Your New Job: Defense Attorney

[Blackfish Tully]

Westeros is an aristocratic society. When a Lord or Lady gives you an order, you're expected to obey. Highborn wives may be subordinate to their husbands, but they're superior to servants, guards, retainers etc.

 

to a point you may be right . If Lady Tanda (just some random Lady ) orders you to get out of her way or to carry her bags for her then you would be expected to obey but if she orders you to chop off the head of some kid because he annoyed her then you would be guilty of murder and would be punished . just because you are a Lord or Lady does not mean you are above the law. Jorah was Lord of Bear Island but when he got caught selling poachers into slavery Ned Stark was coming for his head. 

[Codename: Nymeria]

Holy crap! You really are trying hard to defend Sandor for murdering a defenseless innocent  child . 

 

1. just because Cersei put Sandor to guard Joffrey does not mean she has lawful authority over him . He's Joffrey's sworn shield not Cersei's. Also we do not know if she has lawful authority to order any execution, from an earlier post  "A queen consort (also empress consort) is the wife of a reigning king (or emperor). A queen consort usually shares her husband's social rank and holds the feminine equivalent of the king's monarchical titles but, historically, she does not share the king regnant's political and military powers.

 

2. We do not  know if Cersei gave the order . You completely twisted my point on this (which is not really surprising considering you have been twisting most things i post to defend poor Sandor from my attacks) we don't know if she gave Sandor an order and she did not have to give a Sandor an order , she could just tell him that she hopes somebody finds Mycah and kills him and Sandor would do it to please her . Really no different then her asking Jaimie to kill Arya. 

 

3.He could have one of the other men with him kill Mycah or captured and returned him to Cersei or Robert for their judgement but instead he rode him down and cut him nearly in half . He felt bad about it later but that does not meant he did not enjoy it at that time.

 

4. Why not . Nobody else could find Mycah so it was not that easy to find him so just by not looking very hard Sandor would have avoided finding Mycah . As for the men he had with him he could have simply ordered them to look in a different direction and he was going on his own . He's the f'king Hound for gods sake , you guys act like he to timid to do these things or is terrified of what his men or Cersei would think .

 

5. never said anything about "Stannis Being The "Just Man" To Judge Sandor" not sure where you got that line from . I just said that if Ned or  Stannis were King then Sandor would be in big time trouble . Stannis punishes his men for raping commoners so why would you think that he would allow Sandor to murder a commoner  without any punishment. The only reason Sandor gets away with it is because Robert is a drunken fool who has lost his backbone. 

 

Where the underlined is? Those are assumptions you are making with absolutely no substantiation whatsoever (or, as I mentioned previously, your own opinions treated as absolute fact).

 

 

 

If I work for somebody and they order me to commit an illegal act such as murder then the fact  that they ordered me to do it is no defense. Just because Sandor works for Cersei does not give him the right to execute somebody just based on her orders if she does not have the authority to order that execution. 

 

Again, we are dealing with an entirely different society. You're right in terms of murder, because it's a capital crime that requires concurrence. If you work for someone and they order you to commit an illegal act such as lying to a client, the fact that they ordered you to do it is 100%, absolutely a valid defense to that action (it's called respondeat superior), a well-known concept in American jurisprudence that literally translates to "let the master answer." You keep getting hung up on the execution aspect of this, but again, you aren't seeing the analogy correctly. Ordering executions is a fairly common practice in Westeros; the question isn't whether, in an analogous situation, someone could order you to execute someone. The question is whether you would have liability for doing something a superior instructed you to do, which they had the ability and/or authority to do themselves. Think of it in terms of calculus: X1/X2 = Y1/Y2. X: Cersei ordering an execution. Y: A boss instructing you to cheat on taxes. Are these things equal?

 

I don't think anyone's arguing (I'm certainly not) that Sandor is just this super-sweet dude who was forced against his poor will to kill a boy. He's a killer; that's part of the point. But the reason this argument keeps going is because some of understand as more than just a cold-blooded killer, which is why he's so interesting. There's obviously nothing morally redeemable able killing an unarmed boy.

