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Trying to understad the northern lords : saying is not doing


Future Null Infinity

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IMO, The reaction of the northern lords to Jon and Sansa's request was a subtle touch of reality in the show, I mean everyone can say some shiny phrases like "the north remembers" or writing some enthusiastic letters like "Bear Island knows no king but the King in the North, whose name is Stark" but in the end and facing the harsh reality, everyone of them knew that the enemy is too powerful, two the them already sided the boltons which for me it's perfectly understandable (in real world, weak nations sided powerful nations) and the others didn't want a direct conflict or a conflict with minimum losses in order to protect their houses

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Yep.

 

If we didn´t have the books and the series took the path that the books did, I can picture part of the audience complaining it´s "confusing, convoluted plot armor to save the Starks, in a story that tries so hard to be realist and troupe-breaking", or something along the lines of.

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Agreed.

What's going on with the book North and its eagerness to rise and jump into yet another conflict for one Stark girl, who they don't even know for sure is the real deal, is a fairy tale. It's fanservice. Where do the Northern Houses even get resources from after WotFK?

The war left the North severely damaged, in huge part due to Robb's foolishness and selfishness. The Lords refusing to commit to what they believed was another lost cause was totally understandable.  Not to mention being reluctant to rally behind a girl who basically slept with the enemy (being married to a Lannister and then a Bolton) and had a close associate in Littlefinger as well as a bastard Snow (Jon had to win them over with actions, not words and entitlement) made sense. Jon earned their loyalty, it wasn't given to him because he demanded it or because of some fancy piece of paper written by the now dead King who contributed to the North's suffering. There are not many things worse than such plot devices.

The Lords didn't side with the Boltons by refusing to engage in a rebellion. They just wanted to be left alone, they remained neutral. It's not like they committed their men to Ramsay.

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6 hours ago, Future Null Infinity said:

IMO, The reaction of the northern lords to Jon and Sansa's request was a subtle touch of reality in the show, I mean everyone can say some shiny phrases like "the north remembers" or writing some enthusiastic letters like "Bear Island knows no king but the King in the North, whose name is Stark" but in the end and facing the harsh reality, everyone of them knew that the enemy is too powerful, two the them already sided the boltons which for me it's perfectly understandable (in real world, weak nations sided powerful nations) and the others didn't want a direct conflict or a conflict with minimum losses in order to protect their houses

Then why did no one side with Stannis?

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4 hours ago, Darksky said:

Agreed.

What's going on with the book North and its eagerness to rise and jump into yet another conflict for one Stark girl, who they don't even know for sure is the real deal, is a fairy tale. It's fanservice. Where do the Northern Houses even get resources from after WotFK?

The war left the North severely damaged, in huge part due to Robb's foolishness and selfishness. The Lords refusing to commit to what they believed was another lost cause was totally understandable.  Not to mention being reluctant to rally behind a girl who basically slept with the enemy (being married to a Lannister and then a Bolton) and had a close associate in Littlefinger as well as a bastard Snow (Jon had to win them over with actions, not words and entitlement) made sense. Jon earned their loyalty, it wasn't given to him because he demanded it or because of some fancy piece of paper written by the now dead King who contributed to the North's suffering. There are not many things worse than such plot devices.

The Lords didn't side with the Boltons by refusing to engage in a rebellion. They just wanted to be left alone, they remained neutral. It's not like they committed their men to Ramsay.

The North is damaged Robb could raise raise an army of around 20-25,000 at the start of WotFK, now in the Stannis vs Bolton fight, Stannis has around 4,000 Northmen and Roose has around 1,200 Northmen that aren't his own banner men.

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There are many reasons the Northerners in the books want to fight. The Freys are sitting there in Winterfell after they broke guest rights, killed their king, his mother and virtually a member of ever one of their Leige Lord's families while at the same time are holding another member of the same family hostage. What is funny though is that there has been a story concocted in the books that gives an excuse for what the Frey's did, albeit a flimsy one. Also, in the Books, Roose Bolton and his men are not known to have committed the treason that they did at the Red Wedding, only whispers.

ON the show, everyone knows what happened and apparently there are no hostages and everyone died at the Red Wedding in Robb's party except the Blackfish, who escaped and Edmure, the Bridegroom who recently betrayed his Uncle, the Blackfish, to his doom.

Frustrating.

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13 hours ago, Darksky said:

Jon earned their loyalty, it wasn't given to him because he demanded it or because of some fancy piece of paper written by the now dead King who contributed to the North's suffering. There are not many things worse than such plot devices.

