Jedi Maester Yoda

I like how the bond between Jon and Ghost has been emphasized in ADWD. Jon notes he tastes blood in his mouth when Ghost is killed and can even feel his hunger. It's shown that it goes both ways as Jojen stated the relationship between skinchanger and beast is symbiotic. Shaggydog and Grey Wind were able to sense their masters' feelings towards Tyrion, hence why they attacked him when he visited. Summer got angry when Bran did, and Shaggydog attacked Lewyn in a reflection of Rickon's hostility towards him in the crypt.

Connington's thoughts of the tragic downfall of House Targaryen and the loss of "my silver prince" Rhaegar have pretty much defined his life. The words of "the bells tolled" point to the Battle of the Bells where he blames his defeat for Rhaegar's death. There is another layer as it could be referencing John Donne's sermon:

No man is an Iland, entire of it selfe; every man is a piece of the Continent, a part of the maine; if a Clod bee washed away by the Sea, Europe is the lesse, as well as if a Promontorie were, as well as if a Mannor of thy friends or of thine owne were; any mans death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankinde; And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; It tolls for thee.

It's a good thing a certain hedge knight from Flea Bottom wasn't there to witness that.

His sword and dagger were forgotten along with everything the old man had ever taught him. His fist knocked Aerion off his feet and the toe of his boot slammed into the prince's belly -THK

One trait about onions as Shrek pointed is "onions have layers." Onions often can be peeled back to reveal layers. Davos himself has layers in the form of his family, his loyalty to Stannis, his faith in the Seven, and his identity as the smuggler who came from Flea Bottom. These things together make up Davos.

He lost some layers with his four eldest sons on the Blackwater. He will also be fighting the Faith itself. I also don’t think the gods are done testing (torturing) Davos as he is set to lose his entire family and eventually his king Stannis. He will have lost his whole family in service to what ultimately proved to be a doomed cause like Eustace Osgrey.

One thing about onions is that they manage to continue sprouting leaves even when taken out of the ground, making them symbols of rebirth and fertility.

I like how beneath the surface, if it were another story, like many other characters, Gendry would be the protagonist. He has all the marks for a typical fantasy protagonist.

Orphaned son of a king, ignorant of his royal heritage

Raised among common people, and even working a regular job as a blacksmith's apprentice like Taran

Forced to leave home by tyrannical regime to go on an adventure in the country

Meets wizard mentor who knew his father in the form of Thoros the Red Wizard

Becomes knighted in defending the people of the kingdom against the forces of evil

Falls for a princess journeying with him along the way in the form of Arya

For House Lannister, it is conflicting with the house they always aspired to be. They wanted to marry into House Targaryen, practiced both incest and their doctrine of their house's supremacy. House Targaryen was the only house they envied, the exception to Lannister supremacy.

On an individual level, for Jaime, it means confronting his past. He confronts his crime that earned him the name "Kingslayer" that ended his efforts to be a true knight like his mentor Arthur Dayne, and with it the question of where he stands now. For Cersei, Daenerys is both what she aspires to be as a ruling queen: an absolute monarch with the monopoly on violence firmly in her hand making her stronger than any man, and her foil in that both are abuse victims sold into marriage but Daenerys rejects her family's doctrine of supremacy while Cersei embraces it. For Tyrion, it means abandoning his father's toxic legacy and finding the balance between realpolitik and his fondness for "cripples, bastards and broken things."

For House Baratheon, it means confronting the house they overthrew now that they are the ones who were usurped. Stannis faces another claimant for Azor Ahai who unlike him hatched actual dragons and whose claim to the throne supersedes his own. Daenerys is the image of who he thinks he is in a way that would make him question his own role. She essentially wrecks his story.

For House Martell, Daenerys represents two parts of their heritage. Daenerys is the image of their forebear and founder of the Dornish kingdom Nymeria: an Essosi warrior queen leading her people from slavery to Westeros. She also bears the name of the Targaryen ancestor of House Martell who continues to bear considerable influence on the family. Like the original Daenerys, Dany was married off to a foreign ruling sovereign as part of an alliance, and carries her concern for the common people.

Daenerys Targaryen, Maron's wife, was the one for whom the Water Gardens were built and she was the one who came up with the lesson in ruling made form observing the children playing in the pools that she instilled into her son that continued to be passed down to the generations all the way to Doran. Arianne looks at her portrait when she was a child constantly praying to be beautiful rather than her lesson, seeing Targaryen as something to aspire to.