 

That said, another key concept to determine liability in American law is sine qua non, or "but-for causation" (there's also proximate causation; that would clearly apply to Sandor, but you need both). The idea is that the actual cause is the person who, but for their actions, the crime/tort would not have occurred. Hence: but for Cersei's actions, there's every reason to believe Mycah wouldn't have died, because no one would have given two wet farts about him. But for Sandor's actions, Mycah would still be dead, because as you argue yourself, Cersei would have just gotten someone else to kill him. So if we're applying American procedural law (see my earlier post about the Erie doctrine), Sandor's actions don't meet both prongs. Is he morally culpable in Mycah's death? Absolutely. Is he, for lack of a better term, legally liable? No, because he fails the but-for test. He's basically just a tool that Cersei uses to accomplish her own ends. An effective one, but still.

[Woman of War]

I wonder what is the intention of posters when they defend Sandor for murdering a child. I mean, everyone has the right to a defense attorney, but why so passionate, so not detached at all? This is more than a mind game or a potential thesis to you, OldGimlet e.g. Overidentification?

Or do you want the proof that with the right lawyer people can get away with everything?
How would that serve the story? Are you trying to confirm some nihilistic approach of Martin like immorality is nothing and nothing is immoral? Or do you want Sandor of all characters to get away with what he did?
Martin himself is jury, judge and executioner here, not we posters.

To the author Sandor is guilty, extremely guilty. If he weren't in Martin's eyes there simply would be no Sandor story worth to be written. Martin is neither nihilistic nor amoral, he wants a burdened, evil, complex Sandor who for sure hasn't only murdered Mycah but many nameless others as well, though he is not on trial for that here. Why would the author invest so many pages into a character who isn't deliciously conflicted about having consciously opted for darkness?

Sandor is fictional, he has no other purpose in life than serving a story and he serves best if his deed is beyond any constructed excuse and he himself is very much aware of it.
Erasing that destroys the fictional character of Sandor.

[falcotron]

Wait are we defending our clients under Westerosi law/story or US law? I am a bit confused

I think CodeNym came up with a good interpretation here: applying the Erie doctrine, using US procedural law but Westerosi substantive law, gives you a sensible way to answer this question.

1. Mycah was not only a witness fleeing the scene of a crime from a man sworn to uphold the King's justice and royal family, he was guilty of the monstrous crime of striking the daughter of the hand of the king. He was a dangerous hooligan with no respect for the values of our society and guilty of obstructing justice

Are you intentionally trying to echo Darren Wilson's excuse as closely as possible, to create the Westerosi equivalent of the Ferguson riots? The fact that you use the word "hooligan" (which had dropped off so rapidly after the 1970s that some dictionaries had labeled it as "obsolete" or "British", until Ferguson put it back into the national lexicon) makes the parallel, whether conscious or subconscious, particularly blatant.

[falcotron]

I wonder what is the intention of posters when they defend Sandor for murdering a child.

I think most people see this more as an interesting game.

As CodeNym pointed out, Sandor is still morally guilty even if he's legally innocent. And remember that in-story, Sandor was found innocent in his trial by combat with the BwB, so he got away with it, but he still has to live with the consequences. And watching him live with the consequences has been fascinating.

Trying to work out whether a real legal system would have led to a different outcome doesn't really tell us anything at all in-story, but it can still be an interesting question, and even a way of broadening the moral questions of ASoIaF. What's wrong with that?

Of course getting bogged down in the minutiae of US law is probably not the most productive way of having that discussion, but whenever you have a bunch of people who are absolutely sure they know the law even when they don't, that's going to come up (c.f., every discussion on any succession on these forums).

[Blackfish Tully]

 

Where the underlined is? Those are assumptions you are making with absolutely no substantiation whatsoever (or, as I mentioned previously, your own opinions treated as absolute fact).

