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Why did people choose Robert Baratheon over their king?


UFT

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during the rebellion. 

shouldn't their loyalty instantly be overruled by the fact he's their king? robert and jon arryn are just lord paramounts. ie like a governor of a region but still answerable to the supreme authority. 

instead it seemed like almost all of the vale didn't care one bit about being royalists. they all rebelled because jon arryn said to. if that is the case then lord paramounts may as well be kings themselves if the king can't even directly command them. my point is that i feel like most of the rebels didnt care about how aerys is mad. they rebelled just because their lord paramount said to. 

i guess the riverlords were the exception since half of them stayed royalist and were like "wait no hoster, rhaegar's awesome. wtf you doing?"

at the very least the stated goal of the rebellion should have been depose aerys in favor of one of the kids. not murder them and put some baratheon cousin in

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Why should they? What's the king to them?

You should take into account that many if not most local houses have familial and/or friendship ties with their lord paramount House. Not really so with the royal House. That would be one of the reasons.

Also, riverlords and houses from other kingdoms who chose to side with Aerys didn't do so because X Targaryen was awesome. Some might (like Connigton who definitely felt so). But most of them did it because they believed that Aerys would most likely win and they preferred to be in the winning side, for obvious reasons.

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The most important thing to remember about the rebellion is Aerys was mad and ordered the death of both Brandon and Lord Rickard Stark without a trial and when Rickard demanded one he was set on fire to burn to death, also Jon Arryns heir was murdered for no reason as well as a Royce cousin and a few more noble Riverlanders and Valemen. When Aerys did this he showed the noblemen he is above the law in everyway and must be stopped, Jon Arryns bannerman followed him with ease because they were upset about the noblemans senseless deaths, and didnt wanna see Ned and Robert killed to whom all the Vale lords likes as well. 

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Beyond the above stated facts that Aerys was the Mad King who had proven himself a tyrant who had no problems executing nobles without trial for no reason, there's also the simple matter that that's how the feudal system works. The noble houses are sworn to obey the Lord Paramounts who are in turn sworn to the King. If an LP rebels, its almost expected that the noble houses under them will rebel too because while they are sworn to obey the King, their oaths to their liege lord comes first.

It's worth pointing out that historically, house's that go against their liege lord during a rebellion tend to be punished far worse if their side loses than a house that follows it's liege lord into rebellion.

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Some Vale houses did side with Aerys, and were defeated at Gulltown I believe. The North is more cohesive with ancient loyalties to the Starks running very deep.

Those caveats aside - what everyone else has said. Loyalties to LPs seem to be deeper and more immediate than those to the IT. 

Aerys was mad, and there had been a long process of people becoming disillusioned with him. Most, I think, put their hopes in Rhaegar, but his riding off with a lord's daughter, who was also another one's fiance, may have made him seem less attractive. 

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5 minutes ago, Livesundersink said:

We know that most of the nobility know of Aerys's madness, but in one of Arya's chapters in Storm we see that the smallfolk are unaware of his madness and openly praise him as a good and just king.

To be fair, that's just one old man, not all the smallfolk. I'm not saying that people don't think that, just that we don't know. I would imagine that there probably is a propensity to look back at the golden Targaryen age with rose-tinted goggles, particularly when the country's being torn apart by civil war. But how widespread and how serious that tendency is we don't know. How people respond to Aegon and Dany will probably be an indicator. 

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The small folk had little to say in the matter.  Jon Arryn called his banners and the lords of the vale followed him into battle.  It started off with Arryn, Baratheon, and Stark.  Then they made Hoster Tully a deal he couldn't refuse.  It's not like the people preferred Robert to Aerys.  There is no evidence to support that. 

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As mentioned Aerys was a crazy tyrant who was killing people left and right and that's just the common knowledge. And as also mentioned loyalties to LP seems to go before those to the king and thus its rather a testament to the loyalty towards House Targaryen that there were so many Houses that fought for the Dragons when only like two LPs remained as loyalists.

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7 hours ago, The Sunland Lord said:

Anti-establishment. People wanted something new. Happening now in USA, UK and EU.

See below: the only "people" who mattered were the Lords Paramount and their bannermen Lords.

6 hours ago, Noble Lothar Frey said:

The small folk had little to say in the matter. 

Exactly! The smallfolk were basically irrelevant. It's nothing at all like the wave of fascism sweeping Europe and the US.

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Because feudal kingship is not the same as divine kingship.  Aerys II was monarch in part on the basis of protecting and succoring his vassals.

But think about it practically.  Aerys has just proven, beyond any shadow of a doubt, that he does not care about due process and is willing to straight up murder his most important and powerful vassals.  Even IF you think Brandon Stark did something wrong in calling out Rhaegar (hint: he didn't), Aerys' treatment of Rickard, and Eddard, and even the otherwise-uninvolved Robert Baratheon is literal murder.  He doesn't even bother with a false charge.  Mind you, Jon Arryn's nephew and heir (Elbert) and one of his principal bannermen's relations (Kyle Royce), and a Riverlander (someone Mallister) are all also imprisoned and maybe executed?  I can't remember.  I think all of them die except the squire.  But back to the point, the Tullys and Arryns have a requirement to stand up for their vassals as well; their expectation of loyalty from these Houses is predicated on them helping in times of need.  That applies to royal overreach as well as foreign invasion or domestic disputes.

It had nothing to do with people wanting something new, and everything to do with the fact that Aerys II Targaryen was a brutal sadist with no respect for law or tradition.  If your monarch is as likely to murder you if you obey him as if you aren't, then why not rebel and gain more influence with a sane, more rational monarch?

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like i said in the opening post, i totally understand deposing aerys. but most of the rebels seemed to not care about that. they rebelled solely because the LP said to. if thats the case, why not just declare themselves kings and leave? theyre acting like kings.

and no one in the rebellion said "ok we're deposing this evil dude. got it? good". yet no one cared that the plan was also to murder all the princes and princesses. lol wut? so you abusive father is bad. so lets send the cops to....kill you and your entire family". because that makes sense....

Spoiler

 

.  If your monarch is as likely to murder you if you obey him as if you aren't, then why not rebel and gain more influence with a sane, more rational monarch?


 

they already had that sane rational monarch. queen rhaella. and to some extent her son rhaegar. why is it that everyone responding to me harps away on the fact that aerys being mad is justication enoguh, even though i agree! 

how about you stop restating shit i already know? 

all i said was it makes zero sense that so few were royalist, despite their oath to be royalist as per aegon's conquest. 

if you're not gonna rally to aerys, thats fine. but not the queen? not the princes? they have a perfect sane rational monarch to lift up, queen rhaella. yet she is jsut killed like the rest and no one cares?

 

 

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