the trees have eyes

4 hours ago, Moiraine Sedai said:

It’s a fair description of what happened. 

If you bother to read the books Catelyn has a ringside view to the slaughter of the Northern and River Lords at The Red Wedding, the tipping moment being when her son is murdered in front of her eyes, so to describe it as some kind of Aegon for Catelyn tit for tat with the score even is pure stupidity.  And very poor trolling.

But you know that of course.

@Frey family reunion Good stuff, I enjoyed this and a lot of thought and effort went into it 

In general I think what Sansa knows or suspects and what she suppresses could be explored a bit more - for a while I thought you might be going full "Sansa Durden" but her concealed memory seems quite specific and limited.  The hairnet symbolises home but no thought of how it is to deliver home or what magic is in the black amethysts appears in the text before Sansa's post facto realisation that there was poison in at least one of the stones but if she is to take Oleanna's cue she must be in the know or have figured it out.  Otherwise this is the only planned murder when the murderer doesn't know until the last moment that they are supposed to carry it out (rather than flee in the confusion afterwards) or how they are supposed to do so.

I have to say I have always been happy with the surface story that Oleanna took the smuggled poison from her hairnet and either she or one of the Tyrells slipped it into the chalice but ever since you referenced Sansa watching Joffrey and fiddling with her hair in a previous thread I have been open to the idea that she may have decided to try and poison Joffrey.  This ofc requires her to understand she carries poison in her hairnet, raises the possibility that both she and Oleanna are looking for opportunities to poison Joffrey (or Tyrion for argument's sake) and leaned on my faulty transposition of Joffrey threatening to get a child on Sansa from her wedding to Tyrion to Joffrey's wedding to Margaery, an extremely sharp spur to action.  The realisation of what happened to Ice and what may happen to her if she does not escape does give a spur to action but Joffrey seems the greater threat and who "justice for your father, vengeance" would be targeted at rather than Tyrion.  How not when she begged Joffrey for mercy for her father and he gave her his twisted idea of "justice" instead?

For Sansa has every reason to want Joffrey dead.  He executed her father in front of her despite her pleas, bullied and humiliated her during their betrothal and even though she is married to his uncle he threatens to sleep with her whenever he wants.  She is not free of him and he is as much a danger to her as Oleanna perceives Joffrey to be to Margaery.  Tyrion, in contrast, tells her he won't touch her until she wants him to and has been as good as his word.  Would she like to be free of him and of all Lannisters?  Absolutely, yes, it's why "Come to the Godswood if you want to go home" is electrifying for her but Joffrey is the larger danger and when Lysa questions her on why Tyrion never slept with her she thinks "Because he was kind".  When Dontos first gives Sansa the hairnet he tells her it's justice for her father, vengeance and home: thematically the intended target is surely Joffrey not Tyrion.

The problems of trying to get a coherent picture of what really happened at the purple wedding are significant and there have been many threads and discussions on distance to object, motive, the properties of the strangler, sublimation and a pie vs chalice debate that although very sharp reminds me of The Life of Brian's Gourd and Sandal factions.  Tyrion is our only pov but he is unaware of what is afoot and draws our attention to the chalice; Sansa is present but affects confusion and then a horrified realisation in her pov afterwards where Dontos appears to draw our attention to the pie; LF offers a clear explanation later of what happened and why but he is the most manipulative liar in the whole story; Oleanna is not a pov and we have no reliable way of determining her actions or intentions.  For me it's quite plausible that Oleanna and LF are lying to and using each other: Oleanna pretends to want to kill Tyrion to gain LF's questionable alliance in the scheme while aiming for Joffrey.

Beyond that we have GRRM stating that the way he resolves mysteries may be less satisfying to the readership than what they theorise may be the answer - who sent the catspaw to murder Bran springs to mind.  That seems a strong possibility here and it is exacerbated by the problems of how the strangler was delivered and how opaque individual's motives and how reliable their memories and stated intentions are.

Sansa tells herself to be brave on the morning of the wedding but this can simply be mustering resolve to escape, itself dangerous and daunting for a 13/14 year old girl not used to taking risks and this is a very big risk: if it fails and she is caught she will suffer repercussions and will be more closely watched in future.  Her terror after the wedding when she realises one of the amethysts is missing is genuine (unless we posit a repressed memory) and she seems to realise for the first time it was poison.  If she was the poisoner there seems missed opportunity for her character development or conflict between her Alayne persona and Sansa though you could argue that may emerge later.  But if the target was Tyrion why is Dontos so unconcerned that Joffrey has been poisoned instead, regicide being a far, far more dangerous proposition than the murder of a dwarf very low in standing with the king?; indeed Dontos is positively crowing at how well everything has gone.

And yet she is told the hairnet has a purpose at the very beginning, however much she concentrates solely on home of it's three promised purposes (and home ironically is the only one of the three that is a lie), Oleanna may not just be wittering away to her while she retrieves (or notifies her of) the poison, Sansa does fiddle with her hair at a convenient moment, she is at the table and close to both chalice and pie and has reason to want both Tyrion and Joffrey dead.

Honestly I still think the Tyrells as poisoners is most likely but I think there is the potential to see different motives, different poisoners and different targets - perhaps more than one scheme, or Sansa acting off plan, happening at the same time to add to the difficulty in getting a definitive edition of events - and there are some hints that raise questions about what Sansa knew or did.

Well done 

On 2/10/2024 at 2:45 PM, The Commentator said:

The Tullys and the Starks were known rebels. Criminals. 

How were the Tullys known rebels?

Tywin sent Gregor, banners and colours masked, to raid the Riverlands and Ned sent Beric in Robert's name to apprehend him.  Tywin mustered forces at The Golden Tooth and launched a campaign against Riverrun without any basis to do so: Tyrion was a prisoner held at The Eyrie in The Vale of Arryn.

Seems like the Tullys were illegally attacked twice.

And if the Tullys and Starks were known rebel and criminals, what does that say about Walder Frey for entering into a marriage alliance (both Robb and Arya), when he could have remained buttoned up in his impregnable fortress?

1 minute ago, Melifeather said:

Posting an alternative theory that hinges upon Sansa suppressing her memories is a big hurdle to get over and very difficult to be convincing. It leaves allot of unanswered questions. 

That may be your idea on how this all works, but it's not mine. If you aren't ready to have your essay critiqued then it's not ready to publish. If you post segments then you should expect comments. 

Sansa suppressing her memories is the subject of the promised part 4.  That's all I'm trying to get across.  But as we're close to arguing over nothing I'll leave off.

