Would Barristan have beaten Sansa?

[cpg2016]

On 4/11/2018 at 7:12 PM, Lord Varys said:

Ask yourself - who is the kinder person? Joffrey beating up Sansa or Ned executing young Theon because his daddy decided to rebel against King Robert a second time? And there is no question that Ned would have taken Theon's head with his own hands if Balon had broken his word.

Ned is the kinder person.  Unquestionably.  You can't look at these questions in a vacuum.  Sansa isn't a hostage for anyone's good behavior (as Theon is).  I agree that killing Theon is not a "good thing," but there is also no question that Joffrey's treatment of Sansa is worse.  If you cannot understand the ethics underpinning this at a glance, then no one here has a chance of explaining it to you.  Character in-universe consistently draw a line behind morally permissible punishment (e.g. beheading for treason) and immoral or torturous punishment (e.g. the objections to Stannis' burning Mance or Theon, the general repulsion we're supposed to feel at Ramsay's treatment of Theon).

On 4/11/2018 at 7:12 PM, Lord Varys said:

It does? Where, exactly? Jeyne weeping is the only thing of that sort I remember, and here it is just the impression the weeping gives the other Northmen. Nobody cares - or presumes to intervene - what husband and wife do in their bedchamber. That's a private thing.

Ugh.  How about the fact that Loras is put on the Kingsguard almost entirely in order to safeguard Margaery from Joffrey's sadism?  I mean, you're also glossing over the fact that Roose is worried the Northmen will actively revolt in response to what Ramsay is doing in the "privacy" of their bedchamber.  How about the fact that Jaime's attitude towards Rhaella's rape and torture (which is what it is, effectively), and even Jonothor Darry's response, indicate the strong cultural revulsion to marital rape and abuse?  Or the fact that Robert Baratheon feels guilty for hurting Cersei?  There is a clear trendline that cultural mores bend in the direction of disapproving of marital abuse.

On 4/11/2018 at 7:12 PM, Lord Varys said:

Sorry, King Aerys II was the king, not a psychopathic murderer. He sentenced people to death, he did not murder them. And by the laws and customs of this world he isn't a murderer. Not sure if a king can be a murderer in this world - perhaps when he goes around and randomly kills people with his own hands for really no reason? I don't know. Aerys may have made sentenced to death innocent people, but that doesn't make him a 'psychopathic murderer'. He may actually have believed they were guilty.

Please please please don't play this game.  You are wrong.  It isn't an opinion, it isn't open for debate, it is a fact.  Feudalism is a contractual system in which there are reciprocal obligations between vassal and liege.  We hear this in the Reed's oath to Bran, and it's obvious anyway - one of the things you can't do, ever, in any society, is murder someone without cause.  It is essentially the first principle of law, justice, civilization - you name it.

And by the way.... Aerys DOES randomly go around killing people!  That is exactly what happens to Rickard Stark, a man who hasn't even remotely committed a crime, and in fact has been an exemplary vassal.

On 4/11/2018 at 7:12 PM, Lord Varys said:

You also seem to fail understand that there is a difference between a person doing his duty - because he swore a vow - and protecting and serving his lord or king, and that person actually condoning all (or most) actions of said lord or king. Selmy can protect and serve his king and not approve of Aerys raping his sister-wife or him killing innocent people - just as Davos can serve Stannis and not approve of him using a sorceress to murder Renly and Penrose, or of him sacrificing his own nephew.

Trust me, as should be very apparent by now, my understanding of basically everything far outstrips yours.  Lets break this down, shall we?

All knights serve a first vow to protect the weak and the innocent.  We are told that knights are sworn to protect the weak and defend innocents; it is their first duty.  And Barristan ignores it, as do all the Kingsguard, for years.  The two oaths are literally incompatible, and GRRM knows it - which is why Jaime's actions in executing Aerys are held up as honorable.  Which is why Brienne is considered a more "true" knight than the Kingsguard.  Why Dunk is a true knight.  Because those knightly vows?  Those are first principles.  Those should be the overriding vows, it's what the entire chivalric culture is based on.  And Barristan ignores it.

And Davos is an awful example for you to bring up; perhaps the example which most undermines your argument.  Davos can only disapprove of what Melisandre does to Courtnay Penrose and Renly; he isn't a position to do anything about it.  And with Edric Storm, he tries to convince Stannis otherwise, and then risks his own life to act!  You know, the thing Barristan and Arthur Dayne and Jaime and Arys Oakheart should all be doing?  Davos does it.  He disobeys his king in order to protect innocent life.

I don't even have time to address the rest.

[Lord Varys]

9 hours ago, cpg2016 said:

Ned is the kinder person.  Unquestionably.  You can't look at these questions in a vacuum.  Sansa isn't a hostage for anyone's good behavior (as Theon is).  I agree that killing Theon is not a "good thing," but there is also no question that Joffrey's treatment of Sansa is worse.  If you cannot understand the ethics underpinning this at a glance, then no one here has a chance of explaining it to you.  Character in-universe consistently draw a line behind morally permissible punishment (e.g. beheading for treason) and immoral or torturous punishment (e.g. the objections to Stannis' burning Mance or Theon, the general repulsion we're supposed to feel at Ramsay's treatment of Theon).

But Sansa is a hostage for the good behavior of the Tullys and the Starks, that's made very evident in the letter Cersei has to write her to Robb, Catelyn, and Lysa. Don't you recall that? And she was also a hostage against Ned when they forced him to make his false confession. The Starks never gave her up voluntarily as a hostage, King Joffrey took her. But she is a hostage. And as such Joffrey and his government were very well perfectly within their right to mistreat, torture, and kill her - because that's what you do with hostages.

You presumably start by beating, injuring, disfiguring them before you go down to kill them - after all, when they are gone you can't use them as hostages anymore. Aegon II commanded to cut off Aegon the Younger's ear as a starting point.

9 hours ago, cpg2016 said:

Ugh.  How about the fact that Loras is put on the Kingsguard almost entirely in order to safeguard Margaery from Joffrey's sadism?  I mean, you're also glossing over the fact that Roose is worried the Northmen will actively revolt in response to what Ramsay is doing in the "privacy" of their bedchamber.  How about the fact that Jaime's attitude towards Rhaella's rape and torture (which is what it is, effectively), and even Jonothor Darry's response, indicate the strong cultural revulsion to marital rape and abuse?  Or the fact that Robert Baratheon feels guilty for hurting Cersei?  There is a clear trendline that cultural mores bend in the direction of disapproving of marital abuse.

Mistreating and injuring/murdering innocents (including women and children) is met with revulsion in this society. But there is no indication that this extends to marital rape. What Aerys did to Rhaella wasn't horrible because it was rape - it was his right to demand that his wife sleep with him and her duty to do so - it was the way in which he did it.

Cersei was regularly raped and sexually abused by Robert and this isn't seen as rape. Neither the sex between Lysa and Jon, and all the other men and women who are married to people they don't love, desire, like, or want to be around with. Even Sansa knew that she had no choice but to offer herself to Tyrion to deflower her because that was her duty as a wife.

Loras joining the KG was part of Littlefinger's ploy to convince Olenna to murder Joffrey. It endangered the entire enterprise, it didn't help to protect Margaery or the Tyrells. Because Loras was likely to become another Kingslayer Olenna had to take Joff out first to prevent that from happening.

The point with Jeyne is that she is visible unhappy in her marriage. They don't know why, they just know that she is. And that looks bad. It is not about marital rape but mistreating her in light of the fact that she is the Stark girl.

9 hours ago, cpg2016 said:

Please please please don't play this game.  You are wrong.  It isn't an opinion, it isn't open for debate, it is a fact.  Feudalism is a contractual system in which there are reciprocal obligations between vassal and liege.  We hear this in the Reed's oath to Bran, and it's obvious anyway - one of the things you can't do, ever, in any society, is murder someone without cause.  It is essentially the first principle of law, justice, civilization - you name it.

But kings can do execute people and get away with it even if they are innocent. Even lords can do that. Did Gared deserve to die a turncloak's death? No. Did Ned get away with this caricature of justice? Sure. Was this just? No.

9 hours ago, cpg2016 said:

And by the way.... Aerys DOES randomly go around killing people!  That is exactly what happens to Rickard Stark, a man who hasn't even remotely committed a crime, and in fact has been an exemplary vassal.

LOL, we don't know the details of that trial, nor do we know what Rickard and Brandon were accused of. King Aerys II may have sincerely believed they were guilty of that crime. We don't know what happened there at this point. But what we do is that he often thought the people he had tortured and killed were actually guilty of a crime - for instance, when he had the midwives of his son and one of his mistresses and their family executed. 

9 hours ago, cpg2016 said:

All knights serve a first vow to protect the weak and the innocent.  We are told that knights are sworn to protect the weak and defend innocents; it is their first duty.  And Barristan ignores it, as do all the Kingsguard, for years.  The two oaths are literally incompatible, and GRRM knows it - which is why Jaime's actions in executing Aerys are held up as honorable.  Which is why Brienne is considered a more "true" knight than the Kingsguard.  Why Dunk is a true knight.  Because those knightly vows?  Those are first principles.  Those should be the overriding vows, it's what the entire chivalric culture is based on.  And Barristan ignores it.

