Nym was totally a product of the time.   And it was specifically because of the Starfighter game.  If that game had the legs of a KOTOR or one of the other more popular Star Wars games, I could see Nym enduring as a perrenial candidate.  But I'm perfectly fine without a Captain Nym action figure.

I can't believe this eluded me, but it seems as if Hasbro may actually be committed to keeping the EU in the mix in The Black Series basic figure line.  Wave 2 features Mara Jade.  And while she may be the most recent Fan's Choice Figure poll winner, she's nonetheless an EU character.  Throw Darth Plagueis into the mix with Wave 3, and guess what?  There are 2 EU figures in the first 3 waves of The Black Series.

This turn of events is pretty nice to see.  And it gives me hope that we may see some more EU figures in future waves, too.  Personally, I'm hopeful that we'll see some of the characters from The Old Republic like Ven Zallow or Satele Shan.  Hasbro made a point of making Darth Malgus, Shae Vizla and the Republic Trooper.  A Jedi from that same property would be very welcome in my book.

These are definitely not what I saw at Target.  Those were very basic, and looked like they would be at that $5.99 price point.  I did not see these at retail.

Finally scored the whole wave.  The last figure on my list was Padme, and I finally found her yesterday.  But I almost lost the figure before I even got to the register at TRU, because the bubble nearly came completely off of the cardback in the store!

The warg abilities do seem to be almost common among the Stark children.  These abilities had to have come from some place.  Although we never heard anything about these abilities regarding Brandon, Ned, Lyanna or Benjen.  I wonder if we'll learn more about this in the next book, or when we get to see Coldhands in the next season of the HBO series?

The Varys/Illario thing totally clueless to me when I first read it too but after rereading it makes total sense.  And it sets up the whole Mormont betrayal and Dance with Dragons Targaryen surprise as well.  Part of me wonders if Varys know about Jon too...and he is pulling the strings with him as well.  Which is why he wanted Ned Stark alive.

I've been going back through the first book recently, and I read the Varys/Illario chapter when I went to the beach with the family.  It was funny to finally read it in that chapter which was from Arya's perspective and to not have Illario and Varys identified.  Especially after having seen that scene play out in season 1 of the television show.  The level of foreshadowing that's in the books really is staggering.  And I agree, a second reading really does help to illustrate things more clearly.

It's funny that someone should mention the Hound and the Grave digger.  I actually read something about that theory on AWOIAF and was totally taken aback.  Especially since I thought that the Hound had in fact been mortally wounded in that fight at the Inn at the Crossroads.  Now, I totally recall the reports of a raider moving through the riverlands who was wearing the helmet of the Hound.  And it seemed to have been well established that it was Rorge masquerading as Sandor Clegane.  But then what about the Hound?  If he is still alive, then where does his character go?  Will Arya re-join him at some point after becoming one of the Faceless?  Or will he play some part in the whole Sansa / Petyr Baelish storyline?  I'm leaning towards the Sansa story, since the Saltpans are (somewhat) near the Vale of Arryn.

Another thing that's got me wondering?  There have been a good number of mentions of Ser Arthur Dayne, the sword of the Morning. His sword, Dawn, was the ancestral sword of house Dayne.  As far as I know, though, it's not one of the known Valyrian steel swords.  Is it possible that Dawn is in fact the real Lightbringer that Melisandre had spoken about back in book 2?

Is Lil Ani new?

Pretty sure that it might be the same figure as the TVC TPM wave (Padawan Anakin).

Nice to finally see Merumeru!  The rumors during SDCC & CE2 were cool, but finally seeing the figure is believing!  And it looks like Hasbro has stepped up their sculpting on this particular Wookiee.  And seeing how good it looks on the card, I'm hoping that Hasbro will get around to revisiting Tarfful at some point, too.  The ROTS version of him was weak in comparison.