Renly Baratheon the Early Years.

[Alchemy-Cat]

After the Robert's Rebellion, who looked after the young Renly Baratheon? He was heir to Storms End and Lord Paramount of the Storm Lands a valuable piece in the game he would have been looked after. If my math is right he was only 6 at the end of the Rebellion so who looked after him and where?

When Renly eventually went to Kingslanding and took his seat on the small Council, Ser Cortnay Penrose is Castellan of Storms End, was he Castellan before then too?

[frenin]

The wording makes it seem that Robert and Renly were apart for a couple of years, with Stannis being around.

[Arthur Peres]

Cressen think of the Baratheon brothers as his own childs and Penrose seems to be very loyal to Renly, or at the very least very protective of Edric Storm, so those are my strongest guesses.

[EccentricHorse11]

He probably just sat at Storm's End. Later on he was knighted and Loras was made his squire. He was also made master of Laws. Other than that we do not really know much about him

[GoldenGail3]

Whatever he was in his youth, I hated him as an adult because he treated Brienne badly and wanted to dishonourably kill Cersei’s children. 

[Universal Sword Donor]

On 6/1/2020 at 10:45 PM, GoldenGail3 said:

Whatever he was in his youth, I hated him as an adult because he treated Brienne badly and wanted to dishonourably kill Cersei’s children. 

Devil's advocate here. If your sister in law wanted to kill you and the choice was you or her and her kids, what would you do?

[frenin]

On 6/2/2020 at 5:45 AM, GoldenGail3 said:

Whatever he was in his youth, I hated him as an adult because he treated Brienne badly and wanted to dishonourably kill Cersei’s children. 

He didn't treat Brienne badly. And "dishounorably"?? How that works??

[Lord Varys]

6 hours ago, Universal Sword Donor said:

Devil's advocate here. If your sister in law wanted to kill you and the choice was you or her and her kids, what would you do?

Renly was never in such a position. He was an ass and a traitor thrice over and died like one.

On 4/8/2020 at 9:27 AM, Alchemy-Cat said:

After the Robert's Rebellion, who looked after the young Renly Baratheon? He was heir to Storms End and Lord Paramount of the Storm Lands a valuable piece in the game he would have been looked after. If my math is right he was only 6 at the end of the Rebellion so who looked after him and where?

We don't know. I'd like to know, but we don't. Cortnay Penrose might have been the man Robert named castellan of Storm's End when he became king and he may have continued in that task, but while he certainly also loved Renly, he seemed to have loved Edric Storm more, which could imply Cortnay came in as a household knight and eventually castellan at a later time.

We also have no clue whether young Renly was dumped at Storm's End with a guardian not from the Baratheon family and raised there, or whether he was raised a page and squire at court with Robert until he received his knighthood and/or came of age to rule as lord in his own right. Unlike Edric Storm, Renly wasn't a bastard. There was no reason to keep him out of sight. Even if Renly spent most of his childhood and youth at Storm's End he would have still visited with court frequently.

We do know Renly lived for a time at Storm's End at least, since it seems to have been the place where Loras squired for him and where their relationship started. Loras and Renly's favorite place (according to Loras) was near Storm's End - it is the place where Loras himself buried Renly. But some (short) time before AGoT Renly must have been named to the Small Council, triggering his return (?) to court. You cannot fulfill an office on the Small Council and not permanently reside at court.

On 4/8/2020 at 9:27 AM, Alchemy-Cat said:

When Renly eventually went to Kingslanding and took his seat on the small Council, Ser Cortnay Penrose is Castellan of Storms End, was he Castellan before then too?

I'm not sure Penrose was castellan then - could be and isn't unlikely - but unless I'm mistaken we only know for a fact he was castellan when Renly left for war. But then, we don't know whether Loras and Renly went to Highgarden by ways of Storm's End - then Renly could have called his banners from there and may have been able to name a new castellan and make some other administrative changes - or whether they went to Highgarden directly.

[frenin]

17 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

Renly was never in such a position. He was an ass and a traitor thrice over and died like one.

His sister in law wanted to kill him and his nephew the King. He died murdered by a shadow baby, hardly how traitors die.

 

 

[Ran]

24 minutes ago, frenin said:

His sister in law wanted to kill him

Yes, it's fairly obvious from statements made by characters in the novels that Cersei's enmity to Renly and Stannis was complete, and it certainly makes sense to me given that Cersei clearly seemed opposed to sharing power with the "royal uncles" so as to better secure Lannister control of the Iron Throne. Short of their willingly becoming collaborators and toadies, they were always going to be forced into conflict with her and the Lannisters. Think of the way that the idea of trying to make peace with Renly or Stannis is never advocated by any of the Lannisters, whereas they were willing to consider working out something with Robb or Balon (at least notionally, and perhaps no more than temporarily, but still).

