"No, not Arya!"

July 11th is the birthdate of two important medieval figures, Robert the Bruce in 1274 and Richard II’s queen, Anne of Bohemia, in 1366. We discussed both of them recently, though, so there is no need to go there again so soon Also on July 11th in 1174, Amalric, the King of Jerusalem died unexpectedly at age 38 after a severe bout with dynasty. His death would have enormous consequences for history, for had he lived, there would have been no battle of Hattin, no fall of Jerusalem, and no Third Crusade. But I will leave it at that since I’ll be dramatizing these events in Outremer, the Land Beyond the Sea
So I’ll close with a scene from a recent John Oliver show; Oliver used to be Jon Stuart’s sidekick on the Daily Show, and did such a great job subbing for Jon last summer that he was rewarded with his own show on HBO. In this skit, Oliver had been talking about Game of Thrones and that segued into a brief scene with George RR Martin, supposedly hard at work on the next book in the Ice and Fire series. When Oliver asked what he was doing, GRRM flashed an evil smile and said, “I just killed three of your favorite characters.” Cut to scream of anguish from Oliver, who is then reduced to begging, “Not Arya! Please don’t let it be Arya!”