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what robb could have done better?


Graydon Hicks

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12 hours ago, Bernie Mac said:

If that is the case I expect you to quote at least two characters who call him a coward.

He outnumbered Stannis as well, how is him marching to battle against Aegon any different than against Stannis?

Do we? We have no idea how long it would have taken Stannis to first breach the walls of Kings Landing and then the Red Keep. He would have won, we just don't know how long it would have taken. Tywin may well have had time to make it before the city was secured. 

I have no idea how to find the quotes. 

Because he would not have a reason and Stannis would be in a better position then Aegon is in now.

The battle of the fords seems to have been 3 days so if Tywin was allowed to go west unchallenged he wouldnt be in range of saving kinds landing. During the sack of kings landing it only took less then a day.

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24 minutes ago, Coolbeard the Exile said:

The battle of the fords seems to have been 3 days so if Tywin was allowed to go west unchallenged he wouldnt be in range of saving kinds landing. During the sack of kings landing it only took less then a day.

You mean when Aerys opened the gates for Tywin? That was quite a bit different from when Stannis was trying to take King's Landing while it was being defended and had it's gates closed. When Tywin took King's Landing it was called a sack instead of a siege for a reason.

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1. Double standards are not awesome. Pardon Catelyn? Pardon Lord Karstark.

2. Keep Theon by your side. His father is out of question after his sons were killed and Theon taken hostage. Come on, this is 101 knowledge, forget politics, forget war. 

3. Shouldn't have crossed the Freys. While they are hated by everyone now, seemed like they respected their part of the deal until Robb broke his promise.

I guess nothing new. While he could've tried to make deals with Renly, Stannis, etc, 1+1 does not equal 2 in war and politics. It wasn't only him in question, but also his own vassals and people, and other Kings' vassals and men. 

Since he was sabotaged by Roose from the very beginning, I think also more intel among the Bolton's men before the war would do him a solid. He is scared by him, but trusted him at the same time. If you ask me, Roose was Robb's huge problem when he called the banners, and should've kept him close, like he should've done with Theon. But this is also such a long shot! 

Man, poor Robb had defeat written all over him when you see all of his circumstances. He is a character made to be sorry about, GRRM did this with him very much on purpose. 

 

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1- Seal an early alliance with Renly/Stannis. Robb doesn't care about the IT so he might as well offer to bend the knee to anyone whose ready to lend him a fleet or/and send an army to save old Hoster. The Riverlands/North need to be secured at one point. Its worth saving the old bugger only to receive a 20k army top up in exchange.

2- Don't close the door to the Lannisters. Make it obvious to Tywin that the North will never bend the knee to Joffrey. However, things can change if lets say Tommen becomes king, the Lannisters pulls out of the Riverland and Ned's bones are returned. The North will be willing to start from scratch with little Tommen by giving their blessing to Sansa-Tommen marriage and allow Robb to marry Myrcella. That will help to dispel those nasty rumours once and for all. I mean, who would marry a product of incest....right? That will give Tywin something to ponder about. Is it worth having enemies at every side just to defend this new mad king's claim to the throne? Tommen is his grandson too and lets face it, he's easier to manipulate than Joffrey is. If Robb can get his hands on Jamie then I am pretty sure that the old lion will accept the deal. Joffrey can be made to resign (ie the wall?)

3- If Tywin refuse the deal then Robb will have to act. Thanks to Stannis/Renly fleet the Northern army is able to reach the Riverlands without having to toy with Walder. Having said that, its important for the young wolf to seal alliances with the Freys and secure safe passage to the North if needs be. A decent general must be kept at Moat Cailin with enough troops to keep the damn fortress safe. Meanwhile marriage offers should be made between Bran/Edmure and Frey girls. That should appease Walder enough to give his go ahead.

4- If Renly dies then the North must be in a position to pounce to a deal with the Tyrells. Offer allegiance to the Tyrells if they are willing to go for the big prize themselves. Mace love glory and King of Westeros has a good sound to it. Having secured three regions he would be stupid not to go for the big prize himself.

 

 

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6 hours ago, Coolbeard the Exile said:

I have no idea how to find the quotes. 

I will help https://asearchoficeandfire.com/

If you are really convinced that every character regards Mace Tyrell as a coward then you should have no problem finding a few quotes of evidence to back up your claim. 

6 hours ago, Coolbeard the Exile said:

Because he would not have a reason

Of course he would have a reason. His reason was legitimacy, which both Renly and Joffrey offered. Olenna Tyrell goes over this. 

