Was the Pink Letter the catalyst for murdering JS, or were the moutiners going to kill him anyway?

The Pink Letter was the excuse, but there is no such thing as a spontaneous mutiny/assassination – first you have to identify and organize those of your peers who agree with you, second, you have to create a plan for how you’re going to kill your commander and not be executed afterwards, and do all of the setup; third, you have to execute that plan.

And this is where I depart from a good number of ASOIAF fans who basically argue that Jon’s assassination was justified b/c of his reaction to the Pink Letter, because all of that work I discussed above had to have happened before the Pink Letter. Which means that the conspirators had already decided Jon had to die before he broke his vows openly, which is convenient for them, but in no way gets them off the hook for when they were making the call.

Which brings me to something I feel gets left out of a lot of Pink Letter theorization – predicting the fallout from that letter is pretty damn impossible. The letter gets sent to Jon and arrives “sealed with a smear of hard pink wax.” Unless someone cracked and then remade the seal, and that’s unlikely (Clydas isn’t the kind of guy to do that, and he’s not one of the conspirators), no one other than Jon at the Wall knows its contents. And no one can predict what Jon’s reaction is going to be – hell, even Jon doesn’t know what he’s going to do before he does it.

So all of the theories that rely on Jon bringing men south to Winterfell as the purpose for the Pink Letter are bunk. Ramsay wrote the letter operating on (mostly) bad information. Period.

Since you stated that the Crown would be apposed to the Golden Bank operating on their own mandate, if I was Lord Lannister (not Tywin with his views on CR’s gold and its uses), wouldn’t it simply be easier/better to open up a bank in Essos, away from the sphere of influence of the Iron Throne?

That’s going to go over even worse, because that’s tantamount to the Lord Paramount declaring his own foreign policy.

How accurate is Ramsay’s “twenty good men” moment in the show? Can a group that small cause so much destruction in a 5,500 men camp?

It’s an exaggeration of how guerrilla warfare can work – what should be happening is Ramsay attacking the baggage train when the army is marching in column, rather than when it’s drawn up in camp, and it should be happening over weeks rather than one night – but yes, guerrilla forces can punch way above their weight.

On the other hand, this kind of thing can go very badly in a hurry – look up the history of commando forces, and you see just as many unmitigated disasters (the Dieppe Raid, for example) as you do amazing successes.

Hi! I asked about Hydra the other day. I totally agree with your view on Hydra in the MCU, that they distrust democracy, preferring a despotic style of government. However, I feel like they hold more of a generic totalitarian ideology than a Nazi one. We don’t see any talk of racial superiority, and Schmidt himself says he doesn’t fit the perfect Aryan ideal anymore. Do you think Marvel decided to change Hydra for the MCU? Because Hydra reaches much more of the universe than in the comics?

I think they did, but that wasn’t the reason why. I think the reason why is that they’re trying to make four-quadrant movies that people all over the world can take their kids to. (Looking at you, BvS:DoJ…) And it’s way easier to do that if you don’t have Nazi insignia, bad guys throwing around racial epithets, etc.

Which are better for warfare, crossbows or longbows?

Entirely depends on the circumstances. Longbows have a far better rate of fire, crossbows penetrate armor better. Longbows take decades of training to be effective – you can put a crossbow in the hands of a civilian and they’ll be an effective crossbowman in 2-4 months.

If the Others besiege Winter-fell where Stannis and weird stone dragon things happen with a child casualty… does it mean that the Wall goes down before the end of TWOW? Or the Others go to Winterfell through the coasts because of the “dead things under the sea” or what? Thank you for reading and answering, sorry for bothering you

Yes, I think the Wall goes down before the end of TWOW. The White Walkers have been offscreen so much that they’re going to need some time in the spotlight being the Big Bad in order for the payoff to work, and that means the Wall coming down.

You’ve rated the MCU movies. What about the TV shows?

Jessica Jones and Daredevil are both excellent (I think Jessica Jones is better, but Daredevil Season 2 has been a solid improvement from Season 1) and I have high hopes for the rest of the Netflix shows.

I lost patience with Agents of SHIELD in Season 1, but I hear it’s gotten better since. I’ve also heard good things about Agent Carter, but haven’t had a chance yet to watch it.

Hello! I was wondering what is your take on Hydra in the MCU versus in the comics. I ask this because I feel like in the MCU Hydra grew inside the Nazi Party but not as part of it. To me Johann Schmidt isn’t a Nazi, his Hydra ideology is different.

Interesting question.

Let’s be very clear, HYDRA in the comics is a Nazi organization through and through. Decades after WWII, HYDRA is working to awaken Nazi robots that will conquer the globe in the name of the Fourth Reich, or to destroy it in revenge for the downfall of the Third. The Red Skull is very explicit about his ideology – he is fundamentally opposed to human equality and believes entirely in the doctrine of Aryan racial supremacy. (Just wait until I get to the comics of the 1970s where the Red Skull starts freaking out about interracial relationships) Likewise, Strucker is very explicit that he is in no ways a former Nazi and very much an active fascist.

In the MCU, the serial numbers have been filed off a bit, largely so that they don’t run into problems with ratings boards in countries that are very sensitive to depictions of Nazi symbols, but I would argue not much has changed. HYDRA believes in the total subordination of the individual to the group – hence the whole “cut off one head and two shall grow in its place.” They view democracy as inherently chaotic and prefer a political system where order is imposed from above through force – hence, Alexander Pierce’s entire worldview. And they generally are governed by a single charismatic individual.

Have you read “The War of the Roses” by Conn Iggulden?

I really, really don’t like his work, ever since that utterly bizarre series he did on Brutus and Caesar.

Responding to the Golden vs Royal Bank question – 1 – Is it safe to assume that there are no native Westerosi banks active at this time? Are we saying that the millions of dragons owed by the crown to the Lannisters, the Faith and the Tyrells were all transported to KL coin for coin (or as bullion), or were they given as deposit notes to the crown from these institutions (or via a middleman like the IB). – 2 – Isn’t it a bit rediculous that the Targs never brought these institutions to Westeros?

1. Yes. Westeros has moneylenders, but it doesn’t have banks. In other words, it doesn’t have depository institutions that allow their customers to write checks based on their deposits, that pay interest to their depositors, and that lend to the public based on their reserves.

2. Not really. The Targaryens belonged to the ruling nobility of Valyria, not to its merchant caste.