The burning of the Tarlys - discussion

[Eddard Scissorhands]

Kentucky Fried Dickon. I don't approve.

[Samwell_Tarly]

18 minutes ago, Eddard Scissorhands said:

What was wrong with it is not the choice given, but the way it is done. Why execute people in such a horribly painful way? I mean everybody there already saw their colleagues and friends get roasted. A lot of the survivors probably have severe burns. No more proof needed of her Dragon power. They are already intimidated.

Quite obviously not, as we see quite a number dont bend the knee along with the Randylls. So yes it was needed.

18 minutes ago, Eddard Scissorhands said:

Of course, more people are willing to be beheaded and 'die with honor' than be roasted by fire, so not as many would have bent the knee as some would have chosen a quick clean death. But in the end the ones who bend the knee will at least have an opening to believe in Dany's cause.

 

I don't think she cares whether they believe in her cause or not.

[SansaJonRule]

5 hours ago, Iotun said:

Randyl Tarly's character motivations are completely and utterly nonsensical.

He despises Dany for being a 'foreigner' when she is the daughter of the king that HE PERSONALLY FOUGHT FOR during Robert's rebellion just a few years ago.

He admonishes Dany for bringing foreign savages to Westeros, despite the fact that she had the support of at least 2 great houses of Westeros and even while the Lannisters have been hiring foreign mercenary groups from Essos to fight in their wars for decades.

At the same time, he betrays his own oath to House Tyrell, to support a queen that apparently everybody knows by know has no legitimate claim to the throne, given that her children with the king where born of incest, and who blew up the heir to House Tyrell, along with the most Holy temple in the seven kingdoms, apparently killing thousands of innocent civilians.

Despite all this, and him being a great military commander, he allies his house in what is an obvious lost cause, and in the process dooming his son and his own legacy.

And finally at the prospect of his son being burned alive, the son who was his own personal project to turn into a worthy heir for his house given his disappointment with Sam, he makes an initial half-hearted protest to tell him to stand down, then half a minute later seems to think 'Oh, fine, come along then', and just stands there waiting for a dragon to roast them.

Well said.  Pretty much a waste of a character.

[Eddard Scissorhands]

12 minutes ago, Samwell_Tarly said:

Quite obviously not, as we see quite a number dont bend the knee along with the Randylls. So yes it was needed.

I don't think she cares whether they believe in her cause or not.

What I meant is, they bent the knee out of fear only. Especially those who were willing to die before they knew it was by dragon fire. It seemed apparent that death by flame is worse than beheading. 

I agree with your second point.

[SansaJonRule]

11 minutes ago, Samwell_Tarly said:

I don't think she cares whether they believe in her cause or not.

If she doesn't she should.  Otherwise they will only be loyal to her as long as a threat remains if they don't  They'll fight much better for her if they believe in her.  But why should they at this point?  She's given them no reason to believe she's any different yet.

[SansaJonRule]

1 hour ago, El Guapo said:

Jon executed a man for simply disobeying an order.  He had other options. He could have thrown him in cell for a few weeks but he didn't . He executed him. So please spare me with this nonsense.

Wasn't that the way the NW worked?  Just like if you were caught deserting, you were executed, not put in a cell to think about what you did for a while.

[Eddard Scissorhands]

6 minutes ago, SansaJonRule said:

If she doesn't she should.  Otherwise they will only be loyal to her as long as a threat remains if they don't  They'll fight much better for her if they believe in her.  But why should they at this point?  She's given them no reason to believe she's any different yet.

Completely true. It does really seem though that she doesn't care about anything else than power. I mean she does this literally right after she just said "leave this world a better place" and something amongst the lines of "free from the Cersei Lannisters of this world". All the while she is one of those herself, the only difference is she feels self-righteous about it. I doubt Cersei thinks herself a good person.

[SansaJonRule]

1 hour ago, I prefer summer said:

Forgive me if someone already answered - I haven't made it to the end of the thread yet - but she also had the support of House Tyrell. Whatever you think of the Ironborn or the Sand Snakes, she had support from three of the seven kingdoms.

