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Did Tywin's decisions cause problems for Westeros?


Mario Seddy

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10 hours ago, Mario Seddy said:

Did Tywin's decisions like the red wedding, Rains of Castamere, sack of kings landing etc cause long term negative effects on Westeros ? 

Not too sure about the Castamere. Sacking KL probably did cause the inhabitants of King's Landing and Dorne to hate the Lannisters. Not sure how long term that is gonna be though.

 

Now the Red Wedding on the other hand will have disastrous consequences for the future of the realm. Things like guest right and non-aggression during certain agreed upon times are the things that ensure that people try stuff like negotiation. Imagine the Renly and Stannis parlay in the second book. Now would any of them have agreed to it if they were afraid that they would be attacked and killed? Of course not. But they did not fear such a thing would happen because that is just something that you do not do. Guest Right was another such thing. So the Red Wedding essentially just shatters this concept of basic moral expectation. Now everything is gonna be fair game.

 

This is gonna mean that almost no one will be willing to negotiate or trust their enemies to follow the most basic of humane acts.

There is no telling the ramifications of something like that. Wars would probably go on for much longer and no one is ever gonna surrender because they will be afraid that they will be killed regardless.

 

Overall the realm will bleed for long. That is the refutation of Tywin's quote "Explain to me why it is more noble to kill ten thousand men in battle than a dozen at dinner". It is not just that thousands of people were killed in the Red Wedding. It is also that thousands more WILL be killed in the future because their lords decided that they might be murdered if they attend a Parlay or that they will be killed even if they surrender. All due to the idea of basic humanity being shattered by the Red Wedding.

 

Now of course we cant put all the blame on Tywin because the freys were the ones who organised it but Tywin had given it his full approval so there is no doubt that he is also partly to blame for it.

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Red Wedding; possibly, we really don't know the long term ramification of that event and if there will be a break down in the respect for Guest Rights. What we saw in the Vale. in the aftermath, was that the mere insinuation of breaking Guest Rights was enough to have Royce and the Lords Declarant back down from taking Robin Arryn into their possession.

Rains of Castamere; obviously not. It is an event that took place 40 years before. They were not the first noble Houses to be wiped out for rebelling and they are not going to be the last. Does not seem to have had any actual negative effect on Westeros, in actual fact it helped bring an end to a chaotic and unruly era of the Westerlands. More people were dying or having their lives disrupted in the years before the Rains of Castamere than the years after it.

Sack of kings landing; settlements get sacked by enemy armies. Kings Landing itself recovered fairly quickly. What negative effects do you think happened? The alternative would be a prolonged siege with soldiers dying on both sides and the city still being sacked. Aerys was not surrendering peacefully.

 

 

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We're already seeing consequences of the Red Wedding being played out in the north, in the riverlands with the Freys and in the Vale with regard to Sweetrobin and the breaking of guest right. The Red Wedding could lead directly to the extinction of House Bolton for instance. It helps that there's only two of them left. 

I don't think the consequences of the sack of King's Landing have fully played out just yet. I think there could be the possibility of an uprising there to try and throw out the Lannister regime in favor of Aegon. The people of KL don't like the Lannisters, they remember the sack. I think the groundwork for that may have been laid in ACoK.

As far as the Rains of Castamere goes, what happened with the Reynes and Tarbecks was basically the culmination of the Peake Uprising. History may have been vastly different if Tywald Lannister hadn't died there. Almost 30 years passed between the Peake Uprising and Tywin putting down the Reyne/Tarbeck Rebellion. I'd say it's over, but Castamere has been given to Rolph Spicer, a man who is tied to the Red Wedding. While I don't think that there are Reynes and Tarbecks running around under hidden identities, I find the whole thing with Rolph Spicer intriguing.

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In some ways, the Sack of King's Landing has already had negative repercussions for the Lannisters. They are clearly hated in the city. We have seen how the population revolted against them (killing Tyrek and endangering all the royal family), how they didn't participate at the defense of the city and even some of them helped Stannis (Tyrion thought that the city could hold for days, but it was about to fell in a matter of hours), or how no one lifted a finger when the High Septon decided to keep Cersei as a prisoner. All those events may have had very different outcomes if Tywin had not left such a hateful memory in the city.

 

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5 hours ago, Mario Seddy said:

Did Tywin's decisions like the red wedding, Rains of Castamere, sack of kings landing etc cause long term negative effects on Westeros ? 