LOL, that's just nonsense. Nobody in this world thinks a knight's vow outranks the vow of a Kingsguard or a sworn brother of the Night's Watch - those are elite/special orders. Protecting the king/defending the Wall is more important than defending some peasants when you take those special vows.

Else people would actually expect Watchmen to intervene in struggles in the North were innocents suffer (or all across the Realm) or the Kingsguard to ignore the safety of the king when some woman in Flea Bottom is abused.

But people don't do that - and rightfully so.

It is an excuse of people like Jaime to bring up the many vows he swore. He knew perfectly well what was expected of him - what his duty was - when he swore the KG vow in addition to his knight's vows.

The reason why 'only knights' - or rather a certain type of hedge knight - is idealized by the commoners simply is that those people don't have obligations besides their knight's vows. No family (which comes always first in this world), no lord or other liege whose interests come first, etc. It is not just KG who care more about their actual duties (serving and protecting the king) but also household knights, landed knights, tourney knights, etc.

9 hours ago, cpg2016 said:

And Davos is an awful example for you to bring up; perhaps the example which most undermines your argument.  Davos can only disapprove of what Melisandre does to Courtnay Penrose and Renly; he isn't a position to do anything about it.  And with Edric Storm, he tries to convince Stannis otherwise, and then risks his own life to act!  You know, the thing Barristan and Arthur Dayne and Jaime and Arys Oakheart should all be doing?  Davos does it.  He disobeys his king in order to protect innocent life.

Davos could (and should) have killed Stannis for murdering his own brother and murdering Ser Cortnay Penrose. Instead he participates in the latter crime.

Davos also doesn't disobey his king because Stannis never commanded Davos not to spirit away Edric into safety. He walked a fine line there, doing something his king would (likely) not approve but not doing something that was outright treason or disobedience. Had he truly disobeyed an order or directly betrayed Stannis he would have died like Lord Alester Florent did.

[cpg2016]

14 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

But Sansa is a hostage for the good behavior of the Tullys and the Starks, that's made very evident in the letter Cersei has to write her to Robb, Catelyn, and Lysa. Don't you recall that? And she was also a hostage against Ned when they forced him to make his false confession. The Starks never gave her up voluntarily as a hostage, King Joffrey took her. But she is a hostage. And as such Joffrey and his government were very well perfectly within their right to mistreat, torture, and kill her - because that's what you do with hostages.

Balon Greyjoy revolts, is beaten, and has a hostage taken as a result.  Is it fair to Theon?  No.  Well, maybe, probably better to grow up with Ned as a dad than Balon, but still.

Cersei and Joffrey imprison Ned on false charges, and then effectively imprison his daughter.  Right off the bat, there is a major ethical difference in how Theon and Sansa come to be imprisoned.  As unfair as it is to hold someone hostage for another's good behavior, that motivating issue cannot be ignored.  Contrast that with Theon, who is willingly given up - Balon keeps his head because he gives up Theon.

Similarly, Joffrey has Sansa casually beaten for no reason; they aren't transmitting this fact to the Stark forces, so it cannot even be argued that this is "punishment" for Robb's defiance.  Sansa is a prisoner, not a hostage, and there is a major difference there.  Just like the Lannister squires were prisoners, not hostages, and thus should have been immune from harm - hence why Rickard Karstark is beheaded for harming them.

14 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

Cersei was regularly raped and sexually abused by Robert and this isn't seen as rape. Neither the sex between Lysa and Jon, and all the other men and women who are married to people they don't love, desire, like, or want to be around with. Even Sansa knew that she had no choice but to offer herself to Tyrion to deflower her because that was her duty as a wife.

OK, lets get into this.  It 100% IS seen as something wrong, because Robert feels guilty about it.  It isn't "illegal", but what society considers right and wrong is often different from what is legally permissible or not.  And the sex between Lysa and Jon is not described as rape; not loving someone does not mean that there cannot be consent.  Given Lysa's attitudes towards her children, I'd say the reverse is likely - she was willing to consent because she wanted kids.

And Sansa is politically aware enough to know that she has no choice.  Tyrion himself knows that it would be effectively rape, because Sansa must consent under threat of armed force.

14 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

But kings can do execute people and get away with it even if they are innocent. Even lords can do that. Did Gared deserve to die a turncloak's death? No. Did Ned get away with this caricature of justice? Sure. Was this just? No.

See, the problem seems to be that you don't understand nuance.  There is a reason the Lannisters insist that Ned make a false confession - because otherwise killing him is unjust.  Or seems that way; presenting him as a traitor gives them the ability to execute/exile him to the Wall.

And moreover,  I am not even remotely suggesting that miscarriages of justice don't happen.  I mean, Gared is a bad example, because he does deserve to die - he knowingly abandons the Watch, fully understanding the penalty for it.  That he has reasons doesn't make it any less a crime.  If I murder a man and steal his wallet in order to feed my family, you may have some additional sympathy, but I am still a murderer.  So this is a bad example on your part.

14 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

LOL, that's just nonsense. Nobody in this world thinks a knight's vow outranks the vow of a Kingsguard or a sworn brother of the Night's Watch - those are elite/special orders. Protecting the king/defending the Wall is more important than defending some peasants when you take those special vows.

Hey everyone, that noise you heard?  It's the entire thematic argument GRRM is making in these books flying right over Lord Varys' head.

MANY people in universe disagree with you.  Jaime, for one, who orders the Kingsguard under his command to disobey the king if ordered to beat Sansa.

Look, a knight's vow comes first.  Before Sandor Clegane, there were NO non-knights in the Kingsguard, ever.  Being a knight is a pre-requisite.  Which means that the vows of a knight come first.  This is simple logic.  You layer the Kingsguard oaths on top of those.  The whole point GRRM is making with having Barristan struggle with his oaths, and with Sandor and Brienne not being knights, yet occasionally acting like them, is that the entire concept of chivalry in Westeros has been warped, where obeying the letter of the law is more important than obeying it's spirit.

14 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

LOL, we don't know the details of that trial, nor do we know what Rickard and Brandon were accused of. King Aerys II may have sincerely believed they were guilty of that crime. We don't know what happened there at this point. But what we do is that he often thought the people he had tortured and killed were actually guilty of a crime - for instance, when he had the midwives of his son and one of his mistresses and their family executed. 

We do know the details of the trial.  Just because you don't read closely enough, doesn't mean I/we don't.  Brandon shows up at Kings Landing, calling for Rhaegar's head (rightly).  He and his companions are thrown in prison.  Fine, if you want to make a case for him being somewhat guilty, go ahead.  Then Aerys summons all of their fathers, and Rickard comes! Mind you, he has done and said nothing thus far.  And he is accused of threatening the Crown Prince. 

The common opinion is that there was no trial at all.  As Jaime jokingly points out, there was one, "of a sort".  Because RIckard is burned alive.  That's it, clear as crystal.  Most people are of the opinion there was no trial, and even the person trying to needle Catelyn can only admit that it was a mockery of a trial.  Whether Aerys believes they are guilty or not is totally immaterial; we, and all contemporary observers, know for a fact that Rickard Karstark has done nothing to provoke a judicial response.  Insanity is not a defense to murder, merely a mitigating factor.

14 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

Else people would actually expect Watchmen to intervene in struggles in the North were innocents suffer (or all across the Realm) or the Kingsguard to ignore the safety of the king when some woman in Flea Bottom is abused.

Most Watchmen aren't knights, buddy boy.  And no one is making the claim that knights must eliminate ALL injustice or else be considered failures; that's a stupid straw man argument.  But you shouldn't be violating those precepts.  If you are part of the Night's Watch, you have a good and valid argument that your job guarding the Wall from both the Others and wildling raids is very much in line with fulfilling your knight's oaths, and to abandon the Wall would be a betrayal of your NW oath.  If your Lord Commander orders you to go sack a village and rape or kill it's inhabitants, man, woman, and child, then there is an issue.

No one said it's a clear line, which is why people like Barristan and Jaime struggle with it.  But being ordered to beat a young girl who clearly has not warranted that treatment IS a clear line.

14 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

Davos could (and should) have killed Stannis for murdering his own brother and murdering Ser Cortnay Penrose. Instead he participates in the latter crime.

OK, you have to get off the Davos thing, because you clearly don't have a command of the facts or the timeline necessary to be engaging in this discussion.  Davos has no idea what happens to Renly, and why should he?  I mean, the fact that Renly is, in fact, a traitor and thus probably deserves execution in the first place is immaterial here.  And his "participation" in killing Cortnay Penrose is only known to him after the fact.  He has no idea what is going to happen and is in no position to stop it afterwards.  It's debatable whether Stannis even knows what is going to happen; certainly, Davos tries to make clear to him just the kind of actions Stannis is unknowingly condoning.

 

14 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

Davos also doesn't disobey his king because Stannis never commanded Davos not to spirit away Edric into safety. He walked a fine line there, doing something his king would (likely) not approve but not doing something that was outright treason or disobedience. Had he truly disobeyed an order or directly betrayed Stannis he would have died like Lord Alester Florent did.

Alester Florent didn't disobey a direct order either, which you should well know.  What he did was betray the spirit of Stannis' order (no surrender), the same way that Davos even more explicitly contradicts what he knows to be Stannis' desires.

