Jump to content

Spare one of these villains from execution and explain why


Canon Claude

Recommended Posts

39 minutes ago, Nowy Tends said:

Rebel? What's the meaning of the word "rebel" when the Crown itself is outlawed, when the King is a bastard born of an adulterous and incestuous relationship?

I guess that in your eyes Claus von Stauffenberg was a treator, a rebel, a terrorist who deserved to be hanged?

I'm not a Stark fan but at leat Stark fans don't attack at the slightest opportunity, foaming at the mouth…

From Stannis, Renly and Joffrey's viewpoints, he is rebel.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 minutes ago, Kandrax said:

From Stannis, Renly and Joffrey's viewpoints, he is rebel.

True. Stannis has no real evidence for his accusations and he only made them after his older brother died. He looks like the stereotypical evil uncle whose trying to steal his nephew's throne and lazily came up with some half-baked story to try to justify the usurpation.

When people ask him(if they dared), why he didn't tell Robert all he could really say is Robert would brush him off; which really would make people think they probably should too.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

21 hours ago, Varysblackfyre321 said:

What scenario are you referring to? 

I was referring to the scenario you posed stating: "if Qyburn had another retainer with benighn intentions instead of Cersi whose a psychopath he coould do a lot of good in the world." 

As I've explained up thread, I don't find it likely that Qyburn is capable of contributing anything worthwhile to the field without using the deplorable methods he is currently using, and has used his entire career. Sure, your assertion that he is a genius and could do so is entirely possible, I just see no reason to believe that is the case - based on the information given to us throughout the text.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

21 hours ago, Varysblackfyre321 said:

Again he would have to be an extraordinary (to be clear whatever he is  Qyburn definitely a genuis his intelligence had been compared to that of Arc Maestor Egros) genuis to be able to actually find out what experiments would be needed  to be performed that could prompt the results Qyburn was looking for with no clear cut instruction on how to engage this process.

Again, entirely possible, however that is not necessarily true. It wouldn't take Qyburn being a genius to continually mutilate and experiment on many, many unwilling human subjects - with no discernable results - until by chance and/or process of elimination he came across the favorable results needed to advance his research.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

13 hours ago, Widowmaker 811 said:

Hanging is for those who broke the law.  The only ones on your death row who broke the laws are Ramsay (Lady Hornwood) and Euron (rebellion, calling himself king, and attacking the reach). 

Qyburn broke the equivalent of company policy and got fired.  Black Walder fought against a dangerous rebel who tried to steal half of the kingdom's lands. Qyburn kidnapped and experimented on people-he would if any lord found out pose his head. That's not law breaking, that's law abiding.  Meh, this is a murky subject; yes Robb was a rebel making him and all his followers heads legally  up for grabs based on the laws of Westeroes; though the killings at the Red wedding are recognized as murder -but then again although a rebel he and his inner circle were of proper blood; to kill them in such a way is not acceptable. And guest right is still one of the country's most sacred customs.The Weeper is a free man who answers to no one.  A man can do as a man pleases where he lives.  He is beyond the law as long as he stays on his side of the fence.  He's went out of the way to blind crows and raided in the north.  

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

5 hours ago, Blackwater Revenant said:

Again, entirely possible, however that is not necessarily true. It wouldn't take Qyburn being a genius to continually mutilate and experiment on many, many unwilling human subjects - with no discernable results - until by chance and/or process of elimination he came across the favorable results needed to advance his research.

He brought someone back from the dead. That is in itself an act of genius and you seem to be severely downplaying it as such if you think that it could be something discovered by anyone with  a process of elimination. 

And are you really under the impression that bona fide genius's don't work out their ideas and inventions through a series of elimination? Because they frequently do. 

I apologise if this response sounded terse, it was not meant to be, but I don't think you are giving Qyburn the recognition he deserves. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 minutes ago, Nowy Tends said:

He made him a zombie, a totally harmful creature, where is the genius?

What does him being harmful have to do with genius?

He brought a dead man back to life using science. No other Maesters seem to have this ability, he seems to have made scientific breakthroughs that no one else in his field has made. He is exceptionally skilled in his chosen field, that makes him a genius. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The Weeper.

The hearsay of his enemies is not proof beyond reasonable doubt, and he has shown himself to be a brave and able commander who knows the territory in the war against the wights. Mance trusts him, the respect and admiration of the other wildlings towards him seems remarkably universal - on the one occasion that we meet him, they seem to be falling over themselves to talk with him, and Jarl has listed raiding on the Weeper's team prominently on his curriculum vitea.

