Is Tywin a fool, or is GRRM sloppy?

[Lady Sharya]

I don't know how to put this any clearer so that you can understand this simple concept, but before Cersei fired Barristan everyone thought that KGs served for life. You cannot just invent that Robert could have stripped Jaime of his white cloak when no one thought that was an option at the time simply because Robert theoretically always had the power to do so if Cersei had the power to do so as Joffrey's regent. What Robert could do, and what Robert thought he could do are two completely different things. And what Robert would think he could do is that he couldn't fire Jaime as no one had ever fired a KG before.

Then show me a quote where Robert or anyone says to Robert that he can't strip Jaime of his White Cloak.
I know that the KG serve for life, but it's kind of silly to say the King can't do something in the books when his wife does that very thing <a week after he dies.;)

[TheNinjaDC]

I believe Tywin was clever, but he has 3 key weaknesses that hold him back.

 

1: Pride, a shared Lanister trait revealed in their motto(hear me roar). His pride is bad in two ways. One, it spurns him to anger, and brutality that comes to bite him in the flank.  Two, it blinds him to his families actual faults.

 

2: Over confidence, another shared Lannister trait. Tywin routinely under estimates his enemies.He's not Cersei, and actually plans many steps ahead, but his over confidence in is own abilities throws a wrench in said calculations. He didn't have a handlier on Joffery to stop Ned's execution. Add to this his over confidence in himself leads him to take on all leadership roles, leaving allot of subcommanders that can't do ***** on their own (see Jamie & his uncle).

 

3: He's too by the books(thinks inside the box). Tywin is extremely well disciplined, but his tactics (outside of surprising levels of brutality), lack the creativity of others. Stuff like Robb's  Jamie trap, and invasion of the Westerlands, or Tyrion's black water chain & flame trick. Even his most infamous trick, the red wedding, was not even his idea. Tywin, more or less is just to predictable due to his formality.  Or to put it another way, if the historically smart thing to do is X, you can rely on Tywin doing X every time. Knowing that, allows you to exploit him.

 

Again, this is not to say he is dumb. He's probably Westeros's greatest politician (was), but even he had weaknesses.

[King of the Narrow Sea]

Then show me a quote where Robert or anyone says to Robert that he can't strip Jaime of his White Cloak.
I know that the KG serve for life, but it's kind of silly to say the King can't do something in the books when his wife does that very thing <a week after he dies. ;)

 

Come on now. You're well aware that no one could be fired until Cersei first did it as no one ever had as the KG were established to serve for life like the Night's Watchmen that they were modeled on. There will be no quotes from the books where someone tells Robert that he couldn't strip Jaime seeing as it was not considered an option during Robert's life time. Robert theoretically could have always stripped Jaime but if he does not think that's an option, which he wouldn't as it only became an option when Cersei did it after his lifetime, then it is not actually an option for Robert to do.

 

You're creating alternate universes where Robert is a psychic and would know that KG don't actually have to serve for life but could be fired. The real Robert Baratheon is bound by the constraints of his lifetime and during his lifetime it was understood that KG served for life and therefore Robert has to act with the information he has available, not the information that people from the future will have.

 

 

Lord Tywin glanced at Jaime's stump again. "You cannot serve in the Kingsguard without a sword hand—"

"I can," he interrupted. "And I will. There's precedent. I'll look in the White Book and find it, if you like. Crippled or whole, a knight of the Kingsguard serves for life."

"Cersei ended that when she replaced Ser Barristan on grounds of age. A suitable gift to the Faith will persuade the High Septon to release you from your vows. Your sister was foolish to dismiss Selmy, admittedly, but now that she has opened the gates—"

[Red Tiger]

 

"Robert," Ned said in a voice thick with grief, "you must not do this. Don't die on me. The realm needs you."

Robert took his hand, fingers squeezing hard. "You are . . . such a bad liar, Ned Stark," he said through his pain. "The realm . . . the realm knows . . . what a wretched king I've been. Bad as Aerys, the gods spare me."