[Lord Varys]

1 hour ago, cpg2016 said:

Balon Greyjoy revolts, is beaten, and has a hostage taken as a result.  Is it fair to Theon?  No.  Well, maybe, probably better to grow up with Ned as a dad than Balon, but still.

LOL, no. Theon is worse off than Sansa because he is confused about his place in life because his Stark dad tried to be a nice dad while both of them knew he would personally cut off his head the moment his true father, Balon Greyjoy, misbehaved.

Sansa knew what Joff and Cersei were from the start. She was never confused about that.

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Cersei and Joffrey imprison Ned on false charges, and then effectively imprison his daughter.  Right off the bat, there is a major ethical difference in how Theon and Sansa come to be imprisoned.  As unfair as it is to hold someone hostage for another's good behavior, that motivating issue cannot be ignored.  Contrast that with Theon, who is willingly given up - Balon keeps his head because he gives up Theon.

That is completely irrelevant to the topic at hand. Sansa and Theon are both hostages. It doesn't matter how they came to be hostages - or whether this was legal. It seems that Princess Rhaelle was also both a bride for the Baratheon and a hostage. This can happen.

But the question whether Joff is the rightful king or not is irrelevant - he could have been, and Robb and Cat believe he is the rightful king when they receive her letter. They know she is a hostage and they don't care. Joff and Cersei are perfectly within their right to make Sansa pay for the treason of her family.

Just as Robb was personally within his right to take Jaime's head to avenge his father - or the Lannister boys he has taken. This is a world of blood vengeance, and nobody has an issue with that.

It is also a world where innocents do suffer for the crimes of their betters. Joff and Tommen both have a whipping boy - a boy they have to beat bloody themselves.

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Similarly, Joffrey has Sansa casually beaten for no reason; they aren't transmitting this fact to the Stark forces, so it cannot even be argued that this is "punishment" for Robb's defiance.  Sansa is a prisoner, not a hostage, and there is a major difference there. 

Joff clearly wanted Robb and the Starks to hear what he is doing. He never got around doing that because Tyrion stopped it.

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Just like the Lannister squires were prisoners, not hostages, and thus should have been immune from harm - hence why Rickard Karstark is beheaded for harming them.

He is beheaded because Robb as Rickard's king and sovereign chose to spare their lives. He could have decided to kill them

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OK, lets get into this.  It 100% IS seen as something wrong, because Robert feels guilty about it.

He doesn't. He feels guilty about beating Cersei - because it is unkingly to beat a woman (weaker sex and all) - he never feels guilty about fucking her - or forcing her to do whatever the hell she did to please him when he drunkenly came stumbled into her bed chamber.

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It isn't "illegal", but what society considers right and wrong is often different from what is legally permissible or not.

There is no indication that wives have a right to abstain from intercourse with their husbands in this world. This is a sad fact but it is the truth. I actually looked into this and looked for signs that this wasn't the case but it is not.

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And the sex between Lysa and Jon is not described as rape; not loving someone does not mean that there cannot be consent.  Given Lysa's attitudes towards her children, I'd say the reverse is likely - she was willing to consent because she wanted kids.

Now you are excusing the man? We do know Lysa Tully didn't want to marry this man. She loved another man, very much in fact, and wanted to marry him and give birth to his child. Her father aborted it and married her to an old man. She makes it very clear that she disgusted by Jon because of his bad breath - if she ever had to pretend to like this guy to get a little bit of happiness in her miserable life then she was even more abused than I thought she was.

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And Sansa is politically aware enough to know that she has no choice.  Tyrion himself knows that it would be effectively rape, because Sansa must consent under threat of armed force.

LOL, no. Sansa offers herself to Tyrion in their marriage bed. They are alone there. She knows what's coming and she knows that she has to sleep with the guy. She doesn't ask him not to have sex with him, she only goes through that window after Tyrion has opened it - after he has given her permission to make that decision.

As Tyrion's wife she bound by oath to obey her lord husband.

The only wives who don't have to sleep with their husbands in this world are wives like Sansa - husbands who give their wives permission to abstain from sex. And there are not many such husbands in that society. You take a wife - any wife - to get yourself some children. You don't take a wife to find love, companionship, friendship, or any other silly modern things. You get that with your friends, your mistresses, your whores - not with your wife. Your wife is a woman chosen by your family for political reasons. Nobody cares whether you or she are happy in this arrangement.

Just look at Stannis and Selyse. The man desperately needs a proper male heir and he has a fertile wife - yet he doesn't impregnate her simply because he cannot bring himself to sleep with that person. Many wives - especially those who are married to old men like Arianne's friend Sylva Santagar to Eldon Estermont - won't have the luxury to reject fucking those men - but Stannis, as a man, can reject and ignore his wife all day long. She has neither the right nor the power to force him to sleep with her.

What do you think Elaena Targaryen thought when she had to sleep with the living corpse Ossifer Plumm? Or the moron Ronnel Penrose after that? What do you think Genna Lannister thinks of Emmon Frey? Or Walder's sister about Ambrose Butterwell?

Does anybody think these people have 'consensual sex' by our standards?

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See, the problem seems to be that you don't understand nuance.  There is a reason the Lannisters insist that Ned make a false confession - because otherwise killing him is unjust.  Or seems that way; presenting him as a traitor gives them the ability to execute/exile him to the Wall.

Nope. They could have put him down in the throne room then and there. It did look better to have him confess, but there was no reason to permit him a trial because he was committing treason then and there - and the clumsy way he did it it actually was treason. He swore to protect Robert's children with his life in Pycelle's hearing - and it is clear that Robert meant his children by Cersei, not some bastards. And he broke that promise.

He also forged the king's last will. Robert Baratheon wanted Joffrey Baratheon - his legal son - on the Iron Throne. If Ned had wanted to put Stannis there he should have told his friend that Cersei's children weren't his. But he didn't do that. He betrayed his king in two ways - first by not telling him the truth and then by forging his will.

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And moreover,  I am not even remotely suggesting that miscarriages of justice don't happen.  I mean, Gared is a bad example, because he does deserve to die - he knowingly abandons the Watch, fully understanding the penalty for it.

LOL, no. The man is described as being 'half mad' when Ned kills him - he kills a man who may no longer be responsible for his actions (surely they wouldn't execute senile Ser Wynton Stout if the man 'deserted' because he could no longer find the way back to his chambers, right?) and who might also no longer recall what he did or what kind of vow he once swore.

If Gared had been sane he could have told Ned rather interesting things, no? And giving Eddard Stark of Winterfell news about the true enemy should have been enough to deserve a pardon for something as trivial as 'desertion' in this context, right?

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That he has reasons doesn't make it any less a crime.  If I murder a man and steal his wallet in order to feed my family, you may have some additional sympathy, but I am still a murderer.  So this is a bad example on your part.

It is not - see above.

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MANY people in universe disagree with you.  Jaime, for one, who orders the Kingsguard under his command to disobey the king if ordered to beat Sansa.

Because the king is a minor - but that actually presumptuous of him, like so many things. The king (or the king's regent or Hand) commands the Kingsguard, not the Lord Commander. The Lord Commander only executes the commands given to him by the king, the regent, or even the king's council.

Still, the point here is that the king is a minor. And others do act for him while that's the case.

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Look, a knight's vow comes first.  Before Sandor Clegane, there were NO non-knights in the Kingsguard, ever.  Being a knight is a pre-requisite.  Which means that the vows of a knight come first.  This is simple logic.  You layer the Kingsguard oaths on top of those.  The whole point GRRM is making with having Barristan struggle with his oaths, and with Sandor and Brienne not being knights, yet occasionally acting like them, is that the entire concept of chivalry in Westeros has been warped, where obeying the letter of the law is more important than obeying it's spirit.

LOL, you really don't get, no? It is clear that people are conflicted, because people are people. It has nothing to do with vows, and in what order they come. That's how George frames some of those conflicts. Others feel conflicting emotions or merely different preferences or moral principles. Davos has his conflicts, too, but they don't have much to do with 'vows'. The same with Jorah. The man is conflicted on so many levels yet vows have little to do with that. The same with Theon, Tyrion, you name it.

Within the framework of the society our people are living in it is very, very clear that special/elite vows supersede/take precedence over lesser vows. A knight of the Kingsguard can help some old lady across the street - or help same maiden in distress - if that doesn't interfere with his true duty, his real commitment - to protect and obey the king. And that is why the Kingsguard are such great people - they once were, for the most part, exemplary knights (meaning living up to the chivalric ideal to a good part) and then chose to use all their greatness to protect and obey the king. That's why they chose to take those vows.

Nobody expects Jaime - or any Kingsguard - to champion the cause of the poor peasants. They expect him to do his duty and protect his king. Nobody cares that these people have second thoughts on their vows and want to do something else in their life - because this society doesn't allow those people to have second thoughts about matters as severe as those.

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We do know the details of the trial.  Just because you don't read closely enough, doesn't mean I/we don't.  Brandon shows up at Kings Landing, calling for Rhaegar's head (rightly).  He and his companions are thrown in prison.  Fine, if you want to make a case for him being somewhat guilty, go ahead.  Then Aerys summons all of their fathers, and Rickard comes! Mind you, he has done and said nothing thus far.  And he is accused of threatening the Crown Prince. 

