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Ser Barristan chose poorly?


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So if either of Rhaegar's sons (assuming Jon is one) comes forward, my thoughts wander back to Ser Barristan's realization that he had failed as a Kingsguard by not following the true heir to the throne. That's why he went and found Dany - but as Aerys' daughter, she won't come before Rhaegar's sons. So Barristan chose poorly. Will that have consequences? It just seems like foreshadowing, like something bad is going to happen to either Barristan or the true heir because Barristan made the mistake. And if you buy the R+L=J, the Kingsguard was protecting Lyanna, so they knew of this child. Even if Barristan thought the Elia's son had been killed, should he not have tried to figure out what happened to Lyanna's child before he went to Dany?

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No, Ser Barristan, as a knight of the kings guard is sworn to protect the King and his family. Ser Barristan was not at the tower of Joy so he has no Idea about that; he also believes that Rhaegar's two children have been killed. I think he is making the wise choice, he is protecting a Targaryen.

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  • 2 weeks later...

yepp....I think barriston has no clue of Rheagars children and sought the last liing Targarean in his mind. We don't know how long Leanna was kept in the tower of joy ....she might have spent her entire pregnancy there without anyone knowing what was going on except the 3 finest kingsguard. Besides Barristan was at the Trident with Rheagar so he was doing his job ...

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  • 5 weeks later...
  • 1 month later...

But would Stannis accept Barristan, or lop his off for siding with a traitor ?

I think Stannis would throw Barriston in Mel's fires for aligning with Robert.

Barriston did go to the only Targ he knew in existance. Barriston was not Rhaeger's closest friend on the Kingsguard. Undoubtedly, he wondered about the fight at the Tower of Joy. But by the time he recovered, all those who could have enlightened him were scattered. And they surely would not have told him. Further, I do not think he could go to Robert and ask for some personal or vacation time to go check out what happened (do the KG get any time to visit family, or are they like the BW, no family but the KG?).

He probably did not ask Ned about it at KL because he knew Varys little birds would report. And it was 14 years ago, he probably wanted to forget Prince Rhaegar.

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  • 1 month later...

We all do Ser. We all do.

Hell no we don't all want that! Stannis is a douche who nobody wants as king besides his horrid wife, a witch who doesn't really know how to read fires, and a smuggler who owes his entire new life to the douche. Who else wants him to be king??? The only reason part of the north is helping out is that they hate the boltons/freys and the few southern lords are only doing as they realized they chose the wrong side and have to wait it out in hopes they get new land up north.

What does Stannis do better than someone else that you would want him to be king???

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Yikes to the fact that Sansa is one of your favorite characters...Can I get your reasoning for that or what she brings to the table for you??

Ok?...I'll bite.

In summary, Sansa is a very interesting and compelling complex character and I appreciate how GRRM has crafted her. In addition, she is a good person who has been unable to actively control her life for such a long time, thus, IMO, she is sympathetic. There are also some parallels between her and Daenerys.

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Yikes to the fact that Sansa is one of your favorite characters...Can I get your reasoning for that or what she brings to the table for you??

A feminine touche, among many other qualities. Better than having a legendary knight playing no role in the story whatsoever as favorite, don't you think?

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Ok?...I'll bite.

In summary, Sansa is a very interesting and compelling complex character and I appreciate how GRRM has crafted her. In addition, she is a good person who has been unable to actively control her life for such a long time, thus, IMO, she is sympathetic. There are also some parallels between her and Daenerys.

I agree with you that it's great that GRRM has so many different types of characters since variety is the spice of life and that they are both men and women and both strong and weak, etc....You say she is unable to actively control her life?? It's as a result of all her mistakes and bad decisions that makes things so horrible for House Stark (plus Cat's horrible mistake of grabbing Tyrion and starting a war).

Think about the cause and effect of Sansa's mistakes in AGoT and tell me how it isn't a direct result of her doing bad things that makes the story what it is now...

1) She lies on the kings road about Arya and the butcher's boy...Yeah I guess we can understand why she did it (she's young, she's "in love", she was nervous)...But talk about Un-Stark like to not tell the hard truth when it's the right thing...That's their MO and yet Sansa didn't since she's so weak.

If she had not lied, think about how things would have been different...

A) Her wolf/good life power is still alive to protect her and give her strength

B) An innocent life isn't killed (butcher's boy)...

C) Goffrey is shown to be what he is by everyone (a bitch, a bully, and a liar)

D) House Stark gets a nice victory over House Lannister in Good vs. Bad

E) Sansa could have realized why Goffrey would be a horrible match for her anyway (see end of point C)...which then transitions me to the second HUGE mistake she directly mistakes that makes House Stark even worse off.