21 hours ago, Moiraine Sedai said:

Cat would have stayed dead. The dead should stay dead. Cat killed Aegon Frey and they killed her for it. It was even. She then comes back and starts killing more. Her sins increase and so does her punishment. It should be the same for Arya.  

 This kind of summary of The Red Wedding probably earns a lot of likes in the Trollverse, right?

22 hours ago, Melifeather said:

What kind of hint are you understanding here? Dontos said the hairnet represented justice and vengeance for her father. Joffrey beheaded her father not Tyrion. If you were Sansa and you understood that you had the power to take the life of Joffrey, who tortured you and beheaded your father, or Tyrion simply because he's ugly and you were forced to marry him? I can't believe anyone would seriously consider Tyrion over Joffrey! 

What do you think Sansa understood when Ser Dontos told her the hairnet represented "home"? Where did she think Dontos was taking her when she slipped away from the wedding feast? Doesn't it make sense that she assumed he would help her get home to Winterfell?

 

Sansa repeats the note as if a mantra, "come to the godswood if you want to go home". At that time she believed Arya was safe back at Winterfell, dancing and sewing, and playing with Bran and Rickon.

 

I think it's quite clear that Sansa wished to go home to Winterfell and that King Joffrey had the power to keep her in Kings Landing. In Storm she tells Ser Dontos that he needn't help her escape any longer, because she's going to marry Willas Tyrell. Sansa was willing to accept a marriage to Willas rather than go home to Winterfell, because he offered her a life miles away from JOFFREY!

Dontos tells her to beware of the Tyrells as they only want power over Winterfell through her. Dontos informs Littlefinger of the Tyrell plot and Littlefinger makes sure Tywin hears of it and that is when the plan to marry her to Tyrion is formed. 

Even after Sansa is married to Tyrion, Joffrey tells her that she will be his mistress:

Until that moment, Sansa believed Tyrion would protect her from Joffrey. She was already married to Tyrion at that point, but this dance with Joffrey shook her. Now she understood that being married to Tyrion kept her too close to Joffrey. Sansa was terrified of Joffrey. She wasn't afraid of Tyrion. Killing Tyrion would end her marriage, but it wouldn't keep her safe from Joffrey.

 

It's not my theory   You are making a lot of assumptions and asking a lot of questions.  As before I suggest you wait for the OP to finish rather than asking him (or me) a lot of questions he may intend to address.

All I was addressing was the idea that the hairnet symbolised nothing but home to Sansa.  It's not my intention to do anything with that point as it's not my thread.  I suppose I couldn't contain my enthusiasm to comment either.

1 hour ago, Melifeather said:

This is what this forum is for...to present a theory and see if it can hold up to scrutiny. An OP's biggest hope is that their theory generates allot of discussion as this one has. My congratulations to @Frey family reunion for his success! We're not trying to tear FFR down, but to engage in a fruitful debate which hopefully leads to additional insight and understanding.

Of course it is.  But the theory is one argument broken into four posts due to length and every post gives the OP a distraction to field before he has finished presenting the theory (still unfinished).  It might have been better to post it in one go and then let the discussion flow but I was hoping we could contain our enthusiasm to discuss it until we had read and digested all of it.

19 hours ago, Melifeather said:

@Frey family reunion will you address "when" Sansa got the idea to use the hairnet on Tyrion? All she knew prior to the wedding feast was that Ser Dontos was bringing her a magic hairnet that would take her home.

There's a hint though:

A Clash of Kings - Sansa VIII

Can we let him finish first?  I'm enjoying the read 

7 hours ago, LynnS said:

@Frey family reunion  How would Olenna or Sansa know which crystal in the hairnet was the strangler?  Assuming that there was only one and you can't tell the difference between the poison crystal and amethyst?

TBF that's always been a problem with how GRRM set up the hairnet rather than any theory about the poisoner - it makes for great drama but isn't very practical.  I'm reluctant to think the whole hairnet was a treasure trove of poison given how rare and expensive I assume The Strangler to be (and the problem of Sansa being present for hours at the wedding and feast with all that poison on display for Oberyn / Pycelle / AN Other to spot). 

20 minutes ago, Aejohn the Conqueroo said:

'Look at me, the king who eats leftovers.'  It just wouldn't fly. There's more at stake than Robert's personal wishes and if no one else did, at least Jon Arryn still had his eye on the prize. The fact that Robert made himself look ridiculous by the time the boar got him doesn't mean that he set out to look ridiculous or set out willing to be seen as ridiculous. Honestly, I think he'd be more likely to Victarion her than marry her, but again, the people around him would have saved him from that bad choice.

If he did marry Lyanna, he would have to wait a good long time to have a child with her, so moon tea every morning for a year or so. Half the kingdom would be laughing at the usurper who put his enemy's son on the throne if there was even the hint that their kid could have been Rhaegar's.  it's all too messy. Lyanna would have to be disqualified. 

 

Well, you can think what you want but "it just wouldn't fly" is conjecture.  There is indeed more at stake than Robert's personal wishes as I pointed out (and others have) in terms of the marriage alliance binding the North to Robert's regime more effectively.

As to the bolded, this again ignores the OP (the opening statement is literally "Lets imagine that it really was a kidnapping" - at least I hope you're overlooking it) as well as the fact (pointed out in this thread as well) that the first thing Robert did on reaching WF, fifteen years after her death, was visit Lyanna's resting place in the crypts.  This is not to mention the obvious problem of Ned and Robert's relationship coming crashing down with Robert's murder of his sister and the dubious prospect of the Stark-Tully-Arryns, all joined by marriage, deciding to back the Barratheons after this.

Jeyne Westerling is to be barred from marrying for a year or more iirc, but she is not barred from marrying.  Robert would indeed be prudent (or well-advised) to wait a year before marrying Lyanna.

But there's no meaningful discussion to be had here if we are talking about different circumstances.

23 hours ago, Aejohn the Conqueroo said:

Missed that part. Thanks

Still don't think he'd do it.

Robert is rash and temperamental and wants to get his way.  I think there's a good chance he would because he wanted to. 

The political considerations are strengthening the alliance between the Stark-Barratheon-Arryn-Tully families that are the bedrock of The Robellion and that Robert returns to fifteen years later with the proposed marriage of Joffrey and Sansa.  He's indebted to the Lannisters who are power-hungry (and ultimately depose him of course) so I think it would have been better for him to have had genuine Stark support for his rule rather than Ned disappearing off to WF for good. 

He would have been guided more by emotion than calculation but I think the latter provides support for his instinctive wish.