We don't know the details yet because we actually don't know what Lord Rickard Stark (and the fathers of Brandon's companions - or those companions) were actually accused of. We have a chronological sequence of events and we are led to believe (or rather we might make the mistake of assuming) that correlation is causation, but it is not.

We don't know what Brandon Stark was accused of - what we know right now should imply that Aerys II should have been rather happy that somebody wanted to kill his plotting ingrate son. Why should Aerys II - fearing that Rhaegar and his buddies (the Starks included) wanted to topple him - defend him against people who wanted to kill him?

That makes very little in that context - I'm not saying Mad Aerys might not have thought it made sense (it could have) but we don't know that this is actually the case. We don't have enough information to know what transpired in KL after Lyanna's abduction.

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The common opinion is that there was no trial at all.  As Jaime jokingly points out, there was one, "of a sort".  Because RIckard is burned alive.  That's it, clear as crystal. 

This was no proper trial-by-combat, true. But we don't know whether King Aerys II actually conducted a normal trial beforehand - usually a trial-by-combat is the last and not the first resort you take, right? Rickard had known Aerys II for years. And he wasn't the youngest man alive or the best swordsman of his generation - in a proper trial-by-combat he would have forced one of Aerys' Kingsguard - who would have dealt with him as efficiently as the champion of House Targaryen did.

My impression is that this was likely Rickard's last straw to save his life and the life of his son - not the first idea he had when he showed up at court.

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Most people are of the opinion there was no trial, and even the person trying to needle Catelyn can only admit that it was a mockery of a trial.  Whether Aerys believes they are guilty or not is totally immaterial; we, and all contemporary observers, know for a fact that Rickard Karstark has done nothing to provoke a judicial response.  Insanity is not a defense to murder, merely a mitigating factor.

You are talking about a king here. Who are you to judge a crowned and anointed king? Even in our world such people are not to be judged by 'lesser people' in most societies where there still are kings.

But - again - we don't know what crime what Rickard Stark was actually accused of. Claiming you know he was murdered when we don't know that is a stretch.

If you want to accuse Aerys II of murder take the innocent Darklyns and Hollards as example. Those uninvolved in Lord Denys' plans were innocent and did not deserve to die. Yet I don't think they were 'murdered', either, by the standards of this world because there are more than enough precedents for lords and kings to command such things. The powerful people in this world have a right to eradicate families and make the kin of their enemies suffer for their transgressions - that's at the heart of the hostage system as practiced by the people in Westeros as well as by the not uncommon practice to eradicate entire lines - Maegor and Aerys II, Tywin at Castamere and Tarbeck Hall, Catelyn with the Freys right now, the Red Lion when he killed captured Peakes to avenge his father, etc.

Doing this is extreme, but it is not unheard of nor, usually, a pretext for rebellion. Nobody stood up against Maegor to defend the Harroways, or against Aerys II to protect the Darklyns.

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Most Watchmen aren't knights, buddy boy.

LOL, that isn't an argument. There are knights who take the NW vows. And there have been so many in the past that they once had a Shieldhall just for them. And those knights who took the vows of the NW are expected to uphold those first, not those they swore as knights, lords, kings, etc. Next you are saying those kings Nymeria sent to the Wall were still obliged to protect their subjects up there, or to father children on their wives to continue their line, etc.

In fact, even a Kingsguard knight could take the black - it was offered to Gyles Belgrave back in 131 AC - yet it would be perfectly clear that such a man would no longer be bound by those vows and nobody would expect him to protect some king up at the Wall, right?

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And no one is making the claim that knights must eliminate ALL injustice or else be considered failures; that's a stupid straw man argument.  But you shouldn't be violating those precepts.  If you are part of the Night's Watch, you have a good and valid argument that your job guarding the Wall from both the Others and wildling raids is very much in line with fulfilling your knight's oaths, and to abandon the Wall would be a betrayal of your NW oath.  If your Lord Commander orders you to go sack a village and rape or kill it's inhabitants, man, woman, and child, then there is an issue.

Of course, not - the point is that a knight serving in the Kingsguard or in the NW has pretty much no leeway to choose what he has to do. His duty is pretty well-defined, and there is a chain of command he has to follow. The same goes, to lesser degrees, also for the knights in service to noble houses or their own families.

The ideal of the hedge knight is so cherished by Ser Arlan and Dunk because a hedge knight is in the position (if he is a good person which most aren't) to only care about his knight's vow.

But then - it is a delusion that knights actually 'protect the innocents'. The knights are the swords of the nobility. They keep the rabble in line. They eat the food and steal the horses from the people who do all the work. Aristocracy and monarchy are injustices, too, yet nobody cares about overcoming those - and especially not the knights.

The idea that many people are conflicted about their vows is pretty silly - only a privileged person like Jaime has the luxury to care about such things. A man who actually had to earn his knighthood by showing his skills (like Glendon Flowers, say, Lothor Brune, etc.) should only care about the rank and privileges that come with the Ser, not what they had to say to get it.

Butchering some innocents when the KG or the NW are commanded to do so by their king/officers/lord commander should be perfectly fine. That's what men do in war, right? And especially beyond the Wall everything should be permissible. For instance, Mormont commanding his knights to butcher Craster and all his wives could be easily justified within the framework of the duties of the NW considering that they are all collaborating with the Others - if they had known that for a fact they would have defended the realms of men by putting them all down, no?

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OK, you have to get off the Davos thing, because you clearly don't have a command of the facts or the timeline necessary to be engaging in this discussion.  Davos has no idea what happens to Renly, and why should he?  I mean, the fact that Renly is, in fact, a traitor and thus probably deserves execution in the first place is immaterial here.  And his "participation" in killing Cortnay Penrose is only known to him after the fact.  He has no idea what is going to happen and is in no position to stop it afterwards.  It's debatable whether Stannis even knows what is going to happen; certainly, Davos tries to make clear to him just the kind of actions Stannis is unknowingly condoning.

Do you read my stuff at all? I said 'Stannis could (and should) have killed Stannis for murdering his own brother and Ser Cortnay Penrose. Instead, he participates in the latter crime.'

I never said anything about Davos preventing Renly's murder. But he does know what Stannis wants Mel to do when he smuggles her into the castle - he doesn't know the details, of course, but he knows what they are about. And in that process he learns what Mel did to Renly and that Stannis did, indeed, murder his own brother.

And Stannis himself knows it, too. He even knows that a part of himself did the actual deed. He tries to ignore that fact, but he knows what happened.

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Alester Florent didn't disobey a direct order either, which you should well know.  What he did was betray the spirit of Stannis' order (no surrender), the same way that Davos even more explicitly contradicts what he knows to be Stannis' desires.

Sure, that's why Stannis isn't a just king. He has favorites. He likes Davos. And he doesn't want to kill him. But he didn't give shit about his wife's uncle. In fact, the death of Alester Florent is one of the most unjust things Stannis ever did. He made that man his Hand. He had the right to do business in Stannis' name - and he may have actually talked to Stannis about this whole talk with Tywin if he man hadn't refused to talk to him.

He behaves like a child who complains about the fact that the rest of the family actually continue to do stuff while he is sulking in his room.

[cpg2016]

On 4/19/2018 at 7:39 PM, Lord Varys said:

LOL, no. Theon is worse off than Sansa because he is confused about his place in life because his Stark dad tried to be a nice dad while both of them knew he would personally cut off his head the moment his true father, Balon Greyjoy, misbehaved.

Sansa knew what Joff and Cersei were from the start. She was never confused about that.

We know for a fact the latter isn't true.  At all.  It's beyond arguing with you if you think this, because the text makes it abundantly clear that Sansa has no idea of Joffrey or Cersei's true nature.  It's only after her imprisonment that she understands.  That's why she (sort of) betrays her father and her family, who we know she loves, to Cersei.  Because she wants to stay and marry her perfect prince.

On 4/19/2018 at 7:39 PM, Lord Varys said:

That is completely irrelevant to the topic at hand. Sansa and Theon are both hostages. It doesn't matter how they came to be hostages - or whether this was legal.

Of course it matters.  Ethically and legally, it is important.  And the characters IN UNIVERSE think so!  I don't know how much clearer this could be.  Theon Greyjoy is considered a kinslayer by society, because the expectation is that he should consider himself a member of the family.  However, Ned's thoughts make it clear that he doesn't think he'll receive that sort of stigma if he has to kill Theon.  Again, intent and circumstance matter, both within the text and without, despite how inconvenient this may be for you.

On 4/19/2018 at 7:39 PM, Lord Varys said:

But the question whether Joff is the rightful king or not is irrelevant - he could have been, and Robb and Cat believe he is the rightful king when they receive her letter. They know she is a hostage and they don't care. Joff and Cersei are perfectly within their right to make Sansa pay for the treason of her family.

Again, no.  The Starks are not committing treason, first off.  We know and they know that Ned didn't do anything wrong, so the Lannisters have broken their feudal contract with the Starks.  They are completely in the right.

