Viserys should have been the king instead of Baelor the Blessed

[Lord Varys]

1 hour ago, The Grey Wolf said:

In that case why is Daeron's war the only one called out then? Furthermore, we have no proof whatsoever that Viserys II or Baelor I intended to unite Dorne peacefully through marriage. In all of Baelor's reign he did nothing to that end nor was Viserys II mentioned to have such designs, which we would expect would have been mentioned in TWOIAF given that the details of his reforms were included.

Baelor and Viserys could have peacefully brought Dorne into the Realm if Daeron the Fool had not ruled before them and botched any such designs with his stupid war.

But we know that Baelor's and Viserys' policies laid the groundwork for Daeron II's eventual success. Without Daeron's war Daena could have married a Dornish prince instead of Daenerys, and Daeron I or Baelor could have taken a Dornish princess to wife.

1 hour ago, The Grey Wolf said:

Beyond that, Daeron's war was justifiable. One of Daeron's titles was Protector of the Realm and you know who wasn't part of his realm and had a habit of attacking it? Dorne. Daeron had every right to end violence against the Marches by permanently incorporating Dorne not to mention the Conquest was also an attempt by him to unite Westeros behind a nationalist project that would demonstrate Targaryen potency even after the death of the last dragon. Not pointless or not-justified at all.

Those are minor skirmishes. Sunspear is not the Fowlers and the Yronwoods and the Wyls, nor does the Iron Throne stand in Dorne. There is no reason to believe Daeron I declared war on Dorne to defend anyone. He wanted to complete the Conquest. This was an unjustified war of aggression.

I honestly don't care about arguments like doing something with a nationalist project in mind. My people did that kind of thing between in the 1930s and 1940s. There got a lot of people killed, too.

1 hour ago, The Grey Wolf said:

No, that is NOT the way of warfare. Ask the Khwarazmian Empire how Genghis Khan responded to his messenger being murdered or Alexander the Great to the people of Tyre doing the same. Even in ancient times there were specific actions people would have considered a crime and perfidy is one of them.

It is the way of warfare if you fight a total war. You can do anything in war because laws and treaties no longer matter. That is the point of war. You may have to pay a price for it if you lose but if you destroy your enemies you won't pay that price. I mean, you know how this goes. You are living in a country which actually used nuclear weapons in a war. And you will again if you feel you have to. Those are the ways of warfare. 

In Westeros this mentality is very much ingrained in people like Jaime. The example of his father proved to him that you can murder innocent women and children with impunity if you eradicate entire family lines. Nobody is going to avenge the Reynes and Tarbecks because they are dead and gone. And nobody would have avenged the Targaryens if Tywin and Jaime had killed them all.

1 hour ago, The Grey Wolf said:

What's more, how do YOU know that the West, the Riverlands, the Vale, and the North did not care much? How do You know that they thought it was pointless? How do YOU know that Daeron wasn't popular enough that they would want to avenge him?

I'd say that a boy who ruled only for four years cannot have been all that popular. He spent three of his four year reign in Dorne in his war and would thus hardly have had the time to get to know his people. At least those who did not fight his war for him.

Usually a monarch is not as popular that the (common) people are all that keen to see more people dying if they are already mourning 50,000 men in addition to their king.

And you have to keep in mind that the West, the Riverlands, the Vale, and the North have nothing to gain from Dorne submitting to the Iron Throne. Nothing at all.

1 hour ago, The Grey Wolf said:

As for being unable to reconquer Dorne: Bullshit. Daeron and Oakenfist absolutely thrashed Dorne, which was also where the whole damn war was fought. You're telling me that the might of the West, the Riverlands, the Vale, and the Iron Isles would not be more than a match for an already-depleted Dorne? Again bullshit. Particularly when we include the fact that not all the fighting men of the North or the Crownlands would have been committed.

When Daeron I was killed Dorne was free again, was it not? So they would have to beat it into submission again. And the Dornishmen would have continued to fight the way they had done so to get rid of the oppressors which obviously was a way of fighting the Targaryens couldn't cope with.

1 hour ago, The Grey Wolf said:

Also, while we are on the subject of the North you can bet apart from the Reach and the Stormlands they would have been the most vocal in continuing the war. Rickon Stark, the freaking heir, died there! Making peace would literally be spitting on his sacrifice along with that of all the other men who had died already not to mention given northern sensibilities regarding guest right you can further bet they would be even more outraged than the south at the murder of the Young Dragon under a peace banner.

Could be that Lord Cregan wanted revenge for the death of his heir. But perhaps he was also pissed about the fact that his stupid son went to Dorne in the first place and that the stupid Targaryen king fought such a pointless war in the first place? The Starks are usually of the opinion that their place is in the North.

1 hour ago, The Grey Wolf said:

As for Aegon's eternal peace: TWOIAF explicitly mentions that there were other Dornish Wars AND that even in times of peace the Dornish raided the Reach and the Stormlands. Seriously, Daeron DID NOT break Aegon's treaty. It was broken by both sides long before he was born.

Well, that is a discrepancy in the whole thing. I've thought about that a little bit. Perhaps there was never again a war between the Iron Throne and Sunspear after the First Dornish War but a number proxy wars - say, when the Second and Third Vulture King made his appearance - which never formally involved the Martells and the Targaryens but rather houses acting in their name. In a sense this was also the case with the First Vulture King and who knows what happened during the first decade of the reign of Jaehaerys I while Robar Baratheon was still Hand. It could be that there was some sort of Dornish War while Jaehaerys I and Alysanne were on some long progress up in the North (perhaps even the progress where the whole Gift thing took place). Somebody would have sat the Iron Throne in their absence. And Barth only became Hand around 60 AC.

1 hour ago, The Grey Wolf said:

Aegon's Conquest involved dragons. Daeron's didn't. It isn't that hard to see why the level of casualties are so different.

Well, the Dance - another completely pointless war - had a lot more casualties and that one included a lot of dragons. The Conqueror fought a clean war, at least with the six kingdoms he conquered. And even with the Dornishmen he kept the smallfolk out of the whole thing as best he could (always targeting castles instead of towns and villages when he used the dragons).

1 hour ago, The Grey Wolf said:

As for peace being always superior to war. No that's not true. A PRODUCTIVE peace is always superior to war but not peace for its own sake.

War is never productive, though. At least not where it is fought (it is easy to forget when the last war on American soil was fought in the 19th century, if I'm not mistaken). And even an 'unproductive peace' (I don't understand what a productive peace is) is preferable to war for the people actually fighting in that war. It is well and good to defend yourself when you are attacked. But you cannot attack and assault your neighbors just to strengthen your position in your country and then expect me to applaud your macchiavellistic genius. At least not when we are actually talking morals in politics.

[Third Tail of the Dragon]

In the absence of textual evidence, I am not actually sure that Viserys was for continuing the war. The Lords were furious at Baelor's softness, I doubt he would have survived if Viserys was against him. I also not sure that Young Dragon's war was unsuccessful. Agreeing to marry the heir to Dorne to Daeron II guaranteed a Targaryen would end up ruling Dorne, something I doubt the Martell's would have agreed to without the war. Honestly, the whole thing seems to bear Visery's fingerprints more than Baelor's: a marriage alliance the allows Dorne to save face, but spares the Targaryen's another war and ensures Dorne's incorporation into the realm.

[The Grey Wolf]

3 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

Baelor and Viserys could have peacefully brought Dorne into the Realm if Daeron the Fool had not ruled before them and botched any such designs with his stupid war.

But we know that Baelor's and Viserys' policies laid the groundwork for Daeron II's eventual success. Without Daeron's war Daena could have married a Dornish prince instead of Daenerys, and Daeron I or Baelor could have taken a Dornish princess to wife.

Those are minor skirmishes. Sunspear is not the Fowlers and the Yronwoods and the Wyls, nor does the Iron Throne stand in Dorne. There is no reason to believe Daeron I declared war on Dorne to defend anyone. He wanted to complete the Conquest. This was an unjustified war of aggression.

I honestly don't care about arguments like doing something with a nationalist project in mind. My people did that kind of thing between in the 1930s and 1940s. There got a lot of people killed, too.

It is the way of warfare if you fight a total war. You can do anything in war because laws and treaties no longer matter. That is the point of war. You may have to pay a price for it if you lose but if you destroy your enemies you won't pay that price. I mean, you know how this goes. You are living in a country which actually used nuclear weapons in a war. And you will again if you feel you have to. Those are the ways of warfare. 

In Westeros this mentality is very much ingrained in people like Jaime. The example of his father proved to him that you can murder innocent women and children with impunity if you eradicate entire family lines. Nobody is going to avenge the Reynes and Tarbecks because they are dead and gone. And nobody would have avenged the Targaryens if Tywin and Jaime had killed them all.

I'd say that a boy who ruled only for four years cannot have been all that popular. He spent three of his four year reign in Dorne in his war and would thus hardly have had the time to get to know his people. At least those who did not fight his war for him.

Usually a monarch is not as popular that the (common) people are all that keen to see more people dying if they are already mourning 50,000 men in addition to their king.

And you have to keep in mind that the West, the Riverlands, the Vale, and the North have nothing to gain from Dorne submitting to the Iron Throne. Nothing at all.

When Daeron I was killed Dorne was free again, was it not? So they would have to beat it into submission again. And the Dornishmen would have continued to fight the way they had done so to get rid of the oppressors which obviously was a way of fighting the Targaryens couldn't cope with.

Could be that Lord Cregan wanted revenge for the death of his heir. But perhaps he was also pissed about the fact that his stupid son went to Dorne in the first place and that the stupid Targaryen king fought such a pointless war in the first place? The Starks are usually of the opinion that their place is in the North.

Well, that is a discrepancy in the whole thing. I've thought about that a little bit. Perhaps there was never again a war between the Iron Throne and Sunspear after the First Dornish War but a number proxy wars - say, when the Second and Third Vulture King made his appearance - which never formally involved the Martells and the Targaryens but rather houses acting in their name. In a sense this was also the case with the First Vulture King and who knows what happened during the first decade of the reign of Jaehaerys I while Robar Baratheon was still Hand. It could be that there was some sort of Dornish War while Jaehaerys I and Alysanne were on some long progress up in the North (perhaps even the progress where the whole Gift thing took place). Somebody would have sat the Iron Throne in their absence. And Barth only became Hand around 60 AC.

Well, the Dance - another completely pointless war - had a lot more casualties and that one included a lot of dragons. The Conqueror fought a clean war, at least with the six kingdoms he conquered. And even with the Dornishmen he kept the smallfolk out of the whole thing as best he could (always targeting castles instead of towns and villages when he used the dragons).

War is never productive, though. At least not where it is fought (it is easy to forget when the last war on American soil was fought in the 19th century, if I'm not mistaken). And even an 'unproductive peace' (I don't understand what a productive peace is) is preferable to war for the people actually fighting in that war. It is well and good to defend yourself when you are attacked. But you cannot attack and assault your neighbors just to strengthen your position in your country and then expect me to applaud your macchiavellistic genius. At least not when we are actually talking morals in politics.

There was NO Dornish Marriage Masterplan. NOTHING in the text remotely hints that Baelor I or Viserys II had any plans for incorporating Dorne. Furthermore, how can you be so sure that if Daeron had offered marriage instead of war it would have worked? Daeron was 14 when he became king and not only had the Targaryens less than two generations ago nearly destroyed themselves but the dragons were also all dead when he took the throne. It was just as likely the Dorne would laugh away his offer thinking that since they had defied Aegon the Conqueror and his three dragons Daeron therefore was no threat. Not to mention it is also just as likely that in OTL the Martells agreed to Baelor's peace and latter Daeron II's treaty because Daeron I's conquest proved that Dorne could be taken without dragons and that it was only a matter of time before it happened again with the Dornish losing due to attrition.

So according to you Theon Stark should have just left the Three Sisters alone? The Marches are part of Daeron's realm and as king he has an obligation to protect them and I'm sure that when he announced his conquest the people living there felt grateful. Furthermore, the Fowlers and Yronwoods do not act in a vacuum. As their overlords the Martells have an obligation to rein them in and TWOIAF shows us that they don't and in fact, in the case of Aliandra, they sometimes actively encourage hostilities. As for being unprovoked why the F*** does that matter? You don't hold that against Aegon I with regards to his conquest. You don't hold that Nymeria and Mors Martell when they unified Dorne. You don't hold that against Harwyn Hardhand or Arlan III Durrandon when they took the Riverlands. Tell me, why is Daeron the only person who gets flack for being a medieval warrior-king? Because his conquest was undone through no fault of his own? Give me a damn reason why I should care that his war in particular above all others was wrong beyond 21st century bias for the Dornish because they're "progressive" compared to the rest of the continent. And Daeron wanting both to keep Westeros unified and complete the conquest is in no way close to Nazism. Not one bit.

That is NOT how war works. You don't START with all hands off. Things escalate to that point and only in very rare, prolonged cases. Seriously, DORNE was the one that declared total war when they committed perfidy. You know what happened when the Japanese did that during WW2 in RL? We adopted a "shoot-first" policy but that was IN response.

How long did Caligula rule in RL? Richard III? Henry V? Mary I? In Westeros Aenys I? Maegor I? Aegon II? Aegon IV? How long someone reigns has nothing to due with how they are thought of or what their legacy is like. Particularly in Daeron's case where his foul murder at the hands of the Dornish enemy would have made him even more popular than he had been in life for in death he unintentionally became the James Dean of the Targaryens. And you still have not presented to me any proof that Daeron WASN'T well-loved throughout the realm btw.

As for the West, the Vale, and the Riverlands they did have something to gain. Glory plus whoever stood at the Targaryens side when they beat the Dornish would no doubt receive patronage, offices, royal marriages, and other such rewards for their loyalty. Not to mention a clean way to get rid of all those extraneous younger sons and hedge knights.

Dorne is the smallest AND least-populated of the 7K. You're seriously telling me after getting thrashed twice by Daeron plus Oakenfist they would still have the ability to take on the might of the West, the Vale, the Riverlands, the Iron Isles, and whatever scraps from the other regions could be drummed up? Bullshit.

As for Cregan that is YOU projecting your 21st century bias onto a fictitious medieval character. Given what we know I'd say that Rickon went south for glory, to build better relations below the Neck, and out of honest fulfillment of his father's feudal obligations, particularly given that TWOIAF tells us Cregan got many rewards for siding with the Blacks so the Starks clearly had a good relationship with the royal family at the time.

As for your hypothesis regarding the Dornish Wars my point still stands. Aegon's treaty was long dead BEFORE Daeron was even born and thus he can't be held to it.

The Dance involved dragons fighting dragons not to mention god-awful people at the top of the chain of command. As for Aegon's Conquest he was never forced to get nasty when he subjugated everyone north of the Red Mountains and as for the Dornish smallfolk you do remember something called the Dragon's Wroth as well as how it left Dorne a burned and blighted ruin correct?

A productive peace is one like that experienced under Jaehaerys I whereas an unproductive peace is one like that experienced under his successor.

As for assaulting neighbors to strengthen your position I imagine in that case you must have severe hangups regarding the Franco-Prussian War Bismarck started to unify what is today modern Germany...And basically every other civilization prior to the end of WW2.

[Lion of the West]

10 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

Aegon the Conqueror agreed to an Eternal Peace between Sunspear and the Iron Throne. A contract the most powerful kings on the Iron Throne kept despite the fact that they controlled dozens of dragons. Daeron I broke that contract and chose war over peace for no good reason.

Peace is always preferable to war. Aegon's conquest (excluding his stupid Dornish war) was a relatively bloodless affair. It did not cost the lives of 50,000 men only on Aegon's side. In fact, even the Field of Fire was no holocaust. Aegon used his dragons with great skill and almost surgical precision.