2) She runs to tell Cersei that her father is secretly going to be sending them off in the night and disobeys Ned...This is singularly the WORST thing that you find out in Book 1...Sansa even admits that she knows she did an awful thing.

Think about the butterfly effect of that mistake (and let's assume Ned still dies since Little Finger is really the one behind that betrayal).

Sansa and Arya could have been safely taken back to Winterfell...which means the capture of the Kingslayer as a prisoner basically could end the war or alter it incredibly...Forget the Boltons being able to have a fake Arya to hold some of the Northern lords to the Bolton/Frey betrayal...Little Finger wouldn't have Sansa as a puppet that could help him actually control Winterfell now since he knows who the fake Arya is and actually holds the only known Stark child...

So I guess I can agree with you that Sansa can be "understood" as a character (sympathetic would be a giant leap for me personally)...and it's your opinion on who you like best so I can't argue that...but I still don't get how you can think she is where she is because so many outside forces that were out of her control dictates her life...

Take a closer gander to Cat's decisions too and tell me that she's not as horrible as Sansa in her decision making skills (kidnapping Tyrion, bringing him to Lysa, horrible war advice with putting Bolton in charge of an army, letting the Kingslayer go).

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I agree with you that it's great that GRRM has so many different types of characters since variety is the spice of life and that they are both men and women and both strong and weak, etc....You say she is unable to actively control her life?? It's as a result of all her mistakes and bad decisions that makes things so horrible for House Stark (plus Cat's horrible mistake of grabbing Tyrion and starting a war).

Think about the cause and effect of Sansa's mistakes in AGoT and tell me how it isn't a direct result of her doing bad things that makes the story what it is now...

1) She lies on the kings road about Arya and the butcher's boy...Yeah I guess we can understand why she did it (she's young, she's "in love", she was nervous)...But talk about Un-Stark like to not tell the hard truth when it's the right thing...That's their MO and yet Sansa didn't since she's so weak.

If she had not lied, think about how things would have been different...

A) Her wolf/good life power is still alive to protect her and give her strength

B) An innocent life isn't killed (butcher's boy)...

C) Goffrey is shown to be what he is by everyone (a bitch, a bully, and a liar)

D) House Stark gets a nice victory over House Lannister in Good vs. Bad

E) Sansa could have realized why Goffrey would be a horrible match for her anyway (see end of point C)...which then transitions me to the second HUGE mistake she directly mistakes that makes House Stark even worse off.

2) She runs to tell Cersei that her father is secretly going to be sending them off in the night and disobeys Ned...This is singularly the WORST thing that you find out in Book 1...Sansa even admits that she knows she did an awful thing.

Think about the butterfly effect of that mistake (and let's assume Ned still dies since Little Finger is really the one behind that betrayal).

Sansa and Arya could have been safely taken back to Winterfell...which means the capture of the Kingslayer as a prisoner basically could end the war or alter it incredibly...Forget the Boltons being able to have a fake Arya to hold some of the Northern lords to the Bolton/Frey betrayal...Little Finger wouldn't have Sansa as a puppet that could help him actually control Winterfell now since he knows who the fake Arya is and actually holds the only known Stark child...

So I guess I can agree with you that Sansa can be "understood" as a character (sympathetic would be a giant leap for me personally)...and it's your opinion on who you like best so I can't argue that...but I still don't get how you can think she is where she is because so many outside forces that were out of her control dictates her life...

Take a closer gander to Cat's decisions too and tell me that she's not as horrible as Sansa in her decision making skills (kidnapping Tyrion, bringing him to Lysa, horrible war advice with putting Bolton in charge of an army, letting the Kingslayer go).

Okay so I'm new here - just found the forum, but I feel like I need to defend Sansa.

She absolutely does make a lot of mistakes, and I agree that in AGOT when she confessed Ned's plans to Cercei I was furious. However, she was a young child, and she has grown a lot since then, and is becoming a much more intelligent and capable person.

In a way, each character in the books helps to create their own situation, not only Sansa. If you look at it from a point of view of if Sansa hadn't done these things it could all have gone a different way, you could also say, if Ned acted more intelligently instead of just out of honour and listened to Renly (or even Little Finger to some extent) then he could've lived and everything would have been fine. If Catelyn hadn't kidnapped Tyrion with incredibly little evidence the hostilities between Stark and Lannister would never have come into play (as you did point out). Or if Robb hadn't married Jeyne, the RW would never have happened.