I'm guessing your financial knowledge is limited, but you are essentially making the case that an escrow account is the same thing as stolen money.  I don't argue that it's unfair to Theon, but the ethical and practical realities make his and Sansa's situations vastly different.

On 4/19/2018 at 7:39 PM, Lord Varys said:

Just as Robb was personally within his right to take Jaime's head to avenge his father - or the Lannister boys he has taken. This is a world of blood vengeance, and nobody has an issue with that.

Except, he wasn't.  People do take issue with blood vengeance - Rickard Karstark loses his life because of that notion.  As much as you continually try and paint Westeros as this place of anarchy, where simultaneously the king has absolute authority but also everyone is free to take an eye for an eye whenever they want, that is not the case.  Killing him on the field of battle is one thing; once he's a prisoner it's clearly a different story.  The idea that people are granted differing status depending on the circumstance is lampshaded by Robb in exactly that manner.  It's a world with a strong sense of tradition, custom, and justice, much like our medieval world was, where traditional rights had equal importance, sometimes greater, than written law.

On 4/19/2018 at 7:39 PM, Lord Varys said:

Joff clearly wanted Robb and the Starks to hear what he is doing. He never got around doing that because Tyrion stopped it.

This is wrong.  Plain wrong.  Joffrey does a lot of awful things to Sansa, and the Starks never hear about it, except her marriage.  Your argument holds no water at all, because he's the f**king king; if he wanted to get word of what he's doing to the Starks, it's not hard, at all.  He's got people willing to beat on an innocent little girl in public; carrying a message about it wouldn't be a big stretch.

Moreover, not for the first time, you have demonstrated an utter lack of knowledge about what happens within the books.  We know Sansa is beaten, and the strong implication is that it happens more than once.  I won't provide the quote right now, because I'd rather you make yourself look like more of an ass by contesting this, so I can further discredit you as not only an morally baseless person, but an intellectually vapid one as well.

On 4/19/2018 at 7:39 PM, Lord Varys said:

He is beheaded because Robb as Rickard's king and sovereign chose to spare their lives. He could have decided to kill them

He is beheaded for committing a crime.  The crime of murdering the Lannister squires.  End of story.  Robb's motivations in sparing them or not don't come into it, but of course, logic and real world history and common sense could tell us the answer (that hostages and prisoners aren't killed).  But you haven't displayed a facility with any of those things before, so I won't wait for a miracle.

On 4/19/2018 at 7:39 PM, Lord Varys said:

He doesn't. He feels guilty about beating Cersei - because it is unkingly to beat a woman (weaker sex and all) - he never feels guilty about fucking her - or forcing her to do whatever the hell she did to please him when he drunkenly came stumbled into her bed chamber.

Do I have to quote again?  I mean, at this point, you've been consistently wrong, both from a common sense and a textual perspective.  It's becoming tiresome to have to refute someone who not only never bothers to even attempt to justify their fantasies, but does so in contradiction to the text.

In the first few years, when he mounted her more often, she would close her eyes and pretend that he was Rhaegar. She could not pretend that he was Jaime; he was too different, too unfamiliar. Even the smell of him was wrong.

For Robert, those nights never happened. Come morning he remembered nothing, or so he would have had her believe. Once, during the first year of their marriage, Cersei had voiced her displeasure the next day. "You hurt me," she complained. He had the grace to look ashamed. "It was not me, my lady," he said in a sulky sullen tone, like a child caught stealing apple cakes from the kitchen. "It was the wine. I drink too much wine." To wash down his admission, he reached for his horn of ale. As he raised it to his mouth, she smashed her own horn in his face, so hard she chipped a tooth. Years later at a feast, she heard him telling a serving wench how he'd cracked the tooth in a mêlée. Well, our marriage was a mêlée, she reflected, so he did not lie.

The rest had all been lies, though. He did remember what he did to her at night, she was convinced of that. She could see it in his eyes. He only pretended to forget; it was easier to do that than to face his shame. Deep down Robert Baratheon was a coward. In time the assaults did grow less frequent. During the first year he took her at least once a fortnight; by the end it was not even once a year. He never stopped completely, though. Sooner or later there would always come a night when he would drink too much and want to claim his rights. What shamed him in the light of day gave him pleasure in the darkness.

I understand that you haven't actually read the books that closely, which is why I'm posting this long chunk.

 

In case your reading comprehension has declined even further, I'll explain.  Robert is raping his wife.  Cersei thinks of it as a violent rape, and so does Robert.  This isn't him beating her; it's him having sex with her so violently that it's causing her actual physical distress.  The last line is indicative; that which gives him pleasure at night, is something he is ashamed of in the morning.

 

I won't even bother with the rest of your post.  It's tiresome to argue with someone who hasn't actually read the books and insists on some kind of morally nihilistic stance to make up for it.  You clearly don't understand GRRM, or any sense of thematic or narrative resonance, and you don't actually remember or understand what you've nominally read, so you can't even fake the argument.

[Lord Varys]

15 hours ago, cpg2016 said:

We know for a fact the latter isn't true.  At all.  It's beyond arguing with you if you think this, because the text makes it abundantly clear that Sansa has no idea of Joffrey or Cersei's true nature.  It's only after her imprisonment that she understands.  That's why she (sort of) betrays her father and her family, who we know she loves, to Cersei.  Because she wants to stay and marry her perfect prince.

LOL, that isn't the issue. Sansa knew what Cersei and Joff were when Joff had her father executed. And Theon knew what Ned Stark was when the man took him from his true father at the age of ten.

Sansa wasn't a hostage of the Lannisters while her father was still alive and she thought Joff was her perfect prince.

And she surely already had doubts about their true nature after the Stark men had been butchered and her father was thrown into a black cell.

15 hours ago, cpg2016 said:

Of course it matters.  Ethically and legally, it is important.  And the characters IN UNIVERSE think so!  I don't know how much clearer this could be.  Theon Greyjoy is considered a kinslayer by society, because the expectation is that he should consider himself a member of the family.  However, Ned's thoughts make it clear that he doesn't think he'll receive that sort of stigma if he has to kill Theon.  Again, intent and circumstance matter, both within the text and without, despite how inconvenient this may be for you.

That just shows how fucked up this society is. Ned killing Theon for something that he has never done, he could never hope to influence or affect, is infinitely worse than just beating up a small girl.

15 hours ago, cpg2016 said:

Again, no.  The Starks are not committing treason, first off.  We know and they know that Ned didn't do anything wrong, so the Lannisters have broken their feudal contract with the Starks.  They are completely in the right.

LOL, that isn't the point. There is no right answer as to who is 'the rightful king' but what's pretty clear is that Robb Stark isn't the King in the North and the Riverlands by the majority opinion of the members of House Baratheon and the general public of Westeros.

In addition, Cat and Robb actually do believe that Joff and his siblings are Robert's trueborn children and heirs, meaning that them turning against King Joffrey is treason and rebellion, and they know it. 

Whether Ned didn't do anything wrong is up to debate, too. I certainly think he did wrong because I'd expect my best friend to tell me the truth about my wife and 'children' on my deathbed instead of lying through his teeth and forging my last will. I'd also expect him to ask for my - the king's opinion - on the matter of the succession rather than insisting Stannis should succeed. Perhaps Robert would have favored Renly under the circumstances of the twincest? We don't know because Ned never involved King Robert in the matter of his own succession.

15 hours ago, cpg2016 said:

I'm guessing your financial knowledge is limited, but you are essentially making the case that an escrow account is the same thing as stolen money.  I don't argue that it's unfair to Theon, but the ethical and practical realities make his and Sansa's situations vastly different.

There is no reason to believe that Joff and Cersei - never mind that they are false rulers and all - couldn't take hostages. They are still the representatives of a major noble house, just as Robb Stark is when he presumes to take Jaime Lannister and many of his kin prisoners. After all, Jaime Lannister and Lord Tywin did attack the Riverlands to demand retribution for the unprovoked abduction of Tyrion Lannister, the brother of the queen and brother-in-law of King Robert himself.

15 hours ago, cpg2016 said:

Except, he wasn't.  People do take issue with blood vengeance - Rickard Karstark loses his life because of that notion.  As much as you continually try and paint Westeros as this place of anarchy, where simultaneously the king has absolute authority but also everyone is free to take an eye for an eye whenever they want, that is not the case.  Killing him on the field of battle is one thing; once he's a prisoner it's clearly a different story.  The idea that people are granted differing status depending on the circumstance is lampshaded by Robb in exactly that manner.  It's a world with a strong sense of tradition, custom, and justice, much like our medieval world was, where traditional rights had equal importance, sometimes greater, than written law.

I guess you should discuss the question of blood vengeance with Wyman Manderly or the Brotherhood without Banners. They have no issue with any of that.

The issue with Lord Rickard simply is that his 'king' didn't give him permission to exact it. Had he done so it would have been perfectly fine - just as it would have been justified if Jaime had been beheaded in retribution for the execution of Ned Stark.

15 hours ago, cpg2016 said:

This is wrong.  Plain wrong.  Joffrey does a lot of awful things to Sansa, and the Starks never hear about it, except her marriage.  Your argument holds no water at all, because he's the f**king king; if he wanted to get word of what he's doing to the Starks, it's not hard, at all.  He's got people willing to beat on an innocent little girl in public; carrying a message about it wouldn't be a big stretch.

