If they replace Jeyne with Ros I think the romance angle would be obvious - also they'd have the OMG DUDE SAVES THE GIRL HE LOVES trope which apparently they're so very fond of since they turned Robb's SL into a romantic trope too - but imo it'd totally miss the point. Then again we still aren't there yet so I'll be here crossing my fingers. (It's just that *that* specific arc might be my favorite thing that ever happened in these damned series along with the Jaime/Brienne roadtrip so I'd like it if they did it right. ;) )

Well, seems to me that whenever GRRM is like 'okay people X is gonna die before this book is over' it ALWAYS never happens so I'm pretty sure that Stannis executing him = false alarm. My personal theory is that when Theon thought he saw Bran in the tree in ADWD he wasn't hallucinating and that if Stannis tries to execute him in front of a tree in the godswood or in any godswood Bran is probably going to do it again OR Davos comes back with Rickon just before it happens and it's proved that Theon never killed them. Which would be half the reason why they would kill him in the first place. Anyway if he's dying at some point it's definitely not next book and definitely not because of Stannis. And I'll be with you firmly wanting to believe that Jaime and Brienne don't die horribly... *crosses fingers*