Biggest Mistake Made by Robb

[Wm Portnoy]

7 hours ago, Legitimate_Bastard said:

It has to be between, pissing off Walder by taking up with Jeyne Westerling and the resulting Red Wedding.

OR

Sending Theon back to his father.

I am going with sending Theon back to the Iron Islands. The Red Wedding was bad for Robb, but Theon was bad for Winterfell and everyone in it. I think Theons actions have had more of an impact in the long run than the Red Wedding.

Anyone got any others? What do you think?

The Ironborn were sissies.  The Boltons alone could have driven them from the north.  Robb would have difficulty getting past the ironborn at the moat cailin but it can be done as long as Robb was willing to accept very heavy casualties.  And Robb would do that as long as the fodder wasn't a member of his family.  

6 hours ago, lavthelonewolf said:

His marriage to jeyne! If not for the red wedding,robb could have taken back winterfell. Before the wedding he mentioned to cat about his plans to turn north. Granted,him sending theon was a colossal blunder,but he still had a chance to win back his castle if only he were alive. 

 

I agree with this.  I would put in a harsher light to get the point across that Robb broke his oath to Walder Frey.  The biggest mistake was betraying Walder Frey.  I cannot blame the Freys for hating Robb.

[Lord Varys]

20 minutes ago, divica said:

You are mistaking things. Robb was invading the south and attacking the lannisters because he wanted to save his father and sisters. Any lord that supported him was supporting his cause and rebelling against the current king. It doesn t say anything about their position regarding the other baratheons because robb doesn t even have a position about the other baratheons. Being against joffrey and supporting the release of the starks doesn t mean they don t support stannis or renly as king. 

After his coronation Robb never actually attacks KL, the place where his father was killed and his sister is imprisoned. He has other things to do. Renly and Stannis and the Tyrells and the Dornishmen and the Stormlanders and even the Vale have not Robb's issues with Joffrey. They could side with Lord Robb if they believed Stannis or Renly were the rightful kings, but after Lord Robb became King Robb siding with King Robb meant turning against all the Baratheons pretenders.

Once Robb is made King in the North and King of the Trident he has the position that his kingdom is not part of any Baratheon kingdom - be the king Joffrey, Tommen, Renly or Stannis. That is obvious in both Robb's negotiations with Cersei/Tyrion as well as Cat's negotiations with Renly.

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And robb cound t sit back because his familly is captive in KL. He started the war basically to save them...

We are not talking about the beginning of the war - although it was also about saving his maternal grandfather and uncle and their people - that's why he is also King of the Trident.

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And any person with a brain knows that the north will never accept anyone taking over the starks position. So it is very unlikely that if the starks surrender he will punish them all.

Stannis is supposedly utterly without mercy. He promised Catelyn her son would pay for his treason, and he meant that. He even involved himself in a charade of spell - not knowing it was a charade - to kill Robb in ASoS. He wanted him dead. And the idea that he would reward the kin of a traitor by allowing them to inherit his seat is not very likely to me.

Stannis needs the North in ADwD. He didn't need it in ACoK, nor had he any intention to work with them. They were as much his enemies as the Lannisters and Renly.

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Of course she could. Nobody thought she killed renly! She prefered to save brienne's life over forming an aliance!

Considering that Loras slew two of his fellow Rainbow Guards I very much doubt he would have bought their story - or even allowed them to sell it. He would have believed Cat paid/convinced Brienne to slay Renly to remove one of 'King Robb's' obstacles.

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Or do you think that if she offered the support of the north and riverlands to the tyrells so that they could take the iron throne they would refuse? They have the perfect oportunity to attack tywin and break his army and unwed heirs that can form an aliance with the vale or dorne.

The Tyrells have no claim to the Iron Throne and they know it. They cannot really work with a King Robb. They need a Baratheon (or Targaryen) pretender, not some Stark.

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Letting the tyrells slip by was the biggest mistake in the whole war and it was entirely done by cat.