Jon has been imbued with 'Southron' (ie. Northerner) prejudices against wildlings, at least since he was old enough to comprehend Old Nan's stories. Still, the one time they met, the Weeper does and says nothing to deserve the reputation Jon knows him by:

Quote

“The Lord o’ Bones,” the Weeper said when he saw them. He eyed Jon and his wolf. “Who’s this, then?”...
The Weeper’s red rheumy eyes gave Jon another look. “Aye? Well, he has a wolfish cast to him, now as I look close. Bring him to Mance, might be he’ll keep him.” He wheeled his horse around and galloped off

(AGoT, Ch.19 Jon III)

I submit that the worst evidence Jon can offer of the Weeper from his first-hand knowledge is that he talked about him rather than to him, and made personal remarks he didn't much care to hear.  His later opinion that

Quote

Along with the Tormunds and the Longspears rode other sorts of wildlings, though; men like Rattleshirt and the Weeper who would as soon slit you as spit on you.

cannot be taken even as evidence that the Weeper differs from Tormund in any way other than Jon likes Tormund. If being disliked by Jon was a capital offence, there would be fewer men in the Night's Watch.

So let us take a look at the other charges the Weeper is being indicted on.

According to the tales the black brothers told

Quote

he was a known raider.

(ASoS, Ch.07 Jon I)
according to Thistle, who may be speaking ironically or with dismay, a

Quote

'brave raider'

(ADwD, Prologue)

I'm willing to concede this is true, because it is backed up by testimony stronger than hearsay Jon was told before he ever met the guy. Jarl has personally been led across the wall on raids led by the Weeper. (ASoS, Ch.41 Jon V)

Jon is keen to associate the Weeper's name with that of Alfyn Crowkiller, quick to smear them both as murderers, without evidence that the Weeper had killed so much as a dog. Alfyn was dead before Jon ever thought of him, one of a dozen killed by Qhorin half-hand on his way to the fist of the first men.

Jon knew what sort of man Qhorin was before he ever met him, too. He was 'half a legend in the Watch' and had lost three fingers catching a willdling's axe.

Quote

It was told that he had thrust his maimed fist into the face of the axeman so the blood spurted into his eyes, and slew him while he was blind.

(ACoK, Ch.43 Jon V)

That is a hero.

The Weeper was possibly sighted, at least believed to be at Icemark, possibly climbing, hacking or 'massing' at the Wall there according to Donal Noye (ASoS, Ch.48 Jon VI) Jon's first meeting with him does establish that the Weeper is a henchman of Mance's, not just a refugee or fugitive.

Quote

Bowen Marsh had chased a group of wildlings away from the Wall, down into the Gloom of the Gorge, and there At the Bridge of Skulls he had met the Weeper and three hundred wildlings and won a bloody battle.

(ASoS, Ch.69 Jon IX)

The Night's Watch does act as if they own the lands and make the rules beyond the wall, when strictly their realm and their law ends at it. Acting Commander Bowen Marsh might be justified in turning the retreat of the free-folk army into a rout, if he could. After all, the Wildlings had joined in battle against the Night's Watch at Castle Black, a clear threat to the wall he had sworn to watch from and the realm he had sworn to guard. Whether the Night's Watch is justified in taking the fight up the Milkwater or into the Gorge is less certain, but they don't see it that way.

Jon talks of the Weeper 'provoking' attacks, per Mance's instruction. If he was, he did it in a way that did no harm worth mentioning to any man of the Night's Watch, any person or property in the realm. His methods are a lesson in restraint that Catelyn Stark and Tywin Lannister could have profited from, had they survived to hear of it. Marsh took the offensive along with whatever paltry bait the Weeper had given him, attacking people who are not part of the realm or the wall he is charged to protect, in land that does not belong to it.

While Jon attributes all to the cunning of Mance, I'm not sure that the Weeper had the choice of avoiding battle at the Bridge of Skulls. It seems to me that his forces were too weak and broken to fight at Icemark, so he made the best kind of retreat he knew how, while sending riders out for reinforcements further west, because he knew he could not keep running forever. Bowen Marsh might have been 'provoked' by the knowledge that the terrain was funnelling the fleeing wildlings into a situation where they must either hold the Bridge of Skulls, or be slaughtered by the Night's Watch, or starve in some cranny of the Gorge. Perhaps Bowen Marsh had not anticipated the number of defenders, armed with scythe and stick and rope and guile, would so nearly match the conventionally organised and properly provisioned troops he attacked them from the heights with.

