Red Wedding: Robb's fate

[Eternally_Theirs]

1. Was Robb the biggest/main target during the Red Wedding?

2. Did he deserve to die or should he have lived?

 

[Pontius Pilate]

1 hour ago, DR Supporter said:

So Red Wedding happened because two greedy and power-hungry men wanted to betray the third. Who was a liege lord for one of them and had blood ties to the liege lord for the other. And also happened to be King, however short his reign was.

Now, when Jaime Lannister killed the King - who happened to be Aerys Targaryen II, the Mad King, who burned people alive out of paranoia and for his amusement - he was reviled for it by many people, who called him 'Kingslayer' behind his back. They did it because kingslaying is treated as a serious crime.

Yet when those two and their families did it, no one batted an eye. Despite being guilty of both kingslaying and breaking a sacred custom, they got off scot-free. They were even rewarded for doing it. This reeks of hypocrisy to me.

On one hand, we have a young man, a fledgling king, who wasn't politically-savvy and who made political blunders one after another due to his honest and straightforward upbringing, one of which proved fatal.

On the other hand, we have two traitorous men who wanted power. One of them had an excuse of being 'slighted', while the other did not. Morally speaking, they were wrong to do it. Sure, they may have ended up all groovy because it, but that doesn't change the fact that they paved their own ascent to power with the blood of their own liege lord and king. There is a saying 'If you have to step on someone else's toe in pursuit of your happiness, then give up your happiness'. Oh, and one of those watched as his own grandson was slaughtered without doing a thing to stop it, making him a kinslayer by inaction.

 

Yours is a very slanted view of what took place.  It is correct to condemn Jaime for Kingslaying.  The duty of the Kingsguard is to protect the king.  It is not the duty of the U.S. Secret Service to judge the President.  Jaime should have stopped His King, yes, but he also should have given up his life to save him.  If Ser Barristan could escape from Duskendale, Jaime could escape King's Landing with Aerys.  He should have challenged Gregor or whoever the rebels chose to a trial by combat if an escape plan failed.  You should also condemn Stannis for burning people if you want to condemn Aerys. 

What Robb Stark did to Walder Frey was not a minor slight.  The Freys carried out everything they agreed to do and the heir died fighting for the Starks.  Robb did more than insult the Freys.  He broke his oath.  The red wedding was brutal but it actually prevented the deaths of more innocents since all of the casualties are either soldiers or guilty of participation in the Stark Rebellion.  With the exception of Aegon "Jinglebells" Frey.  The Starks would have continued their rebellion if the red wedding had not happened.  More innocent lives would have been lost as they marched throughout the river lands and further. 

[Eternally_Theirs]

Yeah, I am biased in favor of a young man who should have lived a long life if it weren't for politics. I hate politics. I am also biased in favor of innocent Jinglebell who had to die because his grandfather didn't care one whit about him.

[Loose Bolt]

Actually reason why Jinglebell died was that lord Frey followed "Do not negotiate with terrorists policy".

[sweetsunray]

57 minutes ago, Centurion Piso said:

What Robb Stark did to Walder Frey was not a minor slight.  The Freys carried out everything they agreed to do and the heir died fighting for the Starks.  Robb did more than insult the Freys.  He broke his oath.  The red wedding was brutal but it actually prevented the deaths of more innocents since all of the casualties are either soldiers or guilty of participation in the Stark Rebellion.  With the exception of Aegon "Jinglebells" Frey.  The Starks would have continued their rebellion if the red wedding had not happened.  More innocent lives would have been lost as they marched throughout the river lands and further. 

Which is pretty much a BS defense, since those who killed the most innocents, targeted them explicitly was Tywin anyway. Also Robb was on his way north to get back the north, and leave the RL. He had no intention to march further through the RL. The Mountain and Lannisters could have conquered most of the RL back, the moment Robb had engaged the Ironborn, the same way they did when Robb was dead.

So, the RW did not save the smallfolk of the RL, because the biggest aggressors who trampled and burned them to begin with would always have been back at it.

To the OP, the crown may have let the Freys get away with it, because after all, they wanted the Freys to do just that. But the name Frey has become an insult that nobles use, even those who side with the Lannisters. They don't need to call Freys "kingslayers", because the house name itself has become the insult to mean exactly that.

On top of that, the Freys are being picked off left and right, one by one for the RW. The BwB serving LS does it, but they cannot do it without the aid of smallfolk informing on the Freys' whereabouts. Manderly turns several of them into pies. And it will get worse for them.

