Why no Robb POV?

[sadfascist]

Been re-reading ASOS and just finished the Red Wedding. Chilling stuff, but I wonder how much more powerful it would have been if Robb had been a POV character in addition to Catelyn. Which leads to two questions:

1. Why no Robb POV?

2. Is this a good or a bad thing?

Robb is the only person in the Stark family (besides the 3 year old) not to have a POV. I'm not sure what earns him this special distinction. Is he not exciting enough? Does he have no plot importance? Does his story overlap too much with other POVs? None of those reasons seem right. He's at least as interesting a character as Catelyn and Jon, he's the key player in some of the most dramatic events in the books (Whispering Wood, Westerlands campaign), and there's no existing POV which covers those events as they happen. Add in an awesome supporting cast and the disturbing possibility that GRRM created Robb Stark only so he could kill him off in the Red Wedding, a shock twist which depends on our emotional attachment to the character, and why isn't giving Robb a couple POV chapters a slam dunk?

[Demonic Weasel]

Because the Red Wedding isn't about emotional manipulation so much as it is the fact that Robb made a lot of mistakes. Are those two things mutually exclusive? Well, no, but I always thought that Robb was obviously being set up as the obvious parallel to Joffrey, just in the other direction. They're foils, indirectly, for each other and neither is meant to inhabit a POV to maintain that binary distinction.

[Free Northman]

This is why I NEVER considered Robb as a primary protagonist. While I supported his cause wholeheartedly, I did so by default, as it was the Stark FAMILY cause that I supported, rather than Robb himself. My support was never out of any particular fondness for Robb Stark. He was always a bit of a "figurehead" character to me.

I don't know why, but there was always too much Tully in Robb's character for my taste. If I had to describe him I'd say he was a Tully trying to live up to Stark ideals, as taught to him by his father. But without the required "iciness" that his Stark Blood should have given him.

That hard edge in Eddard, Jon and Arya seemed missing in Robb.I don't know, that's just my take on it. This softness is forgivable in Bran, who is the mystic/greenseer character. It is not forgivable in a Warrior King.

I felt Robb was always set up to fail.

[Pink Walder Frey]

Been re-reading ASOS and just finished the Red Wedding. Chilling stuff, but I wonder how much more powerful it would have been if Robb had been a POV character in addition to Catelyn. Which leads to two questions:

1. Why no Robb POV?

2. Is this a good or a bad thing?

Robb is the only person in the Stark family (besides the 3 year old) not to have a POV. I'm not sure what earns him this special distinction. Is he not exciting enough? Does he have no plot importance? Does his story overlap too much with other POVs? None of those reasons seem right. He's at least as interesting a character as Catelyn and Jon, he's the key player in some of the most dramatic events in the books (Whispering Wood, Westerlands campaign), and there's no existing POV which covers those events as they happen. Add in an awesome supporting cast and the disturbing possibility that GRRM created Robb Stark only so he could kill him off in the Red Wedding, a shock twist which depends on our emotional attachment to the character, and why isn't giving Robb a couple POV chapters a slam dunk?

1. I think the reason for no Robb POV is a literarily.

GRRM is showing him from the outside to provide another kind of story telling. He provides a sophisticated view on Robbs actions through several other POVs and he also choses Catelyn a POV showing the similarities and difference between Robb and Ned and especially her own relatinship to the northern way - I think Ned was in a way the main character in AGOT but he was followed by Robb and so we got more Catelyn POVs following Ned's death, showing Robb, whitout having him a POV.

2.Well, I think this is ambigious. I really think literarily it's a good move to provide more variety to the books and to show different sides, but maybe some people, who like Robb are offended by this. I can understand it and liked the way it was done.

The only thing I really disliked about it was, that after the middle of ACOK I was sure, that Robb is destinied to die (early), and that this was one reason, he got no POV.

[Talleyrand]

Well none of the Kings have a POV, i think it's a way to keep them mysterious.

[Lummel]

he's the key player in some of the most dramatic events in the books (Whispering Wood, Westerlands campaign), and there's no existing POV which covers those events as they happen

Those dramatic events are a distraction from the story - just background infill. Spending time on them with a POV character would be a waste of narrative and the more i read and reread the more I think that GRRM is pretty efficient in his story telling, what he tells us and how he tells us turns out to be important.

[Grazdan]

You know for the longest time I was sure there was one chapter with Rob as POV.. But I gues it must have been one of bran's. Rereading GoT later I kept waiting for it but it never came :P

I suppose I don't mind it though. His story is told through the eyes of bran and cat.. I don't feel like we're missing out on anything.

[Volderon]

Yeah I'm slightly sad we didn't have a Robb point of view. GRRM doesn't do too well on big battle scenes so maybe that's why we don't have one of him.

I'd take a Robb POV over a Sansa POV any day though...

[End of Disc One]

Well none of the Kings have a POV, i think it's a way to keep them mysterious.

This was always my thought on why there's no Robb POV.

[LugaJetboyGirl]

I also think it has to do with GRRMs approach to the fantasy genre. As we all know, he's always upsetting standard tropes and Robb is a perfect example of that. Robb is the young prince who, in a normal fantasy series, would avenge his father's death, take his father's place, and lead his House to victory by overthrowing the dastardly enemies. And for a while you think that is exactly what's he's going to do.

So I think one of the reason's Robb doesn't have a POV is because he is the princely heir who you would expect to have a POV. But, for once, the princely heir is not (one of) the main protaganist of the story.

[Kaitscralt]

There were more important pieces to the story than Robb standing in camp preparing for battles.