I wouldn't say she had the support of the Sand Snakes or Olenna.  They had an alliance, but the SS and Olenna had their own objective for their alliances.

[Samwell_Tarly]

5 minutes ago, Eddard Scissorhands said:

What I meant is, they bent the knee out of fear only. Especially those who were willing to die before they knew it was by dragon fire. It seemed apparent that death by flame is worse than beheading. 

I agree with your second point.

I feel like you've contradicted yourself , you said no more proof was needed, now your effectively saying it was because they didn't know how bad it was.

Of course they bend the knee out of fear and fear alone.

4 minutes ago, SansaJonRule said:

If she doesn't she should.  Otherwise they will only be loyal to her as long as a threat remains if they don't  They'll fight much better for her if they believe in her.  But why should they at this point?  She's given them no reason to believe she's any different yet.

Thats the problem to them shes not any different, shes just roasted most of the Lannister/Tarly army and now continues to roast anyone who wont bend the knee. Say one thing, do another. This is from soldiers perspective.

This is not me saying it was wrong cos I believe what she did was right. 

[SansaJonRule]

1 hour ago, I prefer summer said:

I think this a a false equivalency, on many levels.

The Tarlys were enemy soldiers. The Starks were loyal subjects, petitioning their king for justice. Brandon was accused of treason, and Rickard was ordered to come and ransom him, and then arrested himself.

The Tarlys were given a choice to submit and live. The Starks were not.

The Tarlys were killed within seconds. Richard was suspended over wildfire and slowroasted, while his son was set up to strangle himself, trying to free his father.

Dany executed the Tarleys reluctantly. The mad king laughed all the way through the execution.

Not the same thing at all.

As I mentioned Ina previous post, Dany would have had to kill a lot of soldiers if she had beheaded the Tarleys. But everyone bent the knee when they witnessed two deaths-by-Drogon. So, not so stupid, either.

I haven't read the books, so I don't know the answer to this question: what if the Westerosi practice for treating enemy soldiers? The Lannisters appear to have killed every soldier in HG. Rob took prisoners on the battlefield, and allowed Talisa to treat enemy injured, for which he was criticized by his men. 

There doesn't seem to be any Geneva Convention type rules in Westeros.  But of course I could be forgetting something and therefore have the wrong impession.

Your other points are very good, except that I disagree about Dany's supposed reluctance.  I don't think she showed any.  That's not to say she enjoying roasting them, but she is quick to use her dragons to create fear.

[Samwell_Tarly]

3 minutes ago, SansaJonRule said:

I wouldn't say she had the support of the Sand Snakes or Olenna.  They had an alliance, but the SS and Olenna had their own objective for their alliances.

They did support her, they supported her for many reasons. Whether or not their objectives were the same, they supported her on the basis of her claiming the Iron Throne and more than likely killing Cersei and her followers in the process, This would satisfy all reasons for her supporters following her. I.e Yara becomes queen of iron islands, Ollena gets her revenge seeing Cersei dead. etc etc

[SansaJonRule]

Just now, Samwell_Tarly said:

They did support her, they supported her for many reasons. Whether or not their objectives were the same, they supported her on the basis of her claiming the Iron Throne and more than likely killing Cersei and her followers in the process, This would satisfy all reasons for her supporters following her. I.e Yara becomes queen of iron islands, Ollena gets her revenge seeing Cersei dead. etc etc

I don't recall ever hearing them voice support for her personally, so based on what we have seen in the show, they allied with her to achieve their own goals.  An alliance is not always equivalent to support.  More of the enemy of my enemy is my friend.

[Eddard Scissorhands]

1 hour ago, El Guapo said:

Jon executed a man for simply disobeying an order.  He had other options. He could have thrown him in cell for a few weeks but he didn't . He executed him. So please spare me with this nonsense.