Joff doesn't control his own government. He is a young and not exactly very smart boy. He has some notions but none of that ever is realized unless people helped him see it through (Ned's execution, the dwarfs, etc.). The idea that his government would send the message about Sansa's fate to his enemies if the Small Council didn't think this was a good idea doesn't make much sense.

Joff commanded the thugs around him, not his own government.

15 hours ago, cpg2016 said:

Moreover, not for the first time, you have demonstrated an utter lack of knowledge about what happens within the books.  We know Sansa is beaten, and the strong implication is that it happens more than once.  I won't provide the quote right now, because I'd rather you make yourself look like more of an ass by contesting this, so I can further discredit you as not only an morally baseless person, but an intellectually vapid one as well.

I know she is beaten on more than one occasion, but not all that often and only once in front of the entire court. Beating Sansa is a game Joff plays in private - and mostly before Tyrion arrives at court. Afterwards things change. Nothing of this sort happens after Tyrion has ended it.

15 hours ago, cpg2016 said:

He is beheaded for committing a crime.  The crime of murdering the Lannister squires.  End of story.  Robb's motivations in sparing them or not don't come into it, but of course, logic and real world history and common sense could tell us the answer (that hostages and prisoners aren't killed).  But you haven't displayed a facility with any of those things before, so I won't wait for a miracle.

No, hostages actually are killed in this world. That's their purpose. They are taken for the good behavior of their families and if they don't comply with your demands they are killed.

The Lannister boys are not hostages as such but they could be used and treated as such. 'King Robb' sent his demands to Cersei and Joffrey. They were not met so he certainly would have been in the right to show his mettle by killing all the Lannister hostages in his power.

15 hours ago, cpg2016 said:

I understand that you haven't actually read the books that closely, which is why I'm posting this long chunk.

I had indeed forgotten that one. But my point was a more general point and you know it. Cersei was abhorred by Robert from the moment he called her 'Lyanna'. It was over from that moment. Robert never apologized for having sex with Cersei - or demanding that she pleasure him - he just apologized for hurting her while they had sex she didn't want to have.

That is basically him apologizing for a 'bad rape' not for rape in general because by my standards all sexual interactions between Robert and Cersei after their first night constitute marital rape.

[Angel Eyes]

On 4/1/2018 at 8:59 PM, The Bard of Banefort said:

Joffrey ordered his Kingsguard to beat Sansa several times throughout ACOK. Arys protested and then resigned to hitting Sansa less hard than the others, and the only time Joffrey commanded the Hound to beat her, Dontos interrupted before we could see his response. The rest of the Kingsguard complied without hesitation. This got me thinking, how would Barristan have reacted in this situation had Joffrey never dismissed him from the Kingsguard? Impulse says that he was too honorable to do so, and would have refused Joffrey's orders. But past behavior suggests a different answer.

We know that Barristan stood aside with the other Kingsguard while Aerys tortured and killed countless people, including his own wife. Barristan does feel some shame for this, but it's limited: he is haunted by the people killed at Aerys' hands, and wonders if it would have been better to have let him perish at Duskendale, but justifies this by saying he was confined by his vows to obey and protect the king, which trump all other moral dilemmas. At the same time, Barristan goes on to then serve the man who usurped Aerys' throne for fifteen years. He claims that Joffrey's ascent forced him to come to his senses, but this epiphany conveniently coincides with Joffrey removing him from the Kingsguard.

With this in mind, it appears that Barristan was far more concerned with emulating the vision of the perfectly obedient Kingsguard than he was of being the honorable knight that others believed him to be. I'm inclined to believe that had Joffrey never dismissed him, Barristan would have stood aside during Joffrey's reign just as he did during Aerys', and that while he surely would have protested as Arys Oakheart had, he would have also beaten a twelve-year-old girl had his king commanded him to. 

Dunno; maybe Joffrey would have held him back. Joffrey never had the Hound beat Sansa, for some reason.

[Clegane'sPup]

46 minutes ago, Angel Eyes said:

Dunno; maybe Joffrey would have held him back. Joffrey never had the Hound beat Sansa, for some reason.

Sandor seems to have answered to an adult Lannister in this story. Sandor was Joff's bodyguard.

Kinda makes me think of the Jaime and Tommen thing.

A Storm of Swords - Jaime VIII       Ser Meryn got a stubborn look on his face. "Are you telling us not to obey the king?"    "The king is eight. Our first duty is to protect him, which includes protecting him from himself. Use that ugly thing you keep inside your helm. If Tommen wants you to saddle his horse, obey him. If he tells you to kill his horse, come to me."    "Aye. As you command, my lord."

 

 

[Varysblackfyre321]

23 hours ago, Angel Eyes said:

Dunno; maybe Joffrey would have held him back. Joffrey never had the Hound beat Sansa, for some reason.

I believe @Lord Varys was onto something in regards to Joffery's feelings toward the hound; I see the beatings done upon Sansa by the KG as much humiliation upon them as it was upon Sansa; and Joffery probably didn't want to seriously embarrass the closest thing to a father/friend he actually has; hell he doesn't even really decide to punish the hound for having tried to stop Sansa's beating.

[cpg2016]

On 4/28/2018 at 6:16 AM, Lord Varys said:

LOL, that isn't the issue. Sansa knew what Cersei and Joff were when Joff had her father executed. And Theon knew what Ned Stark was when the man took him from his true father at the age of ten.

Sansa wasn't a hostage of the Lannisters while her father was still alive and she thought Joff was her perfect prince.

And she surely already had doubts about their true nature after the Stark men had been butchered and her father was thrown into a black cell.

You said Sansa know what Cersei and Joffrey were "from the start".  That is explicitly not true.  It only becomes even remotely not true when Lady is killed, and even after that, we see that Sansa is still enamoured with Joffrey and goes to Cersei with the intel that allows her to launch her coup.

Sansa becomes a hostage the moment Ned is arrested.  Maybe she has some thought after Jaime accosts Ned in the streets, but clearly not enough to prevent her spilling the beans to Cersei about Ned's plans.

On 4/28/2018 at 6:16 AM, Lord Varys said:

That just shows how fucked up this society is. Ned killing Theon for something that he has never done, he could never hope to influence or affect, is infinitely worse than just beating up a small girl.

I am not disputing it's a fundamentally bad system.  But for better or worse, hostage-taking has a long and accepted history in ASOIAF and in our world.  Again, from the point of view of Theon or Sansa, it's worse to be killed than to be beaten, yes.  But that isn't what we're discussing.  The question is what Barristan would have done.  And from the perspective of Ned Stark or Barristan (or any of the Kingsguard who beat Sansa), there is a clearly more ethically excusable party, and that is without question Ned.  Whether or not it's fair to Theon, Ned's position is one that is fundamentally about imposing some kind of firebreak on a ruthless pirate who would otherwise be stealing, raping, and murdering his way across the western coast of Westeros otherwise.  Or at least at attempt to stop that.  Contrast that with Meryn Trant beating Sansa - that action serves no purpose, moral or otherwise - even if we assume the Lannisters to hold the same moral high ground as the Stark war faction, beating Sansa isn't meant to send a message to Robb to back off, or to Sansa to stop collaborating: its sole purpose is to give a sadist pleasure.

On 4/28/2018 at 6:16 AM, Lord Varys said:

LOL, that isn't the point. There is no right answer as to who is 'the rightful king' but what's pretty clear is that Robb Stark isn't the King in the North and the Riverlands by the majority opinion of the members of House Baratheon and the general public of Westeros.

But the the members of House Baratheon and the general public of Westeros don't get a say in who the King in the North is.  This isn't a federal democracy, it's feudalism - Robb reigns at the acclamation of his subjects, which he got.  And while he never swore a vow to the Iron Throne, his vow would be nullified by the various tyrannies inflicted on him by the Lannister/Baratheon (not to mention Targaryen) regime.

On 4/28/2018 at 6:16 AM, Lord Varys said:

In addition, Cat and Robb actually do believe that Joff and his siblings are Robert's trueborn children and heirs, meaning that them turning against King Joffrey is treason and rebellion, and they know it. 

At first they don't doubt that, though after Ned's execution they do, which is one reason they continue their campaign.  They go to war because Ned was falsely imprisoned, which is a perfectly legitimate cause to rebel against a tyrannical monarch.  Again, even Stannis Baratheon, the arch-legalist, confirms the essential validity of the Stark position when he says that "good men and true" will consider Robb, or even Joffrey, a rightful king.

On 4/28/2018 at 6:16 AM, Lord Varys said:

Whether Ned didn't do anything wrong is up to debate, too. I certainly think he did wrong because I'd expect my best friend to tell me the truth about my wife and 'children' on my deathbed instead of lying through his teeth and forging my last will. I'd also expect him to ask for my - the king's opinion - on the matter of the succession rather than insisting Stannis should succeed. Perhaps Robert would have favored Renly under the circumstances of the twincest? We don't know because Ned never involved King Robert in the matter of his own succession.

