He's a lich!

The Bolton bastard isn't quite as I pictured but he's doing a great job. Bet being with the Starks is looking pretty good right about now to Theon Reekjoy.

Is that him saying "No, he's not?"

Crap.

Good thing there are dragons around that can swallow him. Best way to deal with a lich in my experience. LOL.

They're nasty when they're clever.

Go Leafs go

My shirt's gay! Ygritte catches him wearing that she's leaving him for the warg.

Just finished ADWD last night. I am mildly disappointed. Felt a little too much idk... all over the place maybe. Still good, but not great. Too many ends left open, IMHO of course.

That's a common take on ADWD. He spent a lot of time getting everything set up where it is just about to get exciting, then it ends.

Sixth Book should be great though:

Battle of Winterfell is about to start, plus the Bastard has Mance. Will Manderly turn on Freys and help Stannis? I'm assuming so since he already killed three Freys and served them as meat pies to Roose Bolton and the other Freys. Was the Bastard's letter to Jon accurate or did Stannis and Manderly play a trick on him? (which is what I think after reading the new Theon chapter GRRM released early) Will Stannis kill Theon or does Bran save him somehow (a guess based on new Theon chapter)?

Battle of Mereen about to take place with Barristan leading the Mereen troops and unsullied. Victarion arriving, and who knows, maybe Dany and Drogon and a horde of Dothraki? Will Victarion's dragon horn work? Marwyn from the Citadel on his way too. Does Tyrion end up on the right side?

We'll find out what happened with Jon Snow, and all hell was about to break loose at Castle Black. Will wildlings and NW fight? What will Melisandre do?

We'll get Jaime and Brienne talking to zombie Catelyn.

Arya sent away on a mission already. Will she end up in Westeros again at some point and will she reunite with her wolf?

Sansa and Littlefinger working their schemes.

Varys? WTF is he up to killing Kevan Lannister and ensuring mmore Chaos.

Trial by battle for Cersei, will it by the Hound versus his headless zombie brother? Margery trial as well.

Aegon and Connington and their army about to attack Storms End.

Dorne has it's fingers in everything with sand snakes. One is in Citadel disguised as boy (Sphinx), one was sent to infiltate the church, one was sent to be on the small council in KL, and Arianne chapter released by GRRM shows her on way to meet Aegon. Their army is massed and waiting for word to strike and will join Aegon if they think he is real.

And what is going on with Jaquen Hagr disguised as Pate and with a key to every door in the Citadel? Will Sam get mixed up in it?

I think that covers it. If Dany wins and we can get them to Westeros, these story lines can start to converge. Still, book 6 is set up to be as epic as book 3 was.

Yeah, Feast and Dance are basically the equivalent of the 7th and 8th episode of a season of GoT. All setup.

Is it pretty much a book per season?

It was until they split the 3rd book into 2 seasons.

That's the way they're talking. They've come out recently and said they expect it to run 7 years if the ratings hold.

Which means the show will likely take a wide detour from the books by the end.

Some of books 4 and 5 will be in next year along with the end of book 3 (heck, some has already been in this season with Theon), and they could do the rest of book 4 and 5 for season 5. That puts them back on pace for 7, but something tells me book 6 will take more than one season to cover, and book 7 could as well. Would not surprise me if it went 8 or 9 seasons if the ratings hold, which they probably will given how many people have now read the books.

Some speculation is that it would be difficult to run the season much past 7 years because of the ages of the actors. Anyway, this is what I was referring to:link

A lot of time passes in the books too, so it's fine for them to get older. The only tricky ones are Bran and Arya. Rickon could be played by anyone when he gets back from Skagos, nobody would know the difference. Probably why they don't feature him much right now.

It is interesting that the only Stark kids with no POV chapters are Robb and Rickon. I always assumed Robb was because he was a king, and none of the kings ever get POV chapters in the books. I wonder if that means Rickon is destined to be a king as well?