illrede

I think there is another "positive" spin to be presented for when that day dawns, involving no obfuscation. Lackwit, a full grown man's responsibilities, vassals pressing in on all sides, and given to shaking himself near to death every time he was in any way pressed in public. They knew what sweetsleep was, the maester was unequivocal about the tradeoffs, but for Sweetrobin's own sake and best interest they were committed to flying close the sun regarding the matter. He had to at least appear to reign, or the Aryn line was ruined, and he was likely dead "of a chill" soon enough (not to impugn the honor of these most honorable lords). He had survive appearing to reign. The gods were cruel to that boy, but he and his did their best. Petyr, as the one man in the Vale whose position needed Sweetrobin to be alive and hold on to his authority as the head of House Arryn, was trustworthy in this matter (not to impugn the trustworthiness of these most trustworthy lords).

That was a good recommendation.

For a quick and dirty rule of thumb, it is very clean. As a rule of thumb, it was a good one. Impromptu foreign putsch carried out with a clearly stated sentence, done before sunset. There may not have been a better way to take Astapor.

I don't see a point in making the head of House Tully Hand of the King. I think that the Tully's are the strangest of the Lords Paramount; the Riverlands is just too rich, too close. So I believe that one of the reasons the Seven Kingdoms works at all is because House Tully isn't a very effective hegemon for the Riverlands. They're a Kings Landing agent, if you wanted the Riverlands locked down tight it'd be a Blackwood or a Bracken, but then you've got a different, less desirable problem. The use to be gotten out of the Tully's is doing their level best to be in charge of the Riverlands, and that as much as can be expected of them. Why would Kings Landing risk giving Tully an exterior font of power to make it stronger in its own demense? It'd ruin everything. And what would they gain by doing it before then?

I don't think it's dumb, I think it's paranormal. The mechanism would be pretty much like sporting affiliation. Jon is in direct conflict only with the Boltons, who are at best Lannister allies of questionable loyalty and no active patronage- they have firmer links with *Freys*. The Boltons positioned themselves to take over the Stark project, Roose's biggest problem is that Ramsay is just too evil and undisciplined to pull it off- it really is, Stannis is second, Jon is a distant third. Dany is in conflict with a dysfunctional slaveocracy on the far side of the world that hasn't even provided a POV, and nobody else at all currently. Who is starting up a fandom war over this, now, for them? It's madness. EDIT: I thought I was a sketchy sort because since Book Two I thought Bran was a wrong 'un. Childish selfishness locked in by trauma to the point that I just don't trust him around people- and it was sparked by noticing how he thoughtlessly treated the Frey hostage children at a feast that he was presiding over of all things- Big and Little Walder, of whom the best can be said that one of them is smart as well as evil. If he was setting out to tailor an insult specifically for Freys, at that appropriate moment, it was perfect and cutting. But he wasn't giving a masterful chastisement, he's just that utterly careless about people now, and it isn't going to get any better. But setting yourself against a crippled, grieving child with power is at least explicable. And stands to end up being vindicated for the reason it was done, at least potentially.

I think we might be conflating things. I would like Alexander II not to have been assassinated in 1881, meaning there is a good chance that his son, who became Alexander III, would pre-decease him by a few years. (Also he wouldn't have been assassinated, meaning his reforms, half-measures that they were, stand not to be rolled back.) Even if he didn't make it very far into his 70's, Alexander III would be doing different things- the man wasn't stupid, he was emotional. The untimely leadership turnovers in the monarchies in the later 18th century all by hook and by crook led to the eclipse of the liberal wings of their domestic politics, while also opening up a free-for-all in political networking. "Not Day-Zero Nicholas II" as Tsar would be the improvement. It was a perfectly awful situation.

Frederick III, Alexander III, Crown Prince Rudolf (not for himself, but the fall of the Taffe ministry). All hitting at the same time, and scrambling things in the same way.

The breadth of the leadership vacuum that just suddenly opened up, I mean.

Darn. The incapable grandson of a Tsar getting passed over in favor of another grandson? EDIT: You know, now that I think about it, it is very strange that Wilhelm, Nicholas's and Franz Ferdinand's fathers/cousin all died before they could reign for long or at all. Franz was saner than Rudolf, at least.

A bomb. More usefully, assassination by a non-regime actor at a time his rule wasn't vulnerable. Czars got rubbed out and set aside all the time! Better than even odds, I think. Just never completely out of left field.

It has to do with Nicholas II not being in command of the instrument. The foreign policy of Alexander II was set by the Crimean War (which orientated it towards Balkan Irredentism, Eastern Expansion, setting up the perfect Ottoman killshot, and France). As for the revolutionary critique (as much as I like Alexander Herzen), it doesn't signify. Your options are between internal security services running amok (to the point of pretty much running the revolutionaries) under an unready Tsar who never got ready, and internal security services under Alexander II and his not-untimely-determined successor. Same thing with the Army. Same thing with the Foreign ministry. Same thing with the judiciary. Russia was a Great Power- being an unfocussed active mess of fiefdoms (with the left hand not only not knowing what the right hand was doing, but strangling the neck and while trying to blame it on the right hand) set up catastrophe. (re: Crimea. Well, Peter had it for a bit. Then he trusted a hospodar.) (EDIT: Gah, the judiciary. Nicholas II once decided not to commute a death sentence for Blood Libel that he knew to baseless because 'everybody knew' the crime was being committed and somebody might as well die for it. His own security services and their forgers being the ones then running a domestic propaganda campaign to those ends. The man was a country-squire bystander in charge of an empire that was at its own throat, and everyone else's)

Keep Tsar Alexander II alive, and all I've got is "probably better". For royal marriages, Louis Bonaparte and Hortense de Beauharnias being childless may already be technically accurate *boom tish*.

The desire for reform is there, but there's just not much opportunity and he still is a bit of a narcissist (albeit a sometimes self-loathing one) and he means to get away with it all (he'll sin no more, but he's not going to submit to judgement for anything). He was pretty honest with the Blackfish (in that there was nothing at all to be done, once he got to Kings Landing), and he told no lies in the White Book. It's enough to be tragic, I think. He did move himself out of "problem" category and into the "solution" one, there is that. I don't think he deserves anything in the way of public credit, mind- he was part of the problem.

If nobody has yet made the point that the constant Mervyn Peake allusions and easter eggs is a oblique way of GRRM communicating that this thing will never get to dock, I'm claiming credit.

Quibble! See what it looks like if you flip that around and look at it as instead of Renly having the Reach, the Reach had Renly.