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If I was Dany I would let some of Cersai's army run


Hodor's Aunt

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On 8/10/2017 at 7:57 PM, snow is the man said:

Also they always have a king or queen and before aery's the kings that were targs weren't that bad usually. Aery's was a special type of horrible.

And even Aerys' reign started out good. He was a very promising young king in the beginning (per the World of Ice and Fire book)

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2 minutes ago, The Special Pug of Belfast said:

And even Aerys' reign started out good. He was a very promising young king in the beginning (per the World of Ice and Fire book)

I haven't read that book but ser barristan says in one of the books that in the beggining he was charming and his lapses were forgiven. Basically he was a good king but had a few issues. Obviously not the same guy that jaime killed but it shows he didn't start out evil

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7 hours ago, ummester said:

So in a story with nothing but sub par rulers, I really don't see how it can all end with this good ruler arising. Surely the whole saga is a condemnation of rule, war, feudal society and the often stupid things that humans believe?

I like the idea that after defeating the WW, there won't be any IT and the society and the form of state rule will have to change dramatically.

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If Danerys or Tyrion had a little bit of sense, they would have made the three Dragons fly over Kings Landing and then tell the people, they had the choice: either burn or deliver Cersei. I imagine even the Gold Cloaks would prefer to deliver Cersei than get roasted. Fear is all Daenerys needs to create in order to come to power.

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14 hours ago, Greywater-Watch said:

If Danerys or Tyrion had a little bit of sense, they would have made the three Dragons fly over Kings Landing and then tell the people, they had the choice: either burn or deliver Cersei. I imagine even the Gold Cloaks would prefer to deliver Cersei than get roasted. Fear is all Daenerys needs to create in order to come to power.

Though that would have impressed upon the common folk that Danerys held them in low regard, perform of else.  Not a way to gain admiration and popularity. 

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On 8/10/2017 at 8:22 PM, ummester said:

Yes, that is true - but still, dragons are an unfair magical advantage specific to a certain ethnic group in this universe. It's like saying only German people have warplanes, or something. I just don't see how the rest of the world would willingly accept it in any age - the only way Valyrians/Targs could ever rule is by fear and suppression of choice in their subjects.

Targaryens aren't an ethnic group, they're the royal family. Common people have accepted rule by aristocrats and royals for thousands of years. It's just hard to understand for those of us brought up in a democracy.

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26 minutes ago, Noneofyourbusiness said:

Targaryens aren't an ethnic group, they're the royal family. Common people have accepted rule by aristocrats and royals for thousands of years. It's just hard to understand for those of us brought up in a democracy.

Valyrians are an ethic group and I did say Valyrians/Targs.

Throughout all of human history the requirements to be part of the elites/ruling classes has been changing. It hasn't always been based on family and bloodlines, though they do often provide some periods of stability in between times of conflict, when they usually change. It's not like there has been a single human bloodline from the stone age to now that has been in a position of power, though arguably certain groups have been connected to positions of influence since Mesopotamian civilisation. 

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On 10/8/2017 at 8:11 AM, ummester said:

The people of Westeros have only been freed of Targ rule for less than 2 decades though. Sure, dragons are scary, and fighting them would take heaps of balls (like Jamie and Bronn seemed to show) but surely you would, ultimately, try to oppose them so that your children and children's children aren't ruled by the whims of people that are lucky enough to have flying, fire breathing monsters?

Westerosi only know monarchy; even Tyrion had trouble understanding the elective Volantene Triarchy. And monarchy is based around the fact that you get to rule because you had the right parents/inherited the right blood. Dany isn't different: she got her dragons because of her blood, the same way every other king has ruled because of his blood.

If something, dragons would be taken as a tangible, visible symbol of her right to rule,..

On 11/8/2017 at 2:22 AM, ummester said:

True, re Cersie also leaving a sour taste in the mouths of the common folk. I swear, the High Sparrow and Mance are the only leaders that seem like they would not cause a people's revolution - and they are both dead. Why the common people haven't either risen up against all the lords and ladies, or just left Westeros, is really beyond me at this stage.

Same way they didn't rise in our own world? Because they aren't organized, they are scared, they don't know any other way to live or any other form of government and their religion tell them that feudal monarchy is the divinely inspired natural form of rule...

