Aegon and the Iron Bank Debt

[DragonDreamer]

I think he would pay it.

Conquering Westeris and becoming a new Targaryen leader he would want to "start of the right foot" if you will. You don't want to make unecessary enemies on your first day at your new job.

[The Grey Wolf]

I think he would pay it.

Conquering Westeris and becoming a new Targaryen leader he would want to "start of the right foot" if you will. You don't want to make unecessary enemies on your first day at your new job.

:agree:

Plus if he has been taught that kingship is a duty and not a right the way Varys claims then he's not going to make a dick move like refusing the Iron Bank.

[E-Ro]

lol, I just realized I didnt really answer the ops question.

I think, as tempting as it would be for any new ruler to want to ignore the debt, its simply too dangerous. Telling the iron bank to fuck off, though that is the easiest answer, and certainly the best for the short term, will go bad FAST.

[The Grey Wolf]

As for sellsword companies considering the number of Free Cities and how often they fight one another and how freaking big Essos itself is I'd say there's way more than 20,000 mercenaries up for the taking even without the Golden Company and a few others like the Long Lances that are already hired.

[Jaak]

2. Even if they did want to hire sellswords, the Iron Bank could definitely outbid the other Free Cities.

Where is this established?

3. It's all moot anyway because Daenerys is on the other side of this giant continent, and will not be back in the foreseeable future.

Pretty foreseeable. Volantis is afraid of Daenerys-inspired slave rebellion, and of Red Priest. And their own guard force is untrustworthy. And they are about to elect two tigers for first time in three centuries.

Obvious move is to hire free sellswords all over Essos. And they have more to lose than Braavos - and wealthy enough as state to outbid Braavosi bank.

[dpt24]

I think you'd have to pay the Iron Bank if you win the throne, otherwise someone is going to rise up to take your throne from you with IB help. Pretty simple. You don't have to pay the whole thing back and you might be able to get the monthly/yearly payment lowered but you cannot do a Cersei if you want to stay on the throne. So any sane person would find a way to pay it, even if it's done slowly.

[E-Ro]

Here is the exact quote.

The king was not amused. "I want you gone before midday, ser. Lord Bolton could be on us any moment, and it is imperative that the banker return to Braavos. You shall accompany him across the narrow sea."

"If there is to be a battle, my place is here with you."

"Your place is where I say it is. I have five hundred swords as good as you, or better, but you have a pleasing manner and a glib tongue, and those will be of more use to me at Braavos then here. The Iron Bank has opened its coffers to me. You will collect their coin and hire ships and sellswords. A company of good repute, if you can find one. The Golden Company would be my first choice, if they are not already under contract. Seek for them in the Disputed Lands, if need be. But first hire as many swords as you can find in Braavos, and send them to me by way of Eastwatch. Archers as well, we need more bows."

Ser Justin's hair had fallen down across one eye. He pushed it back and said, "The captains of the free companies will join a lord more readily than a mere knight, Your Grace. I hold neither lands nor title, why should they sell their swords to me?"

"Go to them with both fists full of golden dragons," the king said, in an acid tone. "That should prove persuasive. Twenty thousand men should suffice. Do not return with fewer."

[Iona]

FAegon takes King's Landing and only then finds out that the Iron Bank is supporting Stannis. This won't happen probably until the end of WoW. In DoS, I predict that Stannis will take the Iron Throne but die in the process. This will open up the Iron Bank's options to support someone else.

I stared at the flames and interpreted what I saw - if Stannis kicks the bucket, the IB's next step is to support Shireen as his heir. They probably would like their money back from the Baratheon family.

[Ser Muradin the Small]

Aegon and/or Dany would most probably force nobles they'd defeated, eg-Lannisters, to pay the debt...assuming of course they become king/queen with the war being over

[Light a wight tonight]

At Battle of the Wall he won against a huge wildling army.

There was actually no huge Wildling army. There was a horde of starving refugees, a small percentage of whom could be called warriors, and most of those were poorly armed. LC Mormont wasn't afraid to tackle the Wildlings with 200 light cavalry (Rangers) and Stannis had armored knights.

But to comment on the OP, assuming that Aegon will be king for long enough to even bring the question up is a reach. You might ask if the king of the White Walkers would honor Robert's debt. There's a good chance he'll be in charge. Provided they have a king, of course.

