Speed is a luxury at many positions yeah, but I'm not sure if they're smaller really... they're just all roided-up trackstars or something
That gives me the heebyjeebies....
Not in general no. They existed in the show since the beginning, but a ripple effect happens as the story expands. Changes needed to be made, they just made really lackluster decisions in regards to that as time went on. Things that aren't inline with who the characters are, or how the world GRRM created works, etc. They were unforced errors.
Aegon isn't his canon name, that's a show-invention. I thought it'd be more poetic if his name was Aemon, since he served with Maester Aemon at the Wall.
Someone I know who is a fan says the books say Varys saved the real Aegon and replaced him with a fake, whereas Aegon II (Jon Snow in the show's Aegon) is with Ilyrio?
Varys supposedly saved Aegon by replacing the baby with a peasant's infant or something. At least, that's the story given when you realize that Young Griff is a Targaryen. But whether he's actually Aegon, son of Rhaegar or not isn't clear. It's just as much likely that he's a Blackfyre (a famous line of Targaryen bastards that have staged multiple rebellions).
It's a pretty common theory among fans. In Season 2 when Dany meets Quaithe in Qarth, she warns her about the "Mummer's Dragon". Varys was a member of a mummer's troupe in his youth, and he's responsible for "saving" baby Aegon and having Illyrio raise him. So you could look at this as saying Aegon is Varys' Dragon, or maybe a Fake Dragon (like the saying "a mummer's farce". Illyrio also had a wife that resembled a Targaryen, Serra. She was a prostitute in Lys, and given the Blackfyre's history in the Free Cities, she could have been a descendant. It's specified that only the male line of the Blackfyres died out when Maelys the Monstrous was killed in The War of the Ninepenny Kings. But not that the entire family was eradicated. So Aegon most likely isn't a real Targaryen, but he could be a Blackfyre trying to pass off as one... or, he could be Illyrio's son trying to pass off as a Targaryen as well. And this sort of knowledge tries to prove a point that it doesn't actually matter whether Young Gryff is Aegon or not, the only thing that matters is that people think he is and support him on that basis. Which I guess is what the showrunners are trying to convey with Jon's storyline in the show? It doesn't matter if he's actually Ned Stark's son or not, etc.... or at least it's a happy coincidence there.
Why you rooting for UCF, what about the Bulls?
Dany in the show is seen as a great feminist figure, I guess? Despite her shitty past, being raped, defiled, and all that, she still fought and became a ruler. She also believes in women being able to rule, probably the only one or one of the few to challenge the notion that only guys should rule.
Uhh... I guess she could be an example of that in some sense, but I really wouldn't consider her a "great" anything.
I mean, the showrunners might want to spin it like that as a way to explain her popularity, but I don't really think much about her is really handled in any nuanced way. At least, not compared to who she is in the books. They prefer fireballs/dragons for her, not the more complex things. And when they tread into socio-political issues it usually falls flat for me. Yeah, great, she's the "Breaker of Chains" so she's anti-slavery. Big deal, all of Westeros is, plus it was advantageous for her to be so since it helped her conquer Slaver's Bay. The Lannisters wouldn't have been pro-slavery either most likely. In reality, the only thing that makes her an exceptional ruler is that she has WMDs in the form of Dragons. She's no more exceptional than anyone else in any other way IMO. And does that really make her a "ruler"? Or just an effective conqueror? Plus, just like the Lannisters she represents most of what is wrong with imperialism, birthrite. 