Love and marriage would not have changed his nature, though, as Lyanna correctly pointed out to Ned, so it is highly likely they would have become disillusioned with each other and he would have had many mistresses.  But in a world where arranged marriages are the norm rather than love matches it's more likely he and Lyanna would have had several children and found contentment in their own pursuits rather than each other (more like Stannis and Selyse, even Doran and Mellario).  Lyanna =/= Cersei so I don't see it going wrong so spectacularly.

Bit late but in no particular order:

Lemongate or in general Dany =/= daughter of Aerys and Rhaella

Bloodraven =/= the three-eyed crow who is really Old Nan

Euron = Daario

Howland Reed = The High Septon

Qhorin Halfhand = Gerold Hightower

Mance Raydar = Rhaegar or Arthur Dayne

Jojenpaste

Time-traveling Bran

Bloodraven as Master of the Universe or at least master manipulator behind events

There's an ice dragon buried under WF

On 1/29/2024 at 3:42 PM, Aejohn the Conqueroo said:

And take the throne with his wife's newborn baby on his lap? 

The OP specifically says "Let's imagine...her son didn't survive".

On 1/23/2024 at 9:04 PM, SeanF said:

@the trees have eyesI don't think Tywin, or Ser Kevan, or Randyll Tarly, or - a lot of Westerosi lords - are any better than the Ironborn.

But, we do also see lordly commanders who do impose standards and restraints on those in their service, like Ned, Stannis, Jon Snow, Edmure.

At a moral, individual level I agree.  Sweeping generalisations are clumsy and unhelpful when Roose Bolton, Tywin or Bronn could be contrasted unfavourably with Rodrik The Reader or Baelor Blacktyde (from what little we learn of them).

But The Old Way gives the Ironborn an economic and legal framework to carry out reaving as a way of life that is absent in the rest of Westeros and a culture where a man's status and prestige depends on how many salt wives he has captured and men only wear jewellery they have paid the iron price for is obviously a problem for it's neighbours.  I've quoted the Theon chapter on the raid on the Stony Shore in my last post as I think this sums up how The Ironborn's approach to warfare differs from the rest of the 7K.

Of course this is a way of turning violent tendencies outwards rather than inwards but that just adds maintaining stability to the other reasons for reaving to continue less civil strife be added to men lacking salt wives, jewels, plunder and battle stories to boast of.

On 1/25/2024 at 5:13 PM, Hugorfonics said:

It was an assumption based off generalizing what you were saying.

You misunderstood?  Ok.  But you misunderstand The Old Way.

On 1/25/2024 at 5:13 PM, Hugorfonics said:

Harren the Black ruled the Riverlands, did he raid that? And mass democracy is just one part of the old way, an ambiguous term that means different.

Case in point.  An elected monarch (like via the Anglo-Saxon Witan) does not a mass democracy make.  Even a child could understand that.

We don't know how Harren the Black treated the riverlands after he conquered them.  We can assume he raided them  extensively beforehand and raided other neighbouring kingdoms afterwards.  I imagine some of the smallfolk were taken back to the Iron Isles and the bulk were treated as as thralls and salt wives in situ.  They're all second class citizens however and, whether they are eastern Europeans living in a form of Ostmark or akin to Indians living in British India, they aren't equal to Ironborn.

On 1/25/2024 at 5:13 PM, Hugorfonics said:

Conflating tongue removal with an iron born old way of life is extremely simplistic and stereotypical based off of one person. 

Don't be a twit.  You stated, on absolutely no textual foundation whatsoever that "Euron specifically is not a follower of the old ways" so I gave you a simple quote to counter that obvious nonsense.  As usual, you deflect, distract and attempt to deny the text as it's inconvenient for you.

On 1/25/2024 at 5:13 PM, Hugorfonics said:

Theon was a child raised in the green lands, while he must remember some parts of iron born culture surely most was influenced by his captors, as we see.
And the purest is thralls or salt wives, not a war to the death!

The war to the death I never mentioned and which I specifically denied in my last post to you?  That you said in your opening statement was a generalisation of my point when I told you, word for word "Raiding obviously requires there be someone to raid", yet you repeat it here.  That's a bad faith argument.  Of course it's thralls and salt wives (and plunder) - that's the whole point of it! - but those thralls and salt wives come from preying on their neighbours.

A Clash of Kings - Theon III

On 10/17/2023 at 2:40 AM, Tradecraft said:

I think both are true.

Shad is Shadrich is Howland Reed.

Shadd is explained as one of The Winterfell Men:

A Clash of Kings - Catelyn II

9 hours ago, Aebram said:

Is this a serious post about House Frey, or just a thinly disguised vehicle for hatred of House Stark? I'll give it the benefit of the doubt.

It's always a troll thread when The Red Wedding is reduced to some legitimate resolution of a dispute between House Frey and treacherous House Stark over "honour" as if the murder or taking hostage of so many Northern and River Lords is something that never happened and can be brushed under the carpet.  It's all about how Walder was wronged with the broken marriage agreement as if hacking off the heads of wedding guests under your roof or burning their armsmen to death in rigged feast tents is an irrelevance that their families will forget.

A Storm of Swords - Catelyn VII

16 hours ago, sifth said:

That magical letter from the world book, that convinced Aegon not to invade Dorne.

Unless it somehow links in to prophecy (The Daynes, Starfall, The Sword of The Morning, the reason for the Targ conquest in the first place, The Three Heads of the Dragon, Rhaegar and Arthur Dayne being besties, etc) it feels contrived.  That it's deliberately unexplained could be a wait and see a la Howland Reed or simply a closing off of a plot line that GRRM decided to drop.  If the latter he has to leave it vague because he doesn't have a good reason.

15 hours ago, Aldarion said:

Firstly, world needs to capture reader's imagination, and if author provides all the details, all he really achieves is to strip away any possibility of that happening. Secondly, when a world is built properly, there is no need for explaining everything, because many things can be inferred from other details even if not outright stated.

Basically, details are less important than the basics. So long as the foundations and the skeleton are solid, readers can fill in the gaps in the facade.

I agree with all of that.  It's an underlying given that the author can't and shouldn't try to do explain everything mechanically.  However, re the italics, the problem seems to be when people compare GRRM world with some form of medieval Europe and say "that's not realistic".  If it's internally inconsistent then there's a problem - though it may be a molehill rather than a mountain depending on a person's view but that's different to eg. complaints like lack of detail on religions, inter-faith conflict or the machinery of government.  Which is when it becomes subjective. 

15 hours ago, Aldarion said:

Except when done properly, "less is more" approach truly gives you more.

But if they are not, then any closer look will cause the entire facade to collapse.