If the kings and lords are stil on top after all those thousands of years it is because they have crushed any rebellion... so the peasants don't know of any successful revolution, only of failed ones... that would be enough to discourage them...

Now, the High Septon could have led a revolution, but his victory would start a theocratic state, not a republic or a democracy...

 

On 11/8/2017 at 2:22 AM, ummester said:

Yes, that is true - but still, dragons are an unfair magical advantage specific to a certain ethnic group in this universe. It's like saying only German people have warplanes, or something. I just don't see how the rest of the world would willingly accept it in any age - the only way Valyrians/Targs could ever rule is by fear and suppression of choice in their subjects.

 

Westeros is under a feudal regime. Their society is based on the idea that people are different with different privileges and duties, and if you are born with a privilege, that means you were intended by the gods to have those privileges, hence you are better than others and you deserve to rule...

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1 hour ago, Ser Lepus said:

Now, the High Septon could have led a revolution, but his victory would start a theocratic state, not a republic or a democracy...

And what of Mance Rayder? He was leading the freefolk beyond the wall for years - if his ideals managed to get south, what type of state would they start?

I do understand what you are saying, that the Westerosi don't know any better than feudal monarchies - but in a way the books and show is trying to eat it's cake and have it to, because the characters think like us, like modern humans used to democracy. I don't believe that people all but enslaved by feudalism would think and speak like we do.

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To the many people that replied to me - I agree. My point was exactly that the Baratheons have been terrible themselves. Robert being the best of them, was my example of just how terrible they have been. Obviously, Tommen needs to be excused because he was a child - but even so, he was not good for his people.

On another note: I love some of the responses about feudal society. One of my main beefs with "teh internets" is that people expect the world to be like the one we know today. Why on this very forum someone once pointed out that Targaryens are evil, because incest is illegal.

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3 hours ago, Ser Lepus said:

Now, the High Septon could have led a revolution, but his victory would start a theocratic state, not a republic or a democracy...

 

In the real life Middle Ages, that is what actually happened. The Supreme Pontiff led a revolution to free the church from control by the state during the "Investiture Contest". Dictatus Papae, a 1075 decree by St. Pope Gregory VII, was the "first declaration of independence" in European history. 

Historians such as Norman Cantor and in particular legal scholars like Harold J Berman refer to the 'Gregorian Reform' the "Papal Revolution", the first of the great 'Western' paradigmatic shifts in thought that was succeeded by the Protestant Reformation, the English Revolution (1640s-1680s), the American and French Revolutions. See:

 

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Rosenstock-Huessy says that the Papal revolution led by Gregory VII was the first total revolution It was a mutiny against the papacy’s defense on the palace: “The papacy cut the direct and domestic relation between throne and altar in every manor or palace, and claimed the right to be guardian and spokesman for every local representative of the spirit.”...

The papacy became obsessed with the orb, the world. Rome had been the center of the world in ancient times, and the papacy revived that centrality in various ways....

After the Gregorian Revolution, a principle of dualism was implanted in the political world, and this dualism of two sovereign powers, ERH claims, “created European freedom.” By asking the kings to given back the power of investiture, they “expressed the idea of a new sovereign,” and realized “the idea of a trans-local organization, a corporation.” 

The revolutionary inspiration was embodied in the architecture of the Gothic cathedrals...

From the Papal revolution, the “liberty of the Church was and remained the great warcry for four centuries.” The liberties of the post-Reformation revolutions were modulations on this original cry: “The Rights of Man were a translation of the Rights of the Christian People, the Rights of the Christian people were a translation of the Rights of the Universal Priesthood and the Rights of Priesthood were deduced from the Rights of the Trustee of Priesthood, the Pope.”

If the High Sparrow had not been quashed by Cersei, his puritanical populism may have led to a Republican regime like that of Savonarola in Italy:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Girolamo_Savonarola
 

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Girolamo Savonarola (Italian: [dʒiˈrɔːlamo savonaˈrɔːla]; 21 September 1452 – 23 May 1498) was an Italian Dominican friar and preacher active in Renaissance Florence. 