Tywin literally says that he fears Stannis is the more dangerous than all their opponents put together, and he does "nothing"... and yet is there any attempt to talk to him and win him over before he claims the crown? Nope. No doubt because there is very little chance that Stannis would agree, but still, not even the thought is uttered. The Baratheon brothers are simply not in the equation of the power structure that Tywin and Cersei want to set up, which means they have to be removed. It took a moon or two before Renly claimed his crown, but did any ravens or envoys go to Storm's End or Highgarden trying to find and negotiate with him, giving him assurances of his safety and his position? Nope, only demands that he present himself to swear fealty with no actual promises of protection and instead just the threat of being determined a traitor.

 That said, to go back to the "devil's adovcate" position, I'm not sure the choice was strictly "me or them" as posited -- we don't really know what, exactly, Renly intended to do with Cersei or her children when he won the throne, and it need not be the case that he intended to kill them. Oh, Cersei and Jaime I expect would be unlikely to survive, and Joffrey could well be in danger of it for having worn a crown, but Tommen and Myrcella could be useful tools to keep Tywin and the westerlands in check.... or, yeah, they could disappear or die of "illness". But we don't really know, and in any case, it's hard to say there was a straightforward binary.

 

[Lord Varys]

59 minutes ago, Ran said:

Yes, it's fairly obvious from statements made by characters in the novels that Cersei's enmity to Renly and Stannis was complete, and it certainly makes sense to me given that Cersei clearly seemed opposed to sharing power with the "royal uncles" so as to better secure Lannister control of the Iron Throne. Short of their willingly becoming collaborators and toadies, they were always going to be forced into conflict with her and the Lannisters. Think of the way that the idea of trying to make peace with Renly or Stannis is never advocated by any of the Lannisters, whereas they were willing to consider working out something with Robb or Balon (at least notionally, and perhaps no more than temporarily, but still).

You are treating the Lannisters en bloc here. Do you think you have enough reason to believe Cersei and Tywin were both in cahoots to dominate Robert's court and a subsequent regency government if he were to die before Joffrey was of age? There are some clues there that Tywin and Cersei wanted to murder Robert with the whole squires thing and Tywin commanding Lancel and Tyrek to obey Cersei in all things, but this has never been made explicit once we got deeper POV insight in the Lannister machinations. Also, it is a complete accident that Cersei Lannister ends up as Queen Regent running Joffrey's minority government. We can be pretty sure if, say, Robert had died as was, perhaps, planned at the Tourney of the Hand, that Lord Tywin would have taken the reins of the government, not Cersei. Also, if Jaime hadn't attacked Ned in the streets and remained in the city he would have played a dominant - perhaps the dominant - role in the regency government. You know it as well as we all that even at the Lannister dominated court people were not pleased when it was announced that Cersei Lannister, a woman, would take a seat in the Small Council and run the government as Queen Regent.

What we have are hints that Cersei wanted to deal with Robert's brothers before she dealt with Robert himself, but we don't know whether this means she wanted to kill them - nor does this mean Stannis and especially Renly knew she wanted to do that. We learn this from the private conversation Bran overhears - chances are not that great that Renly ever overheard private conversations of Cersei and Jaime.

The idea of making a peace with Renly does not come up because they never actually clash - and, the more important point here, he is only discussed as a player after he has already crowned himself which is the point where you don't have anything to talk about until you fight things out and one or the other ends up in chains in front of the victor, or is a bad position.

Note that Tywin Lannister seems to have made a genuine offer of peace to Stannis Baratheon after the Blackwater - at a time when the Lannisters had effectively won the war and had little to no reason to be generous for the time being because they had still stronger enemies in the field. Tywin certainly wanted to gain Shireen as a hostage and marry her to Tommen so the Lannister-Baratheon branch would eventually also gain Dragonstone without further bloodshed, but there is no indication here for us to conclude Tywin wanted to destroy Stannis if he had agreed to those terms. He could have saved his own life and the lives and seats and property of his family and bannermen.

I find that rather striking, especially in light of the fact Stannis was the twincest story Baratheon brother - the one who damaged the Lannister cause the most on the field of political legitimacy and propaganda. He actually is the one most deserving of death, no?

