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Thandros

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Everything posted by Thandros

  1. Tywin horribly misplayed his hand here and it only worked out at all because of a massive stroke of good fortune. When Catelyn took Tyrion Twyin had a nice safe option of appealing to the king. Appealing about the illegal seizure on spurious grounds of one of the members of their family and demand he be returned. Eventually reports of their arrival at the Eyrie arrive and they are summoned back to King's Landing and both sides have their cases heard and everything ends up working out. Tyrion is released once the falsehood of the evidence is revealed and Catelyn perhaps escapes any serious consequences by playing on female stereotypes in the world of Westeros and Tywin gets to ensure vengeance on the person responsible by having Baelish executed for his role in masterminding the entire thing and maybe gets even more influence by arranging the replacement master of coin. Assuming Joffrey's role in the entire thing doesn't come out the Lannisters have firmly come out on top and can possibly extract a bit of grovelling from the Starks to enhance their prestige. Except they'd have to work through the king and Tywin doesn't really like having to rely on people above him to achieve his goals. It would particularly in this case the limitations of his power and I doubt he could stand that. Instead he decides to find a plan b which results in one of the many poorly thought out hare brained schemes that dominate most of ASOIAF's plot. He decides to effectively break the King's peace with raiders with only the most basic of steps taken to prevent revealing who was behind it because Tywin clearly thought that people knowing he was behind it was a good idea when it probably wasn't to lure Ned into an ambush. Right and then what? Assuming Robert isn't killed by the boar (Given Cersei was relying on a drunken hunting accident to remove him it easily have gone poorly for her) he's now had his best friend been kidnapped and held hostage. Good excuse for a war if Robert wanted one and now he can significantly improve the realms finances in one fell swoop. Most of the realm would eagerly side with him in such a war. Tywin has no serious allies to call upon who would actually stick with him and even the lords of the Westerlands might decide not to join him in a suicide conflict. This of course assumes that he is unaware of Cersei's actions which seems reasonable. If he is aware the plan makes a little more sense as a ruse to cover a military build up which can be legally unleashed once Robert is dead and Cersei is regent. The entire thing does suit Tywin's personality and his desire to send out the right messages from his point of view. A preference for dramatic statements of the risks of opposing Tywin Lannister and his wrath rather than more intelligent displays of cunning and diplomacy would definitely fit him to a tee. Dramatic overreactions to deal with problems in the least efficient way is definitely how he normally deals with most problems. He got lucky as Robert's death allow him to turn a seemingly inevitable disaster into a fairly advantageous start to the fighting in the Riverlands. If Robert hadn't died he was looking into serious possibilities of major issues in the future as had to figure his way out of the corner he was boxing himself into regardless of how well it was working out for him.
  2. Technically speaking if Tytos' line fails is to reduced to unacceptable candidates it would go to Damion Lannister or his father Damon Lannister (who we don't know if he's alive or not) much more background characters we know nothing at all about. Daven Lannister I suspect would do a good job if the circumstances called for it but he isn't the first in line after the descendants of Tytos he's just much more prominent.
  3. …. you seem to be completely missing the point. Sure in the original timeline they were all alive if not necessarily available (Willem and Martyn were prisoners of Robb) in a scenario where Renly takes King's Landing then Tyrion and Lancel are either dead or prisoners of Renly. This would leave the Westerlands in the hands of women, distant cousins or Freys if Tywin and Kevan die. Your second section seems to be making a completely unrelated point to both the first and the context of the conversation so I'm going to ignore it.
  4. Unless Tyrion and Cersei's plans with Tommen work out and Tommen ends up in the Westerlands. All of that happening is rather unlikely and that leaves Tywin as a directionless rebel with no cause diminishing manpower and resources and extremely limited ability to bring in reinforcements from anywhere given that Renly would control the sea of the Reach by that point. Tywin also has no future to count upon given his only available heir of his name is a two year old girl if him and Kevan kick the bucket. Unless he goes into Genna's brood but two of them are also prisoners including the eldest, one we know nothing about and only the youngest is known to be safe. With Tommen Tywin can present a threat to Renly ideologically and could attempt to swing alliances his way. Without him Tywin is out of friends and doesn't really have a cause to motivate his men. Renly could leave him for a while to see if his forces simply break apart and he can capitalize by accepting Westlander defections. Particularly if he's able to get his hands on some Westermen captives from Robb Stark. The other thing to consider is where Renly's army is. King's Landing. To directly attack Tywin he has to march all the way back through the Reach and then up the ocean road. Both other routes to the Westerlands lead through the Riverlands and Robb Stark would probably feel either compelled or advantageous to harass his flank if Renly tried to march along the Gold Road. But Robb Stark's separatism does represent a threat to Renly's power base. The longer Robb Stark resists Renly the more his ideas of breaking up the Seven Kingdoms would take root. If Renly leaves Robb alone for a year to defeat Tywin (and given the defences Tywin may be able to rely on it could easily take longer) then Robb will have a year to consolidate his state and bed down the ideas of an independent North and Riverlands as well as encouraging the Vale to join them. But after Renly would have taken King's Landing the Northern Kingdom was in shambles. Large swaths of the North were effectively out of his control and he'd lost his lines of communication to the North. A quick strike and some victories could unravel Robb's entire kingdom particularly if the Freys or Boltons decide to defect and a relatively gentle hand could help keep the North in line freeing him up engage the more dug in Lannisters on more favourable terms. On the other hand Tywin can gain advantages by attacking the Northerners in the Riverlands. He can free captives Robb holds helping improve his internal politics and if Renly takes a hard line and Robb suffers defeats encourage defections if it appears the choice is allying with the Lannisters or dying fighting Renly. It's quite reasonable to assume that Tywin has a larger army than Robb does in this situation.
  5. That is exactly right and it would have worked in hindsight with Stannis. But the plan would have been made with Renly in mind who is absolutely hostile to Robb. If it goes perfectly Tywin has a large army in the Westerlands and Renly still has his massive Reach and Stormlander Army in King's Landing. Robb Stark is stuck in the middle of two larger armies both hostile to him. Effectively Robb is the same position at the start of ACOK but the armies on his flanks are larger and all he has gained is Harrenhall and some loot and plunder. His only hope is to assume Renly goes after Tywin and Tywin is able to grind him down enough having lost one of the better opportunities to diminish Renly's forces.
  6. Robb Stark's military plan during ACOK. Most of these plans have some tiny slim prospect of improving the situation of the ones initiating the plans. Robb's plan if everything goes exactly as he was planning puts him in a worse military position than he started. It only had the chance of working in his favour at all because of stuff he likely didn't even consider occurring when he was originally making the plan. It works much better in hindsight than it ever could have in foresight.
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