Why do Lannisters have a reputation as a "villain family"?

[Universal Sword Donor]

2 hours ago, Lady Blizzardborn said:

Bran is seven at the start of the story. He's never experienced sex, so giving it up probably is not as big a deal to him as it would be if faced with a choice as an adult. Besides which we don't know that he has to give it up.

Some people would have big problems giving up sex and legs to save the world, others would be fine with it, most would probably be somewhere in the middle. We don't know where Bran falls on that line.

If he comes to view all of it as unavoidable destiny, he'll be less likely to assign blame. Might take til he's an adult to get to that place though, and by then I expect Jaime will be dead.

If Bran doesn't learn what he needs to, everybody's families will be completely dead.
 

Hence why I said, me and not Bran.

[averde]

Lann the Clever stole Casterly Rock from the Casterlys, founding House Lannister. 

[Lion of the West]

5 minutes ago, averde said:

Lann the Clever stole Casterly Rock from the Casterlys, founding House Lannister. 

Which is a myth. Most likely to explain why the castle is called "Casterly" and not "Lannister" Rock.

[The Wolves]

3 hours ago, Lady Blizzardborn said:

Because if Jaime hadn't pushed him, he might never have ended up becoming protege to the 3EC, and if that never happened then the Others might have destroyed the entire world. I'm not saying Bran will give Jaime a big hug, call him brother, and buy him a car, just that he may recognize that events had to transpire as they did in order to save the world and even Jaime's part, despicable though it was, had to be played.

Did you skip AFFC entirely? Jaime's turning around. Those who turn around get credit for doing so.

Kevan? What did Kevan do? 

No. This is a disgusting justification for Jaime committing a evil act. 

There is nothing in the books that says that Bran had to be pushed from a tower, his back broken and traumatized for life for his genetic gift to set in. We don't know Bran's role in saving the world and him so let's not assume anything at all. Bran having a near death experience was not needed as far as we know so no that monster who carelessly threw him from a tower does not get praise for what Bran has been capable of his whole life. Bran sure as hell should not be thanking the man who ruined his life and countless thousands(yes Jaime helped start TWot5Ks). 

And miss me with that man made b!tch so called turn around. What turn around? You mean when he was in the Riverlands stealing Riverrun from the Tullys and rewarding the men who slaughtered thousands of unarmed men? Or when he called his inbreed bastard son the rightful king knowing damn well he was a illegitimate bastard who had no right to the throne? What turn around in AFFC? Are you talking about the part where he went around gathering child hostages in the name of his bastard false king and he straight looked at these men and women who he had brought war to for something he and his had no right let alone cares about? Someone show me the passage, page number, paragraph, context, etc where Jaime Lannister had a turn around . 

Kevan Lannister did evil things on Tywin's orders like setting the Riverlands ablaze, lasting Gregor loose, and other things. He willingly served a very evil man and for following him blindly and unquestionably he is a villain for that IMO. 

[BericDondarrion]

Jaime is much better then he once was. But let's not turn him into a saint. 

 

Like the rightful king Stannis Baratheon has said, a good act doesn't wash out the bad, or the bad wash out the good. He pushed a little boy out the window because he was committing treason sleeping with the Queen (I'm not even bringing up that it's HIS SISTER). He's not a good guy. He's a guy who was bad and evil who has changed a little but is still Jaime Lannister.

 

Do people forget he threatened to put Edmures baby in a freaking trebuchet and shoot him over against the walls of Riverrun?!? Or that he gave secret instructions for his men to KILL Jeyne Westerling and Edmure if anyone tried rescuing them? Jaime is not good, he's just as evil as he is good.

[Lion of the West]

34 minutes ago, BericDondarrion said:

Jaime is much better then he once was. But let's not turn him into a saint. 

 

Like the rightful king Stannis Baratheon has said, a good act doesn't wash out the bad, or the bad wash out the good. He pushed a little boy out the window because he was committing treason sleeping with the Queen (I'm not even bringing up that it's HIS SISTER). He's not a good guy. He's a guy who was bad and evil who has changed a little but is still Jaime Lannister.

 

Do people forget he threatened to put Edmures baby in a freaking trebuchet and shoot him over against the walls of Riverrun?!? Or that he gave secret instructions for his men to KILL Jeyne Westerling and Edmure if anyone tried rescuing them? Jaime is not good, he's just as evil as he is good.

I agree that Jamie is no saint, far from it and I agree with Lord Stannis' opinion regarding good and bad acts. But while I also agree that pushing out Bran was vile and sleeping the queen treason, much has changed and Jamie Lannister has changed like many people do.

Regarding Edmure he was a rebel against the crown. If the Lord Commander of the Kingsguard gives orders for captured rebels to be killed rather than rescued by their old rebel friends then I don't hold it against him. I fail to see why Jamie would have to break his Kingsguard oath, again, and be soft on his enemies to be considered better.

