Were Ned, Robert and Jon Arryn the villains of the rebellion?

[corbon]

On 12/13/2018 at 11:46 AM, divica said:

It gives the idea he acused the sons and fathers of treason. 

Err, no. It says that the sons were accused of treason and the fathers were summoned to account for the sins of the sons.
 

Quote

"Ethan Glover was Brandon's squire," Catelyn said. "He was the only one to survive. The others were Jeffory Mallister, Kyle Royce, and Elbert Arryn, Jon Arryn's nephew and heir." It was queer how she still remembered the names, after so many years. "Aerys accused them of treason and summoned their fathers to court to answer the charge, with the sons as hostages. When they came, he had them murdered without trial. Fathers and sons both."

Rickard, for example, was not accused of Treason according to Catelyn. He demanded a Trial by Combat (for Brandon's charge, according to Catelyn), and nominated himself as Brandon's champion. Aerys cheated the combat, naming fire as his champion and binding Rickard over the fire.
Jaime merely says there were trials, of a sort, not that the fathers were charged.

Quote

[Jaime's answer]
"There were trials. Of a sort. Lord Rickard demanded trial by combat, and the king granted the request. Stark armored himself as for battle, thinking to duel one of the Kingsguard. Me, perhaps. Instead they took him to the throne room and suspended him from the rafters while two of Aerys's pyromancers kindled a blaze beneath him. The king told him that fire was the champion of House Targaryen. So all Lord Rickard needed to do to prove himself innocent of treason was . . . well, not burn.

"When the fire was blazing, Brandon was brought in. His hands were chained behind his back, and around his neck was a wet leathern cord attached to a device the king had brought from Tyrosh. His legs were left free, though, and his longsword was set down just beyond his reach.

"The pyromancers roasted Lord Rickard slowly, banking and fanning that fire carefully to get a nice even heat. His cloak caught first, and then his surcoat, and soon he wore nothing but metal and ashes. Next he would start to cook, Aerys promised . . . unless his son could free him. Brandon tried, but the more he struggled, the tighter the cord constricted around his throat. In the end he strangled himself.

"As for Lord Rickard, the steel of his breastplate turned cherry-red before the end, and his gold melted off his spurs and dripped down into the fire. I stood at the foot of the Iron Throne in my white armor and white cloak, filling my head with thoughts of Cersei. After, Gerold Hightower himself took me aside and said to me, 'You swore a vow to guard the king, not to judge him.' That was the White Bull, loyal to the end and a better man than me, all agree."

 

[Here's Looking At You, Kid]

6 hours ago, John Suburbs said:

Just because you are acting legally and, to your mind, rightly does not mean you are not committing villainy. A judge (or a king) may be able to legally convict a man of murder and sentence him to death, but if he knows he's innocent it is a villainous act. The Holocaust was carried out according to the letter of the law, and the people doing it felt they were in the right. Were they villains or no?

If you don't mind my saying so, I think you're guilty of double- standards.    Ok.  You just wrote a very slanted opinion against Dany in one of your essays above.   I am referring to this.

Quote

Danaerys sacked a city and murdered thousands of people who were doing nothing but living their lives just as it was for thousands of years, unleashing disease, death and tyranny upon the very people she meant to protect. Hero or villain?

Those Ghis slavers were acting according to their laws.  Slavery and the torture of the less fortunate people are legal in the culture of the Ghiscari.  Nonetheless, they are guilty of crimes against their fellow man for moral reasons.  And yet here you are presenting a negative spin against Dany.  Those slavers are guilty even if they are behaving according to their legal system.  

According to the moral system you advocate for, those slavers are villains.  Dany's war against the villains is, therefore, just.  She is a hero in my opinion.  A villain is an offender.  The slavers may be lawful according to the slaving laws of Ghis, but they are guilty of crimes against humanity.  Unless you believe slavery is not a crime against humanity.  I hope not because that would put you in the same position as some of Dany's desperate "critics" who even go so far as to justify slavery in their futile attempt to make her look like a villain.   

