Indeed, King Roose's capability rises from his described abilitiy to launch a distracting attack on the son of Lord Tytos and regroup at Harrenhal (with the "foraging" Brave Companions, which cut Jamie's hand off not "Locke" ) as well as to be able to give the remaining Starks (Robb and Catelyn) the idea that Winterfell (and, thus, the north) is their trusted "backyard" (before the RW) once Victarion is removed from Moat Cailin. Nevertheless, he's able to gather some 4tsd men (un-/horsed by bringing the Karstarks into his fold) just before Grey Wind is hauling at the Frey's welcome-sharade in front of the Twins.

Mace's ability, on the contrary, is not questionable but wrong. His "3" plus 2 swords in the 1st GoT edition already didn't make sense like his "4" in the 2nd ed. as well as his text-ability, because everything he did was Randyll Tarly's (or if you allow it the Redwyne's) achievement, but not his.

Furthermore, Balon's death is a lot earlier (SoS) than the TV-show (s6) suggests. This really is a bit obscure, because Asha`s (who should be on 4!), Euron's (who should be on 2) and Theon's (2+1 or 0 ADWD) (before and after being the 2nd Reek) tales do not indicate any justifications with regard to "zeroing" his opponent card's fighting strength besides him saying that "the tide is rising" at a later part of book two.

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Inasmuch as there certainly were deliberations of balancing the game flow in play, I kind of are under the impression that all text and icon abilities more or less got connected to the tales being told in the first three books (even Mace's). If one wishes to look up the specific reasoning behind the chosen characters as well as their intermediate abilities, a consultation of the contained chapters should be sufficient in order to accomplish that goal.

Regarding the given statements above, I do think that Cersei's ability simply derives from the fact that she has the most spies at hand. Having said that, she frequently makes use of Littlefinger's and Vary's channels too, which promotes her, besides being queen and queen regent, to a level of being the queen of information. She even (not described, only mentioned) managed to convince the Mad King to make Jaime a member of the kingsguard despite the explicit pursuit of Tywin to keep Jaime as heir to Casterly Rock when serving as Aerys' hand. Therefore, she also is the reason why Lannister is equipped with the raven when our game starts.

Renly's ability surely can be associated to Brienne's promotion but she was a fighter all along. I'd rather suggest that his card's lore mainly reflects that he becomes constantly attributed as the most inspiring personality in King's Landing. Furthermore, the small folk everywhere in Westeros keeps telling the story that his ghost defeated Stannis' troops during the Battle of Blackwater rather than Tywin and Loras.

Concerning Sandor's two fortification icons, the connection to the Stark girls (PhantasticPhil^^) is just striking. Nonetheless, his story line rather suggests that his ability was determined due to the circumstance that he literally is able to survive just everything (starting with his mutilation by Gregor when being a child as well as when remembering Beric's judgement on behalf of R'hllor and keeping in mind that Berric frequently gets referred to as being one of the best swordsmen alive at that time). If there is a succeeding version of his card in the near future he should have three towers or an additional sword at the least.

Lord Hightower's (^^) estimation of Robb's ability as well as the given explanations for Theon and Brynden by Nomaris and Harakon (^^) seem about comprehensible. My humble self would disagree with Asha's description though. "Because she is a woman", is kind of a, let's say, questionable interpretation and not backed by the books' narrative (as well as the other way around - "Because he's a man" or "Because he's a king" or "Because she's a halfwit" ). It might be stated somewhere once in a while as something that has to be said but it rather does not serve as a real argument. (To make myself comprehensive here: Tyrion constantly is mocked for his appearance, he nevertheless remains the most influencing character in the whole narration. Taking the mocking statements word by word would not serve the estimation of his impact at all, would it?) Besides, Asha commands 30 ships for the attack on Deepwood Motte and is being followed by all.

Melisandre is easily to be mistaken. If I read our dear Ser Hodor right, you might think about the shadow scene with Davos and Renly on behalf of Stannis' ambition only. That certainly is part of the sword ascription and, however, could lead to the conclusion that Patches' ability should be hers. The clue here might be that she is a killer (no matter how high born) indeed, but she never swings the sword herself (which seems to be the reason that the fighting strength remains on one).

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