[E-Ro]

Then we have the battle at the wall. Let me start by saying that after the defeat at KL most men would have given up, but not stannis. An important part of being successful in life is how you respond to failure, at some point or another EVERYONE fucks up somehow. The fact that Stannis is willing to continue his war even after such a demoralizing defeat speaks volumes of the mans character. He doesnt give a fuck, he wont ever stop. Now onto the battle itself.

Stannis uses the men of Eastwatch to guide him and his thousand men to castle black. He launches a phenomenal three pronged assault on the wilding horde. He attacks the wildling soldiers and Mance tries to put up an effective defense, but its too little too late. Stannis has three columns of heavy horse assault Mances men. Stannis knows he cant hope to take Mance in a pitched battle, Mance has too many men its simply not feasible at all. So he plays to his strengths, he knows that individually his men are better equipped and trained then your average wildling so he launches a daring and bold lightning attack designed to capture or kill the enemy commander or cause as much chaos and discord in the enemy ranks as possible getting them to break or accomplishing both tasks (which he does). Mance also had unconventional wepons in the form of giants and mammoths. No other commander in westeros has ever fought anything like this before, it was stannis first time against them as well. They manage to perform very well against the armored column sent against them. But the failure of one column did not affect the other two, now that is a damn good showing of Stannis leadership. This is imo, Stannis most impressive victory. Mance is himself no slouch at leading his men, he jumps right into action as soon as he hears the trumpets blaring, its too bad for him that Stannis planned this attack in such a way that it would have been extremely hard for Mance to win. The battle was not lost because of mances incompetence; it was lost because Stannis played to his strengths. He smashed an army far larger then his, and the wildlings had unconventional weapons in the form of giants and mammoths. We see how he split his heavy horse into 3 separate columns to surround, encircle, and crush mances hosts ability to fight back. His assault on the wildings completely demoralized them and crippled their ability to respond. He accomplished all of his objectives here, the complete and utter destruction of the wildlings ability to wage war, and the capture of the king beyond the wall.

Let me now address some common points people who dont really know what they are talking about in regards to medieval warfare use to lessen this accomplishment.

1. The wildings had only a few thousand warriors!

Thats not true. Mances horde is placed at 100k people. Now the rate of fighting men in the wildling society is far greater then that of most other places. This is due to their lifestyle and their values. Its an extremely warlike society and only the strong survive for long. Even some of their women fight. These people will be big, strong, and fierce. We also have this quote by stannis on the wildling host.

Stannis bristled at that. "I defeated your uncle Victarion and his Iron Fleet off Fair Isle, the first time your father crowned himself. I held Storm's End against the power of the Reach for a year, and took Dragonstone from the Targaryens. I smashed Mance Rayder at the Wall

, though he had twenty times my numbers. Tell me, turncloak, what battles has the Bastard of Bolton ever won that I should fear him?"

Twenty times his numbers is not accurate if Stannis is counting all the wildings in the horde, if hes including the old men, children, and woman who dont fight the wildings have 100 times his numbers(he has 1k men the wilding host is 100k strong) so Stannis is counting only the wilding warriors. The ones that actually fight.

2. The wildings are ill equipped and have no formal training at arms!

This is true; they dont have training by a master at arms fight with lesser weapons and are not very disciplined. But they are fierce, savage and have a huge number of fighters compared to stannis. I also find it troubling that people use the fact that stannis men are better equipped than the wildings as a way to lessen this victory. Thats nonsense. A good commander uses his mens strengths to his advantage, and he tries to downplay their weaknesses. Thats precisely what makes him a good commander. Furthermore, you wont hear any historian ever say how a better equipped forces leader is not good because his men had better equipment. Think about it, no one bitches about the romans having better equipment and training then 90% of their enemies, same for alexander the great his men were far superior to what he was fighting, yet no one says lol brah he sucks because his men were better than the enemy Also, lets put some of you guys saying this about the wildlings in some plate or mail, give you a steel weapon and put you up against 5 screaming savages intent on killing you and see how long it takes them to knock you down and kill the shit out of you.

[A Duke]

At Blackwater he lost, after an army of 80,000 attacked him in the rear. That links to what E-Ro said about the numbers, y'know? His mistake was appointing Imry Florent as the admiral - but even if it was someone/Florent would listen to Davos, the final result would be similar. The Wildfire boom was inevitable, I think.

At Battle of the Wall he won against a huge wildling army.

He also subdued Great Wyk and took Dragonstone from Targaryen loyalists - which seems to be one of the very few cases, where Dragonstone was taken.