IMO, They removed Robb's will from the story in the show and replaced it by killing Rickon which is a bigger mary sue moment

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17 hours ago, Future Null Infinity said:

IMO, The reaction of the northern lords to Jon and Sansa's request was a subtle touch of reality in the show, I mean everyone can say some shiny phrases like "the north remembers" or writing some enthusiastic letters like "Bear Island knows no king but the King in the North, whose name is Stark" but in the end and facing the harsh reality, everyone of them knew that the enemy is too powerful, two the them already sided the boltons which for me it's perfectly understandable (in real world, weak nations sided powerful nations) and the others didn't want a direct conflict or a conflict with minimum losses in order to protect their houses

Unfortunately it requires the vast majority of the northern lords to just pretend that the Red wedding never happened. This is a reflection of the fact that it happened three years ago for audiences and they don't care any more, so the momentum of that desire for vengeance couldn't carry over. 

As for the Karstarks and Umbers, Karstark fights the Starks because he is infuriated that his father was killed. Umber fights the Starks because he doesn't care that his father was killed. This is called "narrative convenience". 

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The show made every Northern house, except the dead prior Lord Cerwyn, terrified or indifferent of the Boltons. The Umbers held Rickon and did not offer him to Stannis as a "Banner rally" or anything. It was all plot contrivances to get us to the Battle of the Bastards where LF and the Knight of the Vale would enter the story to get us all of those characters inside Winterfell for Season 7. Royce, Davos, Jon, Sansa, LF and a surprise spark plug, Lady Mormont.

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7 hours ago, Future Null Infinity said:

because unlike the books and in the show at this point Stannis was dead, which from the story's perspective make the boltons the sole dominant force in the north 

I'm talking about S5 SJ, Glover, Cerwyn are all there when Stannis is at CB, why wouldn't SJ who hates the wildings not give Rickon to Stannis for 1) stopping Mance and 2) to get rewards, he would been given Bolton lands and probably been made the "acting warden of the North" like LF does in the Vale unlike Rickon comes of age? The show said constantly in S5 that Stannis had the upper hand on paper so this whole "not wanting to challenge the dominate force" goes out the window because that force was challenged before and they didn't do anything, which makes their actions not make any narrative sense and solely look like plot convenience

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"Why didn´t they join Stannis?" - Red God

"They would be the winning hand, they could have asked for religious freedom." - That´s not the point. People don´t want to follow a maniac who burns his brother in law alive.

"Did they forget about the Red Wedding?" - No.

"Do they want to do something about it?" - Yes.

"Can they do something about it?" - No. They barely do anything in the books, and what they´ve done in the books so far is just very satisfying for the reader, but has little to no effect on the great scheme of things. If they had openly rebelled against the Boltons at any point(+Crown, "+Vale" in the series), they´d be squished like the bugs they currently are. We know the Vale wouldn´t help the Boltons, the Northern Lords didn´t, they have no reason to believe that since "the Vale" gave Sansa Stark to the Boltons instead of giving her to anyone else or just keeping her hidden.

"Should all of them have joined Jon?" - No, his army is composed of the one enemy all of them had in common for generations.

"Isn´t the Boltons a more serious discomfort than the Wildlings?" - No, they´re pretty even, and only because Roose Bolton managed to become the single most hated person in the North. Northerners hate Wildlings with everything they got, they learn to hate them when they´re chlidren, they´re brainwashed their entire life into believeing they´re the worst thing in the world. Roose/Ramsey Bolton is one person, who can die poisoned at any moment, which would make the entire "Bolton discomfort" go away rather quickly.

"If they hate the Wildlings so, why do they side with Jon after he wins?" - For one, they´re given the first demonstration in ages that the Wildlings can reach a compromise; second, their only other choice would be to betray the Starks once again, and they´re willing to give Jon the benefit of the doubt before becoming active traitors.

"Why did the Umbers side with the Boltons, if they´re famously pro-Stark" - That guy clearly had enough of their shit. Their unwavering loyalty had brought nothing but death in the last few decades, and you´ll have to excuse me if I don´t believe that what happened centuries ago has that much influence in the present. In the end, each person is a person, generalizing "this house is loyal, therefore every single individual in this house is loyal" is just plain stupid.

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10 minutes ago, NutBurz said:

"Why didn´t they join Stannis?" - Red God

"They would be the winning hand, they could have asked for religious freedom." - That´s not the point. People don´t want to follow a maniac who burns his brother in law alive.

