I think a lot of the pushback you get is how you frame your posts. You don't say, "I think I know what might happen." You say, "I know it. I'm 100% certain." That makes people roll their eyes a lot more.
But I cannot know anything. I am convinced of things. I never tell someone they're wrong, or this won't happen because so-and-so said something they didn't and provide no sources to back things. I never try to shut people down over their views, and when someone says something I feel makes more sense I agree to it and say so.
I started watching this show after s7 aired, after seeing bits of it here and there (I think I saw the sept being blown up episode, the last of s7, maybe bits of a few others). I then read all the books except AWoIaF and F&B because I don't care enough about world-building stuff to go through them. A year ago I didn't see things the way I do now. Then I read The Accursed Kings because GRRM mentioned it as a big source of inspiration, and I started to "get" (or so I think) what this series is about, and far more so after watching all his interviews.
"What did Aragorn do with the orcs? What was his tax policy?" So: how will the wildlings manage to make their home south if the north is lost, will they be accepted? If Sansa is queen, would she give them land or have them hunted down and chased out? We know from casting calls that there is a scene where people argue over land rights, that probably after the war. Since I have been thinking the north will be lost and Sansa will be queen, the northmen in exile (ep 4 is apparently titled exodus) will need new lands. That ties in with GRRM's « tax policy » point, and what happens to the orcs who flee to the mountains. If they flee to the mountains, the Vale will wipe them out. What happens to them? And would they now be a bunch of kneelers? Did they save themselves only to lose who they are? So They go back north, home. All this means the north cannot be accessed by Sansa and co, which means it is likely snowed for a long time, if not beyond a new wall further south, which the first teaser seemed to hint at.
That's one quote from GRRM that made me think all this, a casting call bit, a teaser. I could be totally wrong, but that's how I see the story now, differently than when I first finished the books. And I am looking forward to see what's next because no matter how wrong I am I think the show has been better than it had any rights to be, and it was borne out of a piece of work that I think will lead to an amazing ending in any case.
In the meantime I speculate, and I enjoy reading others' own views. But yeah « You know nothing Jon Snow. » I don't :)