These are all reasons why the other great houses, particularly the Tyrells, do not want Tywin controlling half the kingdom through his extended family. It's why Lady Olenna tried to kill Tyrion at Joffrey's wedding by poisoning his pie -- so Tywin would not gain control of the north. Too bad Joff ate the pie instead.

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6 hours ago, John Suburbs said:

These are all reasons why the other great houses, particularly the Tyrells, do not want Tywin controlling half the kingdom through his extended family. It's why Lady Olenna tried to kill Tyrion at Joffrey's wedding by poisoning his pie -- so Tywin would not gain control of the north. Too bad Joff ate the pie instead.

No, it is not. The decision to kill Joffrey was based on protecting her granddaughter from marrying someone who mistreated one prospective bride and could do the same to Margaery.

Nothing in the text suggests it was due to Olenna trying to stop a Lannister marrying the ruler of the North.

 

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12 hours ago, Mario Seddy said:

Did Tywin's decisions like the red wedding, Rains of Castamere, sack of kings landing etc cause long term negative effects on Westeros ? 

Here is my opinion on big decisions.  They will have negative as well as positive consequences. 

Red Wedding

The red wedding is not all negative.  It broke guest rights but if one were to look at it objectively it had positive consequences too.  It kept the kingdom together by preventing the Starks from breaking the north away from the kingdom that the Targaryens built.  Robb, if he had gotten his way, would have undone all the hard work that the Targaryens had done in the last three hundred years.  Before the Stark Defense Forces react, allow me to say that I picked Robb over Stannis, Renly, Balon, and Joffrey in the ongoing survey from Oakenfist.  I believe he would have made a better leader over those other men.  But he was wrong to declare northern independence.  It is not the place of the Starks to do that.  They swore to the Targaryens. They could pack up and go beyond the wall if they want and build their own kingdom.  Westeros belongs to the Targaryens.  It was attempted robbery to even try to take the north away.  The red wedding stopped Robb in his tracks. 

Rains of Castamere

It stifled speech.  It kept the vassals in line and prevented challenges to the Lannisters.  It upheld the absolute right of the lord to punish his vassals.  It's peace, but not necessarily a just peace.  Like Roose Bolton's quiet land idea.  Peace without consideration for justice. 

Sack of King's Landing

Proof of Lannister brutality in the eyes of many.  This one has very little positives except it got the soldiers paid with stolen goods.  Lords under siege will be less likely to open their gates in the future and will prolong conflict.

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Ah yeah, I think George was making a point in making where Machiavellian can lead you. Tywin was feared has a effective leader but he was a cold father and wasn't caring AT ALL. This lead to consequences in many political decisions like for example his obsession with trying to secure positions for his family yet creating very unstable people. He ended up creating enemies than making friends and thats the problem.

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7 hours ago, U. B. Cool said:

 They swore to the Targaryens. They could pack up and go beyond the wall if they want and build their own kingdom.  Westeros belongs to the Targaryens.  It was attempted robbery to even try to take the north away. 

Well Westeros does not belong to the Targaryens anymore. Also if the people of a land would want to declare independence they can do. It cannot be seen as attempted robbery(heh Robb-ery get it?).  Using your logic, Americans have "robbed" america from the british through the American Revolutionary War. 

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17 hours ago, Bernie Mac said:

No, it is not. The decision to kill Joffrey was based on protecting her granddaughter from marrying someone who mistreated one prospective bride and could do the same to Margaery.

Nothing in the text suggests it was due to Olenna trying to stop a Lannister marrying the ruler of the North.

 

Nonsense, the text shows plainly that Margaery was in no danger from Joffrey nor do either Lady O or Margaery think she is. And even if they did, a few bruises and a black eye are well worth the price of the Iron Throne. Plenty of queens have suffered far worse from their crowns.

All of the text suggests that this is Lady O playing the Game of Thrones. Tywin gaining an army that could demolish the Reach's army is the single-greatest danger that the Tyrells face. The size of their army is the only thing that has kept the Reach secure over the centuries, except for the one time Highgarden fell after the Gardener king at the time made a series of unwise marriages that led to conflict among his banners and the Reach was invaded simultaneously by the westerlands, the stormlands and Dorne. Preventing the other great houses from forming these kinds of power blocs is what led the Tyrells to support the Mad King and it's what drives Lady O to kill Joffrey. Tywin is already too powerful, and him gaining the north would shift the balance of power on the continent away from Highgarden, where it has been for thousands of years, to Casterly Rock, which until recently was a relatively weak seat to their north.

