Edmure Was Not Wrong

[StannisandDaeny]

I still regularly see people cursing Edmure for 'what he did' in Clash Of Kings, namely 'ruin' Robb's 'genius' strategy of luring Tywin past Riverrun and into battle, and 'causing the defeat of Stannis'.

I've felt like this about him for a while myself, but now I have a problem with that idea, in fact I disagree with it completely. If the books have taught us anything it's to not take anything that's said (especially by characters) for granted and to always analyze further if we want to know the real truth.

I don't think Edmure made any mistakes, but Robb did. The most important factor in this regard is a passage that's often overlooked, where a scout comes up to Catelyn and tells her Edmure has been ordered to guard the rear. How can letting an entire Lannister army slip by a natural defense fall into that? It doesn't.

There's also some other considerations to be made:

1) Even if Robb explicitly told Edmure to 'hold the city', stopping Tywin from crossing the river and besieging it again is a way of defending the city, even if you're not defending it directly from the walls.

2) It is optimistic, to say the least, that an experienced commander like Tywin would fall for Robb's plan and engage him in a place where he could not use his cavalry properly.

3) If Tywin simply got through a tactically easily defended place like the river without resistance, he would suspect something.

4) 40 000 Tyrell bannermen would have still been more than enough to relieve King's Landing of Stannis' embattled and thinned out army of 20 000 men max in a surprise assault. That Tywin got back in time didn't make all the difference.

5) Robb pretends it's a foregone conclusion that he would have defeated Tywin, when in reality, this is far from certain.

6) There is no reason not to tell Edmure of this strategy if Robb wanted him to let Tywin slip past. Not giving clear enough instructions is a mistake on Robb's part.

Conclusion: the strategy failed due to Robb and not Edmure. Robb, in the end, sees this as a good opportunity to guilt-trip Edmure into making up for his mistake of betraying the Freys. The fanbase, on the whole, keeps supporting Robb and his look on things because he is the more popular character and granted, it's not all that obvious that it's actually him who's in the wrong, but still, I have to stand by Edmure in this matter, and I hope at least someone will now realize that Edmure is not the buffoon his family and a lot of readers make him out to be.

[Northern Nomad]

I still regularly see people cursing Edmure for 'what he did' in Clash Of Kings, namely 'ruin' Robb's 'genius' strategy of luring Tywin past Riverrun and into battle, and 'causing the defeat of Stannis'.

I've felt like this about him for a while myself, but now I have a problem with that idea, in fact I disagree with it completely. If the books have taught us anything it's to not take anything that's said (especially by characters) for granted and to always analyze further if we want to know the real truth.

I don't think Edmure made any mistakes, but Robb did. The most important factor in this regard is a passage that's often overlooked, where a scout comes up to Catelyn and tells her Edmure has been ordered to guard the rear. How can letting an entire Lannister army slip by a natural defense fall into that? It doesn't.

There's also some other considerations to be made:

1) Even if Robb explicitly told Edmure to 'hold the city', stopping Tywin from crossing the river and besieging it again is a way of defending the city, even if you're not defending it directly from the walls.

2) It is optimistic, to say the least, that an experienced commander like Tywin would fall for Robb's plan and engage him in a place where he could not use his cavalry properly.

3) If Tywin simply got through a tactically easily defended place like the river without resistance, he would suspect something.

4) 40 000 Tyrell bannermen would have still been more than enough to relieve King's Landing of Stannis' embattled and thinned out army of 20 000 men max in a surprise assault. That Tywin got back in time didn't make all the difference.

5) Robb pretends it's a foregone conclusion that he would have defeated Tywin, when in reality, this is far from certain.

6) There is no reason not to tell Edmure of this strategy if Robb wanted him to let Tywin slip past. Not giving clear enough instructions is a mistake on Robb's part.

Conclusion: the strategy failed due to Robb and not Edmure. Robb, in the end, sees this as a good opportunity to guilt-trip Edmure into making up for his mistake of betraying the Freys. The fanbase, on the whole, keeps supporting Robb and his look on things because he is the more popular character and granted, it's not all that obvious that it's actually him who's in the wrong, but still, I have to stand by Edmure in this matter, and I hope at least someone will now realize that Edmure is not the buffoon his family and a lot of readers make him out to be.

1) The "guard his rear" part is something that the scout was told, who do you think told the scout that, because when Edmure has to answer for the battle later on, he nevers mentions that it was his job to guard Robbs rear.

2) Odd because if i remember correctly, Tywin at this point already had fallen for one of Robbs plans.

3) Yes he would suspect that the Riverlords are trying to defend their homes, which they were.

4) It is said that they waited for Tywin, if they had waited a little longer then Stannis would have won at Blackwater.

5) When does he say this?

6) He may first have thought of the strategy after he left the Riverlands.

Robb gets plenty of criticism on this forum. Also you should not post here when you mention information from SOS.