What was Tywin thinking?

[Lost Melnibonean]

8 hours ago, Ser Loras The Gay said:

I think the most luck Twyin had was the plan Tyrion had at the blackwater battle. If not for Tyrion KL would be Stannis's. Sure, after that he could try and siege the city but Stannis would have the advantage of having the North and the riverlands trying to kill all the lannisters on sight.

And Petyr. Without the Tyrell-Lannister alliance, Tywin would have crossed the Red Fork, and Stannis would have taken King's Landing. 

[devilish]

2 hours ago, Shouldve Taken The Black said:

This was certainly true to a point, but as soon as he heard that the Riverlands were in danger he put aside the squabble and went to fight for the Tullys.

If you had to compare three ‘kids’ in the war of 5 kings then the Northern co-alition had the best 2 of them. Robb was a military child prodigy who could lead men to battle. Edmure wasn’t that great, but he was a kind soul, who is humble enough to obey his seniors.  I take Edmure and Robb over Joffrey every time.

The difference between the Young wolf/the young trout and the cub was the quality of the people around them. In Tywin & Tyrion, Joffrey had the ideal mentors who were able to stop him from doing silly things for most of the time.  Edmure and Robb were less lucky. 

Hoster should have sent Edmure as a ward to the North, were he would have learnt a thing or two in terms of military strategy. The old trout should have never taunted Walder Frey especially since he was one of his most powerful banner men + he could stop the North from providing relief to the Riverlands. The toll paid by Robb was embarrassing and had a huge influence on how the war would evolve later on.

The black fish should have married the Redywne girl and he should have been around his nephew during this transition stage. You might say, that Lysa was pretty much in the same position of Edmure but it isn’t the case. The Vale is fort knox ie its self-sustainable + its nearly impossible to invade. The Riverlands are nearly impossible to defend and Edmure had no military experience. You might say the same about Benjen Stark who seem to be itching to join the freezing wall rather than serve Eddard and his children as a good Stark should do.

To conclude it would be unfair not to mention the two biggest idiots of all ie Ned and Cat. What the hell they were thinking? Cat caused a diplomatic disaster by kidnapping Tyrion which lead to her husband being wounded and brought the lion’s rage over the Riverlands. She didn’t even bothered warning her brother at all and by taking the imp to the Vale she nearly involved the Vale into this mess. You’d expect that she would learn from her mistake but no. She releases Jamie because of some stupid promise which caused yet another diplomatic scandal that saw Robb losing the faith of his bannermen. 
Ned takes the biscuit though. He singlehandedly killed his king and caused the war by warning Cersei about his plans. Surely he must have known that the lioness would not go down without a fight. The accusations he raised were simply too big for her not to react to them.

Ah and I almost forgot how no one told Robb that it would be silly for a boy with merely 20k army to put a crown on his head. 

[Shouldve Taken The Black]

15 minutes ago, devilish said:

The black fish should have married the Redywne girl and he should have been around his nephew during this transition stage.

We don’t know the reasons Blackfish had for rejecting marriage, but I, like many others, suspect he is gay; if that’s the case I don’t think it would be right to simply insist he should have got married. Where he puts his one eyed fish is his business.

[devilish]

2 minutes ago, Shouldve Taken The Black said:

We don’t know the reasons Blackfish had for rejecting marriage, but I, like many others, suspect he is gay; if that’s the case I don’t think it would be right to simply insist he should have got married. Where he puts his one eyed fish is his business.

 

Its medieval times dude. People rarely married out of love or attraction. As a Tully he should know that more then everybody else. 

[Shouldve Taken The Black]

Just now, devilish said:

Its medieval times dude. People rarely married out of love or attraction. As a Tully he should know that more then everybody else.

Still, can't blame him for turning a marriage down he didn't like, I say fair-play to him. Part of the blame (if there is blame to be doled out) surely should rest with Hoster. If he'd let Blackfish remain in "confirmed bachelor" status at Riverrun, then all you think should have happened would have.

[devilish]

9 minutes ago, Shouldve Taken The Black said:

Still, can't blame him for turning a marriage down he didn't like, I say fair-play to him. Part of the blame (if there is blame to be doled out) surely should rest with Hoster. If he'd let Blackfish remain in "confirmed bachelor" status at Riverrun, then all you think should have happened would have.

