WARNING (YET AGAIN): This thread is going to contain unmarked spoilers for all five currently released ASOIAF novels, right up to A Dance With Dragons. If you have not yet finished, or not yet started and intend to start, or you are a TV show watcher, I strongly recommend that you leave now.

Now, since this is a gaming forum, I thought I would share by far the best ASOIAF video game experience out there: the Song of Ice and Fire mod for Crusader Kings II. It is currently on version 0.4, but it is stable and more than playable.

http://citadel.prophpbb.com/topic2166.html

Naturally, you require CK2 to play it. The game is difficult to pick up, but a lot of fun and highly addictive once you get the hang of it.

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The five novels are as follows:

A Game of Thrones: When Jon Arryn, the Hand of the King, is killed, King Robert of Westeros travels to Winterfell to encourage his old friend Eddard Stark, the Lord Paramount of the North, to take his position in King's Landing. In Essos to the east, Daenerys Targaryen, the second child of the Mad King Aerys, is married to Khal Drogo, a Dothraki warlord, as her brother Viserys plots to invade Westeros and seize the Iron Throne. Jon Snow, presumed to be Eddard Stark's bastard son, joins the Night Watch.

A Clash of Kings: Eddard Stark is dead, executed by King Joffrey, triggering the War of the Five Kings: Robb Stark, the King in the North; Renly Baratheon, the King in Highgarden; Stannis Baratheon, the King in the Narrow Sea; Joffrey Baratheon, the King on the Iron Throne; and Balon Greyjoy, the King of the Iron Islands. With Viserys and Drogo both dead, and three newly hatched dragons, Daenerys travels east to find an army. The Night Watch travel beyond the Wall on a great ranging.

A Storm of Swords: Stannis Baratheon has been crushed by the Battle of the Blackwater and loses most of his vassals to King Joffrey, now betrothed to Margaery Tyrell. Robb Stark, however, continues to gain ground and becomes the most severe threat. Daenerys uses her dragons to attack the cities of Slavers' Bay and free the slaves. The Night Watch are attacked by Others, creatures of ice from the far North, but Jon Snow is in the court of Mance Rayder, the King Beyond the Wall and a sworn enemy of the Night Watch.

A Feast for Crows: Robb, Joffrey and Balon are all dead, and Stannis is at the Wall. The War of the Five Kings is more or less over, with only Stannis remaining as a threat to the newly crowned King Tommen. Cersei Lannister takes control and pretty much slowly destroys everything.

A Dance With Dragons: Jon Snow is Lord Commander of the Night Watch, and tries to join the Night Watch and the Wildlings together to face the true threat: the Others. Daenerys sits in Meereen in Essos and does nothing of note. Tyrion Lannister flees to Essos where he meets Jon Connington and Aegon Targaryen, the son of Rhaegar Targaryen, presumed killed 18 years beforehand.

That was brief, but each of these novels is a good 800 pages long and summarising them properly would take too long.

Where we are now:

On the Iron Throne sits King Tommen. But his mother is disgraced and facing trial for indecency, his wife is in the same situation, his regent and Grand Maester have both been murdered by his Master of Whisperers, the Captain of his Kingsguard is crippled and may or may not be dead, and he is a boy of ten. He is not in a great situation.

Stannis Baratheon is still at the Wall in the North, using the power of Rh’llor to terrify everyone he sees. He plans on claiming the North through Rickon Stark and using that power to seize the Iron Throne. He is still convinced that he is Azor Ahai Reborn, even though he almost certainly isn’t. More to his credit, he's captured Deepwood Motte and getting ready to march on Winterfell. Ramsay Bolton says he is dead, but he probably isn't. The sample chapter from the Winds of Winter has him very much alive. He's caught the Karstark treachery, made a deal with the Iron Bank, and captured Theon Greyjoy. He is, indeed, in by far the best position of any of the original five kings, mostly because the other four are dead.

Jon Snow may or may not be dead. He was stabbed several times, but it’s possible to survive that and he may be able to warg into Ghost and Melisandre can revive people. So even if he’s dead, he probably won’t stay that way. A (very) popular theory is that he is not the son of Eddard at all, but of Rhaegar Targaryen and Lyanna Stark. This theory is known as R+L=J.

Danaerys Targaryen is with a Dothraki khalasar and still has one of her dragons, though the other two are flying somewhere near Meereen. Hopefully she will head to Westeros now.

Aegon “Young Griff” Targaryen has landed in Westeros and seeks the aid of Dorne. He may or may not actually be Rhaegar’s son, of course.

Petyr “Littlefinger” Baelish is essentially Lord Paramount of the Vale at this point and is supervising Sansa Stark.

And several other characters are off doing interesting things.

So, to get us started: which is your favourite novel in the series, and why?