He denounced clerical corruption, despotic rule and the exploitation of the poor. He prophesied the coming of a biblical flood and a new Cyrus from the north who would reform the Church. In September 1494, when Charles VIII of France invaded Italy, and threatened Florence, such prophecies seemed on the verge of fulfilment. While Savonarola intervened with the French king, the Florentines expelled the ruling Medici and, at the friar's urging, established a "popular" republic. Declaring that Florence would be the New Jerusalem, the world centre of Christianity and "richer, more powerful, more glorious than ever",[1] he instituted an extreme puritanical campaign, enlisting the active help of Florentine youth.

 

 

And Oliver Cromwell in England:

 http://enrichmentjournal.ag.org/200402/200402_116_ironsides.cfm

 

 

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Old Ironsides: Oliver Cromwell and the Puritan Revolution

By William P. Farley

 

On a cold January day in 1649, King Charles I stepped before a hushed crowd of Londoners. He ascended the scaffold, wished his executioner well, and knelt, thrusting his head forward onto the dry chopping block. The ax fell, severing his head from his neck. Then the executioner lifted the king’s head and cried, "Behold the head of a traitor."

The unthinkable had happened. A "Christian" nation had put its king to death. Spontaneously, an audible groan pulsed through the anxious throng, "a groan, said an eyewitness, ’as I never heard before and desire I may never hear again’ "2 — one that represented the sentiment of many Englishmen and most contemporary Europeans.

Few recognize history’s great turning points when they occur. The execution of Charles I was no exception. The ideals of the Reformation had reached full expression, affecting even the sphere of politics, and the Puritans were the vehicle in which these ideals had traveled. They terminated in Charles’ execution.

And, no one was more single mindedly devoted to the Bible, and the political implications of its truths than the Puritan, Oliver Cromwell (1599–1659), the man primarily responsible for the king’s beheading. He was England’s greatest 17th-century statesman and a military genius who, although lacking formal military training, was never defeated in battle. To his dismay, he eventually replaced the king, ruling England as Lord Protector. He was offered crown and monarchy but refused it.

To the ideas planted by Cromwell and his Puritan peers, we owe most of our religious and political liberty, the inception of capitalism, the birth of the scientific revolution, and the advent of denominationalism. Cromwell represented the Puritan ideals well.

 

 

 

In our Western history, this "puritanical phase" - Papal Revolution, Protestant Revolution, Puritan Revolution in England - seems to have been a necessary prelude to secular democracy: which retained the advocacy for the masses, the egalitarian impulse etc. but overtime stripped it from the religious baggage, dogmatism and the stringent, enforced "moralism". Believe it or not, while it might not have been "fun" in the short-term it would have been better in the long run if the High Sparrow had succeeded in controlling or even deposing the monarchy. We know this from our own history. 

By the early sixteenth century, it had led Christian thinkers to utter statements like the following by a Spanish Jesuit intellectual of the Salamanca School:

 

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"...No king or monarch has or has had directly from God or from divine institution a political principality, but by the medium of human will and institution..." 

- Francisco Suarez (Defensio Fidei, Book III, 1613)

 

See:

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Francisco-Suarez#ref224029

 

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Francisco Suárez, byname Doctor Eximius (born Jan. 5, 1548, Granada, Spain—died Sept. 25, 1617, Lisbon), Spanish theologian and philosopher, a founder of international law, often considered the most prominent Scholastic philosopher after St. Thomas Aquinas, and the major theologian of the Roman Catholic order, the Society of Jesus (Jesuits)...

Suárez expounded his political theory and philosophy of law in De Legibus (1612; “On Laws”) as well as in the Defensio. Having refuted the divine-right theory of kingly rule, he declared that the people themselves are the original holders of political authority; the state is the result of a social contract to which the people consent. Arguing for the natural rights of the human individual to life, liberty, and property, he rejected the Aristotelian notion of slavery as the natural condition of certain men. He criticized most of the practices of Spanish colonization in the Indies in his De Bello et de Indis (“On War and the Indies”). The islands of the Indies he viewed as sovereign states legally equal to Spain as members of a worldwide community of nations.

 

 

 

Less than forty years after these words were uttered by a Jesuit priest and theologian, in 1649 the English Puritans had decapitated their king and formed a revolutionary republic on the basis of egalitarian principles derived from grassroots Protestant beliefs, holding that their monarch Charles I, who believed in divine right of kings, was:
 
 
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"....guilty of the crimes of which he had been accused, and we [the parliamentarian representatives of the people of England] did judge him tyrant, traitor, murderer, and public enemy to the good people of the nation, to be put to death by the severing of his head from his body..."