The deaths of Ser Endrew Tarth and Ser Aladale Wynch and the 98 fighters of the Night's Watch are not murders, but deaths in a battle for the wildling's lives, and all Jon knows about them suggests they should lie heavy on Bowen Marsh's conscience.

All we know of the Weeper's part of that battle, was that he was there. There is a strong presumption that he was leading the battle, Bowen Marsh's wounds are consistent with a glancing blow with a scythe. But we don't have clear evidence that the Weeper made that near-fatal swing at Bowen Marsh in an heroic do or die last stand on the bridge. All we know for sure is that the Black Brothers saw him on the Bridge and were trying to kill him.

The most heroic (or desperate) command decision the Weeper made was just after that, when he decided to retreat into the Valley formerly of the Thenns, but now of the wights. It says a lot about the loyalty,  discipline, and courage of his forces, that they would follow him through the Frostfangs, up the Milkwater, into the maw of death, to fight against the undead and the White Walkers, or live free in spite of them. Note too, this is the last positive sighting we have of the Weeper.

Mance, when he has knelt in fealty to Stannis, and gave his bond to Melisandre, unintentionally does an injustice to his former henchman when he attempts to interpret Melisandre's vision.

Quote

"Cutting out the eyes, that’s the Weeper’s work. The best crow’s a blind crow, he likes to say."

(ADwD, Ch.31 Melisandre I)

This was in reply to Melisandre asserting 

Quote

"Lord Snow’s rangers will return before the day is done, with their blind and bloody eyes.”

 There is no hint in this that the rangers will be dead, that only their heads will return. And until that point, the reader could suppose the Weeping Man got his nickname from his chronically rheumy eyes. This statement sets the Weeper up to take the fall for a crime that he seems to have a water-tight alibi for (he wasn't there, or anywhere near there). Worse, it is a crime that has not even been committed.

But when the heads of Black Jack Bulwer, Hairy Hal, and Garth Greyfeather are found, there is no attempt to consider other suspects.

Quote

Where their eyes had been, only empty sockets remained, black and bloody holes that stared down in silent accusation.

(ADwD, Ch.62The Sacrifice)

These were only three of nine rangers in the sorty, and what has happened to the half-dozen others is as yet not known. The black brothers are curiously incurious as to the fate of those still living. Perhaps after the thing at Craster's keep, it isn't so respectable to survive your commander, but still, one would think the brothers would show more interest in the fate of the men who are possibly still living.

We don't really know how the ones that died, met their fate. Were they alive or dead when their eye sockets were emptied? What were they doing when they died, how were they killed...and by whose hand? All we really know for sure is that one look at the three heads is enough for every brother at Castle Black to blame the Weeper for murdering the lot of them. Whoever did that must have known that.

Which makes it difficult for me to suspect the wights, or the white walkers - as they don't seem to be that bothered with individual personalities, don't seem that aware of what the men say to each other about each other, don't speak the common tongue. I suspect the heads were mutilated by someone who does know what those at Castle Black say about the Weeper. Whether that person knows where the bodies are buried or not. While I have no positive evidence that links any specific person to the killing of the three, it seems to me that everyone who accuses the Weeper is equally bereft.

It is not beyond belief that Black Brothers might have killed their own and cut out the eyes, in order to recruit rangers to an anti-wildling faction. It's not like a wildling killed the Lord Commander that Bowen Marsh was acting for. It's not as if there are a lack of murderous faction commanders that would like to be able to blame a wildling for their crimes, as this infusion of kneelers and Kings Men and Queens men melds with the mix of Northerners and Southerners, Baratheon and Targaryen supporters, former Goldcloaks and former prisoners, that were the population of Castle Black before them. There are mutineers from Crasters Keep, and from the failed Stewards breakout at the fist, that made their way back with the loyalists, and blame innocent wildlings for their crimes already. And beheadings are more reliably done with swords that scythes. Well, more cleanly, anyway.

The spears that support the heads are made of Ash, and there is a big Ash tree half a mile south of Castle Black on the road to Moles town, with a branch broken off to make a nose for the face newly gouged in it. Again, not something a scythe does well. There is another face in a chestnut and a third in an Oak, on the same road. Three for three.