I say A Storm of Swords: it's the most action-packed, and the most shocking (especially the Red Wedding and Joffrey's death). And it has an attack by Others, a defence of the Wall, and Daenerys Targaryen actually achieving something.

I agree, the third novel is by far the best, the red wedding was probably the best event of the series so far.  Poor rob, made all the right battle decisions, and all the wrong politcal decisions, much like his father...

here is a question for you, who do you think jon snows parents are?  The novels lead you to believe that he is the bastard child of ned stark, but it hints at a much different lineage.  I have a pretty good idea who they are, just curious if anybody else caught it.

Storm of swords my favourite by far. Feast for crows one was meh one for me, seemed a bit boring. Personally I like the way jaime has developed as a character and would be a shame if he dies. Tyrion fine as usual! And shame about Jon, but he did make the wrong call. Also I fucking loathe the bastard of Bolton now, even though theon was an annoying character, that was bit harsh.

I look forward to reading Winds of Winter in 2018, followed by reading of Martin's death in 2019.

I know, I know, I'm an optimist. He'll probably keel over before then.

The consensus among the fandom is that he's Lyanna and Raegar's son, right? Obviously he has some Stark blood in him, but Ned doesn't seem to be the kind of guy who'd cheat--even on a wife whom he hardly knew. That compounded with that mysterious promise Ned made to his sister makes me think that Jon may not be his son at all. There's tons more evidence, but my memory is foggy.

Then again, perhaps Jon is a child born of incest? That does seem to be a running theme in this series.

Storm was awesome, and I doubt than any future books will be able to surpass it. I do feel that A Feast for Crows gets a bit more hate than it deserves, though. IMO all the books are fantastic.

I used to like Tyrion, I really did, but all his whining in Dance, and his fantasies about raping and murdering is sister really rubbed me the wrong way. Reek Theon was an ass, but the sins of his past have all been flayed away. As such, I have forgiven him, and it's all thanks to Lord Ramsay Bolton, who has somehow managed to be even more loathesome and vile than Joffrey was.

Yeah, lyanna and raegar are his parents, im pretty sure.  Also, lyanna seems to have been in love with raegar and as such it seems that robert baratheon was actually a bit of a villain.  It is true that raegars father was mad and probably needed to be put down, but everything about raegar seems to suggest he was a good and honorable man.  I think the one act that doomed the targaryen rule is when the mad king killed ned starks older brother.  That one act put the majority of the kingdom against him.

Tyrion did lose a lot of his appeal in dance.  The whole circus act seemed incredibly out of character for him, which i guess was the point, but it was very uniteresting to read.  

What do you guys think is going to happen with brand stark?  

The Mad King deserved a worse fate than he suffered, but it's a shame Raegar had to die as well; he seemed like he would have made a far better king than Robert did.

I didn't have much to back this up, but while reading the books I had always assumed that the Others were the Children of the Forest. Though my little pet theory was debunked by Dance, I still have a gut feeling that the Children and the three eyed crow(Brynden Rivers?) are closely related to the Others. I've always found it strange that in a series such as ASOIF where there is supposedly no black and white there could be a fundimentally "black" entity such as the Others. There's got to be some sort of justification, some reason, behind their deeds.

That's where I think Bran comes in. My guess is that he's going to be the POV through which we learn more about the Others. Perhaps he'll even join their side in the end. The Crow always said that he would fly, and you have to admit that it would be pretty cool to see Bran seize control of Dany's dragons and turn them against her. Ah, drama.

I'd love to pretend I thought of Rhaegar and Lyanna myself, but I read it on the internet first. I am about 99% certain that they are his parents.

In the 1% off chance that Eddard is actually his father, his mother is probably Ashara Dayne.

I think the most interesting controversy at the moment is whether Young Griff/Aegon VI is actually the son of Rhaegar Targaryen, a Blackfyre pretender, or Magister Illyrio's son.

The most considerable evidence for him being the real thing is what Varys said to Kevan right at the end of A Dance With Dragons, when nobody else could hear and when Kevan was about to die. He described Aegon and said that he had received training worthy of a king and had landed in Westeros. This seems to confirm that Aegon is alive, and although it doesn't confirm that he is Young Griff, it seems unlikely that he could be anything else.

Jon Connington seems to believe it, but that's not much evidence of anything.

Daenerys has a vision of a "mummer's dragon", but this is ambiguous. It could either mean:
a) He isn't a real dragon at all, and therefore not a Targaryen
b) He is a dragon, and the mummer in question is Varys, who is certainly controlling him to some degree.

He also has the Targaryen features, but so do the Daynes and people from Lys, and I'm sure many others.

Because of the first bit, however, I still lean towards believing that he is the real Aegon.