The only large battles where a lot of people died seem to have been the naval battle with the Arryn fleet and the battles in the Stormlands.

@The Grey Wolf already gave an excellent response but I'll try to fill in as well.

For the first part you are dodging the question. An eternal peace it was not as it was already broken by the time that Daemon Targaryen invaded the Stepstones when the Dornish sent forces to fight him in the reign of King Viserys I.

And a peace is not always preferable to war. That's a Chamberlain mentality as war is sometimes, frankly, needed and that "peace in our time" can easily be both hollow and false. And if peace is always preferable to war, then it would have been preferable for Aegon never to have united Westeros, right? A clear yes or no answer to this would be appreciated. Also Aegon's Dornish war was not more nor less stupid than any other of his wars, as you yourself claimed that peace is always preferable to war and thus the degree of bloodletting is actually irrelevant to this principle.

Its further false to say that no single battle produced the casulties of the Conquest of Dorne as that was a whole war and it clear that Aegon I's total tally of deaths was rather significant.

The Grey Wolf is right in that without dragons, the whole affair got much bloodier than it would have been with dragons. If Aegon had strived to unite Westeros with a large land army without dragons, you bet that it would have involved a great deal of more deaths for the simple absence of overwhelming firepower to quickly decide the fighting.

[Lord Varys]

21 hours ago, The Grey Wolf said:

There was NO Dornish Marriage Masterplan. NOTHING in the text remotely hints that Baelor I or Viserys II had any plans for incorporating Dorne. Furthermore, how can you be so sure that if Daeron had offered marriage instead of war it would have worked? Daeron was 14 when he became king and not only had the Targaryens less than two generations ago nearly destroyed themselves but the dragons were also all dead when he took the throne. It was just as likely the Dorne would laugh away his offer thinking that since they had defied Aegon the Conqueror and his three dragons Daeron therefore was no threat. Not to mention it is also just as likely that in OTL the Martells agreed to Baelor's peace and latter Daeron II's treaty because Daeron I's conquest proved that Dorne could be taken without dragons and that it was only a matter of time before it happened again with the Dornish losing due to attrition.

I never said that there was a Dornish marriage master plan. I just think that such an approach would have been much better to unite Sunspear and the Iron Throne than this stupid war. For all I care Dorne could also have remained independent.

And to end whatever raids there it might have been a good idea to just conquer the Red Mountains, dispossess, attaint, and drive away the Dornish lords there and replace them with Marcher Lords. That way the mountains could have become a bulwark against the Dorne, and not a bulwark against the Reach and Stormlords.

21 hours ago, The Grey Wolf said:

So according to you Theon Stark should have just left the Three Sisters alone?

Sure. What the hell had he to do over there? By what right presumes Winterfell to rule over all the North if we are at it? What right have the Arryns to the Vale, the Durrandon-Baratheons to Massey's Hook, the Martells to Dorne?

21 hours ago, The Grey Wolf said:

The Marches are part of Daeron's realm and as king he has an obligation to protect them and I'm sure that when he announced his conquest the people living there felt grateful.

We don't know that.

21 hours ago, The Grey Wolf said:

Furthermore, the Fowlers and Yronwoods do not act in a vacuum. As their overlords the Martells have an obligation to rein them in and TWOIAF shows us that they don't and in fact, in the case of Aliandra, they sometimes actively encourage hostilities.

Aliandra Martell wasn't the Princess of Dorne when Daeron I began his war. Sure, the Martells should rule the Fowlers and the Yronwoods but perhaps they are not always powerful enough to do so. And not every conflict is worth to escalate. We could have fought the Cold War with nuclear weapons instead of all that proxy warfare and plotting. But perhaps it is good that we did not.

21 hours ago, The Grey Wolf said:

As for being unprovoked why the F*** does that matter? You don't hold that against Aegon I with regards to his conquest.

I don't? I do, actually. I say it was overall good that Westeros was united reducing the amount of wars between the kingdoms as well as knitting the continent together and allowing them to better deal with winter, and so on. But I never said Aegon the Conqueror had any right to invade Westeros nor do I think he had a good reason, even by medieval standards. He did not, actually. He had a pretty good reason for a war with Argilac the Arrogant but that was it.

21 hours ago, The Grey Wolf said:

You don't hold that Nymeria and Mors Martell when they unified Dorne.

I did. See above.

21 hours ago, The Grey Wolf said:

You don't hold that against Harwyn Hardhand or Arlan III Durrandon when they took the Riverlands.

Well, Arlan III had sort of a reason to get involved. Harwyn Hardhand had no right to the Riverlands, though.

21 hours ago, The Grey Wolf said:

Tell me, why is Daeron the only person who gets flack for being a medieval warrior-king?

No.

21 hours ago, The Grey Wolf said:

Because his conquest was undone through no fault of his own? Give me a damn reason why I should care that his war in particular above all others was wrong beyond 21st century bias for the Dornish because they're "progressive" compared to the rest of the continent. And Daeron wanting both to keep Westeros unified and complete the conquest is in no way close to Nazism. Not one bit.

I was actually speaking for the poor sots on Daeron's side who died, not the Dornishmen. You were telling me it is good to have a nationalist project in mind. Hitler also had a nationalist project in a real sense (Daeron I was only capering to his lords and court, not the real or imagined interest of the majority of his subjects) - to show Europe that Germany should rule them. That worked reasonably well over here. Hitler was insanely popular while the war did not turn against Germany (the peak of his popularity was around 1940-41)

I know that pointing the finger at an outside foe is helping to consolidate your power within your country. That's how despots (and kings) rule. But is that something we should admire? I don't think so.

21 hours ago, The Grey Wolf said:

That is NOT how war works. You don't START with all hands off. Things escalate to that point and only in very rare, prolonged cases. Seriously, DORNE was the one that declared total war when they committed perfidy. You know what happened when the Japanese did that during WW2 in RL? We adopted a "shoot-first" policy but that was IN response.

Well, I daresay that nuclear weapons being used against the civil population of large cities isn't the kind of way you should wage a war, ever. But this was just an example. The point is that you have to take off the gloves when you are waging a war. George actually knows that. A nuclear power is only actually powerful if they are prepared to use those weapons. If not, then they are weak and the whole intimidation tactic does not work.

That is why people could rebel against Aenys I despite him having dragons, and that is why the Meereenese schemers continued their plots against Daenerys once they realized that she was not prepared to kill the hostages she had taken.

But we got sidetracked here. George is acknowledges that insidiously killing the enemy leader is a good tactic in war. He doesn't fault Stannis for killing Renly the way he did (in the SSMs where this is discussed) and there is a more than a certain truth to Tywin's rationale that it was much cleaner to take out Robb the way he did rather than facing him in battle which would have led to so many more deaths.

Daeron I's assassination falls in the same category.

21 hours ago, The Grey Wolf said:

And you still have not presented to me any proof that Daeron WASN'T well-loved throughout the realm btw.

I can't because we don't know enough. But even if he was - love does not translate one-to-one into swords.

21 hours ago, The Grey Wolf said:

As for the West, the Vale, and the Riverlands they did have something to gain. Glory plus whoever stood at the Targaryens side when they beat the Dornish would no doubt receive patronage, offices, royal marriages, and other such rewards for their loyalty. Not to mention a clean way to get rid of all those extraneous younger sons and hedge knights.

I was not talking about the lords there. I was talking about the people living in those regions, commoners in included. There certainly would have been a lot of glory-seekers and the like among the privileged people who could afford armor and good steel. But those people would have sobered up after the debacle of Daeron's war left 50,000 or their peers dead.

21 hours ago, The Grey Wolf said:

Dorne is the smallest AND least-populated of the 7K. You're seriously telling me after getting thrashed twice by Daeron plus Oakenfist they would still have the ability to take on the might of the West, the Vale, the Riverlands, the Iron Isles, and whatever scraps from the other regions could be drummed up? Bullshit.

Defeating Dorne in the field never was the problem. It wasn't all that difficult. The problem was to hold Dorne against a populace that simply didn't want to be ruled by those foreign invaders. Daeron I certainly could have put all the Dornish he captured. Then he would have put an end to those rebellions. But that would have meant that he had to kill millions of Dornishmen.

21 hours ago, The Grey Wolf said:

As for Cregan that is YOU projecting your 21st century bias onto a fictitious medieval character. Given what we know I'd say that Rickon went south for glory, to build better relations below the Neck, and out of honest fulfillment of his father's feudal obligations, particularly given that TWOIAF tells us Cregan got many rewards for siding with the Blacks so the Starks clearly had a good relationship with the royal family at the time.

Cregan rejecting absolute power (he could easily enough have made himself the sole Lord Regent and the Protector of the Realm for young Aegon III if he wanted to - he had the army) indicates that it is not very likely that Cregan had a vested interest in Southern politics. He might have gotten along with Aegon III in the man's later years, but that doesn't mean he liked Daeron's war.

21 hours ago, The Grey Wolf said:

As for your hypothesis regarding the Dornish Wars my point still stands. Aegon's treaty was long dead BEFORE Daeron was even born and thus he can't be held to it.

That would actually be based on how you define a war. 

21 hours ago, The Grey Wolf said:

The Dance involved dragons fighting dragons not to mention god-awful people at the top of the chain of command. As for Aegon's Conquest he was never forced to get nasty when he subjugated everyone north of the Red Mountains and as for the Dornish smallfolk you do remember something called the Dragon's Wroth as well as how it left Dorne a burned and blighted ruin correct?

Yeah, things slowly escalated there, but the dragons could easily enough have targeted the Planky Town, the Shadow City, or in general villages and settlements of the smallfolk. As far as we know they did not. They targeted the castles.

21 hours ago, The Grey Wolf said:

A productive peace is one like that experienced under Jaehaerys I whereas an unproductive peace is one like that experienced under his successor.

I honestly don't understand that. Do you think Viserys I was less innovative than his grandfather? Could certainly be. But how was his 'unproductive peace' worse than a war he could also have fought. People who lived and died during the peace and plenty reign of Viserys I most certainly were, on average, more happy during his reign than, say, if they had instead had to fight and die in Daeron's, Maegor's, or anyone's wars.

21 hours ago, The Grey Wolf said:

As for assaulting neighbors to strengthen your position I imagine in that case you must have severe hangups regarding the Franco-Prussian War Bismarck started to unify what is today modern Germany...And basically every other civilization prior to the end of WW2.

Well, I'm not fan of Bismarck's, either.

20 hours ago, LionoftheWest said:

For the first part you are dodging the question. An eternal peace it was not as it was already broken by the time that Daemon Targaryen invaded the Stepstones when the Dornish sent forces to fight him in the reign of King Viserys I.

That would at best be a proxy war. Nobody said that this wasn't allowed.

20 hours ago, LionoftheWest said:

And a peace is not always preferable to war. That's a Chamberlain mentality as war is sometimes, frankly, needed and that "peace in our time" can easily be both hollow and false.

'Peace is preferable to war' isn't meant as me advising politicians how to deal with stuff - like, say, mad dictators who desperately want to fight a war. It is a brute fact of reality. When there is war people die in horrible ways, usually for no good reason. That is not preferable to a situation where less or no people die such horrible deaths.. There still can be reasons for war in any given scenario. But that is separate from the question whether it is good that is war or not.

20 hours ago, LionoftheWest said:

And if peace is always preferable to war, then it would have been preferable for Aegon never to have united Westeros, right? A clear yes or no answer to this would be appreciated.

See above.

20 hours ago, LionoftheWest said:

Also Aegon's Dornish war was not more nor less stupid than any other of his wars, as you yourself claimed that peace is always preferable to war and thus the degree of bloodletting is actually irrelevant to this principle.

Nope. The amount of people dying and the suffering inflicting is of course relevant to the question. There are cruel and bloody wars and wars that are less so. The original Wars of the Conquest are comparatively bloodless (if you keep in mind the amount of territory that was conquered there). The First Dornish War less so.

20 hours ago, LionoftheWest said:

The Grey Wolf is right in that without dragons, the whole affair got much bloodier than it would have been with dragons. If Aegon had strived to unite Westeros with a large land army without dragons, you bet that it would have involved a great deal of more deaths for the simple absence of overwhelming firepower to quickly decide the fighting.

That may be so, but the point is different. Daeron I kept an occupying force of oppressors in Dorne which the populace there didn't want in their land. Aegon wouldn't have ruled the Seven Kingdoms for so much as a fortnight if he and his sisters had not quickly won the love and admiration of the populace of the kingdoms they conquered (and that they did is evident in the fact that King's Landing grew as quickly as it did - the smallfolk wanted to be close to the dragons).

The Dornishmen collectively didn't want to be ruled by the Targaryens. And that's why they could never conquer them. The dragons don't really matter there.

[The Grey Wolf]

3 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

I never said that there was a Dornish marriage master plan. I just think that such an approach would have been much better to unite Sunspear and the Iron Throne than this stupid war. For all I care Dorne could also have remained independent.

And to end whatever raids there it might have been a good idea to just conquer the Red Mountains, dispossess, attaint, and drive away the Dornish lords there and replace them with Marcher Lords. That way the mountains could have become a bulwark against the Dorne, and not a bulwark against the Reach and Stormlords.

Sure. What the hell had he to do over there? By what right presumes Winterfell to rule over all the North if we are at it? What right have the Arryns to the Vale, the Durrandon-Baratheons to Massey's Hook, the Martells to Dorne?

We don't know that.

Aliandra Martell wasn't the Princess of Dorne when Daeron I began his war. Sure, the Martells should rule the Fowlers and the Yronwoods but perhaps they are not always powerful enough to do so. And not every conflict is worth to escalate. We could have fought the Cold War with nuclear weapons instead of all that proxy warfare and plotting. But perhaps it is good that we did not.

I don't? I do, actually. I say it was overall good that Westeros was united reducing the amount of wars between the kingdoms as well as knitting the continent together and allowing them to better deal with winter, and so on. But I never said Aegon the Conqueror had any right to invade Westeros nor do I think he had a good reason, even by medieval standards. He did not, actually. He had a pretty good reason for a war with Argilac the Arrogant but that was it.

I did. See above.

Well, Arlan III had sort of a reason to get involved. Harwyn Hardhand had no right to the Riverlands, though.

No.

I was actually speaking for the poor sots on Daeron's side who died, not the Dornishmen. You were telling me it is good to have a nationalist project in mind. Hitler also had a nationalist project in a real sense (Daeron I was only capering to his lords and court, not the real or imagined interest of the majority of his subjects) - to show Europe that Germany should rule them. That worked reasonably well over here. Hitler was insanely popular while the war did not turn against Germany (the peak of his popularity was around 1940-41)

I know that pointing the finger at an outside foe is helping to consolidate your power within your country. That's how despots (and kings) rule. But is that something we should admire? I don't think so.

Well, I daresay that nuclear weapons being used against the civil population of large cities isn't the kind of way you should wage a war, ever. But this was just an example. The point is that you have to take off the gloves when you are waging a war. George actually knows that. A nuclear power is only actually powerful if they are prepared to use those weapons. If not, then they are weak and the whole intimidation tactic does not work.

That is why people could rebel against Aenys I despite him having dragons, and that is why the Meereenese schemers continued their plots against Daenerys once they realized that she was not prepared to kill the hostages she had taken.

But we got sidetracked here. George is acknowledges that insidiously killing the enemy leader is a good tactic in war. He doesn't fault Stannis for killing Renly the way he did (in the SSMs where this is discussed) and there is a more than a certain truth to Tywin's rationale that it was much cleaner to take out Robb the way he did rather than facing him in battle which would have led to so many more deaths.