There are wildlings that might steal the Weeper's trademark to menace the Night's Watch for various reasons, and Molestown locals, and Northern clanspeople as well. To persuade the inhabitants of Castle Black that the Weeper is there and alive, south of the Wall, to rouse popular hatred against the kneelers, as a feint by other wildlings in Mance's broken army...but there is nothing to put the Weeper at the scene of the crime.

The closest thing to a definite charge on the Weeper is the Old Flint's answer to Othell Yarwyck's leading and loaded question:

Quote

“How many rangers has the Weeper killed?” asked Othell Yarwyck. “How many women has he raped or killed or stolen?”
“Three of mine own ilk,” said Old Flint. “And he blinds the girls he does not take.”

I'll just note here, that Othell and Old Flint are posing these questions to argue that the Weeper would not keep a loyal oath, before we move on to examining the substance of this claim. It sounds like a serious charge, but it is vaugely worded. We do not know if the three 'of his ilk' are men or women, if they were murdered or raped, or taken hostage, or just missing presumed taken. He doesn't specify if the three were taken by the Weeper personally, or by wildlings in raids or a raid he had participated in, or if the three of the Flint clan had been harmed or taken by persons unknown, and the damage attributed to the Weeper when the Old Flint was approached for justice.
 
His second claim that the Weeper blinds girls is even less specfic. Framing it in the present continuous tense implies it is an habitual behaviour. I don't think the Old Flint had three daughters who had their eyes gouged out - the casual ease with which he speaks of the Weeper's alleged attacks on girls generally is not consistent with a person who has a close personal relationship with a victim of such an horrific crime. And 'ilk' does not imply a close relationship. He could mean as little as 'In the last twenty years, three Flint girls have run away to join the Wildlings, and we discourage girls from doing this by telling them the weeper will blind them and leave them behind." We don't know what the Old Flint means by 'blinded'. This could mean anything from 'deceived' to 'blindfolded' to 'eyeballs gouged out of defenceless, terrified child in an unprovoked attack designed only to ensure that the last thing she saw was the slaughter of her protectors'. He isn't clear what he means by 'left behind' either - oddly gendered, maximumly sinister, the more so because we are not hearing of or seeing any number of blind Flint women, who were left behind by the Weeper in their youth.

We know that the Old Flint is arguing that he doesn't want the Weeper as a neighbour, in the Gift. At the same time as he argues the Weeper is too savage to be trusted, he promises that if he encounters wildlings south of the gift, he will execute them. He even implies that he would break guest right, rather than apply it to wildlings, and makes it clear he doesn't care what happens to wildling children, and that as far as he is concerned, wildling girls, and their mothers and grandmothers, are all spearwives, entitled to no quarter.

It is in his interest to argue that the Weeper, and consequently all wildlings, are a monstrous threat to him and his kin, that he and his kin would be justified in their decision to orphan wildling girls and let those they don't kill along with their mothers starve, freeze, be wighted at the very doors of castle black.

The Flint uses the comparatively equal status of girls in wildling culture, to justify slaughtering orphans with the same savage prejudice as for warrior commanders. Wildlings allow female warriors, and wildlings don't share the realm's fetishism of female virginity (no bedding ceremonies, and perhaps no formal marriage ceremonies, acceptance of women leaving men they don't wish to partner with, and no intrinsic inequalities for base-born wildlings, no primogeniture of succession to legitimate the lines of wildling kings).

The wildling culture is not so focused on restricting and controlling women as they are in the realm. So when the Old Flint talks of 'the girls he leaves behind' it makes me wonder what treatment a Flint girl or woman who survives a wildling raid might endure from her own family, if  (for instance) they thought she had been 'despoiled'. And what evidence of violence to their own womenfolk the Flints might prefer to attribute to wildlings.

What would a wildling like the Weeper make of a culture where, if a man steals a woman, he gets her lands, title, and takes charge of her bannermen, who, like all the neighbours, mope around uneasily pointing out that, well, they are married, as he flays her slowly and starves her to death.

The Night's watch is largely made of men like Chett and Daeron, who were found guilty of crimes against women, and Craster was not the product of immaculate conception. Further south, the anointed knight Gregor Clegane considers eye gouging as a good way of dealing with insufficiently attentive scouts - except that he proposes tearing out the eyes of his own men, not his enemies.