I still think that Black fish should have fulfilled his duty. Being a nobleman is not just about eating good food, go to war with the best armour and sword and bully the LP son around. They also had commitments

 
I don’t want to deviate but I agree with you regarding Hoster. From the little we know about him, he seem to be quite an arse. He pissed off Walder, he pissed of the black fish, he never found time to teach Edmure anything and he forced Lysa to commit abortion. He even didn’t commit his troops until old Arryn agreed to marry his daughter and then he had the cheek to criticise Walder for not joining the war because there was nothing for him to gain out of it.
 

[Trigger Warning]

10 hours ago, Ser Loras The Gay said:

I think the most luck Twyin had was the plan Tyrion had at the blackwater battle. If not for Tyrion KL would be Stannis's. Sure, after that he could try and siege the city but Stannis would have the advantage of having the North and the riverlands trying to kill all the lannisters on sight.

He still has to capture the city and the citadel which is a formidable castle in itself. He'd likely still be ferrying troops across the Blackwater when the relief army arrived and in an even worse position to turn them away, likely with a significant portion of his army out of control, there's no guarantee that he would have seized the Red Keep before Tywin arrived and even if he did he's in a city that's already starving as well as having just been breached and assaulted and in no position to withstand a siege. He can't even have the food to feed his own men since Renly's supply train wasn't at Storm's End.  His best option would be to get back on his ships and withdraw before the Redywne fleet is unleashed. 

If anything the luck here is that Stannis went straight for King's Landing rather than campaigning to secure himself better in the Stormlands and Reach. As soon as he reached the walls he was sitting on the anvil ready for the Lannister/Tyrell hammer stroke to fall. 

 

[devilish]

1 hour ago, Trigger Warning said:

He still has to capture the city and the citadel which is a formidable castle in itself. He'd likely still be ferrying troops across the Blackwater when the relief army arrived and in an even worse position to turn them away, likely with a significant portion of his army out of control, there's no guarantee that he would have seized the Red Keep before Tywin arrived and even if he did he's in a city that's already starving as well as having just been breached and assaulted and in no position to withstand a siege. He can't even have the food to feed his own men since Renly's supply train wasn't at Storm's End.  His best option would be to get back on his ships and withdraw before the Redywne fleet is unleashed. 

If anything the luck here is that Stannis went straight for King's Landing rather than campaigning to secure himself better in the Stormlands and Reach. As soon as he reached the walls he was sitting on the anvil ready for the Lannister/Tyrell hammer stroke to fall. 

 

TBF he didn't had much of a choice. After Renly died, the Tyrells became a panicked giant who fled at the sight of a mouse. Soon enough they would have noticed that Stannis has only a 20k army and that they could wipe that at any time of the week.

Stannis only choice was to exploit created by Renly's dead and go for the jagular. His plan was to get as many hostages as possible to force Tywin to bend the knee. Its pretty much the same (failed) tactic Tywin used when he assaulted the Riverlands.

 

[Trigger Warning]

14 hours ago, devilish said:

TBF he didn't had much of a choice. After Renly died, the Tyrells became a panicked giant who fled at the sight of a mouse. Soon enough they would have noticed that Stannis has only a 20k army and that they could wipe that at any time of the week.

Stannis only choice was to exploit created by Renly's dead and go for the jagular. His plan was to get as many hostages as possible to force Tywin to bend the knee. Its pretty much the same (failed) tactic Tywin used when he assaulted the Riverlands.

 

I think the issue is more that it's a book and a realistic depiction of warfare is pretty boring, especially European middle ages warfare. If he wanted to he could just march here and there capturing a few castles, raiding, burning and damaging the enemies will to fight. With such a numerical advantage he'd likely just try to avoid battle with the Tyrells as is typical and they'd have to split their army to even have a hope of catching him. 

In the end he'd probably lose because of that overwhelming advantage and the tenuous morale and loyalty of his men but it's still less risky than betting everything on one siege with an enemy army in the field and another possibly enemy army in the field as well and because ultimately the Royal Family could just leave before he gets there. 

