A Song Of Ice And Fire

Plus most of the guys that Bolton has that are of suspect loyalty. I bet they'll turn on Ramsay during the battle in support of Stannis.

edited 1st Feb '15 2:19:48 PM by theLibrarian

1) Tommen is a Baratheon. Remember? The Stormlord might serve him. We certainly don't know for sure.

2) Why would Bronn go against the Lannisters? He goes with the people who have the most money.

3) The Westerlands has more men than the North in the first place. Robb went south with 20,000 men. That's at least 40% of the Norths total strength. Robb was successful in his battles, but we're ignoring the people killed by the IB invasion and Bolton betrayal. Robb only returned North with about a fifths of his original 20,000. Half of his foot was lost at Duskendale alone. The war devastated the North, Riverlands and the Westerlands. Roose kept his forces back while weakening the Stark loyalists during the War of the Five Kings.

4) In most places actually and that's ignoring that some of their most powerful bannermen (including their 3rd strongest) are actively working against the Starks.

edited 1st Feb '15 2:40:17 PM by 940131

Bronn follows the people that can provide for him the most. Even if the Lannisters have more money I wouldn't expect him to stick with them if someone else is clearly going to win.

Indeed, but by no means would it be evident that the Baratheon/Stark alliance were going to win in this scenario. The Wall will be under attack soon and even if the Zombies weren't coming, the Northmen can only mobilize 20,000 men for another campaign max. They need to leave garrisons for their castles.

edited 1st Feb '15 3:02:13 PM by 940131

Re: Seeing the Night's King: I'm adhering to the theory that we've already seen him, and that he calls himself Coldhands.

What motive would Coldhands have for helping Bran?

Possible, but I personally doubt that much. Coldhands is seemingly benign, after all. If the Night's King is out there, I strongly suspect he'll be the Big Bad as far as the Others go.

One possibility is that he's switched sides sometime between the centuries. Annother is that his story has been twisted through the generations and he wasn't actually as bad as they say. Or Melisandre's visions are correct and Bran is actually being groomed into the champion of The Great Other. Of course, we can't even be entirely certain of the motivations of the Others themselves at this point.

edited 1st Feb '15 3:10:19 PM by Druplesnubb

Assuming that creature in the show is actually the Night's King I'm guessing he's the Big Bad and The Great Other is the Bigger Bad.

I feel like the books would have to do a pretty severe 180 to make The Others seem like they're not Always Chaotic Evil.

edited 1st Feb '15 3:11:52 PM by Kostya

Mind you that the show don't have to use The Night's King in te same way the books do. Speaking of book to show divergences, the show cuts out Coldhands' role and adds an appearance of The Night's King. Not necessarily a coincidence.

Coldhands may not be the person you think,

[1]◊

edited 1st Feb '15 5:55:16 PM by Beaver

On Asha's first chapter. I love Rodrik Harlaw is the smartest of any Ironborn on the islands and is the only one with the sense to say "This is stupid and you all need to stop," even in response to Balon's first rebellion.

Balon's father was petty awesome. The wisest leader the IB have had since the Conquest. He failed as a parent though.

edited 1st Feb '15 8:48:44 PM by 940131

Aaaand now we go back to Cersei >.> Ugh. All she does is complain and complain and see treachery even among her own family and the brother she oh-so-shallowly claimed to love simply because they won't put up with her idiocy.

Just wait until you get to the epilogue of DWD.

Only some of them think he's a Baratheon. And many of the Stormlords got disinherited and replaced by new guys. The peasantry aren't exactly going to be loyal to these Lannister toadies.

Because Cersei tried to have him killed, duh. (And he knows it was Cersei too.)

The Westerlands can only field 5,000 more men than the North who can raise 55,000 men.

Also I'm not ignoring the people lost in the Bolton portrayal and the IB invasion. The IB invasion by the way only affected the western coast of the North which is more sparsely populated the the east side of the North. The IB pretty much stuck coastal raiding and capturing castles on the coast aside from Theon capturing Winterfell.

The Westerlands lost 25,000 men in 3 pitched battles to Robb. Plus all the men that they lost to Robb in the Westerlands, the men they lost before Robb entered the war, the men they lost at the Blackwater and the men they lost to the BWB which they are still losing.

Then factor in that they lost another thousand men at Dragonstone.

Yeah while Robb may have lost 15,000 Northmen in the Riverlands but I'll be generous and say Tywin lost double that. Maybe even more than double what Robb lost.

That's wrong. White Harbor hasn't been touched by the war and in fact they're mobilizing. And the Barrowton only sent as little of what they could to Robb. The only places that seem depleted are the northermost castles (Last Hearth and Karhold), Deepwood Motte (got captured by the IB ) and maybe TS.

The strongest is (White Harbor) and the third strongest (the Lady of Barrowton) are actually working for the Starks.

edited 1st Feb '15 9:28:20 PM by MadSkillz

1) Eh? We just don't know for sure.

2) Bronn follows the money. That's all there is to it.

3) I don't know where you got 55,000 men from. George said they have 50,000 (getting them all in the field is another matter entirely). Torrhen Stark had a good amount of time to prepare and was only able march south with 30,000.

4) I really think you're exaggerating. The men they lost before Robb entered the war? You do realize that they had curb-stomped the Riverlands, right?

5) Robb lost at least about 20,000 men, if not more. The Lannisters didn't lose 40,000. That means that the total the North has now is about 30,000 and they can't march south with that 30,000. They can go south again with about 15,000. 20,000 if we're pushing it.

