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Ruler: Robert Or Cersei


Kaguya

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Cersei, because the succession crisis is her doing.



Robert held the kingdoms together after a dramatic shakeup, no mean feat and appears to have been a popular and at least respected king. Yeah he drank and whored too much but I think a lot of the debt was down to LF rather than him alone.


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Cersei, because the succession crisis is her doing.

Robert held the kingdoms together after a dramatic shakeup, no mean feat and appears to have been a popular and at least respected king. Yeah he drank and whored too much but I think a lot of the debt was down to LF rather than him alone.

Agreed, the idea that Robert drove a realm the size of South America so deep into debt through feasts and tournaments is one of the more far-fetched ideas in the history. If there was a large standing army and a massive bureaucracy it might make more sense, but the only big expense I can think of is the fleet.

Robert, hand's down. Robert failed because his wife cuckolded him and then assassinated him.

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Agreed, the idea that Robert drove a realm the size of South America so deep into debt through feasts and tournaments is one of the more far-fetched ideas in the history. If there was a large standing army and a massive bureaucracy it might make more sense, but the only big expense I can think of is the fleet.

However, the debt is presented as fact. Feasts, tournaments and lavish gifts might be part of it, but there appears to be a lot of graft going on as well.

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Cersei, because the succession crisis is her doing.

Robert held the kingdoms together after a dramatic shakeup, no mean feat and appears to have been a popular and at least respected king. Yeah he drank and whored too much but I think a lot of the debt was down to LF rather than him alone.

Agreed, Robert managed to keep things quiet during his reign, and he made the wise choice of Arryn as his Hand whereas Cersei picks men she knows are incompetent. Robert complains about flatterers and fools while Cersei prefers them. Robert also never rearmed the Faith, and likely never would.

Cersei manages to destroy herself in less than a year. She pretty much digs her own grave.

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Cersei's 2 most impactful decisions, the rearming of the Faith Militant and the dismissal of the Iron Bank are significantly more important/worse than any decisions Robert took, with the possible exception of killing Rhaegar.

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Robert, in how while being incompetent he generally left the running of the realm in the hands of competent men.



In contrast, Cersei is incompetent but still tries to take charge.


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Cersei is defo a bigger failure.

Hands: Jon&Ned vs Harys&Orton

Jon and Ned got their offices because Robert trusted them the most and they were the reason he got the throne. He also appointed them because he knew they would take ruling more seriously than him. Cersei chose Harys Swyft so she could used him as a hostage against her uncle. She chose Orton because she liked his wife.

Small council overall: cersei vs robert

Cersei chooses people who do not intemediate her, she picks weakest and least competant lords on her small council. It speaks volumes that her small council is even mocked in flea bottom. It just shows that even the smallfolk know how stupid the appointments she made. Her small council's does not consist of any overlords or skilled military leaders such individuals would have been useful to help stabilise the realm and wrap up the war also such individuals would have been helpful when she got locked up. Also her master of ships built dromonds with her money and then ran away with them. Roberts small council has some weaknesses, varys and lf have questionable loyalties but they were good at their jobs. The other members of roberts council included Stannis a competent master of ships of ships who was able to build a royal fleet and take dragonstone from Targaryens (correct me I'm wrong but I think he was actually younger than aurane when he got dragonstone) Stannis also played a key part in crushing the Iron borns rebellion. Renly was well loved by the smallfolk and he was overlord of the Stormlands. Overall roberts council was better.

Robert was loved by the smallfolk cersei not so much. She also does naught to try work on her PR. Robert had strong alliances with the vale, north and riverlands (thanks to having both of Hoster's son in laws on his side), the west was also in the fold. the reach seemed not to have any beef with Robert. Dorne didn't like him that much but they did nothing except plot in their minds and pay tax in full. He also had the strong loyalty of stormlands, and it's said that he did reward his loyal vassals after the war by taking lands from people like the conningtons and giving them over to his stronger supporters. Robert was able to turn enemies into friends.. Cersei's inherited alliances with the reach and dorne. And ever since stepping into power she's been hell bent on trying to get her kids out the marriage and betrothal and hence kill both alliances, this is despite the fact that Myrcella is happy with Trystane and Tommen and Marg seem to be getting along. We haven't seen her reward the loyal western men for being loyal to her family from the beginning, she actually seems to think that she can't trust them and hence doesn't give any of her chief bannermen a voice in her government. Cersei also seems to like turning friends into enemies e.g the tyrells and the reach bannermen. Also she doesn't treat her loyal supporters that well e.g falyse and she treats pycelle badly even though he was her spy throughout Roberts reign.