I think this is subjective depending on the reader's view.  I don't disagree with the principle behind either statement but I think the writing has to be pretty bad for the second statement to be true and it's not in GRRM's case.  The first strikes me as pure personal preference as, for example, I'm glad he doesn't try and explain magic or Godhood. I'm unconvinced as filling in the gaps with societies or cultures requires the reader to draw on real world analogies to bulk things out in a way not required of magic (people are real, magic is an artificial construct) and the author may not want that for political reasons or simply because it's not what he has in mind for his universe.  Re the first statement, maybe less on food and heraldry but these obviously don't give us internal inconsistencies or lack of realism just, as with the travelogues, a bit of bloat that could have been trimmed.

On 11/19/2023 at 6:02 AM, SaffronLady said:

Well if you put it like that I do may as well extrapolate my point then.

Westeros ... is so decentralized, the highborn in the provinces have so much power, they dare to stop the execution of royal edicts. Like I said, case in point: Edwell Celtigar. More specifically, the fundraising policy he designed for Jaehaerys I. The lords of Lannisport and Oldtown basically went "nope, we're not following that". We don't even need to bring in early modern England, this won't happen even in 13th-century England. I am aware of the Magna Carta, but if you want to do that conversation we could discuss circumstances later. But nobody called Jaehaerys I "Lackland", for starters.

If Westeros was centralized enough to plausibly support Littlefinger's rise, we won't be even having this conversation in the first place. The basic premise behind "LF mismanaging the realm's finances" is, well, the realm is centralized enough for the royal court to mismanage the realm, which doesn't look true even for Robert-era Westeros. Least among them Robert maintaining his authority primarily through personal charisma.

I could come up with further explanations to patch up GRRM's worldbuilding but TBH I just ... don't want to do that. With The World of Ice and Fire and Fire and Blood out, the primary timeline just becomes riddled with more and more headaches due to how detailed it is. ASOIAF might work better if GRRM wrote it as a series of novellas and short stories and leave the gaps in worldbuilding to readers, instead of turning it into a series of door-stoppers where the gaps in one become fault lines in the next book.

Well, you elaborated but I don't really think there was much need.  Historians may divide history into periods for ease of reference or to distinguish chunks of time where some systems, ideas or trends are common and those where they are not but there is of course huge overlap and such distinctions are fuzzy lines and messy anyway (technological development totally absent from Planetos being key to most of them).  There is no rule that says GRRM can't use LF the way he does in his imaginary world because he has many influences and The Wars of The Roses / late medieval period forms the key influence but is not a straightjacket for his world that does not need to accurately resemble the period (long and indefinite) or place (impossible as both fictional and fantastical) that either you may think that it should or that he is trying to recreate.  It's up to him is my point and you may find LF impermissible based on your view of the middle ages and how GRRM's world should work but I don't agree or think it would matter even if LF were fifty years "too early" to meet your threshold for "realism" (even if it were the case that no smart but relatively unimportant men achieved positions of power and influence through patronage).  We just see this entirely differently: it's why I liked Springwatch's GRRM quote rather than any disappointment about the lack of detail regarding the machinery of government or bureaucracy.  LF's actions with the power he is afforded by his patrons and his chaotic destruction (unnoticed by anyone) seem far more unlikely and problematic than his actual promotion, always as a useful tool of a more powerful individual as it is.

LF's "rise" is a textbook example of a man of useful talents enjoying patronage and this is the sole reason he rises as he does: Lysa via Jon Arryn promotes him and by the time of Jon Arryn's death Robert is used to having him in place.  Nothing to do with centralization.  Mismanaging the realm's finances means mismanaging the Court's finances which leads to loans from the Iron Bank, The Faith and The Lannisters.  This is purely serving Robert's needs, not some independent economic or financial policy from an independent minister.  In the medieval period this sort of royal profligacy led to forced loans from merchants or bankers, payment of which could of course be forgone; in the early modern period (in England) it led to conflicts between late Elizabethan and, far more significantly, Stuart parliaments about granting the monarch taxes (or customary duties like Ship Money).  The use of the loans and the problems Cersei's non-payment to the Iron Bank will likely cause seem fine to me (though maybe unrealistic of the powers of medieval banking dynasties in your view) and I don't know what detail we would want on a centralized / decentralized financial system and how this would improve the story.

LF achieves promotion and stays on The Small Council through Lysa/Jon Arryn's patronage, has a dodgy period when Ned is appointed but makes himself useful to Ned while he is still finding his feet (except....not really), sucks up to Joffrey and makes himself useful to Joffrey, Tyrion, Tywin and Cersei.  When his patrons / dupes are not in power he is smart enough to be off while Mace seeks to put one of his own family in his place - which Cersei counters with the insignificant but wealthy Giles of Rosby to counter the Tyrells (just as Tywin restored Pycelle to prevent The Citadel naming a Tyrell to his post).  I imagine you find this more historically credible for the pseudo-period but LF is promoted as Arryn's man (Arryn having no family to promote) and morphs into the Lannister's man: as with all patronage systems, an attack on the placeman is an attack on the patron so LF is left alone.

I don't know who Edwell Celtigar is and I haven't read the pseudo-histories you mention but it seems GRRM's attempts to give a rich tapestry of history and backstory to his main sequence novels and flesh out his world is surely more valid than deciding to "leave the gaps in worldbuilding to readers".  Creating an entire world and its history from your own imagination is bound to be less than perfect or seamlessly fit together so it feels like people are expecting too much.  Incidentally someone else compared Tolkien's worldbuilding more favourably with GRRM's with this "less is more" approach but I don't agree with that either: it's the author's world, not ours, and readers of course highlight the lack of elements they want included, whether religion or bureaucracy, which becomes very similar to criticism of the plot for not following the course the reader would prefer it to.

23 hours ago, Hugorfonics said:

The Old Way is not war to the death,  idk where you came up with that because although Balon and Aaron share different views on the subject neither confuse it with that.

Strawman, I never said that it was.  Why pretend that?  It's dishonest.  Raiding obviously requires there be someone to raid.  As I told you, look at The Shield Islands.  Or look at The Stony Shore or the raiding up the Mander.  You could look at the Kingsmoot too for how Euron wins the support of The Iron Lords and what he offers them.

23 hours ago, Hugorfonics said:

And Euron is a slaver, specifically not a follower of the old ways.

Euron very much is a follower of The Old Way  .  It's what he has been doing on Silence all these years and why he has a crew of mute thralls with their tongues cut out. 

A Clash of Kings - Theon II

23 hours ago, Hugorfonics said:

Obviously Jaime leaving her in the woods like Weasel is inconceivable,  what I'm saying is Bonifer punished the victim for getting raped by banishing her from her home and suggesting a job often conflated in westeros with a hooker. It's not confusing, it's fucking disgusting. 