To be fair he did have a strange woman telling him he was fire jesus and wouldn't lose. 

[devilish]

3 hours ago, Trigger Warning said:

I think the issue is more that it's a book and a realistic depiction of warfare is pretty boring, especially European middle ages warfare. If he wanted to he could just march here and there capturing a few castles, raiding, burning and damaging the enemies will to fight. With such a numerical advantage he'd likely just try to avoid battle with the Tyrells as is typical and they'd have to split their army to even have a hope of catching him. 

In the end he'd probably lose because of that overwhelming advantage and the tenuous morale and loyalty of his men but it's still less risky than betting everything on one siege with an enemy army in the field and another possibly enemy army in the field as well and because ultimately the Royal Family could just leave before he gets there. 

To be fair he did have a strange woman telling him he was fire jesus and wouldn't lose. 

I don’t like Stannis. I think that he singlehandedly ruined the rebellion and that he’s being used by the Great Other to pile as many bodies as possible for the others to resurrect. 

However, given the circumstances in that particular scenario he didn’t had much of a choice. He had a tiny army, with dubious loyalty and he was surrounded by stronger enemies.  In many ways, he was worse of then Robert with the latter having less troops directly loyal to him but who could rely on the backing of the Vale, the North and the Riverlands. 

In my opinion he had 5 choices

a- He could bend the knee to Joffrey and hope for the best. The Tyrells would protest against it but if the lions are wise enough they would see that as an opportunity not to be too dependent on the Rose

b- Wage a war of attrition. Dig his heels deep within the Stormlands and make the death of each of his soldiers count. He will still lose but he’ll make the lions bleed

c- Flee to Essos and become a sort of Baratheon version of the GC. I doubt many would follow him though

d- Renly’s death caused a collapse in power. New alliances would need to be forged after that. He could use that panic to quickly invade KL and get his hands on as many hostages as he can. That might break the old lion’s back who would risk seeing his children’s and grandchildren’s heads on a spike if he dares reconquer KL.

e- Seal a deal with Robb possibly using Lord Manderly as intermediary. Sail to White Harbor and release Moat Cailin, opening the route for the young wolf to set things in order at home. The North would have a huge debt to pay towards Stannis and a grateful Robb could, one day, fight for Stannis claim to the IT.
 

I don't understand Stannis TBH. His wife who can barely bear any children and he's got 1 daughter whose sick. I can understand his fight against the Lannisters but why committing kinslaying for a crown he can never take? His best chance was to bend the knee to Renly in exchange for the Stormlands and possibly a good matchup for his little girl (Loras?). He would have died as an Lord of his ancestral home and knowing that Lady Shireen will be safe and free for the rest of her life

[Lady Blizzardborn]

Tywin is pretty awesome in many ways, but you're giving him way too much credit. He did not know what was up with Stannis. He may or may not have been aware that Stannis went to Dragonstone, and if he did know it he probably thought Stannis was being moody, as Stannis does, and brooding over some imagined insult or Robert's unwillingness to follow his suggestions (which to be fair is entirely on point as Robert wouldn't listen to Stannis about Slynt et al).

There's no reason Tywin in Casterly Rock would know what all is going on in King's Landing. There's no reason he would suspect the twincest when his wife took such pains to make sure he didn't know that the twins were messing around during childhood. If he did have any inklings, he would have gone into major denial or killed Jaime and Cersei because he of all people would think twincest = Targaryen.

There's really no reason to suspect Renly will make a play for the throne. 

There's no reason to expect Robb to rebel if Ned stays alive, and as you said he didn't know Joffrey was going to be so monumentally stupid. Hoster Tully is an old man. He never did rebel.

He also didn't know what the Iron Islands or the Vale would do. Case in point: the Vale has stayed out of all if it.

Tywin was not a mind-reader. The raiding in the Riverlands was in response to Tyrion's arrest by Catelyn.

The wars didn't start until Joffrey executed Ned. That made the North rising inevitable. Stannis was the only one Tywin was worried about until Robb started kicking his army all over the battlefields and captured Jaime. Tywin had no choice but go to war to protect his grandson's right to the throne and the reputation of House Lannister. The best way to kill nasty twincest rumors is to defeat the people spreading them, thus supposedly proving it was always a lie.