[Young Wolf's Vanguard]

cat's (and bran's in agot) role is mostly to shed light on robb's campaign and partially on events in the south - no need for two povs since she did a great job and i know a lot more about robb than about aeron who has his own pov

other reason is that letter ned sent might have been addressed to robb in which case his pov would reveal too much

only events i'd like to see trough Robb's eyes are probably his battles, his encounters with lannisters and his view of theon (jon thinks he is asshole), whispering wood, and events in crag - but all except his westerling affair are covered by cat or bran

[Lasair]

Everything said above is true, but I think another reason is that it would seem repetitive. We've already had the OMG protagonist fighting the evil Lannisters DIED! moment. If it happened all over again with his son, it would be very unimpressive.

[LugaJetboyGirl]

Everything said above is true, but I think another reason is that it would seem repetitive. We've already had the OMG protagonist fighting the evil Lannisters DIED! moment. If it happened all over again with his son, it would be very unimpressive.

I see your point but the fact that Cat dies in the Red Wedding POV doesn't really support it. Unless she doesn't count because she is Ned's wife, i.e., a woman.

I do think that having Robb's death occur through Cat's eyes made it much more dramatic and painful than it would have been if seen from Robb's own viewpoint, especially since he was pretty oblivious about what was going on. First off, Cat starts getting really nervous and suspicious from the get-go, which helps draw the dramatic tension to a fever pitch. Second, Robb's actual death is protrayed in such a horrifying, madness-inducing way because it is seen through his own mother's eyes. Cat's sanity breaks and she chooses to die with her last remaining son; if it was from Robb's POV we wouldn't have gotten the same sense of Lovecraftian horror, nor witnessed her death so clearly.

*shivers*

[Bastress of Winterfell]

And if kings never get POVs, Rickon is well on the way to becoming King in the North *prays*. Its also probably a given that Jon will never sit a throne. Hes a POV.

[Jeejee]

I always figured Robb was not included as a POV because GRRM was going for a diversity of characters, and learning to become an honorable, effective commander was Jon's storyline. Also, a great deal of Robb's story would be about battles (planning and participation), and GRRM spends very little time on those - probably because lengthy blocks of description aren't very interesting.

[eloquentrave]

The fact of no POV, coupled with Bran being chucked off a windowsill, pretty well braced me for Robb's demise.

Ned getting Iced cemented it for me.

[Lasair]

I see your point but the fact that Cat dies in the Red Wedding POV doesn't really support it. Unless she doesn't count because she is Ned's wife, i.e., a woman.

She doesn't count because she isn't Ned's heir and isn't the leader of the Stark faction.

[Noroldis]

Yeah I'm slightly sad we didn't have a Robb point of view. GRRM doesn't do too well on big battle scenes so maybe that's why we don't have one of him.

What? I think GRRM is one of the best at writing battle scenes. The battle between Roose Bolton's host and Tywin Lannister's in AGoT, the multi-chapter Battle of the Blackwater in ACoK, and the siege of the Wall in ASoS are IMO superb pieces of writing, perfectly conveying the bloody carnage, the limitations of what a single character can perceive during a battle, and the plain confusion that can so easily reign on a battlefield.

IIRC, GRRM decided not to show the Battle of the Whispering Wood and the Battle of the Camps in full detail because he felt he'd already done enough of that with the aformentioned battle near the Green Fork. So he took an approach of decreasing detail; for the Whispering Wood we see the ambush and then hear the battle through Catelyn, and for the Battle of Camps we get a secondhand report from a Lannister survivor of the battle.

As for the original topic, Catelyn's POV IMO adquately conveyed as much as we needed to know about Robb, and allowed the revelation of some important information concerning him (his marriage to Jeyne, his plan to lure Tywin west and its failure) to be delayed until ASoS when it had maximum impact. And as LugaJetBoyGirl mentioned, the buildup to and his death scene in Storm were more poignant due to it being seen through his mother's eyes instead of his own.

[Volderon]

What? I think GRRM is one of the best at writing battle scenes. The battle between Roose Bolton's host and Tywin Lannister's in AGoT, the multi-chapter Battle of the Blackwater in ACoK, and the siege of the Wall in ASoS are IMO superb pieces of writing, perfectly conveying the bloody carnage, the limitations of what a single character can perceive during a battle, and the plain confusion that can so easily reign on a battlefield.

IIRC, GRRM decided not to show the Battle of the Whispering Wood and the Battle of the Camps in full detail because he felt he'd already done enough of that with the aformentioned battle near the Green Fork. So he took an approach of decreasing detail; for the Whispering Wood we see the ambush and then hear the battle through Catelyn, and for the Battle of Camps we get a secondhand report from a Lannister survivor of the battle.

As for the original topic, Catelyn's POV IMO adquately conveyed as much as we needed to know about Robb, and allowed the revelation of some important information concerning him (his marriage to Jeyne, his plan to lure Tywin west and its failure) to be delayed until ASoS when it had maximum impact. And as LugaJetBoyGirl mentioned, the buildup to and his death scene in Storm were more poignant due to it being seen through his mother's eyes instead of his own.

All true but he's no Erikson when it comes to epic battles. There's about 5 pages of describing the names of all the ships in the Blackwater battle so...not as epic as it could have been.

That's all I meant by it. When I first read AGOT, I wanted to see Robb in action. I thought the Whispering Wood we would have that opportunity...well, we didn't. We never saw Robb in action.

I guess it was just easier for GRRM leaving stuff like that out, he's more character based than battle-based and everything.