Choose to forgive one

[Traverys]

Ramsay and Gregor are flat characters designed just to be sociopathic antagonists. There was a thread once that argued Gregor as a sympathetic character and I personally felt it never held water.

Roose and Walder have some similarities on their major "crimes." Roose is a practitioner of the First Night, but I find it hard to believe that the mothers of all of Walder's bastard children were voluntary participants. There's evidence that Roose was plotting against Robb (or at least keeping his options open) well before his marriage to Jeyne, so I see his betrayal as grasping for power and Walder's betrayal as a reaction to one of his biggest slights. While I have nothing but contempt for Walder and his bristling pride and how he felt justified committing the slaughter of the Red Wedding... If I'm honest with myself, plenty of other houses would have done it if granted the opportunity.

Cersei... One of my favorite characters. Maybe the first three books or so I would say she was a generally unpleasant person that was disenchanted by her husband and life as a queen and haunted by a prophecy that foretold her undoing. She tries to emulate her father, but only successfully manages to do so superficially. While Tywin resorts to unbridled violence when the positives far outweigh the negatives, Cersei interprets her father's actions as "Oh, violence solves problems." It's when she becomes regent for Tommen that the real heinous stuff happens. She starts handing troublesome people (mostly women) over to Qyburn like candy. After Joffrey's death she's becoming mentally unwound and usually drunk. There's also plenty of speculation about how she may also have a clinical personality disorder (narcissism), which would be beyond her control. But the violent tendencies are her own choice. A (very) small redeeming thing about her is with the Blue Bard. She took pleasure and smacking the Blue Bard in the face with his own lute, she later took no pleasure in seeing the Blue Bard mutilated by Qyburn. This means she's not a Ramsay, at the very least.

In the end, it's a tie between Walder and Cersei for me. Both incredibly flawed, both less than innocent, and both just not "good" or "pleasant" people. It's easier to sympathize/empathize with Cersei because we get a peek into her thoughts during her POV chapters.

 

[The Sunland Lord]

No one. All of them five are the worst possible. I mean only Craster is missing there.

I read some people forgiving Roose in first few pages, as if he didn't have a choice and "saved lives". This is a lie. He worked against Robb and the other Northerners from the beginning. He friendly fired them at the Green Fork (this is under question mark I give you that), sent a thousand of them to die at Duskendale, his son burned Winterfell and killed everyone except the two Frey boys (do you wonder why?), and he pretty much participated in the RW where thousands died again, only to hide his betrayal and take the big chair in the North. So he had a plenty of times to make his choice and he almost always choosed betrayal. He never saved lives, he in fact takes lives, and does it with pleasure. The Westerosi Hannibal Lecter. If anything he is a cool villain but he is far from a practical man, or someone who didn't have a choice. 

This "lives were saved because of the RW" idea is twisted as it gets. 

Lives weren't saved even when Joffrey was poisoned, for example. He would've continued to kill people for the sake of it, but other people were killed in the aftermath of the Purple Wedding and the trial for king's murder also cost a few lives. 

 

 

[The Lord of the Crossing]

20 hours ago, The Sunland Lord said:

No one. All of them five are the worst possible. I mean only Craster is missing there.

I read some people forgiving Roose in first few pages, as if he didn't have a choice and "saved lives". This is a lie. He worked against Robb and the other Northerners from the beginning. He friendly fired them at the Green Fork (this is under question mark I give you that), sent a thousand of them to die at Duskendale, his son burned Winterfell and killed everyone except the two Frey boys (do you wonder why?), and he pretty much participated in the RW where thousands died again, only to hide his betrayal and take the big chair in the North. So he had a plenty of times to make his choice and he almost always choosed betrayal. He never saved lives, he in fact takes lives, and does it with pleasure. The Westerosi Hannibal Lecter. If anything he is a cool villain but he is far from a practical man, or someone who didn't have a choice. 

This "lives were saved because of the RW" idea is twisted as it gets. 

Lives weren't saved even when Joffrey was poisoned, for example. He would've continued to kill people for the sake of it, but other people were killed in the aftermath of the Purple Wedding and the trial for king's murder also cost a few lives. 

