I agree that Tyrion will probably die in the end - but hopefully, after he achieves everything he wants to achieve. If he dies after seeing Tysha alive and happy, that would be sweet enough.

Why would Stannis be dead? Because Ramsay said so? Yeah, he's such a reliable and honest chap - how could we not believe him?

But poor Tommen is not annoying.

My hope is that Sansa kills LF in Winterfell. According to the Ghost of High Heart's prophecy, she will 'slay a giant in a castle made of snow'. That sort of literally came true when Sansa 'killed' Sweetrobin's doll in her snow castle. But that event is clearly a symbolic precursor to something big that going to form…

Of course it's worse. No one's going to miss a few Freys. Everyone's going to miss Ser Pounce.

We see Jon's 'death' from his own POV. Whether or not Melisandre cloaked someone else as him, she can't have transferred his mind.

Targaryens in general aren't fire-proof. Plenty have been killed by fire, especially dragonfire. Dany's case was a special one, aided by blood magic.

To be more precise, she's becoming the person who kills you dead while you go about your work in the day, and you die without even knowing how or why. No night-time intrigue in chambers for Arya - that's too corny for her.

Note to self - sarcasm on the internet should always be marked clearly.

No violence in Mad Men? Ginsberg's nipple begs to disagree. So does Ken's eye, Abe's stabbed chest and Guy's severed foot.

You mean these two?

You never know. He might be a POV in a prologue or epilogue, in which he gets bumped off in some interesting way.

The distinction between 'high' art and 'popular' art is a modern invention.

Medieval England did not restrict movement to that extent. All but the poorest peasants would have at least tried to make a pilgrimage to a cathedral - for religious, not artistic reasons, but the fact remains they could have experienced the art there.

I think you're just splitting hairs here. Martin has never claimed to be writing history or historical fiction. What I understand from what he does claim is that almost all the individual elements of his tale have real-life counterparts. They don't need to have occurred in exactly the same way or same time or same…

That's just how fiction works - events are packed more closely together than in real life, and occur to characters we know. The amount of brutalities committed in a particular geographical area (say, England) in a particular time period (say, during the Wars of the Roses) probably far outnumber the amount of…

"only the High Born had access to that art"

The author seems to be missing the point entirely about the violence on GoT/ASoIaF. Yes, she does point out that the show/books are aimed at people who have never experienced violence themselves, and can comfortably expect never to experience it. But she doesn't seem to realize that that's the point. The world today…

Yeah - especially considering that the 'torturer who reign at the Dreadfort' (Ramsay Snow/Bolton) is easily one of the most unsympathetic characters in the series - probably second only to Joffrey on the scale of complete monsters.

"Janos Slynt’s reign of terror over the women in Craster’s Keep"
Um, what? Slynt was never in Craster's Keep.