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15 minutes ago, John Suburbs said:

Nonsense, the text shows plainly that Margaery was in no danger from Joffrey nor do either Lady O or Margaery think she is. And even if they did, a few bruises and a black eye are well worth the price of the Iron Throne. Plenty of queens have suffered far worse from their crowns.

Concept: Maybe people care about their families????

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46 minutes ago, John Suburbs said:

Nonsense, the text shows plainly that Margaery was in no danger from Joffrey nor do either Lady O or Margaery think she is. And even if they did, a few bruises and a black eye are well worth the price of the Iron Throne. Plenty of queens have suffered far worse from their crowns.

How is it nonsense? What do you think the Tyrell women's inquisition of Sansa about Joffrey's treatment was about?

We don't have a conclusive reason why the Tyrells took out Joffrey, but it seems reasonable, given the actual evidence in the books, that it was due to the idea of Joffrey being a potentially abusive husband.

Olenna does not seem to care for the crown. She advised her son against rebelling in the first place. She may sympathize more with her granddaughter's future than Mace does, and acted independently of him in this matter.

 

 

 

GRRM: In the books – and I make no promises, because I have two more books to write, and I may have more surprises to reveal – the conclusion that the careful reader draws is that Joffrey was killed by the Queen of Thorns, using poison from Sansa's hairnet, so that if anyone did think it was poison, then Sansa would be blamed for it. Sansa had certainly good reason for it.

The reason I bring this up is because that's an interesting question of redemption. That's more like killing Hitler. Does the Queen of Thorns need redemption? Did the Queen of Thorns kill Hitler, or did she murder a 13-year-old boy? Or both? She had good reasons to remove Joffrey. Is it a case where the end justifies the means? I don't know. That's what I want the reader or viewer to wrestle with, and to debate.

Seems to suggest that Joffrey was Olenna's target.

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16 hours ago, King Jon Targaryen I said:

Ah yeah, I think George was making a point in making where Machiavellian can lead you. Tywin was feared has a effective leader but he was a cold father and wasn't caring AT ALL. This lead to consequences in many political decisions like for example his obsession with trying to secure positions for his family yet creating very unstable people. He ended up creating enemies than making friends and thats the problem.

Tywin's dead because Varys, someone he never really made an enemy of and at some point must have spared, released his son who murdered him. Varys does not seem to have killed Tywin (and Kevan [who seems to be a more caring father to Lancel than we've seen Tywin be to his kids]) due to hate, but because they were obstacles to his own challenger in the Game of Thrones.

Varys would have had to remove Tywin regardless of how he treated his children. Do people really disagree with this?

And Tywin did not just create enemies, he also created allies. Him bringing peace to the Westerlands would have brought him allies amongst the Westerland men, his rule as Hand for 20 years would have brought him allies, his support of Robert would have brought him allies and his rewarding Reach and Stormlords who changed sides in the War of the Five kings brought him allies. It is not one way traffic of Tywin making nothing but enemies.

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23 hours ago, R2D said:

Concept: Maybe people care about their families????

Of course they do, so when an opportunity comes up to neutralize an existential threat that actually exists for the entire family -- all the Tyrells, the entire line, for all time -- they will take it, especially when there is no threat, absolutely none, to the one who is getting married.

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23 hours ago, Bernie Mac said:

How is it nonsense? What do you think the Tyrell women's inquisition of Sansa about Joffrey's treatment was about?

We don't have a conclusive reason why the Tyrells took out Joffrey, but it seems reasonable, given the actual evidence in the books, that it was due to the idea of Joffrey being a potentially abusive husband.

Olenna does not seem to care for the crown. She advised her son against rebelling in the first place. She may sympathize more with her granddaughter's future than Mace does, and acted independently of him in this matter.

 

 

 

GRRM: In the books – and I make no promises, because I have two more books to write, and I may have more surprises to reveal – the conclusion that the careful reader draws is that Joffrey was killed by the Queen of Thorns, using poison from Sansa's hairnet, so that if anyone did think it was poison, then Sansa would be blamed for it. Sansa had certainly good reason for it.

The reason I bring this up is because that's an interesting question of redemption. That's more like killing Hitler. Does the Queen of Thorns need redemption? Did the Queen of Thorns kill Hitler, or did she murder a 13-year-old boy? Or both? She had good reasons to remove Joffrey. Is it a case where the end justifies the means? I don't know. That's what I want the reader or viewer to wrestle with, and to debate.

