"Explain to me why it is more noble to kill ten thousand men in battle than a dozen at dinner."

[JonCon's Red Beard]

Right, cuz Walder was dumb enough to send his kin North. Some Northmen took revenge. I don't see how that means Tywin was wrong to sanction the RW

What I mean is that now, even in events that are considered "peaceful", there is trickery and blood. Men can't even go to a wedding without fearing treachery.

[Theon {HUNGRY WOLF} Stark]

Walder Frey didn't owe Robb anything, Robb isn't lord of Riverrun and neither is Cat. Even if they were, they were rebelling against the crown.

Then why did Walder declare for rebels after Trident during RR? !Because that bastard Walder Frey is a opportunist weasel.

[Theon {HUNGRY WOLF} Stark]

How many war criminals have been punished in Westeros? None, because there are no war criminals. When Gregor Clegane killed Aegon and raped Elia, was he considered a criminal? No, he was just considered a monster. And he would have been killed by Tywin to please the Martells, not to punish him for breaking war laws.

Is Tywin considered a war criminal for plundering KL?

Is Amory Lorch considered a war criminal for attacking the Innocent and the NW?

Remember Rickard Karstarks beheading. Thats how you deal with war criminals in North (not westeros).

[Theon {HUNGRY WOLF} Stark]

He is not even that merciless. He often pardons his enemies.

Like he did Raynes, Tarbecks, population of kings landing. Right.

[Theon {HUNGRY WOLF} Stark]

Btw not even Lady Stoneheart cares about the GR anymore, it is war and therefore ignored by many parties.

She simply hangs people before they can claim guest right. She does this becoz of what happened in RED WEDDING.

[Targaryen Warg]

Tyrion's speechlessness was probably from the shock that Tywin actually said something poignant about sacrifice.

[IRON BANK]

Plain and simpy because it will fuel more hatred, giving your enemies something more to dignify their rage.

[Metopheles]

Because if it were the other way round, Cattie throwing a dinner party and wedding with the Lannisters, say Sansa's marriage to Tyrion, and the Northeners would have stabbed all the Lannisters and their men, the majority of the fans would cheer and call her a hero and shower her in admiration and say it was justified and right.

But because it was the Northeners who bled, all hate on the Lannisters.

Can't help if the blokes from the North have big jaws and tiny brains. They all played the game, they all knew the risk, the wolf yanked the lion's tail, and the Lion of the West, Lord Tywin won the war against the Usurper from the North.

[Buried Treasure]

I have to ask where Tywin got the 10,000 number from, he seems to have picked it because it was a nice round number that sounded impressive compared to 10. There seems to have been little risk of 10,000 men dying in a Lannister-Stark battle, given the size of the armies and the unlikelyhood of killing an entire army during a battle.

Tywins real justification was he would rather win by killing several thousand men with no less of his own men than kill a lesser number of enemy men for the cost of losing some of his own in battle. If he had presented an argument using the justification that as a feudal Lord he owed it to his men to save their lives by killing a greater number of another Lords' men I could perhaps have bought it. But the argument he did use just illustrated what a hypocrite he was.

[TheonGreyjoy]

Because those men was not at war, they was attending a wedding. Weddings should be a joyful day which you enjoy, not get slaughtered like dogs. When you enter a battlefield your mindset is that this could cost you your life. When you enter a wedding your want to laugh and have fun.

[Oberyion Martennister]

as the person above me stated, because they did not sign up for it.

[Metopheles]

as the person above me stated, because they did not sign up for it.

I bet the guys Ara killed also didn't sign up to that. So burn the bitch then.

Really guys, who signs up for being killed? That is the stupidest thing that has ever been written on this thread.

[Fanless Mace]

This is exactly the argument that the President and military have been making relative to the use of drones. It also begs the "Would you kill Hitler at age 5 if you could go back in time?" conundrum.

And my answer is...No. Going out of your way, outside of accepted moral conventions, to involve innocents in warfare is a slippery slope that leads to tolerance for Hiroshimas and Nagasakis. It's hard to close those floodgates.

