use cavalry effectively. 

Who are some of your favorite Marvel Villains?

Oh man, I have so many: Doctor Doom, natch. Magneto. Galactus for the sheer scale. 

X-Men villains – Cameron Hodge, William Stryker, the Hellfire Club, the Sentinels, Mister Sinister, the Shadow King, the Juggernaut. 

Spiderman has some great ones – Green Goblin, Mysterio, Chamelon, Kraven, Arcade. 

Avengers – Loki, Ultron, Thanos, Kang (although he’s more an FF villain). 

I can’t help but think there is a depressing parallel between between the optimates’ self-destructive refusal to compromise with the populares and the modern partisan gridlock that’s seized the United States, especially in the last decade. Like the Republic, we increasingly have leaders ignoring political precedent and tearing into our institutions in order to further their own short term benefit. Has America ever experienced and turned back from this kind of partisan divide before?

You’re hardly the first and hardly the last to have that reaction.

However, I do want to push back on two things: first, I think a big part of the problem then (and something of the problem now) was the tendency to blame partisanship for political problems, to see factions as inherently dangerous to the Republic requiring them to be exterpated violently, and it’s not an accident either that it was usually the partisans of the elite (the optimates) using violence against the populari. 

Second, the idea that partisan divides are uncommon in America. The lack of partisan divide that existed for a brief period in time (really we’re talking 1945-1968) when the Democratic Party’s conservative wing was counter-balanced by the Republican Party’s liberal wing was highly unusual historically speaking and honestly had way more downsides than people getting misty-eyed about bipartisan compromise remember. 

Consider this: within ten years of the Constitution, an entire generation of political elites raised to hate factions had created two major political parties. One of the political parties tried to make it illegal for anyone to criticize the Federal government, and the other argued that state governments could veto the Federal government. Then a leading figure in one of the two political parties shot a leading figure of the other in a duel.