59 minutes ago, Ran said:

Tywin literally says that he fears Stannis is the more dangerous than all their opponents put together, and he does "nothing"... and yet is there any attempt to talk to him and win him over before he claims the crown? Nope. No doubt because there is very little chance that Stannis would agree, but still, not even the thought is uttered. The Baratheon brothers are simply not in the equation of the power structure that Tywin and Cersei want to set up, which means they have to be removed. It took a moon or two before Renly claimed his crown, but did any ravens or envoys go to Storm's End or Highgarden trying to find and negotiate with him, giving him assurances of his safety and his position? Nope, only demands that he present himself to swear fealty with no actual promises of protection and instead just the threat of being determined a traitor.

We don't know what kind of ravens flew in those days, do we? Our POVs are Sansa for KL here, and we have nobody in Tywin's inner circle for that time, although we can reasonably assume he was more occupied with his war in the Riverlands. Tywin does want to deal with Renly and Stannis because he expects them to rebels - or rather: he already knows they have rebelled in Renly's case when the man is discussed at council in camp.

From Tywin's point of view Renly is also not really an important potential ally - here the issue is more Cersei. She is the one in KL. She should have tried to strike a deal with him.

Even if we were to agree that Tywin and Cersei were enacting a clear plan to grab all the power in KL, then there is nothing in the text that allows us to conclude that Renly was aware of such a plan. We have no idea what knowledge and what beliefs actually shaped his political decisions. We don't know what the point of his offer to Ned was - was it a power grab, a way to set himself up as a regent to claim the throne the Richard III way, or was it a genuine offer of help? The very fact that he abandoned Ned and Cersei to each other's mercy without giving Ned a clear warning that he would leave and not help him with whatever he would do indicates to me that Renly was much more motivated by

But my criticism isn't Cersei so much - because we can sort of infer why she wouldn't want any trueborn Baratheons around - it is the idea that Renly didn't have any other choice but to crown himself to save his life. That is just nonsense. It is a wrong dichotomy (just as it is a wrong dichotomy to claim Jaime only a had choice between slaying Aerys II and watching KL burn). There were other options to consider, one of them being Renly writing letters to Tywin and offering his help to him or trying to come to an understanding with him.

As I pointed out repeatedly already in such discussions - we do know how Dorne and the Vale fared the War of the Five Kings by staying neutral. It benefited them, and didn't lead to their destruction. If Renly had called his banners and kept quiet the way Doran Martell did until such a point as one of the warring factions had approached him, he could have profited from that the same way they did, he might have even gotten Myrcella's hand, or the office of Hand (if Tywin had taken the regency from Cersei, say). He could also have become Stannis' Hand and heir if he had teamed up with him, or he could have made a pact with Robb which could, in the end, have won him the Iron Throne. The point where Renly would have been courted as an ally from all sides would have been when Robb beat Jaime in the Riverlands and Joffrey executed Ned.

It is ridiculous to assume that 'destroying Renly' would have been anyone's number one priority (it wouldn't have been number two or three) considering how the war unfolded. You can contrast that with the Borros Baratheon thing in the Dance - Rhaenyra and her people had months to send a couple of dragons to destroy Storm's End but nothing of the sort happened - strongly indicating that remaining neutral even if you do something stupid/are no longer loved by a powerful group of people doesn't necessarily cause them to unleash their weapons of mass destruction against you.

59 minutes ago, Ran said:

 That said, to go back to the "devil's adovcate" position, I'm not sure the choice was strictly "me or them" as posited -- we don't really know what, exactly, Renly intended to do with Cersei or her children when he won the throne, and it need not be the case that he intended to kill them. Oh, Cersei and Jaime I expect would be unlikely to survive, and Joffrey could well be in danger of it for having worn a crown, but Tommen and Myrcella could be useful tools to keep Tywin and the westerlands in check.... or, yeah, they could disappear or die of "illness". But we don't really know, and in any case, it's hard to say there was a straightforward binary.

It is not that relevant to me whether Renly wanted to murder his nephews and niece - or whether he just wanted to take what was, to his knowledge, their right by birth and blood. This is treason, plain and simple, and Renly is an ass simply by trying to steal what, by the rules of the society he lives in, belongs to his brother's children and older brother before he could hope to take it for himself.

I believe Renly had no issue murdering the children, just as he had no issue ensuring Stannis died in battle, but there is no actual evidence for that, so one can give him the benefit of the doubt there, if one wants to do that. But I feel the cruel pragmatism and casual betrayal Renly shows in the brief scenes he shows up (replacing Cersei with another queen, advocating for the Targaryen murder, offering Ned a shady deal, abandoning Ned when he rejects it) are enough to expect that he would be fully willing and capable to murder a bunch of children if that's what he needed to do to seize the throne he wants - and remain there. Especially after he learned that it seems that Cersei's children aren't Robert's - and thus not even his blood relations, which means he might be able to avert the kinslayer accusation even if he was openly commanding and presiding over the murder/execution of the children or freely admitting it was all done at his command.