6) I wasn't talking about White Harbor. I was talking about House Bolton, Ryswell and Dustin (Barrowton) who are all actively working against the Starks. House Bolton is the third strongest House in the North and there's no evidence that Lady Barbrey "feed Ned's bones to my dogs" Dustin is working for the Starks.

There are enough hints that it's ambiguous whether Lady Barrowton is on the Starks side or not. There is the grudge she told Theon about, but she's not particularly friendly to the Boltons and she hates the Freys.

I like the theory that her visit to the crypts was really to look for evidence that Bran and Rickon survived after finding out about Wex from Manderly. She only makes an offhand comment about the missing swords but given the difficulty finding and unearthing the crypt entrance, the thefts can't have been recent. But she thinks Theon is still loyal to Ramsay, for good reason, so she doesn't just ask him.

Actually did Wex see them come out of the crypts? I don't remember.

edited 2nd Feb '15 12:49:37 AM by storyyeller

It's not that she dislikes the Boltons. She dislikes Ramsay.

1.) We can say that about almost anything.

2) Yeah and there's always more room for promotion by going against the Lannisters and switching to Aegon's side. Plus better to go for a ruler that'll support you than one that wants you dead. I doubt Cersei will reward Bronn for staying loyal anyways.

3) The official numbers put the number of men that the North can field at 45,000- 55,000.

4) Eh? I never said how much they lost in the Riverlands. I'm just saying that they lost people there before Robb got there or are you going to tell me that they had 0 casualties fighting the riverlords. Yeah didn't think so.

5) No that's impossible because Robb marched south with only 18,000 men. How can they lose more men than they came south with?

And Bolton at the end of the RW has 3,000 Bolton soldiers and 500 Karstarks under his command with another 600 that he left to guard against Gregor (which we know he didn't come back with so I suppose they're doing something). That actually means that Robb only lost 13,900 men to Tywin's 30,000 (which is generous) -35,000(which seems more realistic).

6) Of course Lady Dustin would tell Theon that she hates the Starks. "Hey Ramsay's most loyal servant let me tell you how you shouldn't be afraid of Lord Manderly and how much I hate the Starks."

I think she's definitely on the Stark side. She only dislikes Ned and loved Brandon. Kinda of a mixed opinion of the Starks. Whereas Ramsay may have killed her nephew and hates him for it and she hates the Freys. She seems ambivalent to Roose.

@story Wex was in the tree when Bran and Osha told Maester Luwin that they were hiding in the crypts so Wex should know. I think she's investigating what Wex said. There's definitely some communication going on between the Northern Lords.

edited 2nd Feb '15 1:09:51 AM by MadSkillz

I don't believe Coldhands is the Night's King or Benjen. In fact, I don't believe he is anyone of importance, just a random, nameless, dead Night's Watchman whom Bloodraven resurrected and sends off to do his bidding.

Coldhands is a secret Targaryen.

If it wasn't for the fact that the GC is carrying his skull around I'd suggest that Coldhands is Bittersteel .

1) Yes, so you can't say that they won't fight for the Tommen/Myrcella.

2) If it looks like they're going to win, he'll switch sides, but first they'd have to look stronger than the Lannister/Tyrell alliance.

3) I don't know where you got those numbers, but George said 50,000.

4) No. I'm saying that their losses before Robb came south are probably insignificant in the grand scheme of the things. Edmure really screwed up the Riverlands defense and Walder stayed out of it.

5) I meant 20,000 total. That's counting the IB and the Boltons.

6) I've seen no evidence that Roose only has 3,000. We don't know how many men the Boltons have total or how many they've lost. Roose had been planning his battles from the beginning so that Stark loyalists were dying while he preserved his men, so it's unlikely he lost a significant amount of men.

7) You're free to think she's on the Stark side, but it's far from a sure thing. Whether she's ambivalent to Bolton is questionable. He is the father of her beloved nephew after all.

Read a Sansa chapter and a Brienne Chapter before I went to sleep last night. I approve of Lord Tarly's methods, though not so much his attitude. A shame that despite all of that he still can't prevent his soldiers from being dicks like those chucklefucks at Maidenpool's gates.

1) Yes I can.

2) Bronn would've switched allegiances to Stannis if that were true. He takes risks just like everyone else if the profit is big enough.

3)?? 50,000 is within 45,000 - 55,000.

4)It all accumulates. Besides stop being so pedantic. That was just a list of things that I named.

4) That's still wrong because that would mean that Robb lost 6,100 men in the North. That's just very unlikely because Ramsay only defeated a force of 2000 that wasn't annihilated but scattered because Ramsay took out the leadership.

The only other places that saw conflict were Deepwood Motte which significantly had less than 1,000 men. Hell I'd peg them at 200 at max (Asha only needed 1,000 men to take it), Moat Caitlin which had 100 men and TS which was captured by Dagmer Cleftjaw with his meager force when they left to go take back Winterfell.

There was some raiding along the Stony Shore but taken altogether I'd say that Robb lost 2,000-3,000 men max to the IB and Boltons in the North which would leave total number of casualties he suffered at 15,900 -16,900 which is still less than 20,000.

6) The text tells us that Roose has 3000 men plus 2000 Freys. He didn't lose much in the South but it's not like he had a big number of troops to begin with.

7) Roose isn't exactly a loveable guy. But it doesn't matter either way. She hates the Freys and he married into the Freys. She hates Ramsay and Ramsay is his heir. Just based on that I think she'll turn on him along with the rest of the northern lords.