In fighting Daenerys, they would be warring against the image of their family's legacies and heritage for the sake of a crown, pride and vengeance. It is also Arianne fighting against the image of her personal ideal.

For the High Septon, Daenerys is the embodiment of everything he opposes. She is a savior of another faith, the Red Faith, like Stannis. Like Cersei, Daenerys is also a ruling queen which doesn't sit well with the High Sparrow's misogyny. Daenerys also bedded horselords (nevermind that she wasn't given a choice) and had other partners, adding more fuel to his misogyny given his views on women and premarital sex. Like Cersei's children, she is a product of incest which the Faith abhors, and makes her an abomination by birth. Finally, she has dragons which were essential tools in crushing the power of the Faith. She would present a clear threat to his newly acquired military and political power.

Interesting comments from Cersei. She says Sansa revealed Ned's plot to her and even believes that. However, we must take into account that Sansa didn't tell her all of Ned's plans simply because Ned wouldn't confide such in an eleven year-old. We also known because Ned actually told Cersei his plans through his own POV. Littlefinger would have told Cersei about Ned's plans as well. The most Sansa could have told her is that she was being sent back to Winterfell, or Ned was moving now.

There are also clear inconsistencies. Ned wasn't plotting with Renly given Renly never supported Stannis's claim like Ned did, and he left King's Landing before Ned's confrontation with Cersei to crown himself. Ned clearly wouldn't have wanted such a powerful ally to leave him so he could push a claim to rival that of the candidate he supported. Ned also had no political base in King's Landing, and his seemingly only ally remaining, Littlefinger, had joined Cersei with the gold cloaks. Stannis was far away on Dragonstone, and Ned's letter never reached Dragonstone given the Lannister ally Pycelle, who was in charge of ravens, never sent it. He was politically isolated in King's Landing with Cersei having the clear advantage.

Why does she tell herself that Sansa spilled all of the beans? For the same reason she later says that Stannis made common cause with the Ironborn in spite of Stannis being too unyielding to give them the North they want and the Ironborn remembering Stannis crushing their fleet at Fair Isle, not wanting to be part of a united realm. She tells herself the North will not have him, that they prefer her rule in spite of Ned's beheading and the Red Wedding because . . . "Cersei is awesome."

This is also the same person who remembers Tyrion jeering at her the night Joffrey died when we know from Tyrion's POV that he tried to comfort her. In other words, Cersei is an unreliable narrator as even subconsciously she rewrites reality to fit her preferred narrative. She likes to think herself more popular and talented than she actually is while diminishing the abilities and support of her opponents.

Having Sansa tell her cuts out the political players Ned and Littlefinger, and makes her the only adult political operator in this context. It creates a less crowded narrative where they could have lost the throne were it not for Cersei because Sansa is the only person she would have come to and told Ned's plans which Cersei acted upon. Ned is simultaneously competent enough to oust the Lannisters from the throne in spite of his political isolation, and incompetent enough to confide in an eleven year-old his political plans at huge risk. The two parts of the narrative are inconsistent with each other, but both make sense in serving the purpose of boosting Cersei's image as a political player both objectively and relatively.

She tells herself that she secured her family's hold over the throne when in truth, she was simply lucky. She overstated Sansa's part to boost her own narrative. Of course, her actual ability is being demonstrated as she drives her regime into the ground and her luck runs out.

Interesting information from Illyrio. Just where did those lions in the Prince of Pentos's menagerie come from?

Leaf mentions "The great lions of the western hills have been slain," and Cersei herself remembers the last lions of the westerlands having lived in a cage in Casterly Rock as "remnants of her grandfather's time." They both confirm that there are no more lions in the westerlands. The animal that had inspired the sigil of House Lannister is gone due to overhunting and loss of habitat.

The lion in medieval European symbolism can be found in the Arthurian tale of Yvain, the Knight of the Lion who rescues a lion from a dragon and gains the feline as a companion symbolizing his courage and knightly virtue. Now, it has been replaced by the Mountain that Rides, an affront to everything connected to knighthood.

For all we know, that pride could contain some of the last living lions of the westerlands. A similar situation befell the Asiatic lion when overhunting from British colonists shrunk their number to just a few dozen in the 1880s in India. It was only the Nawab of Jungarah protecting Gir forest as his private hunting grounds that saved the species from extinction. Currently, their population is about to break four digits for the first time in over a century.