 

 

What the hell are you talking about ? Everything we post on here are our assumptions that are not based on facts . How can we base anything on facts? this is a fictional world and we are speculating what fictional characters would do in fictional situations . Only GRRM knows what these characters would do in actual situations . i am not GRRM and i'm assuming you are not either so i guess we have no choice but to  base our posts on what we know about these characters from what we read in the story. If you think i am wrong about any of my points please call me out on it and say why you think i'm wrong  but stop with this whole line of attack. Plenty of people on this topic have posted just like i have but i'm the only one you called out this way . Could that be because you disagree with my view so you are singling me out? 

[Blackfish Tully]

 

. But for Sandor's actions, Mycah would still be dead, because as you argue yourself, Cersei would have just gotten someone else to kill him. So if we're applying American procedural law (see my earlier post about the Erie doctrine), Sandor's actions don't meet both prongs. Is he morally culpable in Mycah's death? Absolutely. Is he, for lack of a better term, legally liable? No, because he fails the but-for test. He's basically just a tool that Cersei uses to accomplish her own ends. An effective one, but still.

First thing I never argued that Cersei would have gotten someone else to kill him , not sure where you got that from.  

Secondly.  Holy crap! Are saying that Sandor is not criminally liable because Cersei would have had him killed anyway ? So when someone hires a hitman to murder someone that hitman is not criminally liable because if he doesn't do it they would just hire another hitman? sorry but that just can't be possible 

[OldGimletEye]

I wonder what is the intention of posters when they defend Sandor for murdering a child. I mean, everyone has the right to a defense attorney, but why so passionate, so not detached at all? This is more than a mind game or a potential thesis to you, OldGimlet e.g. Overidentification?

Or do you want the proof that with the right lawyer people can get away with everything?
How would that serve the story? Are you trying to confirm some nihilistic approach of Martin like immorality is nothing and nothing is immoral? Or do you want Sandor of all characters to get away with what he did?
Martin himself is jury, judge and executioner here, not we posters.

To the author Sandor is guilty, extremely guilty. If he weren't in Martin's eyes there simply would be no Sandor story worth to be written. Martin is neither nihilistic nor amoral, he wants a burdened, evil, complex Sandor who for sure hasn't only murdered Mycah but many nameless others as well, though he is not on trial for that here. Why would the author invest so many pages into a character who isn't deliciously conflicted about having consciously opted for darkness?

Sandor is fictional, he has no other purpose in life than serving a story and he serves best if his deed is beyond any constructed excuse and he himself is very much aware of it.
Erasing that destroys the fictional character of Sandor.

I don't know WOW. Why do you come to this board. Why do write about what you write about?

 

Not that I feel the need to justify myself to you or anything, but I find the topic of the legal and ethical obligations of soldiers to be an interesting topic. Probably it's because I've been one myself and because of my general interest in history.

 

Whatever the source of my interest, I do know that certain people have oversimplified the topic of Sandor's actions with regard to Mycah. People like, you for instance with your silly Eichmann, references. I find that to be a bit annoying. So that's why I write about it.

 

Also, I'm not quite sure I can agree with the idea that Martin is telling us what judgments to make. I don't think he is doing that. Instead, I think he's just posing us difficult questions to answer for ourselves. But, even if he were, I wouldn't care. Martin or nobody else is going to do my thinking for me.

 

Also, I'm not quite sure where you get off telling the rest of us what Martin intends. You come off a bit like a televangelist here telling us that we should listen to you because you know the mind of god and the rest of us dumb asses don't.

 

Why is it that I'm not quite willing to trust your super awesome literary interpretations?

[Codename: Nymeria]

Secondly.  Holy crap! Are saying that Sandor is not criminally liable because Cersei would have had him killed anyway ? So when someone hires a hitman to murder someone that hitman is not criminally liable because if he doesn't do it they would just hire another hitman? sorry but that just can't be possible 

 

See, the second part of your statement bears no logical relation to the first. Nor is either of them an accurate representation of what I was saying.