And to be clear: Overall Stannis is the much worse Baratheon brother. Renly is the nicer guy. He is still a shitty uncle and brother and brother-in-law, but he doesn't team up with the sorceress so he can murder his younger brother nor does he keep crucial knowledge that could have saved his brother and king and prevented a war for himself until it is far too late for everybody - including Stannis himself.

[GoldenGail3]

18 hours ago, frenin said:

He didn't treat Brienne badly. And "dishounorably"?? How that works??

Loras said that he found her grostique and  only accepted her into the Rainbow Guard because he knew that she loved him. He made fun of Brienne behind her back (but then again everybody seemed to want to rape or hate her in the books.)

He wanted to basically take over King’s Landing with his troops with Ned (I like to call him rose tinted blinded Stannis) and kill Cersei’s kids (of whom were innocent mind you). There’s no honour to be had In killing in the innocent which is why Ned said no to his deal no doubt.

[GoldenGail3]

9 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

 

And to be clear: Overall Stannis is the much worse Baratheon brother. Renly is the nicer guy. He is still a shitty uncle and brother and brother-in-law, but he doesn't team up with the sorceress so he can murder his younger brother nor does he keep crucial knowledge that could have saved his brother and king and prevented a war for himself until it is far too late for everybody - including Stannis himself.

 Renly left people to starve, Stannis did not. Renly is NOT nice, he’s a fool who wanted people to die for glory, which he thought was a game because he thought it was just another tint at the tourneys.  As for Renly’s death, he would’ve killed Stannis too! He would’ve done the exact same thing! Renly’s death saved a great many lives, in my opinion anyhow.

[Ran]

2 hours ago, GoldenGail3 said:

He wanted to basically take over King’s Landing with his troops with Ned (I like to call him rose tinted blinded Stannis) and kill Cersei’s kids (of whom were innocent mind you). There’s no honour to be had In killing in the innocent which is why Ned said no to his deal no doubt.

There's no evidence for this. In the books Renly seems quite genuine about the idea of helping Ned seize control of the children and thus of the realm, as Robert wanted, and indeed repeats to Catelyn -- quite earnestly, with no hint of deception presented or perceived by her -- that he had tried to help Ned. There is no hint at all that he was being disingenuous, and no one in the novels suggests he was disingenuous about it. The idea that he wanted to get set up as king is something the TV show did.

2 hours ago, GoldenGail3 said:

 Renly left people to starve, Stannis did not.

Only because Stannis did not have the means of starving King's Landing. He would have if he could have, because he is very much an "the end justifies the means" person, and the people who remained in King's Landing were (to his mind) tacitly supporting Joffrey and so deserved what they got so long as King's Landing was held against him. Starving out your enemy is exactly part of why you lay siege to people, and lets be clear, there was no hint that Stannis was letting ferries past his troops to carry supplies to the people of King's Landing after Renly's death. Because it wouldn't make sense for him to do anything like that -- a fed King's Landing is a strong King's Landing, and that just makes taking it harder.

If you mean to say that Stannis would have rushed to battle rather than taking his time, to let the Starks and Lannisters weaken themselves as Renly did, I am dubious. As a commander he appears to be methodical, and not interested in wasting his men needlessly. He probably would have done exactly the same thing that Renly did, had he been the one to be crowned in Highgarden and had all the power of the Reach and the Stormlands at his command. Let the traitors from the North and riverlands fight the perfidious Lannisters for him, while he let his forces take it easy so they'd come fresh to King's Landing and face a weakened, starving city.

2 hours ago, GoldenGail3 said:

As for Renly’s death, he would’ve killed Stannis too!

He believed Stannis would not surrender and so would rather die in battle than yield to him. That was Stannis's choice, not Renly's.

2 hours ago, GoldenGail3 said:

He would’ve done the exact same thing!

There's no evidence that he would have considered assassinating his brother, so it's not quite the same thing.

2 hours ago, GoldenGail3 said:

Renly’s death saved a great many lives, in my opinion anyhow.

It avoided a battle, to be sure, but then Stannis lost many thousands in his failure at King's Landing, so it's kind of a wash.

[Peach King]

Renly couldn't have stayed neutral - Joffrey was already planning on having him killed (he says he was saving a spot for Renly's head to Sansa). So was Cersei (she thinks in her POV that she wanted to get rid of Robert's brothers but her plans got ruined).