That is a lazy coop out when the alternative is people who flay people for sh*ts and giggles

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3 minutes ago, Stannis is the man....nis said:

That is a lazy coop out when the alternative is people who flay people for sh*ts and giggles

Most of the North doesn´t fight for the Boltons, they just let two maniacs kill each other.

The Boltons also flayed way less people than Stannis has burnt, and one could say Stannis does it for shits and giggles, not the Boltons - they do it for a very specific reason, to cause fear. They don´t flay anyone who doesn´t agree with them.

 

3 minutes ago, Stannis is the man....nis said:

Are you forgetting that Stannis' army is mostly Northerners?

Mostly?

I don´t remember that, honestly. I remember there´s some northerners. And they still haven´t really done anything, it´s very much possible they simply lose the battle for winterfell. And then these will have done nothing.

The actions by the Manderlies are what I called "barely doing anything". They certainly didn´t openly rebel, like people had expected them to do in the series.

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4 minutes ago, NutBurz said:

Most of the North doesn´t fight for the Boltons, they just let two maniacs kill each other.

The Boltons also flayed way less people than Stannis has burnt, and one could say Stannis does it for shits and giggles, not the Boltons - they do it for a very specific reason, to cause fear. They don´t flay anyone who doesn´t agree with them.

 

Mostly?

I don´t remember that, honestly. I remember there´s some northerners. And they still haven´t really done anything, it´s very much possible they simply lose the battle for winterfell. And then these will have done nothing.

The actions by the Manderlies are what I called "barely doing anything". They certainly didn´t openly rebel, like people had expected them to do in the series.

The Boltons have flayed people for thousands of years also yes Stannis army is mostly Northerns of the 6,000 men in his army on 1,500 are his men the other 4,500 are half the Umbers, Glovers, the Mountain Clans, Mormonts, and other small houses like the Hornwoods

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11 minutes ago, Stannis is the man....nis said:

The Boltons have flayed people for thousands of years also yes Stannis army is mostly Northerns of the 6,000 men in his army on 1,500 are his men the other 4,500 are half the Umbers, Glovers, the Mountain Clans, Mormonts, and other small houses like the Hornwoods

Flaying was outlawed (granted, by the Starks). Even if house Bolton did it a lot in the past, Roose/Ramsay didn´t; and again, they only did it as a punishment against rebellion, not as a punishment against second guessing.

 

Thanks for the info, I don´t think I ever knew those numbers, where did you get them from?(edit-er, I´m sure it´s from the books, more like which chapter)

 

edit2 - ok, here´s the wiki entry. The majority of his army are mountain clan people, ~2500. He has about 1600 men from Northern Houses. The Bolton army has 3.500 Boltons and Karstarks, and about 1300 between other northern houses.

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18 hours ago, Stannis is the man....nis said:

I'm talking about S5 SJ, Glover, Cerwyn are all there when Stannis is at CB, why wouldn't SJ who hates the wildings not give Rickon to Stannis for 1) stopping Mance and 2) to get rewards, he would been given Bolton lands and probably been made the "acting warden of the North" like LF does in the Vale unlike Rickon comes of age? The show said constantly in S5 that Stannis had the upper hand on paper so this whole "not wanting to challenge the dominate force" goes out the window because that force was challenged before and they didn't do anything, which makes their actions not make any narrative sense and solely look like plot convenience

I didn't read the books but I agree with the idea that Jon took parts of Stannis' story in S6 especially the rallying part, but IMO (it's a personal opinion and I don't want to offend anyone with it)  the show is not the books, Stannis was clearly a plot device to approach Melisandre to Jon for some resurrection purposes

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6 hours ago, A Ghost of Someone said:

The show made every Northern house, except the dead prior Lord Cerwyn, terrified or indifferent of the Boltons.

IMO, I can't tell if that it a show specific reaction, Wyman's speech of "the north remembers" was in secret meeting and he said that he can't speak freely about his emotions, he was terrified in the books, and "terrified or indifferent" in the real world is a normal thing : it's the political reality

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30 minutes ago, Future Null Infinity said:

IMO, I can't tell if that it a show specific reaction, Wyman's speech of "the north remembers" was in secret meeting and he said that he can't speak freely about his emotions, he was terrified in the books, and "terrified or indifferent" in the real world is a normal thing : it's the political reality

They had his son hostage in the books and he was planning a rebellion but needed Rickon as a figure head to supplant the Fake Arya (Jeyne Poole). On the show, he did not care but when the Bolton's were gone he and the rest came to kiss ass.

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