The Huntsman has three eyeless corpses on grisly display when Arya comes to Stoney Sept, to the approval of the whole town, as they see them as some kind of ward against the enemies that would attack them. Beric Dondarrion does not approve, but he does not call the huntsman to a trial to answer for his depredations. So even Sothron worshippers of the seven are capable of doing things quite as vicious as they accuse the Weeper of, without being regarded as committing a crime they need to answer for. Especially when these acts are committed as part of a war, or in defence of their own.

Independent of the vagueness or the veracity of the Old Flint's accusations, in context he is slandering the Weeper, because he is offering them as evidence that the Weeper is an oathbreaker, and therefore can't be trusted to keep an oath of allegiance.

What we know of the Weeper is that he swore allegiance to Mance and kept his oath when others, including Tormund, fled. Everything suggests that he is a staunch ally that serves his commander fearlessly, even heroically, to the death if needs be.

The Flints, including Old Flint, don't enjoy such an impeccable reputation on that head.

Jon admits to Stannis that the Flints, along with the other mountain clans were 'quarrelsome folk' and Benjen reminds him that historically,

Quote

Lord Commander Rodrik Flint thought to make himself King-beyond-the-Wall.

(ASoS, Ch.55 Jon VII)

From Asha we learn that

Quote

Galbart Glover’s maester had claimed the mountain clans were too quarrelsome to ever band together without a Stark to lead them

(ADwD, Ch.26 The Wayward Bride)

Quote

One of Morgan Liddle’s mules had gone astray, but he seemed to think the Flints had stolen him.

(ADwD, Ch.42 The King's Prize)

The Old Flint himself reminds us of how far previous Kings had trusted their Flint allies:

Quote

Old Flint stomped his cane against the ice. “Wards, we always called them, when Winterfell demanded boys of us, but they were hostages, and none the worse for it.”
“None but them whose sires displeased the Kings o’ Winter,”

(ADwD, Ch.54 Cersei I)

Not that the Night's Watch are paragons for honour, as Jon points out when Tormund attempts to give him female hostages

Quote

“How’s that?” Tormund scratched his beard. “A hostage is a hostage, seems to me. That big sharp sword o’ yours can snick a girl’s head off as easy as a boy’s. A father loves his daughters too. Well, most fathers.”
It is not their fathers who concern me. “Did Mance ever sing of Brave Danny Flint?”
“Not as I recall. Who was he?”
“A girl who dressed up like a boy to take the black. Her song is sad and pretty. What happened to her wasn’t.”

(ADwD, Ch.58 Jon XII)

As Leathers, who probably knows the Weeper better than any other character in the narritive, notes:

Quote

“That battle down below? I was on t’other side, remember? Now I wear your blacks and train your boys to kill. Some might call me turncloak. Might be so … but I am no more savage than you crows. We have gods too. The same gods they keep in Winterfell.”

(ADwD, Ch.53 Jon XI)

The defence rests, your honour.

ETA TL;DR @Bernie Mac? Very well. Pure supposition is the only thing that links what Mance says about the Weeper to the deaths of Jack Bulwar etc. 

The Old Flint only claims to know of three people carried off/died in raids led by the Weeper. His unsupported assertion about blinding girls was added as justification for him and his 'ilk' to serve the little kneeling girls of the Gift and the men of the Night's Watch the same as Jack Bulwar, if Jon should accept the Weeper's oath.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

9 minutes ago, Walda said:

The Weeper.

The hearsay of his enemies is not proof beyond reasonable doubt


"How many women has he raped or killed or stolen?"
"Three of mine own ilk," said Old Flint. "And he blinds the girls he does not take."
 
The Weeper's methods are backed up by Mance, an ally of the Weeper
 
The wildling's own eyes narrowed. Grey eyes, brown eyes; Melisandre could see the color change with each pulse of the ruby. "Cutting out the eyes, that's the Weeper's work. The best crow's a blind crow, he likes to say. Sometimes I think he'd like to cut out his own eyes, the way they're always watering and itching. Snow's been assuming the free folk would turn to Tormund to lead them, because that's what he would do. He liked Tormund, and the old fraud liked him too. If it's the Weeper, though … that's not good. Not for him, and not for us."
Link to comment
Share on other sites

14 hours ago, Bernie Mac said:

What does him being harmful have to do with genius?