 If truth be told, even our claim to Highgarden is a bit dodgy, just as those dreadful Florents are always whining. 'What does it matter?' you ask, and of course it doesn't, except to oafs like my son. The thought that one day he may see his grandson with his arse on the Iron Throne makes Mace puff up like . . . now, what do you call it?

Having a Grandson as King is what Mace wanted. Stopping the Florents from getting power was also as incentive. He had twice turned down Stannis as King and when his forces butchered Stannis Florent and Crane loyalists his mind was set. 

Plusit is hundreds of miles from Bitterbridge to the Blackwater. Armies simply don't travel those distances with no intention of engagement. 

6 hours ago, Coolbeard the Exile said:

 

and Stannis would be in a better position then Aegon is in now.

Not at all. Aegon has 10k soldiers and behind Storm's End and the Reach forces have been split in two, with hald their force heading to the Reach. Stannis was outside of Kings Landing with 21k soldier, facing both the 8k at Kings Landing and the 50k with Mace. 

Stannis would have been in a worse position, especially as his men seem to be less loyal than the Golden Companions are. 

6 hours ago, Coolbeard the Exile said:

The battle of the fords seems to have been 3 days so if Tywin was allowed to go west unchallenged he wouldnt be in range of saving kinds landing.

I'm sorry, how exactly do you know this?

A messaneger could have reached him from the Golden Tooth and told him of what was happening. We have no way of knowing yet you are treating your opinion on the matter as fact. It is not. 

6 hours ago, Coolbeard the Exile said:

 

During the sack of kings landing it only took less then a day.

You mean the sack when Tywin was already in the city? Do you not see the major difference here?

Tywin got his entire 12k army in the city without receiving a single casualty. How many men did Stannis lose? And while he was winning he was not yet in the city nor the red keep. 

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5 hours ago, Bernie Mac said:

I will help https://asearchoficeandfire.com/

If you are really convinced that every character regards Mace Tyrell as a coward then you should have no problem finding a few quotes of evidence to back up your claim. 

Of course he would have a reason. His reason was legitimacy, which both Renly and Joffrey offered. Olenna Tyrell goes over this. 

 If truth be told, even our claim to Highgarden is a bit dodgy, just as those dreadful Florents are always whining. 'What does it matter?' you ask, and of course it doesn't, except to oafs like my son. The thought that one day he may see his grandson with his arse on the Iron Throne makes Mace puff up like . . . now, what do you call it?

Having a Grandson as King is what Mace wanted. Stopping the Florents from getting power was also as incentive. He had twice turned down Stannis as King and when his forces butchered Stannis Florent and Crane loyalists his mind was set. 

Plusit is hundreds of miles from Bitterbridge to the Blackwater. Armies simply don't travel those distances with no intention of engagement. 

Not at all. Aegon has 10k soldiers and behind Storm's End and the Reach forces have been split in two, with hald their force heading to the Reach. Stannis was outside of Kings Landing with 21k soldier, facing both the 8k at Kings Landing and the 50k with Mace. 

Stannis would have been in a worse position, especially as his men seem to be less loyal than the Golden Companions are. 

I'm sorry, how exactly do you know this?

A messaneger could have reached him from the Golden Tooth and told him of what was happening. We have no way of knowing yet you are treating your opinion on the matter as fact. It is not. 

You mean the sack when Tywin was already in the city? Do you not see the major difference here?

Tywin got his entire 12k army in the city without receiving a single casualty. How many men did Stannis lose? And while he was winning he was not yet in the city nor the red keep. 

I see i misspoke i simply mean that he seems to be a weak incompetent beta male and most characters seem to have that opinion of him. I think the tv series though its not perfectly true to the books portray him vividly as such also.

If Joffrey was dead and Tommen captured or missing he would have no one to sit the throne. Mace didnt butcher those troops Randyl Tarly did. 

At the battle of the fords they said that probing skirmishing battles took 2 days and the large battle lasted a day. Even if Tywin got delayed for half a day Stannis would be inside the city. Do you think Robbs plan was bullshit?

We only know that the gates were opened and the lannisters sacked the city and that the city had thousands of defenders. If the gates are down which seemed to be a near thing at the battle of blackwater they would be able to storm the city as Tywin.

 

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12 hours ago, Ralphis Baratheon said:

You mean when Aerys opened the gates for Tywin? That was quite a bit different from when Stannis was trying to take King's Landing while it was being defended and had it's gates closed. When Tywin took King's Landing it was called a sack instead of a siege for a reason.