 
 
And they further claimed that he had been intent only on: 
 
 
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"...protecting himself and his adherents in his and their wicked practices, and to the same ends hath traitorously and maliciously levied war against the present Parliament, and the people therein represented...
 
The wicked designs, wars, and evil practices of him, the said Charles Stuart, have been, and are carried on for the advancement and upholding of a personal interest of will, power, and pretended prerogative to himself and his family, against the public interest, common right, liberty, justice, and peace of the people of this nation."

 

 

Just over a hundred years after that the American Revolution, a secular revolution, took place followed by the French Revolution and the birth of modern democracy.

It looks like the "boat might have swam" for Westeros with the death of the High Sparrow. Their potential Gregory VII/Savonarola/Cromwell moment has been snatched from them.

What they are left with is more along the lines of Byzantine or Russian-style caeseropapist absolutism now that the Sept of Baelor has been destroyed by wildfire:

 

http://www.sparknotes.com/us-government-and-politics/political-science/political-ideologies-and-styles/section2/page/2/

 

 

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much of Western civilization’s history was dominated by absolutism, the belief that a single ruler should have control over every aspect of the government and of the people’s lives. Absolute rulers had a variety of titles, including chieftain, king, shah, pharaoh, emperor, sultan, and prince. In some cultures, the absolute ruler was seen as a god in human form. Other peoples believed that their ruler had the divine right of kings, meaning that God had chosen the ruler to govern the rest. As a result, many cultures with absolute rulers practiced some form of caesaropapism, the belief that the ruler is head of both the governmental authority and the religious authority.

Example: In the Byzantine Empire, the double-headed eagle symbolized caesaropapism. The two heads stood for church and state. This symbol clearly and graphically portrayed the unity of religious and secular power in one person.

 

 

 

Caeseropapiat absolutism was unable to predominate in Europe because our version of the High Septon (the Pope) had become sufficiently strong, organised and centralized to act as an eternal alternative source of resistance to secular authority. The two spheres fought endlessly and counterbalanced each other, such that neither a theocracy nor a caeseropapist regime emerged.

They had their chance with the High Sparrow and Margaery Tyrell imho. Both were astute enough and knew how the game worked to understand what the other was doing but not to the extent of actually destroying one another like Cersei did in the show, essentially abolishing the High Septon office, thereby preventing any subsequent religiously-inspired uprisings to her rule.

Martin once said that Westeros was inspired by medieval England. But it seems to me that whereas the real-world English puritan fanatics succeeded in de-throning their monarch and forming a republic for a while that set a precedent for the future, their ASOIF equivalent - the Sparrows - ultimately failed.

To me, that can only be a bad omen for the people of Westeros unless the advance of the Night King and his army of White Walkers causes sufficient chaos for a peasant revolt to break out and last.

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And go back to KL and inform the success of one scorpion.

When she arrives, they will be ready with 100 scorpions. Dragons will be gone then.

If I was Dany, I would try my best to make sure I kill each and every one of them.

Unless they "bend the knee" of course. :P

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11 hours ago, ummester said:

And what of Mance Rayder? He was leading the freefolk beyond the wall for years - if his ideals managed to get south, what type of state would they start?

The wildlings (save the Thenns) didn't have any true political organization beyond "lets do what Mance says for now". If they had crossed the Wall and had avoided being defeated by a northen army, they would probably break into smaller groups and dispersed to do their own thing once the no longer felt in danger...

11 hours ago, ummester said:

I do understand what you are saying, that the Westerosi don't know any better than feudal monarchies - but in a way the books and show is trying to eat it's cake and have it to, because the characters think like us, like modern humans used to democracy. I don't believe that people all but enslaved by feudalism would think and speak like we do.

That's a problem common in mediaval fantasy and historical novels... Most modern readers wouldn't identify with characters who thought and behaved like a person from the Ancient or Middle Ages, so many writers end creating characters that are too out of place...

I mean, in most of Plautus's comedies the sympathetic protagonist is a young man who becomes obsessed with  a young slave girl and tries to get money to buy her and make her his concubine. King Arthur, as was portrayed in the medieval works, was considered a great king because he kept a rich court with lots of feasts and song and tourneys, and he sometimes sent a knight to help noble heiresses, but he does nothing to help the commoners. And better let not speak about how black servants were portrayed in contemporary fiction...