Daeron I's assassination falls in the same category.

I can't because we don't know enough. But even if he was - love does not translate one-to-one into swords.

I was not talking about the lords there. I was talking about the people living in those regions, commoners in included. There certainly would have been a lot of glory-seekers and the like among the privileged people who could afford armor and good steel. But those people would have sobered up after the debacle of Daeron's war left 50,000 or their peers dead.

Defeating Dorne in the field never was the problem. It wasn't all that difficult. The problem was to hold Dorne against a populace that simply didn't want to be ruled by those foreign invaders. Daeron I certainly could have put all the Dornish he captured. Then he would have put an end to those rebellions. But that would have meant that he had to kill millions of Dornishmen.

Cregan rejecting absolute power (he could easily enough have made himself the sole Lord Regent and the Protector of the Realm for young Aegon III if he wanted to - he had the army) indicates that it is not very likely that Cregan had a vested interest in Southern politics. He might have gotten along with Aegon III in the man's later years, but that doesn't mean he liked Daeron's war.

That would actually be based on how you define a war. 

Yeah, things slowly escalated there, but the dragons could easily enough have targeted the Planky Town, the Shadow City, or in general villages and settlements of the smallfolk. As far as we know they did not. They targeted the castles.

I honestly don't understand that. Do you think Viserys I was less innovative than his grandfather? Could certainly be. But how was his 'unproductive peace' worse than a war he could also have fought. People who lived and died during the peace and plenty reign of Viserys I most certainly were, on average, more happy during his reign than, say, if they had instead had to fight and die in Daeron's, Maegor's, or anyone's wars.

Well, I'm not fan of Bismarck's, either.

That would at best be a proxy war. Nobody said that this wasn't allowed.

'Peace is preferable to war' isn't meant as me advising politicians how to deal with stuff - like, say, mad dictators who desperately want to fight a war. It is a brute fact of reality. When there is war people die in horrible ways, usually for no good reason. That is not preferable to a situation where less or no people die such horrible deaths.. There still can be reasons for war in any given scenario. But that is separate from the question whether it is good that is war or not.

See above.

Nope. The amount of people dying and the suffering inflicting is of course relevant to the question. There are cruel and bloody wars and wars that are less so. The original Wars of the Conquest are comparatively bloodless (if you keep in mind the amount of territory that was conquered there). The First Dornish War less so.

That may be so, but the point is different. Daeron I kept an occupying force of oppressors in Dorne which the populace there didn't want in their land. Aegon wouldn't have ruled the Seven Kingdoms for so much as a fortnight if he and his sisters had not quickly won the love and admiration of the populace of the kingdoms they conquered (and that they did is evident in the fact that King's Landing grew as quickly as it did - the smallfolk wanted to be close to the dragons).

The Dornishmen collectively didn't want to be ruled by the Targaryens. And that's why they could never conquer them. The dragons don't really matter there.

Seriously?! Theon Stark should have left the pirates constantly preying on his eastern shores alone? Thank god you were never a king in Westeros then because you would suck worse than Aerys I. People living within your borders getting attacked periodically by another nation IS grounds for war even if Daeron didn't use it. It doesn't f***** matter if they are "skirmishes" on the border and if the Martells can't reign their own bannermen in then they have no business ruling over them in the first place.  And as for rights how do you justify living in your country if that's the way you think then? Or any country for that matter? NO country in the world that exists today has the borders it does because that's how things always were. Borders are the result of war. Countries are the result of war. Civilization is the result of war (though not entirely of course).

As for the Marches your assertion that "we don't know that" is bullshit. The people of the Marches have fought the Dornish since time immemorial and yet you're telling me when the king announces that he's going to conquer them and put an end to their raiding the people of the Marches might not be happy about that?

You are singling out Daeron just like a bunch of other posters on this forum do. You criticize him for being a "fool" and launching a "stupid" "unprovoked war of aggression" but that never gets brought up when any other king or princess is talked about.

As for war Daeron DID NOT have nuclear weapons. Furthermore, GRRM does NOT imply that murdering enemy commanders and breaking social mores is a good thing. The RW is backfiring horribly against the Freys, the Boltons, and the Lannisters. Executing Eddard on the steps of the Great Sept is backfiring. Tywin's legacy is literally shit whereas men in-setting are marching through a blizzard for "Ned's little girl". And finally, murdering Daeron under a peace banner was NOT a good idea nor something to be applauded. Seriously, if any other person had taken the throne after that instead of Baelor Dorne would have gone the way of Carthage and you know what I wouldn't feel very sorry for them at all. Just because someone attacks you does NOT give you the right to break all forms of conduct or abandon all human values. Furthermore, the "gloves" do NOT come off right from the start in a war. If they did why the F**** do you not read about people being killed under peace banners, messengers being murdered, and wedding guests being slaughtered ALL THE TIME in RL? Why do you not see that from the get-go in ASOIAF as well as prior Westerosi history?

The Dornish could have fought on but if they did they would still lose. In a pure war of attrition they start out in an inferior position and can't replenish their strength anywhere near as quickly not to mention the fact they'd been thrashed twice already and had just given the rest of Westeros an even greater reason to want to see them utterly destroyed.

As for Cregan that doesn't mean he disapproved either and without evidence to the contrary I'm going to stick to my belief that like most people in a medieval setting he didn't think of it as some stupid war in the south. After all if he did think that way he wouldn't have let his only son and heir go in the first place.

As for the Dornish Wars now you're trolling. There were OTHER Dornish Wars after the first and the Dornish raided north of the Red Mountains even in times of PEACE. The treaty was BROKEN. Proxy wars are obviously STILL wars. Its in the f***** name for god's sake!

As for Viserys his was a hollow peace, maintaining only the surface elements while allowing the court to become lazy, decadent and divided, leading directly to the worst war Westeros had ever seen up until that point in history.

You said peace was ALWAYS superior to war and me as well as @LionoftheWest were pointing out that is a bunch of hot air.

As for casualties now you're deliberately distorting the facts to suit your bias. The Dragon's Wroth alone reduced Dorne to a "blighted, burning ruin" in which "every castle, keep, and holdfast" had been set ablaze at least once with the "toll in lives uncountable". That is far worse than the Conquest of Dorne. FAR worse. Not to mention as I said before Aegon's Conquest was relatively bloodless because he wasn't forced to take bloody measures.

As for the Vale, etc whatever hesitations they would have had about continuing the war would have died when they got word Daeron was murdered under a peace banner. Not to mention they would have wanted vengeance for those 50,000 men, which probably included some of their own, anyway.

[Lion of the West]

6 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

That would at best be a proxy war. Nobody said that this wasn't allowed.

No one said it was allowed either.

6 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

'Peace is preferable to war' isn't meant as me advising politicians how to deal with stuff - like, say, mad dictators who desperately want to fight a war. It is a brute fact of reality. When there is war people die in horrible ways, usually for no good reason. That is not preferable to a situation where less or no people die such horrible deaths.. There still can be reasons for war in any given scenario. But that is separate from the question whether it is good that is war or not.

Except you said that "Peace is always preferable to war" which don't really give many openings other than to roll over for crazy dictators. Luckily however most of the world don't follow that philosophy.

As for the reality of war its very true that its mass of suffering, misery and death. But there are reasons that are strong enough to go into such a situation, like stopping a genocide for example or to win freedom from unbearable oppression. As such peace is generally preferable to war, but not always.

6 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

Nope. The amount of people dying and the suffering inflicting is of course relevant to the question. There are cruel and bloody wars and wars that are less so. The original Wars of the Conquest are comparatively bloodless (if you keep in mind the amount of territory that was conquered there). The First Dornish War less so.

No, I don't see this. First you say that peace is always preferable to war, which would make all wars bad. Some wars are naturally worse than others, but now you are arguing that the war should be judged on the death toll in relation the territory won in it? All I see is that the Conquest succeded while the Conquest of Dorne did not, but they were found on the exact same principle of Targaryen domaintion over Westeros.

For the record I think its very poor to judge the morality of an action based on its success of failure.

6 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

That may be so, but the point is different. Daeron I kept an occupying force of oppressors in Dorne which the populace there didn't want in their land. Aegon wouldn't have ruled the Seven Kingdoms for so much as a fortnight if he and his sisters had not quickly won the love and admiration of the populace of the kingdoms they conquered (and that they did is evident in the fact that King's Landing grew as quickly as it did - the smallfolk wanted to be close to the dragons).

I have a better way to say it. Aegon and his sisters wouldn't have ruled for as long as they did withou tthe dread and wonder inspired by the dragons and the cooperation of the nobility to keep the population focused on serving their betters combined with royal largesse and a conservative acceptance for traditional customs. I think that there was a good reason for those royal processions involving dragons that the early Targaryens did as it would have inspired the fear and the wonder that came from dragons.

There are many reason to move to the capital, such as protection by the royal dragons, seeing chances for a new start in life, trade benefits, looking to set up shop where there's no hoary guild elders to lock down the market etc. which are really not connected with basic love of the ruler, even if such may well have developed from a sense of specialness in the capital. Now some without a doubt loved the Targaryens, such as, I would imagine, many of the Riverlords, and some no doubt hated them as evident by the support the rebellions and uprisings against Maegor showed..

6 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

The Dornishmen collectively didn't want to be ruled by the Targaryens. And that's why they could never conquer them. The dragons don't really matter there.

Neither do the Ironmen but many people are all to happy to see the Iron Islands under Targaryen, or Baratheon reign without clamering for their freedom, despite repeated rebellions by the Ironmen. People bring up the raids by the Ironmen as a reason to keep them conquered, but the Dornish did raids as well to. So I see no real difference there or why the Ironmen should be kept subjugated by the Dornish left alone.

The Dornish were brought to heel by the Rhoynar without dragons, and if they tried, the Targaryens would have been able to bring Dorne to heel without dragons as well as far as I know, that's what Daeron did and the Dornish abandoned all honor as they stood no chance to win by other means.

[Lord Varys]

11 hours ago, The Grey Wolf said:

Seriously?! Theon Stark should have left the pirates constantly preying on his eastern shores alone?

We don't know whether Theon Stark raped the Three Sisters because there were pirates on the islands. The man is called the Hungry Wolf for a reason, presumably.

11 hours ago, The Grey Wolf said:

People living within your borders getting attacked periodically by another nation IS grounds for war even if Daeron didn't use it. It doesn't f***** matter if they are "skirmishes" on the border and if the Martells can't reign their own bannermen in then they have no business ruling over them in the first place.  And as for rights how do you justify living in your country if that's the way you think then? Or any country for that matter? NO country in the world that exists today has the borders it does because that's how things always were. Borders are the result of war. Countries are the result of war. Civilization is the result of war (though not entirely of course).

The idea that medieval (or ancient) kings were motivated by motives as modern as the welfare of the people is pretty unlikely, actually. Nothing indicates that the Targaryens cared about those Dornish raids you make such a fuzz about. Such kings usually liked being king. They exploited their subjects and did not care for them. The art of remaining king is to find the right balance between exploitation of your subjects and keeping them quiet. Rebellions and uprisings are much more important in such royal policies than protecting some peasants or lords in borderlands of your kingdom.

The Targaryens warred with Dorne because their pride was slighted by their resistance not because they wanted to protect the Marcher Lords and their people.

Pointing contingent historical developments cannot lay the foundations of state in any real sense. The fact that borders and states are usually shaped by war does not mean that this is good or should always be the case.

11 hours ago, The Grey Wolf said:

As for the Marches your assertion that "we don't know that" is bullshit. The people of the Marches have fought the Dornish since time immemorial and yet you're telling me when the king announces that he's going to conquer them and put an end to their raiding the people of the Marches might not be happy about that?

Sure, a lot of people eventually liked Daeron's war idea. After all, the boy king got his wish there. What I'm questioning is that they were so keen continuing it after 50,000 of their peers were dead.

Keep in mind that 40,000 of those people died while holding Dorne. Considering that Lord Tyrell commanded the occupying forces one assumes that most of his men did come from the Dornish Marches. Thus the main losses of the war would have been suffered by those men. How many men would have been left in the Marches if 20,000-30,000 men from there (Reach Marches and Stormland Marches combined, of course) had died in the war?

11 hours ago, The Grey Wolf said:

You are singling out Daeron just like a bunch of other posters on this forum do. You criticize him for being a "fool" and launching a "stupid" "unprovoked war of aggression" but that never gets brought up when any other king or princess is talked about.

Because pretty much no one besides, perhaps, Robb ever fought such a stupid war. I never said Daeron wasn't Alexander-like in his charisma, determination, and leadership qualities. He must have been, considering his success at such a young age. But he failed, and thus history can at best think of him as a tragic failure not just some great guy.

11 hours ago, The Grey Wolf said:

As for war Daeron DID NOT have nuclear weapons. Furthermore, GRRM does NOT imply that murdering enemy commanders and breaking social mores is a good thing. The RW is backfiring horribly against the Freys, the Boltons, and the Lannisters.

I did not defend the Red Wedding the way it was done. I was talking about Tywin, and Tywin goes on record saying that he was thinking of surgical strike against Robb, personally, not the butchery of an entire army while they were all protected by guest right. And, of course, the Red Wedding is only backfiring because of other developments that have nothing to do with the whole thing. Joffrey and Tywin dying, the Lannisters and Tyrells fighting for supremacy, Stannis going North, a red priest resurrecting people in the Riverlands forming a resistance movement among the commoners, etc.

11 hours ago, The Grey Wolf said:

Executing Eddard on the steps of the Great Sept is backfiring.

Not really. The Starks have been effectively neutralized as a power messing with the Lannisters (or anyone, really) in the South. And if they want to make trouble again who ever wins the day down there should have little trouble dealing with what remains of them in the spring (assuming the Others stay behind the Wall, of course).

11 hours ago, The Grey Wolf said:

And finally, murdering Daeron under a peace banner was NOT a good idea nor something to be applauded. Seriously, if any other person had taken the throne after that instead of Baelor Dorne would have gone the way of Carthage and you know what I wouldn't feel very sorry for them at all. Just because someone attacks you does NOT give you the right to break all forms of conduct or abandon all human values. Furthermore, the "gloves" do NOT come off right from the start in a war. If they did why the F**** do you not read about people being killed under peace banners, messengers being murdered, and wedding guests being slaughtered ALL THE TIME in RL? Why do you not see that from the get-go in ASOIAF as well as prior Westerosi history?

Dorne isn't a city. As I've said. A holocaust killing all Dornishmen certainly could have worked to pacify Dorne Not sure if the Targaryen kings (or anyone in Westeros) has the stomach for that kind of thing, though. 

Aside from that it is quite clear that the Dornishmen were unwilling to bend beneath the rule of an outside force. They might have pretended to do so for a time but whoever held Dorne in the Targaryen's name would have never been at peace, that much is clear. Just as the Ironborn never suffered those stupid foreign gods on their soil.

11 hours ago, The Grey Wolf said:

The Dornish could have fought on but if they did they would still lose. In a pure war of attrition they start out in an inferior position and can't replenish their strength anywhere near as quickly not to mention the fact they'd been thrashed twice already and had just given the rest of Westeros an even greater reason to want to see them utterly destroyed.

That goes against what the books tell us. The Dornishmen can live in their sands, other people have great difficulties there. The Dornishmen also control the mountains between the Reach and the Stormlands and Dorne, making it difficult to get provisions down there.

11 hours ago, The Grey Wolf said:

As for Cregan that doesn't mean he disapproved either and without evidence to the contrary I'm going to stick to my belief that like most people in a medieval setting he didn't think of it as some stupid war in the south. After all if he did think that way he wouldn't have let his only son and heir go in the first place.

