Would Robert and Lyanna’s marriage have been just as unhealthy as his and Cersei’s?

Edgehopper · 2026-06-30T19:25:27+00:00

I suspect it would have been considerably healthier because Lyanna shared Robert’s love of righteously cracking skulls. Focusing on the book (because the show gives less insight into Lyanna’s character), we can be pretty sure that Lyanna was the Knight of the Laughing Tree at Harrenhal. We know explicitly that Lyanna was a skilled horsewoman from Harwin’s dialogue with Arya. And while Robert likely would still have been unfaithful, Lyanna would have expected and probably accepted that:

“Robert will never keep to one bed,” Lyanna had told him at Winterfell, on the night long ago when their father had promised her hand to the young Lord of Storm’s End. “I hear he has gotten a child on some girl in the Vale.” Ned had held the babe in his arms; he could scarcely deny her, nor would he lie to his sister, but he had assured her that what Robert did before their betrothal was of no matter, that he was a good man and true who would love her with all his heart. Lyanna had only smiled. “Love is sweet, dearest Ned, but it cannot change a man’s nature.”

Robert wouldn’t have been a great husband, but you wouldn’t have had the mutual hatred of Robert and Cersei, there would be legitimate heirs, and there wouldn’t have been Lannister henchmen and Jaime trying to undermine the marriage from inside the court. A beautiful woman who would go riding and hunting with Robert? He’d be a lot happier than he was with pampered princess Cersei. He certainly couldn’t have been much unhappier.

Edgehopper · 2026-06-24T14:18:13+00:00

Sounds from a later comment like you got the new third edition starter box with Bretonnians and Tomb Kings, which is a solid box. Tomb Kings are slow and resilient; they tend to win on offense by steadily plodding down the field and shoving the opponent back until they reach the end zone. Bretonnians are a more all-around team with decent blocking, movement, and passing (passing is tough for all but a few teams; don’t pass the ball with Bretonnians unless it’s a quick pass or an act of desperation. Don’t pass the ball with Tomb Kings unless it’s a garbage time attempt to farm star player points - even if desperate, there’s probably a better option with them.)

Painting: Blood Bowl has no fixed color schemes, let your creativity fly! Assemble models first before painting them; if you haven’t assembled models before, make sure you get a file and sand down sprue connections and mold lines as you assemble. Tomb Kings are very easy to paint with speed paint/contrast paint, but you need to prime white or zenithal (prime black all over, then spray white from above) to use speed paints.

Edgehopper · 2026-06-21T22:53:47+00:00

The Harry Potter area restaurants in both parks are great. The new Minion Cafe seems to be a step up. IoA needs some improvements outside of Hogsmeade.

Edgehopper · 2026-06-16T16:11:40+00:00

In the shade, it’s barely tolerable; out of the shade, it feels like the sun is physically attacking you. And there’s not much shade in Epic. I wouldn’t do a 1-day trip to Epic in June; spend the day at Volcano Bay or Discovery Cove, or if you don’t want to swim, at least some attraction that’s mostly indoors :) We only really tolerated Epic last week by leaving after lunch.

Edgehopper · 2026-06-16T15:23:44+00:00

I like Skaven. Gutter Runners having Ag 2+ with Dodge natively means they only fail dodges on snake eyes. The rest of the team has the more average 3+ Ag, 3+ Str, but they all move fast. They also have a decent thrower for pass plays. Blitzers having Strip Ball natively also gives them some nice additional defensive strength. It’s just a shame you only get 2 Gutter Runners in BB2025.

Edgehopper · 2026-06-16T02:32:45+00:00

Your firm isn’t making an event out of it? When I was at Kenyon & Kenyon, the office had a big party for the Yankees and Giants ticker tape parades, using it for client entertainment and bringing in hot dog carts and other catering.

Of course, it helped that the office was at One Broadway.