Since the Tyrells weren't actually with Renly at Storm's End that makes no sense. Even if we assume for a moment Loras would have spared them, Cat had little to offer to the Tyrells.

You could have a point if Mace and/or Olenna had been with Catelyn and Renly when he died. Then they could have made a deal how to proceed from there. But they weren't. Considering that the majority of Renly's people at Storm's End sided with Stannis chances are very good that Cat would have ended up in his power had she not been killed by Loras.

[Daemon The Black Dragon]

Robb letting his Lords name him their King.

[Lord Varys]

12 minutes ago, Lord Lannister said:

This. It pretty much removed any possibility of a negotiated peace with the Iron Throne, limiting his options to victory or death within a nightmarish strategic scenario.

Victory was no longer possible at that point - at least not a victory that meant the Iron Throne would cede the North and the Riverlands to 'King Robb'. That would have been unacceptable. To get that Robb would have to basically destroy the entire House Baratheon and then somehow convince the other great lords that he has a right to this new kingdoms of his - and the others don't have the right to, well, try to conquer his kingdom. Which they would have done if the eradication of the Baratheons had resulted in the effective destruction of the Iron Throne.

Getting rid of Joffrey and Tywin may have been a possibility, one assumes, but not all the Baratheons and the Lannisters. And even if he had been able to force his enemies to accept a truce, there is just no way the Iron Throne would have allowed him to keep the Riverlands.

And while it would have been difficult to retake the North, it wouldn't have been impossible. A united south should be able to break the North rather quickly - by throwing the Ironborn a bone to continue the pressure, by moving the Redwyne fleet up north to take White Harbor, by putting economic pressure on them, granting no help in winter, etc.

[lavthelonewolf]

5 hours ago, John Suburbs said:

I'd vote for the Theon debacle, since I don't believe his break with Walder was Robb's decision. He was drugged. Sybell Spice is the granddaughter of Maggy the Frog, who was known in Lannisport for telling fortunes and selling "love potions." So if you look at House Spicer, we have a wealthy merchant making an unusual marriage with a woman of questionable standing, and then that marriage was followed up with Gawen Westerling's marriage to Sybell, which caused Kevan to observe "He should never have wed her. The Westerlings always did have more honor than sense."

Now we have yet a third wedding in which the groom places his honor above his sense, all for a women that no one considers overly desirable -- certainly not someone to sacrifice a kingdom for. And as time goes by, we can see Robb becoming more distant and frustrated with Jeyne, almost as if his initial ardor has worn off already. Coincidence? I think not.

Hmm i never really thought about this. Great post to ponder over. But i do feel robb came to love jeyne all the same though. 

And whatever robb’s mistake might be. He was just an unlucky person. And on retrospect i would have to say him breaking alliance with the freys could also have been rectified only if he had a much bigger army. The guy had already lost the karstarks and his supporters were dwindling. That caused him to go back to the freys. 

But when i first read the book my biggest peeve with robb started much earlier. 

He should have supported stannis instead of agreeing to go along with being king in the north. That is what ned would have done. I don’t think eddard stark would agree to reign as KOTN and go against stannis. By robb’s own words stannis had the better claim. 

If he had supported stannis like he was supposed to things would have been much much different. A lot many including cat said robb was very much his father’s son but this was surely not what ned would have done. 

 

[Dorian Martell's son]

7 hours ago, Legitimate_Bastard said:

It has to be between, pissing off Walder by taking up with Jeyne Westerling and the resulting Red Wedding.

OR

Sending Theon back to his father.

I am going with sending Theon back to the Iron Islands. The Red Wedding was bad for Robb, but Theon was bad for Winterfell and everyone in it. I think Theons actions have had more of an impact in the long run than the Red Wedding.

Anyone got any others? What do you think?

Being written by GRRM is the big one. Most any other writer would have him survive 

[Lord Varys]

56 minutes ago, Dorian Martell's son said:

Being written by GRRM is the big one. Most any other writer would have him survive 

Considering that he was deliberately set up to be neither a POV nor a main character I doubt any other author writing the series would have allowed him to survive. Authors allowing him to live would have been authors writing a different series.

