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If Aegon was smart and starved king Harren out.........


the storm king returns

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Harrenhall s just a monumentally bad idea. It's far too large to ever be practical. The Ironborn seem to have a thing for impractical castles. Whether those castles are massive monuments to hubris and overcompensating or built on windswept rocks in the open sea with flimsy rope bridges to travel between towers.

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Aegon wasn't inbred. Well at least in the sense his parents weren't full siblings.

Aegon most definitely was inbred. Aegon's great-great grandfather Gaemon was married to his sister, as was Aegon's great-grandfather Aegon. Not to mention his mother was half-Targaryen herself. Not to mention they were Dragonlords, and so probably inbred a lot back when they lived in Valyria. It's more than possible to be inbred without being the child of two full siblings.

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Harrenhall s just a monumentally bad idea. It's far too large to ever be practical. The Ironborn seem to have a thing for impractical castles. Whether those castles are massive monuments to hubris and overcompensating or built on windswept rocks in the open sea with flimsy rope bridges to travel between towers.

Harrenhal is very impractical as a regular castle.

However, as the central seat of power to govern all of Westeros, from Dorne to the Wall, the size makes sense. This may have been Black Harren's ultimate intention.

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Harrenhall s just a monumentally bad idea. It's far too large to ever be practical. The Ironborn seem to have a thing for impractical castles. Whether those castles are massive monuments to hubris and overcompensating or built on windswept rocks in the open sea with flimsy rope bridges to travel between towers.

Well to be fair Pyke wasn't built that way. It was built on the edge of the island, and the ground underneath it was slowly eroded away by the sea. And building a completely new castle would probably be really expensive (plus Pyke has history). But yeah, Harrenhal is just stupid impractical.

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Harrenhal is very impractical as a regular castle.

However, as the central seat of power to govern all of Westeros, from Dorne to the Wall, the size makes sense. This may have been Black Harren's ultimate intention.

I agree with this. The decades that it took to build Kings Landing could have skipped if they had repaired Harrenhal. It is a castle that (if manned and maintained is all but impregnable to anything other than dragons, a perfect seat of power for Ageon. Also no one new anything about a curse yet, if you believe in that sort of thing ;)

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Aegon sent ravens to every king telling that he's coming after them, so I don't think he could afford to sit in one place for years. He wasn't invulnerable, dragons can get killed, he himself can get killed, and his army wasn't huge. He can't wait for other kings to unite and come to him. There's also the question of supplies, especially when winter comes. It's a question who would starve first, Harren or Aegon. Harren would also likely make sorties, since his army was probably bigger.



Another thing is that Harrenhal doesn't make much sense. Before people invented cannons, it was very hard to take well garrisoned castles besides starvation and traitors inside. You don't need something the size of Harrenhal to have an "impregnable" castle. Harrenhal's size is so counter productive. You now can't garrison it as easily as you could a smaller castle, and if you do, you need to store much more food. It's harder to supervise everything too with so many people and space, so odds of someone betraying you become greater. If Harrenhall was twice smaller, it would be more "impregnable."



Harrenhal was more a symbol than a practical castle, it's like one of those big Saddam or Lenin statues. So Aegon took it down, he gave symbolic justice to river lords and showed strength. He could build a better castle that was also cheaper to maintain, if he wanted to.



Also, I don't agree that Harrenhal would be a major trade hub. Its location is bad, it's not at the sea or the Trident. It's at the far end of the God's Eye lake, so at best, it's the final destination for traders sailing up Blackwater Rush. IF trade ships can even sail up there. Trident is much better for trade, it goes through all the Riverlands.



I mean, Aegon and other Targaryens could still grow a city around Harrenhal if it's their capital and have a good amount of trade. But there are better locations for a trade hub.


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I agree with this. The decades that it took to build Kings Landing could have skipped if they had repaired Harrenhal. It is a castle that (if manned and maintained is all but impregnable to anything other than dragons, a perfect seat of power for Ageon. Also no one new anything about a curse yet, if you believe in that sort of thing ;)

Except King''s landing is waaaaaaaaaaaaaay bigger, is a city not a castle, has no other associations except the Targaryens and is by the sea, facing Essos.

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I think Aegon was very hasty in burning Harrenhal, here is this huge castle with walls so big no man could ever hope to take it by force in the middle of the 7 kingdoms you wish to conquer ..... A more prudent action would be to siege Harrenhal and starve king Harren out which would be easy since noone would be coming to his rescue not even the iron islands.

After king Harren bent the knee or starved to death, Aegon now possess the greatest castle in all of the realm which he could take as his seat rather then build KL and the redkeep which obviously costs lots of money to build and your keep is in the perfect area to reach all 7 kingdoms, harrenhal should be a trading hub for the rest of the 7k the Targs would be rich beyound belief and untouchable since only Dragons can ever hope to take the castle which at the time only Aegon and his sister's had dragons.