Yes he could have offered options, that is true. But it was a clean death justifiable and expected by Westerosi standards instead of a cruel execution. Janos had not only disobeyed but also showed disrespect and insulted his Lord Commander publicly in the process. If sent to the cells Jon would have (ironically) risked mutiny afterwards, as they live in close quarters at Castle Black. 

I don't disagree with Dany executing them, but dragon fire? There's no decency in killing, but she definitely went over the top and showed off a bit there.

[SansaJonRule]

10 minutes ago, Samwell_Tarly said:

Thats the problem to them shes not any different, shes just roasted most of the Lannister/Tarly army and now continues to roast anyone who wont bend the knee. Say one thing, do another. This is from soldiers perspective.

Agree.

[SansaJonRule]

17 minutes ago, Eddard Scissorhands said:

Completely true. It does really seem though that she doesn't care about anything else than power. I mean she does this literally right after she just said "leave this world a better place" and something amongst the lines of "free from the Cersei Lannisters of this world". All the while she is one of those herself, the only difference is she feels self-righteous about it. I doubt Cersei thinks herself a good person.

Very good point about the way Dany and Cersei and see themselves.  When Cersei was talking about how sweet Marcella was (after she died) she admitted Marcella was nothing like her.  She knows she's a terrible person; she just doesn't care.

[Samwell_Tarly]

2 minutes ago, SansaJonRule said:

I don't recall ever hearing them voice support for her personally, so based on what we have seen in the show, they allied with her to achieve their own goals.  An alliance is not always equivalent to support.  More of the enemy of my enemy is my friend.

Yes they did ally with her to achieve their own goals, I've said that.

To support means to provide assistance and they provide assistance so they support her. Ie the dornish army was to be used to help/support Daenerys.

[snow is the man]

Well I think it was in character for randyl tarly in the show because they played him as an extreme bigot. That is what really brought him to jaime's cause. You may not like cersei but dany has dothraki and unsullied with her.  Now I was mad at him for not ordering his son to kneel. As far as he knew randyl tarly just had his house ended since sam is a member of the nights watch. I would like to point out that dragon ire seems to be different the regular fire because they died in a few seconds rather then minutes. That said it was stupid on dany's part because she just made herself look like her father by burning two men alive.

To be fair to dany she did offer tarly a way out and would have let him take the black. Instead he essentially left her no choice but to kill him because he not only refused to bend the knee but insulted her and her soldiers in the process by calling them savages and such.  He could have agreed to take the black but said it would be by my choice not yours or something like that.

Tarly could have told his son to bend the knee or sucked it up and taken the black so his son would have lived and been able to carry on the house name.

 

[Eddard Scissorhands]

5 minutes ago, SansaJonRule said:

Your other points are very good, except that I disagree about Dany's supposed reluctance.  I don't think she showed any.  That's not to say she enjoying roasting them, but she is quick to use her dragons to create fear.

She may not enjoy it exactly, but she certainly seemed to emote some kind of satisfaction and stone cold pride.

[snow is the man]

11 minutes ago, Eddard Scissorhands said:

Yes he could have offered options, that is true. But it was a clean death justifiable and expected by Westerosi standards instead of a cruel execution. Janos had not only disobeyed but also showed disrespect and insulted his Lord Commander publicly in the process. If sent to the cells Jon would have (ironically) risked mutiny afterwards, as they live in close quarters at Castle Black. 

I don't disagree with Dany executing them, but dragon fire? There's no decency in killing, but she definitely went over the top and showed off a bit there.

well to be fair dragon fire kills alot faster then normal fire. They were dead in seconds. I think it was a stupid move from a political stand point because what did her father used to do to his enemies. Now to compare jon killing janos to this is insane I agree. Janos was ordered three times and not only did he disobey the order he insulted jon each time.  He left jon no choice and  Jon killed him quickly and it had no pain so I don't see what jon could have done differently

[snow is the man]

3 minutes ago, Eddard Scissorhands said:

She may not enjoy it exactly, but she certainly seemed to emote some kind of satisfaction and stone cold pride.

I didn't see that. I personally thought she kept an emotionless face to look tough. I might be wrong but that is what I took from it