Because House Lannister was outside the fold, and Jon Arryn wanted them in the fold so they couldn’t become part of an anti-Baratheon coalition. .
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Why were medieval armies so much smaller than classical ones? Like cannae and asculum saw 40-80000 men per side.
Why do people say Zack Synder doesn’t get superman, as when I was talking to a dc fan I know he said how superman in man of steel was realistic particularly when he snapped zod’s neck as it was the only way to stop him?
Explained here.
Do you think superhero fatigue exists?
Not really. I think people are tired of bad superhero movies and they like good superhero movies.
And right now, even the superhero movies that weren’t any good this year – BVS:DOJ, Suicide Squad, X-Men: Apocalypse – made money even if it wasn’t as much as studio execs wanted. So fatigue definitely hasn’t set in yet, with superhero movies collectively grossing more than $4 billion last year.
Fatigue would be if bad superhero movies lost money hand over fist, and even good ones lost money because you can’t get audiences in the door to get word-of-mouth going.
I think MovieBob is basically right on this one.
I was reading that Conan the Barbarian was an inspiration for Bittersteel. Would you know what are the parallels between the characters and could Bittersteel be a character deconstruction of Conan himself in the World of Ice and Fire?
Sure. So here’s GRRM’s description of Bittersteel (emphasis added):
His real name was Aegor Rivers, and he was the natural son of King Aegon IV by his fifth mistress, Lady Barba Bracken. Younger than Daemon Blackfyre, older than Bloodraven. Bittersteel was also a warrior, and looked the part. He was only half Tagaryen, so he got the purple eyes, but his hair was black. As a adult he wore a beard, cropped very short, little more than a shadow on his face and jaws. Somewhat of a Conanesque look to him, but not the Frank Frazetta Conan and definitely not the Arnold Conan, more the Barry Windsor-Smith version, or the one described by REH – he is tall and well made, but lean and lithe as a panther. And angry. No smiles here. Bittersteel was pissed off all his life, and had a special loathing for Bloodraven and his mother, who had displayed his own mother as the king’s favorite.
For reference, this is what Barry Windsor-Smith Conan looks like:

So where is the parallel/deconstruction?
Personality-wise, Robert E. Howard described “Conan, the Cimmerian,” as “black-haired, sullen-eyed, sword in hand, a thief, a reaver, a slayer, with gigantic melancholies and gigantic mirth, to tread the jeweled thrones of the Earth under his sandaled feet.” So Bittersteel certainly got the sullenness and the melancholies, if not the “gigantic mirth.”
However, I think there’s more to the parallel than that. Conan was a purely physical hero, who defeated evil wizards like Thulsa Doom or Thoth-Amon or supernatural monsters like Thog of "Xuthal of the Dusk" or the demon Khosatral Khel, by being impossibly fast, strong, resilient, and iron-willed. And Conan begat a whole series of musclebound “sword and sorcery” heroes who would vanquish puny wizards with a swing of the sword…which in the 1960s led Michael Moorcock to create Elric of Melniboné as the anti-Conan.
Where Conan was dark and muscled like a panther, Elric was a frail albino. Where Conan was a practical man imbued with unstoppable will and relentless energy, Elric was neurotic, introspective, and self-loathing. Where Conan was a warrior, Elric was a sorceror. The only time Conan got his hands on a magic sword, he promptly broke it across the head of one of his enemies; Elric’s story was defined by his struggle with the sword Stormbringer, a sentient vampiric blade that gave Elric strength and vitality but demanded souls in return.
The old school SAT analogy is clear – Bittersteel:Bloodraven::Conan:Elric. Bittersteel is a dark-haired warrior who trusts in his own strength alone, Bloodraven is an albino sorceror with a magic sword. And just as Conan and Elric represented duelling tendencies within the genre, Bittersteel and Bloodraven are set against each other form birth, born into an ancient blood-feud, competing over the love of the same woman, choosing opposing sides in a life-long civil war, and both of them extending their conflict into eternity – Bittersteel through his mercenary company and his deathbed vow, Bloodraven through the magics of the greenseers.
I take it you are not a big fan of the killing of Gwen Stacy?
I feel of two minds about it. At the time, it was a big deal in comics storytelling – a major, and at the time permanent, character death in a medium perhaps better known for stories where Superman had a lion head for an issue and where the stakes were low because everything would snap back to the status quo.
However, it’s also the ur-fridging – the violent death of a female character meant to motivate a male hero. And as Gail Simone documented, many comics creators took the surface-level lesson that murdering women for shock value and angst sold comics, rather than the lesson that permanent stakes could drive long-term engagement with stories and characters.
The killing of Gwen Stacy brought with it a seemingly permanent deluge of imitators that limited what female characters could do, what female fans could enjoy, and what female creators could write and draw, and which contributed to a shallow and juvenile
conception of “maturity” and “realism” within the medium.
What’s the appeal of Kraven? As a kid I loved his episodes in the 90’s cartoon but I’ve seen very little of him in comics of late.
First of all, he’s got an absolutely ridiculous costume that is a fashion nightmare. Cheetah-print pants, zebra-stripe belt and cuffs, and a lion’s head vest with no shirt, plus the giant 70s stache and soul-patch. You couldn’t forget that look if you tried. So he passes the first test of a great villain: he’s instantly memorable.