The most likely outcome of a scenario where Renly stays neutral is that the Lannisters send an envoy to the Tyrells. Joffrey and Margaery get married, and the overwhelming Tyrell-Lannister alliance have no need of further allies. Renly could have been stripped of Storm's End and his council position for failing to uphold his loyalty to King Joffrey. 

Tywin is more pragmatic than either Cersei or Joffrey, sure, but if Renly wanted to stay on at court, if he wanted to retain power - Cersei would have to be removed. And the best way of doing that was by crowning himself king. 

[frenin]

3 hours ago, GoldenGail3 said:

Loras said that he found her grostique and  only accepted her into the Rainbow Guard because he knew that she loved him. He made fun of Brienne behind her back (but then again everybody seemed to want to rape or hate her in the books.)

Brienne is grotesque in their world and still he accepted her.

 

3 hours ago, GoldenGail3 said:

He wanted to basically take over King’s Landing with his troops with Ned (I like to call him rose tinted blinded Stannis) and kill Cersei’s kids (of whom were innocent mind you). There’s no honour to be had In killing in the innocent which is why Ned said no to his deal no doubt.

No, his plan to kill the children only comes up once he is crowned.

He wanted to keep the children under Ned's watch.

 

@Lord Varys

 

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You are treating the Lannisters en bloc here. Do you think you have enough reason to believe Cersei and Tywin were both in cahoots to dominate Robert's court and a subsequent regency government if he were to die before Joffrey was of age? There are some clues there that Tywin and Cersei wanted to murder Robert with the whole squires thing and Tywin commanding Lancel and Tyrek to obey Cersei in all things, but this has never been made explicit once we got deeper POV insight in the Lannister machinations. Also, it is a complete accident that Cersei Lannister ends up as Queen Regent running Joffrey's minority government. We can be pretty sure if, say, Robert had died as was, perhaps, planned at the Tourney of the Hand, that Lord Tywin would have taken the reins of the government, not Cersei. Also, if Jaime hadn't attacked Ned in the streets and remained in the city he would have played a dominant - perhaps the dominant - role in the regency government. You know it as well as we all that even at the Lannister dominated court people were not pleased when it was announced that Cersei Lannister, a woman, would take a seat in the Small Council and run the government as Queen Regent.

There are no clues, Tywin had no reason to see Robert dead, he showered him with honors and he was heavily indebted to him. Cersei has two good reasons, fear of being set aside and fear of Robert discovering the incest. 

Without the incest, Tywin simply lacks of a reason to want Robert dead. What he didn't want to however was sharing the power with Robert's brothers once Robert was gone.

 

 

 

12 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

What we have are hints that Cersei wanted to deal with Robert's brothers before she dealt with Robert himself, but we don't know whether this means she wanted to kill them - nor does this mean Stannis and especially Renly knew she wanted to do that. We learn this from the private conversation Bran overhears - chances are not that great that Renly ever overheard private conversations of Cersei and Jaime.

Cersei is not a subtle person, when she means deal she want to say kill, even if we agreed that she didn't want to kill them, nothing good could come from that.

Renly nor Stannis are idiots and we see that he was well afraid of Cersei in particular and the Lannisters in general.

 

13 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

The idea of making a peace with Renly does not come up because they never actually clash - and, the more important point here, he is only discussed as a player after he has already crowned himself which is the point where you don't have anything to talk about until you fight things out and one or the other ends up in chains in front of the victor, or is a bad position.

They never actually clashed but they were already keeping a pike for his head. Curious. Before he crowned himself the Lannisters were not treating him as a potential ally, but as an enemy/rival to be eliminated.

The Lannisters and Robb were talking through ACOK, Renly and Robb also talked. Only Stannis would agree with that extreme idea.

 

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Note that Tywin Lannister seems to have made a genuine offer of peace to Stannis Baratheon after the Blackwater - at a time when the Lannisters had effectively won the war and had little to no reason to be generous for the time being because they had still stronger enemies in the field. Tywin certainly wanted to gain Shireen as a hostage and marry her to Tommen so the Lannister-Baratheon branch would eventually also gain Dragonstone without further bloodshed, but there is no indication here for us to conclude Tywin wanted to destroy Stannis if he had agreed to those terms. He could have saved his own life and the lives and seats and property of his family and bannermen.

We don't really have any indication that Tywin even considered the offer and even if he did, Tywin had still enemies in the field and that's why the offer would be still valid, he needed to deal with Robb and prevent that he went North or he would lose the North forever and Dragonstone was well garrisoned and with provisions, blocking it would be costly. 