There is no easy way around that... Would people still like Jon if he were pro-slavery, thought that women are inferior to men in every way (and said so loudly) and were okay with using female prisioners of war as concubines?

10 hours ago, Krishtotter said:

 

In the real life Middle Ages, that is what actually happened. The Supreme Pontiff led a revolution to free the church from control by the state during the "Investiture Contest". Dictatus Papae, a 1075 decree by St. Pope Gregory VII, was the "first declaration of independence" in European history.

The High Sparrow doesn't want to make Church independent from the crown... he wants to destroy the crown and usurp its power. Savonarola or Calvinus are good comparations, except for the fact that, unlike them, the High Sparrow doesn't want to take over a city, break with the church and/or empire and turn it into a teocratic city-state, he wants to use the power of the church to take over the capital of the empire and replace the monarchy...

If Savonarola had become Pope and then he had dethroned the Germanic Emperors and added the Holy Roman Empire to the Papal States, then he would be similar to the High Septon.

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2 hours ago, Ser Lepus said:

 The High Sparrow doesn't want to make Church independent from the crown... he wants to destroy the crown and usurp its power. Savonarola or Calvinus are good comparations, except for the fact that, unlike them, the High Sparrow don't want to take over a city, break with the church and/or empire and turn it into a teocratic city-state, he wants to use the power of the church to take over the capital of the empire and replace the monarchy...

If Savonarola had become Pope and then he had dethroned the Germanic Emperors and added the Holy Roman Empire to the Papal States, then he would be similar to the High Septon.

See:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dictatus_papae

 

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Dictatus papae is a compilation of 27 statements of powers arrogated to the Pope that was included in Pope Gregory VII's register under the year 1075...

The principles expressed in Dictatus papae are those of the Gregorian Reform, which had been initiated by Gregory decades before he ascended the throne as Gregory VII. The axioms of the Dictatus advance the strongest case of papal supremacy and infallibility. The axiom "That it may be permitted to him to depose emperors" qualified the early medieval world-balance embodied in the symbol of the "two swords" - spiritual and temporal, the complementary powers of potestas (or imperium) and auctoritas under which the West had been ruled since Merovingian times, based on Roman precedents - and emphasised the spiritual over the temporal.

 

 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Road_to_Canossa

 

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The Road to Canossa, sometimes called the Walk to Canossa(German: Gang nach Canossa/Kanossa)[1] or Humiliation of Canossa

(Italian: L'umiliazione di Canossa), refers to the trek by the German king Henry IV to Italy at the height of the Investiture Controversy in January 1077. Henry went to Canossa Castle, where Pope Gregory VII stayed as the guest of Margravine Matilda of Tuscany, in order to obtain the revocation of the anathema imposed on him. According to contemporary sources, he was forced to humiliate himself on his knees waiting for three days and three nights before the entrance gate of the castle, while a blizzard raged.

Background

The Pope and the Holy Roman Emperor had disputed over the precedence of ecclesiastical or secular power since the spread of the Gregorian Reforms in the 11th century. When Gregory VII, acclaimed Pope by the People of Rome in 1073, attempted to enact reforms to the investiture process by his Dictatus papae decree, he was met by resistance from Henry IV. The king insisted that he reserve the traditionally established right of previous emperors to "invest" bishops, abbots and other clergymen, despite the papal decree...

In response, Pope Gregory excommunicated and deposed Henry in the Lenten synod of 1076 at Rome. He stated furthermore that, one year from that day, the loss of kingship would become irrevocable.[2]

Gregory had also declared the oaths of allegiance sworn by the Princes null and void, which turned out to be more dangerous to Henry's rule, as the development met the interests of several territorial rulers in the Empire.