What you said was that Jaime took her and "she was walking the path of the thrall".  It's obvious bullshit, Jaime is protecting her not carrying out some Westerosi version of The Old Way (and you are perversely trying to represent The Old Way as a means of offering protection to women).

The rest is pure distraction as you show your general undifferentiated contempt for everything and anything in place of the holes / complete fabrications in your argument.  Bonifer, as religious zealots tend to do, does not look approvingly on those with loose sexual morals (as he / they see it) and turfs her out.  She's a refugee, Jaime protects her, end of story.  Nothing to do with thralldom (actually salt wifery) or sexual slavery; nothing to do with war crimes and The Old Way.

23 hours ago, Hugorfonics said:

You don't make laws unless it's a thing. The governor can't fathom having first night because in our culture that's not a thing.

So if a society has laws then it's because everyone is a rapist and murderer and all these things are part of the culture? 

I think you'll find the laws are against things that are generally considered unacceptable by the society or culture and that they deem deserve punishment, often quite severely, like gelding or sending to The Wall or execution, all punishments meted out for rape in Westeros.  It's the same where you live even if you have to scratch your head every morning about why there are all these laws against you carrying out the bona fide cultural practices you would otherwise engage in.

23 hours ago, Hugorfonics said:

And your specifying on Roose when I've pointed out that Walton and men like him, which in Jaimes estimate is lots, rape when their blood is up.

I'm specifying Roose because he carries out rape and murder but obviously keeps it quiet because Ned would have executed him for it.  This is an umambiguous incident that occurs in peacetime.

Jaime does indeed consider that Walton and men like him would commit rape in wartime but then go home to their wives and families and be law-abiding citizens in peacetime.  It's why the attitude of military commanders to rape, the punishment to be meted out and the use of rape as a weapon of war are being debated in this topic on war crimes.

23 hours ago, Hugorfonics said:

The entirety of the free folk culture revolves around abducting women

The Free Folk are very like the Ironborn in some ways, a marginal society who raid the more prosperous lands on their borders and take women as property.  Neither of these are Westerosi traditions or cultures though the attempt to change Ironborn culture by forbidding The Old Way has been a kind of project since the Targaryen conquest.

On 1/22/2024 at 4:29 PM, Hugorfonics said:

Charming. I suppose it's better then leaving them as chattel slavery which is basically the go to in westeros.

It really isn't.  You know this.  Why type such bollocks?  The women taken by the Ironborn are the equivalent of the Yazidis being stolen by ISIS. I specifically made this analogy to make you think about what you are writing such an apologia for. For reasons known only to yourself you are doubling down on this and portraying the kidnappers as emancipators.  What an astonishingly stupid, not to say vile position to take up.

On 1/22/2024 at 4:29 PM, Hugorfonics said:

 If this was back in what we think of as Caliphate times, i.e, the middle ages, it wouldn't be as alarming because all of their neighbors also fucking suck, like the Crusaders or the Lannisters.

Except of course, not all the neighbours fucking suck and only the ironborn have this cherished tradition or raiding everyone for plunder, thralls and sex slaves, glorified and codified into a way of life.  The Wildlings raid and fight and steal women from each other and only the most daring go over The Wall for plunder(?) and women but they aren't part of Westeros at all while the Ironborn are half in / half out. 

Odd that you are quiet on condemning the slaughter and enslavement of the Yazidis even if you imagined it in the middle ages ("it wouldn't be as alarming [then]") as if you know that by saying what you really think you would have to criticise the Ironborn for doing the same thing, something you have quixotically decided to defend as benefiting the victims.

On 1/22/2024 at 4:29 PM, Hugorfonics said:

Idk how many times I gotta say they all do that.  I don't have tinted shades for a specific kingdom, I see all of westeros very clearly.

Your shades are painted black.  The Old Way is a unique practice and the thralls / salt wives taken back have no analogue in Westeros.  War crimes are committed in Westeros, it's the whole point of this thread, but no other culture legally or traditionally operates in this way against it's neighbours who have all been bound together in one kingdom for the last 300 years under the same set of laws anyway.

I don't think you see it clearly at all.  This apologia for the Ironborn is just a rather silly way of showing your contempt for Westeros in general.  It's a feudal kingdom, man, no one is unaware of it's faults, but you don't have to resort to a smug lazy dismissal of everything as equally bad that leads you to some terrible arguments and eye-popping conclusions.

On 1/22/2024 at 4:29 PM, Hugorfonics said:

It's an incredibly misogynistic society where the boss lady in charge like Cat isn't allowed to say the word Ashara out loud.  

 Ned's marriage to Cat is a happy one and when he leaves to become Hand he leaves her in charge at Winterfell.  The worst incident in their marriage is when she questions him about Ashara, rumoured to be Jon's mother, and he tells her quite coldly never to mention her name again.

This is meant to display the extreme misogyny in Westeros that you want to include in your ass-pull argument that adultery is punishable by death. 

On 1/22/2024 at 4:29 PM, Hugorfonics said:

It is a bit peculiar that there's no other proven adulterer we can look at but from what we got all these situations result in presumed death

 It's not peculiar at all, you are fabricating something then acting surprised that there is no support for your fabrication in the text.   

This is one of those terrible arguments and eye-popping conclusions I mentioned.  You are simply making things up in bad faith in order to try and support an absurd position you took out of contrariness.

On 1/22/2024 at 4:29 PM, Hugorfonics said:

and Eddard never throws around the word treason for Robert's perfumed reaction.

Um.  It's one of those water is wet moments.  He doesn't need to call it treason because it is understood that it is.  If you're very young (you're not) or have no historical background to understand treason in a feudal monarchy (you have) you might need this explained but the author doesn't think it needs it.

On 1/22/2024 at 4:29 PM, Hugorfonics said:

These guys are a bunch of war hawk megalomaniacs, that beating with your love with your fist for giving you horns, well I'd say its an assumed reaction for an animalistic society. 

I think that could happen today (and, does, sadly).  It doesn't mean that if I hear about it on the evening news that I live in an "animalistic society", simply that someone committed murder and will be punished for it.  I don't quite agree with the picture of the Ironborn as an "animalistic society" though I do think the thralls and salt wives are second class citizens who are really slaves by a nicer name, certainly property that can be punished lethally if the owner is enraged and the property at fault.

I don't agree at all with the silly and morally smug condemnation of feudal Westeros as animalistic or the feudal nobility as war hawk megalomaniacs.  That you find it peculiar that the novels aren't full of husbands beating their wives to death is a problem with your own faulty comprehension (actually deliberate invention of alternate facts) and projection of distaste for all these smelly barbarians who don't live in an enlightened and pluralistic utopia.