But like I said and agree with, Jamie is no saint, but he shaping up nicely.

[averde]

1 hour ago, LionoftheWest said:

Which is a myth. Most likely to explain why the castle is called "Casterly" and not "Lannister" Rock.

I still think it was a "Clever" answer to the OP  

[TMIFairy]

4 hours ago, DominusNovus said:

1 - As for Joffrey and Cersei, I lay the blame for Joffrey at the feet of Cersei, and I think the text backs up the notion that Cersei is primarily to blame for his poor upbringing.

2- As for how Cersei turned out, given how strongly she tries to live up to her father's expectations for his son, and how dear to heart she took his worldview, I'd say that you can most certainly lay a good chunk of the blame on Tywin. 

1 - part of the blame falls on Robert. Cersei is Evil!, but he is equally to blame for Joffrey turning out the way he did. The psycho was his Heir, for the Seven's Sake!

2 - full agreement. Normal - and I use the term very broadly - teen girls do not murder other teen girls.

 

[The Sleeper]

Cersei's exploits for the most part are not public knowledge. The twincest is still a rumor.

Her reputation would not be good, still. After all, she Robert's queen for fifteen years, which means a lot of people have met her. At least some of Joffrey's acts should be reflected on her, and executing Ned at the Great Sept, sure did not help. I am not sure that is enough for her to be seen as a villain, in story.

That would change with her current adventures with the Faith.

Tyrion's stint as acting Hand and the rest of his stay in King's Landing, have painted him irrevocably as a monster.

[kissdbyfire]

2 hours ago, The Sleeper said:

Cersei's exploits for the most part are not public knowledge. The twincest is still a rumor.

Her reputation would not be good, still. After all, she Robert's queen for fifteen years, which means a lot of people have met her. At least some of Joffrey's acts should be reflected on her, and executing Ned at the Great Sept, sure did not help. I am not sure that is enough for her to be seen as a villain, in story.

That would change with her current adventures with the Faith.

Tyrion's stint as acting Hand and the rest of his stay in King's Landing, have painted him irrevocably as a monster.

How about all the people she sent to Qyburn? That alone is enough to paint her as a villain in my book.

 

[The Sleeper]

28 minutes ago, kissdbyfire said:

How about all the people she sent to Qyburn? That alone is enough to paint her as a villain in my book.

 

The thread is about the reputation of Lannisters. I doubt that Qyburn and his works are widely known. I am talking in story, not about thte readers.

Granted, they have not been particularly discreet, so rumors should have started circulating by now.

[DominusNovus]

4 hours ago, TMIFairy said:

1 - part of the blame falls on Robert. Cersei is Evil!, but he is equally to blame for Joffrey turning out the way he did. The psycho was his Heir, for the Seven's Sake!

2 - full agreement. Normal - and I use the term very broadly - teen girls do not murder other teen girls.

 

No disagreements with Robert sharing the blame. I will say his sin was more of ommission tha commission in raising his heir, but, well, thats pretty much Robert's defining character trait, a totsl disinterest in the hard parts of being king.

[Ivan33]

For me it's because fans more often like the starks than the lannisters.

[Dofs]

10 hours ago, DominusNovus said:

As for how Cersei turned out, given how strongly she tries to live up to her father's expectations for his son, and how dear to heart she took his worldview, I'd say that you can most certainly lay a good chunk of the blame on Tywin.  We can get into a nature vs nurture debate, but those are incredibly tedious, so I won't bother.  I'll just say that, regardless of how much of Cersei is inherent to her by birth, Tywin's parenting style certainly exacerbated her character flaws.

But what about Joanna's parenting style then? Just after her death Cersei was sadistic enough to torture her baby brother and treat her servants like trash. As 9 years old girl, up to which point she still had her decent mother to raise her. Also Jaime at that age was inseparable from Cersei and hence received absolutely the same upbringing as his sister did, yet, as far as we know, the difference between the twins was like night and day. Why is that, if Cersei's flaws are a result of Tywin's poor parenting?

For me it's really simple - Cersei is completely devoid of empathy, she has a legit mental disorder, and people are born with such disorders, they are not raised like that.

[John Doe]

On 21.8.2017 at 1:29 AM, The Sunland Lord said:

Of course, I agree. I presume that they weren't a historically villain house, but this generation is for sure.

By the way, Tywin does nothing when Gregor commits atrocities, because he orders him to do so. So I guess he is a tyrant - dictator who orders someone else to do the dirty work for him. 

And Starks are partially hated because they try to keep their vassals in check and abolish old traditions - just look how Roose hides his practices and cuts a man's tongue in order to keep his peaceful land and a quiet people. 