When Henry reached Matilda's castle, the Pope ordered that he be refused entry. Waiting at the gates, Henry took on the behavior of penance. He wore a hair-shirt, the traditional clothing of monks at the time, and allegedly walked barefoot. Many of his entourage including the queen Bertha and the prince Conrad also supposedly removed their shoes. According to Lambert of Hersfeld and first-hand accounts of the scene (letters written by both Gregory and Henry in the following years), the king waited by the gate for three full days. Throughout this time, he allegedly wore only his penitent hair-shirt and fasted.[4]

Finally, on 28 January, the castle gates were opened for Henry and he was allowed to enter. Contemporary accounts report that he knelt before Pope Gregory and begged his forgiveness. Gregory absolved Henry and invited him back into the Church. That evening, Gregory, Henry, and Matilda of Tuscany shared communion in the chapel of Sant'Apollonio inside the castle, signaling the official end of Henry's excommunication.[5]

"Going to Canossa"

Today, "Canossa" refers to an act of penance or submission. To "go to Canossa" is an expression–used often in German: nach Canossa gehen; in Dutch: naar Canossa gaan; in Danish, Norwegian and Swedish: Canossavandring or Kanossagang; in French: aller à Canossa; in Hungarian: kanosszajárás; in Italian: andare a Canossa; and in Slovenian: pot v Canosso–to describe doing penance, often with the connotation that it is unwilling or coerced

 

 

 

Cersei's walk of shame anybody? ;)

As for what drove Pope Gregory to think he had power to depose Holy Roman Emperors and supremacy over the Emperor...

 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/non_fictionreviews/3561036/Review-Millennium-by-Tom-Holland.html

 

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The other central issue is the great struggle between the Pope and the German king (known to historians as the Investiture Controversy), which came to a head in 1076-7.

Pope Gregory VII rejected Henry IV's claims to be able to appoint bishops, and claimed for his own part that he could depose kings.

The reformist movement in the Church, which Gregory VII represented, had its roots in a kind of moral and ecclesiastical puritanism that had arisen in the apocalyptic years surrounding the millennium.

 

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In 1077, the monk Hildebrand who had become pope and taken the name Gregory VII, excommunicated the German emperor, causing a collapse of his power, on the grounds that the latter had usurped the Church’s right to appoint, or “invest” bishops.

The “investiture controversy” that followed lasted for well over a century, and ended in a sort of Pyrrhic victory for the popes, who destroyed the German imperial House of Staufen, but at the cost of empowering its rivals, especially the kings of France, who eventually took the papacy “prisoner” at Avignon.

Meanwhile, the duel of pope and emperor triggered a lot of thinking and gave the Italian city-states the chance to emerge as autonomous republics in alliance with the papacy against the empire. In my view, the investiture controversy was a crucial episode in the rise of Western freedom. Prior to the mid-11th century, the papacy was weak and more often than not a pawn of either the Roman nobility or the German emperors.

Hildebrand and a few colleagues were bold ideologues who spearheaded what historian Norman Cantor has called a “world revolution.”

 

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46 minutes ago, Krishtotter said:

*snip*

 

While the Pope tried to affirm his authority over the monarchs, he still wasn't trying to destroy monarchy like the High Septon does. The closest was when they supported the Habsburgs and the Anjou against the Hohenstaufen. And all they were doing was to support a friendly king against an hostile one...

The High Sparrow isn't trying just assert his authority over temporal rulers, he is going for the throat: He is trying to publicaly portray the Queen Mother as an adulterous whore while there is a civil war which is justified by the rebels on that her children are bastards. If he succeeds, he has destroyed the legitimacy of the Baratheon dinasty, because Renly left no heirs and Stannis is a fire-worshipping heretic... and there isn't a viable replacement for the Baratheons, only a void that he can fill seizing temporal power...

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2 hours ago, Ser Lepus said:

While the Pope tried to affirm his authority over the monarchs, he still wasn't trying to destroy monarchy like the High Septon does. The closest was when they supported the Habsburgs and the Anjou against the Hohenstaufen. And all they were doing was to support a friendly king against an hostile one...

The High Sparrow isn't trying just assert his authority over temporal rulers, he is going for the throat: He is trying to publicaly portray the Queen Mother as an adulterous whore while there is a civil war which is justified by the rebels on that her children are bastards. If he succeeds, he has destroyed the legitimacy of the Baratheon dinasty, because Renly left no heirs and Stannis is a fire-worshipping heretic... and there isn't a viable replacement for the Baratheons, only a void that he can fill seizing temporal power...

 

Thank you Ser Lepus, I can understand what your saying here in terms of the High Sparrow being more radical in his ambitions.

