robb response to iron island invding north

[Darth Sidious]

Robb was an idiot to begin with.  Theon was a hostage and you do not send a hostage back to his family to negotiate.  Theon may be friendly towards Robb but Balon was not.  The Starks should have known that but they are not the smartest of families.  Robb's options were bad and worse.  Do the difficult and attack through The Neck.  Very costly in terms of lives that will be lost but his men are eager to get back home.  He would shortly have a mutiny if he took too much time.   He was put in a very bad position.  He can't really ally with Stannis because he would be asked to stay south and fight.  That won't be acceptable to his men who were already worried about their families back home.  

[GallowsKnight]

On 4/29/2018 at 10:15 PM, Adam Yozza said:

IMO the only thing that Theon affects is whether or not Winterfell itself falls

Which is pretty huge because it prevents Rodrik Cassel from rallying the North to push out the Ironborn and lets Ramsay Snow get free to wreak more chaos. Had the Ironborn only held Deepwood Motte and Moat Caitlin, Ser Rodrik could have driven them out and laid siege to the causeway until Robb could work something out.

It also means that the North has two Frey guests. Probably not enough to defer Walder from treason if it really came to it but it helps a bit.

[Kandrax]

4 hours ago, GallowsKnight said:

Probably not enough to defer Walder from treason if it really came to it but it helps a bit.

It would be enough to defer their fathers.

[Universal Sword Donor]

On 5/2/2018 at 9:59 PM, GallowsKnight said:

Which is pretty huge because it prevents Rodrik Cassel from rallying the North to push out the Ironborn and lets Ramsay Snow get free to wreak more chaos. Had the Ironborn only held Deepwood Motte and Moat Caitlin, Ser Rodrik could have driven them out and laid siege to the causeway until Robb could work something out.

It also means that the North has two Frey guests. Probably not enough to defer Walder from treason if it really came to it but it helps a bit.

Honestly if Ser Rodrik hadn't had a senior moment or probably stroke just as he was making the decision on how many people should garrison WF, it would be a complete non-issue. Rodrick easily could have spared some of the infantry he mustered. The IB's shieldwall was broken by a horse charge anyway. Given 50 men at WF instead of the maybe dozen or so he left -- I'm sure Walder would have loved his grandsons basically undefended along with his liege lord's heirs -- there is no way the raiders scale an 80 foot wall, swim a moat, and scale a 100 foot fall without a patrol noticing them or hearing them. One man could prevent them from breaking in and two could keep them in the moat indefinitely.