What bothers me in this story is that Starks are borderline, if not plainly stupid as a family, I mean come on...Eddard, Catelyn, Robb, Sansa, Rickard, Brandon...A house thousands of years old must have some knowledge passing from a generation to generation, and yet some of the above acted beyond retarded in crucial moments. 

 

 

Every lord of westeros is a tyrant-dictator. That's the system they have in place. That is, unless you support a system in which nobles can have trials (which the better fighters always win), while commoners can not, where there is zero democracy and you can get yourself killed if you do not die or work for your lord as he commands. Ned was a decent guy for his time, but let's not pretend the Starks are some kind of philantropists in Westeros.

[Humble Maester]

Its for both reasons of narrative and for their actions:

Tywin:

Narratively Tywin is a villain because he is a villain for most of the "heroes" of the series. Ned does not hide his distain and Tyrion hates him. He fights and destroys valiant Robb. Etc.

And of course Tywin is well known for: massacring rebel vassals, ordering gang-rape, ordering murder of children, ordering pillaging of peasants etc. Not that he is the only one but he is the only one whose handiwork we witness in the series first-hand.

Jaime:

Narratively, again, Ned "the hero" shows dislike towards him from early on. Although through Tyrion he does get a bit of a softer side.

And of course he wasn't a "good guy" either, killing his King (though we learn he had his reason) and being an antagonist to Ned, injuring him and killing his men.

Cersei:

Early on she is another one of the "Lannisters" that are like flies buzzing around Robert and also an early antagonist to the hero Ned. Later on she goes Aerys-level insane more or less. She is the one actually most like a villain of the Lannisters if you ask me.

Joff:

Well ok, Joff was pretty much there too but he was a child. Still even he, clearly a creature of his mother, spent most of the first time making Lannisters look bad.

Tommen&Myrcella:
They be okey!

Tyrion:

Black sheep of the family and thus not a villain, more of a hero. Hates his father, dislikes his sister, those villainous curs.
Of course not quite as good of a guy as he seems, especially in the later books.

Even as someone who considers Tywin his favourite I can easily see why Tywin and his clan would be seen as the villains of the series, at least in the Game-aspect.

[Universal Sword Donor]

8 hours ago, The Wolves said:

No. This is a disgusting justification for Jaime committing a evil act. 

There is nothing in the books that says that Bran had to be pushed from a tower, his back broken and traumatized for life for his genetic gift to set in. We don't know Bran's role in saving the world and him so let's not assume anything at all. Bran having a near death experience was not needed as far as we know so no that monster who carelessly threw him from a tower does not get praise for what Bran has been capable of his whole life. Bran sure as hell should not be thanking the man who ruined his life and countless thousands(yes Jaime helped start TWot5Ks). 

And miss me with that man made b!tch so called turn around. What turn around? You mean when he was in the Riverlands stealing Riverrun from the Tullys and rewarding the men who slaughtered thousands of unarmed men? Or when he called his inbreed bastard son the rightful king knowing damn well he was a illegitimate bastard who had no right to the throne? What turn around in AFFC? Are you talking about the part where he went around gathering child hostages in the name of his bastard false king and he straight looked at these men and women who he had brought war to for something he and his had no right let alone cares about? Someone show me the passage, page number, paragraph, context, etc where Jaime Lannister had a turn around . 

Kevan Lannister did evil things on Tywin's orders like setting the Riverlands ablaze, lasting Gregor loose, and other things. He willingly served a very evil man and for following him blindly and unquestionably he is a villain for that IMO. 

Gregor went loose on Tywin's orders, not Kevan's. Setting the Riverlands ablaze is part and parcel with Gregor being let loose. Plenty of people served evil men or did things similar to what Tywin ordered. Unless you want to consider Hoster and Robb villains as well, you can't really lump those in. Pretty much everyone who took part in the war would be a villain then.

Stealing Riverrun? Seizing it from an attainted rebel while simultaneously trying to minimize (actually eliminate) any more casualties and seizing hostages from the actual villains (Freys). Yeah and calling his bastard (illegitimate bastard is redundant) the rightful king is self serving but also working to minimize ongoing damage to the kingdom in the onset of winter. Gathering child hostages is, once again, not villainous but something that is expected in times of war. Taking Hoster Blackwood instead of Lord Blackwood's last remaining daughter is a marker of the turn around. Offering Edmure and his family all the comforts instead of cells or death for Edmure is once again a side of Jaime we hadn't seen previously. Pretty much his entire conversation with Loras in the KG tower or at Darry when he was explaining how to root out the BWB by supporting the local smallfolk. Or at RR when he asks himself how his father is going to feed the 7 kingdoms on the onset of winter and realizes it falls to him. These are thoughts and conversations that would never have happened before the redemption arc. Other characters note it as well from their POV, so it's not as if it's something random readers thought up. It's in world as well.

