Game of Thrones begins....

[Berkut]

Nah, not THAT dumb - it is at least plausible in that it would not violate any other "canon" so to speak. She seems about the right age anyway.

I agree that it would be kind of silly, given that there have been no foreshadowing, no reason, and plus it would be a pretty straight out rip off of Star Wars.

But hey, what else is there to do but talk about this shit?

[Habbaku]

Well, that is more along the lines of what I mean--there has nothing even close to the level of foreshadowing about, say, Aegon (who is definitely not real) or Jon's lineage (which is all but settled).  The evidence, such as it is, is really circumspect and seems like wishful thinking.

I would prefer to talk about theories that actually have some backing and would be interesting, such as Sandor's current situation (Cleganebowl; GET HYPE!11), Brienne's lineage (some interesting reading there), and Stannis' soon to be epic victory over the Freys (T3H NORF REMEMBARS).

[Habbaku]

Ian McShane provided a hint as to his role in the coming season:

[spoiler]"I'll give you one hint," McShane told Pop Goes The News. "I am responsible for bringing somebody back that you think you're never going to see again. I'll leave it at that."[/spoiler]

GET HYPE.

Prediction below:

[spoiler]"Ser? My lady?" said Podrick. "Is a broken man an outlaw?"

"More or less," Brienne answered.

Septon Meribald disagreed. "More less than more. There are many sorts of outlaws, just as there are many sorts of birds. A sandpiper and a sea eagle both have wings, but they are not the same. The singers love to sing of good men forced to go outside the law to fight some wicked lord, but most outlaws are more like this ravening Hound than they are the lightning lord. They are evil men, driven by greed, soured by malice, despising the gods and caring only for themselves. Broken men are more deserving of our pity, though they may be just as dangerous. Almost all are common-born, simple folk who had never been more than a mile from the house where they were born until the day some lord came round to take them off to war. Poorly shod and poorly clad, they march away beneath his banners, ofttimes with no better arms than a sickle or a sharpened hoe, or a maul they made themselves by lashing a stone to a stick with strips of hide. Brothers march with brothers, sons with fathers, friends with friends. They've heard the songs and stories, so they go off with eager hearts, dreaming of the wonders they will see, of the wealth and glory they will win. War seems a fine adventure, the greatest most of them will ever know.

"Then they get a taste of battle.

"For some, that one taste is enough to break them. Others go on for years, until they lose count of all the battles they have fought in, but even a man who has survived a hundred fights can break in his hundred-and-first. Brothers watch their brothers die, fathers lose their sons, friends see their friends trying to hold their entrails in after they've been gutted by an axe.

"They see the lord who led them there cut down, and some other lord shouts that they are his now. They take a wound, and when that's still half-healed they take another. There is never enough to eat, their shoes fall to pieces from the marching, their clothes are torn and rotting, and half of them are shitting in their breeches from drinking bad water.

"If they want new boots or a warmer cloak or maybe a rusted iron halfhelm, they need to take them from a corpse, and before long they are stealing from the living too, from the smallfolk whose lands they're fighting in, men very like the men they used to be. They slaughter their sheep and steal their chickens, and from there it's just a short step to carrying off their daughters too. And one day they look around and realize all their friends and kin are gone, that they are fighting beside strangers beneath a banner that they hardly recognize. They don't know where they are or how to get back home and the lord they're fighting for does not know their names, yet here he comes, shouting for them to form up, to make a line with their spears and scythes and sharpened hoes, to stand their ground. And the knights come down on them, faceless men clad all in steel, and the iron thunder of their charge seems to fill the world . . .

"And the man breaks.

"He turns and runs, or crawls off afterward over the corpses of the slain, or steals away in the black of night, and he finds someplace to hide. All thought of home is gone by then, and kings and lords and gods mean less to him than a haunch of spoiled meat that will let him live another day, or a skin of bad wine that might drown his fear for a few hours. The broken man lives from day to day, from meal to meal, more beast than man. Lady Brienne is not wrong. In times like these, the traveler must beware of broken men, and fear them . . . but he should pity them as well."

When Meribald was finished a profound silence fell upon their little band. Brienne could hear the wind rustling through a clump of pussywillows, and farther off the faint cry of a loon. She could hear Dog panting softly as he loped along beside the septon and his donkey, tongue lolling from his mouth. The quiet stretched and stretched, until finally she said, "How old were you when they marched you off to war?"

"Why, no older than your boy," Meribald replied. "Too young for such, in truth, but my brothers were all going, and I would not be left behind. Willam said I could be his squire, though Will was no knight, only a potboy armed with a kitchen knife he'd stolen from the inn. He died upon the Stepstones, and never struck a blow. It was fever did for him, and for my brother Robin. Owen died from a mace that split his head apart, and his friend Jon Pox was hanged for rape."

"The War of the Ninepenny Kings?" asked Hyle Hunt.

"So they called it, though I never saw a king, nor earned a penny. It was a war, though. That it was."[/spoiler]

[Siege]

Deeper words have never been posted in Languish.

[Eddie Teach]

Deeper words have never been posted in Languish.

Not even when you posted about the Singularity? 

[Martinus]

Lady Stoneheart!!!

[Habbaku]

  I doubt they are casting him as LSH.

[Liep]

[Admiral Yi]

So zombie Jon Snow unites the frost zombies and the Northerners, and conquers everyone else.

[viper37]

So zombie Jon Snow unites the frost zombies and the Northerners, and conquers everyone else.

zombies don't bleed, so he ain't zombie

[Martinus]

So zombie Jon Snow unites the frost zombies and the Northerners, and conquers everyone else.

zombies don't bleed, so he ain't zombie

Who said it's his blood.

[Martinus]

I wonder if they are going for some sort of [spoiler]Arthas[/spoiler] angle with Jon. [spoiler]Becoming the new Night's King somehow to prevent the lands of the living from being overrun.[/spoiler]

[Jaron]

I wonder if they are going for some sort of [spoiler]Arthas[/spoiler] angle with Jon. [spoiler]Becoming the new Night's King somehow to prevent the lands of the living from being overrun.[/spoiler]

I doubt it.

[Josquius]

I do think it won't be so simple as others=evil.

[Liep]

Martin says the book won't be done before the new season after he missed his deadline for publish. Still needs at least a month's work he says.

Big surprise.