 

Again, you are once again conflating flat by using a false analogy. Cersei ordered someone killed is not remotely equivalent to someone in 21st Century USA getting a hitman. Commonfolk being killed isn't an uncommon occurrence in Westeros; the Clegane brothers have probably killed hundreds between that. Despite what cable television may lead you to believe, it's extremely, extremely rare in modern society. So the level of respect for human life that I would expect of you or I is not the same level of respect for human life that I would expect Sandor, or Robert, or Cersei, or Arya, or Lommy Greenhands, or Oberyn, or any other character in ASOIAF to have. The argument you're making is false because you're removing the action from it's context. The significantly better analogy is: is you hire an accountant to help you cheat on your taxes, is the accountant criminally liable for helping you? And to the same extent you're liable for lying on your taxes?

 

None of that, however, has to do with the legal concept of sine qua non causation, though. You and the hitman require a meeting of the minds; you are both the but-for cause of the action, because but-for your idea, your target would still be alive, and but-for the actions of the hitman (were that hitman successful), the target would still be alive. The distinction lies in the specialized skills that the hitman utilized, and more significantly, the malice aforethought necessary to be held criminally liable (by having planned things out), at least for murder. It's a legal distinction; this thread is about acting as a defense lawyer.

[OldGimletEye]

Trying to work out whether a real legal system would have led to a different outcome doesn't really tell us anything at all in-story, but it can still be an interesting question, and even a way of broadening the moral questions of ASoIaF. What's wrong with that?

Of course getting bogged down in the minutiae of US law is probably not the most productive way of having that discussion, but whenever you have a bunch of people who are absolutely sure they know the law even when they don't, that's going to come up (c.f., every discussion on any succession on these forums).

The substantive law of war crimes isn't that different between countries or international tribunals. Jurisdictions either permit the "manifest illegality" standard (or something close) or they use the absolute liability approach (meaning the soldier is liable for the breaking of any law). As far as I know, jurisdictions that follow the absolute liability approach do allow for mistake of fact defenses.

 

I think nobody would argue that the modern law of war crimes leads to perfect moral outcomes. And in fact there perhaps is an argument there that states have opted to not achieve optimal ethical outcomes because that might degrade military efficiency too much, which they have an interest in maintaining.

 

I think without question the best moral act for Sandor to have done would have been to gone to Robert, no matter how small of a chance there might have been to save Mycah's life and even if doing so could have cost Sandor substantially. However, when thinking about what the rules ought to be, it probably makes sense to design them for ordinary men of reasonable sensibility and not necessarily saints.

 

There is a pretty big sea of gray in war crimes law. I'd submit it does, however, separate the morally questionable cases from the truly atrocious ones. So why use it in thinking about Sandor's case? My answer would be because it's an "off the shelf model". It's there to use. If somebody has a better model they'd like to propose, I'd be all ears.

 

However, whatever model one comes up with, it has to be one that is workable in a variety of different cases and context.Tailoring the model to one specific case would probably lead to what data scientist call "over fitting the model". It's methodologically bad. There is an old saying that hard cases lead to bad laws.

[Le Cygne]

Also, I'm not quite sure I can agree with the idea that Martin is telling us what judgments to make. I don't think he is doing that. Instead, I think he's just posing us difficult questions to answer for ourselves. But, even if he were, I wouldn't care. Martin or nobody else is going to do my thinking for me.

 

I agree.

 

GRRM had Tyrion do many horrible things, yet he never called him evil. He says he doesn't think in those terms.

 

"With Shae, it’s a much more deliberate and in some ways a crueler thing. It’s not the action of a second, because he’s strangling her slowly and she’s fighting, trying to get free. He could let go at any time. But his anger and his sense of betrayal is so strong that he doesn’t stop until it’s done and that’s probably the blackest deed that he’s ever done. It’s the great crime of his soul along with what he did with his first wife by abandoning her after the little demonstration Lord Tywin put on."