Regardless once Robb was dead he had no reason to accept Alester's offer.

 

13 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

We don't know what kind of ravens flew in those days, do we? Our POVs are Sansa for KL here, and we have nobody in Tywin's inner circle for that time, although we can reasonably assume he was more occupied with his war in the Riverlands. Tywin does want to deal with Renly and Stannis because he expects them to rebels - or rather: he already knows they have rebelled in Renly's case when the man is discussed at council in camp.

Which is curious because he didn't expect the North to rebel even with all his daughter and grandkid were pulling un King's Landing but he gave up on the Baratheon bros from day 1. Regardless even if he expected them to rebel, he could've still brokered up a deal with them as he himself admits that he could've done with Robb had Ned not been killed.

 

 

 

 

13 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

From Tywin's point of view Renly is also not really an important potential ally -

The man is an idiot then.

 

13 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

here the issue is more Cersei. She is the one in KL. She should have tried to strike a deal with him.

But she didn't, she wanted to kill him

 

13 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

Even if we were to agree that Tywin and Cersei were enacting a clear plan to grab all the power in KL, then there is nothing in the text that allows us to conclude that Renly was aware of such a plan. We have no idea what knowledge and what beliefs actually shaped his political decisions. We don't know what the point of his offer to Ned was - was it a power grab, a way to set himself up as a regent to claim the throne the Richard III way, or was it a genuine offer of help? The very fact that he abandoned Ned and Cersei to each other's mercy without giving Ned a clear warning that he would leave and not help him with whatever he would do indicates to me that Renly was much more motivated by

All of Renly's actions through all AGOT are aimed to end the Lannister's control of the crown.

Renly saw Ned as a goner after he rejected his offer so ofc he would not stick around.

 

 

13 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

But my criticism isn't Cersei so much - because we can sort of infer why she wouldn't want any trueborn Baratheons around - it is the idea that Renly didn't have any other choice but to crown himself to save his life. That is just nonsense. It is a wrong dichotomy (just as it is a wrong dichotomy to claim Jaime only a had choice between slaying Aerys II and watching KL burn). There were other options to consider, one of them being Renly writing letters to Tywin and offering his help to him or trying to come to an understanding with him.

Renly's best option to save his life was crowning himself.

There was no understanding to consider with the Lannisters, they all wanted him out of the picture.

 

 

Quote

As I pointed out repeatedly already in such discussions - we do know how Dorne and the Vale fared the War of the Five Kings by staying neutral. It benefited them, and didn't lead to their destruction. If Renly had called his banners and kept quiet the way Doran Martell did until such a point as one of the warring factions had approached him, he could have profited from that the same way they did, he might have even gotten Myrcella's hand, or the office of Hand (if Tywin had taken the regency from Cersei, say). He could also have become Stannis' Hand and heir if he had teamed up with him, or he could have made a pact with Robb which could, in the end, have won him the Iron Throne. The point where Renly would have been courted as an ally from all sides would have been when Robb beat Jaime in the Riverlands and Joffrey executed Ned.

- Dorne and the Vale are not ruled for Robert's brother, nor the Lannisters are looking for any opportunity to destroy them. Nor that the Lannister-Tyrell could've ever hope to submit two of the most impenetrable kingdoms when they had to rebuild the Realm. The Stormlands have any natural defenses however.

 

- Perhaps, but Renly didn't know whose side would win, but he had an alliance with the Tyrells that will 100% guarantee him both the crown and his survival.

- He could not have gotten Myrce's hand, that's incest.

- You keep ignoring the fact that Renly had no place in a Lannister dominated court and both he and the Lannisters knew it.

- That would've been good if he knew what was Stannis up to. He didn't, Stannis had blocked himself and regardless Stannis wasn't giving anything to his brother. Even after Renly crowned himself and was the biggest bully in the playground, Stannis only wanted to give him his old seat in the Small Council and name Renly heir... Until a son of him was born.

 

- Robb was considered green by all, allying with a 14 year with zero experience in war is a good way of going down and by the time Robb showed everyone that he did have teeth, Renly was already crowned.

 

 

14 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

It is ridiculous to assume that 'destroying Renly' would have been anyone's number one priority (it wouldn't have been number two or three) considering how the war unfolded. You can contrast that with the Borros Baratheon thing in the Dance - Rhaenyra and her people had months to send a couple of dragons to destroy Storm's End but nothing of the sort happened - strongly indicating that remaining neutral even if you do something stupid/are no longer loved by a powerful group of people doesn't necessarily cause them to unleash their weapons of mass destruction against you.