Nobody here is saying King Aerys was a man of virtue.  He was not that.  He was petty and cruel.  That he had the right to rule the seven kingdoms is without question.  The question is, did the rebels have the right to start a war to remove him from power?  If you answer yes, then you have to be open to the possibility that Roose Bolton had a right to remove the Starks from power if he saw them as unfit to lead the north.  It can be a matter of perspective.  House Stark has erratic members whose irresponsible conduct brought the north to war.  And lords and commons who have nothing to do with it got dragged into it.  Can you see why Roose would be annoyed with the Starks and why he might want to replace them?  Bowen Marsh watched his erratic lord commander make one stupid decision after another and he faithfully obeyed until it was revealed that Jon let Mance Rayder go and ordered him to fetch his sister.  Jon's conduct clearly violated the oaths and endangered the watch.  If you believe the rebels had a right to remove Aerys then you have to also believe Bowen Marsh had the right to remove Jon from office.  

[kissdbyfire]

9 hours ago, wia said:

Telling someone who only eats food that contains sugar to stop eating sugar is telling them to stop eating.

Or it will encourage them to try other things, and might ultimately teach them that there are always options and alternatives. 

[Lady Rhodes]

58 minutes ago, Here's Looking At You, Kid said:

If you don't mind my saying so, I think you're guilty of double- standards.    Ok.  You just wrote a very slanted opinion against Dany in one of your essays above.   I am referring to this.

Those Ghis slavers were acting according to their laws.  Slavery and the torture of the less fortunate people are legal in the culture of the Ghiscari.  Nonetheless, they are guilty of crimes against their fellow man for moral reasons.  And yet here you are presenting a negative spin against Dany.  Those slavers are guilty even if they are behaving according to their legal system.  

According to the moral system you advocate for, those slavers are villains.  Dany's war against the villains is, therefore, just.  She is a hero in my opinion.  A villain is an offender.  The slavers may be lawful according to the slaving laws of Ghis, but they are guilty of crimes against humanity.  Unless you believe slavery is not a crime against humanity.  I hope not because that would put you in the same position as some of Dany's desperate "critics" who even go so far as to justify slavery in their futile attempt to make her look like a villain.   

Nobody here is saying King Aerys was a man of virtue.  He was not that.  He was petty and cruel.  That he had the right to rule the seven kingdoms is without question.  The question is, did the rebels have the right to start a war to remove him from power?  If you answer yes, then you have to be open to the possibility that Roose Bolton had a right to remove the Starks from power if he saw them as unfit to lead the north.  It can be a matter of perspective.  House Stark has erratic members whose irresponsible conduct brought the north to war.  And lords and commons who have nothing to do with it got dragged into it.  Can you see why Roose would be annoyed with the Starks and why he might want to replace them?  Bowen Marsh watched his erratic lord commander make one stupid decision after another and he faithfully obeyed until it was revealed that Jon let Mance Rayder go and ordered him to fetch his sister.  Jon's conduct clearly violated the oaths and endangered the watch.  If you believe the rebels had a right to remove Aerys then you have to also believe Bowen Marsh had the right to remove Jon from office.  

A very interesting point that causes us the reader to rethink what we allow ourselves to justify.

one of the reasons I want Jon and Dany to end up together (I know you won’t agree due to our differing beliefs on Jkn’s parentage) is we spend the whole series vilifying the Jaime and Cersei relationship only to find ourselves cheering on a similar set up. I predict it will happen precisely because it is in Martin’s nature to cause us, his readers, to have cognitive dissonance in these issues.

[kissdbyfire]

7 hours ago, John Suburbs said:

Ned Stark beheaded a man who as terrified following an encounter with the walking dead and otherworldly, supernatural beings. Hero or villain?