Well you may not have unanimous support in that.  And what he was thrown in the black cells for, and what he "did", are not the same, so stop conflating the two to justify your position.  And Robert doesn't really get a say in who succeeds him; if Joffrey is trueborn, it's him.  If he's not, it's Stannis.  At best, there needs to be a Great Council-type situation, but even that isn't necessary, because the laws of succession in this case are clear.  By both proximity of blood AND primogeniture, Stannis is the heir, not Renly.

On 4/28/2018 at 6:16 AM, Lord Varys said:

just as Robb Stark is when he presumes to take Jaime Lannister and many of his kin prisoners. After all, Jaime Lannister and Lord Tywin did attack the Riverlands to demand retribution for the unprovoked abduction of Tyrion Lannister, the brother of the queen and brother-in-law of King Robert himself.

Robb Stark takes the various Lannisters prisoner on the field of battle, which is an important distinction; again, it's a distinction made in the books themselves.  Also, what Tywin and Jaime do in the Riverlands is highly illegal and highly immoral.  Without even getting into the legal arguments about Tyrion's rights, the Lannisters have a perfectly legitimate judicial remedy for the arrest (and it's an arrest, not an abduction, and it's not "unprovoked") of Tyrion - there are court and trial mechanisms in place; the King, for one.  Instead, Jaime assaults Ned and Tywin orders vastly disproportionate retribution.  This is part and parcel of Tywin's overall policy of terrorizing others to ensure compliance.

On 4/28/2018 at 6:16 AM, Lord Varys said:

I guess you should discuss the question of blood vengeance with Wyman Manderly or the Brotherhood without Banners. They have no issue with any of that.

Um... I do take issue with it.  We're supposed to!  That is the whole freaking point of the BWB, or Wyman's plot.  The BWB goes from protectors of the smallfolk under Beric, to coldhearted murderers under Lady Stoneheart, and we are meant to be aghast at this change.  Similarly, Manderly's plot is meant to elicit a surface "yay, vengeance!" response, but when you actually think about what he's doing, it's supposed to be horrifying.  Feeding human beings to others in pie form?  Is horrifying.  Again, the books themselves frame these actions are beyond reasonable, as being a perversion of justice.

On 4/28/2018 at 6:16 AM, Lord Varys said:

The issue with Lord Rickard simply is that his 'king' didn't give him permission to exact it. Had he done so it would have been perfectly fine - just as it would have been justified if Jaime had been beheaded in retribution for the execution of Ned Stark.

Yes.  The problem is that he killed a man who had not been sentenced to any fate, for any crime.  Robb Stark, for better or worse, exercises executive judicial authority in his role as King.  You don't seem to understand the concept that law, tradition, and form matter in both Westerosi society and in ours.  If a man goes to death row but his victim's father busts and kills him before the switch can be thrown, the father is still a murderer.  This is an integral part of the justice system - that vigilante justice is not justice, and that punishment and sentence can only be carried out within the confines of the system.

On 4/28/2018 at 6:16 AM, Lord Varys said:

Joff doesn't control his own government. He is a young and not exactly very smart boy. He has some notions but none of that ever is realized unless people helped him see it through (Ned's execution, the dwarfs, etc.). The idea that his government would send the message about Sansa's fate to his enemies if the Small Council didn't think this was a good idea doesn't make much sense.

He commands his own government well enough for him to have Sansa beaten.  That Joffrey is an idiot and a sadist is beyond question, but if he wants something to happen, it happens.  He's not super interested in policy/politics, so he doesn't get involved in the war or the siege planning, but we see him exercise authority in smaller ways (again, he's stupid and a sadist, it's all he cares about).  This is most evident with Ned's execution - this is an extremely important political moment, and Joffrey successfully disrupts the negotiated settlement on a whim.  Yes, Littlefinger suggests it to him - but it's his execution (literally!).  If Joffrey's idea is to send a message to Robb by beating Sansa, he's more than capable of doing it.  All he has to say is "someone send a raven describing what you're about to see".  It's literally that simple.  

And you're undermining your own point, which is that his treatment of Sansa, and thus the Kingsguard's actions, were for a political purpose.  Either the KG are beating this girl for no reason except fr Joffrey to get his rocks off (which is deeply unethical and they should be refusing to do), or they are fulfilling a valid political function (hint: they aren't) in which case, why wouldn't they help their king in carrying out the far less distasteful task of writing about it?

On 4/28/2018 at 6:16 AM, Lord Varys said:

No, hostages actually are killed in this world. That's their purpose. They are taken for the good behavior of their families and if they don't comply with your demands they are killed.

The Lannister boys are not hostages as such but they could be used and treated as such. 'King Robb' sent his demands to Cersei and Joffrey. They were not met so he certainly would have been in the right to show his mettle by killing all the Lannister hostages in his power.

Again, lets make a distinction which you continually refuse to acknowledge.  Jaime and the squires are prisoners of war, captured in battle after invading a neighboring kingdom (without justification, on top of all that).  Theon was taken as a hostage for good behavior after his father started a war for no reason, and lost.  Again, the moral high ground belongs to the Iron Throne, even if it isn't fair to Theon.  Sansa is taken as a hostage after the Lannisters stage a coup, imprison and then murder the Hand of the King, and do so to put an illegitimate bastard born of the Queen's treason on the Iron Throne.  Nothing happens in a vacuum, and causes are important.  You persist in viewing all of these issues from the point of view of the victim.  Excepting the Lannister hostages (whose very presence on the battlefield is a tacit acceptance of what may befall them if captured), I agree.  But the question is whether Barristan would have beaten Sansa, or rather, if her captors are in an equally culpable moral situation to Ned or to Robb, and the answer is a definitive "no"

[Lord Varys]

2 hours ago, cpg2016 said:

You said Sansa know what Cersei and Joffrey were "from the start".  That is explicitly not true.  It only becomes even remotely not true when Lady is killed, and even after that, we see that Sansa is still enamoured with Joffrey and goes to Cersei with the intel that allows her to launch her coup.

Oh, okay, I see what you mean. I meant that both Theon and Sansa knew their keepers/prison guards for what they were the moment their life as hostage began. Theon was old enough to understand what this man who took him from his room, his home, his family to a foreign land.

And Sansa knew it when Joff had her father killed. And deep down most likely also when they threw him in a dungeon.

2 hours ago, cpg2016 said:

I am not disputing it's a fundamentally bad system.  But for better or worse, hostage-taking has a long and accepted history in ASOIAF and in our world. 

Well, the kind of savage things they do in Martinworld - actually taking children hostage and killing them for the deeds of their families - is not something that was widely practiced in the real middle ages. Especially not with people of noble blood.

2 hours ago, cpg2016 said:

Again, from the point of view of Theon or Sansa, it's worse to be killed than to be beaten, yes.  But that isn't what we're discussing.  The question is what Barristan would have done. 

Well, I already answered that question. I don't think Selmy would have done it. Nor do I think Joff would have dared to ask or force him to do it. At least not while he was not yet ruling in his own right.

2 hours ago, cpg2016 said:

And from the perspective of Ned Stark or Barristan (or any of the Kingsguard who beat Sansa), there is a clearly more ethically excusable party, and that is without question Ned.  Whether or not it's fair to Theon, Ned's position is one that is fundamentally about imposing some kind of firebreak on a ruthless pirate who would otherwise be stealing, raping, and murdering his way across the western coast of Westeros otherwise.  Or at least at attempt to stop that. 

Well, Theon's might also have to roll just because Balon Greyjoy calls himself king again and refuses to pay taxes to the Iron Throne, etc. He doesn't actually have to do really ugly things to be branded a rebel and a traitor.

But do you actually think Ned's position can be easier excused? I don't think so. Asha condemns Theon as a kinslayer because she believes he killed Bran and Rickon - don't you think Ned - who acted as a surrogate father - would be in the same position as Theon later is if he had been forced to kill the boy?

Don't we actually believe that Ned might have refused to kill Theon when push had come to shove? I actually think I believe that. After all, Ned went to insane lengths to save both the lives of Daenerys and Viserys III Targaryen as well as the lives of the children of Cersei and Jaime. He doesn't want to kill innocent children.

True, Theon is already a man but he was also his foster son.

2 hours ago, cpg2016 said:

Contrast that with Meryn Trant beating Sansa - that action serves no purpose, moral or otherwise - even if we assume the Lannisters to hold the same moral high ground as the Stark war faction, beating Sansa isn't meant to send a message to Robb to back off, or to Sansa to stop collaborating: its sole purpose is to give a sadist pleasure.

The whole 'an eye for an eye' thing behind the hostage-taking practice (and the whipping boy thing in the royal education system) makes it actually feasible to simply make a hostage pay the deeds of his family. Robb Stark killed some Lannisters - including Joff's own granduncle, Stafford - and thus he is justified to make the only Stark in his power pay for that transgression.

The basic desire of vengeance is served, never mind whether the other side knows what you have done or not.

I don't think that's so difficult to understand.

I mean, we have the Lannisters hanging all those Ironborn hostages whenever some Ironborn dude raided their coasts. It was common practice. They just hanged them visibly, they didn't write letters to all the Ironborn to inform them what they did or to inform the family of the hostage they killed that this person was now dead.