[Lord Lannister]

The whole notion to begin with was a limited war, designed to project Lannister strength and increase Lannister influence. Hostilities were initiated when Robert was still king. He had no way of knowing his daughter and grandson would so neatly botch everything by killing Robert and Ned. The Baratheons were a non-factor because he had Robert by the balls with the royal debt. His son was Warden of the East and he Warden of the West. Tywin would spill Tully blood, force them to give Tyrion back(or preferably avenge him), Ned would be disgraced for allowing this to happen and sent back North, and Robert would grant concessions in exchange for ending the hostilities. Likely in the Riverlands along with the appointment of either Jaime or Tywin as Hand, further cementing Westeros in Lannister hands.

[Lord Wraith]

One thing that I don't see mentioned is that Tywin had two sellsword companies on hand at the start of the war. The Brave Companions, and a some Tyroshi sellswords that leave after the Battle of the Whispering Woods. I am not sure what he knew, but he knew something was going to happen.

ALso he had Pycelle giving him information from KL.

[acwill07]

Others have already said it, but the answer is that he didn't intend to fight everyone at once.  In fact, I think initially he only intended to get Tyrion back.  He assumed Ned would ride out from KL with a small force and then he would capture him and sue for peace.  Everything went to shit when Jamie attacked Ned in the streets and hurt his leg, Robert went hunting and died, and Joffrety took off Ned's head.  Those three things caused the entire conflict.  

1.  I Jamie hadn't attacked Ned and hurt his leg, Ned would've rode out from KL himself and been captured.  Then he would've traded Ned for Tyrion and the war would be over before it began.  Hell, if Jamie hadn't hurt Ned and Cersei hadn't been mercilessly berating him, Robert might not have ever gone hunting and been killed.

2.  If Robert doesn't go hunting and die then Stannis nor Renly ever take the field and Highgarden, Storms End, and Dragonstone aren't involved in the conflict.

3.  If Joffrey doesn't cut Ned's head off, then they have him as a poker chip to sue for peace.  Ned (plus the girls) could be exchanged for Jamie and the other captured Lannisters and western Lords.  War still might break out but it wouldn't have been as big of a cluster fvck.

[lancerman]

-he didn't expect Robert to die and leave a power vacuum. 

-he didn't expect Ned to claim Joffrey to be a bastard and now have a question over the line of succession and have the head of the house he was in conflict with to have treason charges levied against him. 

-he didn't expect Robb to be cunning enough to capture Jamie

-Since he didn't expect accusations to be hurled at Joffrey he had no reason to believe that Stannis was in Dragonstone biding his time to make a play for the throne. 

-He didn't expect Joffrey to execute Ned with every single advisor telling him not to. 

-Nobody expected Renly would make a play for the throne until Renly revealed his plan to Ned Stark. 

-Nobody expected Renly to die later on and for Stannis to unify the Stormlands. Before that Stannis was a bit of an empty threat. 

The reality was Tywin was placed in a conflict he didn't anticipate for BEFORE all that happened, and then circumstances changed quickly and radically on him and he was stuck playing the hand he was dealt. Tywin was constantly forced to adapt and change his play. He got lucky, but he needed to be lucky to get out of that situation. His lone advantage was holding Sansa and Arya hostage (which was only partially true) and that was a weaker hand than the Stark's having Jamie. The only figures that gave Tywin legitimacy were making isolated in King's Landing making a mess of the situation.

 

[Shouldve Taken The Black]

5 hours ago, Lord Wraith said:

One thing that I don't see mentioned is that Tywin had two sellsword companies on hand at the start of the war. The Brave Companions, and a some Tyroshi sellswords that leave after the Battle of the Whispering Woods.

I've always been a bit confused about that to be honest. 

At first I thought that the Brave Companions were already in Westros looking for work, and that Tywin just snapped them up when hostilities broke out, but later (I think in ASOS) Jaime refers to Tywin “bringing the Bloody Mummers over the Narrow Sea”, which suggests Tywin hired them and invited them over from Essos.