 

I’m sorry but I just have to ask...

Are you seriously comparing the situation you describe above w/ a man who gets such a hard-on from seeing people being burned alive that he just has to rape and brutalise his wife? 

[Universal Sword Donor]

19 minutes ago, kissdbyfire said:

I’m sorry but I just have to ask...

Are you seriously comparing the situation you describe above w/ a man who gets such a hard-on from seeing people being burned alive that he just has to rape and brutalise his wife? 

Narrator: This person is

[divica]

1 hour ago, Here's Looking At You, Kid said:

If you don't mind my saying so, I think you're guilty of double- standards.    Ok.  You just wrote a very slanted opinion against Dany in one of your essays above.   I am referring to this.

Those Ghis slavers were acting according to their laws.  Slavery and the torture of the less fortunate people are legal in the culture of the Ghiscari.  Nonetheless, they are guilty of crimes against their fellow man for moral reasons.  And yet here you are presenting a negative spin against Dany.  Those slavers are guilty even if they are behaving according to their legal system.  

According to the moral system you advocate for, those slavers are villains.  Dany's war against the villains is, therefore, just.  She is a hero in my opinion.  A villain is an offender.  The slavers may be lawful according to the slaving laws of Ghis, but they are guilty of crimes against humanity.  Unless you believe slavery is not a crime against humanity.  I hope not because that would put you in the same position as some of Dany's desperate "critics" who even go so far as to justify slavery in their futile attempt to make her look like a villain.   

Nobody here is saying King Aerys was a man of virtue.  He was not that.  He was petty and cruel.  That he had the right to rule the seven kingdoms is without question.  The question is, did the rebels have the right to start a war to remove him from power?  If you answer yes, then you have to be open to the possibility that Roose Bolton had a right to remove the Starks from power if he saw them as unfit to lead the north.  It can be a matter of perspective.  House Stark has erratic members whose irresponsible conduct brought the north to war.  And lords and commons who have nothing to do with it got dragged into it.  Can you see why Roose would be annoyed with the Starks and why he might want to replace them?  Bowen Marsh watched his erratic lord commander make one stupid decision after another and he faithfully obeyed until it was revealed that Jon let Mance Rayder go and ordered him to fetch his sister.  Jon's conduct clearly violated the oaths and endangered the watch.  If you believe the rebels had a right to remove Aerys then you have to also believe Bowen Marsh had the right to remove Jon from office.  

I agree with a lot of what you said (I don t think jon's decisions were stupid by westerosi standards).

Danny's case is very interesting. I don t think that as a conqueror she is a villain. She had the means and therefore conquered the city. I prefer to judge her about what she did after conquering meereen. She is someone extremelly biased against the slavers and everyone related to enslavement when these people have comited no crime because all they did was what is thought in their culture.

Then enters danny that forces her values upon the population. Does she care about the rights of the slavers? how will they keep on earning Money? what they have lost with her conquest?

While you can call danny a good person she was an awfull ruler. It is the same as the vegans conquering the world and judging all the people that eat meat as monsters. While we and westerosi understand that slavery is a crime against humanity most people in essos don t. Does that make them second class citzens? Do they deserve to pay for doing as their society tought was right?

The truth is that danny was a tyrant that tried to change completly a society without caring about the rights of the people she didn t like.

Things get so bad that dany has to make compromise after compromisse in order to obtain peace. And in the end things were almost equal to how they were before dany with slaves being sold just outside of meereen.

 

In regards about the second part of your post. I think when vassals swear fealty to a lord/king the lord/king also swers them several things. Therefore in order for a vassal to justify a rebelion their lord/king has to break their oath, Otherwise, whenever a lord makes an unpopular decision or a decision against the interests of a vassal he would risk facing rebelion.