It doesn't really indicate that, Tywin and Cersei aren't the Blacks and they would come after him regardless once they won.

 

 

14 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

It is not that relevant to me whether Renly wanted to murder his nephews and niece - or whether he just wanted to take what was, to his knowledge, their right by birth and blood. This is treason, plain and simple, and Renly is an ass simply by trying to steal what, by the rules of the society he lives in, belongs to his brother's children and older brother before he could hope to take it for himself

Well, if he believes he is dead otherwise one can see why he does it. And when said nephews are planning on killing him for no good reason, It becomes urgent.

 

 

17 hours ago, Ran said:

That said, to go back to the "devil's adovcate" position, I'm not sure the choice was strictly "me or them" as posited -- we don't really know what, exactly, Renly intended to do with Cersei or her children when he won the throne, and it need not be the case that he intended to kill them. Oh, Cersei and Jaime I expect would be unlikely to survive, and Joffrey could well be in danger of it for having worn a crown, but Tommen and Myrcella could be useful tools to keep Tywin and the westerlands in check.... or, yeah, they could disappear or die of "illness". But we don't really know, and in any case, it's hard to say there was a straightforward binary.

I do think he was killing them, unless Cersei confessed publicly, those children would always be a source of trouble and those children's children. And i do think that Renly was set on destroying the Lannisters for good, without any appeasement.

[Morte]

3 hours ago, Ran said:

There's no evidence for this. In the books Renly seems quite genuine about the idea of helping Ned seize control of the children and thus of the realm, as Robert wanted, and indeed repeats to Catelyn -- quite earnestly, with no hint of deception presented or perceived by her -- that he had tried to help Ned. There is no hint at all that he was being disingenuous, and no one in the novels suggests he was disingenuous about it. The idea that he wanted to get set up as king is something the TV show did.

Agree. Both his offer to Ned and his fear for his own life are genuine, imho. I agree with @Lord Varys that it would have been nice to get more information about Renly's life prior to AGoT and his interaction with Cersei, but it's made clear that she hates him (why soever) and he fears her the moment Robert is dead.

That's why I don't even think it originally was Renly's idea. I think his coronation is a flower from Highgarden. But I do agree with many here that at the very moment it's the only opportunity left for Renly, beside asking a certain Eunuch for a passage to and a babysitting job in Essos (and that was impossible after he had fled KL, so going to Essos would have meant to leave everything behind with no destination for a shelter).

[frenin]

7 hours ago, GoldenGail3 said:

Renly’s death saved a great many lives, in my opinion anyhow.

Renly's death is the reason Westeros is still at war, from the Red Wedding to Euron and the Golden Company's invasion.

I don't know how Renly's death was positive to Westeros when he was the only one with the manpower, charisma and pragmatism to end the war without much bloodshed and reconcile the parts with his rule.

[Lord Varys]

5 hours ago, Peach King said:

Renly couldn't have stayed neutral - Joffrey was already planning on having him killed (he says he was saving a spot for Renly's head to Sansa). So was Cersei (she thinks in her POV that she wanted to get rid of Robert's brothers but her plans got ruined).

Renly has no idea about that, does he? Or rather: You have no textual evidence that he knew about that because George didn't care about developing Relny enough so we understand what he is about.

5 hours ago, Peach King said:

The most likely outcome of a scenario where Renly stays neutral is that the Lannisters send an envoy to the Tyrells. Joffrey and Margaery get married, and the overwhelming Tyrell-Lannister alliance have no need of further allies. Renly could have been stripped of Storm's End and his council position for failing to uphold his loyalty to King Joffrey. 

Cersei would never do that - she is not in favor of a Tyrell alliance. Besides, as I've said, Loras and Renly can make Margaery the Lady of Storm's End and form an anti-Lannister alliance without actually crowning Renly. This is possible. Just as it would be possible for Renly to do all that with the ultimate goal to make himself king while not rushing things - sort of like Varys and Illyrio first wanted to Viserys III as a puppet and not rush things with Aegon.

5 hours ago, Peach King said:

Tywin is more pragmatic than either Cersei or Joffrey, sure, but if Renly wanted to stay on at court, if he wanted to retain power - Cersei would have to be removed. And the best way of doing that was by crowning himself king. 

No, the best way of doing that is just to kill Cersei - or to remove her with the help of others. And one of those others could actually have been Tywin Lannister. If Renly the Fool had not crowned himself he could have been Hand of the King under a Lord Regent Tywin Lannister.

