The speculation was that Howland Reed could reveal the truth about the Tower of Joy and R+L=J, but now that Bran knows, what would Howland contribute to the story?

There was a huge variety in the sizes of the dragons involved, and some of them still lived more or less freely on Dragonstone. For example, Vhagar from Aegon's conquest was still alive and huge. Also, Meraxes, second largest of the three conquest dragons, was killed by getting hit in the eye with a scorpion bolt…

To my ear, the battle music kept going back and forth between Dany's theme and the Lannister theme (Rains of Castamere).

Maybe the idea was to hide it from the Lannisters' own regular soldiers - either so they don't get freaked out about a possible assault-by-dragon or so they don't let the word get out and maybe enable Daenarys to be more prepared for this "seecret weapon."

The problem with your statement is that GRRM's vision also includes the Valonqar prophecy.

Let's not forget that Tyrion owes Jaime his life post-trial-by-combat.

They specifically mention before the battle that all the gold is safely inside the gates of King's Landing. We don't have reason (yet) to think she can't pay.

This episode felt like the Melee of the Musical Motifs, between all the Stark theme up North and the alternating Danaerys and Lannister themes throughout the battle. I liked it a lot.

Nerd alert: They may have had the Reach's booty, but they were almost certainly in the Crownlands at that point, across the river from King's Landing (which was convenient for Dany's forces). Jaime or Randyll name-checked the need to cross the Blackwater Rush by nightfall.

Compare the size of the flames Big Drogon is spittin' with those of Lil' Drogon at Astapor though…

Since this is the book thread, have you read GRRM's "The Princess and the Queen," which recounts the Dance of the Dragons? SPOILERS FOR THAT WORK: Several dragons were killed at the hands of people back then.

To be fair, travel times were rather haphazard even during the first season. Still, I appreciate your on-point response to the tired "work of fiction X is fantasy / sci-fi , so who cares whether it stays consistent to the internal rules its world has set up?" remark.

You're right that she had two children, but not about the second part. "Prince Aegon's birth had almost been the death of her. She would bear no more children, the maesters told Prince Rhaegar afterward" is straight from the Jon Connington chapter of ADWD.

IGNORE IF YOU DON'T WANT INFO FROM DVD EXTRAS AND/OR THE BOOKS: Targaryens traditionally practiced polygamy (see: Aegon and his two literal sister-wives). It's implied that Rhaegar took Lyanna Stark as a second wife to try to fulfill the prince-that-was-promised prophecy. His first wife, Elia of Dorne, gave birth to…

What if I told you that states have enough people living in them that there is not necessarily a lot of overlap between the individuals who complain about the cost of welfare programs and individuals receiving them?

Sorry to nitpick, but Littlefinger isn't Warden of anything. Robin Arryn *was* Warden of the East, but since the Vale supports the King in the North now, the crown has presumably withdrawn that honorific.

Could be justified by milk of the poppy being harder for Sam to surreptitiously steal from the Maesters than rum.

Nah, it's Jacopo with a "p", which is Italian. Jacobo with a "b" and also the "j" pronounced like English "h" would be the Spanish version.

I read an interview where Hurwitz said they would have had to severely cut the budget and reduce the cast to get picked up by Showtime and he wasn't willing to do that.

My favorite is the vocal warmup: "Welcome to the singing laundromaaaaat. We are not responsible for theeeeeft."