I mean, I suppose you could argue that the men in the situations are acting from honour, while Sansa seems to be acting purely in her own self interest. However, I think that if you look at it from the point of view of a spoilt twelve year old it seems some what understandable. She wanted to be Queen and marry Joffrey more than anything. At the very least, she realized after that what she had done was a mistake, and I think she's learned from it. Sansa is turning out to be quite smart and she's learning the way the game is played. Her character has changed (sort of like how Jaime matures in SoS and goes from "the guy who threw a kid out the window" to "the guy who's trying to be someone honorable"), and because of that I'd say that Sansa SoS and onwards is one of my favourites, even if I didn't like her before.

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So if either of Rhaegar's sons (assuming Jon is one) comes forward, my thoughts wander back to Ser Barristan's realization that he had failed as a Kingsguard by not following the true heir to the throne. That's why he went and found Dany - but as Aerys' daughter, she won't come before Rhaegar's sons. So Barristan chose poorly. Will that have consequences? It just seems like foreshadowing, like something bad is going to happen to either Barristan or the true heir because Barristan made the mistake. And if you buy the R+L=J, the Kingsguard was protecting Lyanna, so they knew of this child. Even if Barristan thought the Elia's son had been killed, should he not have tried to figure out what happened to Lyanna's child before he went to Dany?


If it turns out that Jon is Rhaegar's son and Aegon is alive, not a single person will blame Barristan for not knowing that. There's virtually no evidence available to him within the context of the story that suggest either of those things.



And it's certainly not even his biggest betrayal of House Targaryen. Even if he hears of Aegon and Jon at this point in the story, it would hardly be a mistake to stay with Daenerys, someone whose Targaryen lineage is unquestionable, instead of crossing over to join someone who is probably an imposter or a bastard or something.


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  • 3 weeks later...

Question:

Let forget Aegon, let say he doesn't exist. And let say Daenerys had found happiness somewhere, maybe as khaleesi, or as wife ot some rich merchant prince, or as queen of Slaver's Bay. Then Ser Barristan arrives and says "I'm Ser Barristan Selmy and I have come to swear loyalty to you and help you recover your rightful place as queen of the Seven Kingdoms". And then Daenerys says: "No, thank you. I'm tired of war and slaughter, I'm content with my new life, I like being alive (which I probably won't be for long if I follow you) and most important of all, I would rather fuck a basilisk on a nest of manticores than trust you. So farewell and have a good day".

What would Ser Barristan do? He was quite presumptuous when he took upon himself to crown Daenerys without knowing her opinion about the issue (because, when he left Westeros, he still didn't know her opinion about the issue, and when he left Pentos, he still didn't know if Daenerys would take him or if she would try to conquer Westeros).

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This does raise an interesting question about why nobody looked into why 3 KG died at the ToJ? Shouldn't Selmy or Jamie have some opinion as to why 3 of their sworn brothers died at some random tower in the Dornish marshes nowhere near either Rhaegar or the King? Leaving R+L=J out of it shouldn't someone have mentioned what the popular opinion was regarding the 3 KG deaths?


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Although he wasn't a part of the council, I'm sure he knew that Robert had no love for Dany and wanted her killed (as he did all Targs who threatened his reign). Considering she was the only one the king was after, I suppose it makes sense that Barristan went to her thinking she was the last one. And how do you hunt for a random baby anyway, even if you knew about it? Dany is the logical choice, since he didn't know about Aeg.


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Question:

Let forget Aegon, let say he doesn't exist. And let say Daenerys had found happiness somewhere, maybe as khaleesi, or as wife ot some rich merchant prince, or as queen of Slaver's Bay. Then Ser Barristan arrives and says "I'm Ser Barristan Selmy and I have come to swear loyalty to you and help you recover your rightful place as queen of the Seven Kingdoms". And then Daenerys says: "No, thank you. I'm tired of war and slaughter, I'm content with my new life, I like being alive (which I probably won't be for long if I follow you) and most important of all, I would rather fuck a basilisk on a nest of manticores than trust you. So farewell and have a good day".

What would Ser Barristan do? He was quite presumptuous when he took upon himself to crown Daenerys without knowing her opinion about the issue (because, when he left Westeros, he still didn't know her opinion about the issue, and when he left Pentos, he still didn't know if Daenerys would take him or if she would try to conquer Westeros).

Without looking it up he does say somewhere in DWD that his place is to be by her side to protect her wherever she may be, even if she never returns to the 7 kingdoms. But what would he do if initially she totally rejected him and would not let him be her personal guard. My guess is he would have considered himself a total failure; he may have ended it all or wandered the Free Cities a drunk and a sellsword until he found another Targ to protect.

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