Second, he’s got an amazing concept – a big game hunter who insists on killing hand-to-hand because anything else would be insufficiently manly, and who runs out of dangerous animals to kill with his bare hands so decides to hunt…Spider-Man. He doesn’t have some stupid grudge against Spider-Man because of something in their past, he’s not a career criminal or mobster – he just wants to prove he’s stronger than Spider-Man. There’s a purity and simplicity (and to be honest, irrationality – I mean, why Spider-Man and not the Hulk?) there that’s refreshing and novel.

Third, Kraven shot Spider-Man with a tranq dart, buried him alive, put on Spider-Man’s costume, and then went out to prove that he could out-Spider-Man Spider-Man…and actually succeeded, saving Mary Jane Watson’s life and single-handedly defeating Vermin (something Spider-Man hadn’t accomplished). When Spider-Man escaped from the grave, Kraven refused to fight him, having proven his point, and promptly confessed and committed suicide.

What I love about that is that Kraven’s ultimate villainous scheme is that he pulls off a permanent victory over Spider-Man that got into his head and affected him profoundly – you don’t get over being buried alive lightly – in a brilliantly orthagonal way. He doesn’t kill Spider-Man or one of his loved ones (looking at you, Green Goblin), he doesn’t clone Spider-Man or try to merge with Spider-Man or any of that nonesense. He beats Spider-Man thoroughly by out-doing him and then goes out on top so that Spider-Man doesn’t even get the chance for a come-back.
So there you have it, the basics of a quality villain: good look, good concept, memorable scheme/victory.
What’s your favorite Spider-Man villain?
Either Doc Ock or Kraven the Hunter.
What do we know about peasants in Westeros? They are no thralls, but what else? What’s their legal status? What duties and rights do they have? Do they own the land they work on?
Unfortunately, we don’t know much. We do know that they have the right to move about, since Bloodraven can’t forbid them to leave their land if they never had that right on the first place. Hunting rights are restricted in certain areas, but mills suggest cutting rights (thanks @racefortheironthrone!) In the forests. There doesn’t appear to be restrictions on currency aside from suspicion if a poor-as-dirt turnip farmer starts throwing around gold dragons. Given that it’s feudalism, the peasantry probably rents the land as per feudal tenancy as opposed to owning the land outright. Given the degree of religious tolerance we see, there is probably no official prohibition on religion, though there is almost certainly social pressure to the Faith of the Seven in the south, and the Drowned God on the Iron Islands.
Thanks for the question, Anon.
SomethingLikeALawyer, Hand of the King
If you want to know more, I wrote this essay.
Why did Ser Arthur Dayne & Co. keep Jon and Lyanna in the tower of Joy defenceless? Well, with only 3 men, no matter how spectacular. Wouldn’t they have had done better to move her to Starfall the moment they heard Rhaegar had fallen?
Because by the time they heard Rhaegar had fallen, Lyanna was probably in her “confinement.”