2 hours ago, Morte said:

Agree. Both his offer to Ned and his fear for his own life are genuine, imho. I agree with @Lord Varys that it would have been nice to get more information about Renly's life prior to AGoT and his interaction with Cersei, but it's made clear that she hates him (why soever) and he fears her the moment Robert is dead.

Here the problem is that we don't know any details - do Renly and Cersei fear/hate each other because both want to dominate court and they know that about each other? Then both Cersei and Renly would be vile schemers seeing each other as rivals they have to destroy - and then Renly certainly doesn't 'defend himself by crowning himself' but actually follows his ultimate heart's desire to be king.

This idea that an ambitious man who ends up being king does that 'to defend himself' is political nonsense in any scenario - but it is especially nonsensical in Renly's case who is committing the vilest of treason by doing that, considering the place he has in the line of succession.

2 hours ago, Morte said:

That's why I don't even think it originally was Renly's idea. I think his coronation is a flower from Highgarden. But I do agree with many here that at the very moment it's the only opportunity left for Renly, beside asking a certain Eunuch for a passage to and a babysitting job in Essos (and that was impossible after he had fled KL, so going to Essos would have meant to leave everything behind with no destination for a shelter).

It would be good to know about that, too, but the way Renly paints himself in ACoK indicates 'King Renly' was as much 'King Renly's idea' as Margaery as Robert's new queen was. Renly freely admits that he schemes to pull this off, not the Tyrells. He seems to have tried to use them there, and apparently needed to convince Mace to send Margaery at Robert's court - most likely because the smarter Tyrells were not keen to see Margaery possibly turned into just a royal mistress rather than the next queen.

If the Tyrells were the people using Renly for their own advancement they were going about that in a very weird way. None of them was at court, for starters, meaning they weren't even proper players during the reign of Robert.

6 hours ago, Ran said:

There's no evidence for this. In the books Renly seems quite genuine about the idea of helping Ned seize control of the children and thus of the realm, as Robert wanted, and indeed repeats to Catelyn -- quite earnestly, with no hint of deception presented or perceived by her -- that he had tried to help Ned. There is no hint at all that he was being disingenuous, and no one in the novels suggests he was disingenuous about it. The idea that he wanted to get set up as king is something the TV show did.

We have no evidence that Renly wanted to kill Cersei and the children there or take the first steps of making himself king - but it makes sense to speculate he may have wanted to do that. What we can say he wanted to accomplish there was to set himself as powerful player in the new regency government, possibly next Hand, or the new Lord Regent if Ned decided to lay down that burden and return to Winterfell as Renly may have expected him to do eventually.

6 hours ago, Ran said:

He believed Stannis would not surrender and so would rather die in battle than yield to him. That was Stannis's choice, not Renly's.

That is true. We can assume that Renly definitely wanted 'do away' in some manner with Cersei and her children (which could involve murder or not). To be sure, I think murdering a woman like Cersei wouldn't be necessary. It is the vilest of things to murder highborn women, which is why even during the most barbaric times of Westerosi history this was rarely done, so there is indeed a chance that Cersei and Myrcella would be spared by Renly, if he could neutralize them in another.

But if Stannis hadn't challenged Renly, Renly would have never attacked him or tried to kill him. He is not as ugly a guy as that. Although we cannot foresee what a King Renly on the Iron Throne would have to do with his older brother if his rule weren't all that successful and he was facing troubles. Stannis is very much unpopular, yes, but he would be the natural figurehead of an anti-Renly movement consider he was the older brother and had the better claim.

Aemon had to go to the Wall to ensure Aegon V could rule without ... I'd presume that a King Renly with a living Lord Stannis of Dragonstone as his brother might have faced similar problems. Especially if you think about Stannis' personality. Even if he hadn't wanted to be king at all (and were not just claiming this was the case) seeing Renly successfully on the throne would have been a big issue for Stannis and would have turned him into a ticking time bomb.

[Ran]

3 hours ago, Morte said:

 

That's why I don't even think it originally was Renly's idea. I think his coronation is a flower from Highgarden.

I am not sure of that, myself. It seems to me a conclusion that anyone could have reached in his position, all things considered. I suppose Loras might have said, well, you should be king, then, and Renly ran with the idea... but I suspect it's something he could have come up with on his own easily enough.

3 hours ago, Morte said:

But I do agree with many here that at the very moment it's the only opportunity left for Renly, beside asking a certain Eunuch for a passage to and a babysitting job in Essos (and that was impossible after he had fled KL, so going to Essos would have meant to leave everything behind with no destination for a shelter).

Yeah. Theories of Renly sitting on the sidelines or actually joining the Lannisters are nonstarters.