I think her leverage to sacrifice Shireen will come from Roose's being content to sit behind his walls and let winter do his dirty work. He's right in that a siege is an autowin for him. Mel will try to pressure Stannis into burning Shireen to off Roose while he sits in Winterfell, either by making him strong enough again for him to fuck another shadow baby out of her or some other sort of killing ritual.
I thought that too, but then after it went on for 15 seconds I was all like, "Yeah. He could swarm fuck the boat. But what he's saying is that he's gonna swarm fuck the wall instead. He's obviously letting them run."
yeah, night king let them leave. its probably why they stopped rowing because they wanted to see what night king was up to and when he casted mass resurrection they were too stunned to move. night king is thinking that "i will meet you crows later on at the wall" or "you are a stark and you defeated one of my captains with valyrian steel, i will let you live today out of respect, but you and i have unfinished business"
I have read that George R. R. Martin is friends with Tad Williams. I'm not sure who inspires who, but Game of Thrones has a lot in common with Williams' Memory Sorry and Thorn and Shadowmarch series.
They could have been lurking waiting for everyone to pile into one place and then acted when they saw the boats arrive. On the Ramsey thing I also think maybe Reek will be captured to put him in line with the books if that story line was going to become important in any way. I figured when he said give him 20 men it would be hit and run night raids. Sneak in burn supplies, set horses free etc.