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Robert at least had the "decency" to let other more competent to rule instead (except LF, but that's Arryn's fault). Cersei has not only taken very bad decisions but also surrounded herself with idiots and alienate her real allies.





Cersei's 2 most impactful decisions, the rearming of the Faith Militant and the dismissal of the Iron Bank are significantly more important/worse than any decisions Robert took, with the possible exception of killing Rhaegar.





:lol:


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Cersei's 2 most impactful decisions, the rearming of the Faith Militant and the dismissal of the Iron Bank are significantly more important/worse than any decisions Robert took, with the possible exception of killing Rhaegar.

I think Robert's worse mistake was to reward Lannisters where he should have punished them as Ned told him. Jaime should have taken the black and he should not have married Cersei.

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I think Robert's worse mistake was to reward Lannisters where he should have punished them as Ned told him. Jaime should have taken the black and he should not have married Cersei.

And this is why Robert was the worst.

Almost his whole counsel/court was working against him. He let the Lannisters to close to the Iron Throne, he gave them too much power and turned his head from wrong doings.

Robert's reign did caused TWot5Ks, that's why he's worst than Cersei.

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Robert's reign did caused TWot5Ks, that's why he's worst than Cersei.

Robert's reign didn't cause TWot5K. Robert's personal issues did.

The realm wasn't actually that bad while he was King, even though it was Jon Arryn in charge. The problem here is that his easy nature and tendency to close his eyes at conflict let the court being invaded by ambitious people like the Lannisters and Littlefinger. Jaime should have been sent to the Wall and Varys should have been killed. I guess he wanted to simply "turn the page" and start everything with pardons to gain loyalties, but the Lannisters were never loyal except to each other. And Varys had plans no one could have really predict.

But as I said above, at least Robert realised being king wasn't his thing and that's why he had a council that (kinda) worked. Littlefinger corruption was something that I mostly blame on Arryn rather than Robert, although Robert could have been a little bit more "measured" at the time to ask for money.

Cersei, otoh, is completely oblivious to the fact she's a terrible ruler and she thinks her decisions are the best decisions any monarch could take.

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Cersei, by far was a worse ruler. Her failures at it, in Feast are the most hilarious parts of the entire series. She is so bad, Varys takes action to keep her in power because she ***** up the realm more then he could ever dream of.



Robert was a drunkard, but he knew his limitations. He took action to surround himself with talented minds that he let rule the realm.



Cersei, in contrast created a court of fools, and directly created 2 new enemies that could have easily been avoided (Iron Bank & Faith), and is in the process of creating a 3rd enemy from the Lannister's strongest & only ally at this point.



Literally every single action Cersei has taken has been in some way a mistake. *****ing up that much should be considered a skill.


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Agreed, the idea that Robert drove a realm the size of South America so deep into debt through feasts and tournaments is one of the more far-fetched ideas in the history. If there was a large standing army and a massive bureaucracy it might make more sense, but the only big expense I can think of is the fleet.

Isn't that far-fetched considering that it take only five years of bad ruling to bankrupt Venezuela, Argentina and Perú at some point of the recent history of South America.

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Isn't that far-fetched considering that it take only five years of bad ruling to bankrupt Venezuela, Argentina and Perú at some point of the recent history of South America.

It is far fetched. Modern economic structures and ideas present in the world at the moment (such as national debt) mean that an analogy made between nations today and kingdoms in a medieval period don't really work. I saw a breakdown of the expenses in Robert's reign once and in light of how much the Tourney of the Hand cost he would have had to have had an incredibly frequent number of grand tournaments on that scale to accumulate the amount of debt ascribed to his reign. Ridiculously so. Tyrion's chapters seem to indicate that LF is clearly responsible for a significant amount of the monetary loss through deliberate bad investments and I'm not surprised if he's been stashing some of it away.

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It depends on how you define "worse ruler". If you mean who himself was a worse ruler, it would be Robert. Cersei is completely incompentent and delusional, but at least she has some sort of inkling on what is good ruling and is intrested in the political intrigue. Robert is a born warrior, not suited whatsoever for anything remotely related to politics.



On the other hand, if you're asking whose rule was worse, it is Cersei's. Robert was a failure, but he had Jon Arryn backing him up and during his reign, the Seven Kingdoms were at peace. He did leave the crown in debt, but at least he avoided any rebellions and any political antagonisms. Cersei just ruined everything. With her as a ruler, the royal house had never been weaker and more unstable. She went back and forth with choosing Hands, condemned herself and endangered her son's life by imprisoning Margaery. She was absolutely arrogant and miscalculating, and only made political decisions that suited her instead of the realm.


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