Is House Tully too boring?

[illrede]

On 8/1/2017 at 8:32 AM, John Doe said:

It just seems to me like Martin was too lazy to give the Riverlands a proper great house and instead gave them the most generic words and sigil possible, which is  shame because most of his houses are awesome.

The Riverlands don't have a proper great house, and if there was one it wouldn't be the Tullys. Brackens or Blackwoods as a conventional choice, Freys for a dark horse.

The Tullys got their position by internally stable and nonthreatening. So yeah, they're dull as hell and frequently ineffectual.

[Joy Hill]

I think if we had to pick one house as the one most responsible for causing the war of the five kings, it should be house Tully. They created Lysa, they raised Littlefinger, and Cat kidnapped Tyrion. Which makes the Tullys not uninteresting, IMO.

[BadWo1f]

I enjoyed events around house Tully to be honest, Edmure, Blackfish, Cat and so on, probably because they were so close to war-related things.

[TMIFairy]

14 hours ago, Joy Hill said:

I think if we had to pick one house as the one most responsible for causing the war of the five kings, it should be house Tully. They created Lysa, they raised Littlefinger, and Cat kidnapped Tyrion. Which makes the Tullys not uninteresting, IMO.

The way you put it makes me think of "Calamity Jane"

The "reverse Midas' Touch" - whatever they touch goes BOOM!

[PrinceHenryris]

If we go by aSoIaF only, the Tullys, with the exception of the Blackfish are a bunch of schmucks.

Some of the historical members sound cool.

[Lord Freypie]

I don't find them boring.

Hoster was a central piece in Robert's rebellion and the maesters / Rhaegar / Tywin conspiracy to generate alliances of big houses able to defy the king before.

The marriage he proposed to Brynden (with a Redwyne) would have made him even more central in Westeros politic, with alliances with one of the richest families of the far south in addition to the east and north; it would have made him a rival of Tywin in term of global influence.

While he initiially looks as a pure good guy as we mostly see him from his daughter Pov, he was also an harder ruler than he's remembered for. In addition of his hard rule as a family leader, he burned villages to punish vassals for supporting the Targaryans (or at least one, we only hear of the Goodbrooks story, not if he did the same to the Darrys).

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His daughters are certainly two of the most interesting characters, linked to one of the most fascinating schemers, and taking some of the most important decisions in the serie (and before the serie, resulting in Baelish as we know him). Hard to consider boring characters who are so instrumental in starting the war, and in the case of Lysa with an interesting twist about their motivation.

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Edmure is interesting as a (not so common) example of an human character (or summer child not prepared for the kind of war he ends in). He's far to be perfect but has an interesting mix of good impulses like willing more than any other lord to be the protector of his smallfolk, and more egoistical ones (desire of recognition, simple search of his pleasure, etc).

If he may be considered a bit boring for a big family heir you need some characters like Edmure to appreciate all the more exceptionnal personnalities, the trauma, revenge or ideal driven characters, sublime machiavellian plotters etc....

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Brynden is perhaps the one I find the less interesting at this point. As all we know of him is he's a good warrior and stubborn, and everything he says is just either exposition, either echoing something Cat or Robb were thinking/saying (he's a bit the Mormont's raven of Riverrun).

But there is an interesting mystery about him (why he refused to marry in the first place) and the fact he's one of the remaining wild cards in the area after his escape to make him interesting.

 

 

 

[Springwatch]

The Tully's have their part to play. Their chosen element is water, and water married to ice equals the spring thaw. Water is also the realm of the Patchface prophecies, and I think most of those are yet to come to pass - so the Tully's might have interesting things to do also.

[Apoplexy]

As the OP points out, the Blackfish is fascinating. I'd like to know why exactly he didn't marry and why was he named Brynden. But Catelyn and Edmure are interesting as well. Cat's role in all the politics of the war are substantial. And Hoster-Lysa dynamics are interesting to read too.

[John Doe]

Maybe I was wrong. The characters themselves aren't too boring, what disappoints me is the framework. House Tully imo doesn't have an interesting theme, sigil or historical role. People shit on the Tyrells for their rose, but a rose at least has some elegance to it and the whole growing strong theme fits their political scheming. I just don't see how the Tullys are even on the same level as those houses. 

[Springwatch]

OK, the sigil - the trout - might not be so bad. GRRM likes to confound our expectations a bit, e.g. the powerful roses, the Boltons choosing pink, the real deer that killed a real direwolf.

We've seen lots of animal symbolism already, but we're seeing more and more fish imagery - led by Patchface - so my guess is that the Tullys and the Greyjoys will grow in significance.

A trout is a carnivore, maybe the underwater equivalent of a falcon. It has scales like a dragon, so there's room for a link there. It can live under the sea with Patchface, or out of the sea in a river which sounds good for the future.

There's never been a clear code for colours, but these don't look good. Silver mainly appears as swords, chains, spurs - all the painful stuff. Moons (Dany? Others?) and stags are pretty dangerous things in this world too. Even mud and water are surprisingly hazardous substances - Mud prince Quentyn died, mud poultices kill people, mud around the Quiet Isle kills people. Stuff like that.

The Tullys are going to be dead or deadly, one or the other.