The Moral Purity of the Starks means the story isn't grey.

[Lointain]

UnCat hanging any Lannister ally, including 10-years-old Podrick, Robb beheading Rickard Karstark .

Stoneheart is only a resurrected specter bent on bloody revenge, and she was a Tully by birth.

Robb was totally justified in beheading a murderer of prisioners of war.

[Lilly Snow]

An example of a grey conflict would be WW1. Both parties believed they were in the right and that the other was the aggressor. In truth they all had alliances and were responsible for starting the conflict. All of them were Imperialist nations based around the subjugation of others and democracy had little and less to do with what they did outside their own nations. Despite this the soldiers acted with everything from heroism to barbarity under appalling conditions.

So no. But GRRM makes the Starks morally pure and to an unbelievable extent compared to other lesser characters.

Calling the Starks morally pure is an oversimplification of their character arcs. You obviously haven't been paying much attention to their PoVs if that's the conclusion you came to. Also having a few decent characters who don't do morally questionable things doesn't diminish the story. It makes it realistic coz you know, there are quite a lot of decent people in the real world too.

From your responses it kind of seems like you don't like the Starks and are annoyed that so many others like them :dunno:

[total1402]

Can I ask why the Starks being morally pure means the story is not grey? I’m not sure what a story has to be, in order to be grey. I doubt greyness is defined by who readers root for though. This is how the OP defined ‘greyness.’ I am sure GrrM has said he roots for Tyrion. Tyrion is a very grey character, verging on black.

Do you mean the story does not have moral ambiguity?

How can the story not have moral ambiguity? Is it that no character does both good and bad things? So they don’t possess shades of grey created by their moral decisions? But there are some very morally ambiguous characters, like Dany and Stannis. Some of the Starks are like this too. Arya and Bran are examples.

Or do you mean the Starks always get handed choices that could be moral choices but that have a very clear answer, so there’s no moral choice, and so no ambiguity and no greyness? Such as Ned’s decision to tell Cersei about the incest, or Robb’s choice to go to war, or Jon’s decision to spare the old man at Queenscrown, or march on WF at the end of DwD? I think some of those could be seen as ambiguous. There is no doubt a good person was making those choices, but it is not impossible for readers to question whether the choice was for the best. I’ve seen many readers do this anyway.

Maybe you could be clearer what you mean?

I’m also sure GrrM did not mean for us to take Tyrion’s relationship with Jon and Bran as the final say on his moral qualities or character. The same with Dany’s comments on Ned. In the early stages of GoT he crafted a lot of sympathy with a certain set of characters by giving them relatable traits and relating them to each other.

Arya>Jon>Tyrion all come across sympathetic while Catelyn crosses Jon and Tyrion so this is a cue for some readers to dislike her. The author didn’t want to simplify all his character work into those relationships, or the impressions they give though. I think you are being very reductive.

For me, GRRM is challenging the presumption that the good decision is the position of strength. That doing this gives you power and will let you win. This does challenge conventions in fantasy. But it is not morally grey because you still accept that these are morally good people being taken down by evil people. To me that is morally ambiguous. A truly grey story would have me genuinely not know which side to root for or who is in the right.

Either the Starks do something good and honorable or GRRM writes the story which white washes the action instantly. Arya kills a guard. Ah, but hes a Bolton and they're planning to kill Rob. Good for you Arya taking the initiative to escape from those scheming Boltons. Jon takes a mans head off. Ah, but its Janos Slynt, another miserable pathetic goblin who killed his father and now gets to face some justice; he even did disobey orders after Jon gave him every chance to work with him.

[total1402]

The Starks are a far lighter shade of grey than any other family in the series, but no one is white.

Why would a family of people all be good exactly and be paragons of virtue relative to everyone else?

[Whitering]

Plus, not everyone is grey in the traditional sense. I enjoy Arya's morality but I wouldn't call it pure. She reacts well to the idea of innocents killed (well, in that she very much opposes the notion), but doesn't seem to mind eating a shepherd or two when running with the wolves.

[Light a wight tonight]

What about the insurance salesman she kills in ADWD? Was he evil? Did he deserve to die?

The way the FM charge, according to the requestor's ability to pay, and demanding an additional sacrifice, somebody certainly felt that he deserved to die. I'd say that he was in all likelihood evil.

[Addam of Hull]

The way the FM charge, according to the requestor's ability to pay, and demanding an additional sacrifice, somebody certainly felt that he deserved to die. I'd say that he was in all likelihood evil.

But we don't know that. Here's what we do know: Arya was okay with killing someone without reason. What the insurance man did is wholly irrelevant to the discussion of Arya's morality because she's unaware of the requestor's reasons. She kills him because she's told to, no more and no less.