Seems to suggest that Joffrey was Olenna's target.

The dinner conversation is one of the most sublimely deceptive chapters that Martin has every written because it leads people to believe that Lady O is trying to find out the truth about Joffrey when she is actually after a very different truth. Follow closely:

First, how reasonable do you think it is that Lady Olenna does not already know all there is to know about Joffrey I Baratheon? This is a woman who has successfully navigated her way through a hopelessly patriarchal society to become the titular head of the most powerful house in the realm. She didn't do that by being stupid or ill-informed. The fact is that before the Starks even get to King's Landing, Lady Olenna already has three of her grandsons at court, along with their attendant squires, pages, stewards, servants etc., all of whom would love nothing more than to earn praise, and probably coin, from their lady for any bits of information, gossip, scuttlebutt and anything else about everyone at court, part in particular the royal family. And don't forget either that Lady O had Renly in her own court for however many weeks or months it took to marry him to Margaery, and he would have filled her ears on a nightly basis with all the inside dope on clan Baratheon, including the incident on the Trident.

Next, let's look at exactly what Sansa tells Lady O and see if there is any way this could be news to her. First, Joff is a monster who promised to be merciful to Ned but then took his head and called it mercy. Well, the initial offer of mercy was made in open court, before a large gathering of highborn lords and ladies, including Lady Olenna's own grandsons. Like our courts today, everything that is said and done in medieval courts was written down, distributed to noble houses and preserved for posterity to write the history of the realm. Don't ask me why LF seems to be doing this most often when it should be any number of Pycelle's acolytes, but that's how it was in the Red Keep. So Lady Olenna already has several trusted sources for this offer of mercy. Then, a few weeks later, and again before a large gathering of nobles and commons alike, at the Sept of Balor no less, Joffrey publicly declared that despite Ned's confession and the pleadings of his mother and his betrothed, he ordered Ned killed anyway. This was huge news all across the realm. Ravens flew to Winterfell and Riverrun. Everybody knows this is what happened. Dany finds out about it in Quarth before Sansa and Olenna have their dinner. The idea that Lady O would be in the dark on these momentous events that have just rocked the kingdom is simply untenable. She would have to be the most clueless person on the planet not to know this. And she obviously does know all of this because she says so to Sansa.

Then Sansa talks about the beatings she gets when "I displease him." Well, the mere fact that Sansa has been seen in court with black eyes and bruises is proof positive that Joffrey is behind it. Nobody else in the world could do this to the queen-in-waiting and live. But even if there was any doubt, they were removed following Oxcross where, once again, in full view of the assembled court, again including Lady Olenna's own grandsons, Joffrey ordered Sansa stripped and beaten by the KG.

So Lady O already has multiple trusted sources for all of this, and she obviously knows what happened to Ned. She does not need to learn any of this from a complete stranger like Sansa. So that begs the question, what is she really after here? If you've been reading closely, you'll see that I just gave you the answer. How about the truth about Sansa herself?

We may know all about Sansa's inner character, but look at it from Lady O's perspective. Sansa was born in the frozen north, where there is little to no direct contact between Winterfell and Highgarden. So all she would know about Sansa is whatever official pronouncements came out over the years, or maybe some second-, third- or fourth-hand information from a Royce or a Blackwood. Suddenly, however, Sansa is tapped to become the next queen, and she is presented at court as the pretty, dutiful, proper young daughter of Lord Eddard Stark, all full of practiced courtesies and shadowed by her septa wherever she goes. But Lady O is savvy enough to know that the persona presented at court is not necessarily the real person; in fact, it rarely is. So before Lady O can offer Sansa an important position like Lady of Highgarden -- which has the potential to do great good or great harm to House Tyrell -- she has to know a few things. Is she smart? Does she have a good heart? Is she brave? Or is she stupid? a golddigger? a slut?

By manipulating Sansa in this way (and this is pretty much the way she manipulates everybody, if you look closely) and asking her these questions to which she already knows the answer, Lady O can see for herself if, a) Sansa is a good liar (answer: she's terrible); is she brave (yes, because the only time you can be brave is when you are afraid); does she have a good heart (yes, she risked her own safety by warning a complete stranger to the "danger" she was in).