Who has said Rickon Stark asked his lord father's permission to join Daeron I in his war? He could have been at court for Daeron I's coronation and just gotten caught up in the excitement following the decision to make war on Dorne. The idea that Daeron I waited for a large contingent of Northern troops does not sound very plausible in any case since it would have taken Lord Cregan months to raise a sizable host and send it down to KL. It is much more likely Daeron raised men in the Crownlands, and then marched down south through the Stormlands and the Reach where the lords there rallied to his banner.

11 hours ago, The Grey Wolf said:

As for the Dornish Wars now you're trolling. There were OTHER Dornish Wars after the first and the Dornish raided north of the Red Mountains even in times of PEACE. The treaty was BROKEN. Proxy wars are obviously STILL wars. Its in the f***** name for god's sake!

But not necessarily between Sunspear and the Iron Throne.

11 hours ago, The Grey Wolf said:

As for Viserys his was a hollow peace, maintaining only the surface elements while allowing the court to become lazy, decadent and divided, leading directly to the worst war Westeros had ever seen up until that point in history.

But that was a stupid succession war rooted completely in the petty ambitions of members of the royal family. It that had nothing to do with his normal politics governing the day-to-day lives of his subjects. The smallfolk does not care what name the king has as long as they can live their lives in peace.

11 hours ago, The Grey Wolf said:

You said peace was ALWAYS superior to war and me as well as @LionoftheWest were pointing out that is a bunch of hot air.

Man, peace means there is no war. And thus also no reason for a war. I'm not saying you should not wage a war when you are attacked. But then there is no peace, right? I never said you should try to make peace under any circumstances, just that people getting along with each other are preferable to people killing each other.

11 hours ago, The Grey Wolf said:

As for casualties now you're deliberately distorting the facts to suit your bias. The Dragon's Wroth alone reduced Dorne to a "blighted, burning ruin" in which "every castle, keep, and holdfast" had been set ablaze at least once with the "toll in lives uncountable". That is far worse than the Conquest of Dorne. FAR worse. Not to mention as I said before Aegon's Conquest was relatively bloodless because he wasn't forced to take bloody measures.

It could be that more people died in Daeron's war than in the First Dornish War simply because we only know the casualties on Daeron's side. If he lost 50,000 men in total Dorne could easily enough have lost the same amount, or more. The Tyrell regime in Dorne seems to have been pretty cruel.

11 hours ago, The Grey Wolf said:

As for the Vale, etc whatever hesitations they would have had about continuing the war would have died when they got word Daeron was murdered under a peace banner. Not to mention they would have wanted vengeance for those 50,000 men, which probably included some of their own, anyway.

I guess I don't share your enthusiasm about this whole vengeance thing. King Maekar also died at Starpike in battle, yet nobody exterminated House Peake thereafter.

Oh, and think of Maegor as an example for how tyrannical rulers can end. Had he gotten around to kill Jaehaerys, too, then a universal rebellion of the Westerosi people would have ended the oppression of the dragons. The same kind of thing is what prevented the Targaryens from holding Dorne.

5 hours ago, LionoftheWest said:

No one said it was allowed either.

Except you said that "Peace is always preferable to war" which don't really give many openings other than to roll over for crazy dictators. Luckily however most of the world don't follow that philosophy.

Well, peace is preferable to war because in war people die.

5 hours ago, LionoftheWest said:

As for the reality of war its very true that its mass of suffering, misery and death. But there are reasons that are strong enough to go into such a situation, like stopping a genocide for example or to win freedom from unbearable oppression. As such peace is generally preferable to war, but not always.

Not for the people involved, though. Is it worth to kill people to save other people? Perhaps, but wars are usually not fought to prevent some genocides. And those who are usually don't prevent them.

5 hours ago, LionoftheWest said:

No, I don't see this. First you say that peace is always preferable to war, which would make all wars bad. Some wars are naturally worse than others, but now you are arguing that the war should be judged on the death toll in relation the territory won in it? All I see is that the Conquest succeded while the Conquest of Dorne did not, but they were found on the exact same principle of Targaryen domaintion over Westeros.

Sure, that is why I said Aegon's Conquest is just as unjustified as Daeron's Conquest. On that ground Aegon's Conquest was less worse than Daeron's because the latter caused the death of more men.

5 hours ago, LionoftheWest said:

For the record I think its very poor to judge the morality of an action based on its success of failure.

That is how history usually judges warmongers, though. Napoleon is a great guy because had a lot of success and sort of lost honorably. Hitler not so much. Alexander and Augustus are great guys because they waged successful wars and won them.

5 hours ago, LionoftheWest said:

I have a better way to say it. Aegon and his sisters wouldn't have ruled for as long as they did withou tthe dread and wonder inspired by the dragons and the cooperation of the nobility to keep the population focused on serving their betters combined with royal largesse and a conservative acceptance for traditional customs. I think that there was a good reason for those royal processions involving dragons that the early Targaryens did as it would have inspired the fear and the wonder that came from dragons.

The resistance to the Targaryen rule in the days where there still was a resistance came from the nobility and the leadership of the Faith (i.e. the elite of Westeros) not the common people. You see this in Gyldayn's account on the Conquest (with the commoners cheering the loudest at Aegon's coronation) as well as the popularity of the Conqueror and Rhaenys among the smallfolk. 

5 hours ago, LionoftheWest said:

There are many reason to move to the capital, such as protection by the royal dragons, seeing chances for a new start in life, trade benefits, looking to set up shop where there's no hoary guild elders to lock down the market etc. which are really not connected with basic love of the ruler, even if such may well have developed from a sense of specialness in the capital. Now some without a doubt loved the Targaryens, such as, I would imagine, many of the Riverlords, and some no doubt hated them as evident by the support the rebellions and uprisings against Maegor showed.

'The Sons of the Dragons' makes it clear that the Faith Militant (still a very powerful faction in those days) effectively blackmailed a lot of people into denouncing the Targaryens, both smallfolk and lords included (they ran around a threatened the Targaryen loyalists). If you lived in the South it might have been very dangerous even for a more powerful lord to count the Faith Militant amongst your enemies, especially if a chapter of the Warrior's Sons was in a town near your castle. Not to mention that those Poor Fellows were running around everywhere.

If the populace hadn't welcomed the Targaryen rule nobody would have cared that their lords and kings had submitted to Aegon. The war would have continued just as it did in Dorne. Three dragons cannot conquer or hold a continent if nobody recognizes the power of the would-be conqueror. I mean, just look at the North. What would have happened if Torrhen had returned to Winterfell and decided not to pay any taxes? Aegon could have destroyed the castles up there but he would never have gotten enough men to ever control the North with an occupying force. The North accepted the Targaryens as their kings, just as all the other kingdoms did.

5 hours ago, LionoftheWest said:

The Dornish were brought to heel by the Rhoynar without dragons, and if they tried, the Targaryens would have been able to bring Dorne to heel without dragons as well as far as I know, that's what Daeron did and the Dornish abandoned all honor as they stood no chance to win by other means.

Dornishmen can conquer Dornishmen, apparently. The Rhoynar intermarried with Mors' people. They did not conquer them.

[The Grey Wolf]

4 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

We don't know whether Theon Stark raped the Three Sisters because there were pirates on the islands. The man is called the Hungry Wolf for a reason, presumably.

The idea that medieval (or ancient) kings were motivated by motives as modern as the welfare of the people is pretty unlikely, actually. Nothing indicates that the Targaryens cared about those Dornish raids you make such a fuzz about. Such kings usually liked being king. They exploited their subjects and did not care for them. The art of remaining king is to find the right balance between exploitation of your subjects and keeping them quiet. Rebellions and uprisings are much more important in such royal policies than protecting some peasants or lords in borderlands of your kingdom.

The Targaryens warred with Dorne because their pride was slighted by their resistance not because they wanted to protect the Marcher Lords and their people.

Pointing contingent historical developments cannot lay the foundations of state in any real sense. The fact that borders and states are usually shaped by war does not mean that this is good or should always be the case.

Sure, a lot of people eventually liked Daeron's war idea. After all, the boy king got his wish there. What I'm questioning is that they were so keen continuing it after 50,000 of their peers were dead.

Keep in mind that 40,000 of those people died while holding Dorne. Considering that Lord Tyrell commanded the occupying forces one assumes that most of his men did come from the Dornish Marches. Thus the main losses of the war would have been suffered by those men. How many men would have been left in the Marches if 20,000-30,000 men from there (Reach Marches and Stormland Marches combined, of course) had died in the war?

Because pretty much no one besides, perhaps, Robb ever fought such a stupid war. I never said Daeron wasn't Alexander-like in his charisma, determination, and leadership qualities. He must have been, considering his success at such a young age. But he failed, and thus history can at best think of him as a tragic failure not just some great guy.

I did not defend the Red Wedding the way it was done. I was talking about Tywin, and Tywin goes on record saying that he was thinking of surgical strike against Robb, personally, not the butchery of an entire army while they were all protected by guest right. And, of course, the Red Wedding is only backfiring because of other developments that have nothing to do with the whole thing. Joffrey and Tywin dying, the Lannisters and Tyrells fighting for supremacy, Stannis going North, a red priest resurrecting people in the Riverlands forming a resistance movement among the commoners, etc.

Not really. The Starks have been effectively neutralized as a power messing with the Lannisters (or anyone, really) in the South. And if they want to make trouble again who ever wins the day down there should have little trouble dealing with what remains of them in the spring (assuming the Others stay behind the Wall, of course).

Dorne isn't a city. As I've said. A holocaust killing all Dornishmen certainly could have worked to pacify Dorne Not sure if the Targaryen kings (or anyone in Westeros) has the stomach for that kind of thing, though. 

Aside from that it is quite clear that the Dornishmen were unwilling to bend beneath the rule of an outside force. They might have pretended to do so for a time but whoever held Dorne in the Targaryen's name would have never been at peace, that much is clear. Just as the Ironborn never suffered those stupid foreign gods on their soil.

That goes against what the books tell us. The Dornishmen can live in their sands, other people have great difficulties there. The Dornishmen also control the mountains between the Reach and the Stormlands and Dorne, making it difficult to get provisions down there.

Who has said Rickon Stark asked his lord father's permission to join Daeron I in his war? He could have been at court for Daeron I's coronation and just gotten caught up in the excitement following the decision to make war on Dorne. The idea that Daeron I waited for a large contingent of Northern troops does not sound very plausible in any case since it would have taken Lord Cregan months to raise a sizable host and send it down to KL. It is much more likely Daeron raised men in the Crownlands, and then marched down south through the Stormlands and the Reach where the lords there rallied to his banner.

But not necessarily between Sunspear and the Iron Throne.

But that was a stupid succession war rooted completely in the petty ambitions of members of the royal family. It that had nothing to do with his normal politics governing the day-to-day lives of his subjects. The smallfolk does not care what name the king has as long as they can live their lives in peace.

Man, peace means there is no war. And thus also no reason for a war. I'm not saying you should not wage a war when you are attacked. But then there is no peace, right? I never said you should try to make peace under any circumstances, just that people getting along with each other are preferable to people killing each other.

It could be that more people died in Daeron's war than in the First Dornish War simply because we only know the casualties on Daeron's side. If he lost 50,000 men in total Dorne could easily enough have lost the same amount, or more. The Tyrell regime in Dorne seems to have been pretty cruel.

I guess I don't share your enthusiasm about this whole vengeance thing. King Maekar also died at Starpike in battle, yet nobody exterminated House Peake thereafter.

Oh, and think of Maegor as an example for how tyrannical rulers can end. Had he gotten around to kill Jaehaerys, too, then a universal rebellion of the Westerosi people would have ended the oppression of the dragons. The same kind of thing is what prevented the Targaryens from holding Dorne.

Well, peace is preferable to war because in war people die.

Not for the people involved, though. Is it worth to kill people to save other people? Perhaps, but wars are usually not fought to prevent some genocides. And those who are usually don't prevent them.

Sure, that is why I said Aegon's Conquest is just as unjustified as Daeron's Conquest. On that ground Aegon's Conquest was less worse than Daeron's because the latter caused the death of more men.

That is how history usually judges warmongers, though. Napoleon is a great guy because had a lot of success and sort of lost honorably. Hitler not so much. Alexander and Augustus are great guys because they waged successful wars and won them.

The resistance to the Targaryen rule in the days where there still was a resistance came from the nobility and the leadership of the Faith (i.e. the elite of Westeros) not the common people. You see this in Gyldayn's account on the Conquest (with the commoners cheering the loudest at Aegon's coronation) as well as the popularity of the Conqueror and Rhaenys among the smallfolk. 

'The Sons of the Dragons' makes it clear that the Faith Militant (still a very powerful faction in those days) effectively blackmailed a lot of people into denouncing the Targaryens, both smallfolk and lords included (they ran around a threatened the Targaryen loyalists). If you lived in the South it might have been very dangerous even for a more powerful lord to count the Faith Militant amongst your enemies, especially if a chapter of the Warrior's Sons was in a town near your castle. Not to mention that those Poor Fellows were running around everywhere.

If the populace hadn't welcomed the Targaryen rule nobody would have cared that their lords and kings had submitted to Aegon. The war would have continued just as it did in Dorne. Three dragons cannot conquer or hold a continent if nobody recognizes the power of the would-be conqueror. I mean, just look at the North. What would have happened if Torrhen had returned to Winterfell and decided not to pay any taxes? Aegon could have destroyed the castles up there but he would never have gotten enough men to ever control the North with an occupying force. The North accepted the Targaryens as their kings, just as all the other kingdoms did.

Dornishmen can conquer Dornishmen, apparently. The Rhoynar intermarried with Mors' people. They did not conquer them.

On Theon: "The last isles to be wedded to the Vale were the Three Sisters. For thousands of years, these islands had boasted their own cruel kings, pirates and raiders whose longships sailed the Bite, the narrow sea, and even the Shivering Sea with impunity, plundering and reaving as they would and returning to the Sisters laden with gold and slaves. These depredations finally led the Kings of Winter to send their own war fleets to seek dominion over the Sisters—for whoever holds the Three Sisters holds the Bite." Even if it wasn't Theon specifically the Starks had plenty of reason to put an end to the Three Sisters' independence. Furthermore, every other war we know took place in the Hungry Wolf's reign was defensive or retaliatory so I doubt this was an exception if Theon was one of the Kings of Winter mentioned in the above quote.

On Kings: That is again YOU projecting your 21st-century bias. The idea that all kings were Machiavellian with no motives beyond self-interest is beyond stupid. They were still human you know and thus capable of things we call sympathy, empathy, and having a sense of honor and duty. Not all but certainly more than a few.

I never said the Targaryens warred with Dorne because of the Marches. I said they could have used the Marches as a  casus belli.

Sorry but given human nature your naive view that civilization can or should arise without war is quite simply bonkers.

The Young Dragon had just been murdered under a peace banner on top of all those corpses! If you honestly believe people just wanted things to be over rather than burn Dorne to the ground in retaliation I don't think I can do anything to change your mind because it is clear to me you don't understand how people in such a time period or situation probably would think. Some might have wanted peace? Sure. The majority? Not a chance as far as I can see.

So your whole motive for singling out Daeron is because again his conquest was undone through no fault of his own? That is a shitty way of passing judgment on people and events as @LionoftheWest pointed out. And Robb's war was stupid?! Wtf do you expect him and the people of the North + the Riverlands to have done in that situation? Roll over for the Lannisters?