"No," Ned told his dying friend, "not so bad as Aerys, Your Grace. Not near so bad as Aerys."

Dayyumn :crying:

[Lady Sharya]

Come on now. You're well aware that no one could be fired until Cersei first did it as no one ever had as the KG were established to serve for life like the Night's Watchmen that they were modeled on. There will be no quotes from the books where someone tells Robert that he couldn't strip Jaime seeing as it was not considered an option during Robert's life time. Robert theoretically could have always stripped Jaime but if he does not think that's an option, which he wouldn't as it only became an option when Cersei did it after his lifetime, then it is not actually an option for Robert to do.
 
You're creating alternate universes where Robert is a psychic and would know that KG don't actually have to serve for life but could be fired. The real Robert Baratheon is bound by the constraints of his lifetime and during his lifetime it was understood that KG served for life and therefore Robert has to act with the information he has available, not the information that people from the future will have.

With all due respect, do you hear what your saying? Robert couldn't do because he didn't THINK of it? The only possible way what you are saying could be valid is if something actually happened to change the law, rule, custom or whatever you want to call it. Cersei suddenly DECIDING to break the rule without penalty from some higher place proves that Robert could have done so also if he chose to do so. Kings don't usually have many restrictions and this is not one that is stated in the books.

So you can say Robert wouldn't have broken the tradition of lifetime KG membership, but you can't say Robert would have had to kill Jaime to get him off his KG because he had no other options.

[TheLordProtector]

Threaten to send Jaime to the wall if Tywin doesn't stop his men from acting the Bollocks. Simples.

Jaime had attacked the hand of the king so the wall was a fitting punishment, however, if Tywin was to bring his men back into the Kings peace he can stick about in Kings Landing. Job done.

Might also shorten the mountain by a head as punishment for his crimes (and to strip Tywin of one of his most ferocious warriors)

[TheLordProtector]

Oh, also - yes, to the OP. I always found Tywin pretty much starting the WOT5K pretty strange. Can't decide however if it was Tywin's folly or Grrm's.

[Humble Maester]

 

Come on now. You're well aware that no one could be fired until Cersei first did it as no one ever had as the KG were established to serve for life like the Night's Watchmen that they were modeled on. There will be no quotes from the books where someone tells Robert that he couldn't strip Jaime seeing as it was not considered an option during Robert's life time. Robert theoretically could have always stripped Jaime but if he does not think that's an option, which he wouldn't as it only became an option when Cersei did it after his lifetime, then it is not actually an option for Robert to do.

 

You're creating alternate universes where Robert is a psychic and would know that KG don't actually have to serve for life but could be fired. The real Robert Baratheon is bound by the constraints of his lifetime and during his lifetime it was understood that KG served for life and therefore Robert has to act with the information he has available, not the information that people from the future will have.

 

I am sorry but you are being a bit silly. The King has absolute control over the KG and he could well remove one if he wished to.

The first precedent for this is when Jaeharys I removed one of his KG and sent him to the wall for having multiple wives (and thus breaking his vows). Aegon IV (always a good person to take as an example) also executed one of his KG for being in a relationship with one of his lovers.

 

The point of KG serving for life, for the most part, is that the KG can not quit. The King obviously can remove a KG who he is not happy with. Or do you think that a King could not remove a KG who does not follow his orders or goes against them?

 

 

E: about the topic itself, Tywin judged Robert's character completely correctly. Robert was not the kind of man to start a huge conflict if there was any way to avoid it. So taking Ned as prisoner would had just restored the status quo (well, of course it wouldn't had because everything that happened (incest, Lannister "coup" of KL etc., but it would had with the knowledge Tywin had).

[Frey Pie]

Robert is a cowardly fool. Don't expect him to act rationally

[The Fresh PtwP]

I always wondered why the Lannisters didn't summon Cat to trial for Imp napping...