Nonetheless, GRR Martin had noted in the past:

 

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The Sparrows are my version of the medieval Catholic Church, with its own fantasy twist,” Martin told EW. “If you look at the history of the church in the Middle Ages, you had periods where you had very worldly and corrupt popes and bishops. People who were not spiritual, but were politicians. They were playing their own version of the game of thrones, and they were in bed with the kings and the lords. But you also had periods of religious revival or reform"

 

The Gregorian Reform under the renegade monk Hildebrand during the Investiture Conflict, who assumed the papacy as Pope Gregory VII in 1073 and was castigated as "the holy Satan" by his enemies for his political astuteness and theocratic radicalism, was the first of these "religious reforms" to come out of medieval Catholicism that Martin references above - the last being the Protestant Reformation. The Sparrows are like a combination of all of these medieval reformist movements, including the Gregorians.

While there are differences, as you have noted, I think there are still obvious similarities that GRRM has consciously or unconsciously been influenced by - not least the fact that Gregory VII compelled recalcitrant monarchs to submit to his supreme papal authority by taking part in a humiliating walk of shame and making public displays of penance for sin while being stripped of all kingly vestments and made to wear a hair-shirt like a peasant or cloistered monastic.

Gregory VII - being a renowned political operator involved in the "game of thrones" as well as a pious monk - did indeed play royal houses off-against at one another. But he didn't actually believe in kingship or royal authority. He was willing to use them as pawns, or rather as means to his greater end, but he hated all monarchs and regarded kingship as an institution derived from murder and existing under the power of the devil. You can see this from his incendiary Letter to Hermann of Metz:

From, "Civilization of the Middle Ages" by the historian Norman F. Cantor p.260-261:

 

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"...In his Letter to Hermann of Metz, Pope Gregory contended that royal power was originated by murderers and thugs and that the state continued to bear the stamp of Cain. In the whole history of the world, he said, there were scarcely half a dozen kings who had avoided the damnation of their souls...Many simple and ordinary Christians, he said, were more certain recipients of divine Grace than were the mighty and powerful holders of royal power, who were the instruments of the devil...

Gregory concluded that the only legitimate power in the world resided in the priesthood, particularly in the Bishop of Rome as the vicar of Christ on Earth...He boldly asserted that the freedom of the Christian man consisted in the subjection of his selfish will to the divine ends that the papacy pursued in the world. Only a world order in which these doctrines were realized could be called just and right...

With an apocalyptic zeal he demanded a new right order that would fulfil the ideals of Christian justice and liberty...Nothing less than the total Christianitas (the application of his puritan ideals to all aspects of social life and to establish a unified Christian world system under the papacy) was acceptable, there could be no compromise with the devil...

His writings are full of references to the pauperes Christi, "Christ's poor ones", whose assistance he summoned and whose welfare he sought....He was on the side of the poor, the meek, the humble, and the downtrodden; he was the enemy of the rich, the proud and the powerful, whoever or whatever they might be. His hatred of the most powerful men in Europe was based upon a psychological and emotional sympathy for the underdog and hostility to their lords and oppressors. 

Gregory's conception of Christian poverty was an attempt to read the Sermon on the Mount to the class-stratified society of the eleventh century. At the same time, his violent hatred of the leaders of contemporary society and the highly emotional concern for "Christ's poor ones" were probably symptoms of a paranoic hysteria and manifestations of a deep psychosis..."

 

 

I highly doubt that he saw any royal house as truly "friendly," if you get my drift. He hated monarchy with the intensity of a thousand suns.  His worldview was the polar opposite to the idea of the "divine right of kings". He regarded them as having no legitimate authority - let alone divine authority - and as being tantamount to robbery, or piracy, on a grand scale. The Gregorians never fully achieved their "world revolution" in Christendom (although they did ally the papacy with the Italian republics fighting for their independence from Imperial control), they had to ultimately settle for an uneasy truce with the imperial rulers in which both sides made concessions. But the original goal had been far more radical imho.

Here are some portions from the aforementioned Letter:

http://avalon.law.yale.edu/medieval/inv14.asp

 

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Government is simply a wicked tyranny, an expression of the “earthly city”. As Pope Gregory VII (1081) once wrote:

 

Who does not know that kings and dukes had their rulership from those who, not knowing God, strove from blind greed and intolerable presumption to dominate their equals, namely mankind, by pride, rapine, perfidy, murder, and crimes of all sorts, urged on by the ruler of the world, i.e., the devil?...

