Roose was a semi hero

[ShadowCat Rivers]

3 minutes ago, khal drogon said:

You were talking only about the bolded first. I have already said them fucking around is unacceptable and wrong. 

Nothing exists in a vaccum.

[John Doe]

On 5.12.2016 at 7:55 AM, Lord of Raventree Hall said:

Why is everyone so afraid to compare people to Nazis. So lets look at actual Nazi policy shall we. They invaded other countries in an attempt to control all of Europe. They also slaughtered Jews while blaming them for Germany's problems. The Lannisters aggressively have seized control of other areas through alliance and war. Tywin Lannister ordered the murders of any Riverland commoners his men came across. He was okay with the rape and murder of an entire group of people. Now he did not have advanced technology, but if he did? Look, the Nazi's were evil, but so are many others. If you do not care about the rape and murder of whole groups of people, who exactly should we compare them too? Honestly, I do not think the Lannisters are even close to Nazis, however I think Ramsay Bolton as a lord could be actually worse. Constant murder and rape of his populace is pretty awful. But lets not pretend that the two sides are eqaul in their acts of good or evil. Yes, Robb Stark helped a war begin, but lets not forget he started it to get his father back. And no one died as he was marching to get his father. He only threatened. Tywin Lannister when Tyrion was captured, oh the rape and murder or hundreds of reverlanders. Come on. This is not the same. Hell, he had his sons wife raped. COME ON!! GRRM has written an amazingly detailed and convuluted world where he displays all characters in a spectrum of gray. That is what I love about his writing. But pertending Robb Stark as a ruler and Tywin Lannister as a ruler present the same level of gray is just...not smart thinking. Tywin has a woman humiliated for the chrime of MARRYING HIS SON WHILE NOT BEING A NOBLEor SLEEPING WITH HIS FATHER WHILE NOT BEING A BOBLE. Robb or Eddard more correctly. What was it that one Northern clan man said to Bran Stark? 'Wen there was a Stark in Winterfell, a maid could wander down the road as naked as her name day and be feel safe and free of rape' The Starks are by far less evil rulers than the Lannisters, at least in modern times. Shades of gray does not turn our ability off to tell who is commiting more acts of evil. 

I'm not afraid to compare people to Nazis, but often they are just wrong. The Lannisters don't kill millions, or even any number of people based on a flimsy premise like ethnicity, which is one thing that sets them worlds apart in my opinion, and they don't all operate under the same policy. We also have to judge them by medieval standards, not by modern, or even 20th century ones, but I'll adress a few more of your points.   

Yes, they did invade other lands, but so did every other noble house. The Starks became kings in the North by defeating all the rival petty kings, and so did the other LPs. And the wotfk wasn't solely caused by Lannister aggression, let's not forget that an innocent Lannister was taken captive by a Stark first, without the King's leave, and against his will, as is evidenced by the fact that he immediately ordered Tyrion's release. 

Tywin ordered a chevauchee, which was a common medieval war tactic. Moreover, Robb's soldiers did the same kind of atrocities both in allied Riverlander territory and in the Westerlands. 

Robb continued the war well after his father had died, basically thousands of people died for his personal vendetta and a futile independence war which didn't benefit the smallfolk in any way. 

Roose, and according to him other lords, were raping women under Stark rule though, so it's appearently not quite as secure as the clansman made it out to be. 

 

The raping of Tysha was inexcusable, I agree.

On 5.12.2016 at 7:20 AM, maudisdottir said:

Yeah which is why I shouldn't have used the Nazis as an example, but it was the first thing that popped into my head.  My point is the Red Wedding isn't justified by saying "well at least it ended the war which is the best possible outcome".  It's not the best outcome for the smallfolk if they're stuck with the Lannisters and Boltons as tyrannical overlords.  Most would rather fight and die for their (relative) freedom than endure a lifetime of that kind of fear and torture.

I see your point, but I disagree because houses generally don't have one policy they follow, like the Nazis. The current Lannister lord may be bad, but the next might not be. Just as the next Stark lord might be bad, while the one right now may be good. Make no mistake, asoiaf is a feudal setting, in comparison to modern day policies, they pretty much all qualify as tyrannical overlords. And I don't even think the Lannisters could be described as tyrannical, except for the Tysha incident. 

On 5.12.2016 at 0:43 AM, WSmith84 said:

They certainly aren't. None of the Houses can be described as such. If the point however is to compare the characters to tyrants and debate whether or not war is better than living under their rule, the Boltons are a good one to talk about (the Freys and Lannisters, not so much). Roose rapes peasant women, hangs men for marrying without informing him and allows Ramsey to do what he wants. And this is when he has an overlord who will actually punish him if he's caught. Him being Warden means he can do all those things with much more freedom than before. And then there's Ramsey. A man whose main hobbies are flaying, raping and hunting people. A man who will kill a peasant for calling him a bastard (like the man with the goats in ADWD). Are the people of the North better under the Boltons than they were under the Starks? No, definitely not. Was Robb's war worse for the people of the North worse than the Boltons' rule would be? Well, that's where the debate gets interesting.

Roose is terrible and Ramsay is even worse, I agree, but even his enemy Glover, when talking to another enemy of Roose, Davos, says "a man can deal with Roose" and that they've "all seen worse" than him, so we have to take that into consideration too. I'm not defending the Red Wedding in this way though, I'm just saying that the Nazi comparison is off in my opinion. 

[Jadakiss]

On 12/3/2016 at 8:52 PM, Targaryen Restoration said:

Roose watched his house get dragged to war, twice in less than 20 years because a member of the Stark family took it upon themselves to do something stupid.  The first time it was Rickard plotting against the Targaryens (Southron Ambitions), Lyanna running off with Rhaegar.  This time, Catelyn kidnapped Tyrion Lannister and Ned tried to take Joffrey's throne (Ned made a public admission and for all everyone knew it was the truth).  I can understand why Roose would want to remove the Starks from power. 

 

 

this. and again I say hero to the men who are under him as a liege lord

[The Broke Howard Hughes]

These sort of posts always raise an eyebrow for me. Are they serious or tongue in cheek? 

As for Roose being a hero, are we forgetting part of the reason Robb needed Walder Frey the second go around was because he was low on soldiers. And who purposely bled men from the Army for personal gain? And how was he on negotiations with Tywin in the first place? That was started very early on. Not to mention Robb was on his way back North, and Winter was starting and he said himself once his bannermen restored their dominance over their own lands and rid them of Ironborn it would be almost impossible to get them South again.  And part of the reason the North fell so completely to the Greyjoys was because Ramsay betrayed Rodrick who was in the process of taking back fallen castles. He likely got those marching orders from Roose. Book Ramsay is sneaky but unlike TV Ramsay he's no master tactician. I get what you're saying but Roose played a major role in the war going poorly for Robb, so he doesn't get credit for being "politically adept" enough to seize an opportunity. He caused most of the problems to begin with, we can't give him a gold star for cleaning it up.

[John Doe]

Robb and Roose are both far from good, as lords I mean. Now Stannis is in the North though, so hopefully they'll get the first taste of good leadership in years.