The true question is when a lord makes enough bad decisions that he should lose his position… However I find very dificult to justify killing someone's entire familly in order to depose 1 person… So even if the lords didn t like aerys or rhaegar (even though rhaegar also didn t have a fair trial before everyone decided he kidnaped lyanna) they still had viserys that could rule with a regent of their liking.

[Lady Rhodes]

@divica I agree with your sentiment if there being an agreement, spoken or not, between king and lord. 

I disagree though with your full assessment of Dany. While I admit that part of her problem was a knee jerk reaction to dismiss the Ghiscari culture, there are multiple examples of her attempting to embrace palatable aspects of the culture (the tokar for example) she may have though it an ill garment but she wore it because ultimately, the tokar was not the problem with Meereen. She did have the sons of the harpy to contend with however and I think that made her rule more difficult. For example - Astapor. She put three people in charge of ruling and electing officials when she left (a healer a priest and an unsullied? I can’t remember exactly) but they ultimately reverted back to slavery. The impulse to go back was there.

[divica]

Just now, Lady Rhodes said:

@divica I agree with your sentiment if there being an agreement, spoken or not, between king and lord. 

I disagree though with your full assessment of Dany. While I admit that part of her problem was a knee jerk reaction to dismiss the Ghiscari culture, there are multiple examples of her attempting to embrace palatable aspects of the culture (the tokar for example) she may have though it an ill garment but she wore it because ultimately, the tokar was not the problem with Meereen. She did have the sons of the harpy to contend with however and I think that made her rule more difficult. For example - Astapor. She put three people in charge of ruling and electing officials when she left (a healer a priest and an unsullied? I can’t remember exactly) but they ultimately reverted back to slavery. The impulse to go back was there.

Nothing of the sort happened in astapor. 

A man killed those daenerys left in charge and called himself king. But he was like the shavepates… which means he was an extremista against the maesters and even asked danny for help several times when the yunkai attacked astapor.

And I am sorry but you can t say danny respected meereenese culture because she wore a piece of garment… that is nothing compared to the daily judgements she has in favor of slaves against slavers.

For exemple, look at this;

Quote

The noble Grazdan had once owned a slave woman who was a very fine weaver, it seemed; the fruits of her loom were greatly valued, not only in Meereen, but in New Ghis and Astapor and Qarth. When this woman had grown old, Grazdan had purchased half a dozen young girls and commanded the crone to instruct them in the secrets of her craft. The old woman was dead now. The young ones, freed, had opened a shop by the harbor wall to sell their weavings. Grazdan zo Galare asked that he be granted a portion of their earnings. "They owe their skill to me," he insisted. "I plucked them from the auction bloc and gave them to the loom."

Dany listened quietly, her face still. When he was done, she said, "What was the name of the old weaver?"

"The slave?" Grazdan shifted his weight, frowning. "She was … Elza, it might have been. Or Ella. It was six years ago she died. I have owned so many slaves, Your Grace."

"Let us say Elza. Here is our ruling. From the girls, you shall have nothing. It was Elza who taught them weaving, not you. From you, the girls shall have a new loom, the finest coin can buy. That is for forgetting the name of the old woman."

While some people will say well done dany! punish those slavers! make them pay!

This ruling shows how litle danny cares for the rights of the slavers. The man invested in the education of these women, they became his source of income and when danny arrives he not only lost his source of income but he also has to pay a new loom for not knowing a slave's name! Why is he being punished for not knowing a slave's name that died 6 years ago?

Taking into account that the man basically paid for the women's education it is logical he is seeking some kind of remuneration. while for today's standards the man's proposition is unaceptable for a city that is having such a drastic change it sounds very reasonable! If you wanted a fairer decision it would be that the weavers would pay a portion of their earnings until it reached an acceptable value that they would need to pay in order to learn their craft the normal way.

[wia]

6 hours ago, Universal Sword Donor said:

Restricting Aerys by denying him the right to execute people for no cause is not making him a figurehead. That's a ridiculous thing to opine

He did stupid stuff that was bad for the realm and had nothing to do with executions.