But if the blessed Gregory, the most gentle of teachers decreed that kings who should violate his decrees in the matter of a single hospice should not only be deposed but also excommunicated and, at the last judgment, condemned: who, save one like to them, will blame us for having deposed and excommunicated Henry, who is not alone a scorner of the apostolic judgments but also, as far as in him lies, a treader under foot of holy mother church herself and a most shameless robber and atrocious destroyer of the whole realm and of the churches...

 For His Son, even as He is undoubtingly believed to be God and man, so is He considered the highest priest, the head of all priests, sitting on the right hand of the Father and always interceding for us. And He despised a secular kingdom, which makes the sons of this world swell with pride, and came of His own will to the priesthood of the cross...

Cupidity and intolerable presumption to dominate over their equals; namely, over men ? 

For such men desire to rule, not, induced by divine love, to the honour of God and for the saving of souls-like the priests of the church; but they strive to have dominion over others in order to show forth their intolerable pride and to fulfil the lusts of their heart Concerning whom the blessed Augustine says in the first book on the Christian teaching: "For, indeed, whoever strives to gain dominion even over those who are by nature his equals-that is, over men: his pride is altogether intolerable."

Finally, any good Christians whatever have much more right to be considered kings than have bad princes. For the former, seeking the glory of God, strenuously rule themselves; but the tatter, enemies unto themselves, seeking the things which are their own and not the things which are God's, are tyrannical oppressors of others. The former are the body of the true king, Christ; the latter, of the devil. The former restrain themselves to the end that they may eternally reign with the supreme emperor; but the sway of the latter brings about this-that they shall perish in eternal damnation with the prince of darkness who is king over all the sons of pride.

We refer to kings and emperors who, too much swollen by worldly glory, rule not for God but for themselves. But, since it belongs to our office to distribute exhortation to each person according to the rank or dignity which he adorns, we take care, God impelling us, to provide weapons of humility just for emperors and kings and other princes, that they may be able to subdue the risings of the sea and the waves of pride. For we know that mundane glory and worldly cares usually do induce to pride, especially those who are in authority. They, in consequence, neglecting humility and seeking their own glory, always desire to dominate over their brothers. Wherefore to kings and emperors especially it is of advantage, when their mind tends to exalt itself and to delight in its own particular glory, to find out a means of humbling themselves and to be brought to realize that what they have been rejoicing in is the thing most to be feared. Let them, therefore, diligently consider how dangerous and how much to be feared the royal or imperial dignity is. For in it the fewest are saved; and those who, through the mercy of God, do come to salvation are not glorified in the holy church and in the judgment of the Holy Spirit to the same extent as many poor people. For, from the beginning of the world until these our own times, in the whole of authentic history we do not find seven emperors or kings whose lives were as distinguished for religion and as beautified by significant portents as those of an innumerable multitude who despised the world.

Therefore all Christians who desire to reign with Christ should be warned not to strive to rule through ambition of worldly power

(Gregory VII 1081: 552; see also Poole 1920: 201, fn. 5)

 

Quoting Augustine, he believed that:

 

Justice removed, then, what are kingdoms but great bands of robbers?… It was a pertinent and true answer which was made to Alexander the Great by a pirate whom he had seized. When the king asked him what he meant by infesting the sea, the pirate defiantly replied: “The same as you do when you infest the whole world; but because I do it with a little ship I am called a robber, and because you do it with a great fleet, you are an emperor”. (City of God, IV.4, p. 147–8)

 

 

 

It is essentially a massive rant about how oppressive, unholy, illegitimate and indeed Satanic the institution of kingship is: such that even the few supposedly "good" emperors/kings were as nothing compared with the most humble Christian who "disdained the world".

Needless to say, he was no lover of royals.

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I would guess that some guys did escape, in every battle, there are people escaping, Dany captured many guys, but those shouldn't be the whole of the army, even counting the ones that were killed.

I would say that indeed, the time for diplomacy has come, the mongols did so, they showed their power and cruelty once, and then allowed the rest of cities of that country to surrender and pay tribute, the only thing I would do now, would be ambushing the Iron fleet, maybe burning Euron flag ship and have Yara or Theon gain command of the fleet.

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