And did this army magically create itself in the rear? No. He was incompetent there, face it.

He was outmaneuvered so that he was attacked while his force was crossing a river by a huge force that he had zero intelligence of.

An extremely significant part of the battle for a commander is to have a good knowledge what happens across the battlefield. This is a problem to this day and huge sums are paid to ensure that.

Not noticing an 80,000 men army sneaking up on you is a big screw up. more so when this army came from two distinct direction. That means that they didn't use some breach in the force providing intelligence but that it was faulty organized. The blame is ultimately in the hands of the supreme commander.

It was Stannis who appointed the failed florent, this is league A screw up. The offensive could have easily been handled better, like not sending all the fleet up in one go, and noticing the suspicious winch towers, sending scouting forces ahead, etc. It's in fact highlighted by Davos.

The plan itself was pretty bad, pretty much smashing his army headlong on the river and later KL. He was just hoping to win by numbers. No attempt of flanking KL with his fleet, or crossing higher upriver, not in range of KL defensive, which is pretty dumb.

There is a loss and there's a loss. If Stannis would have been competent at Blackwater he could have retreated with most of his army, or at least a much much larger chunk of it. and with most of his fleet.

There is a reason why some of the retreat battles of the Wehrmacht in the east are considered as excelently executed. Despite the fact that it was pretty much a series of defeats.

As I said, if you take apart the battle at the wall Stannis used standard tactics, I give it an above average performance. Remember that he was fighting against ragtag bands of wildlings mostly armed with bone and stone age weapons, lacking discipline and order. communication channels and chain of command or any other army structure over the small companies of men (except very few exceptions which weren't large forces either).

Subduing Great Wyk is something we know little of, it could have been as much as landing on the island with a force, or it could have been a brilliant campaign. We know nothing about it so relying on it to prove something is a weird choice.

IIRC Dany says that DS has surrendered?

[A Duke]

Yeah all that is well and good, but if your force of 5 thousand is up against a force of 60 thousand, you are fucked no matter what. Unless your technological advantage is so much greater then that of the enemies.(think tanks vs knights) Look at the greeks vs the persians at thermopylae the greeks had some 7 thousand men, and FAR superior to the slave soldiers being thrown at them, they had a superior position, better morale etc. and still lost. all the factors you listed are important. but numbers rank higher then most everything you listed(other then quality of leadership I would say)

Sometimes I am not sure whether you're serious. When one factor is extremely in favor of one force obviously the other factors are less important.

Your 1:20 numerical advantage is the same as pitting tanks against swords and saying hey, see numbers don't matter.

When the numerical advantage is more reasonable like 1:2 or less than the other factors are as important then number, some of them might weigh even more.

When you have a dozen factors it's not that important that the numerical advantage is a little more important then weapon advantage because they are still just two factors out of a dozen. You have to weight all the factors as a whole to have any chance of successfully discern the chances to win a battle. Degenerating it to just numbers is very simple minded.

Historically speaking many times (reasonably) smaller forces fought against larger forces, They chose to fight not because their commanders were a bunch of dimwits but because when you take the whole spectrum of factors into account numerical advantage can be much less important then you seem to think, overall.

It might surprise you how often they actually won.

Nowadays government spend literal billions of dollars in think tank teams simulations and war games to understand the factors controlling a war and chances of different outcomes. Maybe you should explain to those idiots that they are wasting time and money and it's only the numbers that ultimately decide.

Yes, when you go over historical battles off the top of your head you remember great battles in which the numerically inferior force won. thats because those battles are idolized by everyone, and made famous because people love it when the underdogs wins. But the fact of the matter is that if numbers were just one factor and equal to all other facotrs that decide the outcome of a battle lords and leaders of armies would not be trying to squeeze as many men as they can possibly feed into their forces.

You presume way too much.

Who do you think you are to presume which battle I am thinking of at the top of my head?

Why do you presume to know how much of history I know on the subject?

a bit pretentious.

Sure, commanders tend to favor larger armies. You forget that commanders also favor better weaponry, better training, better pay and food (for moral) and fighting offensive wars in the summer (or at the least not in winder) etc. Many of the other factors they cannot control as easily, that doesn't make them any less important.