 

http://www.ew.com/article/2014/06/16/game-of-thrones-finale-martin

 

After arming the mountain clans in the Vale, which he did to spite Lysa ("he proposed to reduce the Vale of Arryn to a smoking wasteland"), innocent women and men were raped and killed ("They took every woman and every scrap of grain, and killed half the men. They have steel now, good swords and mail hauberks, and they watch the high road.") And he gave the antler men to Joffrey to nail antlers to their heads and use them in trebuchets, joking ("When they'd been brought before the Iron Throne for justice, he had promised to send them to Stannis."). He kidnapped Shae, then didn't pay her, then slapped her ("He slapped her. Not hard, but hard enough. "Damn you," he said. "Never mock me. Not you."), then murdered her in cold blood (she didn't have a weapon), after she told him Cersei made her testify and she was afraid of Tywin ("I never meant those things I said, the queen made me. Please. Your father frightens me so."). He threatened to rape Tommen and Cersei (“Whatever happens to her happens to Tommen as well, and that includes the beatings and rapes.”, "And the only reward I ask is I might be allowed to rape and kill my sister.") After swearing to return Sansa to her mother, he tried to break Jaime out instead ("I searched for some time for a ruse that might get them into Riverrun") and said he would only return Sansa after Robb bent the knee ("The next time you visit the godswood, pray that your brother has the wisdom to bend the knee.") He then forcibly married her ("His wife?" Brienne said, appalled. "The Imp? But... he swore, before the whole court, in sight of gods and men.") He made Sansa strip, then got in bed with her naked and groped her breast, knowing she didn't want to have sex with him ("When he hopped up on the bed and put his hand on her breast, Sansa could not help but shudder.") And then there's the sex slave ("Her back was crisscrossed by ridges of scar tissue. This girl is as good as dead. I have just fucked a corpse. Even her eyes look dead... She did not understand that either, so he shoved her legs apart, crawled between them, and took her once more.") And more.

 

But he never called him evil.

[JonCon's Red Beard]

But he never called him evil.

Good people can do evil actions. As well as terrible people is able to do some good. :dunno:

This is what Stannis' words mean.

I think GRRM wants us to feel revolted at the idea of good naturally-inclined-to-do-some-good people doing bad things but not because we're meant to tell them "rapists!" but because we're supposed to pity them. How Sandor, the kid who only tried to play with a toy knight ended up so disenchanted from them or how Tyrion, the little guy who wanted a Dragon for his birthday, ended up assaulting a slave. What leaded them there.

That, of course, does not apply to certain characters who have always had a cruel streak. I think Martin is quite obvious on telling us who are the good guys here.

[Le Cygne]

Yep, here's what GRRM said at the Emmy's panel:
 

"I love fantasy, I grew up reading fantasy but I wanted to put a somewhat different spin on it. The whole trope of absolute good vs. absolute evil, which was wonderful in the hands of J.R.R. Tolkien, I think became kind of cliché and rote in the hands of the many Tolkien imitators who followed.
 
"I've always preferred writing about grey characters, human characters, whether they are giants or elves or dwarfs, or whatever they are, they are still human. The human heart in conflict with itself, as Faulkner says, that all of us have the capability in us for great good and for great evil, for love and also for hate, and I wanted to write those kinds of complex characters in a fantasy, not just all the good people get together to fight the bad guy."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mkzodgRaze8 (here's the link)

[Blackfish Tully]

I think without question the best moral act for Sandor to have done would have been to gone to Robert, no matter how small of a chance there might have been to save Mycah's life and even if doing so could have cost Sandor substantially.

Actually the best moral act for Sandor would be to capture Mycah and bring him back to Robert for judgement by the king. Once he handed him over to the king anything that happened to Mycah would be Robert's responsibility not his so his conscious would be clean . 

Cersei would be happy that Mycah was captured and more then likely being punished pretty harshly and she would get over any anger that she had over Sandor not killing Mycah himself . 

