Wyman was very wrong to eat the Freys (Changed thread title)

[sj4iy]

Neither is the Red Wedding.

Uh, no. The Red Wedding is easily the worst atrocity in the entire series- and that includes what happened during the sack of King's Landing. There's nothing in the books that approaches anything near the level of deceit and betrayal than the Red Wedding.

[butterbumps!]

I'm sure that not every tribe follows the Old Gods in the same way, as I doubt the North and the Wildlings would have identical Old God faiths.

Ok, and even with that in mind, I'm not certain that Cannibalism is seen on the same level of "sin" as kinslaying and guest right according to "the gods." I mean, even within the Rat Cook story itself, it's specifically emphasized that the curse the gods gave him was because of the guest right break, not the cannibalism (or the murder, fwiw):

Afterward the gods transformed the cook into a monstrous white rat who could only eat his own young. He had roamed the Nightfort ever since, devouring his children, but still his hunger was not sated. “It was not for murder that the gods cursed him,” Old Nan said, “nor for serving the Andal king his son in a pie. A man has a right to vengeance. But he slew a guest beneath his roof, and that the gods cannot forgive.”

To be clear, I'm not in favor of vengeance, murder or cannibalism in bringing that up. I'm saying that I don't think the cannibalism thing is seen on the same level as the other two major sins by the gods. Independently of how we see it, I think it's inaccurate to claim that it's just as grievous a sin as guest right within "the gods'" moral system.

[ChillyPolly]

This. He makes a big deal out of making sure they were safe while protected by guest right and even gave them guest gifts to ensure that guest right was fulfilled. He did not break guest right in any way.

I'm not sure I care. I'm not sure (per the story) that the gods care.

In the tale of the Rat Cook, the rat cook murders an enemy's child and feeds it to his enemy. It is not clear in the story if the Rat Cook partakes himself. The gods are horrified by his crime and turn him into a cannibal who is cursed to forever devour his own descendants. The poetic nature of the justice suggests that it was not merely the technical violation of guest right that offended the gods.

Manderly, however, chooses to interpret it only in this narrow way. He also adopts a very narrow interpretation of "guest right".

Still his crime is disturbingly parallel, and he even commits cannibalism himself by partaking himself. The violation of trust is similar in both cases -- a crime that generates such hate and distrust that continuous warfare is inevitable and peacemaking becomes much more difficult. Whether they were technically still his guests or not, he is taking advantage of the opportunities created by his false pretense of welcoming them as guests and ambassadors, and a false pretense of accepting peace terms, in order to murder them. How then can anyone make peace? I guess they'll just keep fighting till all of Westeros has devastated. And then the Others will come and finish off the survivors.

[Lee-Sensei]

Uh, no. The Red Wedding is easily the worst atrocity in the entire series- and that includes what happened during the sack of King's Landing. There's nothing in the books that approaches anything near the level of deceit and betrayal than the Red Wedding.

I'm sorry, but Gregor Clegane, Ralf the Sweetling, and the rest of those thugs gang raping a kid because her father said she wasn't a whore is way worse than the Red Wedding. Ramsay Bolton forcibly marrying Lady Hornwood, raping her, then locking her up and starving her to the point of her eating her own fingers is way worse than the Red Wedding. Littlefinger forcing Jeyne Poole into prostitution (an 11 year old), and then sending her to Ramsay Bolton is way worse than the Red Wedding. People are losing perspective here.

[Arakan]

Uh, no. The Red Wedding is easily the worst atrocity in the entire series- and that includes what happened during the sack of King's Landing. There's nothing in the books that approaches anything near the level of deceit and betrayal than the Red Wedding.

I disagree very much.

The RW is appalling, yes, but we are speaking of soldiers here (with the exception of Cat and maybe some others). In the case of King's Landing we are speaking of innocent civilians, men, women, children.

Pressumably hundred if not thousands of girls and women were raped. Pressumably thousands of civilians slaugthered.

I assume the quantitiy of slaughter in KL was also higher than at the RW (but that might be wrong idk).

[thelittledragonthatcould]

I'm sorry, but Gregor Clegane, Ralf the Sweetling, and the rest of those thugs gang raping a kid because her father said she wasn't a whore is way worse than the Red Wedding. Ramsay Bolton forcibly marrying Lady Hornwood, raping her, then locking her up and starving her to the point of her eating her own fingers is way worse than the Red Wedding. Littlefinger forcing Jeyne Poole into prostitution (an 11 year old), and then sending her to Ramsay Bolton is way worse than the Red Wedding. People are losing perspective here.