 

5 hours ago, kissdbyfire said:

Or it will encourage them to try other things, and might ultimately teach them that there are always options and alternatives. 

This is a new word in psychiatry: teaching people not to be insane.

[haveimooed]

3 hours ago, divica said:

This ruling shows how litle danny cares for the rights of the slavers. The man invested in the education of these women, they became his source of income and when danny arrives he not only lost his source of income but he also has to pay a new loom for not knowing a slave's name! Why is he being punished for not knowing a slave's name that died 6 years ago?

Taking into account that the man basically paid for the women's education it is logical he is seeking some kind of remuneration. while for today's standards the man's proposition is unaceptable for a city that is having such a drastic change it sounds very reasonable! If you wanted a fairer decision it would be that the weavers would pay a portion of their earnings until it reached an acceptable value that they would need to pay in order to learn their craft the normal way.

There is no such thing as "rights of slavers". "Investing" in someone against their will is kidnapping and exploitation, it does not grant any right to profit from the people slaver forces to work for him. The weavers do not have to pay anything, because they did not consent to be "educated" the way they were, they were forced and own nothing to the slaver.

[Lady Rhodes]

7 hours ago, divica said:

Nothing of the sort happened in astapor. 

A man killed those daenerys left in charge and called himself king. But he was like the shavepates… which means he was an extremista against the maesters and even asked danny for help several times when the yunkai attacked astapor.

And I am sorry but you can t say danny respected meereenese culture because she wore a piece of garment… that is nothing compared to the daily judgements she has in favor of slaves against slavers.

For exemple, look at this;

While some people will say well done dany! punish those slavers! make them pay!

This ruling shows how litle danny cares for the rights of the slavers. The man invested in the education of these women, they became his source of income and when danny arrives he not only lost his source of income but he also has to pay a new loom for not knowing a slave's name! Why is he being punished for not knowing a slave's name that died 6 years ago?

Taking into account that the man basically paid for the women's education it is logical he is seeking some kind of remuneration. while for today's standards the man's proposition is unaceptable for a city that is having such a drastic change it sounds very reasonable! If you wanted a fairer decision it would be that the weavers would pay a portion of their earnings until it reached an acceptable value that they would need to pay in order to learn their craft the normal way.

I will double check my reading on Astapor. 

Certainly the tokar is only one and fairly trivial thing. What I am saying is that the killings by the Sons of the Harpy started almost immediately and did little to make a Dany inclined to take anything other than a hard approach. I will agree that she needed a plan to promote the economy after the slave trade was shattered but there was also ship blockades and the masters burned their olive trees, not her.

[Lady Rhodes]

@divica  I am sorry. I had my facts wrong regarding Astapor and you were correct. Cleon deposed of them.

What I am meaning to say is that we cannot lay the blame for the, frankly, mess that is Slaver's Bay solely at the feet of any one person.  It is a confluence of factors, including culture, economic systems, and decisions made by varying actors, that caused the power vacuum that exists there.  Part of the problem of Slaver's Bay, which you have correctly noted, is Dany's resistance to embracing Ghiscari culture, resistance that she notably did not have when she assimilated to Dothraki customs.  That, though, should be a reason for us to pause: why is she resistant to Ghiscari culture when the Dothraki culture was also barbaric and also participated in the slave trade? 

It could certainly be that she recognized her position of power within the khalasar and used that power through Khal Drogo to exact change.  However, she was very meek and weak at the beginning of her tenure with Drogo, and began to assimilate to their culture prior to finding that power.  Once she had the power, though, she began exerting influence on Drogo (trying to prevent the rape of Eroeh, the Llazarene, etc.) When she comes into Slaver's Bay, and particularly Meereen, she is witnessing atrocities of the slave trade - beyond these men, women and children having no freedom and agency, they are being mutilated, being made into sex slaves, being forced into hard labor, and I am only touching the tip of the iceberg here. For Dany, who princess in hiding or not, has been chased after her entire life (whether in truth or by her brother's delusions, we don't know), being, essentially, sold to the Dothraki, being beat by her brother on a consistent basis for years, these atrocities are not acceptable.  They were never acceptable, but now, with dragons, she has the means to do something about it.  She cannot not do something.

