Why does everyone act like they know about the twincest when they don't?

[Nihlus]

I am referring more specifically to Mace and Renly's men. Renly openly declares that he's going to kill Joffrey, with presumably Tommen and Myrcella following, mount their heads on spikes along with Cersei's, and take control of the Iron Throne with an army provided by Mace Tyrell. While Stannis states that some of the Stormlords have declined his call to banners and stayed neutral (which would further reduce the already relatively tiny Stormlander component of his army), none of the Reachmen seem to have a problem with it. Even Randyll Tarly, a loyalist soldier to the 'rightful' king both before and after Renly declares (but not during), follows Mace's attempt to seat Renly. 

The question is: why? What is the reasoning Renly and Mace giving their men? Note that at the point Renly declares himself king, no one knows Joffrey is illegitimate. Heck, Stannis hasn't even sent out letters yet, so no one outside of his lands even suspect Joffrey is illegitimate. Nor do they, at the time of Renly's declaration, know that Joffrey is the Mad King writ small. The only thing that could be known at this point is that he's a spoiled little shit, and also twelve. 

So essentially, Renly and Mace are blatantly trying to kill the rightful king, Robert's son, in a naked war of conquest that violates all known laws and customs of succession and governance, with no cause other than greed and, to some degree in Renly's case, self-preservation. This is not a problem on its own. What is the problem is that everyone seems to treat this as a normal thing instead of heresy; the Reachmen are 100% onboard, a chunk of the Stormlanders are as well, the ones that aren't still stay neutral rather than rally for the rightful Baratheon king, and Robb's Northmen and Rivermen are at least willing to parley with Renly while not treating him as anything out of the ordinary. Isn't this very inaccurate to how a pseudo-medieval society should actually function? If it's anything like a real feudal state, everyone should 'know' that Joffrey is the king because God willed it. The Targ and then Baratheon dynasties should have a divine mandate, just like the various lords have divine mandates. Who's going to risk violating the will of their God, who everyone 'knows' to be real and powerful, just so Renly and Mace can move from the top ten in Westeros to the top two?

The whole situation just doesn't make any sense to me unless everyone somehow knows Joffrey is illegitimate and/or crazy, but at this point no one does.  

[JeepCSC]

Renly and Tyrell had been scheming to oust the Lannisters for awhile. Once Robert and Ned were killed, chaos descended on Westeros and the Iron Throne became a land rush.

 

Also dragon rights, not divine rights, seems to be the order of the day in Westeros.

[Trigger Warning]

No one likes the Lannisters and lots of people like Renly is basically it. With Robert dead Joffrey's basically a Lannister puppet and a Baratheon brother has a good enough claim to be worth a bit of treason to oust the Lannisters from power. Loyalty and oaths are just a convenient truth until you get an overlord that you dislike enough to favour a rival claimant instead. Just look at the discussion among Robb, his lords and the lords of the Riverlands "“Tommen is no less a Lannister,” Ser Marq Piper snapped." This is in response to Robb basically stating that Joffrey is the true heir with Tommen after him, yet the issue Piper raises is that they're Lannisters, their legitimacy is of no concern as they see being ruled by Lannister stooges as reason enough to enter into open rebellion. 

Look at our own history, it's littered with rebellions and inter family wars between claimants, the right of succession is basically followed so long as enough influential people don't have a problem with the person taking up the mantle of ruler, if they are disliked enough and there's a more palatable contender with a strong claim they'll flock to them with whatever excuse they can muster, basically dynastic tit for tat. 

Furthermore Penrose even lists Tarly as one of that that "loved Renly best" among other prominent nobles from the Reach so it's clear Renly's been cultivating alliances and friendships not just with House Tyrell but also with their vassals. 

It really shouldn't be that uncommon in a feudal setting. 

If Renly had staged his coup and Ned has gained the regency such sentiments may have been avoided since the king wouldn't be under the direct control of the Lannisters. Renly's plan seemed to be going for the typical control the king and blame evil councillors approach as was often the case in the medieval world. 

 

[falcotron]

3 hours ago, Nihlus said:

The Targ and then Baratheon dynasties should have a divine mandate, just like the various lords have divine mandates. Who's going to risk violating the will of their God, who everyone 'knows' to be real and powerful, just so Renly and Mace can move from the top ten in Westeros to the top two?

Even assuming that Westeros and the Faith are exactly like Europe and Catholicism in this way, that's not how divine right worked.

When an uncle rebels against his nephew (which happened all the time in medieval history), his followers aren't thinking, "Oh no, we're going against God's will". Because once they get their man on the throne, that will prove that he's the rightful king, according to God's will.