[OldGimletEye]

Actually the best moral act for Sandor would be to capture Mycah and bring him back to Robert for judgement by the king. Once he handed him over to the king anything that happened to Mycah would be Robert's responsibility not his so his conscious would be clean . 

Cersei would be happy that Mycah was captured and more then likely being punished pretty harshly and she would get over any anger that she had over Sandor not killing Mycah himself . 

Perhaps. Be as that may, that really wasn't the overall point I was making.

[falcotron]

So why use it in thinking about Sandor's case? My answer would be because it's an "off the shelf model". It's there to use. If somebody has a better model they'd like to propose, I'd be all ears... However, whatever model one comes up with, it has to be one that is workable in a variety of different cases and context.

That's basically my point. CodeNym gave us an "off the shelf" model that allows us to actually discuss this case without talking past each other.

I don't know if it's the best model. It's a coherent model that allows us to play a game that's fun and might teach us something, which is far more important to me than deciding whether we should rip Sandor out of the pages and stick him in real-life jail. And I'd be all ears to any other such useful model, even if it isn't necessarily better.

For example, one thing I've gotten out of this discussion is that Sandor's key story--knowing that he's morally guilty even though he won his trial and got away with it--doesn't necessarily depend on the fact that the trial was a farce. Which is cool, because it's a great story. And we get to keep our discussion about that even if someone later comes up with a better model.

[Woman of War]

I think most people see this more as an interesting game.As CodeNym pointed out, Sandor is still morally guilty even if he's legally innocent. And remember that in-story, Sandor was found innocent in his trial by combat with the BwB, so he got away with it, but he still has to live with the consequences. And watching him live with the consequences has been fascinating.Trying to work out whether a real legal system would have led to a different outcome doesn't really tell us anything at all in-story, but it can still be an interesting question, and even a way of broadening the moral questions of ASoIaF. What's wrong with that?Of course getting bogged down in the minutiae of US law is probably not the most productive way of having that discussion, but whenever you have a bunch of people who are absolutely sure they know the law even when they don't, that's going to come up (c.f., every discussion on any succession on these forums).

I guess you are right

[OldGimletEye]

Holy crap! You really are trying hard to defend Sandor for murdering a defenseless innocent  child . 

 

I think we all understand that the killing of Mycah was terrible and awful.

 

But,your statement here presumes that Sandor is in fact guilty of murder, but that's exactly the issue we are arguing about here. Your excessive appeals to emotion aren't helpful, and it's the sort of thing that often gets people wrongly sent to the electric chair or wrongly sent to prison.

 

So can, we like, cool it with this excessive emotional crap?

 

 

Turning to other matters:

 

 

 

1. just because Cersei put Sandor to guard Joffrey does not mean she has lawful authority over him . He's Joffrey's sworn shield not Cersei's. Also we do not know if she has lawful authority to order any execution, from an earlier post  "A queen consort (also empress consort) is the wife of a reigning king (or emperor). A queen consort usually shares her husband's social rank and holds the feminine equivalent of the king's monarchical titles but, historically, she does not share the king regnant's political and military powers.

Okay, just think about this statement you've made here and just think if its even remotely logical. If Cersei had no legal authority over Sandor, then exactly who was she to place Sandor to protect Joffrey? Also before Sandor became Joffrey's sworn shield to whom exactly did Sandor answer to? The evidence heavily suggest it was Cersei. Trying to suggest that Cersei had no lawful authority over Sandor isn't even remotely credible. And of course, the fact, that Sandor served House Lannister and Cersei was the senior member of House Lannister in KL.

 

For the sake of argument, I'll accept that authority emanates from the king. However, the fact of the matter is that the king can delegate his authority. And I'm not aware of anything that puts any limitation upon the king to delegate his authority. Nor I am aware of any procedural form, necessarily, that the grant of the authority must take.

 

A person could very well and reasonably believe that a queen has a certain amount of authority granted to her by the king or even given to her by the king's acquiescence. The scope of that authority and what a person could reasonably believe about it is going to probably be heavily fact dependent and will probably turn upon the exact nature of the relationship between the king and his queen.