 

 

It's quite easy to justify Roose Bolton undermining Robb from the beginning.  Robb rebelled against the throne and Roose had a duty to remain loyal to their king.  Roose can say he was working against a rebel from the very start in service to the crown because he is a loyal man.  Roose was serving the crown against the rebels. 

 

[TMIFairy]

On 7.08.2016 at 6:08 PM, Skahaz mo Kandaq said:

If you have to forgive one of the following, who would it be and why? Consider all their "sins" in making your choice.

(1). Roose

(2) . Ramsey

(3) . Walder

(4). Gregor

(5). Cersei

 

Easy - Walder Frey. All his actions are in line, more or less, with Westerosi mores. The Red Wedding is a desperate move to save his House from the fate of the the Reyne's at the hands of his goodson, Tywin.

 

[Faera]

On 07/08/2016 at 5:08 PM, Skahaz mo Kandaq said:

If you have to forgive one of the following, who would it be and why? Consider all their "sins" in making your choice.

(1). Roose

(2) . Ramsey

(3) . Walder

(4). Gregor

(5). Cersei

1.) Roose is pretty merciless from start to finish. He knows what Ramsay is, knows he will likely kill any future children he has yet has never done anything to stop him, reel him in or just out the world out of misery and kill him. He manipulated the war to leave Robb in a weaker state (basically treason against the King and the North) and was a key player in the Red Wedding who gained more out of it than anyone. He's the closest thing to an emotionless husk we have. I don't think he's the worst -- I find him interesting. He's still terrible.

2.) Ramsay is a serial rapist who hunts women with his 'Bastard's Girls' whom he names after the victims who give him the best sport. He was the primary actor in the killing of the Miller's boys and their mother, along with Theon, and then captured Theon and tortured him in order to reprogramme him into someone else. His word means nothing -- he thinks going back on a promise makes him clever. He routinely humiliates, tortures and sexually abuses and assaulted his wife... ugh. Ramsay is the closest thing to a truly horrendous and ugly human being both inside and out. He is unforgivable.

3.) Walder is an odd one. Yes, he was the host of the Red Wedding but unlike Roose, he really didn't do it for power as much as he did it for self-preservation. He's pretty awful when it comes to people outside his family but he is very generous towards the rest of them - letting them all stay at the Twins even though there is literally 100s of them. Really it comes down to his part in the Red Wedding. It was horrid and unpleasant but... yeah. I suppose I get it. Robb had made a fool of him and he needed to wipe his family clean of association with him.

4.) Gregor -- another rapist and mass killer, only he seems to take pleasure in it. He was the killer of Aegon and Elia Martell. He committed horrible atrocities in the Riverlands, too many to count. Granted, he did it all in the Lannister name but unlike Walder Frey he wasn't doing it to save his skin or his family's. He hates his family! He burned half his little brother's face off because he played with his toy and may have murdered his sister. The only thing that makes him a little "better" than Ramsay is the fact that he appears to suffer from constant pain, blinding headaches for which he has become addicted to the milk of the poppy, which might be the route of much of his rage. Also, he has been punished: poisoned by Oberyn Martell with a poison that causes excruciating pain to the victim that was magically enhanced to make him die as slow as possible. Now, he might well have been turned into a Qyburnstein Monster, forcibly kept alive and in never-ending pain. He was a horrible human being but he has suffered, too.

5.) Cersei is just a nasty human being. Being inside her head is like being inside the head of a genuinely insane person. So, we know she very likely murdered Melara Heatherspoon by pushing her down a well to drown. She is incestuous due to chiefly narcissistic reasons. She doted on her equally insane, megalomaniacal and sadistic son Joffrey while ignoring her other two children, both of whom lived in fear of their older brother. She murdered her husband, of course. She allowed Qyburn to conduct tests of living subjects, throwing people who cause trouble or displease her to him. Her treatment of the Blue Bard still gives me shivers... nope. She is also an irredeemably horrible person. The most you can say for her is that she rarely physically enacts her crimes herself -- but hired hands and useful idiots don't absolve you.

In the end, I would say Walder Frey is the one I could forgive. While his part in the Red Wedding was a horrible thing, you can at least get where he was coming from.