Lord Bowen Marsh Posted June 29, 2015 Share Posted June 29, 2015 (if you're upset with my grammar I'm sorry I'm french..) In the last book when Cersei's locked up she can't ask anyone to defend her in a trial before the gods, it has to be someone of the KG and only Meryn Trant and Boros Blaunt are available so she abandons that possibilty..right ? The thing is in ASOS Gregor Clegane is Cerseis fighter in in the trial required by Tyrion. But how can that though Gregor Clegane is not of the KG ? Did GRRM invented that rule later ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ferocious Veldt Roarer Posted June 29, 2015 Share Posted June 29, 2015 Not GRRM. Cersei made it up. She made it up to screw Margaery over, and the High Septon gave his stamp of approval, because he intended to screw Cersei over. While in ASOS, nobody in power had vested interest in denying Cersei whomever the hell she wanted for her champion, so back then Clegane was perfectly legal. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lord Lannister Posted June 29, 2015 Share Posted June 29, 2015 I think the difference between Tyrion's Trial and Cersei's is that Cersei was the accuser in the former and the accused in the latter and the rule says the KG has to defend the Queen if they're accused. If she's just accusing someone she can name her own champion apparently. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Balerion the kitten Posted June 29, 2015 Share Posted June 29, 2015 Welcome!And the KG is only meant to be the champion when one of the royal family members is being accused of a crime. They're job is to defend. If the trial affected the safety of someone they were sworn to protect, that's when they need to get involved. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FealtyToStannis Posted June 29, 2015 Share Posted June 29, 2015 What confuses me is that she's not even queen anymore. It's almost as if she's imposing this restriction to convince herself that she still is. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sasha Steelsong Posted June 29, 2015 Share Posted June 29, 2015 I think the difference between Tyrion's Trial and Cersei's is that Cersei was the accuser in the former and the accused in the latter and the rule says the KG has to defend the Queen if they're accused. If she's just accusing someone she can name her own champion apparently. This. Even if she isn't Queen but Queen Regent (or Queen Mother) she's still a direct member of the royal family, which would imply that only the KG could defend her. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ferocious Veldt Roarer Posted June 29, 2015 Share Posted June 29, 2015 I think the difference between Tyrion's Trial and Cersei's is that Cersei was the accuser in the former and the accused in the latter and the rule says the KG has to defend the Queen if they're accused. If she's just accusing someone she can name her own champion apparently. Well, duh. Of course Cersei wouldn't fabricate a law which she had publicly broken, she's smarter than that at least. That's why she formulated it as "When the queen’s honor is at issue, law and custom require that her champion be one of the king’s sworn seven": precise enough to affect Margaery's expected trial, but not Tyrion's past trial. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Balerion the kitten Posted June 29, 2015 Share Posted June 29, 2015 What confuses me is that she's not even queen anymore. It's almost as if she's imposing this restriction to convince herself that she still is.She's queen regent, the mother of the king as well, queen dowager.The restriction still applies to her because the KG have sworn to protect her. Doesn't matter if she was (is) a shit queen, or the widow of the king, she's still classified as being part of the royal family. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Minstral Posted June 29, 2015 Share Posted June 29, 2015 I don't think there was a strict "legal" precedent that only the KG may protect a Queen accused. The way I read it was that Cersei mentioned some past event (Aemon the Dragon Knight protecting his sister) so as to use it to justify this new scenario that she concocted. I mean it seemed like she brought up the idea to the High Sparrow so as to get his support for the new edict. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Minsc Posted June 29, 2015 Share Posted June 29, 2015 The thing is in ASOS Gregor Clegane is Cerseis fighter in in the trial required by Tyrion. But how can that though Gregor Clegane is not of the KG ? Did GRRM invented that rule later ? Gregor wasn't defending the queen, instead he was fighting for the accuser. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Selig Posted June 29, 2015 Share Posted June 29, 2015 It's very simple - the only time when only KG can participate in a trial by battle on behalf of a royal member is when the queen's honour is questioned - only they can defend her against such an accusation. Obviously Tyrion's case wasn't like that. Not GRRM. Cersei made it up. She made it up to screw Margaery over, and the High Septon gave his stamp of approval, because he intended to screw Cersei over. While in ASOS, nobody in power had vested interest in denying Cersei whomever the hell she wanted for her champion, so back then Clegane was perfectly legal.She didn't make it up. The custom already existed. Whether it was technically a law is debatable, but in this society there's a very thin line between custom and law. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ferocious Veldt Roarer Posted June 29, 2015 Share Posted June 29, 2015 It's very simple - the only time when only KG can participate in a trial by battle on behalf of a royal member is when the queen's honour is questioned - only they can defend her against such an accusation. Obviously Tyrion's case wasn't like that. She didn't make it up. The custom already existed. Whether it was technically a law is debatable, but in this society there's a very thin line between custom and law. Didn't she? Two questions, then. What particularly does make you think that law wasn't made up by Cersei to serve her specific need of the moment? And two, is there any mention, anywhere, of that rule (or even a similar one) being enforced? Or said aloud? Ever? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lord Varys Posted June 29, 2015 Share Posted June 29, 2015 We know that Queen Naerys was defended by the Dragonknight in a similar predicament. It may actually be that Aegon IV made such a law to try to ruin his beloved siblings - and get Aemon killed in the process. The Mountain is not fighting for Cersei during Tyrion's trial, he is effectively fighting for King Tommen. Cersei is Queen Regent at that point, she is acting and ruling in the name of His Grace, King Tommen (as she was in the name of King Joffrey before his death) and therefore she doesn't face any restrictions. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