On 1/22/2024 at 4:29 PM, Hugorfonics said:

Which is backed up by text while the treason Ann boylen thing is not.

If the tail end of the word salad is saying that adultery is a crime punishable by death throughout Westeros and that treason is not and you believe you have textual support for this (notwithstanding your peculiar confusion that you could not find supporting evidence for this a mere two sentences ago) your attempt to substitute your fabricated alternate facts is, um, not well founded.  This is really poor stuff.

On 1/22/2024 at 4:29 PM, Hugorfonics said:

Which is why I think Victarion didn't break the law. Euron either or Balon would have taken a legal, lethal, approach. 

Oh, Victarion didn't.  He punished his property, lethally so.  He didn't kill a citizen of The Iron Isles.  I think Euron did break the law though as he made use of his brother's property without his permission, and it's very clear that Victarion would not have given such permission.  But as adultery is not a capital crime anywhere in Westeros or The Iron Isles (despite your attempt to reverse engineer it so to justify your contrarian take on what happens between the Greyjoy brothers) and this is only a piece of property there's not much to punish him for.

The idea that Balon would have taken a "lethal approach" (or that he is some kind of legalistic paragon a la Stannis) and executed one of his own brothers over a piece of property picked up as booty is unsupported - and that is putting it charitably.  Balon kicks out Euron so it doesn't end in kinslaying between Victarion and Euron, not because of a judge's astute reading of non-existent laws.

On 1/22/2024 at 4:29 PM, Hugorfonics said:

And I suppose in a way she was property because in westeros marriage for the women is basically a trap but she was his wife. He thinks of her on the same level as Dany, histories greatest eligible bachelorette. Iirc there isn't any reference for Victarions first wife being a thrall. 

 Bad troll, Hugor.  Catelyn is not Ned's property.  But Victarion's wife was:

A Feast for Crows - The Iron Captain

When he did not answer, Asha said, "I was away when Silence sailed. I had taken Black Wind around the Arbor to the Stepstones, to steal a few trinkets from the Lyseni pirates. When I came home, Euron was gone and your new wife was dead."

"She was only a salt wife." He had not touched another woman since he gave her to the crabs. I will need to take a wife when I am king. A true wife, to be my queen and bear me sons. A king must have an heir.

 

A salt wife =/= a true wife because:

 

A Dance with Dragons - The Iron Suitor

The larger, heavier, slower ships made for Lys, to sell the captives taken on the Shields, the women and children of Lord Hewett's Town and other islands, along with such men who decided they would sooner yield than die. Victarion had only contempt for such weaklings. Even so, the selling left a foul taste in his mouth. Taking a man as thrall or a woman as a salt wife, that was right and proper, but men were not goats or fowl to be bought and sold for gold. 

 

a male slave = a thrall; a female (sex) slave = a salt wife

 

He makes it clear that she was a salt wife, not a true wife.  Dany will be a true wife, not property.

 

I hope that helps but I'm sure you will try and turn it all on it's head again for shit and giggles 

On 1/19/2024 at 2:20 PM, Hugorfonics said:

I'm not entirely sure what label to give him, but not "old way" which is extremely ambiguous and means different things to different people.

"The Old Way" is a system of perpetual warfare between the Ironborn and everyone who is not Ironborn.  The Targaryen conquest made Westeros off limits to reaving but the likes of Euron always aimed at other targets in Essos and ofc all Westeros is now back on the table.  It's not ambiguous at all.  Take a look at The Shield Islands for how it works.

On 1/19/2024 at 2:20 PM, Hugorfonics said:

Definitely in Bonifers eyes she's a hooker, Jaime is a little more woke then like fucking Bonifer yet nevertheless, despite his pleas, she is basically walking the path of a thrall.

She's a refugee, not a piece of property.  You must be able to understand the difference between someone abducting and raping her, then claiming her as a sex slave (granted the label of salt wife to distinguish her from a proper wife) and someone granting her protection on a temporary basis.  Temporary because whether she becomes a washerwoman at Casterly Rock or a Tavern Maid in Lannisport or The Riverlands, he's helping her not claiming her.  No one can genuinely be confused about this.

On 1/19/2024 at 2:20 PM, Hugorfonics said:

They all have a culture that allows it, that's what I'm saying. Roose Bolton does acknowledge that the rights of first night is illegal and does acknowledge that if he leaves the husband with a tongue he could get in trouble with the law, but what did that accomplish? 

This is a mess.  Quite obviously Westeros does not have a culture that allows this and has laws against it.  Roose Bolton knows this which is why he has the miller murdered: so he can't go to Ned and demand justice which Ned, as Jorah Mormont serves to remind us, would assuredly dispense.  A law being broken is not evidence that law is pointless, nor is it evidence that the underlying culture does not accept or recognise the morality or legality of said laws.  Jesus...  The criminal element might not but they then get punished for law-breaking.

On 1/19/2024 at 2:20 PM, Hugorfonics said:

If you just look at the awfulness of ironborn culture they're gonna come out awful, but again I say they're at least more pragmatic in a nicer way, for example if Pia were to have kids they'd be smallfolk and susceptible to the same calamity that their mom was, under ironborn culture they'd be integrated and presumably better defended by the kings peace, at the least in a better position to take care of their toothless mother.

I think if ISIS ever want to lawyer up then you're their guy.  All those Yazidi women they're being pragmatic to in a nicer way would assuredly be better looked after by their children in their toothless dotage under the Caliphate's peace than otherwise in the war-torn world.  You clearly feel the cultural integration of those children into their fathers' way of life has benefits and should be a priority, yes?....

Of course, if you take your peculiarly rose-tinted spectacles off then the Ironborn are the ones creating thousands of Pretty Pias on The Shield Islands not rescuing them.

On 1/19/2024 at 2:20 PM, Hugorfonics said:

Victarions wife cheated on him, Eddard assumed the penalty for adultery was death, and there's no reason to think that isn't the case for the rest of the Sunset. Balon certainly took a legality view on the subject which is why Euron was banished, like it's awful no doubt.

The penalty for treason is death.  That the treason takes the form of adultery (fifteen years worth of it, and fourteen years worth of passing off her brother's bastards as the King's children and heirs to the Iron Throne) shouldn't be confused with adultery being a capital crime.  And you know perfectly well that it's not.  "There's no reason to think".  Are you really trying to pretend that adultery is a capital crime in Westeros?  What an incredible ass-pull . 

Balon gave not a damn about a piece of property being dispensed with.  He didn't want Victarion and Euron coming to blows and one committing fratricide so he banished Euron as the wrongdoer.  I mean, please, just stop.  If Balon took a legalistic view he would have banished Victarion for law-breaking and murdering a salt wife, someone apparently in your fantasy offered legal protections.  But he banishes Euron.

