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Anyone think that Hoster Tully is a millstone?


Angel Eyes

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Like this type of Millstone.

  • He makes a betrothal between Catelyn and Brandon Stark, leading to Petyr Baelish challenging him and getting grievously injured, Lysa sleeping with Petyr and getting pregnant.
  •  Hoster forcing Lysa to abort the child, which nearly killed her and severely damaged her reproductive ability, then pairs her with Jon Arryn, he of the weak seed.
  • Lysa has numerous miscarriages and stillbirths, with only sickly Sweetrobin living past birth, leading to Lysa mollycoddling him.
  • Petyr makes his reputation on getting money and Lysa recommends him to Jon, and Petyr is named Master of Coin, putting Littlefinger in a position of power.
  •  When Jon thinks of fostering Sweetrobin with Stannis, Lysa poisons him on Petyr's suggestion, then flees to the Eyrie, sending a letter to Catelyn implicating the Lannisters, Catelyn goes to King's Landing after Bran gets attacked, Littlefinger implicates Tyrion, and Catelyn catnaps Tyrion at the Crossroads, leading to the opening salvo of the War of the Five Kings.

Now we have a continent-wide civil war that has ravaged the continent, plus a possible succession crisis in the Vale, and Houses Stark and Tully ousted from power, all because Hoster didn't think Petyr was a worthy suitor. I know there are other factors like Jaime and Cersei, but there is a snowball effect that can't be ignored. Nice going, Hoster.

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22 minutes ago, Bernie Mac said:

Littlefinger was not a worthy suitor the daughter of a Great House. 

I never understood how LF was in a position to be with the Tully sisters in the first place, due to his lowly status. I agree.

As to Millstone as Angel Eyes posits... I don't know. LF's actions seem to be directed by himself (which would fit character), leading to consequences... I think, despite Hoster forcing an abortion and marrying his child off, despite being "damaged goods" is more reactive, than getting in the way.

That is, I basically don't think of Hoster managing anything, and, therefor, being a Millstone is out of the question.

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11 hours ago, The Mountain That Flies said:

An alternative way of looking at at chronology is that Brandon should have just ignored Catelyn’s pleading and finished Littlefinger off. 

I think this would have been the best solution. Even though it may have estranged Catelyn from her fiance, he was scheduled to die, anyhow, once Lyanna eloped/was abducted, and Cat would have ended up with innocent, decent Ned. But Littlefinger would have been out of the picture.

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It isn't just Hoster, the whole Riverlands is a millstone.

- Is it just me, or is there something suspect about the way Lords Vance and Piper have brought the smallfolk of Sherrer to the King to plead for the execution of the Mountain. I'm not saying the smallfolk didn't deserve justice, or that the Mountain didn't reeve them, just that it seems Lords Vance and Piper were very keen on shunting the blame home to Lord Tywin (and given that he was at Casterley Rock, and Gregor was at the Tourney of the Hand, its hard to see how they could be so sure that Gregor was acting on Lord Tywin's orders. Like Tywin would have to have given Gregor those orders before he set off for Kings Landing. And Lords Vance and Piper would have to have known that, and failed to defend these smallfolk from this threat, in spite of knowing. Note too, that these two, the two that really did draw Lord Tywin into the battle, were the first to defect to the Lannister cause.

- Edmure. He's a bottomless bucket of fail. Hanging the envoys, leaving the castle while they were there, the battle of Stone Mill, dragging the North into the petty pointless swamp of Riverlands battles, then allowing his River-landers to go home. Couldn't set his father's boat on fire. Answering to 'Lord Edmure' before his father was dead. Primary purpose in life is apparently to make Lord Hoster look like a genius. Handed Riverrun over to the Lannisters, every plan he utters declares he is an imbecile with no morals. And yet, irritatingly, he always lands on his feet.

