{Deep Thoughts}: Game of Thrones 5

These are my "deep thoughts" on Game of Thrones 5 (A DANCE WITH DRAGONS) by George RR Martin.  Or, a brain dump of just all the questions or that whatevers I have while I'm reading.  And I guess I should call "SPOILER ALERT!!!" if you haven't read it yet.

~Magister Illyrio, we meet again.  What do you gain by housing royal refugees?  What's your piece in the game?

~Whoa.  How does creepy Melisandre know "You know nothing, Jon Snow." ?????

~If the story is to be believed, is Jon Snow's mother a fisherman's daughter?  I don't think that makes sense.  I'm still under the belief that he's actually Lyanna's and Rhaegar Targaryan's son.
From Wikipedia (the source of all knowledge):

Shortly afterwards, Eddard went to rescue Lyanna from the Tower of Joy in Dorne. He found her dying "in a bed of blood" and her last words were "Promise me, Ned."

What else could Ned have been promising, except to take care of her NEWBORN SON!?!?!?!  (and word to the wise, DON"T GET ON WIKIPEDIA IF YOU DON"T WANT TO KNOW WHAT HAPPENS LATER ON IN THE SERIES!  Silly Amanda)

~Theon is alive?  I know time is kind of hard to measure in these books, things tend to overlap, but they broke him pretty quick.  I wonder what part he will play later....I mean, I never liked him, and I like his character on the TV show even less, but its kind of sad to see him like this.

~Do we ever find out what happens to Rickon?  Does he ever come back?  He just fell off the face of Westeros with Osha (Tonks!  Can you believe it?!?!)

~Dany, you're awesome possum.  But you can't save the world.  Why did you go after the slave cities?  Why did you stay?  They aren't your responsibility.  Girl, go take care of business.

~Why did all the princes (Quintyn from Dorne, Victarion, and Aegon) think they could just pop by and make Dany marry them?  Did they think she'd just instantly fall in love with one of them like a Disney princess?  Frankly, at this point, I'd love to see them in a Battle Royale for her hand.  Throw in the guy from Mereen who wants the fighting pits back, Daario and Jorah, and I'd buy tickets.

~So I finally realized why Winterfell was called Winterfell. Because Winter fell.  Winter came and it was destroyed, but it will come again.  The castle is there to guard against it. 

~So what happened to cause the Valyrian Doom? It's mentioned several times as the reason the Targaryans sailed to Westeros, but I haven't read many more details than that.  What caused it?  Why did it happen?  

~Does Bran become the new tree-talker/ green seer / whatever it's called? Does the one that is turning into the tree shove off and give Bran his responsibilities?

~How big is Westeros? I was envisioning an island the size of Britain, but Stannis's troops are matching from Deepwood Motte to Winterfell, which is according to the book 300 miles away. On the map on the inside cover, DM is like an inch from Winterfell. If that's the case, then Westeros is more like the size of the US and Mexico combined and all the free cities that look so close on the map, are like as close as the US and Britain.

~And speaking of like geography and stuff, why didn't the Wildlings just go through the Frostfang Mountains to take over Westeros rather than going over the Wall.  I mean, look at the map from the front of the book:

 I'm pointing at the point where the wall doesn't go all the way to the shoreline like it does on the eastern end.  Why not just go through the mountains and avoid the Wall?

~I really don't understand what is going on in Arya's chapters.  How do they give her a new face?  Why does she want to stay there?  I understand that she thinks she has nobody left, but I'd try to go to Jon on the Wall.  I don't understand all the magic that happens at the Temple.  These are the only chapters that I have to reread.

~I really don't like Cersei, but good on her for having the fortitude to do the Walk of Shame like she did.

~JON SNOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  Rarely do I jump right on Wikipedia to see the end, but in this case, I had to.  Alright, that's a lie.  I do it all the time.  But I MADE myself not get on the various wiki's to see what happened.

~Ok, when is the next book coming out?  I'm not satisfied with this ending.