[Lord Lannister]

This seems a fairly flimsy attack to me. Yes, Jaime got the Kingslayer stigma. That was more for being a kingsguard betraying his king more than anything else. Robert, Ned, Jon Arryn and the rest of the rebels were all traitors who overthrew their king. Tywin Lannister, the Kinslayers father and the guy who sacked King's Landing and murdered the Targaryen babies, was rewarded with a royal engagement. History is written by the victors, and a knife in the back is rewarded if it's in the back of the winner's enemy.

So Walder Frey and Roose Bolton getting rewarded for betraying and murdering Robb Stark is hardly inconsistent. I should also say that while they got the favor of the court and the Lannisters, pretty much everyone else thinks they are the scum of the earth. Witness the actions of the Manderlys and the Brotherhood Without Banners.

[Alexis-something-Rose]

59 minutes ago, Lord Lannister said:

So Walder Frey and Roose Bolton getting rewarded for betraying and murdering Robb Stark is hardly inconsistent. I should also say that while they got the favor of the court and the Lannisters, pretty much everyone else thinks they are the scum of the earth. Witness the actions of the Manderlys and the Brotherhood Without Banners.

I don't know how much favor they got from the Lannisters in the end. 

Emmon Frey received Riverrun, but I imagine it's because of who his wife is. But that's been called a poisoned gift.

They got two marriages out of it and one has already been annulled.

Roose Bolton was named the Warden of the North for his part in the Red Wedding, but it was Littlefinger who was named the Lord Paramount of the Trident and the riverlands, not Walder Frey. So the Freys now have to bend the knee to someone who is of lower birth than they are. Jaime would have sent them to die beneath the walls of Riverrun to get himself rid of them.

So the Freys did not gain all that much from the Red Wedding, except for the hate and the scorn of the population at large. They are being picked off in the riverlands and are about to be picked off in the north. Tywin gave them as little as he possibly could, and if they were looking for his protection, well Tyrion took that from them.

I find the whole thing, with them coming out worse off than where they started pretty awesome. And the Freys don't even like each other. So best of luck, dummies!

[sweetsunray]

So, I take it that those defending the Freys and pointing the finger at Robb for breaking his oath, also consider Dany mistaken for not following Daario's plan to have a mock wedding where she gets all the guests killed? Or for not killing are her hostages as the Shavepate advizes her to do? Are they arguing she would have saved numerous lives if she had done what Daario and Shavepate argued?

Guess not.

[Lord Lannister]

Well Dany has her flaws to be certain, but generally speaking not initiating massacres or executing hostages is a good thing.

[Mystical]

6 hours ago, Centurion Piso said:

The red wedding was brutal but it actually prevented the deaths of more innocents since all of the casualties are either soldiers or guilty of participation in the Stark Rebellion.

I guess we don't count the thousands Roose send and sacrificed then? Last I checked, all Westerosi armies are made up mostly of smallfolk. Sure it's not directly linked to the RW but it's a foul act as well. So how was he better? Or what he and especially his beat of a son do to the poor people of the North. No different than Tywin who sends people out to specifically terrorize the smallfolk.

[sweetsunray]

40 minutes ago, Lord Lannister said:

Well Dany has her flaws to be certain, but generally speaking not initiating massacres or executing hostages is a good thing.

Exactly! That was my point

[The Jingo]

I feel this thread is misrepresenting how things actually occur in the series.

- Jaime was not disdained for slaying Aerys. Yes, some hardasses like Ned and Barristan made a big deal out of it, but to many people he remained the Lion of Lannister and being called 'the Kingslayer' is more about him being given a certain legendary status. Some people do mock him, but people mock everyone for some reason or another, and I think it's telling that even Eddard Stark's own children admire him and see him as 'kingly' (or they did before the whole Lannister-Stark conflict happened).

'Kinglayer' as an insult is given oversized importance as a term of slander because we get a lot of Ned's POVs on the one hand, and Jaime himself is extremely bitter over men like Ned and Barristan judging him for killing a crazed rapist and secretly saving the city. For Jaime it was his greatest act after witnessing the horrors that Aerys performed and the other Kingsguard permitted. For men like Ned and Barristan it was a great shame and Jaime should have been killed or sent to the Wall for it. So in POV bias it's obviously a very contentious issue and presented in a distorted way.

But I doubt that random smallfolk on the street think poorly of him for it, and I doubt neutral lords think poorly of him for it either.

