That's really okay. I pretty much posted this for other people in this thread, not for you. I'm not overly concerned with whether or not you "get" why I do anything I do.

I liked it, but I have a wanky side of me that loves the European absurdist plays that were plus-or-minus its contemporaries.

Okay, I'll grant you — it's most definitely not "throwaway."

I remember Victarion wanted to. (I'd forgotten the wife-raping... I guess that's, uh, fairgame? Charming Ironborn.)

I can see that. I can even get a sense of the catharsis here — it's not poorly acted, to be sure — I think maybe it was just... unearned? Like, Robin Williams's Sean character has a magic one-liner that he can repeat and repeat and repeat and then Will is all better?

It's not your fault.It's not your fault.It's not your fault.It's not your fault.It's not your fault.

Haha, it's a little like "who's worse, Mussolini or Stalin?" so I'll agree to disagree with you in that both families belong on this list and "most fucked up" is a tough measure to perfectly quantify.

I think you're right. I think you have to be right. I remember reading for a while and actually saying aloud to (same friend above, who'd read the books), "But how can the characters ever learn this? Everyone who knows is now dead?" And half a book or so later they introduce the character/backstory of Howland Reed.

And Ned is the kind of guy who, lets face it, kind of gets his jollies by suffering for his honor. He's a good guy, in fact capital G Good (in fact capital LG Lawful Good) but he's also a bit of a martyr — it comes with the territory, and it makes his character more dimensional, the whole "this is my burden to bear,…

(Yeah, I have) that's what I mean. The Targaryens have 3 centuries of madmen and blood feuds. The Lannisters have one generation of three bickering siblings and their Will-To-Power would-be-tyrant father. Almost anything the Lanns have that's fucked up, the Targs can outfuckup then on within the last two generations.…

Depends how far you go on the "family tree," right? Robert Baratheon is from some Targaryen offshoot family, right? All that forced-marriage to your sibling, bastards and legitimizing them, plus madness madness madness.

Oh, probably not. There were a bunch of books back in the day. It's just, Subgenius seemed like the thing the internet would love but it existed 10, 20 years too soon. I almost never hear about it these days.

Ned Stark maintained that Jon Snow was his bastard son, but it doesn't suit the character of Ned to do such a dishonorable thing as screw someone who wasn't his wife — however, it suits the character of Ned to lie and bear a loved one's shame for them, especially to save an innocent baby. The mysteries are more about…

Callisto doesn't get enough love for being so pretty.

Cheap shots at popular icons is run of the mill for every culture. That's what the People vs. Larry Flint (the movie and the court case) were about. It's not anti-religionism, precisely, so much as knocking-down-a-peg anything that takes itself too seriously.

I don't think that's necessarily so (the first part; I can't speak to how annoying it is/isn't for you) — I came to that conclusion by the middle of book one, independently, and asked my friend who'd read them all if that was a thing and he assured me, the internet is full of that theory and it has yet to be…

Rhaegar was undeniably depressive and gloomy. As to the kidnapping, well, we're all still waiting for that shoe to drop aren't we? Did he kidnap someone? Or did he take someone with whom he shared a mutual and forbidden love and elope to a tower in the south where they made a beautiful dark-haired baby boy who may one…

Mean nasty self-important old hyper-patriarchs with an obsession over their own seed and a violent disdain for everyone else? yeah.

Every time a Targaryen is born, you flip a coin and you get either greatness or madness, right? — even Dany has her doubts on which side she lands.

"No, it's not trolling at all. I'm just wondering why so many people waste their time here, and think they're funny."