On 1/19/2024 at 7:10 PM, Universal Sword Donor said:

It's definitely not peace time, RR and Blackwoods are still holding out. Stannis holds DS and SE. Stoneheart and the rest of the Brave Companions are wreaking havoc in the RL. The IB are raiding the entirety of the coastal Reach. Jaime does what can to restore rule of law and leaves behind the holy hundred to help, but even he doubts if it's enough.

That's more accurate, I suppose.  Harrenhall is on the edge of the tail end of a war zone with the only River Lords yet to submit (Blackwood and Brynden in lieu of Edmure Tully) under siege.  The area is full of broken men and law and order will need time to restore, years maybe (the sack of Saltpans, the BWB as you point out).  But Harrenhall is recovered territory (if not exactly friendly) and the inhabitants are to be offered the protection of the law, rather than treated like an occupied enemy.

On 1/19/2024 at 7:10 PM, Universal Sword Donor said:

Your statement just felt a bit contradictory, starting out with its peacetime and then saying he never punished someone for a war crime, which he actually did on multiple occasions, the Lannister soldier who raped Pia and the Lannister deserter, among others, who occupied the ruins of the Wode's tower houses.

What I mean is Jaime would punish soldiers under his command who carried out rape (in peacetime or wartime).  He's not exactly Stannis and his track record with honour is spotty to say the least but he would punish rape.  However, men under one of his father's bannermen clearly committed atrocities at Harrenhall when it was in rebellion against the Iron Throne (or it's Lady/Lord was), including a whole lot of rape and he does not punish this. 

Maybe he doesn't see this as his business, as he was not in command of those men so although he doesn't approve he doesn't think he has the right or authority to interfere retroactively with another's orders and punish them (which authority he does have now and makes his view very clear).  Feudal right of justice belongs to the lord unless you took a grievance or complaint up the line - as the villagers who were initially pillaged by Gregor's men did by appealing directly to the King / Ned in Robert's absence.  But I find that a bit unlikely as it would prevent Jaime (or anyone) from intervening in any way when they found a crime being committed.

So I tend to think he knows the men are guilty of crimes but that the "wartime vs peacetime" distinction means he feels obliged to overlook what their own Lord / officers permitted against an enemy, albeit an enemy civilian population.  It's not quite the same as an amnesty but like Dany after the Sack of Meereen it's not going to be punished, though new offences will.

Westeros doesn't have a written penal code afaik so the penalty for rape is not set in stone - rapists seems to be offered a choice of castration or joining the NW - Daereon I think; Jon Snow has a black brother who was a serial rapist of septas and tattooed himself for every victim - but Jaime has him executed.  Why? Military discipline or making an example to restore that discipline?  Licence to pass sentence as the lord sees fit?  An attempt to be true to the vows of knighthood, given that spotty record to date?  Fondness for Pretty Pia who Bolton sent to him as a bed warmer and who he turned away, mixed with anger at the knowledge of what she must have endured?

The wartime / peacetime distinction is an attempt to understand Jaime's actions - ignoring past actions and punishing the present rape - when rape is obviously a crime.  Westeros seems to blur the line in wartime as to whether rape will be punished (Stannis obviously, Ned and others most likely, Tywin and his like will ignore it or punish it depending on the benefit to be gained) without using rape and sexual enslavement as a tactic, indeed a motive, like the Ironborn.

17 hours ago, Universal Sword Donor said:

Uh .... he hangs a Lannister soldier for doing exactly that:

One of the Mountain's men had tried to rape the girl at Harrenhal, and had seemed honestly perplexed when Jaime commanded Ilyn Payne to take his head off. "I had her before, a hunnerd times," he kept saying as they forced him to his knees. "A hunnerd times, m'lord. We all had her." When Ser Ilyn presented Pia with his head, she had smiled through her ruined teeth.

Yes, I said he restores military discipline and the rule of law at Harrenhall as it is now peacetime.  I also said what he doesn't do is go over past events, take a witness statement from Pia and seek to punish crimes that were committed during the war.  Any crime from this point on is punished.  You'll note that the man implicates all his colleagues in raping Pia earlier but Jaime does nothing about this. 

21 hours ago, Hugorfonics said:

Pretty pia is litteraly carried away from Harrenhal. It's by Jaime, so not bad, but that's a semantic and in normal conditions she'd be a sex toy, like how she was used before Jaime.

I guess not legally,  but who cares, like we established that doesn't make the victim not raped. Slavery in Harrenhal was a thing, they grabbed Arya and co and forced them to to work for no pay. If she was a few years older she'd have gotten Pias treatment as well.

In fact the legality to the iron borns debauchery adds a certain safeguard element to it which of course doesn't make thralldom and salt wives acceptable but does make it "better" then the the way greenlanders operate with their animalistic ways and lack of cultural play.

 

I'm really trying not to derail this thread but what you type is, um, curious, let's call it that.  So you think Jaime is following a version of The Old Way?  Even you have to be able to see he is rescuing and protecting her not stealing and raping her. 

You "guess not legally"?  The whole point is what the law allows and what it doesn't.  We have laws against rape, human trafficking, forced prostitution and coercive control - doesn't mean they are always observed or that our courts manage a decent conviction rate or effective protections.  But the Ironborn have a law / cultural practice that allows it.  You have to be able to see that.... 

So the Ironborn's sexual enslavement adds a safeguarding element to it does it?  It's superior to the Greenlanders "animalistic" ways, is it?  What did Victarion do to his salt wife again?  One group has laws against this kind of thing, the other doesn't, it has a society built on it.  Please just stop.  This is beyond clowning around.

On 1/16/2024 at 2:39 PM, SeanF said:

I think that punishing rape is far more likely to be the case if the victim is highborn, rather than lowborn.

Very few lords would be likely to spare a knight or common soldier who raped a highborn woman, unless that man was *extremely* useful (like Ser Gregor).

Fully agree.  Jaime restores military discipline and the rule of law at Harrenhall.  But it's also now peacetime, the Riverlands are restored to the 7K, the River Lords have made their submissions to the Iron Throne and it's now friendly territory.  He doesn't set about taking a witness statement from Pretty Pia or establishing if (and it's not a very big if) any of the Mountain's Men raped her and she doesn't point the finger.  It's an acknowledgement that what has gone before, under Hoat, Bolton-Hoat and The Mountain is now over (although Jaime doesn't leave her there and she isn't keen to stay) but may not be seen as a strict violation of law because, well, war, rebellion, right of conquest and punishment of rebels / the defeated enemy.  And as Jaime knows, Tywin ordered the Riverlands to be set alight so which atrocities are to be punished and which forgotten?

