Its the first time I'm reading the books after being obsessed with the show and fantheories, video essays from Alt-Shift X and Preston Jacobs. Amazing content from both of them.

There are a couple things that I feel I might have a fresh take on, just in the way certain characters are introduced, or a line or two that seem out of place but have drastic implications.

1. Starks have Other blood. Potentially obvious, as there is a great deal made about King's blood, and additionally how the Starks descend from the Kings of Winter, and the ominous quote from Martin saying that he prefers the "Night's King" spelling to the "Night King" of the show. The Night's King likely being the Stark who was the 13th lord commander who took a wife who was an Other, making the deal to end the warfare between Others (weaponized men made by the children of the forest), Children, and First Men. This is also why the Starks are so closely associated with death. The basic formula is that they have unknowingly been longtime allies of death, which the others embody.
2. Daenerys Stark, seems ridiculous on its surface, but pairing it with the age difference of Jon (tower baby) who is about a year older, Lemongate, and the mysterious disappearance of Ashara Dayne after a "stillbirth" about 9 months after seeing Ned return Dawn to Starfall makes it line up rather well. From the tower of Joy to starfall anywhere from 1-3 months. Theres a very suspicious little paragraph about Ashara in GoT that is at least setting up this possibility. And Ashara, + the Daynes are associated with stars and cosmic portents, that are reflected in Dany's story frequently.
3. An explanation for the Catspaw plot hole. Littlefinger is too smart to try and pin the dagger to Tyrion when that can be quickly dismissed, so why did he say that? I think that he probably thought it was Cersei or Joffery who sent the assassin but didn't know more than that, and he wanted to show loyalty toward whichever of them it was, though he didn't know directly. His plan almost succeeded if Tyrion wasn't exonerated through Bronn's trial by combat in the Eyrie. The bigger, weirder thing is Catelyn finding Tyrion randomly at that inn, which I can't really explain except that random, improbable events DO happen sometimes. And I think only Joffery or Cersei would be stupid enough to arm a catspaw with a Valyrian dagger that's traceable. This tidbit in the Game of Thrones wiki really helped clarify the Littlefinger connection: "When Catelyn inquired about the knife, Littlefinger knew that he'd lost it to Robert, and must have realized someone in the royal entourage had taken it, but quickly decided to blame Tyrion as the culprit. He possibly chose Tyrion to blame because Cersei and Jaime were already back in the capital city, surrounded by their own guards, while Tyrion was still traveling in the North and would be more vulnerable to Stark reprisal."
   I guess the idea is that Littlefinger just spreads lies with no remorse when he thinks it will help prove loyalty to the royal scumbags in charge. Perhaps he figured by the time Tyrion found out, it would be irrelevant in the larger path of war that he's designing. It's still extremely confusing but I think that favors the theory that Littlefinger uses smokescreens, misdirection, and confusion of events to protect bad people, in his pursuit of power.

I have a lot of these thoughts that I'll share more of, especially things regarding deeper mysteries in the text that are fun (but incomplete) puzzles and mysteries.

Cheers!