So, first she encounters Astapor, she leaves a council of Ghiscari men: a priest, a scholar, and a healer, in charge. She leaves.  This council is then overthrown by Ghiscari and falls into a bloodbath, but not yet.  We don't learn of this until the beginning of Dance.  It could be argued that Dany left a power vacuum there, but that isn't exactly true.  She left a council of Ghiscari to rule Ghiscari.  That shows a certain deference to their culture. She deals with Yunkai without relative issue.  By the time she reaches Meereen, though, she has encountered the crucified children.  Why did the Meereenese nobles want to do this?  Yunkai remained unsacked.  Astapor was being ruled by Ghiscari.  Dany showed a deference to Ghiscari culture in Yunkai and Astapor.  But what was shown is that Meereen and the other slave cities had no interest in even attempting to a new way of life without slavery.  The Meereenese burned their olive trees! It could have been a valuable source of income, but they burned them.  Not Dany.  By this point, Dany realizes that she cannot leave a power vacuum in Slaver's Bay.  She has to stay, and she will learn to rule.

The Meereenese have no interest in any other type of economic system other than slavery. They instigate the Sons of the Harpy, hoping that continued attacks will cause Dany and her retinue to leave.  The fact that Dany includes shavepates on her council, meets with the Green Grace, eats dog, wears a tokar, etc shows that she is willing to embrace some aspects of the Ghiscari, even though she may not particularly like it or understand the reasoning for it.  She makes mistakes in her rule, to be sure, but she also recognizes that the most, if not all, of the Meereenese nobles want slavery to return and aren't interested in another economic system.  You brought up the weaver and the education that the noble paid for.  It is a valid point, but consider how he addressed his argument.  You see the name issue as punitive.  I see it as Dany making a point.  Essentially, the noble wants to be the student loan servicer and have this weaving girls pay these loans back, to use contemporary terms.  Dany is saying that while he may have been the benefactor to these young girls, the real treasure here is the old woman, whose weavings were so sought after that other people in other cities knew to ask for them, and for him to not know the old woman's name is precisely the problem with slavery: he was denying the old woman's value into the grave.  He was nothing if not for that woman and he did not have the decency to remember her name. Dany was basically saying to the slavers: "You all flaunt your wealth, claim of the riches and the renown of your family, but you fail to see how that wealth and renown was built on the backs of your slaves."  It was their lack of acknowledgment that she was making a point about. You can call it punitive, but it was a lesson that they needed to accept to move forward.  And they weren't accepting it - blockading the Skahadazhan, burning the olive trees..they were purposefully cutting off other economic opportunities to the city and the bay as a whole because they did not want to change.

 

But to this thread as a whole, I think this text does a great job at making us look at these varying situations and making us think about why were are ok with rebellion and violence in some contexts but not others.  I think its Martin's point.

 

 

[John Suburbs]

14 hours ago, Here's Looking At You, Kid said:

If you don't mind my saying so, I think you're guilty of double- standards.    Ok.  You just wrote a very slanted opinion against Dany in one of your essays above.   I am referring to this.

Those Ghis slavers were acting according to their laws.  Slavery and the torture of the less fortunate people are legal in the culture of the Ghiscari.  Nonetheless, they are guilty of crimes against their fellow man for moral reasons.  And yet here you are presenting a negative spin against Dany.  Those slavers are guilty even if they are behaving according to their legal system.  