Read your own words: "George is acknowledges that insidiously killing the enemy leader is a good tactic in war" and "there is a more than a certain truth to Tywin's rationale that it was much cleaner to take out Robb the way he did rather than facing him in battle which would have led to so many more deaths". And if you think the RW is backfiring ONLY because of "other developments that have nothing to do with the whole thing" then you clearly haven't read the same books I've been reading because the way I see it GRRM goes out of his way to show that when you break all forms of conduct or social mores (Dornish perfidy, RW, Lucerys's murder) then bad things happen.

So what if the Dornish know how to live off their land? If the 7K kept throwing more men into the proverbial meat grinder Dorne would lose by sheer attrition. You can't engage in guerrilla warfare if there is not enough men to sustain the offensive or enough men to simply grow the crops. Logistics matter for the Dornish too you know.

The idea that the f**** heir to the North could ride off to join a dangerous campaign WITHOUT the head of his house's permission does not make sense at all. Furthermore, who said that a large contingent of men from the North joined Daeron's forces? Could be like in the Dance (and the MUSH) that only a small force was sent (probably by ship). The bulk of Daeron's forces would have come from the Stormlands, the Reach, and the Crownlands. Whether or not the West, the Riverlands, or the Vale took part remains to be seen. (No way the Iron Isles would have been allowed to participate.)

Acts of aggression on BOTH sides is the very definition of breaking a peace treaty!

A succession war caused by the king's dumb decisions and inability to channel the wealth and energies of the royal court into productive measures.

YOU said that "peace is ALWAYS preferable to war". That is what me and @LionoftheWest are saying is bullshit, which you seem to have acknowledged to some small degree.

As for casualties did you even bother reading what I quoted? The Dragon's Wroth ALONE (as in two out of the nine years of war) reduced Dorne to ruins with a death toll beyond counting and yet somehow you're telling me that Daeron, WITHOUT dragons, killed more? Utter nonsense.

Do you STILL not get it? Maekar was killed in honest battle. Westerosi people can accept that because that is normal. Murdering someone under a peace banner is NOT and in fact not only is the sanctity of the peace banner one of the OLDEST tenets of war but breaking it IS something people even in medieval times would see as a war crime.

And for the THIRD time Aegon the Conqueror was never forced to get bloody. Daeron because he lacked dragons had too so that's another point where comparing casualties isn't fair.

As for the Faith Militant: Now you're just sucking up to the Targaryens and demonstrating (as you have regarding the Storming of the Dragonpit) your bias towards the idea of the smallfolk of Westeros having any independent agency. The Conqueror and his sisters were popular NOT their sons by the time of the rebellion. Furthermore, the majority of the Faith's forces would have been Poor Fellows unaffiliated with the nobility and later in Maegor's reign they, not the Warrior's Sons, are the ones still mentioned to be actively resisting (albeit with highborn commanders). On top of that we have this: "From the Starry Sept came a denunciation such as no king had ever received before, addressed to “King Abomination”—and suddenly pious lords and even the smallfolk who had once loved Aenys turned against him." Yeah, the smallfolk are capable of having agency of their own WITHOUT the nobility leading them or it being a conspiracy, an example of which would be Wat the Hewer at the Battle of Stonebridge.

Nymeria didn't magically conquer the rest of Dorne because her army was partly-Dornish. After all the Yronwoods alone controlled half of the peninsula, which included the greenest parts of it. Beyond that we have this: "Most of these Dornish lords viewed the Rhoynar as unwelcome interlopers, invaders with queer foreign ways and strange gods, who should be driven back into the sea whence they’d come." And this: The Rhoynar brought considerable wealth with them; their artisans, metalworkers, and stonemasons brought skills far in advance of those achieved by their Westerosi counterparts, and their armorers were soon producing swords and spears and suits of scale and plate no Westerosi smith could hope to match. Even more crucially, it is said the Rhoynish water witches knew secret spells that made dry streams flow and deserts bloom." Nymeria won because she had superior technology, superior numbers, and quite possibly magic. Nothing more.

Finally, most rulers WERE warmongerers but that doesn't mean that is the only thing we judge them by considering that most rulers did not spend their whole reign at war.

[Lord Varys]

20 hours ago, The Grey Wolf said:

On Theon: "The last isles to be wedded to the Vale were the Three Sisters. For thousands of years, these islands had boasted their own cruel kings, pirates and raiders whose longships sailed the Bite, the narrow sea, and even the Shivering Sea with impunity, plundering and reaving as they would and returning to the Sisters laden with gold and slaves. These depredations finally led the Kings of Winter to send their own war fleets to seek dominion over the Sisters—for whoever holds the Three Sisters holds the Bite." Even if it wasn't Theon specifically the Starks had plenty of reason to put an end to the Three Sisters' independence. Furthermore, every other war we know took place in the Hungry Wolf's reign was defensive or retaliatory so I doubt this was an exception if Theon was one of the Kings of Winter mentioned in the above quote.

Theon Stark is pretty much a figure of legend. Yandel doesn't have good sources on him. We cannot really use that whole thing as good source on what actually happened there. While it is clear that the Sistermen never were nice neighbors I doubt they deserve the kind of treatment they got in the rape of their islands (if what they claim happened there is true, which we also do not know).

20 hours ago, The Grey Wolf said:

On Kings: That is again YOU projecting your 21st-century bias. The idea that all kings were Machiavellian with no motives beyond self-interest is beyond stupid. They were still human you know and thus capable of things we call sympathy, empathy, and having a sense of honor and duty. Not all but certainly more than a few.

The very concept of a monarchy - especially a medieval or ancient monarchy - is unjust. Thus it is irrelevant whether those people had sympathy or empathy. or a sense of honor.

But if you know your history then you also know that being a king or emperor - especially in unruly times - meant you were trapped. You had to succeed or die, and to succeed you had to kill/stay ahead of your enemies, especially ahead of those in your own country or your own court. Just look what happened to Caligula, Claudius, Nero and his would-be successors, Domitian, Commodus, Edward II, Richard II, Henry VI, and so on.

There were certainly a lot of men who sucked at being smart kings but the way to stay king is not to the best for your people. You are not elected, you rule by divine right (in the middle ages) or because you effective a military dictator (the Roman emperors).

The only people with whom you have actually negotiate in any meaningful is the army (in Rome) or other nobles and the Church (in the middle ages). You have little reason to actually better or care for the lives of the commoners. And when you did then only to use them as pawns in your fight against the nobility.

The medieval society was built around the idea that a king deserved to be a king by right of birth, a nobleman to be noble by right of birth, and a peasant and slave also by right of birth. God had decided all that for you, and thus the inherent injustice of the system was unchangeable. No king ever tried to better the lives of his people in any meaningful way.

20 hours ago, The Grey Wolf said:

I never said the Targaryens warred with Dorne because of the Marches. I said they could have used the Marches as a  casus belli.

Since there were no such raids when Daeron I began his war there was, most likely, no such pretext for a casus belli. He didn't need one. His pretext was to complete the Conquest. And that was apparently enough.

20 hours ago, The Grey Wolf said:

Sorry but given human nature your naive view that civilization can or should arise without war is quite simply bonkers.

Well, then let's fight for your property to the death. I'm always in need of more funds. War is just the same barbaric thing on another level.

20 hours ago, The Grey Wolf said:

The Young Dragon had just been murdered under a peace banner on top of all those corpses! If you honestly believe people just wanted things to be over rather than burn Dorne to the ground in retaliation I don't think I can do anything to change your mind because it is clear to me you don't understand how people in such a time period or situation probably would think. Some might have wanted peace? Sure. The majority? Not a chance as far as I can see.

Reread the section on House Tyrell in TWoIaF. Lord Theo Tyrell, the son of Harlan Tyrell who disappeared with his army in Dorne during the First Dornish War, grew cautious in case of those losses and no longer involved himself and the Reach in Aegon's war while it was limited to Dornish soil.

If Theo Tyrell didn't care to avenge his father I daresay I doubt that all of Westeros wanted to avenge the Young Dragon. Some certainly wanted to, but not all of them. Else Baelor wouldn't have been able to make a peace, king or not. It would have been so easy to thwart that peace - while Baelor was on his march, while Baelor was in his coma, etc. If some lords had continued hostilities then the whole peace process would have come to an end long before Baelor had even reached Sunspear.

20 hours ago, The Grey Wolf said:

So your whole motive for singling out Daeron is because again his conquest was undone through no fault of his own? That is a shitty way of passing judgment on people and events as @LionoftheWest pointed out. And Robb's war was stupid?! Wtf do you expect him and the people of the North + the Riverlands to have done in that situation? Roll over for the Lannisters?

Robb's war was stupid when he fought for stupid kingdom he could not possibly hold. Fight against the Lannisters was necessary and a good idea. Declaring himself the King of the Riverlands was stupid. He could have joined either Renly or Stannis.

Kings and conquerors are usually lauded and applauded by posterity because they did daunting things and had success. People who had grand plans but failed to realize them aren't applauded. If Cortez hadn't succeeded nobody would know his name today. I see no reason why I should treat Daeron I any differently. 

20 hours ago, The Grey Wolf said:

Read your own words: "George is acknowledges that insidiously killing the enemy leader is a good tactic in war" and "there is a more than a certain truth to Tywin's rationale that it was much cleaner to take out Robb the way he did rather than facing him in battle which would have led to so many more deaths". And if you think the RW is backfiring ONLY because of "other developments that have nothing to do with the whole thing" then you clearly haven't read the same books I've been reading because the way I see it GRRM goes out of his way to show that when you break all forms of conduct or social mores (Dornish perfidy, RW, Lucerys's murder) then bad things happen.

Well, no bad things happened when Daeron I was killed, right? Or when Bloodraven took the head of Aenys Blackfyre.

The Red Wedding certainly made the Freys hated throughout their entire region and never again the friends of a majority of the Northmen. But so what? That in itself wouldn't necessarily lead to their demise and ruin. It is the change of the overall political landscape that is opening the way to their end, not the fact that they did something deplorable. Tywin also killed hundreds of innocent women and children with impunity at Tarbeck Hall and Castamere. Nobody ever avenged these people. If the Boltons prevailed in the North and King Tommen's administration remained on top for years to come nobody would come after the Freys.

20 hours ago, The Grey Wolf said:

So what if the Dornish know how to live off their land? If the 7K kept throwing more men into the proverbial meat grinder Dorne would lose by sheer attrition. You can't engage in guerrilla warfare if there is not enough men to sustain the offensive or enough men to simply grow the crops. Logistics matter for the Dornish too you know.

Sure, but if you think that the people in Westeros can suffer this kind of warfare then you may have been a good general during World War I but not exactly a good judge of character of those people. Nothing indicates that anybody there has the stomach or the determination to sacrifice entire generations of young men just to prove a point or subdue a land that isn't all that rich.

20 hours ago, The Grey Wolf said:

The idea that the f**** heir to the North could ride off to join a dangerous campaign WITHOUT the head of his house's permission does not make sense at all.

How so? Wasn't Rickon Stark pretty old by that time, a man grown with daughters of his own? Brynden also didn't give a fig about his lord brother's wishes

20 hours ago, The Grey Wolf said:

Furthermore, who said that a large contingent of men from the North joined Daeron's forces?

If Rickon wasn't at court when the war began then it would be strange to assume that the heir of Winterfell would only have shown up at court joining the king's war with a token force. The Starks are a great house, if they commit themselves to anything one would expect them to send some men not just a single Stark and some men-at-arms.

20 hours ago, The Grey Wolf said:

Acts of aggression on BOTH sides is the very definition of breaking a peace treaty!

Still, this kind of thing doesn't have to lead to war.

20 hours ago, The Grey Wolf said:

A succession war caused by the king's dumb decisions and inability to channel the wealth and energies of the royal court into productive measures.

You have no proof of this. It is confirmed that the roads Jaehaerys I began were not (necessarily) finished during his reign. And if a lot of the finances of the Realm went into building those things during the reign of Viserys I it makes sense why he did not begin huge projects.

20 hours ago, The Grey Wolf said:

YOU said that "peace is ALWAYS preferable to war". That is what me and @LionoftheWest are saying is bullshit, which you seem to have acknowledged to some small degree.

No, I say that peace is preferable to war, period. Peace means that there is no war, meaning that nobody is attacking you and you don't have to do Chamberlain stuff to preserve it. Peace is not necessarily preferable to war if you are already threatened but that's not what I was talking about. Dorne was never a threat to the power and authority of the Iron Throne. And thus there was no good reason for the Targaryens to ever try to conquer Dorne.

20 hours ago, The Grey Wolf said:

As for casualties did you even bother reading what I quoted? The Dragon's Wroth ALONE (as in two out of the nine years of war) reduced Dorne to ruins with a death toll beyond counting and yet somehow you're telling me that Daeron, WITHOUT dragons, killed more? Utter nonsense.

Well, if it was beyond counting then this means that more people died than people lived in Dorne, right? Because you can count all the Dornishmen.

While we have no numbers we cannot compare them. Dragons don't have to kill a lot of people, though. Let's say on average there are living 300 people in a Dornish castle. Not all of them would be killed when the dragons attacked, but even if they did - how many people would have then died in all of Dorne on the basis of the castles we know of? Not all that many.

20 hours ago, The Grey Wolf said:

Do you STILL not get it? Maekar was killed in honest battle. Westerosi people can accept that because that is normal. Murdering someone under a peace banner is NOT and in fact not only is the sanctity of the peace banner one of the OLDEST tenets of war but breaking it IS something people even in medieval times would see as a war crime.

Nothing indicates that people care all that much about the sanctity of peace banner in Westeros. Tywin came under the peace banner/feigning loyalty to KL during the Rebellion? Did this cause major uproar? No. The problem was that Jaime killed the king he swore to protect and Tywin commanded/arranged the cruel murder or royal women and children.

Connington plans to take Storm's End in a similar fashion, Arnolf Karstark planned to betray Stannis in a similar fashion, and Lord Wyman baked three Freys into a pie while pretending to be their friends. Nobody cares about ruses like that.

20 hours ago, The Grey Wolf said:

And for the THIRD time Aegon the Conqueror was never forced to get bloody. Daeron because he lacked dragons had too so that's another point where comparing casualties isn't fair.

Life isn't fair. Aegon wouldn't have conquered anything without his dragons because he knew he would not succeed. Daeron I could have investigated the Dornish mentality and read his history books and would this way have learned that he could not hope to hold Dorne in any conventional manner.

20 hours ago, The Grey Wolf said:

As for the Faith Militant: Now you're just sucking up to the Targaryens and demonstrating (as you have regarding the Storming of the Dragonpit) your bias towards the idea of the smallfolk of Westeros having any independent agency. The Conqueror and his sisters were popular NOT their sons by the time of the rebellion. Furthermore, the majority of the Faith's forces would have been Poor Fellows unaffiliated with the nobility and later in Maegor's reign they, not the Warrior's Sons, are the ones still mentioned to be actively resisting (albeit with highborn commanders). On top of that we have this: "From the Starry Sept came a denunciation such as no king had ever received before, addressed to “King Abomination”—and suddenly pious lords and even the smallfolk who had once loved Aenys turned against him." Yeah, the smallfolk are capable of having agency of their own WITHOUT the nobility leading them or it being a conspiracy, an example of which would be Wat the Hewer at the Battle of Stonebridge.

Sure, the smallfolk listened to the High Septon when he denounced Aenys I and followed the teachings of the Faith that children born from incest are abominations. There was resentment about being ruled by such people. But a lot of people still loved the Targaryens and stood with them against the Faith Militant, first with Maegor and then later with Jaehaerys. If they hadn't, Jaehaerys would never have become king.