He brought a dead man back to life using science. No other Maesters seem to have this ability, he seems to have made scientific breakthroughs that no one else in his field has made. He is exceptionally skilled in his chosen field, that makes him a genius. 

True. Qyburn even without this would still need to be classified as a genuis. He was at the time at tutelage at the Citadel seen on the level of his Archmaestor-this experiment if not due to some random spell would be proof  he'd underestimated. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

19 hours ago, Bernie Mac said:

He brought someone back from the dead.

Did he? Do you have confirmation as to that?

Quote

That is in itself an act of genius and you seem to be severely downplaying it as such if you think that it could be something discovered by anyone with  a process of elimination. 

Something cannot be considered an act of genius, when you have no idea what is involved in the process.

The bolded is a strawman argument.

No, I didn't say anyone could do so. I said it's plausible that any relatively intelligent person, with Qyburn's education, who has spent his entire career working towards this goal, and has used the same deplorable methods as he has, could possibly do so.

Quote

And are you really under the impression that bona fide genius's don't work out their ideas and inventions through a series of elimination? Because they frequently do. 

Again, strawman.

No, I am not under that impression. Are you really under the impression that every single person that makes progress using this method is a genius? 

Quote

I apologise if this response sounded terse, it was not meant to be, but I don't think you are giving Qyburn the recognition he deserves. 

I never said he doesn't deserve recognition for what he's accomplished. My point is, considering the very limited information we have, it's quite premature and presumptuous to claim:  "...he's a genuis to which the world would be lucky to see again in a thousand years if ever."

Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 hours ago, Varysblackfyre321 said:

He was at the time at tutelage at the Citadel seen on the level of his Archmaestor

What do you mean by level? There is no mention of Qyburn's intelligence at all. It is only said that he was as skilled a healer as Ebrose. 

Inferring that is evidence that he is a genius, is also a deductive fallacy.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

53 minutes ago, Blackwater Revenant said:

What do you mean by level? There is no mention of Qyburn's intelligence at all. It is only said that he was as skilled a healer as Ebrose. 

Inferring that is evidence that he is a genius, is also a deductive fallacy.

Yes, any idiot could be as skilled a healer as one of the greatest medical minds in Westeroes and quite possibly the world.

 We do not need a literal IQ score to realize to be as good a healer as his Archmaestor shows Qyburn to be very and I do mean very intelligent to a point where'd it'd be a disservice to recognize the man as a genuis. 

Hell at the very least would you contend He's a genius in his chosen field of study(which is a study an intelligent person would have to try really hard to adequate in)?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

25 minutes ago, Varysblackfyre321 said:

Yes, any idiot could be as skilled a healer as one of the greatest medical minds in Westeroes and quite possibly the world.

Strawman.

Quote

 We do not need a literal IQ score to realize to be as good a healer as his Archmaestor shows Qyburn to be very and I do mean very intelligent. 

Yes, and many maesters are also very, very intelligent; that does not corelate to any of them being a genius, that only comes along once in a thousand years, if ever.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, Varysblackfyre321 said:

Hell at the very least would you contend He's a genius in his chosen field of study(which is a study an intelligent person would have to try really hard to adequate in)?

[I think you mean concede, not contend] But no, not with the limited information provided. I've already agreed that it's entirely possible, but until/if we get more clarification on the matter, I see no reason to assume such.

And I don't contend that he is a very intelligent man, and agree that most likely, he is substantially more so than the average maester.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Blackwater Revenant said:

Strawman.

Saying Strawman does not make a person guilty of having made one.

You claimed the comparison between Qyburn skill having been compared to the greatest medical minds in Westeroes in terms of his knowledge and understanding of the human body does not give credence to the idea of Qyburn being a genuis; it clearly does. If you disagree and still feel being compared to one of the greatest medical minds in the world says nothing  about a person's intelligence please, make your case.

1 hour ago, Blackwater Revenant said:

Yes, and many maesters are also very, very intelligent; that does not corelate to any of them being a genius that only comes along once in a thousand years.

They'd have to be very very  to get their chain to practice medicine in the first place. 

The citadel is the peak of Westeroes' intellectual prowess; you do not get far ahead without being exceptionally intelligent and you certainly don't get compared to your archMaestor (especially if he's of a very respected skill such as healing), without being a genuis in your own right. 

And actual strawman. 

I never once posited of virtue of being very intelligent Qyburn is a genuis that would come about a thousand years if ever-at most I said his resurrection of Gregore show him to so insanely intelligent it'd be foolish to want to see him die without seeing what else he could do.