According to the moral system you advocate for, those slavers are villains.  Dany's war against the villains is, therefore, just.  She is a hero in my opinion.  A villain is an offender.  The slavers may be lawful according to the slaving laws of Ghis, but they are guilty of crimes against humanity.  Unless you believe slavery is not a crime against humanity.  I hope not because that would put you in the same position as some of Dany's desperate "critics" who even go so far as to justify slavery in their futile attempt to make her look like a villain.   

Nobody here is saying King Aerys was a man of virtue.  He was not that.  He was petty and cruel.  That he had the right to rule the seven kingdoms is without question.  The question is, did the rebels have the right to start a war to remove him from power?  If you answer yes, then you have to be open to the possibility that Roose Bolton had a right to remove the Starks from power if he saw them as unfit to lead the north.  It can be a matter of perspective.  House Stark has erratic members whose irresponsible conduct brought the north to war.  And lords and commons who have nothing to do with it got dragged into it.  Can you see why Roose would be annoyed with the Starks and why he might want to replace them?  Bowen Marsh watched his erratic lord commander make one stupid decision after another and he faithfully obeyed until it was revealed that Jon let Mance Rayder go and ordered him to fetch his sister.  Jon's conduct clearly violated the oaths and endangered the watch.  If you believe the rebels had a right to remove Aerys then you have to also believe Bowen Marsh had the right to remove Jon from office.  

Not at all. I'm saying that good, evil, hero, villain -- it's all subjective. We may view Dany's actions in a positive light because we as a society have concluded that slavery is wrong and those who practice it are villains. The Astaporians, meanwhile, think nothing is wrong with the practice, so they think Dany is the villain by wantonly destroying their city and their culture.

You can turn this same lens on any hero/villain in the book. Using different perspectives, you'll find bad qualities in good people, and good qualities in bad people -- even people like Joffrey, Ramsay and Gregor Clegane. This is one of the ways Martin has broken from other fantasy writers who use Dark Lords and orcs and other purely evil characters. Martin's characters are human, with strengths, weaknesses, positives and negatives -- even if some people's negatives far outweigh their positives. 

 

[John Suburbs]

13 hours ago, kissdbyfire said:

I’m sorry but I just have to ask...

Are you seriously comparing the situation you describe above w/ a man who gets such a hard-on from seeing people being burned alive that he just has to rape and brutalise his wife? 

No, I'm saying it is all relative. Ned is viewed as a "good" man, but he has done some bad things. Aerys is seen as a "bad" man, but he had good qualities as well. If Aerys became sexually aroused by fire and suffering, that's a pathology, an illness of the mind. It does not mean he is or was inherently evil.

[Universal Sword Donor]

9 hours ago, wia said:

He did stupid stuff that was bad for the realm and had nothing to do with executions.

He condemned people without trial and had them burned to death, yet had nothing to do with executions?

I am glossing over a lot of the crazy shit he did and moving on to the stuff that actually fomented rebellion.

[Moiraine Sedai]

37 minutes ago, John Suburbs said:

No, I'm saying it is all relative. Ned is viewed as a "good" man, but he has done some bad things. Aerys is seen as a "bad" man, but he had good qualities as well. If Aerys became sexually aroused by fire and suffering, that's a pathology, an illness of the mind. It does not mean he is or was inherently evil.

Arya murders people and call it justice.  She gives skin peels to corpses.  That's sickness.  Evil?  Well, yeah.  Even if it's the teachings of her cult.  It's a choice.  Better to reject your family and your culture if they are wrong.

[wia]

52 minutes ago, Universal Sword Donor said:

He condemned people without trial and had them burned to death, yet had nothing to do with executions?

I am glossing over a lot of the crazy shit he did and moving on to the stuff that actually fomented rebellion.

So our conversation just went like this:

Me: Aerys is mad, he did crazy things, both violent and political. A council would stop him from doing both violent and political things. Therefore he won't be able to do pretty much anything that he did before. 
You: Banning Aerys from violent acts is not restricting him.
Me: He did other stupid stuff too.
You: But he was doing violent things.