The Poor Fellows clearly were not the hundreds of thousands of people who migrated towards KL during the reign of the Conqueror. They most certainly also resented the Conqueror and his sister-wives, not just their sons. But they only acted when they smelled weakness and saw the High Septon taking an effort to lead them.

20 hours ago, The Grey Wolf said:

Nymeria didn't magically conquer the rest of Dorne because her army was partly-Dornish. After all the Yronwoods alone controlled half of the peninsula, which included the greenest parts of it. Beyond that we have this: "Most of these Dornish lords viewed the Rhoynar as unwelcome interlopers, invaders with queer foreign ways and strange gods, who should be driven back into the sea whence they’d come." And this: The Rhoynar brought considerable wealth with them; their artisans, metalworkers, and stonemasons brought skills far in advance of those achieved by their Westerosi counterparts, and their armorers were soon producing swords and spears and suits of scale and plate no Westerosi smith could hope to match. Even more crucially, it is said the Rhoynish water witches knew secret spells that made dry streams flow and deserts bloom." Nymeria won because she had superior technology, superior numbers, and quite possibly magic. Nothing more.

You are quoting out of context. The first quote is from before the alliance between Mors Martell and the Rhoynar. Most of Nymeria's people were women and old and young men. The old would have been dead of no use in war, which leaves on the youths and the female warriors (not all of them were fighters). That wasn't enough to conquer. Dorne is still Dorne. The Dornish did not get rhoynarized. The only true Rhoynar left are the orphans of the Greenblood. The others are essentially still First Men/Andals who took on the gender equal thing up to a point, and got a little bit relaxed in the sexual department.

But they have nothing in common with the Rhoynar of old. There are no grand cities in Dorne.

20 hours ago, The Grey Wolf said:

Finally, most rulers WERE warmongerers but that doesn't mean that is the only thing we judge them by considering that most rulers did not spend their whole reign at war.

Charlemagne did. And he is hailed for that as the father of Europe (or only France and Germany).

Honestly, any interesting ruler the middle ages and antiquity have to offer is so because he either fought interesting wars or (spectacularly) failed at doing that. I mean, that is even the case for people closer to our age. Stalin is much more interesting than, say, Brezhnev because he was heavily involved in World War II.

There is also a reason why many people know that Lincoln was assassinated while nobody today cares all that Garfield and McKinley were killed in office, too.

[Jon's Queen Consort]

On 8/3/2017 at 8:55 PM, Dorian Martell's son said:

Says who? Because the Author didn't 

QFT. There is no proof that Viserys would had done anything else.

Also does this means op because you don't agree with the King's actions the line of succession should change?

[The Grey Wolf]

9 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

Text

You're being deliberately obtuse but I'll keep trying.

On Theon: That's your excuse?! Seriously?! You have NO proof that what we know about Theon may be inaccurate. Yandel ALWAYS points out when there is any possible discrepancy in the historiography being discussed. As for the Sisters I'd say they deserved an invasion, being pirate-slavers that should have thought of the consequences of their actions beforehand.

On kings: I never said that monarchy was just or fair system but regardless what you say is pure SHIT. Monarchs ARE people. Furthermore, as this statement of yours proves "No king ever tried to better the lives of his people in any meaningful way" not only are you plainly biased but you are also consciously and disgustingly so. Off the top of my head I can think of the law reforms of Henry II, Edward I, Richard III, and Henry VII ALONE.

On the Marches: To use your own catchphrase "we don't know" that there WEREN'T any raids in the Marches around the time of Daeron's ascension.

On war: You say because you live in the luxury of this time period and the fact of where you come from. In all honesty though can you name any civilization that has arisen WITHOUT war in some form? (For the record I meant could where I wrote should.)

On Tyrell/Baelor: Harlan Tyrell WASN'T murdered. Plus, the Tyrells had JUST become Lords Paramount and their position was far from secure. As for Baelor you really don't have any f***** idea how monarchies work do you? The king is SACROSANT. You can't defy him just because you disagree with his policies which is why whenever there was rebellion one of two reasons was cited. One was illegitimacy. If the king wasn't legitimate then he wasn't sacrosanct and so did not have to be obeyed. The other option was tyranny, that the king had abused his god-given authority and in so doing lost it. Neither that nor illegitimacy fit Baelor so the lords couldn't do anything though they HATED Baelor's decision.

On Robb: So he should have abandoned his mother's people to the tender mercy of the Lannisters? Or allied with the warlord Renly whose ascension would set a precedent for a Westerosi crisis of Barracks Emperors? Bullshit.

On the Freys: "No one would come after them" if Tommen's administration stayed on top is again bullshit. Look at AFFC. That is what is happening and come TWOW will culminate.

On Rickon: Brynden ISN'T the f***** heir dammit! Rickon IS and the idea that he could ride off to war WITHOUT his father's permission when IOTL his death was was "lamented in the North for years to come because of the troubles that dogged the reigns of his half brothers" does not make ANY sense. As for how many men he brought you have no proof that Rickon DID bring a lot. Indeed, for all we know he could have brought only an elite force of similar size to the Winter Wolves led by Roddy the Ruin during the Dance.

On the Treaty: My point was that the treaty was broken BEFORE Daeron was even born.

On Peace: THIS is what YOU wrote:

On 3/9/2017 at 10:30 AM, Lord Varys said:

Peace is always preferable to war.

What's more if your definition of peace is "nobody is attacking you and you don't have to do Chamberlain stuff to preserve it" then the people of the Marches were most definitely NOT at peace with the Dornish.

On Casualties: The Dragon's Wroth encompassed TWO out of NINE years of war not to mention the fact that Dorne is NOT described as a "burned, blighted ruin" after Daeron's Conquest the way it was at the end of the First Dornish War YET you claim to tell me that Daeron killed MORE in LESS time? Complete and utter nonsense.

On Peace Banners: NONE of those examples involve abuse of the peace banner! Aerys opened the gates and Tywin is never said to have used a peace banner. Connington is going to trick the garrison into opening its gates by attacking the Tyrell forces besieging them which does not involve the peace banner AT ALL. Arnolf Karstark was planning on betraying Stannis IN battle a la Sekigahara which again does NOT involve the peace banner. And finally as for Wyman the text goes out of its way to tell you that ISN'T the case. Here's proof from ADWD: They have no horses with them, so I shall present each of them with a palfrey as a guest gift. Do hosts still give guest gifts in the south?" "Some do, my lord. On the day their guest departs." "Perhaps you understand, then." Wyman did NOT break any of the laws of hospitality, on which the sacredness of the peace banner is based. All in all your assertion that misuse of the peace banner (perfidy) in Westeros is not a serious issue is plain WRONG.

On Aegon vs. Daeron: By your standards no one would have ever bothered trying to conquer anyone else and we would all still be cave-dwelling nomads then.

On the Faith Militant: Well DUH they didn't act until the High Septon issued his proclamation. Peasants are people too and they need a reason to be motivated to do something, which Aenys and Maegor gave them.

On Nymeria: No I am not. The first quote was to show that half of Dorne saw the Rhoynish the way they latter did the Targaryens and that that fact didn't change just because the Rhoynish married and fucked the Dornish under Mors.

Furthermore, we have the following: "It is said that, amongst the Rhoynar who came to Dorne with Nymeria, eight of every ten were women … but a quarter of those were warriors, in the Rhoynish tradition, and even those who did not fight had been hardened during their travels and travails. As well, thousands who had been boys when fleeing the Rhoyne had grown into manhood and taken up the spear during their years of wandering. By joining with the newcomers, the Martells increased the size of their host by tenfold."

And again what I quoted above: When Mors Martell took Nymeria to wife, hundreds of his knights, squires, and lords bannermen also wed Rhoynish women, and many of those who were already wed took them for
their paramours. Thus were the two peoples united by blood. These unions enriched and strengthened House Martell and its Dornish allies. The Rhoynar brought considerable wealth with them; their artisans, metalworkers, and stonemasons brought skills far in advance of those achieved by their Westerosi counterparts, and their armorers were soon producing swords and spears and suits of scale and plate no Westerosi smith could hope to match. Even more crucially, it is said the Rhoynish water witches knew secret spells that made dry streams flow again and deserts bloom.

Nymeria did NOT conquer Dorne because she had Dornishmen in her army. Again, she won because of superior numbers, superior technology, and quite possibly magic not to mention better tactics and strategies.

On Rulers: Garfield and Mckinley didn't save the Union or get assassinated just after the end of a watershed civil war. Finally, your assertion that "any interesting ruler the middle ages and antiquity have to offer is so because he either fought interesting wars or (spectacularly) failed at doing that" is f**** up. What about the laws they passed, the things they built, and everything else a ruler does? Are those not equally interesting as well?

[Lord Varys]

7 minutes ago, The Grey Wolf said:

On Theon: That's your excuse?! Seriously?! You have NO proof that what we know about Theon may be inaccurate. Yandel ALWAYS points out when there is any possible discrepancy in the historiography being discussed. As for the Sisters I'd say they deserved an invasion, being pirate-slavers that should have thought of the consequences of their actions beforehand.

Well, we don't know whether they troubled the North all that much at that time, or do we? And we know from Ran that Theon Stark is a character writ larger than life like many of those other ancient kings are (like those Ironborn with the freak names). He may have done some of the stuff he is famed for, sure, but perhaps not exactly in the same scale the songs tell about him.

Just as Lady Forlorn most likely wasn't there during the Battle of the Seven Stars (at least not as a blade with Valyrian steel qualities).

7 minutes ago, The Grey Wolf said:

On kings: I never said that monarchy was just or fair system but regardless what you say is pure SHIT. Monarchs ARE people.

Sure, kings are people. But are peasants, thralls, or slaves people?

7 minutes ago, The Grey Wolf said:

Furthermore, as this statement of yours proves "No king ever tried to better the lives of his people in any meaningful way" not only are you plainly biased but you are also consciously and disgustingly so. Off the top of my head I can think of the law reforms of Henry II, Edward I, Richard III, and Henry VII ALONE.

That is nothing I'd consider bettering the lives of people.

7 minutes ago, The Grey Wolf said:

On the Marches: To use your own catchphrase "we don't know" that there WEREN'T any raids in the Marches around the time of Daeron's ascension.

Sure, but would you not expect to know if there were such raids and if Daeron I had used them as reason to begin a war? After all, we know something about the beginning of that war. And if Dorne had been aggressive at this time Yandel most certainly would have mentioned that, no?

7 minutes ago, The Grey Wolf said:

On war: You say because you live in the luxury of this time period and the fact of where you come from. In all honesty though can you name any civilization that has arisen WITHOUT war in some form? (For the record I meant could where I wrote should.)

Not on the top of my head. But I don't know all civilizations that ever existed. However, that is not the point. War is not justified because it played a role in the past. The war in Syria right now isn't helping the lives (or the civilization) of the people there one bit. I don't care all that much about abstractions, I care about people. It is shitty to live in a totalitarian system but (some) people can still live there. When civilization collapses - which always happens in a real war - then it is very hard to survive in such a region. And that is simply nothing people want.

Just reread the books we are talking about here. Robert is a shitty king, perhaps even worse than Aerys II, but during his reign you could travel the Riverlands without the fear of being hanged by some outlaws. Those books show how wars actually traumatize people and destroy civilization.

7 minutes ago, The Grey Wolf said:

On Tyrell/Baelor: Harlan Tyrell WASN'T murdered. Plus, the Tyrells had JUST become Lords Paramount and their position was far from secure. As for Baelor you really don't have any f***** idea how monarchies work do you? The king is SACROSANT. You can't defy him just because you disagree with his policies which is why whenever there was rebellion one of two reasons was cited. One was illegitimacy. If the king wasn't legitimate then he wasn't sacrosanct and so did not have to be obeyed. The other option was tyranny, that the king had abused his god-given authority and in so doing lost it. Neither that nor illegitimacy fit Baelor so the lords couldn't do anything though they HATED Baelor's decision.

I'm sorry, but can you give me any quote that people in this series care all that much when kings (or anyone, really) is murdered under the peace banner? I get it that this is apparently unforgivable for you, but that's not the relevant part.

Still, Theo Tyrell lost his father. Ned was also arrested and executed for treason. Robb still rebelled against the Iron Throne. He didn't need some special reason like 'my father was killed under the peace banner' to do so.

The king is sacrosanct in Westeros, but people don't care about that all that much. Aegon V actually wanted to better the lives of his subjects but his lords constantly rebelled against him, not caring about the fact that he was the rightful king, and ignoring his decrees.

If you are a general or a commander nothing is more easy than to provoke a war. You just have to do it. Like Tywin did when he sent Gregor into the Riverlands in AGoT.  If the Marcher Lords had sent a force into the Red Mountains killing and raiding there then this would have destroyed any efforts of Baelor to make peace, especially if it had been done while he was in his coma or on his walk. He had no means finding out what had happened, and the Iron Throne could already have been in the middle of a new war when Baelor finally regained his senses.

7 minutes ago, The Grey Wolf said:

On Robb: So he should have abandoned his mother's people to the tender mercy of the Lannisters? Or allied with the warlord Renly whose ascension would set a precedent for a Westerosi crisis of Barracks Emperors? Bullshit.

No, but he should not have declared himself king, especially not of a land he could not possibly hold since it had no natural borders.

7 minutes ago, The Grey Wolf said:

On the Freys: "No one would come after them" if Tommen's administration stayed on top is again bullshit. Look at AFFC. That is what is happening and come TWOW will culminate.

If Tywin had lived none of the stuff that happened in AFfC would have happened.

7 minutes ago, The Grey Wolf said:

On Rickon: Brynden ISN'T the f***** heir dammit! Rickon IS and the idea that he could ride off to war WITHOUT his father's permission when IOTL his death was was "lamented in the North for years to come because of the troubles that dogged the reigns of his half brothers" does not make ANY sense. As for how many men he brought you have no proof that Rickon DID bring a lot. Indeed, for all we know he could have brought only an elite force of similar size to the Winter Wolves led by Roddy the Ruin during the Dance.

The Winter Wolves weren't an elite force. They were just grizzled old men (or second sons, etc.) who liked a good exit in war. What made them dangerous was the fact that they were eager and willing to die in battle. You can see that both at the Fishfeed (where they behaved ridiculously) and First Tumbleton.

Again, Rickon was old enough by then, and he was the eldest (and at that point possibly still the only) son of Lord Cregan. It is not surprising that he was missed.

7 minutes ago, The Grey Wolf said:

What's more if your definition of peace is "nobody is attacking you and you don't have to do Chamberlain stuff to preserve it" then the people of the Marches were most definitely NOT at peace with the Dornish.

Still, you have to think of the whole. Should India or Pakistan declare war on each other because of the Kashmir thing? People are dying on regular basis because of the fighting there. Or Israel on the Palestinians because of the bombings and other killings?

Dornish raids are (and should) not be important on the grand scale of things. The North also doesn't invade the lands beyond the Wall and butchers all the wildlings they can find just so that no clansmen and Umber folk are killed/stolen.

And it is not that the Marcher Lords and their people can't fight back. They do. A lot.

7 minutes ago, The Grey Wolf said:

On Casualties: The Dragon's Wroth encompassed TWO out of NINE years of war not to mention the fact that Dorne is NOT described as a "burned, blighted ruin" after Daeron's Conquest the way it was at the end of the First Dornish War YET you claim to tell me that Daeron killed MORE? Complete and utter nonsense.

We just don't know. What does a burned and blighted ruin mean in relation to Dorne? The land is already a desert. Yes, a lot of castles were ruins, most likely, destroyed by the dragons. And then they were rebuild.

I'm not insisting that Daeron killed more people. I'm also willing to concede that Aegon's repercussions might have been pretty severe. But he understood, in the end, that he could not win.