I fully conceded he could have simply found an old medical trick or spell to get his product; but if through his own foliation(or relatively so) he was able to unlock the secrets of life and death yea he would have made probably the greatest scientific breakthrough in human history.

Yes again even  finding the right methods that could even lead the results he was looking for would likely cost people far more time they'd have to live.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, Blackwater Revenant said:

Did he? Do you have confirmation as to that?

Spoiler, but Robert Strong is Gregor Clegane. So Qyburn has done one of two things, he has either healed Clegane from injuries that no medic in the middles ages or even our own times could do or he has brought a dead person back to life. 

Both would count as acts of genius. 

Quote

Something cannot be considered an act of genius, when you have no idea what is involved in the process.

When something appears to be a medical marvel which no other person in his profession seems to have acheived before then yes, you can call it an act of genius. 

Quote

The bolded is a strawman argument.

No, it was a rhetorical question.

Quote

No, I didn't say anyone could do so.

Well done, we are getting somewhere. 

Qyburn qualifies as a genius as he fits the criteria as he is "an exceptionally intelligent person or one with exceptional skill in a particular area of activity."

Quote

I said it's plausible that any relatively intelligent person, with Qyburn's education,

Which in itself is a strawman. Where is your evidence that anyone could, from a similar background, could do what Qyburn did? There is none. 

Has Qyburn not gone further in chosen field than anyone else? Has he not made breakthroughs that no one else of his profession has made? That alone qualifies his as a genius under the very definition of the word. 

Bringing back someone to life is a particular area of activity and as the only medic we know of in Westeros to have achieved such a feat that makes him exceptional in that chosen field. 

Quote

who has spent his entire career working towards this goal, and has used the same deplorable methods as he has, could possibly do so.

This is also a strawman. No one has gone as far as he had in his chosen field. He has gone further and beyond than all others in his goal and has been successful at something that few, if anyone else, has. This qualifies him as a genius. 

The Cambridge dictionary's definition of the word Genius

'very great and rare natural ability or skillespecially in a particular area such as science or art'

Qyburn's skills in his chosen field are both great and rare. He is a genius. 

 

Quote

Again, strawman.

No, it was another rhetorical question. I am trying to get an idea what your thought process is on the subject as you are offering nothing concrete just this odd idea that any person with the same training could do what Qyburn has done and there is no evidence to support this. 

Quote

No, I am not under that impression. Are you really under the impression that every single person that makes progress using this method is a genius? 

I am under the impression that he qualifies as a genius under the very definition of the word.

Here is another rhetorical question, before you start wrongly accusing of strawman, what does his methods have to do with this? They are morally repugnant, but that does not discredit his work. 

Quote

I never said he doesn't deserve recognition for what he's accomplished.

You can't concede that he is a genius in his field. He quite literally is. 

Quote

My point is, considering the very limited information we have, it's quite premature and presumptuous to claim:  "...he's a genuis to which the world would be lucky to see again in a thousand years if ever."

Why is that in quotation marks? I have never claimed the above. And someone does not have to be the above to qualify as a genius. This is a very odd argument to make in response to what I have actually said on this topic. Infact it is a little disingenuous to out that quotes in reply to me suggesting I had originally said that in this topic. 

He is a genius because he is exceptional in his chosen field, he has done something that no other Maester has. 

2 hours ago, Blackwater Revenant said:

Nope, that's a deductive fallacy.

Please explain how?

We know for a fact that he is a maverick in his field, that no one else has gone as far and reached the same results as he has. This qualifies him as a genius. 

I have never claimed that others could not do what he has done, that would be an odd and pointless argument to make as that does not disqualify someone from being a genius. Plenty of people have followed in the footsteps of geniuses, people in later generations have even surpassed them in their chosen field but Qyburn has gone further than anyone else in his chosen field and achieved results that no other Maester ever has. This qualifies him as a genius and your flimsy arguments of others could have done the same are immaterial as they have not. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Varysblackfyre321 said:

Saying Strawman does not make a person guilty of having made one.

No, the comment you made was what made you guilty of making a strawman argument. I, in no way said or implied that: "any idiot could be as skilled a healer as one of the greatest medical minds in Westeroes and quite possibly the world." You responding to my point with a sarcastic response implying that I made that argument is the very definition of a strawman argument.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

×
×
  • Create New...