Craster raping his daughters and sacrificing his sons is easily the worst thing in the books.

[sj4iy]

I'm sorry, but Gregor Clegane, Ralf the Sweetling, and the rest of those thugs gang raping a kid because her father said she wasn't a whore is way worse than the Red Wedding. Ramsay Bolton forcibly marrying Lady Hornwood, raping her, then locking her up and starving her to the point of her eating her own fingers is way worse than the Red Wedding. Littlefinger forcing Jeyne Poole into prostitution (an 11 year old), and then sending her to Ramsay Bolton is way worse than the Red Wedding. People are losing perspective here.

I'm not 'losing perspective'. The Red Wedding was the massacre, of THOUSANDS of people. You're the one who has "lost" perspective if you think the rape and torture of a few people is worse than the slaughter of thousands of unsuspecting people at a wedding feast.

[The Wolves]

I'm not sure I care. I'm not sure (per the story) that the gods care.

In the tale of the Rat Cook, the rat cook murders an enemy's child and feeds it to his enemy. It is not clear in the story if the Rat Cook partakes himself. The gods are horrified by his crime and turn him into a cannibal who is cursed to forever devour his own descendants. The poetic nature of the justice suggests that it was not merely the technical violation of guest right that offended the gods.

Manderly, however, chooses to interpret it only in this narrow way. He also adopts a very narrow interpretation of "guest right".

Again what book are you reading?

The Rat Cook is not slain because he killed his enemy's child and fed it to them.

The Rat Cook is slain because he killed a guest under his roof.

If the gods didn't favor cannibalism than Skagos should be destroyed by now.

And the Freys set the predicament of no one being safe now under any type of peace, Manderly didn't not break that social structure the Freys did.!

[WildBlood]

I don't care about the eaten freys or their offspring. I don't judge asoiaf by present day morals. It made for good reading. And to hell with the freys anyhoo.

[sj4iy]

I disagree very much.

The RW is appaling, yes but we are speaking of soldiers here (with the exception of Cat and maybe some others). In the case of King's Landing we are speaking of innocent civilians, men, women, children.

Pressumably hundred if not thousands of girls and women were raped. Pressumably thousands of civilians slaugthered.

I assume the quantitiy of slaughter in KL was also higher than at the RW (but that might be wrong idk).

The sack of KL doesn't happen during the series. We hear about it second-hand, which is why I excluded it. We don't know enough information about what happened during the sack, anyway, other than what happened to the Targaryans. We know exactly what happened during the Red Wedding.

Anyway, all of this is off-topic. This should be about whether Manderly was justified or not, not what the worst thing to happen in the books was. I digress so that the debate may continue ^^

[butterbumps!]

In the tale of the Rat Cook, the rat cook murders an enemy's child and feeds it to his enemy. It is not clear in the story if the Rat Cook partakes himself. The gods are horrified by his crime and turn him into a cannibal who is cursed to forever devour his own descendants. The poetic nature of the justice suggests that it was not merely the technical violation of guest right that offended the gods.

In fairness, the actual tale we're given more than endorses Manderly's actions. The gods are specifically offended by the guest right breach, and dole out an extreme form of poetic justice (which tells us that extreme forms of punishment are apparently ok). In fact, the way Old Nan words it-- that the cosmic punishment wasn't for murder or feeding the Andal king his son, as a man has a right to vengeance-- pretty much gives the green light to anyone who might want to seek vengeance via murder/ cannibalism (since those fall under the category of "vengeance" and a man has a right to that apparently), provided they make sure they're not transgressing guest right while doing so.

I disagree with the moral compass of this, and don't think this is a good rubric against which we ought to judge anything meaningfully, but I think that in terms of what Manderly did, according to the story, he's probably "right with the gods."

[Veltigar]

I'm sorry, but Gregor Clegane, Ralf the Sweetling, and the rest of those thugs gang raping a kid because her father said she wasn't a whore is way worse than the Red Wedding. Ramsay Bolton forcibly marrying Lady Hornwood, raping her, then locking her up and starving her to the point of her eating her own fingers is way worse than the Red Wedding. Littlefinger forcing Jeyne Poole into prostitution (an 11 year old), and then sending her to Ramsay Bolton is way worse than the Red Wedding. People are losing perspective here.

