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SPOILERS Why didn't Roose/Ramsay crown himself king?


TheSerb

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When Roose betrayed Robb and made a deal with Tywin, he was named Warden of the North and the North was returned to the rule of the Iron Throne. After Tywin is killed, Roose makes a deal with Littlefinger and marries Ramsay and Sansa, therefore rebelling against the Iron Throne. My question is, why did he continue to bear the title of Warden and not crown himself King in the North? You could say that Roose didn't want to piss off other houses in the North even further, but Ramsay just didn't give a fuck about such things anyway, so when he killed Roose, why did he continue being Warden even though his ties to the crown were severed?

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That probably would've probably sped up the provocation - it's one thing for Cersei/whoever to go "he broke our contract, I want his head", but if he just flat out challenges the IT's kingship they're gonna send their well-supplied army on WF a lot sooner.

And Ramsay was expecting to defeat the rebellion and get Sansa back, which would've made him better prepared to face the Lannisters.

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On Wed Apr 19 2017 at 3:50 PM, Pink Fat Rast said:

That probably would've probably sped up the provocation - it's one thing for Cersei/whoever to go "he broke our contract, I want his head", but if he just flat out challenges the IT's kingship they're gonna send their well-supplied army on WF a lot sooner.

And Ramsay was expecting to defeat the rebellion and get Sansa back, which would've made him better prepared to face the Lannisters.

Also because Roose marrying Ramsay to Sansa in open rebellion never made sense in the first place, but is easier for a casual fan to not get caught up on unlike him calling himself king.

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1 minute ago, Lucius Lovejoy said:

Also because Roose marrying Ramsay to Sansa in open rebellion never made sense in the first place, but is easier for a casual fan to not get caught up on unlike him calling himself king.

Yeah, pretty much this, it was a plot hole.  If you are you going to marry Sansa Stark, wanted for regicide by the IT, you might as well go the full tilt and call yourself King, because the pay back will be the same either way.  But the Sansa Winterfell arc is riddled with plot holes from beginning to end, so there's that.

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14 minutes ago, Cas Stark said:

Yeah, pretty much this, it was a plot hole.  If you are you going to marry Sansa Stark, wanted for regicide by the IT, you might as well go the full tilt and call yourself King, because the pay back will be the same either way.  But the Sansa Winterfell arc is riddled with plot holes from beginning to end, so there's that.

Eh, I'd say calling yourself King is directly challenging the South, which is slightly worse than just marrying their kingslayer - would speed up the retribution or make it an even higher priority for KL.

Could be wrong tho, not sure

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All Roose wanted was a quiet peaceful rule. He might have thought marrying Sansa to Ramsay would appease the North. It clearly pissed off Cersei, but LF convinced her to stand down. It all makes sense IMO. 

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14 minutes ago, dsug said:

All Roose wanted was a quiet peaceful rule. He might have thought marrying Sansa to Ramsay would appease the North. It clearly pissed off Cersei, but LF convinced her to stand down. It all makes sense IMO. 

Roose was clearly expecting Cerse's ary, he wanted the Nothern houses to be loyal to him by that point.

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3 hours ago, dsug said:

All Roose wanted was a quiet peaceful rule. He might have thought marrying Sansa to Ramsay would appease the North. It clearly pissed off Cersei, but LF convinced her to stand down. It all makes sense IMO. 

He knew it would lose him Lannister support.  LF convinced her to stand down because he said he was going to go to WF and bring her Sansa's head and depose the Boltons.  Nothing about it makes sense from start to finish.  Inmyopinion

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2 hours ago, Cas Stark said:

He knew it would lose him Lannister support.  LF convinced her to stand down because he said he was going to go to WF and bring her Sansa's head and depose the Boltons.  Nothing about it makes sense from start to finish.  Inmyopinion

They were all being played.

Roose thought that getting Sansa in his family was worth pissing off Cersei. LF played him by setting him against Cersei.

By going to KL and telling Cersei about Roose's plan, conveniently forgetting he's the one who arranged it, LF was playing Roose.

By convincing Cersei to stand down and allow Stannis and Roose to fight it out, and then let the KOTV come in and take out any survivors, he played Cersei AND Roose. 

By making it look like Sansa had some illusion of choice/agency in the matter, he played Sansa. 

It's all about the chaos. Set everyone against each other. Make false promise and break alliances. And then, once the dust has cleared, Littlefinger is the king of the ashes. Sansa escaping and going to Jon threw a wrench in his plans, clearly, but it was still a decent plan. 

Get the Sansa to depend on you, get the Boltons to depend on you, get Cersei to depend on you. Classic Littlefinger. 

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3 hours ago, dsug said:

They were all being played.

Roose thought that getting Sansa in his family was worth pissing off Cersei. LF played him by setting him against Cersei.

By going to KL and telling Cersei about Roose's plan, conveniently forgetting he's the one who arranged it, LF was playing Roose.

By convincing Cersei to stand down and allow Stannis and Roose to fight it out, and then let the KOTV come in and take out any survivors, he played Cersei AND Roose. 

By making it look like Sansa had some illusion of choice/agency in the matter, he played Sansa. 

It's all about the chaos. Set everyone against each other. Make false promise and break alliances. And then, once the dust has cleared, Littlefinger is the king of the ashes. Sansa escaping and going to Jon threw a wrench in his plans, clearly, but it was still a decent plan. 

Get the Sansa to depend on you, get the Boltons to depend on you, get Cersei to depend on you. Classic Littlefinger. 

I don't remember if it's on the series or in the books but at one point LF tells Sansa that sometimes you have to act against what appears to be your own self interest in order to keep your opponents guessing.

 

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  • 2 months later...

Roose couldn't declare himself king, as his House hasn't had the tradition of kingship and ruling the north that the Starks did.

Roose killing Robb and declaring himself king, would've had the northern houses hurriedly sharpening their daggers in the dark.

It'd be a step too far, but then again, so was the RW imo.

Kill the loved ones of everyone you want to rule over, and then surround yourself with them on all sides. 

Short term gain, long term doom.

 

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Roose Bolton knew better than to try to name himself KITN.  Him marrying Sansa to Ramsay was an attempt to unite the Northern houses under the Bolton banner.  Once he had done that, he may have looked to bigger ambitions.  Then Stannis shows up in the North.  They squash that out, then Ramsay kills Roose.  At that point, Ramsay was only concerned with getting Sansa back and wiping out Jon Snow and his Wildling army.  Roose was too smart to crown himself King, and Ramsay, well he was just being Ramsay...

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What would he gain from declaring himself KiTN at this moment ? Save taxes to the IT ? Otherwise he would rule the same land and the same people.

It would be an empty title, unnecessarily complicating things and Roose is a pragmatic.

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  I see two reasons:

a ) It would give him a higher rank than his ally Littlefinger. Even if Baelish would not care, his bannermen might. Why risk the alliance?

But more important:

b ) He had no dimly illuminated hall, filled with vapor of smoke and ale, attended by a all the northern nobles who give dramatic speeches, eager to kneel and raise the sword, shouting KING IN THE NORTH, KING IN THE NORTH

I mean, without this scenery, where is the style in declaring oneself KiTN? And Smalljon Umber already said "Fuck kneeling". It would have been a boring ceremony.

 

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