- Walder Frey and Roose Bolton on the other hand are universally reviled. They're feared for their ruthlessness and protected by the Lannisters, but the actual feeling people have towards them is hatred and disgust. Even the random smallfolk thinks that the Freys are cursed by the gods for breaking guest rights. The situation is not remotely comparable to Jaime's.

[Arthur Peres]

23 minutes ago, The Jingo said:

 'Kinglayer' as an insult is given oversized importance as a term of slander because we get a lot of Ned's POVs on the one hand, and Jaime himself is extremely bitter over men like Ned and Barristan judging him for killing a crazed rapist and secretly saving the city. For Jaime it was his greatest act after witnessing the horrors that Aerys performed and the other Kingsguard permitted. For men like Ned and Barristan it was a great shame and Jaime should have been killed or sent to the Wall for it. So in POV bias it's obviously a very contentious issue and presented in a distorted way.

 

It's not just Ned. Blackfish and Barristan also see Jaime in negative light, The only one that sees Jaime's act as noble or admirable is ironic Robert, the man Jaime hates the most. 

Jaime didn't save the city by killing Aerys, when he murdered the king the Red Keep was already under Tywin's control, so much so that Jaime was literally caught red handed by lord Crackhall and Westerling. Jaime pretends to be a hero that he never was.

[Bernie Mac]

2 hours ago, Mystical said:

I guess we don't count the thousands Roose send and sacrificed then? Last I checked, all Westerosi armies are made up mostly of smallfolk. Sure it's not directly linked to the RW but it's a foul act as well. So how was he better? Or what he and especially his beat of a son do to the poor people of the North. No different than Tywin who sends people out to specifically terrorize the smallfolk.

Or Robb, right?

Robb's army was doing the same in the Westerlands as Tywin's was in the Riverlands. In actual fact Robb's army in the Riverlands was pretty bad as well, raping and pillaging to survive.

Pretty much all nobles, Robb included, screw over the smallfolk.

[Bernie Mac]

10 hours ago, DR Supporter said:

So Red Wedding happened because two greedy and power-hungry men wanted to betray the third. Who was a liege lord for one of them and had blood ties to the liege lord for the other. And also happened to be King, however short his reign was.

Well no, not quite. GRRM is clear why Walder committed the Red Wedding. His main motivation was not greed, but  vengeance.

Roose you have a point with.

10 hours ago, DR Supporter said:

Now, when Jaime Lannister killed the King - who happened to be Aerys Targaryen II, the Mad King, who burned people alive out of paranoia and for his amusement - he was reviled for it by many people, who called him 'Kingslayer' behind his back. They did it because kingslaying is treated as a serious crime.

Yes, actual kingslaying. Most of Westeros did not accept that Robb was a King. He was a Pretender. His own brother, Jon Snow, points this out

"They north rode with Robb, bled with him, died for him. They have supped on grief and death, and now you come to offer them another serving. Do you blame them if they hang back? Forgive me, Your Grace, but some will look at you and see only another doomed pretender."

 

10 hours ago, DR Supporter said:

Yet when those two and their families did it, no one batted an eye. Despite being guilty of both kingslaying and breaking a sacred custom, they got off scot-free. They were even rewarded for doing it. This reeks of hypocrisy to me.

That is wrong, plenty of people did bat an eyelid. We hear about it in both the North and the Vale. Your premise here is flawed.

 

[sweetsunray]

1 hour ago, The Jingo said:

But I doubt that random smallfolk on the street think poorly of him for it, and I doubt neutral lords think poorly of him for it either.

Well, the smallfolk in the street would assume Jaime killed Aerys as a Lannister for his father, as a turncloak, while his father had his army burn, pillage, rape and kill their neihgbours. Plus the smallfolk do talk well of Aerys and link him to "peaceful times". So, I can readily believe that the smallfolk think of Jaime as a foul "kingslayer".

Jaime's own POV makes clear that it's not just Ned's judgment that bothers him. He certainly feels as if most people use the nickname as a slur.

[Eternally_Theirs]

48 minutes ago, Bernie Mac said:

Well no, not quite. GRRM is clear why Walder committed the Red Wedding. His main motivation was not greed, but  vengeance.

Roose you have a point with.

Yes, actual kingslaying. Most of Westeros did not accept that Robb was a King. He was a Pretender. His own brother, Jon Snow, points this out

"They north rode with Robb, bled with him, died for him. They have supped on grief and death, and now you come to offer them another serving. Do you blame them if they hang back? Forgive me, Your Grace, but some will look at you and see only another doomed pretender."

