Thanks!

The biggest problem, to me is that by starting the conflict divided, you enable Bloodraven to defeat you in detail before you can consolidate your forces. Rebellions in the Reach and the Riverlands and then Bittersteel invading might have worked if the Iron Throne reacts slowly and defensively, giving you the space to organize and coordinate. 

And with another Hand in charge, that might even have happened. But Bloodraven is far too aggressive for this scheme to work – he’s going to respond with overwhelming force and surprising speed (thanks in no small part to his superior intelligence network), and will crush any rebellion brutally enough so that it encouragez les autres. 

If I was Bittersteel and had my prepared candidate in hand, I would have risked sailing around the coast of Dorne to land in the west. It puts a continent’s width between King’s Landing and me, so that I’ve got time to seize territory and gather together my supporters before royal armies can arrive. Add to that the fact that Dorne, the Stormlands, the Crownlands, and the Vale are all loyalists, whereas the Reach and the Westerlands and putatively the Iron Islands contain the bulk of former rebels. 

Yes, which makes his rebellion even less sensible. Had Renly not been so impatient and over-optimistic, to say nothing of arrogant, he could have been the power behind the throne and the heir apparent. Instead, he’s a corpse. 

Better to be alive and in debt than dead and solvent. 

While I don’t believe in the Great Tyrell Conspiracy there’s something that gives me pause. Given Cersei’s letter to Jaime asking for help we know Dragonstone falls before Riverrun, yet when Miranda gives Sansa the news during the descent she mentions the Tully yielding but Dragonstone still holding for Stannis. Am I missing something?

Most likely, it’s a case of incomplete information – that news has reached the Vale about Riverrun but not yet about Dragonstone. 

Well, yeah, it’s feasible. A fair bit of “Dark Age” construction was done by re-purposing dressed stone – which is an expensive and difficult to manufacture and transport materiel – from Roman infrastructure. 

But whether that’s enough to dodge the curse, I don’t know.  

Probably the second, because while the Bank can survive one default, the existential threat is all of their clients defaulting. 

Definitely one of the assassins, Marsh most like. I doubt there will be a formal election, more of an acclamation. 

Because Roose Bolton is not the Big Bad Guy – the White Walkers are – he’s a roadbump who’s standing in the way of the protagonists being able to confront the Big Bad Guy. And he needs to be taken out so that the Starks can reunite in Winterfell where the story began. 

And I think Stannis would accept being at the Wall because he did something inexcusable for reasons that while good at the time turned out to be false.

I think Stannis becomes the 1000th commander of the Night’s Watch and survives the series. 

I find the Citadel and the Order of the Maesters to be a very unique anomaly in a medieval world. I’m sure an academic institution like it can and did exist during the medieval period but it must have cost a fortune to run. Besides the fact that the complex of campuses, liberties and laborites would need to be maintained by a very large staff, there is also the cost for funding the research projects and other ventures of their high ranking faculty (eg Marwyn’s expedition). The Maesters also have to operate certain departments that affect the whole of Westeros. There is the raven postal service, the publishing and updating of records and histories and the calendar plus predicting when winter is coming. But the biggest kicker has to be the training and housing of hundreds of students over a course of several years if not decades in many difficult fields of study which has to cost a pretty penny.

I know that Oldtown and maybe the Crown do give them funding in taxes but even today illustrious colleges that are financed by governments still charge a lot in tuition fees, yet it doesn’t seem like the Citadel actually does that seeing how it’s a meritocracy and even the poorest folk can enroll. I assume like the Night’s Watch the sons of noblemen do come with large donations from their families, but then we have people from less well-off backgrounds whom I doubt would have family or dependables that can continually finance their education. And given how much study is required to graduate, I assume the students must have all their living expenses and amenities taken care of by the Citadel. I really doubt any potential Maester would have the time to take a part time job while intensely hitting the books and having to do a lot of practical lab work on a daily basis. Plus this is set in a time before student loans became a thing.

So yeah do you think the Citadel is and can be sustained solely by the taxpayers of Westeros or would they have to look to other sources of income to keep the lights on?

A couple things to keep in mind: firstly, you’re dealing with a medieval university not a modern university. The expectations for what kind of services and amenities are provided, what kinds of buildings are built, etc. are completely different. (No IT department, no sports program, no pension system, no medical centers, no business spinoffs, no counselling services, etc.) So no, the Citadel probably does not pay for the housing and feeding of students – students would be expected to shift for themselves (as in medieval universities prior to the foundation of the colleges) and poorer students probably have to work on the side to pay their bills. Likewise, there aren’t any printing presses in Westeros, so the Citadel doesn’t publish as an institution – it’s got its library, which it maintains by copying manuscripts, but the writing of books is the private concern of the individual maesters. Finally, the sophistication of “research” is not that advanced – we’re not talking modern laboratories, we’re talking about whatever spare cramped rooms are available with whatever equipment the individual maester has acquired on their own. 

Finally, you also need to take into account that the Citadel charges for its services. If a lord wants a maester so they can be part of the ravenry network, they have to pay for that. If a rich merchant needs medical care, they have to pay for that. And so on. So there’s income coming in from virtually every noble house of Webberesque importance or higher throughout the continent.