Either Tywin simply decided they might come in handy and wanted a company of sellswords permanently on retainer, which seems a bit of a waste of money unless he was expecting to put them to use, and the choice of the Bloody Mummers seems very strange if that’s the case, as they’re hardly the kind of company you’d want hanging around Lannisport getting bored; or he expected something to happen.

(Personally I just think that GRRM introduced the Brave Companions and kept how/why they were in Westros vague as it is ultimately unimportant, but the plot hole does bug me a bit).

[Dofs]

10 hours ago, Lady Blizzardborn said:

The wars didn't start until Joffrey executed Ned. That made the North rising inevitable.

This is wrong, the war between the North and Tywin started before Ned's execution. Ned's arrest was the cause of the North rising, not his death.

[Humble Maester]

3 hours ago, Shouldve Taken The Black said:

I've always been a bit confused about that to be honest. 

At first I thought that the Brave Companions were already in Westros looking for work, and that Tywin just snapped them up when hostilities broke out, but later (I think in ASOS) Jaime refers to Tywin “bringing the Bloody Mummers over the Narrow Sea”, which suggests Tywin hired them and invited them over from Essos.

 

Either Tywin simply decided they might come in handy and wanted a company of sellswords permanently on retainer, which seems a bit of a waste of money unless he was expecting to put them to use, and the choice of the Bloody Mummers seems very strange if that’s the case, as they’re hardly the kind of company you’d want hanging around Lannisport getting bored; or he expected something to happen.

 

(Personally I just think that GRRM introduced the Brave Companions and kept how/why they were in Westros vague as it is ultimately unimportant, but the plot hole does bug me a bit).

 

I think the explanation @LionoftheWest presented last page was plausible enough. After Tywin realized that Ned Stark, whom he knew was a man with strong dislike for Lannisters and himself in particular, was about to become the Hand of the King, he might had, just in case, enlisted some mercenaries to bolster his troops. It's not as if Tywin was wanting for gold. I guess that's more or less in-line with what you are hypothesizing too.

That is, indeed, if we want to figure out an in-universe explanation and not a meta one, which might be more accurate

[Shouldve Taken The Black]

5 minutes ago, Humble Maester said:

I think the explanation @LionoftheWest presented last page was plausible enough. After Tywin realized that Ned Stark, whom he knew was a man with strong dislike for Lannisters and himself in particular, was about to become the Hand of the King, he might had, just in case, enlisted some mercenaries to bolster his troops. It's not as if Tywin was wanting for gold. I guess that's more or less in-line with what you are hypothesizing too.

That is, indeed, if we want to figure out an in-universe explanation and not a meta one, which might be more accurate

Yeah, that’s a perfectly plausible explanation. Or, another reasonable one is that Tywin found out that the Brave Companions were on the market, and dirt cheap (due to no-one wanting to hire them because they’re mental); and snatched them up when they became available.

That being said, I do think it a bit of a stretch to think that Tywin would hire the Bloody Mummers “just in case”. Like I said before, they’re probably the worst people in the world to keep hanging about until some trouble, which might or might not happen, happens. In the brief month or two they were kicking their heels, random stabbings in Lannisport probably trebled.

[Humble Maester]

5 minutes ago, Shouldve Taken The Black said:

Yeah, that’s a perfectly plausible explanation. Or, another reasonable one is that Tywin found out that the Brave Companions were on the market, and dirt cheap (due to no-one wanting to hire them because they’re mental); and snatched them up when they became available.

 

That being said, I do think it a bit of a stretch to think that Tywin would hire the Bloody Mummers “just in case”. Like I said before, they’re probably the worst people in the world to keep hanging about until some trouble, which might or might not happen, happens. In the brief month or two they were kicking their heels, random stabbings in Lannisport probably trebled.

Well we know Tywin is the kind of man willing to use all sorts of tools for different kinds of jobs and Mummers would probably be very good to use for chevauchee, especially if he wanted to maintain some deniability there. It takes a special kind of man to butcher countless civilians after all.

I do agree that he wouldn't most likely want to keep the Mummers around in Lannisport for longer periods of times. Maybe they were camped somewhere under the command of some Western lord to keep them out of major trouble. They might be an unruly bunch but I'd assume they are capable of taking very basic of military orders if under direct control of those whom hired them.

E: all of this conjecture, of course.