falcotron Posted June 30, 2015 Share Posted June 30, 2015 The Mountain is not fighting for Cersei during Tyrion's trial, he is effectively fighting for King Tommen. Cersei is Queen Regent at that point, she is acting and ruling in the name of His Grace, King Tommen (as she was in the name of King Joffrey before his death) and therefore she doesn't face any restrictions.Surely if there were really an ironclad law that only the Kingsguard can fight for the Queen and only the Kingsguard can fight for the Queen Mother, the same rule would also apply to Tommen? After all, the whole point of the Kingsguard is that they Guard the King. I think this is evidence that either (a) there is no such rule, just a vague precedent that Cersei has interpreted in a specific way to screw Margy over, ( B) the rule doesn't apply to prosecutions by the crown, only personal defense of royal family members, or © both of the above. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lord Varys Posted June 30, 2015 Share Posted June 30, 2015 The idea that there is a law that prevents the king from doing whatever the hell he wants to do is kind of silly in a society like Westeros. After all, he could at a whim enlarge the KG to 77 knights of something like that. But (most) queens aren't co-rulers in Westeros. They are merely the spouses of the king and the mother of his children, nothing more. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ferocious Veldt Roarer Posted June 30, 2015 Share Posted June 30, 2015 We know that Queen Naerys was defended by the Dragonknight in a similar predicament. It may actually be that Aegon IV made such a law to try to ruin his beloved siblings - and get Aemon killed in the process. A tiny little problem with that assumption: Aemon was pretty much the finest knight of his time. It's borderline certain that Naerys wanted her as her defender, and that he wanted to be her champion. If Aegon wanted to screw Naerys over, he'd have forbidden the Dragonknight to defend her instead. And if he hypothetically wanted the opposite, to save her, he didn't need to issue any royal decrees: if he just had stood back and said nothing, Naerys would have picked Prince Aemon as her first choice, he'd have gladly accepted, and then processed Ser Morgil into a can of spam. Let's just look at the general picture. There's supposedly a law which just happens to perfectly fit Cersei's needs. Or so she thinks, because actually it perfectly fits the High Sparrow's needs; the High Sparrow endorses it literally ten minutes before arresting Cersei. Also: either there's no previous example of a queen being denied a champion of her free choosing ever, or at least nobody has managed to dig one up yet. Now, does it really look like an actual law, or does it look more like an ad hoc fabrication? For me, it's decisively the latter. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lord Varys Posted June 30, 2015 Share Posted June 30, 2015 If it was an ad hoc fabrication then it wouldn't have had any teeth after Kevan took over as Lord Regent and made Mace Tyrell Hand. Cersei may have been able to make up laws which didn't actually exist while she was Queen Regent, but those invented things wouldn't have survived her fall from grace and the arrival of the Tyrell armies in the city. Mace and Tarly - and Kevan, too - aren't bound to anything Cersei promised the High Septon in private conversation shortly before she was arrested. But the story makes it clear that Cersei has to make a KG her champion in her trial-by-combat, and can only name Ser Robert as her champion after Kevan agrees to accept him as KG after the news about Ser Arys' death arrives. This means that Cersei/Kevan as well as Mace/Margaery cannot get out of this 'a KG has defend the honor of the queen' thing easily - which means that there has to be a historical precedent for this. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ferocious Veldt Roarer Posted June 30, 2015 Share Posted June 30, 2015 If it was an ad hoc fabrication then it wouldn't have had any teeth after Kevan took over as Lord Regent and made Mace Tyrell Hand. Cersei may have been able to make up laws which didn't actually exist while she was Queen Regent, but those invented things wouldn't have survived her fall from grace and the arrival of the Tyrell armies in the city. The alleged law was countersigned by Cersei and the High Septon: both the accused and the accuser. The High Septon insists on it, exactly as Cersei had hoped, and she has no ground to oppose him. Also, ever since recreating the Faith Militant, everyone tries playing nice with the Sept. So, once the rule was made up, it's likely to stay around at least for the duration of Cersei's trial. Maybe it'll even stay there for good. But it wasn't there before Cersei and the HS had their little chat. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lord Varys Posted June 30, 2015 Share Posted June 30, 2015 But the High Septon doesn't have any written paper stamped and signed by Tommen and/or Cersei establishing that rule. An informal chat is an informal chat. How do Kevan, Mace, and Tarly even know that this conversation took place? The Faith sort of established its jurisdiction over Margaery by seizing her and getting Cersei to agree to them being allowed to conduct that trial - but that jurisdiction is shaky in itself since Lord Randyll freed Margaery and her cousins, and made a holy vow - that he is brining them back for the trial - he is completely willing to break. If Margaery/Mace would now decide that Margaery also go with a trial-by-combat the High Septon couldn't enforce that she would have to go with a KG. Mace controls the Crown right now, he'll make the decisions. And in Cersei's case there wasn't even an informal agreement as to who would be Cersei's champion in a trial-by-combat - as Cersei didn't even know that she would be arrested until she was. The Faith doesn't have the power to limit her choice of a champion unless there is a precedent for that. And Margaery isn't a precedent as she decided - at least until now - to go with a Faith trial with judges, not a trial-by-combat. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
UnFit Finlay Posted June 30, 2015 Share Posted June 30, 2015 Surely if there were really an ironclad law that only the Kingsguard can fight for the Queen and only the Kingsguard can fight for the Queen Mother, the same rule would also apply to Tommen? After all, the whole point of the Kingsguard is that they Guard the King. In Cersei and Margaery's case, the Kingsguard are *defending* the Queen and the Queen Mother. Tommen's life was not at stake in Tyrion's trial by combat. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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