Vacation in Westeros: Day 24

Hey-o, what do you know.

Day 3, Day 12, Day 18.

What's Happened So Far

• Jon's still chilling up north with his peeps, except now he's graduated and is an actual member of the Night Watch. No more women for him! Not that he ever had any. Unfortunately, he was denied Ranger-ship, thus clearly not being one of the primary protagonists. Tragical. On the other hand, his direwolf found a human hand! What could that mean. (By the by, Winter is still coming.)
• Tyrion managed to eek his way out of dying by Catelyn's crazy sister through the quick application of his new sellsword Bronn. Gets all your heavy knight problems out. Plus he'll have picked up a tribe of wildmen once he's returned to home. Huzzah!
• Dany's brother finally pushed the horseriders too far, and they gave him a crown at long last. Unfortunately, said crown was still rather molten. And happened to burn his face off. And then there was just the one Targaryen left, the last of the dragons. Well, that and her baby.
• And as always, all the fun stuff happened down south. Robert went off on a hunting trip, leaving rule of the kingdom to an injured Ned. While he's working on getting his daughters out of dodge, he's also got another rather important problem: The Lannisters. The only audience we see him hold has us learning that one of the Lannister's most infamous knights is running a marauding party and destroying towns and villages. Additionally, Ned finally found out that this particular branch of the Lannister tree is less a brance and more a straight line, if you catch my drift. He confronts Cersei, the queen, with this newfound knowledge, only to be laughed at. This doesn't bode well, but then Ned's more honorable than smart at this point. Robert then returns from his hunting trip, gored by a boar, and his final act as king is to grant Ned regency, until his son/heir can actually attain the office. Ned, ever the honorable idiot, does absolutely nothing while the Lannister plot finally snaps shut around him. When Robert Baratheon, King of Westeros, dies, Cersei places young Joffrey on the throne, herself as regent, and attempts to force Ned's fealty in exchange for his life. Ned refuses, believing that the people he trusted were in fact on the up and up, but all of his paid-for men turn on him, his loyal men are slaughtered, and he himself is captured. In a game of thrones, you either win or you die. At this point, Eddard Stark only has one option.

Thoughts

All that politicking has led up to this point, this very point. And I don't even have to be specific with "that", because each of the four points has all had a giant turning point in the near past. It's actually kind of amazing, honestly. Not only is Martin juggling four different stories from eight different viewpoints, bu he's bringing them along at roughly the same point so that they can climax at roughly the same time. Each of the major players (This discounts: Bran, Sansa, Arya) in each of the stories had some sort of major thing happen that will propel them into the future.

For Tyrion and Catelyn, the end of their joined journey is huge. Catelyn has learned that the Arryn house is, for all intents and purposes, dead, and that it can no longer be depended upon. Plus, I'm fairly certain that she trusts Tyrion. Tyrion, on the other hand, now knows about some deeper machinations, and we know that he has motive to strike back at his family for their past sins against him.

 Jon has finally succeeded at the wall, coming to the end of his training. Instead of being a ranger though, he's being groomed for a leadership role. What's more, they found a mystery hand, which may well lead to the missing Stark.

Dany's finally had her last connection to her previous life, and the rest of the Targaryens, cut off completely. Viserys is dead, and now Dany has to decide what she'll end up doing. Now, it's the Song of Ice and Fire. We know what Ice is (Hi there winter, your heralds are, to put it starkly, doing poorly), but what could the Fire part of the equation be. HMMMMM. Protip: Targaryens are closely related to dragons.

Finally, the Lannisters have finally propelled themselves into power, being forever rid of the broken man they called king. Stark has realized this all too late, and his climax will lead to his death, but this bodes poorly for his daughters as well.

Still, four storylines, roughly coinciding with each other. Well played ser, well played.

The king is dead, long live the king.