7 minutes ago, The Grey Wolf said:

On Peace Banners: NONE of those examples involve abuse of the peace banner! Aerys opened the gates and Tywin is never said to have used a peace banner. Connington is going to trick the garrison into opening its gates by attacking the Tyrell forces besieging them which does not involve the peace banner AT ALL. Arnolf Karstark was planning on betraying Stannis IN battle a la Sekigahara which again does NOT involve the peace banner. And finally as for Wyman the text goes out of its way to tell you that ISN'T the case. Here's proof from ADWD: They have no horses with them, so I shall present each of them with a palfrey as a guest gift. Do hosts still give guest gifts in the south?" "Some do, my lord. On the day their guest departs." "Perhaps you understand, then." Wyman did NOT break any of the laws of hospitality, on which the sacredness of the peace banner is based. All in all your assertion that misuse of the peace banner (perfidy) in Westeros is not a serious issue is plain WRONG.

Well, I don't care whether somebody is betrayed under the peace banner or just by somebody who pretends to be his or her friend. Both is bad. And quite honestly, people fighting a long and brutal war and still being naive enough to think that they are safe under the peace banner are stupid.

Wyman Manderly does not break guest right, but if you think about it it is still disgusting what he does. Not just the whole cannibal thing, and display of joy in all that, but also the simple fact that he actually feigned friendship with the three men he treats this way. Yes, they are all not exactly sympathetic but we can be pretty sure that neither of them got any chance to defend himself. One imagines that they got their horses and then they were butchered.

7 minutes ago, The Grey Wolf said:

On Aegon vs. Daeron: By your standards no one would have ever bothered trying to conquer anyone else and we would all still be cave-dwelling nomads then.

Do you think that war helped us to overcome the hunter-gatherer thing? 

7 minutes ago, The Grey Wolf said:

On the Faith Militant: Well DUH they didn't act until the High Septon issued his proclamation. Peasants are people too and they need a reason to be motivated to do something, which Aenys and Maegor gave them.

I'm more inclined to believe that a majority of them were stirred up. I could be wrong, but the same kind of thing happened during the Storming of the Dragonpit. We have to keep in mind that whatever education the commoners get comes exclusively from the Faith, and they continuously condemned the incest thing. It should have been easily enough to activate that resentment. And many commoners seem to be pretty pious, even more so back in the days of the Faith Militant when the Poor Fellows would have been everywhere.

7 minutes ago, The Grey Wolf said:

On Nymeria: No I am not. The first quote was to show that half of Dorne saw the Rhoynish the way they latter did the Targaryens and that that fact didn't change just because the Rhoynish married and fucked the Dornish under Mors.

Furthermore, we have the following: "It is said that, amongst the Rhoynar who came to Dorne with Nymeria, eight of every ten were women … but a quarter of those were warriors, in the Rhoynish tradition, and even those who did not fight had been hardened during their travels and travails. As well, thousands who had been boys when fleeing the Rhoyne had grown into manhood and taken up the spear during their years of wandering. By joining with the newcomers, the Martells increased the size of their host by tenfold."

And again what I quoted above: When Mors Martell took Nymeria to wife, hundreds of his knights, squires, and lords bannermen also wed Rhoynish women, and many of those who were already wed took them for
their paramours. Thus were the two peoples united by blood. These unions enriched and strengthened House Martell and its Dornish allies. The Rhoynar brought considerable wealth with them; their artisans, metalworkers, and stonemasons brought skills far in advance of those achieved by their Westerosi counterparts, and their armorers were soon producing swords and spears and suits of scale and plate no Westerosi smith could hope to match. Even more crucially, it is said the Rhoynish water witches knew secret spells that made dry streams flow again and deserts bloom.

Nymeria did NOT conquer Dorne because she had Dornishmen in her army. Again, she won because of superior numbers, superior technology, and quite possibly magic not to mention better tactics and strategies.

The numbers refer to the modest strength of House Martell and its allies. Those increased of tenfold. But that doesn't mean that the majority of the people Nymeria later led against Yorick Yronwood were Rhoynar. Again, it would be thousands of young men (difficult to say how many exactly, but we are not talking about ten thousand ships, that much is clear) and a quarter of the female Rhoynar (the warriors).

Whether Nymeria won because of her numbers is not clear (we don't know how many men Yronwood had). The technological advantage certainly was important, especially in those later battles when it could be used (those smiths would first have to make superior armor and weapons).

Magic played only a supporting role. I mean, water witches making some streams run isn't going to defeat the Yronwoods.

7 minutes ago, The Grey Wolf said:

On Rulers: Garfield and Mckinley didn't save the Union or get assassinated just after the end of a watershed civil war.

Yeah, that is my point. Lincoln is a very crucial figure in American history because he was a major player in the Civil War. That's why he is still important to this day. Wars make people interesting. Teddy Roosevelt may have been a fun guy but he isn't as important as Franklin D.

7 minutes ago, The Grey Wolf said:

Finally, your assertion that "any interesting ruler the middle ages and antiquity have to offer is so because he either fought interesting wars or (spectacularly) failed at doing that" is f**** up. What about the laws they passed, the things they built, and everything else a ruler does? Are those not equally interesting as well?

Not in the historical literature I'm reading, and most definitely not in the contemporary chronicles. War makes things interesting.

Ask yourself. Is the reign of Justinian more interesting or, say, Antoninus Pius? And what is interesting about Augustus? The civil war era or the 'everything is peace and quiet' later decades? Sure, if you are interested in Rome you might like everything, but there is a tendency there.

[The Grey Wolf]

2 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

Text

On Theon: If we go by your assertion then nothing from that same time period regarding the Lannister, Gardner, and Durrandon kings can be accepted either which doesn't work since we aren't given any reason to doubt Yandel in any of those cases

On Reforms: Seriously?! Seriously?! Now you are just trolling. WHO the F***** do you think those law reforms helped?! Because it was most definitely NOT the nobles or the clergy!

On the Marches: There are a lot of gaps in TWOIAF so your assertion that if there had been recent Dornish aggression we should have heard of it doesn't amount to much in my mind sorry. I mean the First AND Third Blackfyre Rebellion get scant mention not to mention the other important wars like RR.

On War: If humans were capable of living without war we wouldn't need government either so again I find your premise flawed given the fallibility of human nature. Also, Robert was WORSE than Aerys?! WTF?! Which one of them got themselves deposed in a bloody civil war? Furthermore, the books are also not anti-war in that alongside showing the horror of it they also show that some wars ARE worth fighting.

On Robb: What should he have done then? Even if he didn't declare himself king he STILL had to fight for the Riverlands. They were his mother's people and had been unjustly attacked!

On Freys: Don't buy that. Tywin isn't some god. He had by that point made himself hated by a large portion of the 7K and the idea that the people of the Riverlands or the North would EVER forgive or forget the RW as well as everything else he'd done to them is beyond stupid. Not to mention Tywin wasn't young when he died.

On Rickon: Again given that Rickon was so important to the North the idea that he rode south WITHOUT permission does not make sense.

On Kings: The sanctity of the king does not matter to the people?! Do you even READ the bloody books?! The following is straight from the text:

"The immediate response to the news from Duskendale was shock, then outrage"

"Lord Denys instead sent word that, if any attempt was made to break his walls, he would put His Grace to death. Some in the small council questioned this, declaring that no son of Westeros would ever dare commit such a heinous crime"

"The Darklyns had dared lay hands upon his person, shoving him roughly, stripping him of his royal raiment, even daring to strike him."

The law that the limb that strikes someone of royal blood must be forfeited as mentioned in THK

On Tyrell: Theo's father was NOT murdered is a KEY difference as is the fact the Tyrells had JUST gained Highgarden and their position was far from secure. In the case of Lyonel things are entirely DIFFERENT. Lyonel was painfully murdered in his bed not to mention the Tyrells had stood at the right hand side of the Young Dragon and profited the most from that.

On Wyman: Considering their personalities and the RW I'm not at all inclined to feel any sympathy for those three Freys.

On Peace Banners: YOU may think it is stupid but anyone living in Westeros or has bothered to study RL history would tell you that is a STUPID opinion. If the peace banner cannot be trusted then negotiations are NOT possible NOR is surrender of any kind, which is different way of saying that the conflict automatically becomes a total war of annihilation, which is NOT the norm. The sanctity of the peace banner IS along with hospitality and diplomatic immunity one of THE oldest and serious tenets of war. Even TODAY the Geneva Conventions allow for some pretty harsh retaliatory measures for misusing it!

On the Faith Militant: The smallfolk are decidedly more pious I'll grant but my point is that far too often I find people like you treat the smallfolk as though they can't have any agency or will of their own which is wrong as can be seen in two examples. Again the Battle of Stonebridge and the fact that when a new High Septon was chosen in 44 AC the Faith Militant defied him and continued fighting Maegor.

On Hunter-Gatherer: Yes to your question.

On Nymeria: My point was she didn't conquer Dorne because part of her army happened to be Dornish. And those water witches would have been damn important. In a desert being able to make dry streams flow with water capable of sustaining a population is serious business.

On What's Interesting: That's totally YOUR opinion. I will fully admit that I personally do enjoy reading about military campaigns myself but to claim that such a mindset ("war makes history interesting") applies to everyone is wrong. To use your question as an example I like to read about Justinian for Belisarius's campaigns as much as for the colorful personalities of his court (such as his wife Theodora), not to mention his other achievements (most notably the Corpus Juris Civilis).

[Lord Varys]

10 hours ago, The Grey Wolf said:

On Theon: If we go by your assertion then nothing from that same time period regarding the Lannister, Gardner, and Durrandon kings can be accepted either which doesn't work since we aren't given any reason to doubt Yandel in any of those cases.

Indeed, we should not buy all that stuff about the very ancient historical figures. They might be some truth to the magical aspects of it, but it is quite clear that a lot of stuff would have been embellished overtime, especially when the sources are songs and the pious tales of septons.

10 hours ago, The Grey Wolf said:

On Reforms: Seriously?! Seriously?! Now you are just trolling. WHO the F***** do you think those law reforms helped?! Because it was most definitely NOT the nobles or the clergy!

It would depend. I'm not an expert on the history of the English monarchy, nor it's legal reforms.

10 hours ago, The Grey Wolf said:

On the Marches: There are a lot of gaps in TWOIAF so your assertion that if there had been recent Dornish aggression we should have heard of it doesn't amount to much in my mind sorry. I mean the First AND Third Blackfyre Rebellion get scant mention not to mention the other important wars like RR.

Those are not comparable. Daeron's war is an irrelevant historical event, not likely to be reassessed or discussed in detail in the future books of the series. The Third Blackfyre Rebellion and Robert's Rebellion (and perhaps even the First Blackfyre Rebellion if Bran and Bloodraven talk about it) will be covered by future Dunk and Egg stories as well as the main series (in flashbacks, memories, and discussions).

If a Dornish aggression led to the Conquest of Dorne it would have been mentioned. Instead we get a young Targaryen king who simply hungry for war.

10 hours ago, The Grey Wolf said:

On War: If humans were capable of living without war we wouldn't need government either so again I find your premise flawed given the fallibility of human nature.

Don't governments conduct wars? As an institution they don't prevent them. Look, I don't know whether war can or will disappear, but I see no reason to believe it is in any way advancing civilization aside from, perhaps, primitive weapon technology.

10 hours ago, The Grey Wolf said:

Also, Robert was WORSE than Aerys?! WTF?! Which one of them got themselves deposed in a bloody civil war? Furthermore, the books are also not anti-war in that alongside showing the horror of it they also show that some wars ARE worth fighting.

Aerys II's government wasn't as corrupt and rotten as Robert Baratheon's. The man went mad in the end, but he didn't went out butchering thousands of peasants (like Maegor the Cruel did), he was only a danger to those stupid nobles who hang out at his court (or wronged him). The average peasant in the Crownlands would have had a happy life under Aerys.

Robert beggared the Crown, put a lot of ambitious schemers in powerful position, knowing fully well that they were corrupt - and didn't care. That is the very embodiment of a bad king. In turn, he set the stage for a huge civil war by neither keeping his wife, Hand, or brothers in check.

What kind of wars are worth fighting for in Westeros? The War for the Dawn, perhaps, but even that has a bad taste to it considering that the Others might just be tools the Children created to prevent the holocaust the First Men committed against them.

All the wars in the five books of the series are utterly pointless. Ned should have stayed at home, and the Lannisters and Starks shouldn't have allowed things to escalate between them. Stannis and Renly trying to kill each other are stupid, the Ironborn are disgusting as a culture (as are the Dothraki). The only ruler truly caring about his people in this series so far is Doran Martell. He actually thinks before he acts, and tries not to make his people - the common people of Dorne - bleed for his ambitions and desires.

10 hours ago, The Grey Wolf said:

On Robb: What should he have done then? Even if he didn't declare himself king he STILL had to fight for the Riverlands. They were his mother's people and had been unjustly attacked!

I agree that he was justified in doing that. Although he wasn't forced to do that. Lysa stayed at home, after all, and nobody complained. But it is clear that the culture Robb was raised in demanded that he try to free his father or avenge him, that's clear. But as Catelyn said, there was no need for him to lead the armies personally.

But once he crowned himself everything went to hell. He could not possibly hope to hold that kingdom of his and must have known that. That whole thing raised the stakes too much, making it much more difficult to find other allies against the Lannisters.

10 hours ago, The Grey Wolf said:

On Freys: Don't buy that. Tywin isn't some god. He had by that point made himself hated by a large portion of the 7K and the idea that the people of the Riverlands or the North would EVER forgive or forget the RW as well as everything else he'd done to them is beyond stupid. Not to mention Tywin wasn't young when he died.

If Tywin had lived another ten years or so things would have looked much different by then. And the Frey problem could easily have resolved itself after Lord Walder's eventual death. That could very well mean the quick end of the house even without outside help.

10 hours ago, The Grey Wolf said:

On Rickon: Again given that Rickon was so important to the North the idea that he rode south WITHOUT permission does not make sense.

Again, if he was already at court when the plans were made (and Cregan was not) then this could have led to him doing what the hell he wanted.

10 hours ago, The Grey Wolf said:

On Kings: The sanctity of the king does not matter to the people?! Do you even READ the bloody books?! The following is straight from the text:

"The immediate response to the news from Duskendale was shock, then outrage"

"Lord Denys instead sent word that, if any attempt was made to break his walls, he would put His Grace to death. Some in the small council questioned this, declaring that no son of Westeros would ever dare commit such a heinous crime"

"The Darklyns had dared lay hands upon his person, shoving him roughly, stripping him of his royal raiment, even daring to strike him."

The law that the limb that strikes someone of royal blood must be forfeited as mentioned in THK

I know all that, but the sanctity of kings isn't the same as obeying the king, right? Especially if the king is unconscious. The idea that nobody could have begun a war with Dorne while Prince Viserys was effectively king makes no sense. If Viserys had wanted to continue the war he could have done so. Just as other lords could have done behind his back.

10 hours ago, The Grey Wolf said:

On Tyrell: Theo's father was NOT murdered is a KEY difference as is the fact the Tyrells had JUST gained Highgarden and their position was far from secure. In the case of Lyonel things are entirely DIFFERENT. Lyonel was painfully murdered in his bed not to mention the Tyrells had stood at the right hand side of the Young Dragon and profited the most from that.

The Tyrells had the backing of the Conqueror and his dragons. Nobody was taking Highgarden from them even if people where complaining. And we 

10 hours ago, The Grey Wolf said:

On Wyman: Considering their personalities and the RW I'm not at all inclined to feel any sympathy for those three Freys.