 

 

 

2. We do not  know if Cersei gave the order . You completely twisted my point on this (which is not really surprising considering you have been twisting most things i post to defend poor Sandor from my attacks) we don't know if she gave Sandor an order and she did not have to give a Sandor an order , she could just tell him that she hopes somebody finds Mycah and kills him and Sandor would do it to please her . Really no different then her asking Jaimie to kill Arya. 

This whole line of reasoning is ridiculous. It's doubtful that Cersei "asks" Sandor to do anything. She commands him. And even if she did "ask", that would likely be interpreted as a command. Cersei saying something like "I wish" would be tantamount to a command, most likely, given Cersei's and Sandor's relationships. To say otherwise is to be in complete denial about how feudal societies work. And, again, Ned heavily implicates Cersei in the whole matter. I think we can reasonably conclude that Cersei gave the command.

 

Also, Cersei's relationship with Jaime is a bit different than it is with Sandor. Jaime is a member of the King's Guard and hence his relationship with House Lannister is supposed to have been formally severed. Hence, Jaime has no formal relationship with her, unlike Sandor who is obligated to be obedient to her.

 

 

 

3.He could have one of the other men with him kill Mycah or captured and returned him to Cersei or Robert for their judgement but instead he rode him down and cut him nearly in half . He felt bad about it later but that does not meant he did not enjoy it at that time.

Sandor ordering one of his men to kill Mycah wouldn't relieve Sandor one iota of responsibility. You simply can't pass the buck, when it comes to an illegal order. I thought you would know that. And, as a practical matter, it would have been a chicken way to command. When you command troops, and something nasty or unpleasant has to be done, you do it, to the extent it is practicable.

 

Also, now you seem to be saying that Sandor "might have enjoyed killing Mycah at the time." But you know, there is a substantial gap between "might have" and "more probably than not". For a while, much of your case against Sandor has been that Sandor wanted to kill Mycah because he enjoyed killing him. That claim by you has been largely undermined by my prior post. At this juncture I think there is an important point to be made here. Even if one ultimately concludes that Sandor did not act reasonably, at least this entire exercise has helped to shed light on the likely circumstances surrounding Sandor's killing of Mycah. That is helpful when we're deciding, ultimately, of what to make of Sandor. Dubious claims like "Sandor enyoyed killing Mycah" have been exposed as being doubtful. Also, I'd like to get your theory of when Sandor had his moral awakening between the time he killed Mycah and then later where he regretted it.

 

 

 

4. Why not . Nobody else could find Mycah so it was not that easy to find him so just by not looking very hard Sandor would have avoided finding Mycah . As for the men he had with him he could have simply ordered them to look in a different direction and he was going on his own . He's the f'king Hound for gods sake , you guys act like he to timid to do these things or is terrified of what his men or Cersei would think .

We have no clue how hard Sandor looked or did not look. We literally have no evidence how Sandor encountered Mycah. None. All we know is that he was probably ordered to or expected to take troops with him in the field to look for Mycah. That's about it.

 

Also, I think it's completely ridiculous to say Sandor had no cause to fear Cersei. That completely ignores the reality of the social structure in Westeros. Other than his formidable fighting abilities, Sandor is pretty much a nobody. The grandson of a kennel master. The class structure has teeth in Westeros. Cersei is the daughter of one of the most powerful men in Westeros. Sandor simply cannot fight the power of the Lannisters all by himself.

 

 

 

5. never said anything about "Stannis Being The "Just Man" To Judge Sandor" not sure where you got that line from . I just said that if Ned or  Stannis were King then Sandor would be in big time trouble . Stannis punishes his men for raping commoners so why would you think that he would allow Sandor to murder a commoner  without any punishment. The only reason Sandor gets away with it is because Robert is a drunken fool who has lost his backbone. 

