Yup, precisely. It's kind of funny that this scene even exists, given how otherwise canted toward realism A Song of Ice and Fire tries to be with respect to medieval combat. I guess even GRRM doesn't think it's worth the cost to imagery and romaticism to describe armored men grappling each other to the ground and…

That was lies madness. The simple facts are that dual wielding is idiotic, which is why no one ever did it,* and single men rarely prevailed when faced with even two opponents, let alone four. You've got to think of scenes like that as kabuki intended to communicate the plot idea that "a great battle against a…

I never tire of pointing out that Wolverine was invented as a chew toy for the Hulk. His entire character concept is an obnoxious short guy who can be physically abused by a walking nuclear explosion, hurled with great abandon across miles of the Candian wilderness, and yet plausibly return to be stomped again.

Honestly, probably a yiddish-ization of Alexander.

Yes. People who actually used them did.

It's really not a money thing for me, it's a "I hate storing physical media" thing. I'm more than happy to pay for things, and fifteen years ago I was enthusiastically buying DVDs, but at this point it just irritates me that I have to store and retrieve a disc because some jackass thinks it will slow piracy down.

I wouldn't put money on it, but my sincere hope (that I will hold onto until it is dashed this Sunday) is that Rickon is in on a show version of the Great Northern Conspiracy and is set to become the Stark in Winterfell and also Shaggydog is not dead and everything is going to be okay.

Is there any legal way to hear the DVD commentary without actually buying physical media? I would definitely re-watch the whole series to hear the Lannister siblings cutting up on the voiceover, with Cersei and Tyrion getting on swimmingly while Jaime babbles in Danish (in my mind Nikolaj Coster-Waldau can only speak…

Sorry, I think I'm having threading problems (Disqus sucks). I can't see this in context (because "View in discussion" doesn't work), but I imagine you've been inundated with people pointing out Umber's refusal to kneel or swear an oath and the possibility that this is all a ploy.

Did the Boltons ever actually rule the north? I thought they had their fiefdom, but were subjugated by the Starks millennia ago and have never successfully rebelled.

The most compelling evidence that it wasn't rape is that literally the only person who says anything bad about Rhaegar is Robert Baratheon. Every person who speaks of Rhaegar other than Robert describes him as an absolute paragon of virtue, chivalry, honor and so on. He was a notably scholarly and gentle man who…

Aegon the Conqueror. Possibly others.

The Umbers know that the male Stark line is not dead. They have (had) the heir to the North in their protection, and could have rallied the other houses around him, given the enormous popularity of Robb and his father Ned before him.

The problem was that all his real parents were pulling double duty as uncles and aunts.

I misread my cite (here for the curious) but it's an exaggeration to say that the average life expectancy in developed countries is above 80. It's below 80 in the U.S., U.K., Denmark and Argentina, for example. Even in Japan—longest lived nation in the world—overall life expectancy is only 84 and male life…

There is some hint in the books that perhaps the people in the past that Bran observes can sense him observing them. It's part of the creepiness/aura of the weirwood heart trees in godswoods.

Trant's not on the list anymore.

This is actually true to a lesser degree for old actors, as well. Wilko Johnson (Ser Ilyn Payne) was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer after the first season. As it turns out, he survived, and may be coming back, but older actors do have more health risk than younger actors. Wilko wasn't even that old—mid 60's at…

60 is definitely "old." I'm not sure about "very old," but it's in the neighborhood. 70 is definitely "very old." Even in the most developed nations in the modern world, 90% of people die before age 80. Unless very few people ever merit being called "very old," 90 is a crazy high cutoff.

In the books, Ned was in his mid-30s when he died, and had been something like 17 or 18 at the time of Robert's Rebellion. GRRM has gone on record as regretting making everyone in GoT so young, though. He originally planned for a long lapse between the early events and the later events, but realized sometime in the…