Should the rivertowns you mentioned (Seagard, Saltpans, Fairmarket, LHT) be granted city charters, what kind of industries and guilds do you imagine developing there?

Good question!

For the most part, I would imagine that these towns would be primarily commercial: Seagard is a port serving the trade along the Sunset Sea, Saltpans (to a lesser extent than Maidenpool) serves trade along the Trident and the Bay of Crabs, Fairmarket is a market town with a bridge that allows one to travel from Riverrun to Seagard or the Twins and vice versa, and Lord Harroway’s Town is located at the Ruby Ford over the Green Fork and close by to the crossroads of the Kingsroad, the River road, and the High Road. 

Beyond that, we know that Ironman’s Bay is teeming with fish, so I would imagine that Seagard would have a fishing industry as well. We know that Saltpans also has a fishing industry, and as we know from the name flat salt pans (likely due to extensive shallows at the estuary where the freshwater Trident meets the saltwater Bay of Crabs) where salt is mass-produced and sold to Essos. Associated with that, Saltpans likely also has a significant salting industry, where fresh fish are preserved so that they can be stored longer and thus sold further afield.  

In terms of other industries, I would start with industries that process agricultural resources: we know that the Riverlands produces some wine, so there’s probably coopers making barrels to hold the wine; we know that the Riverlands produces a lot of cattle, so you probably have (in addition to cattle markets) butchers, cheesemakers, and tanners and leatherworkers; we know that lots of grain is grown and traded in the Riverlands, so you need millers and bakers. After that, I would guess that between all the rivers and roads, the Riverlands also has a lot of industries that are associated with transportation: in addition to merchants, teamsters, longshoremen, porters and warehouse workers, ferrymen, and sailors, you probably also have a lot of boatwrights, cartwrights, wheelwrights, and blacksmiths who manufacture and repair the boats and wagons that carry the goods on land and water. 

X-Men read A Song of Ice and Fire. Who’s rooting for whom?

This is a great question for @postcardsfromspace, but I’ll throw my two cents in:

  • Magneto would probably be a fan of Melisandre or Beric Dondarrion. 
  • Xavier…I can see the parallel to Doran Martell, but I actually think he’d be a big fan of Sam Tarly.  
  • Emma Frost is all about the Lannisters, but prefers Tywin while cosplaying as Cersei. 
  • Cyclops I would see as a huge fan of Ned Stark and/or Stannis.
  • Jean Grey would be all about Daenerys Targaryen and Sansa, which is hilarious given the state of the fandom atm. 
  • Wolverine is absolutely a fan of Sandor Clegane. 
  • Storm might be an Asha Greyjoy fan. I could see her either liking or having a huge problem with Daenerys, not sure. 
  • Beast and Iceman would be fans of Tyrion for different reasons. 
  • Nightcrawler would probably be either into Oberyn Martell or Jon Snow.
  • Kitty Pryde would be an Arya fan, I think.
  • Angel would be into Jaime Lannister, I think.
  • Colossus would be into Davos, although I could see an argument for Gendry. 

How much of Ned’s antipathy towards Robert’s stance on Viserys and Daenerys have to do with Jon, in the sense that supporting the assassination of the known Targaryen children would put his nephew’s life at greater risk; and how much of it stemmed from a genuine sense that they posed no legitimate threat to Westeros or Robert? Of course, in this case, the two are not necessarily mutually exclusive.

I think it’s also a response to the psychological trauma of seeing the murder of Elia and her children so close to the deaths of his father, brother, and sister. 

Why is the focus on this as some exercise of Royal perogative from Rhaegar and not the willing defiance and consent of Lyanna at that time? There are plenty of examples of children rebuking the betrothals set by their parents in the history of Westeros going back to the Targaryen royal family itself as recently as Aegon V and his sons, so it wouldn’t unprecedented.

Those rebellions led to abdications, rebellions, and a massive decline in the authority and prestige of the crown that contributed directly to the Tragedy of Summerhall and probably to the War of Ninepenny Kings as well, so I don’t think they’re positive precedents.