Interesting speculation but...

What about

If that's the case, Season 7 will air backward from ep. 10 to ep. 1.

Ah, D&D just go ahead & film their own plots & finish the series.

And in five years when GRRM finishes (assuming he's still alive & actually ends with Book 7), they'll just shoot new scenes, hit the editing room, & then re-release the DVDs as "director's cuts" or "extended versions."

The project will be overseen by Oliver Stone, Peter Jackson, and George Lucas. With Ridley Scott acting as technical advisor.

As I understand it, only people with at least one actual Targaryen ancestor in their family tree can have a legitimate claim on the Iron Throne. So any living Targaryens have a claim, of course, as well as the Baratheons due to the fact that the grandfather of Robert/Stannis/Renly married a Targaryen princess, who became their grandmother.

Anyone else who wants to sit on the Iron Throne would have to win it militarily and seize it by force through warfare from the current royal ancestral line and would probably have to kill everyone in the previous ancestral line as well. While there are 7 kingdoms in Westeros in which someone could have a legitimate ancestral claim to just one or more of those kingdoms, the ruler on the Iron Throne is the overall ruler of all of Westeros and the ruler of each of the individual 7 kingdoms are subservient to whoever the current ruler is on the Iron Throne.

I think Robert's rebellion would be quite dull to see, no real backstory and we know all the major events except maybe for

However, the Dunk and Egg books could be adapted into quite a fun year long miniseries.

I've been thinking that we haven't actually seen the iron throne at all this season...is that correct? When was the last time we had a scene in that room?

Yep, you're right. We haven't seen the Iron Throne since Tyrion's trial, which was the sixth episode of Season 4.

Interesting to note who has actually sat on the Iron Throne on the show:

- Ned Stark
- Cersei Lannister
- Joffrey Baratheon
- Tommen Baratheon
- Tywin Lannister

So Robert Baratheon was never shown sitting on the Iron Throne?

In the Sansa & Theon/Reek scene, Sansa mentions that Ramsay locks her in her room. But why didn't Sansa get out of the room when Theon/Reek unlocked the door to bring her meal and then go put the candle in the broken tower window herself? She could've even locked Theon/Reek in the room while she was gone so that he couldn't tell anyone before she returned.

(And also I would think that she would know secret passageways in Winterfell to escape on her own and then could go to Winter Town to hide out with Stark loyalists.)

My guess is guards might be aware that she's not supposed to be out of her room, while Reek has more freedom of movement.

Secret passageways would work, assuming there are any and assuming she knew where they were. That's the kind of thing kids might learn about in their teenage years, which Sanda largely spent outside Winterfell.

I'm curious who the heck actually cares about secession? Ned basically declared Stannis the rightful heir and Cersei just tore it up, and then the various houses rallied around whoever they wanted to.

In societies lead by a monarch or an emperor / empress, line of succession is important to prevent a nation from descending into civil war between different claims on the throne after the previous ruler dies. Pretty much the only times a peaceful transfer of power occurs in these societies is if a particular line of succession is already well recognized throughout the land.

Even though we viewers of the show know that Stannis has a better claim by birthright than Cersei's children to the Iron Throne after the death of King Robert, the fact is there is no solid evidence that Cersei's children aren't actually Robert's children. Cersei has never publically confessed to it and hair color alone isn't enough evidence, given that the children could've gotten that trait from their mother. King Robert never doubted they were his children and that should have settled it within the realm (at least until Qyburn invents DNA testing ).

Why did they even recognize Robert's claim to the throne when there were two direct descendants in exile? It still seems to me like an excuse for the powerful lords to back one side or another, and that that backing is all that really matters.

Will the people really rise up when Dany comes back in her support, or just the people cowed by her dragons and against the current rulers, whoever they may be?

edited to add: deleted the last paragraph because I was confused which episode thread this was.

Still too warm for them go further south. There's also some other theories around why they attacked when they did.

In the very first scene of the series, how far north of the wall were they? It didn't seem that far away from the wall, considering that one ranger made it all the way back all by himself.

Somewhere in the haunted forest:

large map:

Robert's Rebellion overthrew the Targaryen line by defeating its supporters in battles over a year or so and eventually killing every Targaryen still in Westeros (save the forgotten Aemon). The only 2 Targaryens who escaped with their lives, Viserys and Daenerys, were too young and had no supporters at the time because the Mad King (their father) had turned so many people in Westeros against him, so they had to live in exile overseas. Once they were older is when Viserys started trying to marshal forces to support his claim and invade Westeros to overthrow the upsurper, Robert Baratheon and his entire line of succession. Viserys marrying Daenerys to Khal Drogo was his attempt to follow through on this using a Dothraki army to invade Westeros and take back the crown.

And the Iron Throne didn't exist until the Targaryens invaded and conquered 6 out of the 7 kingdoms in Westeros (save Dorne, which only fell under the Iron Throne via marriage many years later) about 300 years earlier. So only Targaryens have ever sat on the Iron Throne since then up until the Mad King.

As to why Robert could claim the birthright to sit on the Iron Throne over other Lords in Westeros after winning his rebellion, his grandmother was a Targaryan princess so he had being partially descended from Targaryen royalty to legitimize his claim (and any other Baratheon's succession claims) over other Lords who might also have tried to claim the throne. (This is mentioned in some DVD/BD extras for Season 1 when Robert narrates some animated backstory.)

Technically, Daenerys being a real Targaryen directly descended from the last Targaryen king has a stronger claim to the Iron Throne than any Baratheon, but claims mean little without support. Having dragons means she won't need as large an army to invade and win the crown, but the dragons would need to be larger than they are now and fully under her control to help make an invasion of Westeros succeed.

You need book spoilers if you want to know more