I don't feel sympathy for them, either, but I still don't think the fat man is a hero for having his men butchering three defenseless men, feeding them to their relatives and in-laws, and gorging himself on a lot of their meat, too. That is both creepy and disgusting.

And keep in mind that these Freys weren't the architects of the Red Wedding. They participated in it, to be sure, but not in key positions. Do you think Merrett Frey deserved to die the way he did? I'm not so sure about that.

10 hours ago, The Grey Wolf said:

On Peace Banners: YOU may think it is stupid but anyone living in Westeros or has bothered to study RL history would tell you that is a STUPID opinion. If the peace banner cannot be trusted then negotiations are NOT possible NOR is surrender of any kind, which is different way of saying that the conflict automatically becomes a total war of annihilation, which is NOT the norm. The sanctity of the peace banner IS along with hospitality and diplomatic immunity one of THE oldest and serious tenets of war. Even TODAY the Geneva Conventions allow for some pretty harsh retaliatory measures for misusing it!

I know that peace banners are important in our world, but there are no Geneva Conventions in Westeros. Nothing indicates that killing somebody under a peace banner is as worse as, say, breaking guest right (for the First Men) or kinslaying. These two are major taboos. In fact, mistreating messengers is rather common in Westeros. Just look how Daemon and Aemond treat messengers bringing them bad news, or go back and check out all that betrayals the early Andals in Westeros committed. Just look how Ramsay treated Rodrik Cassel. Nothing indicates he is especially hated for that.

10 hours ago, The Grey Wolf said:

On the Faith Militant: The smallfolk are decidedly more pious I'll grant but my point is that far too often I find people like you treat the smallfolk as though they can't have any agency or will of their own which is wrong as can be seen in two examples. Again the Battle of Stonebridge and the fact that when a new High Septon was chosen in 44 AC the Faith Militant defied him and continued fighting Maegor.

Not sure if I follow you here but I'm not saying the smallfolk has no will of its own. They are no collective body, of course, there are movements among them as are there among the nobles, and the sparrows right now are one of those.

I honestly don't think the new High Septon was *really* in Maegor's camp. He submitted to him and paid lip service to him but I expect that the Faith Militant continued its war because they knew they were fighting a just and holy crusade.

10 hours ago, The Grey Wolf said:

On Hunter-Gatherer: Yes to your question.

From what little I know about civilization the whole agriculture thing played a much larger role. I know a lot about Egyptian history, actually, and they essentially invented the concept of state, but most of their early conflicts were fought with half-naked men fighting on foot using clubs. What allowed them to build their state was a stable seasonal cycle and the ability to actually make reasonably good predictions on the harvest they could expect to collect each year.

10 hours ago, The Grey Wolf said:

On Nymeria: My point was she didn't conquer Dorne because part of her army happened to be Dornish. And those water witches would have been damn important. In a desert being able to make dry streams flow with water capable of sustaining a population is serious business.

Still, I don't think that played a role in the wars. Rather in making the entire land somewhat more fertile.

10 hours ago, The Grey Wolf said:

On What's Interesting: That's totally YOUR opinion. I will fully admit that I personally do enjoy reading about military campaigns myself but to claim that such a mindset ("war makes history interesting") applies to everyone is wrong. To use your question as an example I like to read about Justinian for Belisarius's campaigns as much as for the colorful personalities of his court (such as his wife Theodora), not to mention his other achievements (most notably the Corpus Juris Civilis).

Sure, Justinian is an interesting figure in his own right. But the main reason he remains interesting, I'd say, is that he nearly reconquered the entire western empire. Rome itself is mainly interesting because it was an expansionist empire which was at war with its neighbors nearly its entire existence.

[Dorian Martell's son]

On 3/12/2017 at 8:20 AM, Jon's Queen Consort said:

QFT. There is no proof that Viserys would had done anything else.

Also does this means op because you don't agree with the King's actions the line of succession should change?

I find it more than a little conceited that people assume they somehow know the story better than the author 

[Lion of the West]

On 2017-03-11 at 2:58 PM, Lord Varys said:

Well, peace is preferable to war because in war people die.

People die in peace as well. In fact a significant number of people can be killed and its still called peace.

Quote

Not for the people involved, though. Is it worth to kill people to save other people? Perhaps, but wars are usually not fought to prevent some genocides. And those who are usually don't prevent them.

Except that there are reasons strong enough to make people volunterily enter wars, even while these reasons can change over time, the fact is that many people are ready to give their lives for something they believe in by entering into a war. For good or worse. Secondly I agree that war seldom prevent genocide, there are many better alternatives to preventive work. But when a genocide is being carried out, there are few things as effective as war to stop it.

On 2017-03-11 at 2:58 PM, Lord Varys said:

Sure, that is why I said Aegon's Conquest is just as unjustified as Daeron's Conquest. On that ground Aegon's Conquest was less worse than Daeron's because the latter caused the death of more men.

Thank you for this clarification.

On 2017-03-11 at 2:58 PM, Lord Varys said:

That is how history usually judges warmongers, though. Napoleon is a great guy because had a lot of success and sort of lost honorably. Hitler not so much. Alexander and Augustus are great guys because they waged successful wars and won them.

Not really. Napoleon is seen as better than Hitler due to unbelivable transgressions and atrocities by Hitler's soldiers and allies. Same as why Willheilm II generally isn't considered as bad as Hitler, because he rather simply was not as bad as Hitler, at least to my knowledge.

And to this I'd like to point out that there are many, many reasons to judge one warlord this way or that. Edward "Longshanks" for example is unlikely to be judged the same by English and Scottish historians due to their national perspective while in my own country there's king we call "the tyrant" while he is known as "dear to the people" to our neighbours in the south. And then comes personal prejudice and bias and so on. Success in war is seldom enough to garantee fame among historians, and that becomes more true the closer you are in the timeline.

Even if I will agree that its an important step in one's own country.

On 2017-03-11 at 2:58 PM, Lord Varys said:

The resistance to the Targaryen rule in the days where there still was a resistance came from the nobility and the leadership of the Faith (i.e. the elite of Westeros) not the common people. You see this in Gyldayn's account on the Conquest (with the commoners cheering the loudest at Aegon's coronation) as well as the popularity of the Conqueror and Rhaenys among the smallfolk.

Not really. Its rather clear that the Targaryens went a long way in order to make their rule become smooth for the nobility while few concessions or rights were ever granted to the smallfolk, in fact I can't think of a single thing that Aegon or his sisters even did for the smallfolk beyond the unification that would have prevented more wars between the former kings but that can't be seen as directed to the smallfolk specifically. The nobles on the other hand were pretty much uniformly assured of their previous power and standing. When the smallfolk cheer I can see a love in that the constant wars had come to and end, but I don't see some deeper love for the Targaryens but fear mixed with wonder. Its always well for the weak ones to be on friendly terms with the strongest kid on the block.

On 2017-03-11 at 2:58 PM, Lord Varys said:

'The Sons of the Dragons' makes it clear that the Faith Militant (still a very powerful faction in those days) effectively blackmailed a lot of people into denouncing the Targaryens, both smallfolk and lords included (they ran around a threatened the Targaryen loyalists). If you lived in the South it might have been very dangerous even for a more powerful lord to count the Faith Militant amongst your enemies, especially if a chapter of the Warrior's Sons was in a town near your castle. Not to mention that those Poor Fellows were running around everywhere.

 Except that's some thirty years after the Conquest when King's Landing would have been established, if not the largest city on the continent. Its rather clear there were no Poor Fellows running around in King's Landing during the life of Aegon I.

On 2017-03-11 at 2:58 PM, Lord Varys said:

If the populace hadn't welcomed the Targaryen rule nobody would have cared that their lords and kings had submitted to Aegon. The war would have continued just as it did in Dorne. Three dragons cannot conquer or hold a continent if nobody recognizes the power of the would-be conqueror. I mean, just look at the North. What would have happened if Torrhen had returned to Winterfell and decided not to pay any taxes? Aegon could have destroyed the castles up there but he would never have gotten enough men to ever control the North with an occupying force. The North accepted the Targaryens as their kings, just as all the other kingdoms did.

I have to disagree. If the people of Westeros didn't welcome the Targaryens, then knights, men-at-arms and dragons would have used whatever force they felt were necessary to force the smallfolk into subjugation as the lords did accept the Targaryens. To my knowledge the Dornish nobility never accepted the Targaryens and it would have been an entirely different ballgame in Dorne if the nobles were with the Dragon.

As for the North I would imagine that first the dragons would have burned every major seat in the land, then the winter would have swept in with most storehouses gone and so with the produce, and then the Targaryens could start to mob up the pitiful survivors who still wanted to fight.

On 2017-03-11 at 2:58 PM, Lord Varys said:

Dornishmen can conquer Dornishmen, apparently. The Rhoynar intermarried with Mors' people. They did not conquer them.

Eh, yes, the Rhoynar totally conquered Dorne. Its a matter of strategy, tactics, diplomacy and logistics to counter Dorne, not color of skin or feelings of with whom you belong.

[Lord Varys]

4 minutes ago, LionoftheWest said:

People die in peace as well. In fact a significant number of people can be killed and its still called peace.

That isn't an argument. You will die, too. Does this give me the right to kill you?

4 minutes ago, LionoftheWest said:

Except that there are reasons strong enough to make people volunterily enter wars, even while these reasons can change over time, the fact is that many people are ready to give their lives for something they believe in by entering into a war. For good or worse. Secondly I agree that war seldom prevent genocide, there are many better alternatives to preventive work. But when a genocide is being carried out, there are few things as effective as war to stop it.

People believe in all kind of crap, that doesn't mean it is justified.

Which genocides were prevented by war, exactly? Give me an example. The Allies could have prevented holocaust we committed against the European Jews. But they actually did not. They did neither bomb the camps and gas chambers nor the train routes which were used to deliver millions of people to their graves.

4 minutes ago, LionoftheWest said:

Not really. Napoleon is seen as better than Hitler due to unbelivable transgressions and atrocities by Hitler's soldiers and allies. Same as why Willheilm II generally isn't considered as bad as Hitler, because he rather simply was not as bad as Hitler, at least to my knowledge.

Wilhelm II didn't really lead the war himself. He essentially became a puppet shortly after the war had begun. The War (and Germany itself) was more or less in the hands of the army and the other high-ranking people in the administration.

I'm pretty sure Hitler would be a hero of the German people (and a pretty successful statesmen in the eyes of many European historians) had he won the war and crushed the Russians. 

4 minutes ago, LionoftheWest said:

And to this I'd like to point out that there are many, many reasons to judge one warlord this way or that. Edward "Longshanks" for example is unlikely to be judged the same by English and Scottish historians due to their national perspective while in my own country there's king we call "the tyrant" while he is known as "dear to the people" to our neighbours in the south. And then comes personal prejudice and bias and so on. Success in war is seldom enough to garantee fame among historians, and that becomes more true the closer you are in the timeline.

From where are you, exactly?

Usually successful rulers who win wars enter are praised more on average than those who suck at the job and lose wars. The survivors of the peoples they subdue or destroy won't be their fans, of course, but even there people tend to consider such people as great enemy leaders, etc.

But that is just a tendency both among contemporary (i.e. medieval or ancient) or modern historians.

4 minutes ago, LionoftheWest said:

Not really. Its rather clear that the Targaryens went a long way in order to make their rule become smooth for the nobility while few concessions or rights were ever granted to the smallfolk, in fact I can't think of a single thing that Aegon or his sisters even did for the smallfolk beyond the unification that would have prevented more wars between the former kings but that can't be seen as directed to the smallfolk specifically.

What about the Rule of the Six? I don't think many lords beat their lady wives to death. The common men did.

We don't know of any other things but what little evidence we have is that the Targaryens of the first generation - especially Aegon and Rhaenys, but Aenys, too, while the Faith had not yet denounced him - were very popular and loved by the smallfolk. Yandel makes it clear that the Conqueror seems to have had the easiest time on the Iron Throne.

4 minutes ago, LionoftheWest said:

The nobles on the other hand were pretty much uniformly assured of their previous power and standing.

Just because they were allowed to keep their lands and titles doesn't mean they actually had a lot of power in comparison to the Iron Throne and the king's favorites at court. Far to the contrary, actually. The Arryns, Starks, and Lannisters were once kings but now reduced to nothing but country lords, essentially. Decisions were made in KL and neither the Starks nor the Lannisters had the ear of any Targaryen king in the first century (the Arryns did).

4 minutes ago, LionoftheWest said:

When the smallfolk cheer I can see a love in that the constant wars had come to and end, but I don't see some deeper love for the Targaryens but fear mixed with wonder. Its always well for the weak ones to be on friendly terms with the strongest kid on the block.

The love (or acceptance) of the common people is the deciding factor for any monarchy. If the people are against you - and you have no standing army to slaughter them by the thousands - you basically have no kingdom. Lords, on the other hand, can be replaced. The base of their power are their common people, too, and if the king has their love they are no threat.

4 minutes ago, LionoftheWest said:

 Except that's some thirty years after the Conquest when King's Landing would have been established, if not the largest city on the continent. Its rather clear there were no Poor Fellows running around in King's Landing during the life of Aegon I.

Sure there were. Nothing indicates they were not welcome in the city. The Warrior's Sons even had a chapter of their order in the Sept of Remembrance.

KL would never have grown as quickly as it did if the Targaryens hadn't become popular in the entire Realm rather quickly after the end of the wars. There was no city there at first, and the prospect to prosper there would first have to be there (i.e. some people would have to go there and tell people that things are great there) before others jumped the bandwagon. And we know that a town grew around the Aegonsfort even while the Wars of Conquest continued, before Aegon even made the decision to make it his permanent seat.

4 minutes ago, LionoftheWest said:

I have to disagree. If the people of Westeros didn't welcome the Targaryens, then knights, men-at-arms and dragons would have used whatever force they felt were necessary to force the smallfolk into subjugation as the lords did accept the Targaryens.

The men-at-arms are common people. It is entirely out of the question that a small elite conducts an all-out total war against a vast majority in the land just out of some weird loyalty to some new regime. Such loyalty could get them killed. Do you think the Lannisters, Starks, Arryns, and all the other lords are safe in their houses if their servant decide to pay them a visit in their bedchamber?

4 minutes ago, LionoftheWest said:

To my knowledge the Dornish nobility never accepted the Targaryens and it would have been an entirely different ballgame in Dorne if the nobles were with the Dragon.

You are mistaken. The Dornish nobility submitted to Daeron I, and handed over hostages. They accepted the Targaryen rule. But their smallfolk did not. During Aegon's days the Dornish nobles did not submit.

4 minutes ago, LionoftheWest said:

As for the North I would imagine that first the dragons would have burned every major seat in the land, then the winter would have swept in with most storehouses gone and so with the produce, and then the Targaryens could start to mob up the pitiful survivors who still wanted to fight.

A holocaust would always be possible with the support of enough dragons, but just as Daemon Targaryen could teach you - 'we want to rule King's Landing, not burn it down'. The Targaryens could have cleaned the Iron Islands or the North of most its inhabitants but that would have been costly, cruel, and completely unprofitable enterprise. One that most likely would have led to a general rebellion like Maegor's mad and cruel rule did.

[OtherFromAnotherMother]

3 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

You will die, too. Does this give me the right to kill you?

Taken out if context, this is the funniest thing I've read today. 

Just wanted to say thanks for that. 

[Lord Varys]

13 minutes ago, OtherFromAnotherMother said:

Taken out if context, this is the funniest thing I've read today. 

Just wanted to say thanks for that. 

You are welcome. I try to be funny. It does not always work.