If Pretty Pia had been a noble daughter of a friendly lord or bannerman somehow caught up in the fighting, a Jeyne Westerling say (absent marriage to or sleeping with the enemy, with wolves) it would be treated as a straightforward case of rape and Jaime would have punished the perpetrators severely.  If it had been a noblewoman from the other side - a daughter of Lady Whent or a Blackwood, say - probably Jaime would have punished the perpetrators out of class solidarity and the political considerations of mollifying the local powers that be and pacifying the resentful countryside more swiftly; and out of personal distaste too.  But Pretty Pia is not important enough for him to start gelding or hanging his own Lannister foot soldiers over, however scummy.  And as the soldiers would say: "But m'lord Bolton / Ser Gregor said we could make use of her".

8 hours ago, Hugorfonics said:

He didn't dismiss anyone during Renlys tenure. He does dismiss Hyle but that's like a year later and has more to do with Hyle being an asshole. Which is a pretty suspect reason imo, but whatever the truth, it's definitely unrelated to the topic above.

I agree that there is no substantive reason connected to Brienne for Tarly to dismiss any of his knights but as they are household knights, in effect one step up from mercenaries rather than landed bannermen, he can dismiss them at will.  The fact that he is retained for over a year, along with several others, would seem to indicate that the bet over Brienne wasn't a rape waiting to happen but indicative that Hunt isn't exactly a shining star in Tarly's eyes.

Nothing happens to Brienne.  Renly makes her a member of the Rainbow Guard.  She feels humiliated when it's explained to her that all the knights courting her aren't doing it out of chivalrous admiration but because of a wager to bed her.  Until they are told that she's a highborn daughter of a key bannerman and to stop that shit. And that's that.

8 hours ago, Hugorfonics said:

The wager itself was real, Hyle admits to it,  that there are more unscrupulous characters then Hyle out of like the whole "chivalry of the south" I think is all but guaranteed.  

Randyll himself admits that there wasn't really proof or even perhaps a plan in the making,  just whispering, but nevertheless I'd have to agree that the chauvinism and competitiveness that so encapsulates a knight would, without intervention, lead to sexual assault. 

And that rapist would end up on The Wall or gelded, his House and family dishonoured and ostracised.  Not a very smart move.

I think you're letting your own bias show here.  The bolded is a non sequitur as you reach a determination of guilt from zero evidence and the italicised simply says all knights are rapists.  If this is really your view then it's not remotely established in the text.  There's no inevitability here, just a bet that led to nothing.

8 hours ago, Hugorfonics said:

Yea for sure, I'd say a good example is Joan of Arc who at court was like,  "they tried to rape me all the time," and of course the price for fighting or not getting raped or wearing denim or whatever the official charge was, burning her alive. 

The English burned Joan of Arc for heresy, the French made her a saint.

8 hours ago, Hugorfonics said:

I think it kinda is, not everybody would do it, like Hyle although he's bit of a douche, but enough peoples would turn the blind eye or just engage for the lolz. 

It's like this.  There are two attempts to rape Brienne.  The first is by three of the bloody mummers, the worst scum in the series.  Jaime defuses this by bellowing "Sapphires!" which gets Vargo Hoat all worked up about damaging her ransom value.  The second is when, after Lord Selwyn refuses the ransom demand, Hoat has her washed and inspected (a man of his morals having had problems with his intimate health before) before she bites half his ear off: it's why she ends up in the bear pit with a tourney sword.

Renly's young Turks are chasing tail but if any one of them pushed it too far he would end up with half his ear bitten off too.  She's the daughter of Lord Selwyn of Tarth and a member of Renly's Rainbow Guard: you seem to be making her an amalgam of Brave Danny Flint surrounded by rapists and murderers and who's fate "is all but guaranteed" and Val, a wildling princess, who Stannis's now landless bannermen see as a lifeline and compete over (because they are dumb, she is not an heiress like Alys Karstark).

There is absolutely no evidence that these knights or young nobles wold attempt to rape her or join in for the lolz, that's just your cynicism conjecturing an outcome you can easily condemn.  Rape is a crime and they know the consequences of committing it: the topic is about war crimes and how far the normal operation of law is dispensed with during war.  Brienne's mere presence among Renly's army during peacetime does not make her an "all but guaranteed" rape victim - and by her own side and social class.  How far it might go is probably best illustrated by Hunt, much later in AFFC(?), dismissed by Tarly and in Brienne's company, making a proposition that she marry him and let him share her blankets that night.  She threatens to geld him and he's smart enough to leave her alone.

9 hours ago, Hugorfonics said:

Although, yea, not to actual instruments of war, that I think Saan and Cerseis quotes regarding the possible sack in acok shows raping highborn women in times or war is in fact a thing.

Yes, it is in fact a thing (although ransom or marriage value and the desire of nobles to in fact protect rather than rape other noblewomen would usually protect them) .  The thing is: is it a thing that is okay or a thing that will be punished?  The Dornish want justice for Elia but until Gregor is dumb enough to publicly confess to what he did to her all they know is that she and her children died in the sack of KL.  When Gregor tells everyone Tywin wants him saved so he can be tried and executed.  Now there's a difficulty here in separating the rape and the murder but until this point there is no specific crime (did anyone know she was raped or how she died?) and certainly no culprit.  Once there is, it's not ok.  Activities during a sack are generally excused, although not those explicitly confessed to, those during a tourney towards your own side are not.

9 hours ago, Hugorfonics said:

Nah, every kingdom does that. Ironborn just give it a name. When it comes to smallfolk we're given plenty of information on the Sunset kingdoms and their ways. Pya is the most notable example, being bounced around from one camp to another but there's also the Karstark soldiers the bwb delt with, Jaimes description of Walton which summarizes the whole of westeros, the free folks abduction of women, etc.

I'm aware that you treat all cultures with equal contempt and refuse to distinguish any one from the others in terms of awfulness.  Nonetheless, the Ironborn are the only culture to operate a quaint cultural tradition of reaving, whereby they raid their neighbours and abduct and sexually enslave womenfolk.  The lives of the smallfolk in Westeros are not easy and in war when the dubious protection of the law is effectively suspended life becomes brutal but they are not enslaved and made thralls or salt wives - at least not legally.  Pretty Pia may be raped at Harrenhal but she is not carried back to The Dreadfort or Lannisport as a chattel slave.  The only direct comparison is Ramsay taking the women of Winterfell back to The Dreadfort for his "sport" (which is actually worse given the nature of his sport) but this is obviously as illegal as we can imagine in Westeros not a bona fide "cultural tradition".