[ConfusedCounselor]

Of course, feudalism is a loose term invented retroactively well after the contemporary period. But you can just look at the history of any European country from the 11th to 14th centuries and see the commonalities that led people to invent a name to organize them under. One of those commonalities is that kings don't get involved in every little dispute between their bannermen, and that they use the legal structure of vassalage and fealty to allow them to avoid doing so.

 

We don't have many other examples, because we've only got three novellas that show life at the level of minor lords and hedge knights (and three novellas plus a few chapters of a novel that show life during peacetime at all). But that's not a cause to ignore the one example we have. Especially when that example fits with what you'd expect given the feudal structure of their system. And when we have so many other examples that show that people think, personally and politically, much more like medieval Europeans than like modern Americans. And when GRRM uses words like "feudal", "vassal", and "fealty" without giving us any indication that they have a completely different meaning in his world despite Common otherwise being so much like English. And so on.

 

 

Thing is, you claimed many people didn't understand feudalism. If GRRM was revering to your concept of feudalism and people apparently do not get it, he is doing a poor job communicating. The most common idea of feudalism is a pyramid, where instead of having strong centralized power, you have a chain of fealties. No appointed bureaucrats govern provinces of the realm guarded by troops directly loyal/sworn to the central power (or their non-hereditary general), but hereditary seat with their own military power. I do not believe that GRRM also means that this:

What kind of king would let two of his bannermen fight each other? Every medieval king who ever existed.

 

 

Would also apply. The kings peace is a big deal. 

 

 

Again, the whole point of having a system where your vassals swear unconditional allegiance is that you can order them to keep the peace, so you don't have to take care of it yourself.

 

 

The whole point of feudalism is having 'ownership' over a larger area despite not having enough centralized authority to actively govern it all. How you deal with your vassals is secondary. Also, 'let them fight' as a policy is very different than 'order them to keep the peace'. Most instances of infighting we have seen is when the central authority simply isn't notified (Rowan), or when military matters make actively stopping them unfeasible (Bloodraven and the Greyjoys, Starks and Ramsey's adventure) or a very very weak ruler (Lannisters pre Tywin).   

 

The ideal wasn't infighting in the real world either. Feudalism wasn't some ideal system that some philosopher proposed that would solve all of the problems in the world; it was just something that evolved because it was better than they had before, and better than anything they knew how to change to. Infighting happened. Sometimes the liege would interfere; sometimes he wouldn't; neither is uncommon enough to be surprising. Which is exactly what we see in Westeros from The Sworn Sword.

 

 

I might agree with this if it is between smaller houses, like in The Sworn Sword. Westerosi united history seems to imply that warfare between major houses is actually very rare and actually is a big deal. Every single major conflict in the last 300 years involved Targ vs. Dorne, Targ vs. Targ, Targ vs. Faith, Targ vs. Blackfyre. Struggle between two major houses is a big enough deal that simply saying: 'stop it, y'all, I'm off hunting' is the sign of a weak king, not of solid policy.   

 

 

If Robert had lived, the simplest way to solve the strife in the Riverlands would be to order Tywin to get his men in line, order Ned to recall his men and get Tyrion released, and then tell them "don't do that again". It's their duty to comply with those orders, and he would expect them to do so, so he would give those orders.

 

 

Only if he considers Catelyns arrest out of bounds. If he believes Catelyn's arrest is reasonable and lawful enough, then he is condoning essentially unilateral aggression. Which would weaken his position. He doesn't care whether is actually is. It suits him to view it as such since he can claim "you're all even now", since he is a weak king.

 

 

If Tywin actually refused such an order, or tried to weasel out of it ("Sorry, sire, I can't control my own sworn swords" or "We didn't receive any messages, and Lord Tywin definitely did not shoot this delicious, plump-breasted raven"), then he'd be in trouble. In fact, he'd be in open rebellion. But he wasn't in any significant risk of real trouble yet; he was only at risk of being ordered to bring the Mountain to heel. Which he could do as soon as ordered.

