Chickens—I’ll take the chickens. Eggs are efficient and chickens eat annoying bugs—like crickets. Yep, I’m planning to stay up a couple of levels on the food chain—that’s just the kind of primate I am.

You can’t just pick up your orchard and relocate when there’s a drought. A lot of stuff that grows in California (yep, I am talking almonds among other things) don’t grow well elsewhere in the country (too cold, too wet).

Well, there’s the big Cersei plotline coming up, which should be fun to watch. I think someone’s going to have to borrow Needle though, given the prophesy.

I miss the existence of Val here who makes it clear that the Wildlings consider Shireen dangerous and unclean because of the greyscale, which makes you wonder why they think that. Not that Shireen is dangerous and unclean, but the greyscale connects to something . . .

I don’t think she’s a clueless airhead. I think she’s arrogant, ignorant and unstable because of her rotten son’s death. Cersei always resented being sold off, essentially, to Robert Baratheon and being treated as an object to be bartered. She was educated to be a consort, but she was denied an education in how to be…

Oh, I don’t think there’s an upturn for Cersei—not with that prophecy hanging over her. I think she’ll survive a while, but I think she’s doomed.

Yeah, I could have sworn Jorah’s aunt was the Lady of Bear Island—and that she’s alive in the books.

Yep, I was thinking while reading this synopsis that the whole spoiler issue is just becoming less relevant except for the very, very main storylines—i.e. who sits on the iron throne and how does the walkers v. humans thing go down. Otherwise, things are diverging pretty seriously.

It doesn’t. Stannis is flawed in all sorts of ways. I think it’s pretty clear that Martin doesn’t intend him to be the holder of the Iron Throne for any length of time.

Stannis murdered his brother through trickery. He’s not an honorable guy—he thinks he is, but what he really is is cold-blooded and doesn’t know how to truly temper justice with mercy. I think that’s pretty clear in the books. I actually think Stannis seems more likeable on the show.

Yep. It’s only worth what someone is willing to pay for it. That’s how the free market works.

Yep. Also, I can think of one kid with issues who hit every single child in my kid’s class one year. (He shoved mine onto the cement when she was walking by.) I felt sorry for the kid, *but* not to the point of compromising her physical safety. No birthday invite involved, but would I have forced her to go to that…

Interesting. I’m sure the mom gets overwhelmed at times, but ideally the school and parent community would be more pro-active about something like this. Kids can be kind when they understand why another child acts strangely—maybe not be good buddies, but do things like attend a birthday party and not tease. Then you…

Yep—about the only thing my FIL would talk about re: WWII was the actual plane—actually flying plane—good. Landing, combat, bombing runs—uh not so much on that. It is kind of crazy to think of landing those planes on ships in the middle of the Pacific—a wild idea really—it’s *still* not that easy.

I got your reference.:) I was more riffing on the fact that there is a lot of literature by WWII vets—but it tends toward the anti-heroic. Funny, even celebs, like David Niven, who were in the war didn’t talk much about it.

And, see, I’m going to have to watch Serenity again, now having seen the show, so that I’ll figure why what happens in it matters.

I do respect them, but having known a few, I mostly pity them. I look back and see these talented men who drank too much, never had great careers, had trouble dealing with emotional things and I see a huge amount of unspoken damage. My father’s best friend was a sensitive talented painter who never did much but climb…

Things were written—but a lot of it was very anti-war—Kurt Vonnegut, Joseph Heller, Norman Mailer, J.D. Salinger. All of them were World War II vets—all were stationed overseas and all but Mailer saw serious combat. Heller flew 60 bombing missions; Vonnegut was a POW; Salinger (poor bastard) was in the infantry and…

Yep. I liked watching it (and I’m really late to the show—I saw it on Netflix about six months ago) and I wish there had been more episodes, but I didn’t really have a “How did they think of that?” moment. Grey-area heroes have been around in serious fiction for ages.

My father-in-law flew a Corsair in WWII (yes, I feel old.), but he certainly didn't do it drunk. Like a lot of WWII vets who saw combat, he was really marked by it—pivotal thing in his life and his kids were always giving him memorabilia, but he really would not talk about it. Landing those things on a carrier was…