Do you have any idea what happened to PoorQuentyn? It’s been a long while since he posted something

AFAIK, @poorquentyn‘s hard at work on the next Theon essay.

From experience, I can say that getting a new podcast off the ground takes up a lot of time, so I think that’s been eating up a lot of his spare time.

Do you think the Golden Company are always hired in their full numbers, or might they parcel out 2000 men for contract A, 3000 for contract B etc? 10,000 men seems like a lot of mercenaries to hire for any one conflict.

I think the Golden Company are pretty unique in only signing up as a unit, because part of how they work in a geopolitical sense is that their decision of whom to side with helps to determine the balance of power in the Free Cities.

Do you think that the Others somehow ramp up the physical stats of the wights way beyond what they were capable of in life? Because I doubt an average human could claw open a horse’s belly or twist a person’s head back 180 degrees with bare hands.

No, I think it’s more the idea of the human body no longer caring about its physical limits because it can’t feel pain any more and doesn’t care about damaging itself.

If HBO decided to make a spinoff series set in Essos, where would you like it to be? Personally, I think they could make a great Wire-esque series out of Braavos.

I think the Free Cities during the Century of Blood could be fun.

How long could be the voyage between kingslanding and essos or kingslanding and summer isles?

King’s Landing to Pentos is about a week, and that’s pretty much a straight shot across the Narrow Sea. Myr/Lys/Tyrosh are a fair bit south of that and Braavos is a fair bit north of that, so I’d say maybe two weeks total for those Free Cities.

As for the Summer Isles…probably about a month?

Given its purchasing power and value relative to the silver stag, just how big of a coin would you guess the gold dragon was? Do you think it is closer in size/weight to the medieval florins and ducats? Or do you picture something closer in size to the later gold sovereigns?

I’ve done some estimates on value here, but I hadn’t worked out weight or size.

So, if a golden dragon is worth roughly 4/5 of a pound sterling, and the noble (which weighed around 9 grams, and had a diameter of 33-35 mm) was 1/3 of a pound sterling, then I would guess a golden dragon would be worth ~2.6 nobles.

OTOH, a group of replica coin makers are going for 14 grams, 45 mm.

As my go-to authority on all things asoiaf and marvel are there any asoiaf characters that stand out to you as being very like certain marvel characters or more specifically do ever think, “wow, that is what marvel character x would do in asoiaf character y’s situation!” Or vice versa? There are some obvious parallels with Steve Rogers & Davos but I’d love th hear any personal favorites. Thanks!

See here.

Was it not common knowledge that Aemon Targaryen was a maester at Castle Black; with regard to Jon being so surprised by the revelation? If not, shouldn’t it be; the last Dragon in Westeros?

Given that Aemon’s been at the Wall for 67 years, I’m not surprised that many people have forgotten he’s existed.

A follow up to another question RE: Why didn’t the Frey’s kill Edmure and Riverrun? Why was he taken prisoner in the first place? With Rivverrun being granted to Ser Emmon and the Riverlands generally being given to Baelish, Edmure seems like a loose end.

Because the Freys have to conquer the Riverlands with 2,000 men (since they promised Roose Bolton 2,000 men to help conquer the North), which makes them rather substantially outnumbered vis-a-vis the loyalist Riverlords who would happily see them dead.

Keeping Edmure Tully, legitimist Lord of Riverrun and Lord Paramount of the Riverlands, prisoner keeps the loyalists in line, because they can’t rebel in his name when he’s securely kept and not far from a gibbet either.

Whereas killing him makes him a martyr.

A lot of the insane fan theories are based off of R+L=J being “too obvious”. Do you feel its only seen that way because of the long wait and internet culture and not from being obvious in the text?

Absolutely it’s due to the long wait plus the hivemind.

Obviousness in the text is another issue, because GRRM doesn’t do TWISTS out of nowhere – that would in fact be bad writing – but rather carefully seeds the text with hints, but does so in a way that you still don’t make the right conclusion. The Red Wedding being a great example; the RW has a million hints (some of them very blatant) scattered throughout ACOK and the first half of ASOS, but no one sees it coming the first time.