a) Stannis isn't exactly old, that'd be a long wait. And the longer you wait, the greater the chance of Selyse randomly dying and Stannis remarrying and fathering sons who live past the 3rd trimester.

Pretty sure there were a couple shouts of "bastard" in there too. So yeah, a bunch of sparrow supporters have heard the incest rumors and found them credible.

I believe it was option (b). Not sure if you need to have a task in mind when you create the shadow, or if you can create one on spec and then assign it a task later, or what.

It takes spine > 0 to order a massacre when the situation looks like it can still end peacefully if you just give up and leave. And Tommen does seem to default to "oh, ok, I'll just go away then" when someone's refusing to cooperate with him.

Better to have a shadowbabby and not need it than need it and not have it, you know?

I think it's reasonable to assume that Tommen will take the path of least resistance in all things. He may be Tywin's grandson twice over, but he inherited none of the old man's spine.

Well, sooner or later Daenerys has to come back to Westeros and take over - Tommen obviously isn't going to keep the throne, especially since the truth about his parentage is already an open secret, and I don't think much of anyone actually wants Stannis to be king, so it'll be a great time for a Targaryen…

I was hoping at least one of the Dorne girls would be against murdering Myrcella because she'd actually been listening to Oberyn when he talked about how wrong it was to kill kids for the sins of their parents.

That plus Brienne's recent line about how she's going to get him for murdering Renly. Either she's going to kill him, or she's going to try at a really bad time and completely screw up whatever he's got going on.

a) Yes, Tyrion used wildfire to defend King's Landing from an invading army, and in the books he did run a chain across the bay entrance to keep enemy ships from escaping. But we're talking about a medieval society here - they don't have rules against magical/chemical weapons, and if Stannis' ships had been easily…

And with Brienne trailing Sansa hoping to protect her in some fashion, I'm really hoping to see a scene where Sansa asks her to kill a Bolton or two.

Things Sansa knows about Littlefinger:
- He was a major player in the plot to murder Joffrey, and arranged for Sansa to escape Lannister custody.
- He murdered Lysa Arryn only after Lysa had proved herself crazy enough to threaten Sansa with death just because Littlefinger found her attractive.
- various other shady…

In one of his early conversations with Jaime I believe there was a reference to Qyburn experimenting upon (and possibly vivisecting!) living people. All in the interest of advancing medical science, of course.

Apparently, yes. That's half the reason Sansa is so in demand - since everyone thinks all of her brothers are dead, she's legally the heir to Winterfell, which means any children she bears, if any husband ever manages to get her pregnant, will be the heirs after her.

We never saw Tywin in Casterly Rock either, but he was still the official Lord of it. It's like how Robb left Bran in charge of Winterfell when he first went south with his army - whoever's the senior family member in residence is Acting Lord/Lady, but legally they're just running the place on behalf of the actual…

On the other hand, though, what has Brienne actually succeeded at? Only getting Jaime Lannister to King's Landing alive, and succeeding for a Lannister isn't going to be a big selling point for Sansa. Plus it's only a partial success since he got his hand chopped off along the way.

Under Westerosi laws of inheritance, children come before siblings, so actually Cersei is Lady of Casterly Rock. Kevan only inherits if all of Tywin's children are dead/barred.

Way back in season 1, when Bran was in his temporary coma and people were expecting him to die, Cersei told Catelyn about how she'd lost her first baby, who was dark-haired like Robert. I don't think the loss of the baby was a significant wedge in their relationship, though, certainly not compared to Robert's…

Pretty sure that's Hizdahr. It's a lot simpler to just have all the defenses of the masters and Mereen's old traditions come from the same guy.

I vaguely recall him yelling something about not being king while being burned to death. Though I'm not sure why he wouldn't have just yelled, "I'm not Mance, I'm the Lord of Bones being burned in his place". Maybe Melisandre also had a "don't blurt out the truth" spell to go with the illusion.