Obviously any commander will do his best to optimize every factor he can control before the war even starts in honest, that doesn't mean they are the only factors present.

what? this is rather daft. why does the fact that the battle at fair isle was a naval engagement matter? Leading men, at land or at sea is the same exact thing. If you can formulate a plan and execute that plan at land you can do the same at sea and vice versa.

As for battles you completely left out there is the fighting at storms end when stannis held it against the reach at the age of 17.(we know there was fighting because donal noye lost his arm there) there is also the cleaning out of deepwood motte.

See my sig as well, asha says how the common men have such faith in him. Stannis is a well established leader. that is fact. Denying it, gets you nowhere.

Sure, this is exactly the reason why Air force/fleet commanders regularly sent to command tank and foot divisions nowadays.

As for RR, we all know that mostly Mace was content sitting put and doing nothing, and if there was fighting it was probably minor. While commanding under a siege does require good commander type attributes to be successful (which Stannis was) it hardly requires great acts of generalship.

Hell, Noye could have been wounded by would-be deserters trying to open the gate. We don't know!

Why is that Stannis fans tend to count "battles" (knowing that one man is injured is a battle now?) we know nothing about as points in his favor?

Deepwood mote: You have to agree that it's no more than competent (no more was required, I agree). Not some Alexander Mocedon act of brilliance.

[A Duke]

~~~ Here be copy-paste~~~

How about you copy paste my reply (and many more excellent replies from others) to that from the relevant thread as well?

[Sansa_Stark]

How about you copy paste my reply (and many more excellent replies from others) to that from the relevant thread as well?

Can't have Stannis not look anything less than a glorious beacon of military prowess and duty.

[MasterJack]

LF will pay the debt when he decides/delcare his side. could be a good way to win a position with Dany/Aegon/Stannis. They will all know the money used is probably the money LF himself stole, but will just be happy to take it (I have some doubt with Stannis but Dany and Aegon are sure to take it with a smile)

[The Great and Mighty Poo]

In my opinion LF wont pick a side he will be on his own side.

But this isn't about stannis so drop it guys.

And I see Aegon paying the debts if they bring it to him if he doesn't he wont be ruling long.

[Stan the Man Baratheon]

Where is this coming from? Please correct me if I am wrong, Stannis commanded two battles.

1. The blackwater, where he shown himself to be severely incompetent in the planning and preparation part, as well as choosing his under commanders. Lost the battle horribly.

2. Battle of the wall, shown somewhat above average competence.

Where there any other land battles I am forgetting (He seems to be a great when it comes to naval battles but it's not really relevant here)?

Sure, Stannis has experience in his favor, but his generalship is not consistent at best.

You are also forgetting the subduing of great wyk the largest of Iron islands, amphibious assault of Dragonstone and the battle of wall was of not average competence my friend, beating army 20 times your size is a great achievement, not to mention that army has giants, skinchangers and good warriors.

[Shadrich]

There was actually no huge Wildling army. There was a horde of starving refugees, a small percentage of whom could be called warriors, and most of those were poorly armed. LC Mormont wasn't afraid to tackle the Wildlings with 200 light cavalry (Rangers) and Stannis had armored knights.

NW Brothers would most likely lose. If they were so sure of winning, they would have attacked earlier.

Yes I agree, that only a fraction was capable of fighting, but still even that fraction was still much higher than Stannis' numbers. Also they had Giants, mammoths and what not.

[A Duke]

You are also forgetting the subduing of great wyk the largest of Iron islands, amphibious assault of Dragonstone and the battle of wall was of not average competence my friend, beating army 20 times your size is a great achievement, not to mention that army has giants, skinchangers and good warriors.

As I started before in this thread. We know nothing about the subduing of great Wyk. It could have been as much effort as landing on the Island with the massive army the IT provided, or a prolonged hard campaign or anything in between. I have no idea how you manage to draw conclusions on the competence of Stannis' command based on virtually zero information.

DS surrendered iirc, that's what Dany said (right?).

Battle of the wall, He was not fighting an army, he was fighting against small bands armed with bone and stone age weapons for the most part. An army requires discipline, order, clear chain of command, communication network etc. The wildlings had none of that.

In effect Stannis' army never engaged 20k men, at best he engaged a small fraction of the wildlings before they broke, precisely because they were not an army.

You're rightly saying there was a massive discrepancy in numerical values for both sides, however you overlook the just as massive discrepancy in armament, training and discipline.

bottom line, Stannis' tactics were nothing more than ordinary. Something a heavy armored knight force would use against a ragtag host.