Don't get me wrong, Jaime certainly has his sinister aspects, like trying to be Tywin in times when he doesn't want to. But you have to be willfully ignoring and have a particularly jaundiced view of Jaime to see absolutely not transformation for the better.

[Ferocious Veldt Roarer]

Well, GRRM calls the Lannisters "villains" and he's kinda the boss here, so...

And while it's often (ad nauseam, actually) stated that he doesn't write black and white, heroes and villains, that he's this great trope defier - he actually is not. He doesn't defy or invert tropes as much as he plays with them. So he'll splash his white with a few blots of gray, and he'll splash his black with a few blots of gray, to give them more nuanced texture.

[The Wolves]

20 minutes ago, Universal Sword Donor said:

Gregor went loose on Tywin's orders, not Kevan's. Setting the Riverlands ablaze is part and parcel with Gregor being let loose. Plenty of people served evil men or did things similar to what Tywin ordered. Unless you want to consider Hoster and Robb villains as well, you can't really lump those in. Pretty much everyone who took part in the war would be a villain then.

Stealing Riverrun? Seizing it from an attainted rebel while simultaneously trying to minimize (actually eliminate) any more casualties and seizing hostages from the actual villains (Freys). Yeah and calling his bastard (illegitimate bastard is redundant) the rightful king is self serving but also working to minimize ongoing damage to the kingdom in the onset of winter. Gathering child hostages is, once again, not villainous but something that is expected in times of war. Taking Hoster Blackwood instead of Lord Blackwood's last remaining daughter is a marker of the turn around. Offering Edmure and his family all the comforts instead of cells or death for Edmure is once again a side of Jaime we hadn't seen previously. Pretty much his entire conversation with Loras in the KG tower or at Darry when he was explaining how to root out the BWB by supporting the local smallfolk. Or at RR when he asks himself how his father is going to feed the 7 kingdoms on the onset of winter and realizes it falls to him. These are thoughts and conversations that would never have happened before the redemption arc. Other characters note it as well from their POV, so it's not as if it's something random readers thought up. It's in world as well.

Don't get me wrong, Jaime certainly has his sinister aspects, like trying to be Tywin in times when he doesn't want to. But you have to be willfully ignoring and have a particularly jaundiced view of Jaime to see absolutely not transformation for the better.

Just because Jaime is not going around pushing innocent kids out windows and murdering men to teach people lessons doesn't automatically redeem him. 

Like I said, Jaime fans miss me with the bullshit about him being a better person or on a redemption arc, don't try to sell me the bullshit cause I ain't buying it. So he's suppose to get praise for "minimizing" damage after all the destruction he and his family caused during the war, really, REALLY? Jaime doesn't give a fuck about the kingdom, he has shown disregard for Westeros and its people many times so again miss me with the idea that Jaime was trying to save the kingdom from any more war. He would have gladly set the Freys loose on Riverrun in AFFC the only reason he tried to minimize any war is because he doesn't have two hands anymore. Jaime is a self serving piece of shit throughout all of AFFC. Don't try to tell me he's doing good or changing when all I see is him going from A to B to further the Lannisters' evil cause. Don't tell me he has changed when he's spent one sentence on any remorse for Bran or in Jaime's words "that boy in Winterfell" Don't tell me he's changed when he boldly stands in front of many men, women, and children who have all suffered many many times because of Jaime and his family. So no Jaime has not changed. 

[Ivan33]

1 minute ago, The Wolves said:

Just because Jaime is not going around pushing innocent kids out windows and murdering men to teach people lessons doesn't automatically redeem him. 

Like I said, Jaime fans miss me with the bullshit about him being a better person or on a redemption arc, don't try to sell me the bullshit cause I ain't buying it. So he's suppose to get praise for "minimizing" damage after all the destruction he and his family caused during the war, really, REALLY? Jaime doesn't give a fuck about the kingdom, he has shown disregard for Westeros and its people many times so again miss me with the idea that Jaime was trying to save the kingdom from any more war. He would have gladly set the Freys loose on Riverrun in AFFC the only reason he tried to minimize any war is because he doesn't have two hands anymore. Jaime is a self serving piece of shit throughout all of AFFC. Don't try to tell me he's doing good or changing when all I see is him going from A to B to further the Lannisters' evil cause. Don't tell me he has changed when he's spent one sentence on any remorse for Bran or in Jaime's words "that boy in Winterfell" Don't tell me he's changed when he boldly stands in front of many men, women, and children who have all suffered many many times because of Jaime and his family. So no Jaime has not changed. 

Hehe I am a Jaime fan and i don't like his "redemption" either,i liked him more when he had a sword hand and was with some weight to the story and i liked him from the first book i also dislike his weird Brienne boner,he shouldn't have gone back to harrenhal for her but thats my opinion.