2 hours ago, cpg2016 said:

But the the members of House Baratheon and the general public of Westeros don't get a say in who the King in the North is.  This isn't a federal democracy, it's feudalism - Robb reigns at the acclamation of his subjects, which he got.  And while he never swore a vow to the Iron Throne, his vow would be nullified by the various tyrannies inflicted on him by the Lannister/Baratheon (not to mention Targaryen) regime.

Robb had a decent number of Riverlord support at his proclamation, but there are only a handful Northmen there, namely the Greatjon, Galbart Glover, Maege Mormont, and Rickard Karstark, who later denounced Robb as a false king. This wasn't a broad movement - especially not in the North. Many of the Northmen fall in line afterwards, because they are accustomed to be ruled by a Stark, but Roose Bolton, the Ryswells, Barbrey Dustin, etc. actually never did do Robb homage as a king, nor did they swear any vows to him, be it to 'Lord Robb' or 'King Robb'.

Robb doesn't know that his father was imprisoned and executed unjustly. What do you think Ned would have deserved if Joffrey actually was Robert's son?

2 hours ago, cpg2016 said:

At first they don't doubt that, though after Ned's execution they do, which is one reason they continue their campaign.  They go to war because Ned was falsely imprisoned, which is a perfectly legitimate cause to rebel against a tyrannical monarch.  Again, even Stannis Baratheon, the arch-legalist, confirms the essential validity of the Stark position when he says that "good men and true" will consider Robb, or even Joffrey, a rightful king.

Actually, Robb makes it clear in his last chapter in AGoT that neither Stannis nor Renly are kings because - although he, personally, will never accept Joffrey as king - the next in line is Tommen Baratheon, not Joffrey.

They only suspect what's really going on when they receive Stannis' letter.

Stannis makes it clear that Robb can expect no mercy from him. He makes that clear to Catelyn when they meet in ACoK. He is a rebel and traitor and deserves to die. That's also why he curses him to die in ASoS. He has the grace to accept that some of his followers might be misguided, but I honestly doubt a man like Stannis would pardon men (and women) who made a false king to make his kingdom bleed. Those people proclaiming 'King Robb' are likely as likely to be pardoned by Stannis as 'King Robb' himself.

2 hours ago, cpg2016 said:

Well you may not have unanimous support in that.  And what he was thrown in the black cells for, and what he "did", are not the same, so stop conflating the two to justify your position. 

They are intertwined. It is not up to Ned Stark to determine or investigate the parentage of the children of the king. Robert could have denounced his children as bastards. But Ned wasn't the king. Ned also had no legal authority to have Cersei and the royal children arrested. He was not yet confirmed as Lord Regent and Protector of the Realm, and he was using illegal means - bribes and such - to accomplish his goals.

2 hours ago, cpg2016 said:

And Robert doesn't really get a say in who succeeds him; if Joffrey is trueborn, it's him.  If he's not, it's Stannis.  At best, there needs to be a Great Council-type situation, but even that isn't necessary, because the laws of succession in this case are clear.  By both proximity of blood AND primogeniture, Stannis is the heir, not Renly.

Nope, a king actually has a say in his own succession and can rule on it. He doesn't have to convene a Great Council or follow the whole primogeniture thing. There are more than enough precedents for this kind of thing.

Any sane person would have preferred Renly to Stannis as king. The man had charisma and the connections to actually stand his ground against the Lannisters. Stannis would never get enough support to keep the throne, even if Robert had lived long enough to invite him to take it. And I honestly can't see Robert agreeing that Stannis of all people should succeed him.

2 hours ago, cpg2016 said:

Robb Stark takes the various Lannisters prisoner on the field of battle, which is an important distinction; again, it's a distinction made in the books themselves. 

I really don't see much difference there. Prisoners of war have as much say in their fate as hostages who are chosen by the enemy or their own families.

I was always irritated by the fact that the Starks were so soft on their enemies.

2 hours ago, cpg2016 said:

Also, what Tywin and Jaime do in the Riverlands is highly illegal and highly immoral.  Without even getting into the legal arguments about Tyrion's rights, the Lannisters have a perfectly legitimate judicial remedy for the arrest (and it's an arrest, not an abduction, and it's not "unprovoked") of Tyrion - there are court and trial mechanisms in place; the King, for one.  Instead, Jaime assaults Ned and Tywin orders vastly disproportionate retribution.  This is part and parcel of Tywin's overall policy of terrorizing others to ensure compliance.

Within the feudal context of this society Tywin's actions are somewhat disproportional but still within the field of reason. You don't provoke such a powerful family. In fact, you don't even accuse people of Tyrion's rank of any crimes. At least not while you are not outranking him.

Also note that Tywin's plan actually was to lure Ned out of KL, arrest him, and then exchange him for Tyrion. That was the plan behind the raids in the Riverlands.

I also don't think Cat had any right to arrest Tyrion. None at all, in fact. I understand why she did that but she is neither a lord nor a royal official. She has no authority to do what she did.

2 hours ago, cpg2016 said:

Um... I do take issue with it.  We're supposed to!  That is the whole freaking point of the BWB, or Wyman's plot.  The BWB goes from protectors of the smallfolk under Beric, to coldhearted murderers under Lady Stoneheart, and we are meant to be aghast at this change. 

Yes, I know. But I also think we are to be highly skeptical of them in the first place. Doing justice in the name of the dead drunkard King Robert while they were led by a drunken priest and a zombie lord who couldn't even remember his own betrothed never felt like something that made sense to me.

2 hours ago, cpg2016 said:

Similarly, Manderly's plot is meant to elicit a surface "yay, vengeance!" response, but when you actually think about what he's doing, it's supposed to be horrifying.  Feeding human beings to others in pie form?  Is horrifying.  Again, the books themselves frame these actions are beyond reasonable, as being a perversion of justice.

Manderly is not yet condemned for his actions, considering the secret ways they are hinted at. And George didn't make those three Freys particularly sympathetic, anyway. And his attempts at getting Rickon back, working with Davos, his granddaughter, etc. all make him rather sympathetic, actually.

2 hours ago, cpg2016 said:

Yes.  The problem is that he killed a man who had not been sentenced to any fate, for any crime.  Robb Stark, for better or worse, exercises executive judicial authority in his role as King.  You don't seem to understand the concept that law, tradition, and form matter in both Westerosi society and in ours.  If a man goes to death row but his victim's father busts and kills him before the switch can be thrown, the father is still a murderer.  This is an integral part of the justice system - that vigilante justice is not justice, and that punishment and sentence can only be carried out within the confines of the system.

Vigilantism isn't all that much of a problem in the society of Westeros. The stronger the whole feudal thing the more vigilantism and blood vengeance, just look at the Brackens and Blackwoods.

The whole concept of people being outlawed is just an outsourcing of justice, actually. When someone is outlawed, it means that anyone can harm or kill, meaning that blood vengeance (or just sadism and the desire to kill) are perfectly fine so long as you pick on the right targets.

2 hours ago, cpg2016 said:

He commands his own government well enough for him to have Sansa beaten.  That Joffrey is an idiot and a sadist is beyond question, but if he wants something to happen, it happens.  He's not super interested in policy/politics, so he doesn't get involved in the war or the siege planning, but we see him exercise authority in smaller ways (again, he's stupid and a sadist, it's all he cares about).  This is most evident with Ned's execution - this is an extremely important political moment, and Joffrey successfully disrupts the negotiated settlement on a whim.  Yes, Littlefinger suggests it to him - but it's his execution (literally!).  If Joffrey's idea is to send a message to Robb by beating Sansa, he's more than capable of doing it.  All he has to say is "someone send a raven describing what you're about to see".  It's literally that simple.  

You are overestimating Joff's role in his own government. Just because the boy commands the thugs in the KG doesn't mean he runs the show. He is allowed to do that because Cersei doesn't care - once people are there who do care the boy plays no longer any role at all.

Joff actually wanted to ride to war with the City Watch - but never came of that because Tyrion arrived there in time.

And Ned's execution is just a charade gone bad. Cersei didn't have things under control - but she could have. Joff didn't control anything there, and he wouldn't have executed Ned if Slynt hadn't been briefed by Littlefinger. In fact, if Cersei had had the brains she would have told Payne not to kill Ned before the whole thing went through. If he had known what to expect - that he should not kill Ned - he wouldn't have. Never mind what Joff commanded.

As to Joff writing letters - Joff never wrote any letters. He was not privy to such matters, nobody ever reported to him, nobody discussed or included him in important matters of state.

Cersei, correctly, allowed him to hold court and stuff, so that people saw he was the king, but that was it.

2 hours ago, cpg2016 said:

And you're undermining your own point, which is that his treatment of Sansa, and thus the Kingsguard's actions, were for a political purpose.  Either the KG are beating this girl for no reason except fr Joffrey to get his rocks off (which is deeply unethical and they should be refusing to do), or they are fulfilling a valid political function (hint: they aren't) in which case, why wouldn't they help their king in carrying out the far less distasteful task of writing about it?

Sadism and political functions are not mutually exclusive there. In fact, Joff always tortures Sansa because he is pissed with the Starks. Ned wanted to steal his throne, so he shows Sansa her father's head. Jaime is imprisoned by Robb - Sansa gets a beating. Robb destroys another Lannister army - Sansa gets another beating.

There is a pattern there linking Joff's behavior to actual concerns he had with the Starks.