Yes but the city still had thousands of defenders and the Red Keep itself wasnt taken by stealth. 

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Had Ned allowed Loras to go after the Mountain the Tyrell-Lannister allience never would have happened because either the Mountain killed Loras or Loras survived but saw the horror of the Mountain. That would have probably eventually caused the Lannisters to lose and thus Robb to reach some form of victory, although he would probably eventually have to bend the knee to Stannis/Dany. 

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Robb was screwed by the plot, and in a major way.

Robb was screwed by the north having the only bottleneck Castle in the realm being a near ruin that's completely indefensible from the north, even though the Ironborn are located a few degrees south.......Not the Bloody Gate, not the Tooth, not the Dornish marches, but Moat Cailin. No other realm allowed their first line of defense to be such an easy beat, but the north.

Robb was screwed by having the man in charge of the castle guard, deplete the garrison of the most important castle in the north, to save one of the least.

It'd be like Aron Santagar taking the Kings Landing Goldcloaks to save Rosby from the northmen. Ser Rodrik always seemed competent, but the plot required nonsense, so nonsense he did.

Robb was screwed by having one of the canniest characters in the books, resort to trusting the word of the man who betrayed two kings, and broke every vow that ever meant anything to him.

Robb screwed up marrying the wrong woman, but absent the nonsense above, it likely wouldn't have went to the seventh level of hell.

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On 18.6.2017 at 11:04 PM, shekiagi said:

he should have send catelyn to the iron islands instead of Theon

This is not an option. It's not that he woke up and decided to send Theon anywhere. It was their plan, probably mostly Theon's idea. They were close friends cooking up a scheme together. There was no point at which Robb could have said "On second thought, stay with me for no reason and my mom goes to treat with you family" How on earth would he sell that to Theon? (his bff, with whom he intends to be lifelong allies as kings of neighbor kingdoms until they die of old age)

Also practically, it would have only ended with Cat being taken prisoner, which is also not a good outcome - At all - since Robb would have absolutely hated sacrificing his mother, so he'd end up in a way weaker position. Robb made pretty much the right decision, considering no one could have predicted the extent of Balon's insanity. That shit was just not Robb's fault.

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i dont think he had much choiced about the crown, the northmen, the First Men bloodlines, have always a bit more individualistic than the southern lords. i mean, its not a kingsmoot of the ironborn, but their loyalty to robb, and robb's house, seems to be a bit more honest than what you find in the south. not every southern lord is davos seaworth, with near worshipful devotion to stannis, most tend to have a sense of loyalty born out of traditional obedience, and sometimes it can be quite resentful. thats often why many of the southern great lords intermarry as thoroughly as they do, so even if they cant trust that traditional loyalty of vassal to liege, they can count on the ties of family and blood. i agree he should have avoided sending theon to Pyke. i think it got theon caught in a mental/emotional trap, is he loyal to his blood family, his house and name, or is he loyal to the people who actually did treat him as family, regardless if he was there as hostage or not. indeed, i think robb should have avoided treating the ironborn at all, i believe history has shown that no ironborn raised on the isles can be trusted. hell, they worship a cthulu ocean god entity that demands you drown yourself to prove your faith. kind of clue, dont you think?

i dont think he could ahve gotten away with swearing to stannis. for one, it was robbs own nobles that decided to forswear any claimant on the iron throne, and stannis being andal likely didnt help matters, there has always been an undercurrent of animosity between the first men of the north, and the andals of the south. for another, i have the suspicion that melisandre woudl have pushed for stannis to forcibly convert all those he would rule to the worship of the Lord of Light, by the sword if need be. and not much would get a First Man in furor quicker than burning his hearttree and godswood.

i think renly would have compromised to robb ruling the north and riverlands, while renly took the other 5 kingdoms, but robb was in no position to provide any more assistance than he was already doing by engaging the lannister forces in the riverlands while renly was enjoying his vacation in the reach.

i still think that regardless of what robb did, whether he married roslin frey or not, walder would have betrayed him at the drop of a hat for a tempting offer of tywin's. for those that say he wouldnt have, think on this. most of the those knids of loyalties, like the one that the marriage contract was supposed to foster, depend on filial piety, on loyalty to family and blood ties. but walder doesnt have ony of those sympathies. we can she it when cat threatened on of his sons to force walder to let robb live at the red wedding. walder was very nonchalant about it was fine with him if his own son was killed, he could always make more. that screams to me that he doesnt care about the state of his family, only his pride, and wealth. i believe that if robb had married roslin, the red wedding would hae still happened, but this time, robb would have been taken prisoner after he consumated the marriage, giving walder a blood tie tot he north for future use, before being handed over to tywin in exchange for a hefty reward.

