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.

Very cool as trailers go.  I'm glad to see that Loki is still in the mix.  In the movies thus far, the relationship between Thor and Loki has helped both characters immensely.  And I think Alan Taylor was a good choice for a director this time around.  Kenneth Branaugh did a good job with establishing the characters in the first film.  But Taylor's experience on Game of Thrones has shown that he can work well in an immersive fantasy type of genre and give it a sense of realism that sucks in the audience.

But the question remains:  will the audience buy "Chuck" as the new Fandral? 

I get the sense that perhaps I was still in the halcyon daze of the Avengers line, where the distribution of hero figures was actually somewhat reasonable (except for that one silly Reactron armor Iron Man), and that the Avengers model might serve as a lesson going forward for Hasbro.

But then I snapped out of it.

From what I understand, the convention center in Anaheim is very close to Disneyland.  That seems very likely to have been a significant factor in steering the location of Celebration 7.  As locations go, I know that there have been a lot of comments from fans who would like to see a Star Wars Celebration in their region.  But with Disney in charge now I can see the methodology in keeping Celebration close to one of the theme parks.

As for the timing?  It's actually in line with the timing of the first three Star Wars Celebrations, which were all scheduled just a few weeks before the release of each of the Prequel Trilogy movies.  It may not be ideal to get away for families during the school year.  But I can recall seeing plenty of families in attendance at both Celebration 2 and Celebration 3.  If people really want to go, they're going to go.

I hope that Reed is going to stay on as the promoter.  I like how they've built up New York Comic Con, although I didn't get a chance to attend the Star Wars Celebrations that they promoted.  And I think they probably did a far better job than the promoters who did Celebration 2, 3 and 4.

Mermuru is in that case assortment

According to VolkerC, who has had a pretty good track record.  But did Hasbro show an image of Merumeru at the CE2 panel?  Or did the display case get updated?