Please, those were hidious crimes, but the Freys killed thousands of people with no ground whatsoever. Even worse, they broke guestright. Now, guestright isn't sacred for shit and giggles. It actually has a really important socio-political function. As long as a man could rely on the protection of guest right, negotiations and diplomatic missions could be undertaken without having to fear for once live. Now that the Freys broke it, all bets are off. Good luck in getting two opposing sides to talk about a peace treaty if their Lord can get beheaded at every moment.

[kiasyd]

It says that he has several pieces of the pie. Roose Bolton was suspicious of the pies until he saw Manderly eating them.

Though he suspected the wrong ingredient: Poison instead of Freys. :smug:

[HexMachina]

I don't think any one act/event is the most despicable/atrocious in the series (To sj4iy, Arakan, Lee Sensi and whoever else). I think a number of acts are atrocious on different ways, but that doesn't make one worse than the others. For example, the RW was an atrocity on a large scale, the Mountain raping the innkeepers daughter a different kind of atrocity on a smaller scale. The fate of many of the smallfolk in the Riverlands is also atrocious on a large scale etc. etc. et.c

[Equilibrium]

Are we seriously gonna discuss is it worse being raped or being killed?

[Trigger Warning]

Would the fan base have hated the Freys as much if they just fell on the Starks with their levies whilst they were strung out on the march?

[ChillyPolly]

Ok, and even with that in mind, I'm not certain that Cannibalism is seen on the same level of "sin" as kinslaying and guest right according to "the gods." I mean, even within the Rat Cook story itself, it's specifically emphasized that the curse the gods gave him was because of the guest right break, not the cannibalism (or the murder, fwiw):

Afterward the gods transformed the cook into a monstrous white rat who could only eat his own young. He had roamed the Nightfort ever since, devouring his children, but still his hunger was not sated. “It was not for murder that the gods cursed him,” Old Nan said, “nor for serving the Andal king his son in a pie. A man has a right to vengeance. But he slew a guest beneath his roof, and that the gods cannot forgive.”

To be clear, I'm not in favor of vengeance, murder or cannibalism in bringing that up. I'm saying that I don't think the cannibalism thing is seen on the same level as the other two major sins by the gods. Independently of how we see it, I think it's inaccurate to claim that it's just as grievous a sin as guest right within "the gods'" moral system.

Manderly has evidently heard Old Nan's version of the story, and thinks he is safe. I suspect otherwise. Manderly is cursed.

[aryagonnakill#2]

^If we do the thread will be locked pretty quickly.

[Mark Antony]

Since you're also kind of in the "this is dark humor" boat, it's worth mentioning that it kind of starts in the Reek chapter before this. Roose and Rams are discussing the missing Freys, and Roose points out that Manderly is apparently utterly distraught about it, having "become especially fond of Rhaegar, to hear him tell it." Which means that since Manderly arrived in Barrowton-- after killing, butchering, and storing them Lector-style-- there was a conversation between him and Roose in which he must have put on this effusive performance of a lifetime, feigning grief, singing Rhaegar's praises, carrying on about how happy he was that his granddaughter was going to marry such a prized pig. So Manderly is being consoled in his feigned grief by Roose Bolton of all people, who knows plum well Manderly killed them. Can you imagine what this conversation must have been like?

Must have been classic.

[butterbumps!]

Manderly has evidently heard Old Nan's version of the story, and thinks he is safe. I suspect otherwise. Manderly is cursed.

ok. what does it matter whether Manderly is cursed in terms of some sort of divine retribution?

I don't get why that's an important focus. That it follows the story perfectly does not exonerate his actions. I reject the system of morality that that story evangelizes. The fact that Mel tries burning babies and children in order to advance the R'hllorst cause is totally in line with her god, so it would be wrong to say that R'hllor is damning her for it. But that doesn't mean burning babies for the Red is justifiable to us or in any remotely objective sense. No! we reject the system of ethics that condones that, and rightly call it immoral.

Same with this. The argument isn't to claim Manderly isn't right with the gods; his behavior follows that ethics espoused in the story perfectly. The argument is that the ethical system that condones his actions is flawed.

And yea, the fact that he weasels around this in the way he does means that he's familiar with the same version of the story Old Nan tells us.