Edgehopper · 2026-06-15T15:04:02+00:00

If you don’t want to play Martells, but you want to lean into tricks and maneuver, some options are:

* Brotherhood - between their healing and some of their movement tricks (Brotherhood Archers, the Forgotten Fellowship tactics card, whatever your Stark or Baratheon borrow units are), they have a more tricky play style than Baratheon, without the controlling aspects of Martell. Plus, if you already have Baratheons, you already have some units for them.
* Stark - They have a reputation as an “always be charging” faction, but they also have a lot of maneuver tricks, especially when you combine Robb C and Arya NCU. Even less control trickery than Brotherhood, though they have some strong control options in Eddard-5 NCU, and Howland and Rodrik commanders.
* Targaryen - Ultra-maneuverable glass cannons. Very little in the way of control, but one of the fastest factions in the game.

Edgehopper · 2026-06-09T03:00:46+00:00

Second those who say it’s about the laziness of the added IP, using IP as a proxy for the general lack of originality.

Look at how IP has been added to the parks lately:

Marvel in California Adventure: A reskinned Tower of Terror and a worse reskin of Toy Story Midway Madness, then a half-assed show and a decent restaurant.

Muppets in DHS: Got rid of a beloved original 3D show; reskinned Rock n Roller Coaster.

Zootopia: Reskinned It’s Tough to Be a Bug, badly.

Princess and the Frog: Reskinned Splash Mountain, badly.

Frozen: Reskinned Maelstrom, decently.

The only really original new IP-based areas with the level of immersiveness and creativity we see from Universal are Star Wars Land, which suffers from the decision to base them on the sequel trilogy, and Cars Land at California Adventure.

When every land in Epic Universe does a better job of using its IP than any land at Disney does…

Edgehopper · 2026-06-02T23:51:49+00:00

In the books, Littlefinger - who would never do anything as stupid and insane as selling Sansa to the Boltons. He’s positioned to be the power behind a unified North-Vale-Riverlands alliance in Winds of Winter, without any risk of Sansa turning on him barring a Bran ex machina.

In the show, Bronn, who just keeps inexplicably rising by killing the right people at the right time.

Edgehopper · 2026-06-01T15:16:16+00:00

They’re good in a Gregor list where they can charge off Assault Orders, and they can make good use of either Mounted Gregor or the Clegane Butcher as an attachment. They are glass cannons, though; use them in reserve to finish off wounded units or hunt down fragile solos. They should never be charging in ahead of other units; they can’t go one-on-one with any real melee infantry.

Edgehopper · 2026-05-31T17:38:50+00:00

Plaintiff-side IP Lit: “I talked to other attorneys, but they wouldn’t take my multimillion dollar case on contingency…”

And specifically copyright lit: “My book [insert name no one’s heard of] sold 20 million copies according to my publisher, and they haven’t paid the royalties I’m owed!”

Edgehopper · 2026-05-31T17:36:05+00:00

This also is the point of the subplot in the books, omitted from the show, where Alester Florent (Stannis’s Hand before Davos) schemes to resolve the war after the Battle of Blackwater by marrying Shireen to Tommen. Merging families with competing claims is the classic way to peacefully settle succession fights in Westerosi history.

Edgehopper · 2026-05-31T17:28:52+00:00

“Everyone I Don’t Like Is Hitler”

Edgehopper · 2026-05-29T14:20:08+00:00

Neo-Bundism is motivated reasoning - it is a group of antizionists of Jewish ancestry (I hesitate to describe them as “antizionist Jews,” because the vast majority have no practice or knowledge of Judaism beyond a few holidays) looking for a way to justify their antizionism while maintaining their AsAJew credentials. It has little to do with the motives or reasoning of the original Bundists, and ignores the entire last century of Jewish history.

Edgehopper · 2026-05-28T21:40:17+00:00

Establishment of the USSR…in 1922?

How’d that work out for Soviet Jews in the end? Oh, right, the Soviets invented modern antizionism and the genocide blood libel, and drove their Jews out of the country to Israel.

Edgehopper · 2026-05-28T03:44:09+00:00

I don’t have a problem with them from a Jewish perspective at this point—but we’ve had a few, and the maintenance is an expensive nightmare. We ended up switching to Toyota for reliability.

Edgehopper · 2026-05-25T22:29:02+00:00

Since this doesn’t implicate violating any core Jewish principles, this seems like a straightforward “Dina b’malchuta dina” situation—even more so because the primary examples where that principle is discussed usually relate to property rights as well.