Was Aegon false to burn Harrenhal or was it the right move ? I understand it was smart to show your enemy there castles are useless but he could have burned casterly rock or SE or WF and proved the same thing.

Why would he besiege it? It would take a decade to starve such a castle out. And why save it from fire? He didnt plan on ruling it. Why leave such a castle for someone else to later use against you?

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To me this topic seems like the OP is saying "I would consider XXX character to be smart if he did what I would do". The OP seems to be under the impression that Aegon should have been armed with the power of hindsight and preserve Harrenhal through a siege when he didn't have the time or numbers to conduct a siege. However, if he did have hindsight then I think he would realize two different things:

1. "If I want to preserve Harrenhal as an asset then I can certainly repair the castle after I use my dragon to repair it, right?"

2. "If I keep this castle intact then the Rivermen and Lords might not like the fact that I spared an icon of their conquest that was built at their expense to. Not to mention that it looks like I am preserving the power of the Ironmen to both the Trident and the Islands. The Ironmen might think this place really belongs to them if I leave any doubt."

Emmon Frey wanted to preserve the stability of Riverrun when the Lannisters besieged it and the commanders considered his counsel annoying, which it would have been if someone was arguing against the measures that would be required to take the castle. The point being that you do not try to dictate the terms of an asset if you do not have it in your possession.

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I think burning Harrenhal instead of keeping it for himself was Ageon the conqueror's worst mistake.

He didn't even need men to besiege Harrenhal; he simply needed to burn the lands surrounding it so that there will be nothing in the fields for Harren to eat. Maybe burn some of the Riverlands castles for good measure, to ensure no reinforciments come. Once Harrenhal falls Ageon will have the perfect base from which to ensure his Dynasty is secure until the end of time.

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I think burning Harrenhal instead of keeping it for himself was Ageon the conqueror's worst mistake.

He didn't even need men to besiege Harrenhal; he simply needed to burn the lands surrounding it so that there will be nothing in the fields for Harren to eat. Maybe burn some of the Riverlands castles for good measure, to ensure no reinforciments come. Once Harrenhal falls Ageon will have the perfect base from which to ensure his Dynasty is secure until the end of time.

And then the River Lords hate him for burning their land. And also, I think just burning the lands wouldn't matter in the slightest. Even if you just besieged the castle, they're not getting any food from the land then either. Their food comes from what they have stored in the castle itself.

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I dont care that Aegon didnt have the man power for a proper siege he didnt need numbers he had three Dragons, all he had to do was fly to SE burn the Storm King to death inside SE or fly to CR and do the same. Both castles were never taken by force so thus would have accomplished the same thing. Aegon conquest was about speed, fly to SE take out storm kings BOOM hit up Westerlands BOOM hit the north BOOM, he didnt have to take out Harrenhal first he had the means to attack all enemys fast and once every other King has bent the knee then lay harrenhal under siege from all sides Harren would NOT quit i know but his subjects would very fast especially since they hate there king, the men of the Storm King sent there own princess naked out to Orys Baratheon obviously the IB would Send there king out and his sons probably all dead.

The red keep and KL cost ludacris amounts of money and décades of time to build, Harrenhal would be free and a fortress that is litterally impossible to take unless you have dragons which guess what ?? Only the Targaryans have.

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I dont care that Aegon didnt have the man power for a proper siege he didnt need numbers he had three Dragons, all he had to do was fly to SE burn the Storm King to death inside SE or fly to CR and do the same. Both castles were never taken by force so thus would have accomplished the same thing. Aegon conquest was about speed, fly to SE take out storm kings BOOM hit up Westerlands BOOM hit the north BOOM, he didnt have to take out Harrenhal first he had the means to attack all enemys fast and once every other King has bent the knee then lay harrenhal under siege from all sides Harren would NOT quit i know but his subjects would very fast especially since they hate there king, the men of the Storm King sent there own princess naked out to Orys Baratheon obviously the IB would Send there king out and his sons probably all dead.

The red keep and KL cost ludacris amounts of money and décades of time to build, Harrenhal would be free and a fortress that is litterally impossible to take unless you have dragons which guess what ?? Only the Targaryans have.

I think you're overestimating the dragons. They can win a battle almost single-handed, but they can't win the war single-handed. Dragons can be killed in battle, and the chances are even greater if they attack without being reinforced by an army, which you're suggesting Aegon should have done. And as people here more knowledgeable on the subject as I have stated why Harrenhal isn't that good of a castle. Yeah, it's big. But it's too big. And what do you mean 'literally impossible to take unless you have dragons'? You're the one suggesting that Aegon shouldn't have used his dragons to take it.

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