[Penguin king]

Wow! talk about topics based on faulty premises. No one in the series is morally pure. I mean just look at Ned, He lies to Cat for years, and refuses to tell her the truth about his "Bastard", he assults Littlefinger with a dagger because he feels his wife is being insulted, and he was prepared to throw away his Honor and betray the memory of his best friend by confirming Joffrey's legitimacy just to save his daughter's lives.

I'm not saying Ned was a bad guy, fundamentally he was a good man faced with a number of difficult choices but by no means was he "pure".

[Penguin king]

Why would a family of people all be good exactly and be paragons of virtue relative to everyone else?

And Arya is a paragon of virtue how?

[The Wolves]

somebody certainly felt that he deserved to die. I'd say that he was in all likelihood evil.

A lot of characters feel that somebody should die and most of the time the slights and crimes aren't deserving of death. I don't really think its fair to say that because somebody wanted that guy dead he was evil. Arya didn't know his story or the reason and she was trying to find a justifiable cause to kill him also.

[total1402]

Wow! talk about topics based on faulty premises. No one in the series is morally pure. I mean just look at Ned, He lies to Cat for years, and refuses to tell her the truth about his "Bastard", he assults Littlefinger with a dagger because he feels his wife is being insulted, and he was prepared to throw away his Honor and betray the memory of his best friend by confirming Joffrey's legitimacy just to save his daughter's lives.

I'm not saying Ned was a bad guy, fundamentally he was a good man faced with a number of difficult choices but by no means was he "pure".

1- A white lie to keep Jon alive.

2- Its Littlefinger and hes been sniffing around Cat for years. Implying she is a whore as well and its good that Ned reacts in such a forceful way to defend his wife.

3- A lie to save his own daughters lives. Perfectly understandable and I don't get how that could be called grey.

[LordStoneheart]

Is this a troll thread?

[Addam of Hull]

Is this a troll thread?

No, it's a total thread.

[Whitering]

But we don't know that. Here's what we do know: Arya was okay with killing someone without reason. What the insurance man did is wholly irrelevant to the discussion of Arya's morality because she's unaware of the requestor's reasons. She kills him because she's told to, no more and no less.

Huh? She was not okay with it at all. She is constantly trying to convince herself that he is evil and only finally agrees to kill him when the KOM infers that the insurance dude had reneged on a policy, which given earlier conversations may have led her to believe that a wife and children out there were penniless because of this asshat.

So, we don't know for sure, but the KOM did infer that he was evil. The fact that Arya needed such reassurance let's us know that her morality is still intact.

[LordStoneheart]

No, it's a total thread.

Hmm. In that case, I disagree with the OP. There are no specific examples of any moral whiteness, just insistence. I'd be more on the idea of the Starks being morally pure if I only watched the show.

[Queen Daenerys Stormborn]

1- A white lie to keep Jon alive.

2- Its Littlefinger and hes been sniffing around Cat for years. Implying she is a whore as well and its good that Ned reacts in such a forceful way to defend his wife.

3- A lie to save his own daughters lives. Perfectly understandable and I don't get how that could be called grey.

Tend to agree with this.

What is it about knowing who is right and who is wrong that you object too though? You realize you are reading a fantasy bildungsroman not a history book, right?

There are some Stark decisions, even from characters who are not obviously violating good morals (like Arya) that can be questioned too. Yes, it is always presented very sympathetically. Like Jon trying to attack Alliser Thorne. Still, it is there.

[David Selig]

Huh? She was not okay with it at all. She is constantly trying to convince herself that he is evil and only finally agrees to kill him when the KOM infers that the insurance dude had reneged on a policy, which given earlier conversations may have led her to believe that a wife and children out there were penniless because of this asshat.

So, we don't know for sure, but the KOM did infer that he was evil. The fact that Arya needed such reassurance let's us know that her morality is still intact.

So cheating on an insurance policy makes you evil, but Arya the multiple murderer has her morality still intact?

[The Sleeper]

Well, dealing with insurance companies has left me wishing for their deaths.

[bbstark]

No, it's a total thread.

say what you will, he does bring us all closer together.

Kinda like the Nights Watch is brought closer together following the disappearance of Benjen Stark, the night approaches, something foul is afoot

[Penguin king]

1- A white lie to keep Jon alive.

2- Its Littlefinger and hes been sniffing around Cat for years. Implying she is a whore as well and its good that Ned reacts in such a forceful way to defend his wife.

3- A lie to save his own daughters lives. Perfectly understandable and I don't get how that could be called grey.

You're like the master of oversimplification today aren't you? I mean ignore how lying to Cat caused her to form a massive resentment towards Jon, and how 16 years later she's still too scared by Neds reaction to ask the question again It's clearly just a "little white lie"...

Or with Littlefinger, don't seperate reader knowledge from character knowledge or anything. We know Balish is a scumbag so Ned was clearly right to put a knife to his throat....

And as for a man having to make a choice between his daughter's lives and the fate of a kingdom not to mention the legacy of the man he loved like a brother, well that's such an easy choice to make. Cleary there's only one right answer here....