Yes, the king has a divine mandate, but the tradition of male-preference depth-first primogeniture does not. It's just an invention of men to make succession easier. In fact, there are a number of conflicting traditions,* and it's only by fighting wars over them that people have "figured out" that a certain rule seems to work to establish God's will.

---

* And in some countries—like England, and like Westeros—even accession/succession conditions that have nothing to do with inheritance. For example, if someone doesn't get the acclaim of the crowds of London/King's Landing on the way to their coronation, they can't be the rightful king. Or if the Iron Throne bites them. So there are always ways to erode a sitting king's claim well enough to make yourself feel better about own pretender's claim.

[Stormking902]

Basically everyone serves there own best interests and Renly was good at convincing the lords of the Reach that there interests lie with Renly on the Iron Throne. Renly didnt convince everyone especially the Stormlords since two of the SL biggest houses sat out Swan and Dondarrion also Hightowers in the reach. 

[Walda]

Renly seems to have been a popular and competent politician in the years of Robert's reign. He has been active in the tourneys, and appears as a peacemaker to the common people. In his job as master of laws, he seems to do whatever Baelish wants him to do, so not actually a great justiciar, but to the smallfolk, justice is a bit of a stage-show of executions and pardons rather than anything sensible, and people like the boy king not quite real. So if Jaime Lannister slays the Hand's guard in the street because the Old Hand's widow imprisoned his brother in the Eyrie, it's just gossip

So Renly killing the boy king, or the Hand, or his brother, and that being a good or bad thing, is a mixed thing. Being a puppet of Petyr Baelish means that Renly is popular with the petty bourgeoisie, being a young and handsome tourney knight makes him popular with the small folk, being beautiful and courteous and intelligent makes him a favourite with many of the young knights and squires too. 

Renly takes military matters, strategy, and Realpolitik as seriously as his brothers (who also have a certain lack of scruples when it comes to overlooking the occasional convenient child murder.) Donal Noye and Maester Cressen might know him long enough and well enough to have doubts about his substance, but he has inspired loyalty in his time as Castellan of Storms End, and won the loyalty of Highgarden as well as the love of Loras. In that respect he is more like Robert than Stannis.  

Also, compared to Tywin, who killed the Targaryen babes for Robert, and Stannis, who is threatening to kill anyone who doesn't recognise his claim, and wanted to rid King's Landing of brothels, compared to being invaded by the Old Squid and his Ironborn, or the Young Wolf and his savage Northerners, Renly would look like a good bet for most people, even if he did have that aristocratic penchant for killing children that were inconveniently in the line of succession, or just in the line of battle, or even just around

Renly dies too soon for us to know if his strategy of moving slowly, slowly to war while his rivals took each other out, would have resulted in him getting the Iron throne, or if the lack of discipline in his army would have undone him. It is easy to see why Loras thinks of him as 'the King that Never Was' and regrets him. It isn't certain that he would have been a worse king, even though those who are most loyal to Stannis see him as style over substance.

Except for Robb and Eddard, no-one baulks at killing children. There are Balon's sons, and Rhaegars, Daenarys and her unborn child, that uneasy situation with Stannis and kingsblood, and Edric, and Dalla's child, Bran and Rickon, Martin Lannister and Tion Frey.

I don't think anyone needs to really know about the twincest. To the smallfolk, the aristocracy are like the pagan gods - they can eat their own children, and sleep with whomever whenever, they will still rule, by the will of the gods, or without them.

[Seams]

Olenna told us that Mace wanted his daughter to be queen. Initially, Renly was brokering an Anne Boleyn situation, with a plan to set aside Cersei (= Catherine of Aragon) and have Robert marry Margaery. But Robert died so Renly agreed to marry Margaery instead - to Mace, this may have looked like the most direct route to the throne, and one he could help to make real with his army and wealth. I'm sure Ser Loras was also in favor of this strategy. Joffrey was already betrothed to Sansa at that point.

So the choice to back Renly was not based on thoughtful prayer and a sense of what was right, but on ambitions for a Tyrell queen and some rationalization on what was best for the realm. When Petyr Baelish later brokered an alliance with the Tyrells, including setting aside Sansa in favor of Margaery, suddenly Mace had a different view of Joffrey's suitability to rule.

[The Drunkard]

13 hours ago, Nihlus said:

The whole situation just doesn't make any sense to me unless everyone somehow knows Joffrey is illegitimate and/or crazy, but at this point no one does.  

If you assume the majority of noblemen are essentially just self-serving, fair weather friend assholes it makes sense. Renly was very popular in the south and very powerful with the backing of Mace Tyrell, whereas the Lannister regime running King's Landing was deeply unpopular and already weakened by rebellion. 

Like Davos points out, most of those lords and knights were happy to join Stannis as soon as he was on the rise, despite planning to kill him a few days prior. 

