Westeros

For those who don’t recall (or want to know), Nestoris appears at the Wall with the intention of negotiating a loan from the Iron Bank to Stannis, to aid him in his effort to win the Iron Throne following Queen Cersei’s refusal to pay the crown’s debts to the banks. In the course of this, he also negotiates substantial loans to the Night’s Watch to aid them in surviving the coming winter. His presence in the story comes after Stannis actually departs the Wall to march south against the ironmen and Boltons, so Nestoris’s appearance in the fourth season seems likely to be quite early. Why so early? We’re not sure at all, and we’re not quite sure how it merges with Stannis’s story in the TV series. The only thing we can think of relates to how Stannis was last left: he had learned of the threat to the Wall and seemed determined to go there to fight the Others. Will Nestoris appear as a means to fund Stannis’s efforts to transport his remaining forces? Will he instead appear to show that the Iron Bank is already opposed to Lannister rule in Westeros, and so will support those who fight against them? Or may it be that the show will depart from the novels and have Tywin, and not Cersei, attempt to shrug off the crown’s debts to a foreign bank (that last is a rather scary thought, lessening his character in our mind, but it can’t be ruled out).