This was all a test to learn about Sansa, not Joffrey -- and it was right after this that Willas was put on the table.

 

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23 hours ago, Bernie Mac said:

How is it nonsense? What do you think the Tyrell women's inquisition of Sansa about Joffrey's treatment was about?

We don't have a conclusive reason why the Tyrells took out Joffrey, but it seems reasonable, given the actual evidence in the books, that it was due to the idea of Joffrey being a potentially abusive husband.

Olenna does not seem to care for the crown. She advised her son against rebelling in the first place. She may sympathize more with her granddaughter's future than Mace does, and acted independently of him in this matter.

 

 

 

GRRM: In the books – and I make no promises, because I have two more books to write, and I may have more surprises to reveal – the conclusion that the careful reader draws is that Joffrey was killed by the Queen of Thorns, using poison from Sansa's hairnet, so that if anyone did think it was poison, then Sansa would be blamed for it. Sansa had certainly good reason for it.

The reason I bring this up is because that's an interesting question of redemption. That's more like killing Hitler. Does the Queen of Thorns need redemption? Did the Queen of Thorns kill Hitler, or did she murder a 13-year-old boy? Or both? She had good reasons to remove Joffrey. Is it a case where the end justifies the means? I don't know. That's what I want the reader or viewer to wrestle with, and to debate.

Seems to suggest that Joffrey was Olenna's target.

The dinner conversation always takes a little explaining, so I'll clear up the rest of your confusion here.

We do have a conclusive reason why they took out Joffrey. It was an accident. They were trying to kill Tyrion because he represents the real threat to House Tyrell at this point. Joffrey poses no threat to Margaery at all, and they make out much better by waiting for Margaery to bear him an heir or two and then killing him so she becomes Queen Regent rather than waiting five full years before Tommen can even consummate (during which time their "marriage" can be set aside for any reason), and even then she only serves as Tommen's consort, not supreme ruler of all the land in her own right.

Plenty of queens have endured abusive husbands for their crowns, including the two preceding ones. There is no reason to think Margaery can't do the same, particularly since she has already shown how easily she can manipulate Joff. She is a master seductress, having learned from two of the best in the business, Lady O and Lady Merryweather, so there is no reason to think she cannot keep Joffrey in line considering that he is already smitten with her. They will probably kill him long before he becomes a threat to Margaery.

Olenna does not care for the crown? The women who married her daughter to a known gay man, who was shagging Margaery's brother no less, just to get her a crown? The woman who then wed her to a little shit of a Lannister, spewing all this nonsense about her still being a maid, just to get her a crown? The woman who has now wed her to an eight-year-old, just to get her a crown? Even Margaery's name, with the backward ae digraph that is so common among Targaryens, was intended to give her a royal bearing right from birth. Lady O has thought of nothing else but putting a Tyrell arse on the Iron Throne ever since she lost Daeron Targaryen all those years ago. This is the primary, overriding goal of all noble houses: marry your way up the political ladder.

And please don't try to argue that this is all Mace's doing, not Olenna's. It is firmly established in the text that Olenna can hector Mace out of any decision she does not approve of, particularly when it comes to marriage. Every word out of Mace's mouth shows him to be nothing but a bloviating idiot while Lady O is his bossy, overbearing handler. Lady Olenna rules in Highgarden. The gods help them when she's gone.

Your quote literally says he makes no promises for the books. So the careful reader may conclude this about Joffrey, but it is wrong because all the actual facts eliminate the wine as the source of the poison but confirm the pie.

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Castamere was a necessity and made the westerlanders more stable. 

Sack of kings landing was just the casualties of war. If it wasnt Tywin than it would’ve been Ned that sacked kings landing. Only way to prevent a sack is to make the city surrender, which was never going to happen whilst Aerys lived. 

The Red wedding was the only thing that had a negative effect on Westeros. And Tywin kept his hands far away from involving himself in that butchery. 

All tho Tywin encouraged Walder to break guest right. He was never part of the whole scheme of how they’d slaughter everyone. He just wanted Robb dead, northern army dead, and northern hostages (partially successful). Not allot of people are going to point a finger at Tywin since he didn’t do the deed. 

Call Tywin what you will, but his methods of ruthlessness were very efficient, towards westerosi stability.

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It increased the power of the Great Lords and decreased the power of the minor houses.  It would depend upon who you ask.  The Great Lords would say he helped bring on law and order.  The minor houses might say he took away their right to voice.

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