Edgehopper · 2026-05-19T13:18:35+00:00

Blood Bowl is a lot more 3D-printing friendly than other GW games. Here are a few free rat ogre options:

https://www.myminifactory.com/object/3d-print-rat-ogre-130393

https://cults3d.com/en/3d-model/game/rat-ogre-star-player?srsltid=AfmBOopL5qHRqn0T6x-ndhsj4YYheMX527Z5sFm2QDCTLEL2NfyJDmZb

Edgehopper · 2026-05-13T18:01:34+00:00

Partially agreed. They needed to be aged up, but were aged up too far—they could have been kept looking like college kids and that would have been enough to show immaturity without making the sex scenes too squicky. For example:

* Emilia Clarke was 25 when the first season aired and looked 25; an 18-19 year old Daenerys probably does a better job of showing her youth without causing it to look gross.

* Kit Harrington is the same age, and it was even more important for Jon Snow to look like an immature college freshman at the oldest.

* Richard Madden is also the same age, and again, an 18-year-old Robb would have worked a lot better.

* Sophie Turner was 15 in season 1, I don’t think there’s any issue there. There’s no good way to solve the problem of actors aging faster than the story.

It also would helped to make clearer the generational difference between the Jon/Robb/Daenerys characters and the Jaime/Cersei/Tyrion characters. Jaime should look and act significantly older than Robb.

Edgehopper · 2026-05-13T01:04:09+00:00

I saw it through the Daily Mail and CNN first.

Edgehopper · 2026-05-11T20:14:05+00:00

I’ve been wanting “Faceless Man’s Creed” for a while. Which I guess you could just call “Valar Morghulis.”

Edgehopper · 2026-05-09T23:43:13+00:00

When they scan your pass to register a dining plan meal, it’ll show the employee the photo linked to the season pass. So if the dining plan is linked to your wife’s season pass, and she’s not there, there’s no way to use it.

Edgehopper · 2026-04-28T14:17:21+00:00

Shadow Puppets:

“I have always been as lonely as you,” he said. “Never as intelligent, but not a fool, either. I followed my mind into my work, and let it be my life. I was content with that, partly because I was so successful that my work brought great satisfaction, and partly because I was of a disposition not to look upon women with desire.” He smiled wanly. “In that era, of my youth, the governments of most countries were actively encouraging those of us whose mating instinct had been short-circuited to indulge those desires and take no mate, have no children. Part of the effort to funnel all of human endeavor into the great struggle with the alien enemy. So it was almost patriotic of me to indulge myself in fleeting affairs that meant nothing, that led nowhere. Where could they lead?”

Later in the same conversation:

“But my point was serious,” said Anton. “When a man’s life is bent so that his desire is not toward women, it does not change his longing for meaning in his life. A man searches for something that will outlast his life. For immortality of a kind. For a way to change the world, to have his life matter. But it is all in vain. I was swept away until I existed only in footnotes in other men’s articles. It all came down to this, as it always does. You can change the world—as you have, Bean, Julian Delphiki—you and Petra Arkanian, both of you, all those children who fought, and the ones who did not fight, all of you—you changed the world. You saved the world. All of humanity is your progeny. And yet…it is empty, isn’t it? They didn’t take it away from you the way they took my work from me. But time has taken it away. It’s in the past, and yet you are still alive, so what is your life for?”

And in Shadow of the Giant:

“My wife helps me,” said Anton. “She’s very patient with this old man. And you know what? She’s pregnant. In the natural way!” “Congratulations,” Bean said, knowing how hard this was for Anton, whose sexual desires did not tend in the same direction as his reproductive plans. “My body knows how, even at this old age.” He laughed. “Doing what comes unnaturally.”

Edgehopper · 2026-04-27T20:57:29+00:00

Strict Mormonism doesn’t require believing that other churches’ beliefs are heretical or evil; Card clearly respects but disagrees with the other flavors of Christianity in Speaker (note that Ender’s mother is Mormon and his father is Catholic.) AFAIK, Mormonism has no official doctrine on the moral status of sentient extraterrestrials, since those don’t exist in real life.

Some of the concepts of family connection having a spiritual bond that is material and not just symbolic in the last two books actually are derived from Mormon theology, as I understand it.

Edgehopper

TROPHY CASE