-Lords Blackwood and Bracken. They both seem to be rather reasonable and shrewd men generally. Blackwood in particular seems to be quite a competant general (luckily for Edmure). But the feud. They have no interest in ending it. They in fact seem determined to keep it alive, to count their neighbours loss as their gain, as long as they lost more, or lost to their allies.

-The Whents. I suppose they can't be blamed for abandoning Harrenhal rather than defending it, although I think if Lady Whent was more like her daughter-in-law Catelyn Stark, she could have organised some asymetric warfare and defensive measures to reduce the razing and reeving of the villages in her balliwick on the way out. I mean, the BwB managed to do something, why not her? No accident that the Tourney of Harrenhal was the cradle of Robert's Rebellion.

- The Freys. They are a caricature of all that is wrong with the Riverlands. Determined to extract their toll, full of local importance and parochial jealousies, Pursuit of their own limited, local, absurd hubris, indifferent to the effects of the cost the rest of the world must pay. Always looking for a way to weasle out of or to pervert the laws of common decency. Attacking each other when there are no neighbours or foreigners to take umbrage at. Purveyors of the most superstitious and laughable lies - crannogmen with green teeth, warging starks, and that thing about people warging into bats - although everyone in the Riverlands seems to be a little batty about the Lothstons and anyone even vaugely associated with them.(eg. Lady Whent, and even the daughters of Catelyn Stark)

Lychester, Smallwood - well, they are only little houses ,and weak, and there is some credit in their management of local matters and understanding of the smallfolk of there land, but still, they don't seem to have any plan or strategy beyond looking after themselves.

-Darry don't even have a strategy to look after themselves. Perhaps the most hapless house in the place.

-Mooten, while we are talking of lord that are only interested in looking out for themselves. Only Mooten has shipping and other interests that make him a bit more important (and in some ways, more powerful) than Lady Smallwood et al.

-The huntsman, with his cages and his dogs - pretty brutal. Which is just how the locals like it.

Even the smallfolk of the Riverlands are crappy - like Sharna, who more than half robs Brienne with the horses, and then tries to send her and Jamie and Cleos to death at the hands of her friends, who could be relied on to return the horses. Of the ferryman that the Hound forces to take him across the river. Like the farmer that wouldn't give the night's watch a wormy apple. Like the horse buyer at Saltpans. The knight at the saltpans, Ser Quincy Cox,  the innkeep at the saltpans, the townsfolk of the saltpans generally.

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14 hours ago, The Mountain That Flies said:

An alternative way of looking at at chronology is that Brandon should have just ignored Catelyn’s pleading and finished Littlefinger off. 

This. :rofl:What a missed opportunity! 

1 hour ago, Walda said:

It isn't just Hoster, the whole Riverlands is a millstone.

Interesting... What comes across to me is that it is a very ordinary and realistic bunch of people. No heroes, no great visions, no exceptional characters (not even really great villains), mostly just ordinary people with varying personal qualities, struggling for their petty goals and sometimes for sheer survival. 

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Petyr Baelish isn't the only cause of the civil wars. There are a bunch of other players who would eventually have started one with or without Baelish. Even the existence of Robert's Rebellion in the first place shows the civil wars were already happening - along with the Greyjoy Rebellion, the War of the Ninepenny Kings, the Defiance of Duskendale, the whole cycle of constant violence, up to and including the periodic genocide during the winters. 

It's just as likely that ruling in Westeros is being Blessed With Suck - it's a power you can't truly possess that drives you mad or kills you or both. The main thing Hoster Tully might be blamed for is not getting the Hell out of Dodge if he had the money and resources to do so.

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16 hours ago, Wild Bill said:

I never understood how LF was in a position to be with the Tully sisters in the first place, due to his lowly status.

It's said that Littlefinger's father befriended Hoster Tully during the war of the Ninepenny kings. It's even possible that he saved Hoster's live, or died fighting at his side. This would explain why Hoster raised little Petyr among their children.

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