[Metopheles]

How is bombing a city with poison that affects future generations in any way comparable to killing the leaders of the enemy? Same goes for your Hitler story. Why not take something comparable? Wolfschanze. Stauffenberg tries to kill Hitler during a war council. I doubt Adolf expected to be blown apart that day. So is Stauffenberg a monster for doing it?

The Red Wedding affected soldiers and war leaders, not peasants and small folk in the majority, like say, Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Keep such nonsense out of the discussion please.

[Winter's Knight]

Guys, most of Robb's 3,500 men were slaughtered at the RW. Tywin is lying when he uses the dozen-over-dinner defence because he had a couple of thousand men killed there-and that is about how many would die in any actual battle if Robb's army suffered a rout.

[The Broke Howard Hughes]

Sounds like a man trying to shirk the blame.

[Oberyion Martennister]

I bet the guys Ara killed also didn't sign up to that. So burn the bitch then.

Really guys, who signs up for being killed? That is the stupidest thing that has ever been written on this thread.

That's not the topic being discussed though, is it? If you join any military force you know the risks which include capture and death. You don't go to a wedding ready for a fight.

And it's in, not on, since you feel like nitpicking for dumb shit.

[~DarkHorse~]

I disagree. Tywin neglects to mention one fact: The custom of guestright ensures stability and peace overall. It's the only way to enable diplomacy, peace-brokering, alliances and more.

If it's broken for good, you are pretty much forced to sit in a chamber with a loaded crossbow for the rest of your life, because you can never trust anybody. You'd be forced to completely eradicate any opponent (enemy would be to strong a word yet), because you could never trust them to not do the same to you.

In the end, keeping that custom alive is worth ten thousand lives - because it saves millions, maybe even billions.

This

Also, the RW was nothing short of cowardly and not an act of war that merits victory. Only, a lowly opponent would sink to this level.

They slaughtered the guests (proven warriors) by taken them at their weakest, without the chance to fight back. They dropped burning tents on them, got them drunk, without armour and weapons and smiled in their faces before taken them by complete surprise.

The saddest part is that these men had survived and endured numerous battles (probably proud of themselves for it) but were cheated at dinner.

Robb and the Northerners were not defeated, they were cheated.

[Bronn Urgandy]

This

Also, the RW was nothing short of cowardly and not an act of war that merits victory. Only, a lowly opponent would sink to this level.

They slaughtered the guests (proven warriors) by taken them at their weakest, without the chance to fight back. They dropped burning tents on them, got them drunk, without armour and weapons and smiled in their faces before taken them by complete surprise.

The saddest part is that these men had survived and endured numerous battles (probably proud of themselves for it) but were cheated at dinner.

Robb and the Northerners were not defeated, they were cheated.

I have to be honest, a lot of this is not much different from a common ambush, just look at how Ser Criston Cole met his grizzly end. And those are perfectly acceptable and even applauded in war. The only real atrocity (and it is an atrocity) in this (purely from an unbiased standpoint) was that they were allies and those killed were protected by the laws and customs of Gods and Men, both sides were supposed to put down their weapons and one side didn't obey the rules thus making it murder. Otherwise Robb's attack on Oxcross was almost as much an atrocity as this.

Edit; I suppose men caught in an ambush have a chance to yield, but the whole point of such an act is to find your enemy unarmed, unarmoured, proper drunk if possible and basically at their weakest so you can cut through them like a knife through butter.

[Parizad]

The logic behind a war being more honorable than slaying guests is that in a war, the enmity is plain, the opponent has a chance to fight back. but a guest is at most vulnerability and the host has given their word that guests will be safe, so killing the is the height of cruelty. What this leaves unsaid is that in a war more civilians die and suffer than armies. On the other hand killing guests at a wedding promises some acts of vengeance to follow, which means war again. So the point Lord Tywin makes, silences Tyrion but there is more to it than a number game, as is to everything regarding social rules.