 

 

 

Actually, Tywins plan involved capturing Ned Stark, who would be the hand of the King, from under the kings banners. Tywin cannot claim it was all the mountain and then try to trade Ned for Tyrion. It would mean holding someone captive who was riding under the kings banner. Would Robert try to ignore all that? Quite possibly. Would a strong king? I think not. That essentially is open rebellion. 

Having Cercei as Queen gives Tywin some protection of course, but not that much. 

So, what do you do about it? Throw them both in the dungeons? Hold a trial to resolve their differences, so they can just fight again with the blessing of the Gods?

 

 

No. Why would he throw Ned in the dungeons? Ned was attacked. By someone whose only duty should be protecting the royal family and following their orders. You might believe some vassals running loose not to be a big deal, but KG certainly are. Kill Jaime, let him take the Black.  Yes, I know he doesn't dare, but that is what makes him a weak king. 

 

Attacking the Lord of the North as a member of the KG with Lannister troops is not of the same order of magnitude as a legally fuzzy arrest for a very real crime with some evidence to back it up. 

 

 

 

Tywin counted on Robert acting like a weak king. His reaction to Jaime's actions essentially shows that he isn't incorrect. It might even extent to an assault upon the hand under the kings banners.

That doesn't make Robert a good, decisive or powerful king that act like any monarch in his position would. It makes him weak and lazy, which was essentially his character post RR.   

[Orphalesion]

Dayyumn :crying:

Am I really the only person who has no sympathy at all for Robert? He was a lousy king, husband and father and him regretting it hen it is too late means nothing to me.

[geogus]

Something never set right with me about Tywin`s opening moves in the War of the Five Kings. It bothers me so much, I think it might actually be an example of sloppiness on the part of GRRM.

 

   After Catelyn arrests Tyrion, Tywin begins a general blood-feud with the Tullys and Starks. It is implied that the Mountain`s raids into the Riverlands are for the specific purpose of luring Ned Stark out of King`s Landing to bring the Mountain to justice, so that he can capture Ned to use him as a bargaining chip for the release of Tyrion. It is only dumb luck that Ned was injured, and sends Beric Dondarion in his stead. This strikes me as a monumentally stupid and reckless move for someone as supposedly politically savy as Tywin.

 

  Holding the Hand of the KIng hostage would be a direct attack on the authority of the King, and force the Iron Throne to intervene it what was previously a feud between two great houses. Dondarion`s (or Ned`s, as it might have been) punitive expedition was riding under the King`s banner, not that of House Stark. So, when Clegane ambushed Dondarion he directly attacked representatives of the Iron Throne. This cannot be seen as anything less that treason and rebellion. Tywin did not feel the consequences if this because Robert died shortly thereafter, but Tywin didn`t know about Cercei`s plan to kill her husband. We can see from the Greyjoy Rebellion that nothing rouses Robert from his drunken, oversexed stupor quite like a rebellious lord in need of being brought back to heel. The fact that Robert is so deeply in debt to Casterly Rock should make Tywin even more wary, as attainting and beheading Tywin as a rebel would be a convenient way to wipe out the Crown`s debts. Does Tywin really have that much faith in Cercei`s ability to hen-peck Robert into submission?

 

   I really hope I`m missing some critical detail that makes this whole thing make sense.

 

   

 

  

 

 

He knew war was inevitable as did several of the other players.

 

 

I have strrugled with the OP concern, but today I think Tywin played as he wanted (not GRRM sllopy)

 

The crown autorithy is low in westeros and Robert was not likely to openly confront the Lannisters, as Tywin probably knew.

 

See, Jaime broke Ned´s , the hand of the king, leg and putted him in a coma and Robert wanted they to make peace anyway. 

 

He really didnt want a war.

 

Had Tywin captured Ned  and Robert was alive, I think he would intervine, but not to start a war.