And frickin so what if he would have been in big trouble with Stannis? Is there something really analytically appealing about the "Stannis Standard" to judging these kind of cases? Something you'd like to tell us about? We're all ears.

 

And given Stannis being prone to semi-authoritarianism, he'd probably look like a big fucking hypocrite by judging Sandor that way. If Stannis had gone with Ser Axell's plan, Stannis would have expected his troops to do what exactly?

 

I'd suggest you drop the whole Stannis thing as it's probably a non-starter.

[Blackfish Tully]

 

I'd suggest you drop the whole Stannis thing as it's probably a non-starter.

You are the one who keeps bringing Stannis into it not me . i mention Stannis one time when I said that Ned and Stannis would judge Sandor different then Robert did , which they would. 

 

Also, I think it's completely ridiculous to say Sandor had no cause to fear Cersei. That completely ignores the reality of the social structure in Westeros. Other than his formidable fighting abilities, Sandor is pretty much a nobody.

 

 

Being one of the best fighters in Westeroes makes  Sandor a rock star in Westeroes . this society glorifies it's fighters so Sandor is much more then a nobody. Plus the fact that Joffrey loves him and Cersei would have to take that into consideration.  . 

 

ISo can, we like, cool it with this excessive emotional crap?

 

 

 sorry , as long as you guys are going to try a defend Sandor for murdering Mycah I'm going to keep bringing up the fact that he murdered a 13 year defenseless boy. 

 

 

This whole line of reasoning is ridiculous. It's doubtful that Cersei "asks" Sandor to do anything. She commands him. And even if she did "ask", that would likely be interpreted as a command. Cersei saying something like "I wish" would be tantamount to a command, most likely, given Cersei's and Sandor's relationships. To say otherwise is to be in complete denial about how feudal societies work. And, again, Ned heavily implicates Cersei in the whole matter. I think we can reasonably conclude that Cersei gave the command.

 

How is this line of reasoning ridiculous? we are discussing whether or not Sandor is not guilty of murder because he "followed orders" when we don't even know if he received an order .

That seems to be a pretty important point . If she merely suggested to him that she would love it if somebody killed Mycah then the defense falls apart . It hard to make a "following orders" defense when there was no order. An no her merely stating that it would be great if Mycah were killed is not an order. 

[Le Cygne]

Here, I'll quote GRRM himself, who explains how writing works:
 

"Television -- like virtually ALL art -- operates on the assumption of the implied ellipsis. That is to say, we assume that you know or can infer certain that certain things took place, even if they are not shown on the screen or referred to in dialogue. Vincent was never shown eating, for example, because Ron Koslow felt that a scene of him wolfing down cookies and milk, or making a grilled cheese sandwich, rather undermined the mythic grandeur of the character. Nonetheless, it was never our intent to imply that he did NOT eat. We simply chose not to show it."

 
Here's his place, he knows his place, that's why the author included this:
 

"He's my mother's dog, in truth. She has set him to guard me, and so he does."

And we know from Ned, Cersei has more than Sandor at her command:
 

His men had been searching for Arya for four days now, but the queen’s men had been out hunting as well.

 
He's telling us right here, he followed orders, he knows his place:
 

"I was Joffrey’s sworn shield. The butcher's boy attacked a prince of the blood... I heard it from the royal lips. It’s not my place to question princes."

And we know from Ned, Robert is well aware of these things:
 

He remembered that chill morning on the barrowlands, and Robert's talk of sending hired knives after the Targaryen princess. He remembered Rhaegar's infant son, the red ruin of his skull, and the way the king had turned away, as he had turned away in Darry's audience hall not so long ago... The face of the butcher's boy swam up before his eyes, cloven almost in two, and afterward the king had said not a word.

And of course, the author sets up Sandor as Sansa's protector, with Robert's own words:
 

The king was in no mood for more argument. "Enough, Ned, I will hear no more. A direwolf is a savage beast. Sooner or later it would have turned on your girl the same way the other did on my son. Get her a dog, she'll be happier for it."