Secondary characters rarely wear plot armor...

[acwill07]

7 hours ago, King Aegon I Targaryen said:

I don't think it would've made much difference, but even if it did work and Theon stayed loyal to Robb, I don't think Balon would've let Theon or Blackfish leave the island, plus he would've used Blackfish as a hostage to get something from Robb. 

Robb should've listened to Cat and sent someone like Jason Mallister or Tytos Blackwood......men of high honor but also men he could afford to lose if Balon should keep them on Pyke.  He couldn't afford to lose the Blackfish or Theon in my opinion.  The Blackfish was his right hand and Theon was his insurance policy against Balon, even if it was a meager insurance policy.  

[lrresistable]

8 hours ago, Angel Eyes said:

You can’t conquer the North with the manpower of the Iron Islands. 

The Ironborn probably are the most under-rated fighting prowess in the entire series. If they can launch a legitimate big boi threat invasion on the Reach, they can sure take on the North. Especially the North as situated in the midst of the War of the 5 Kings.

 

Not to mention they were yet to spend a fraction of their force and held Deepwood, Torrhen's Square, Winterfell & Moat Cailin.

 

Ask my various good fellow Goodbrothers of Hammerhorn, Corpse Lake, Downdelving, Shatterstone, Crow Spike Keep & of Orkmont if you doubt me

 

these lads alone are 7 distinct branches, each with lordship, lands, resources, holdings & small-folk of their own. This is legit only 1 house. Likely when they called up Damphair to attempt to crown Victarion at the start of Feast, they were going to impose their rule through that clueless scrotum sucker

[Arthur Peres]

Jeyne by far...

Sending Theon looking for a alliance with IB is plausable, and this thing went too overblow on Robb. Ramsey invading Hornwood lands, being captured alive, Rodrik lefting Wintefell without garrison, Theon going against his orders and taking winterfell with 20 men, releasing Ramsey, faking Bran and Rickon's death, Bran and Rickon not going anywhere in the north to prove to be alive... the whole thing was a overblow impossible to predict, beyond everything possible.

With Jeyne Robb knew what he was doing and knew that he would loose the Freys in a war where he already was outnumbered. There is no execuse for that.

[Loose Bolt]

Another major mistake was that the North did not have any navy. After all IB had "always" raided western shores of the North. So first thing any sane new lord of Winterfell should do is to start building a navy to Sunset Sea. 

If that navy had existed Tywin would have to keep more of his men in the Westlands to stop possible invasion from North via those ships and IB would had invaded much richer lands instead of poor North.  Or Riverlands would have had much better chances to stop invasion from west. Actually most likely there would have been "only" some raids.

 So if the North were a sea power story of SoIaF would be totally different.

[Megorova]

18 hours ago, John Suburbs said:

What surprises me about the whole Theon plan is why the northern lords went along with it. None of them should have been under any illusion as to what Balon would do once he got his son back, particularly the Mallisters. And they were the ones who escorted Theon to Seaguard! 

When exactly did he sent Theon to Iron Islands (I don't remember )? Was it already after he executed Karstark and Umber? If yes, then many of Robb's bannermen, after those executions, were not on Robb's side anymore. Out of northern houses left, probably, Bolton was the strongest one. But Roose was playing out his own game. It's obvious, that he knew, that Theon, most likely, will betray Robb, or even if he himself won't, it still was stupid to send Theon back to Balon. So Roose supported Robb's idea to send Theon to Balon, and Karstarks with Umbers, even though they thought, that it was a huge mistake and utter stupidity, they didn't adviced to Robb not to do this, because they already stopped being his loyal supporters. Maybe by that time they have already conspired with Roose, and Roose with Lannisters.

[Megorova]

15 hours ago, divica said:

You are mistaking things. Robb was invading the south and attacking the lannisters because he wanted to save his father and sisters. Any lord that supported him was supporting his cause and rebelling against the current king. It doesn t say anything about their position regarding the other baratheons because robb doesn t even have a position about the other baratheons. Being against joffrey and supporting the release of the starks doesn t mean they don t support stannis or renly as king. 