 

Tywin would have riverrun on siege,  Ned on chains and two armies very close to Kings landing.

 

Besises, a war against the lannisters would stop caslerty rock loans and the king would go bankrupt.

 

I believe Tywin plans had worked as he intended he would start negotiations with Robert, from a strong position. and return to kings peace in his own terms

[Fat Mac]

Am I really the only person who has no sympathy at all for Robert? He was a lousy king, husband and father and him regretting it hen it is too late means nothing to me.

Well he also very likely suffered from depression and alcoholism. He's truly divisive, but I can see why many have sympathy for him.

[The Wolves]

Am I really the only person who has no sympathy at all for Robert? He was a lousy king, husband and father and him regretting it hen it is too late means nothing to me.

Nope I lost any positive or sympathtic feelings that I would ever have for Robert when I learned how he stood over the bodies of babies BABIES and dismissed, and dehumanized their deaths. That's when he lost me forever.


Plus Robert's life is of his own making he took the throne when he knew he wasn't suited for it and than continued to suck in every possible way especially being King.

[thelittledragonthatcould]

Well he also very likely suffered from depression and alcoholism. He's truly divisive, but I can see why many have sympathy for him.

 

I like him, he's a genuinely fun character but that deathbed scene just cracks me up.

 

"I'm an awful King, worse than Aerys"

 

"No, well, er no. Your not as bad as the man who brutally killed my father and brother."

 

I thought the whole point of Ned not telling him the truth about his children was to not hurt his feelings. Could he have not lied to the dying man and exaggerated about how good a king he was.

[TheLordProtector]

I don't think Robert wanted the throne to be fair. He wanted Lyanna back. Mostly because her being taken was an insult to his pride in my opinion.

He had the better claim, blood wise, and he led the rebellion so the throne fell to him. Ned should have taken it as far as I'm concerned. He would have been a much, much better king.

[Valyrian Blade]

He didn't even want to be king, it's kinda hard to not take the throne when every one of your bannerman and allied lords declares you should be king. Exactly what happened with Robb.

[The Wolves]

He didn't even want to be king, it's kinda hard to not take the throne when every one of your bannerman and allied lords declares you should be king. Exactly what happened with Robb.

It's not hard after just winning a rebellion to tell people "no" and no I'm not only blaming Robert he should have never taken the throne if he didn't want it but the other idiots who proclaimed him King should have known better and done better for the realm.

The messed up thing is that they never started out the rebellion to get the crown instead of fighting for their lives and establishing a better dynasty. Or they could have created a better government for Westeros these idiots instead kill a potentially better men and King than Robert and than call Robert King and now we have the mess that's TWot5Ks.

Robert was not powerless to refuse to be king it wouldn't suprise me if he was eager to take it thinking once he got Lyanna than life would be perfect him being a king with the people loving him and Lyanna. Robert was a idiot and should have known better.

[Fat Mac]

It's not hard after just winning a rebellion to tell people "no" and no I'm not only blaming Robert he should have never taken the throne if he didn't want it but the other idiots who proclaimed him King should have known better and done better for the realm.

The messed up thing is that they never started out the rebellion to get the crown instead of fighting for their lives and establishing a better dynasty. Or they could have created a better government for Westeros these idiots instead kill a potentially better men and King than Robert and than call Robert King and now we have the mess that's TWot5Ks.

Robert was not powerless to refuse to be king it wouldn't suprise me if he was eager to take it thinking once he got Lyanna than life would be perfect him being a king with the people loving him and Lyanna. Robert was a idiot and should have known better.

Most of your posts can be responded to with "hindsight is 20/20." Robert couldn't have known his life would take the downspiral it did. He couldn't have known being King would give him absolutely no gratitude or happiness. He's a human character who can't see the future.

He may have been against the idea of being king, but not so against it that he turns it down when his best friend and father figure suggest he do it. If my father and best friend strongly suggest that I could or should do something, and I don't hate the idea personally, I'd probably do it.