James Arryn

Gah, also good point. I’m slow today. Let’s split the diff and say it was Varys ~ disguised as Belmore.

At the time it struck me as pure D&D, but then I have come to realize that HOW George writes often fills in a lot of cracks in WHAT George writes…the leaked summary of his original outline made that painfully clear…so who knows?

No, again, Robb did not see it primarily as a slight against his authority or negotiation leverage, but against his honour. He pragmatically saw the need to execute Karstark for both, but his outrage was expressed over his honour, so I ask again what is dishonourable about killing captives if killing captives isn’t considered dishonourable?. But let’s take this bigger picture, let’s go back to the earliest ref you mention. What, besides dragonmight, gave Aegon the right to burn thousands on the field of fire for defending their homeland? What moral right did he have to give them only the alternatives you mention? Conventions of war are not only applied by the victors on the defeated, they are largely written by them in the first place. Historical example, did you know that aerial bombardment of civilian areas was considered THE war crime of the 20th century….right up until we/the winners did it. And kept on doing it. At which point it morphed into the unfortunate cost of war. And if you think about it, in what world is using unusual field weapons (gas) against opposing combatants considered a greater crime than bombing defenceless civilians in their beds? In literally no other circumstance does an action against soldiers go down as a worse crime than a similar action against civilians. But ‘we’ won, largely using aerial bombardment, and therefore what had been Picasso’s Outrage Against The World became normalized (by the outrageous) and yet the gas thing stayed as a war crime. And if unusual weapons somehow touch us as unspeakable, what was dropped on Hiroshima/Nagasaki? And getting beyond the fact that the ‘saving lives’ bs was only post -applied as the rationale for nukes, if the Germans had thought they could win WWI early by virtue of gas weapons, would that not also excuse their usage? See, this is why I am so quick to point out when people excuse actions by virtue of sympathies, and this is also why GRRM (who often makes the same points I just used above) uses our sympathies for characters to boil our moral codes like frogs.

Agreed, good post. Additionally, re: the BF Reb, if anything DBF is the braver, more honourable man…he literally dies protecting a wounded enemy, whereas BR is seen as very Kissingeresque, ie end justifies means.

Absolutely. If we are willing to do it for characters we read about, I imagine the characters themselves will be even more motivated to be highly subjective.

Sorry, you are missing my point here. I’m not asking about whether it was wrong to kill Karstark, I’m asking why it was wrong for Karstark to kill captives, and why killing captives was such a blight on Robb’s honour. And obviously Robb offered those captives an opinion besides bending the knee, NW or death, right?

Look, you’ve twice now skipped my question about Robb and the Karstarks which obviously directly contradicts your last statement…unless the Lannister captives had become Stark supporters or NW men that I’ve missed? As for your interpretation of military justice, in that no army at war has ever gone any period without committing some kind of crime, you are saying every commander in history is criminally responsible? And this isn’t me being argumentative, as a ~ qualified pacifist I’m pretty on board with the idea, but your prior comments re:Dany make me think that you fall into the vast majority for whom this axiom’s application will depend largely on who the perpetrators/victims are, which brings me all the way back to my initial statement on this subject about how our sympathies come to dictate our judgments.

Holy crap, it’s nice to know these kinds of finds can still happen. Very nicely done.

Not personally, he’s blond (or white haired), taller than Ned and as longtime Hand would undoubtedly be known by sight. But one of his men seems likely, or Varys. edit: post made pointless by FFR. Also reminded me that this man is specifically ‘round’ shouldered’ which contrasts directly with one of the few direct physical descriptions of JA, ie ‘broad shouldered’. Pretty much everything else we know about how he looks is shown via Harry the Heir being supposedly a remarkable likeness.

Could be something big, could be trying to recapture the newsfeed lead.

