Who Started the War of the "Five" Kings

[Tolsimir]

The war of the five kings was only called the war of the five kings after everyone crowned himself. So I don't think we can say that only one event led to it. Personally I would say that the crowning of Joffrey, Eddard's execution, Renly's crowning, Stannis' crowning and Balon's crowning were the main reasons.

The fighting was raging between the Starks/Tullys and Lannisters already though, because of Catelyn and Tywin. I don't think that Jaime's, Cersei's, LF's and Lysa's action should be considered the cause, since the direct response to those actions was not actually war. If we would search for the first thing that went wrong, we might aswell go to Rhaegar kidnaping Lyanna. Or even before.

[Ingelheim]

The war of the five kings was only called the war of the five kings after everyone crowned himself. So I don't think we can say that only one event led to it. Personally I would say that the crowning of Joffrey, Eddard's execution, Renly's crowning, Stannis' crowning and Balon's crowning were the main reasons.

The fighting was raging between the Starks/Tullys and Lannisters already though, because of Catelyn and Tywin. I don't think that Jaime's, Cersei's, LF's and Lysa's action should be considered the cause, since the direct response to those actions was not actually war. If we would search for the first thing that went wrong, we might aswell go to Rhaegar kidnaping Lyanna. Or even before.

Littlefinger was trying to get a war. He wanted the WOT5K.

[No Song so Sweet]

I think we can leave things that happened way before the war of the five kings (Aegon I, Rhaegar etc) are not responsible for that war. Maybe they are responsible for possibly causing some kind of war, but not the actual WotFK.

My logic for the topic is that, if you were a historian and you had to place the beginning of the war in a precise date where an event happened, which event would you pick? Or another way to see it is who do you hold mostly responsible for the war and which action made the war unavoidable?

[Consigliere]

I think we can leave things that happened way before the war of the five kings (Aegon I, Rhaegar etc) are not responsible for that war. Maybe they are responsible for possibly causing some kind of war, but not the actual WotFK.

My logic for the topic is that, if you were a historian and you had to place the beginning of the war in a precise date where an event happened, which event would you pick? Or another way to see it is who do you hold mostly responsible for the war and which action made the war unavoidable?

Hmm...if I had to choose one person most responsible then I'd pick Cersei. Once Robert died and Joff was crowned, war was unavoidable. If Bob had lived, Stannis wouldn't have gone to war, Renly wouldn't have crowned himself and Ned would not have been arrested and executed. Gregor was already in the Riverlands but that situation could have still been resolved without a full blown war had Bob lived.

[TalalOfDorne]

Lots of reasons. LF and Lysa were stirring things up. Cersei and Jaimes incest is also up there. Renly-Tyrell conspiracies didnt help either. Tywin wanting to move his army east using any excuse...

[ummester]

I think we can leave things that happened way before the war of the five kings (Aegon I, Rhaegar etc) are not responsible for that war. Maybe they are responsible for possibly causing some kind of war, but not the actual WotFK.

My logic for the topic is that, if you were a historian and you had to place the beginning of the war in a precise date where an event happened, which event would you pick? Or another way to see it is who do you hold mostly responsible for the war and which action made the war unavoidable?

Well surely that would be the raiding of the Riverlands - it was the first thing the crown (via the Hand) took military action against.

Nothing before that was an act of war, just family feuding.

[Tolsimir]

I think we can leave things that happened way before the war of the five kings (Aegon I, Rhaegar etc) are not responsible for that war. Maybe they are responsible for possibly causing some kind of war, but not the actual WotFK.

My logic for the topic is that, if you were a historian and you had to place the beginning of the war in a precise date where an event happened, which event would you pick? Or another way to see it is who do you hold mostly responsible for the war and which action made the war unavoidable?

If I was a historian I would probably date the start of the war with Catelyn's capture of Tyrion.

[Lord Damian]

Cersei and Jaime clearly, the ammo Littlefinger and Varys had for later on derived from their twincest and the spoiled fruit from it.

[Mal Malenkirk]

Jaime and Cersei played a part, but making them the root of the conflict as many are is simplistic. You are taking Jaime's jest about 'the war for Cersei's cunt' a bit too far. They created the potential for a political crisis, no doubt, but most crisis do not generate in the equivalent of a world war.

The WoT5K in relation to Robert's Rebellion is similar to WW2 in relation to WW1.

So ignoring who is responsible for RR, the preliminary responsibility for WoT5K is on Robert Baratheon and Jon Arryn. Why? When you have 14 years to fix the scars of the previous conflicts and utterly fail to do so, leading into the new conflict, you do have to shoulder some of the blame. Robert and Arryn provided insufficient leadership and too inept a management to prevent the pot from boiling over even though it had been simmering under their watch for over a decade.

But if Jon and Robert are responsible for not being able to lead the realm toward prosperity and unity, then a great part of the blame must be layed at those who acted against them in that regard.

In that sense, Littlefinger is the main culprit, he purposefully manipulated events toward chaos. Varys is also to blame, we see as early as GoT that he might not have wanted all out war this soon, but he did wanted the simmering conflicts to keep going for a while in order to facilitate his plots, which is to say over the years he acted against solidifying the rule of Robert.

Now comes the people whose actions contributed to that ongoing unstability before the war broke out. That's where the twins come in, their incestuous relationship was not apt to mend bridges! But they can hardly be the main source. We also have Balon's rebellion as not being very helpful either. More importantly, most of the lords Paramount seems to have maintained a fairly isolationist approach in the past decade. Ned clearly had not set foot in KL since the rebellion and was utterly uninvolved in the management of the realm until he was dragged kicking and screaming back by Robert, so that was hardcore isolationism. We have less information about the other Lord Paramounts but they seemed similarly uninvolved. Doran for one was too busy nursing a grudge, for example. Unity doesn't just happen, you have to work at it, and it seems clear no one was beside Jon Arryn and apparently that was not enough.

At the end of the line we can get into Catelyn's ill conceived notion of kidnapping Tyrion or Joffrey's being a psycopath. These are minor elements that shaped the form the war but are not its cause.

[devilrob6]

Cersei and Jaime passing off their children as Baratheon heirs to the throne. And Renly and Tyrells plotting to replace Cersei by Margaery as Robert's queen. There was a Baratheon / Lannister war in the making long before Jon Arryn got killed or any of the Starks got involved. All the others did was making things worse either deliberately or by making bad decisions and stupid mistakes.

[Howlin' Howland]

The last moment when a full scale war could still have been avoided was just before Eddard said in open court that Joffrey wasn't Robert's heir. From that point on nothing could stop the North and the Lannisters from going to war. But even if Ned had acknowledged Joffrey as King, Renly and Stannis would both still have likely rebelled.

[Magnus9]

Aemon Targaryen - he'd have reigned until the times of the books had he not renounced the throne.