??? I just really don't get you right now.

Let's go again: Aerys was mad and the vast majority of what he did as king is evil and/or stupid. It includes: torturing and executing people, cutting out people's tongues for making accurate, but vexing observations, making political decisions only to spite Tywin (funding Volantis in war, increasing taxes in ports, the Duskendale fiasco), incompetent choice of councillors, etc.

Pretty much all of these would not be passed by a reasonable council. And, to our knowledge, that's like 90% of what he was doing as a king. Therefore he wouldn't have any actual power to do what he wants. So a council would not just cut one particular action of his, it would cut the overwhelming majority of his actions, leaving him powerless in his role as a king in practice.

[Universal Sword Donor]

1 hour ago, wia said:

So our conversation just went like this:

Me: Aerys is mad, he did crazy things, both violent and political. A council would stop him from doing both violent and political things. Therefore he won't be able to do pretty much anything that he did before. 
You: Banning Aerys from violent acts is not restricting him.
Me: He did other stupid stuff too.
You: But he was doing violent things.

??? I just really don't get you right now.

Let's go again: Aerys was mad and the vast majority of what he did as king is evil and/or stupid. It includes: torturing and executing people, cutting out people's tongues for making accurate, but vexing observations, making political decisions only to spite Tywin (funding Volantis in war, increasing taxes in ports, the Duskendale fiasco), incompetent choice of councillors, etc.

Pretty much all of these would not be passed by a reasonable council. And, to our knowledge, that's like 90% of what he was doing as a king. Therefore he wouldn't have any actual power to do what he wants. So a council would not just cut one particular action of his, it would cut the overwhelming majority of his actions, leaving him powerless in his role as a king in practice.

Your summation of the conversation is flawed. I will leave it at that.

Your assertion that a council would neuter him entirely is also opinion. We have literally no idea what the council would have done. It could have been a full overthrow, something akin to the Magna Carta, or just an airing of grievances. We have no idea.

[wia]

7 minutes ago, Universal Sword Donor said:

Your summation of the conversation is flawed. I will leave it at that.

Your assertion that a council would neuter him entirely is also opinion. We have literally no idea what the council would have done. It could have been a full overthrow, something akin to the Magna Carta, or just an airing of grievances. We have no idea.

Yes, leave it at that, what's the point even.

Sooo... the point of having a council would be to... let Aerys do what he wants? Are those the changes to be made by Rhaegar? This is just ridiculous at this point. The point is not what a council would have done, the point is why Rheagar wanted to call it. 

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We have text that outright says that there were rumours that Rhaegar was planning to call a Great Council in order to arrange a regency / a forced abdication / depose his father and seize the Iron Throne for himself.

We have text where Rhaegar personally says that he meant to call a council long ago and the he will call it once he's back from the Trident to make changes.

Normally you put 2 and 2 and get your answer. If you wanna be really thorough, you'd think of what sort of other councils that we know of he could call. Exclude a small council 'cause it's right there in KL with Rhaegar (and it's useless anyway). Exclude a war council 'cause calling it before (long ago) and after (his perceived win at the Trident) war is useless and the time to call a war council is now, during the war. Which leaves us with a Great Council. Which leads us back to the original point.

Then, if Rhaegar wants to make changes, and considering his relationship with his dad (on both sides), and considering the situation in the realm, one would think that those changes would not be in favour of his father. 'Cause if they were leaving Aerys in power, those aren't really changes, are they. Nor they are good for Rhaegar, whos wife and children are currently held hostage. 

But you know, maybe Rhaegar just thought that it wasn't treason and Tywin was joking when he said that king dying is totally ok (he is a funny guy after all) and maybe he just wanted to look cool in a tourney that Lord Whent arranged all on his own and maybe he just wanted to call a council to change the tapestries in the great hall 'cause those were hideous. That is totally supported by the text after all.