[Aegon1FanBoy]

They didn't care as renly said after the targs the throne is there for anyone who has power to do so. 

[TMIFairy]

16 hours ago, Walda said:

Except for Robb and Eddard, no-one baulks at killing children. There are Balon's sons,

These were men grown and died in combat. The little shit was spared and taken as a hostage instead of being drowned together with his sister.

[40 Thousand Skeletons]

@Nihlus

Because most of the small council, including Renly, knew about the twincest, probably because Littlefinger was telling people about it to cause chaos. After all, who do you think told Stannis about it? LF probably led Stannis and Jon Arryn on virtually the same exact bastard scavenger hunt he later lead Ned on. And Renly was plotting to make Margaery queen as early as the famous Varys dungeon speech in AGOT. That plan is not even remotely practical without the twincest info.

How did LF know about it? Now that's a good question...

[elder brother jonothor dar]

On Thursday, August 31, 2017 at 3:29 AM, Nihlus said:

The question is: why? What is the reasoning Renly and Mace giving their men?

Are they? I would imagine they have got the the big hitters on board and everybody else falls in line, even the Florents back Renly.

You need to be exceptionally strong or stupid to go against your liege lord treason or no.  Look at what happens in RR to those who stay loyal to the Mad king.

[Walda]

8 hours ago, TMIFairy said:

These were men grown and died in combat. The little shit was spared and taken as a hostage instead of being drowned together with his sister.

They died in combat (well, Rodrik at least) but they could have been as young as fourteen and fifteen. Even in Westeros, a boy is not deemed a man grown until sixteen.  On the mainland, that is. The Ironborn might not make such nice distinctions. Balon being the military strategist and father he is, sending his oldest out to attack the mainland lords, and indulging his little Maron's desire to see how the war went on from the South tower, are par for the course. 

Maron was crushed when Robert's catapults brought it down, so we can't be certain he was a combatant. Although, given he was located on the walls rather than, like Theon, in the tower that was the most secure and furthest from the action, Robert can hardly be blamed for not expecting to find a child there.

I'm thinking the only reason Theon was safe, was because his mother took him to the Sea Tower. I'm guessing Asha wasn't with them, because she was a favourite child of her father's. So probably in the Great Keep with him, or the North Tower. Or she might have been on a ship. She captained the Black Wind before she was seventeen years old, and she had to get experience on a ship before then.

Rodrik was part of the party storming the walls of Seaguard when Ser Jason Mallister killed him, so it is likely he wasn't the captain of his own ship. I think Theon's assurance that he bears Ser Jason no enmity over Rodrik's death might imply that Ser Jason killed Rodrik either not knowing or not caring he was a child-combatant. It seems more reasonable that Ser Jason might imagine Theon holding a grudge against him for being a child-killer, than for slaying a grown man who was engaged in a direct attack of his own castle.

[TMIFairy]

Rodrik and Maron - men grown or child soldiers, in combat or simply unlucky (being in the wrong tower at the wrong time) - this does not change the fact that they had not been targeted for murder as "child of X".

So I'd really leave them out of

"no-one baulks at killing children"

debates.

[Lady Blizzardborn]

I was looking for something in ACoK a couple days ago and found the scene between Renly and Stannis. Renly mentions Stannis' little letter, which means he did know about the twincest, or at least that Stannis was claiming the children weren't Robert's.

[Whitering]

You know how you rarely if ever hear about all the attendants and maids and guards and the like while reading the PoVs? Ya, the nobles don't even notice these people. So, while Cersei may think she's keeping secrets from Twyin and everyone, she's heading back to her rooms after meeting with her brother looking truly...umm, let's keep it classy and say, properly disheveled.

And well, there you go. Everybody does know, it's just there's no IPhones to prove it and the nobles and such just typically don't accept gossip from the small folk as evidence.

[Angel Eyes]

1. Nobody likes Stannis and they don't want him to impose R'hllor on people.

2. Later on, the Tyrells, since Cersei is running the Lannisters into the ground, don't want to have Tommen removed because that will mean the High Sparrow will gain control and keep Margaery and Loras in custody.

[Trigger Warning]

6 hours ago, Lady Blizzardborn said:

I was looking for something in ACoK a couple days ago and found the scene between Renly and Stannis. Renly mentions Stannis' little letter, which means he did know about the twincest, or at least that Stannis was claiming the children weren't Robert's.

 

Doesn't he say he was at Horn hill when Tarly got his, already crowned and on the march. 

[Lady Blizzardborn]

23 minutes ago, Trigger Warning said:

 

Doesn't he say he was at Horn hill when Tarly got his, already crowned and on the march. 

Not sure. Since I was looking for something else I didn't read the full scene.