But to save his father and sisters, it wasn't necessary for Robb to be King Robb. By proclaiming hiself The King in the North, and thus declaring, that The North is going independant, and not a part of 7K anymore, Robb as good as declared war against not only Lannisters-Baratheons, but also against Renly (who saw himself as rightfull King of 7K) and Stannis (who also thought, that he is the King of 7K). So Robb saying, that The North is independant, is the same, as stealing one of seven Kingdoms, that belonged to the King of 7K (no matter whether that was Renly or Stannis). Robb Stark is a bannerman of King Renly/Stannis, but KING Robb is their enemy, an usurper, a THIEF, that stole their property. And naming himself King (or letting his people to do that) didn't actually made Robb any stronger, or wiser, or more influential, or whatever. The only thing, that it did for him, is that it eliminated any chances for him to make an alliance with either Renly or Stannis. So, probably, whoever offered to crown Robb as King, was actually plotting against him. Maybe it was Roose Bolton's idea from the very begging of Starks' conflict with Lannisters - he planned to sell Robb out to Lannisters, and in exchange for that, to get from Tywin title of the Warden of the north, which he did get.

[Hugorfonics]

Robb sending Theon back may have destroyed Winterfell, but did no further damage to the North then not sending Theon. Balon was already amassing the iron fleet, and Cat summarizes that Balon may be fine with losing one son for the price of his kingdom.

Robb executing Karstark was for the honor of Stark and basic law; no king should be scared of his vassels. 

Marrying Westerling was the right thing to do for her and their possible kid, as for breaking his allegiance with Frey; no king should be scared of his vassels.

Robb being king was no mistake. The North could have won the war against Aegon the Dragon. Furthermore they could have defeated any Targaryen king afterwards, certainly Baratheon/Lannister the dragonless.

 

Robb made 3 or 4 real mistakes.

1. Not drinking with the mountain clans like Jon told Stannis. 

2. Trusting Edmure to lose against Gregor

3. Trusting Ser Rodrick to not be an idiot.

4. Didnt keep Grewyind close

[H Wadsworth Longfellow]

2 hours ago, Hugorfonics said:

Robb sending Theon back may have destroyed Winterfell, but did no further damage to the North then not sending Theon. Balon was already amassing the iron fleet, and Cat summarizes that Balon may be fine with losing one son for the price of his kingdom.

Robb executing Karstark was for the honor of Stark and basic law; no king should be scared of his vassels. 

Marrying Westerling was the right thing to do for her and their possible kid, as for breaking his allegiance with Frey; no king should be scared of his vassels.

Robb being king was no mistake. The North could have won the war against Aegon the Dragon. Furthermore they could have defeated any Targaryen king afterwards, certainly Baratheon/Lannister the dragonless.

 

Robb made 3 or 4 real mistakes.

1. Not drinking with the mountain clans like Jon told Stannis. 

2. Trusting Edmure to lose against Gregor

3. Trusting Ser Rodrick to not be an idiot.

4. Didnt keep Grewyind close

Robb executing Karstark was a very bad political move.  Here is a man who followed him to war and his sons died for the Stark cause.  Sometimes you let things go.  And this is one of those times.  It is hypocrite to make a big deal out of the killings of two POWs when they kill so many on the battlefields.  

No king should be scared of his vassals but then a king should keep his oaths to his vassal.  He should never have lain with Jeyne in the first place.  Damage control after the deed should have been to marry the Frey girl and keep financially supporting Jeyne and their bastard.  

[The Sunland Lord]

Marching south.

Proclaim independence, stop paying taxes to the Iron Throne and wait for them to march North if they wanted it so badly to be a part of the Seven Kingdoms. Of course, this couldn't happen because the South would be weakened and taken easily by Renly / Stannis and Balon Greyjoy. If Stannis or Renly won the war, accept one of them as a king, you have nothing against them either way. 

