Queen's Men

[Euron III Greyjoy]

1 hour ago, Legitimate_Bastard said:

I think they will remain loyal even if they think he is dead. They will be waiting for the sellswords to arrive and will proclaim Shireen as Queen.

If they genuinely thought Stannis dead I cant see them continuing their campaign to put Shireen on the throne, if anything I think the fanatics are more likely to burn her to try and resurrect Stannis. 

[cpg2016]

On 9/16/2018 at 9:07 PM, EloImFizzy said:

If Stannis is to die in the next book, what do you think any of his remaining men will do? Since I cant really think of any King's Men, I'm leaning more towards the Queen's Men. With no King to reward them will they say "fuck it" and leave South or to the Free Cities. Since they claim to be avid followers of R'hllor, would they stay in the North and carry on the fight with the Others? If someone else got proclaimed Azor Ahai, would they follow them? And then we have Justin Massey who has gone to Essos to recruit sellswords, will he be successful, and if so which companies would be bring back? 

Depends.  Some of them are true believers and will fight on.  I suspect that all of them will end up fighting the Others, because unlike in the unbelievably poorly scripted and plotted show, when the dead rise, people will get the damn picture.

None of them will bend the knee.  The whole reason Stannis is still around and kicking is because of Lannister greed.  After the Blackwater, the Lannisters took the opportunity to completely remake the feudal picture in the South, by redistributing lands to ensure loyalty.  But in not being even slightly openhanded (e.g. Robert with the Conningtons or Darrys, who lost most but not all of their lands), they basically ensured that everyone with Stannis fights on to the biter end.  Why bend the knee?  What do they get out of it?  The ability to be a distrusted and mocked hedge or household knight for the rest of their lives?  Better to flee and join the Golden Company.  At this point, the Lannister regime can't even give them back lands, having just promised them to allies.  Hell, they can't even ensure their own allies get their own lands - look at Philip Foote, who can't even make it to Nightsong.

[Sir Tywin]

23 minutes ago, EloImFizzy said:

They are a group of self-exiled Northerners who where not happy with Torrhen Stark's decision to bend the knee to Aegon, so they left and created a sellsword company. 

Gotcha. Thank you. I remember that now that you brought it up. Haven’t heard about that in quite some time 

[mankytoes]

42 minutes ago, Legitimate_Bastard said:

In the same way I don't consider a character dead unless I read the death on page, I do not consider the Company of the Rose as non-existent until I read it on the page. But who knows? We don't know for sure.

Fair enough, but I would have thought that another Westerosi exile founded sellsword company would have come up with all the discussions of the Golden Company. Maybe they would be allies, maybe rivals, but you would assume it would come up.

[Rufus Snow]

46 minutes ago, mankytoes said:

Fair enough, but I would have thought that another Westerosi exile founded sellsword company would have come up with all the discussions of the Golden Company. Maybe they would be allies, maybe rivals, but you would assume it would come up.

They MAY just be background noise, but for some reason they were invented and shoved into TWOIAF, maybe to create some back-story for a group that may or may not end up getting hired by Massey in due course

Anyway that's not the point I want to raise. It strikes me that a seemingly small phrase has profound implications which no-one is paying attention to:

Quote

A Dance with Dragons - Melisandre I

The wooden man she had glimpsed, though, and the boy with the wolf's face … they were his servants, surely … his champions, as Stannis was hers.

Yes -Stannis is Mel's champion - Stannis serves HER, not the other way round (at least in Mel's mind, and we have to believe that, because there's plenty of clues she's acting of her own volition....) So, ultimately, Queen's men, King's Men? Whatever.... they are Mel's men, regardless of who knows it. They may not even know it themselves, yet.

[Legitimate_Bastard]

11 hours ago, Rufus Snow said:

Yes -Stannis is Mel's champion - Stannis serves HER, not the other way round (at least in Mel's mind, and we have to believe that, because there's plenty of clues she's acting of her own volition....) So, ultimately, Queen's men, King's Men? Whatever.... they are Mel's men, regardless of who knows it. They may not even know it themselves, yet.

You have a good point here but what do you think about her absence from the Battle of the Blackwater? Would you say it was part of her plan all along not to be there and the loss was needed for Stannis to head north? 

I wonder what difference she could have made to the outcome of the Blackwater, if any?

[Rufus Snow]

6 minutes ago, Legitimate_Bastard said:

You have a good point here but what do you think about her absence from the Battle of the Blackwater? Would you say it was part of her plan all along not to be there and the loss was needed for Stannis to head north? 

I wonder what difference she could have made to the outcome of the Blackwater, if any?

I don't think she could have done much, except what Stannis' other advisors feared: steal his glory.

Her sorcery seems quite powerful (and growing more so) but even so, she's not a battlefield asset, that's not her arena. In the same way you wouldn't expect great things adding a chess-player to your football team

[Legitimate_Bastard]

48 minutes ago, Rufus Snow said:

I don't think she could have done much, except what Stannis' other advisors feared: steal his glory.

Her sorcery seems quite powerful (and growing more so) but even so, she's not a battlefield asset, that's not her arena. In the same way you wouldn't expect great things adding a chess-player to your football team

Yeah she is def getting stronger in proximity to the wall. I am looking forward to seeing what she conjures up.