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It's a good question because it's going to become plot central. Robb's failure is the prototype for Jon's success. Jon will come south, and he will succeed all the way to KL, and part of why he will succeed is because he will learn from Robb's failures. So we will eventually get the answer to this question straight in the text.

The first mistake was that he didn't sincerely win over his bannermen to his cause. They mostly sent as many as they thought would placate him and no more. The other obvious one was turning up at the Frey's doorstep without the first clue about anything. Those conversations with Catelyn should have occurred at WF and a strategy devised.

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9 hours ago, Graydon Hicks said:

i dont think he had much choiced about the crown,

Sure he did. Options were given and Robb refused to back any of them. At no point did he have to accept the Crown. 

 

People in power, such as Stannis and Robb. complain when about the responsibility when things are going wrong but neither was forced to be King and both could have refused. Robb threatens the Greatjon with execution. actually executes Karstark. The idea that his bannermen forced him to anything is just looking to excuse Robb of making a bad choice. 

 

9 hours ago, Graydon Hicks said:

, but their loyalty to robb, and robb's house, seems to be a bit more honest than what you find in the south.

The Southern Houses are less honest than the Boltons? Come on! This Northern propaganda is ridiculous, despite Robb being the only Overlord actually murdered by one of his own lords the same old crap about the North men being more honest comes out. 

There is little to no difference between vassals in the South and the North when it comes to their own ambitions and self interest. Some are more loyal, others less so. 

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The thing that broke him was him taking a crown. I don't think ti would have been easy for him to turn that meeting around but with some initaitive he could have gone for Stannis before the Greatjon made his speech. If so then Stannis would probably have had a fighting chance by the Blackwater as Robb and Edmure could well have worked to hinder Tywin's return to King's Landing along with the Tyrells. Now it would presumably have been a hard fight for Stannis' side but if Robb and Stannis could work together, they would presumably have given the Lannisters and the Tyrells a run for their money.

Now I think that Stannis would still have lost or proved a king that Robb would soon grow disillusioned with but Robb would have had a fighting chance to claim victory over the Lannisters.

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On 6/19/2017 at 7:46 AM, The Sunland Lord said:

1. Double standards are not awesome. Pardon Catelyn? Pardon Lord Karstark.

2. Keep Theon by your side. His father is out of question after his sons were killed and Theon taken hostage. Come on, this is 101 knowledge, forget politics, forget war. 

3. Shouldn't have crossed the Freys. While they are hated by everyone now, seemed like they respected their part of the deal until Robb broke his promise.

I guess nothing new. While he could've tried to make deals with Renly, Stannis, etc, 1+1 does not equal 2 in war and politics. It wasn't only him in question, but also his own vassals and people, and other Kings' vassals and men. 

Since he was sabotaged by Roose from the very beginning, I think also more intel among the Bolton's men before the war would do him a solid. He is scared by him, but trusted him at the same time. If you ask me, Roose was Robb's huge problem when he called the banners, and should've kept him close, like he should've done with Theon. But this is also such a long shot! 

Man, poor Robb had defeat written all over him when you see all of his circumstances. He is a character made to be sorry about, GRRM did this with him very much on purpose. 

 

Yeah I don't know how he expected balon greyjoy to work with him after he lost two sons to the starks and had a third taken hostage.

He did try to make a deal with renly early on. I still don't really understand what he did with the freys. How is breaking his word with his frey more honorable then walking away from a one night stand

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11 hours ago, Bernie Mac said:

Sure he did. Options were given and Robb refused to back any of them. At no point did he have to accept the Crown. 

 

People in power, such as Stannis and Robb. complain when about the responsibility when things are going wrong but neither was forced to be King and both could have refused. Robb threatens the Greatjon with execution. actually executes Karstark. The idea that his bannermen forced him to anything is just looking to excuse Robb of making a bad choice. 

 

The Southern Houses are less honest than the Boltons? Come on! This Northern propaganda is ridiculous, despite Robb being the only Overlord actually murdered by one of his own lords the same old crap about the North men being more honest comes out. 

There is little to no difference between vassals in the South and the North when it comes to their own ambitions and self interest. Some are more loyal, others less so. 

To be fair the boltons are the only house that pulled that crap out of all the northen houses. And nobody likes the boltons. I think the northeners are more loyal to the starks then the houses in the south are loyal to whoever is in charge of them. That said the northeners aren't perfect.

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