 

That is wrong, plenty of people did bat an eyelid. We hear about it in both the North and the Vale. Your premise here is flawed.

 

Jon said that about Stannis, not about Robb. And between the two, Robb is more honorable. Also, vengeance implies that you are revenging upon someone who did something wrong. Whereas Walder rained vengeance against him because he dared to fall in love/did the honorable thing.

8 hours ago, Loose Bolt said:

Actually reason why Jinglebell died was that lord Frey followed "Do not negotiate with terrorists policy".

He basically said 'he is a grandson and he is not particularly useful, so I'm gonna let him die and kill your son while I am at it, lol."

8 hours ago, sweetsunray said:

Which is pretty much a BS defense, since those who killed the most innocents, targeted them explicitly was Tywin anyway. Also Robb was on his way north to get back the north, and leave the RL. He had no intention to march further through the RL. The Mountain and Lannisters could have conquered most of the RL back, the moment Robb had engaged the Ironborn, the same way they did when Robb was dead.

So, the RW did not save the smallfolk of the RL, because the biggest aggressors who trampled and burned them to begin with would always have been back at it.

To the OP, the crown may have let the Freys get away with it, because after all, they wanted the Freys to do just that. But the name Frey has become an insult that nobles use, even those who side with the Lannisters. They don't need to call Freys "kingslayers", because the house name itself has become the insult to mean exactly that.

On top of that, the Freys are being picked off left and right, one by one for the RW. The BwB serving LS does it, but they cannot do it without the aid of smallfolk informing on the Freys' whereabouts. Manderly turns several of them into pies. And it will get worse for them.

Sure, they got punished, but in the end, they still killed someone who didn't deserve to die. Someone who was 20 years old.

 

4 hours ago, Alexis-something-Rose said:

I don't know how much favor they got from the Lannisters in the end. 

Emmon Frey received Riverrun, but I imagine it's because of who his wife is. But that's been called a poisoned gift.

They got two marriages out of it and one has already been annulled.

Roose Bolton was named the Warden of the North for his part in the Red Wedding, but it was Littlefinger who was named the Lord Paramount of the Trident and the riverlands, not Walder Frey. So the Freys now have to bend the knee to someone who is of lower birth than they are. Jaime would have sent them to die beneath the walls of Riverrun to get himself rid of them.

So the Freys did not gain all that much from the Red Wedding, except for the hate and the scorn of the population at large. They are being picked off in the riverlands and are about to be picked off in the north. Tywin gave them as little as he possibly could, and if they were looking for his protection, well Tyrion took that from them.

I find the whole thing, with them coming out worse off than where they started pretty awesome. And the Freys don't even like each other. So best of luck, dummies!

So, the peripheral perpetrators got punished, but the actual murderer got rewarded? Yeah, it really helps heal the grief most of us feel about the murder of a 20-year-old sweetie.

1 hour ago, Arthur Peres said:

It's not just Ned. Blackfish and Barristan also see Jaime in negative light, The only one that sees Jaime's act as noble or admirable is ironic Robert, the man Jaime hates the most. 

Jaime didn't save the city by killing Aerys, when he murdered the king the Red Keep was already under Tywin's control, so much so that Jaime was literally caught red handed by lord Crackhall and Westerling. Jaime pretends to be a hero that he never was.

Also, this isn't about Jaime. I just used him for comparison. This is about Freys and Boltons organizing an event solely for the purpose of trapping and killing a 20-year-old who didn't really do anything wrong.

[sweetsunray]

5 minutes ago, DR Supporter said:

Sure, they got punished, but in the end, they still killed someone who didn't deserve to die. Someone who was 20 years old.

Yes, they did. But your point was that Freys weren't called "kingslayers" for it, whereas Jaime was. My point is that what the Freys did in the eyes of people is so vile that henceforth the sole name for their crimes is "doing a Frey".

If your OP is just meant to mean "that was so mean and horrible of the Freys" then I concur.

[Eternally_Theirs]

Just now, sweetsunray said:

Yes, they did. But your point was that Freys weren't called "kingslayers" for it, whereas Jaime was. My point is that what the Freys did in the eyes of people is so vile that henceforth the sole name for their crimes is "doing a Frey".

They slew a king. Hence kingslayers.

[sweetsunray]

2 minutes ago, DR Supporter said:

They slew a king. Hence kingslayers.

King and the mother of a king and his men and women, his whole army his wolf - their guests.  And then on top of that they also stamped on any form of burial decency. "Kingslayers" just doesn't cut it anymore.