1) Everyone makes their moral decisions, but deciding that every human connected to slavery deserves a horrible death is, I think, one of those quandaries George wants us to explore. Do the children also pay that price? If not, what age is the cut off? What of the children of slave owners who only ever knew of one kind of society? Etc. 2) He is the only one we hear of by name, but then he is the only one whose son Dany discusses it with. But okay, if Hizzie, heh, is telling the truth, did he deserve what Dany did? I think one of the things GRRM is trying to show us is that sophomoric black and white answers to questions like this just lead to more situations where questions like this arise. Suppose Hizdahr instead killed Dany to avenge his father…would he be in the right? Herotodus… 3) Well, nothing is black and white, again, but military courts would historically disagree with you here. Who gives what orders where and when matters. Or, if not, again we’re back to those black and whites…do all Westerlanders now deserve death? 4) Exactly. Do you still think that George is telling us conquering or Conquering is a good thing? Or is he telling us that great conquerors are, by definition, great murderers? And to split hairs, you are forgetting anger. Dany was angry when she killed the Tarlys, and no one mentioned taking the black as an option. Robert was angry whenever the Targaryens were mentioned and no option but death was ever offered to them. Aegon was angry when he had entire Dornish towns burned to the ground because of the decisions of their leaders. Do you think George offers those scenarios as suggestions, or warnings? And…Robb/Karstark?

I definitely think the show would have benefited from more seasons and that would not require staying any more faithful to every book plot line than the first half dozen shows did. That said the show became more uneven and focused on the visual after they came off the written word; film students would probably consider Baelor the best show in the entire series. We also got the Dirty Dozen of the Dead/Flashgendry, but I’m thinking stuff like the latter had more to do with their decision to rush everything, and so though I think the character writing would still be less consistent than the book based seasons, I think we’d have all been closer to satisfied. Another thing we have to face about the show…and that GRRM now faces about the books…is that so many factions developed around so many characters that any ending is going to bitterly disappoint a ton of fans who had primarily invested in one or two characters. So some of the backlash was inevitable, and we saw it even in pockets earlier in the show when favourite characters fell by the wayside. And obviously the further we get along the stronger those loyalties become, therefore so too the backlashes. But imo the single greatest sin of the later seasons was rushing, and more seasons mitigates that.

Jaime’s worst act was to attempt to kill an innocent child to prevent the deaths of his children and sister. Danny’s was to indiscriminately crucify 163 members of a class because some had crucified previously slaves. If we believe the only source we have on the latter, Hizdahr, many of those crucified had nothing to do with the act they were killed to avenge. You tell me which of these seems more ‘form’ for someone capable of burning a city for reasons. Jaime’s campaign in the RL was defeating the forces E of the Golden Tooth and besieging Riverrun. We hear nothing of him having anything to do with the Mountain’s campaigns to the east. That said, I wouldn’t put it past him, nor would I put it past Dany to follow through on her threat to offer no quarter to Yunkai, ie kill…everyone. Again, which one has ‘form’? And Dany didn’t burn the Tarlys to avenge anyone, she burned them out of anger for refusing to bend the knee. Who else in these stories has done a similar thing, and what kind of people are they? Why did Robb consider the murder of his captives such a black mark against his honour? As for the Tarly-Tyrell-Lannister loyalty triangle, that is the feudal dilemma everyone in a feudal order faces when their overlords go to war; either way they betray some oath. If they had stayed with the Tyrells they would have been betraying the Lannisters, whom they had also given oaths to…and I guess would deserve burning to death?

First off, Dany had already killed more people than Jaime before KL. In fact his biggest ‘form’ was saving KL. But if you’re going to base it on norms, than others had sacked cities, so that’s just more norm. And the Tarly’s were faithful. Whom had they betrayed? What oaths had they broken? Dany demanded they break their oaths and turn traitor and they refused. This is the kind of projected subjectivity I’m talking about, but if you want to look at it that way just call KL a city of traitors and oath breakers and give Dany the right to avenge her family and Missandrei. Herotodus tells us that the history of war is the history of payback.

Like everything else, it was a bit rushed, but Joan of Aercys talked a LOT about burning cities, massacring cities/peoples and actually had already committed atrocities. In the show she had already burned captive soldiers alive for remaining faithful. Before you burn your first city you haven’t burned a city yet, but if we were caught completely off guard that’s partly on us. Every time she threatened to burn cities we told ourselves that was just her trying to live up to the role destiny had given her, trying to appear tough, not reflective of her true person…but that was our own rationale. If we weren’t already sympathetic, we would have taken her at her word. For example we know from Jaime’s own internal monologue that he doubts he could have gone through with the baby trebuchet, but because he’s not nearly as sympathetic it’s commonly held against him as something he ~ did because he threatened it.