Demand Ned, Sansa and Arya to be taken back North safely in return for the North to become part of their precious Iron Throne again.

If not, a healthy, independent North with him as heir to Winterfell, and Bran, Rickon and Catelyn beside him at home, Jon being close at the Wall, Theon Greyjoy remaining hostage, sounds good in hindsight. After all, his marching south didn't save Ned, and didn't harm Sansa and Arya. Their fates were determined by other factors anyways. 

[Angel Eyes]

18 hours ago, Lord Lannister said:

This. It pretty much removed any possibility of a negotiated peace with the Iron Throne, limiting his options to victory or death within a nightmarish strategic scenario.

Would have liked to have been inside the Greatjon’s head when he suggested that... 

[John Suburbs]

18 hours ago, divica said:

Of course she could. Nobody thought she killed renly! She prefered to save brienne's life over forming an alliance!

!?!  !?!

Everybody thought she killed Renly, particularly the Tyrells. She and Brienne were the only ones in the tent with him, and nobody is going to believe this nonsense about a shadow. It isn't until way later, when Loras finally gets a chance to talk with Brienne, that he starts to give her the benefit of the doubt.

So even by the time Robb died, the Tyrells are working under the theory that Renly's murder the result of a conspiracy between Stannis, Robb and Selwyn Tarth, which is one of the chief reasons they opted to align with the Lannisters.

[John Suburbs]

17 hours ago, lavthelonewolf said:

Hmm i never really thought about this. Great post to ponder over. But i do feel robb came to love jeyne all the same though. 

And whatever robb’s mistake might be. He was just an unlucky person. And on retrospect i would have to say him breaking alliance with the freys could also have been rectified only if he had a much bigger army. The guy had already lost the karstarks and his supporters were dwindling. That caused him to go back to the freys. 

But when i first read the book my biggest peeve with robb started much earlier. 

He should have supported stannis instead of agreeing to go along with being king in the north. That is what ned would have done. I don’t think eddard stark would agree to reign as KOTN and go against stannis. By robb’s own words stannis had the better claim. 

If he had supported stannis like he was supposed to things would have been much much different. A lot many including cat said robb was very much his father’s son but this was surely not what ned would have done. 

 

Whatever love he might have had for her at the beginning was already starting to fade by the time he left for the Red Wedding. Even Jeyne notices this when she confides in Catelyn. True, Robb is under enormous pressure, but if his love for her was still strong at this point he would turn to her for comfort and support, not push her away.

He was in a tough spot in regards to Stannis. Stan has the better claim, but virtually no army, and there was very little they could do for him considering they were separated by both the Tyrell and Lannister armies. So my guess was that even with or without his own crown, Robb would have held off supporting either Baratheon, wait and see who emerges victorious in the south and then negotiate a peace with the winner to crush Tywin's army -- even if it meant giving up his own crown and bending the knee.

[John Suburbs]

3 hours ago, Megorova said:

When exactly did he sent Theon to Iron Islands (I don't remember )? Was it already after he executed Karstark and Umber? If yes, then many of Robb's bannermen, after those executions, were not on Robb's side anymore. Out of northern houses left, probably, Bolton was the strongest one. But Roose was playing out his own game. It's obvious, that he knew, that Theon, most likely, will betray Robb, or even if he himself won't, it still was stupid to send Theon back to Balon. So Roose supported Robb's idea to send Theon to Balon, and Karstarks with Umbers, even though they thought, that it was a huge mistake and utter stupidity, they didn't adviced to Robb not to do this, because they already stopped being his loyal supporters. Maybe by that time they have already conspired with Roose, and Roose with Lannisters.

Theon returns to the IIs early in Clash, long before Catelyn springs Jaime, the Karstarks murder the Lannister boys and Robb executes Rickard. So at this point, the entire northern army is one big happy family. Robb hasn't even met Jeyne yet.

Maybe at this point Roose is already plotting against Robb, but I see no reason why the Karstarks, Umbers or any other northern house would want to betray him. And particularly the Mallisters, who would probably get the brunt of the invasion no matter which king the supported.