Hmmm, that might be the reason that GRRM had Jon Snow send Val—she’s been established enough as a character that it would be interesting to have her recount matters to Jon Snow—if, say, some people made it to the boats, but most did not.

Oh, it could be one of those prologue one-shot deals where we get inside a character’s head only to say good-bye—Val, say. Or you could also have Davos witness some remnants on his way to Skagos.

Yes, I think part of the reason we’ve gotten so many geography lessons in the fourth book is so that we understand where the stand-offs are going to be. We also know how little defense there is left in the Riverlands. All the signs are there that Westeros is going to get seriously trashed when the Wall comes down. So…

That’s all very iffy and speculative. It’s not even clear to what extent Norse women fought—there’s some indication that they did, but not to what extent. We have limited knowledge of “barbarian” civilizations pre-Christianity because many of them were non-literate, so we don’t have a lot of records—certainly nothing…

Yep. I thought the point was for Westeros not to be paying attention until it was too late—we don’t know how Martin will handle the en masse confrontations between humans and the Others because he’s not there yet. I certainly find the meetings in the books pretty, well, chilling.

I knew I was on i09 and not Jezebel when I got up this a.m. and saw my post knocking down the idea of early power-matriarchies had a bunch of likes and follow-ups that included *facts.*

Most? I wouldn’t go that far. It sucked to be a woman in ancient Athens and a good chunk of Greece. Neither China nor India have been particularly great for women, though things went up and down over the centuries.

Wow, haven’t ever rewatched any of that—and, yep, the acting’s every bit as bad as I remember.

Just do a search on India and Bloomberg Business Week. Or India and The Economist. Or India and the Financial Times.

Ah, yes, shame on Nepal for having a disastrous earthquake and it giving you Nepalese coverage fatigue.

If you haven’t read about India’s boom, it’s only because you don’t read anything about business. The Asian Tigers have been big news for years.

Thank you. A lot of the tut-tutting here strikes me as a way to not have to think about what’s going on in Third World countries—that caring is somehow equivalent to colonialism.

Did you read the article? Because if you had, you’d see that the writer made a point of talking to Nepalese women and getting their opinions of the matter.

Well, you could start by actually reading the article and discussing the issues brought up instead of glibly and ignorantly washing your hands of the issue.

That was my take on it. The last Bobby was quite good, but between Kiernan being so capable and the problem with casting a good Bobby, the kid storylines ended up revolving around Sally.

Saul was a pretty big character to just disappear and never make any kind of comeback. We pretty much knew what happened to other characters with that size part—we know Paul fell in with a cult, but Harry did his last good deed and helped get him to LA. We know Freddy Rumsen dried out. Duck kept showing up and up. We…

The thing is, Pete is awful, but he also kind of grew up a bit. He and Trudy are such wonderfully shallow social climbers that I loved them together. I mean—their Charleston!

She and Benedict Cumberbatch can swap roles back and forth and then hang out with David Bowie.

I work with young kids and one day I was subbing for a coworker. There was a very serious child with her father. I thought how nice it was that the dad had come. Then I learned afterwards that the mother had committed suicide while seven months pregnant.

Good luck, I’ve enjoyed your reviews—even when, or maybe particularly when, I don’t want to see the movie. I love a good pan.