Was she still alive by then?

If so, we aren't really given much info on her relationship with Daemon. Although there is a certain irony to Daena who suffered in the basis of her gender by her arranged marriage, locked in the Maidenvault and denied the crown being the sire of the house of the notedly misogynistic Blackfyre cause.

We also don't know about her relationship with Daeron II though he likely named her sister Elaena as de facto mistress of coin.

Daemon was married to the daughter of the Archon of Tyrosh, which politically was a good marriage and given essentially a lordship in lands and right to build a castle.

Maybe she thought it was a good deal but he deserved better. Had she been a queen, he would have been a prince.

I like this little detail as it explains a lot about Arianne's feelings towards House Targaryen. For Doran, Daenerys was the source of the lesson of the Water Gardens, but for Arianne, she was her model for beauty. She would look at her forebear Daenerys with her Targaryen-featured beauty standing in contrast to the "the pudgy, flat-chested girl" she saw herself as.

It gives another angle to her thoughts of her and Gerold's children being as "beautiful as the dragonlords," and her preference for the dragon in cyvasse. The dragonlords are her personal ideal to aspire to. The Targaryens are something to be desired and emulated.

It also means for the second Dance in fighting the current Daenerys, she will be fighting what is actually her ideal image. Daenerys is everything she aspires to be. She is a beautiful Targaryen woman in the image of the previous Daenerys. She had her rival brother killed with Viserys while Arianne's feelings towards Quentyn require no explanation. Though Arianne doesn't know that was Drogo's rather than Dany's. Most crucially, Daenerys rules in her own right without any men restricting her through her possession of dragonpower. All the men around her serve her and desire her favor instead.

The only father he needed was Ser Arlan of Pennytree. That is the lineage he descends from, not in blood, but in spirit that Dunk passed or at least tried to pass that down to Egg. Dunk was special not because of his blood or lineage, but because he was Dunk.

Dunk the hedge knight who challenged a prince to defend a smallfolk woman, cut his own cheek in an attempt to stop a fight between Webber and Osgrey, inspired a future king and likely put his life on the line and tested his Kingsguard vows by taking a stand against his own king to save the life of an infant.

Simon Toyne was unhorsed by Rhaegar at Steffon Baratheon's tourney, so he met the head of the Kingswood Brotherhood.

Arianne arguably shares some parallels with Cersei (eldest child with two younger brothers, antagonistic relationship with one, daddy issues, father intended her to marry Targaryen prince only marry pretender from enemy house, etc). However, she lacks Cersei's narcissism and psychopathy. She also got reminded of the lesson of the Water Gardens, a lesson Tywin never taught as the smallfolk do not matter.

That does not mean she can't go down a dark path as a character. She has dealt with the insecurity of thinking she is not worthy of being her father's heir. Marrying Aegon, along with one-upping Quentyn, would in her mind be the political masterstroke that proves her worth and her abilities as a player. She also still retains those fresh feelings, which would extend to their most powerful bannermen, the Yronwoods. There is also the question of who ratted her out to her father which would make her suspicious, and she likely would retain her suspicion of the Yronwoods.

Then Daenerys arrives putting it out that her royal husband is a false pretender of bastard lineage. Arianne would of course be defensive in that situation given she is married to Aegon, and along with losing her crown, it would mean losing face. Her act that proved her worth as princess of Dorne instead proved her poor judgement and rash decision-making, or lack of fitness thereof.

As anyone who has argued with someone before can tell you, people can be at their worst when they get defensive or desperate. They are more likely to go for low blows as well as escalate to getting physical. In this case, the other person arguing is the only one with magical superweapons. She might be inclined to pull out all of the stops against her.

Arianne would do some awful things in fighting Daenerys, like possibly killing her envoys who were Quentyn's friends. When their previously unbeaten campaign starts losing, the stress can likely find its way into her decisions. She might try measures out of desperation like assassination attempts and poison as Cersei did.

If Aegon dies and it is confirmed that he actually was a false pretender, that would put Arianne in a precarious position. It means not only is the war lost, but she dragged Dorne into a losing war to marry a false pretender. She would lose face, and there would be Dornish lords who might be thinking of going over to the dragon queen if not simply out of survival, but Arianne would be keen not to allow that given I think she would have already burned her bridges with Daenerys and Tyrion. She might employ harsh reprisals to those who dare, thinking they need to fear her more than Daenerys.