Would the Red Wedding have happen had Stevron not died?

[Alyn Oakenfist]

So from what we know Stevron seems to be in the category of normal sane and not very treachery Freys. So had he lived would he have been able to stop the Red Wedding given that he was Old Walder's heir?

[CamiloRP]

I think he might have been against it, but given the general disregard Walder has for his sons, it wouldn't have mattered. Unless he was able to communicate Walder's plans to the Starks, but I doubt that that would have happened, as I don't think he would have wanted to do it, and if he would have wanted to do it Walder would have imprisoned him until the wedding or just not tell him about it.

[The Young Maester]

Despite stevron being the most influential Frey after walder. No matter what he does, the red wedding would go ahead.
Whether he participates on the butchers work, I don’t know. But It would certainly affect his status as heir to the twins (if he didn’t participate).

But I very much doubt he would betray his own house and spill the beans to robb.

[Canon Claude]

Stevron was in his 60s, he wasn't going to be participating regardless of whether he was in favour of the Red Wedding or against it. He's not going to do any stabbing at his age, and as it's been said, he's probably too decent of a person, like Perwyn, Alesander, and Olyvar, to participate in such a devious and cursed action. Judging by the Siege of Riverrun, Perwyn wasn't punished for his Red Wedding omission, as he's still holding some kind of responsibility and he's actively working alongside the other Freys without any indication that they're punishing him. I imagine the same would have happened with Stevron if he'd been alive.

[kissdbyfire]

Yes, it would have. Now, Tywin’s death could have changed things, as well as Roose’s and Walder’s. 

[Lady Dacey]

31 minutes ago, kissdbyfire said:

Yes, it would have. Now, Tywin’s death could have changed things, as well as Roose’s and Walder’s. 

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A shiver crept up Arya's spine as she watched them pass under the great iron portcullis of Harrenhal. Suddenly she knew that she had made a terrible mistake. I'm so stupid, she thought. Weese did not matter, no more than Chiswyck had. These were the men who mattered, the ones she ought to have killed. Last night she could have whispered any of them dead, if only she hadn't been so mad at Weese for hitting her and lying about the capon. Lord Tywin, why didn't I say Lord Tywin?

[The Commentator]

Ser Stevron died while fighting for the Starks.  Robb Stark paid up by breaking his oath to his family.  Any fair person would understand why the Freys were furious at Robb Stark.  They will also understand why the Freys would break their alliance with the Starks.  The Freys were going to stop supporting Robb Stark after he broke his oath to Walder even if Stevron had lived.  They would have been less angry about it but a way was still needed to buy their way back to the side of the Lannisters.  Staying neutral was not an option for the Freys.  The Tullys and the Starks are brutal.  Just look what the Tullys did to the Goodbrooks for staying loyal to Aerys.  It was also not an option to face the Starks on the battlefield.  Some kind of trick was needed to defeat the Starks.  The red wedding didn't happen just because of feelings.  It was a trick for the weaker Freys to take down the stronger Starks.  The red wedding would still happen because Robb broke his oath to the Freys. 

Walder had only two choices.  Continue to support Robb after the boy broke his oath and humiliated him.  His other choice is to destroy the Starks and the Tullys.  Edmure Tully is not going to say to himself: "My nephew is a good for nothing oathbreaker.  I will let Walder off the hook for leaving the battlefield.  I understand his reason."  The Tullys and the Starks would have destroyed Walder's villages and punished him like they did the Goodbrooks.  Blood is thicker than water.  The Starks and the Tullys would support each other even if they are wrong.  Walder and Roose had to make sure of their safety.  The only way to do that was to destroy the Starks and the Tullys.  Which they can't do in a fair fight. 

[kissdbyfire]

Being furious with the Starks and breaking your alliance to them is one thing. Betraying your allies in the most treacherous, despicable, and cowardly way possible just because you’re a power-hungry petty arsehole w/ an inferiority complex, quite another. Of course, some readers are unwilling or incapable of seeing the distinction. 

[Bernie Mac]

16 minutes ago, kissdbyfire said:

Being furious with the Starks and breaking your alliance to them is one thing. Betraying your allies

Roose was his ally, someone who never betrayed him and he stood by him.

Robb and the Northmen would have slaughtered the Freys in the Westerlands if they thought they could get away with it. I don't see anything wrong with what the Freys did given Robb betrayed first and I don't believe in the gods of Westeros.

16 minutes ago, kissdbyfire said:

 

 

 in the most treacherous, despicable, and cowardly way possible just because you’re a power-hungry petty arsehole w/ an inferiority complex, quite another. Of course, some readers are unwilling or incapable of seeing the distinction. 

Reeeeeeeeeee!

[John Suburbs]

3 hours ago, Alyn Oakenfist said:

So from what we know Stevron seems to be in the category of normal sane and not very treachery Freys. So had he lived would he have been able to stop the Red Wedding given that he was Old Walder's heir?

Your father or your king? It's the same choice Jaime Lannister had to make. Hard to tell how Stevron would have acted, but he was loyal to his father for a lot longer he was loyal to Robb. And it was Robb who broke faith with the Freys, not the other way around . . .

At the very least, I can see Old Walder sending Stev on some errand if he felt he wasn't up to the job.

To me, though, the big question isn't whether the RW would have happened if Stevron lived, but would it have happened if Catelyn hadn't released Jaime?

[Bernie Mac]

3 hours ago, Alyn Oakenfist said:

So from what we know Stevron seems to be in the category of normal sane and not very treachery Freys. So had he lived would he have been able to stop the Red Wedding given that he was Old Walder's heir?

Part of the reason it happened was because Walder lost his heir, the heir he had been grooming for the majority of his life.

Had Stevron and the hundreds upon hundreds of other Frey men not lost their lives then it probably would not have happened. It was not so much the wedding but the fact that the Freys paid for that wedding with their blood and the Robb reneged.

But all the Freys were pissed. Even the 'nice ones' like Perwyn

Something else was wrong as well. On the day her brother returned, a few hours after their argument, she had heard angry voices from the yard below. When she climbed to the roof to see, there were knots of men gathered across the castle beside the main gate. Horses were being led from the stables, saddled and bridled, and there was shouting, though Catelyn was too far away to make out the words. One of Robb's white banners lay on the ground, and one of the knights turned his horse and trampled over the direwolf as he spurred toward the gate. Several others did the same. Those are men who fought with Edmure on the fords, she thought. What could have made them so angry? Has my brother slighted them somehow, given them some insult? She thought she recognized Ser Perwyn Frey, who had traveled with her to Bitterbridge and Storm's End and back, and his bastard half brother Martyn Rivers as well, but from this vantage it was hard to be certain. Close to forty men poured out through the castle gates, to what end she did not know.

 

Similar reactions at Harrenhal and in the Westerlands. The Freys were incrediably pissed with Robb's betrayal.

 

Most in the fandom don't seem to think that any characters other than the ones they like should be capable of having feelings. That is why we get constant conversations of people genuinely puzzled why the Freys are angry, yet have no problem with wanting every Frey and Lannister to die for the actions of a few members. Some people are only able to show empathy for people/characters they like, everyone else is expected to just suck it up.

 

[Lee-Sensei]

57 minutes ago, Widowmaker 811 said:

Ser Stevron died while fighting for the Starks.  Robb Stark paid up by breaking his oath to his family.  Any fair person would understand why the Freys were furious at Robb Stark.  They will also understand why the Freys would break their alliance with the Starks.  The Freys were going to stop supporting Robb Stark after he broke his oath to Walder even if Stevron had lived.  They would have been less angry about it but a way was still needed to buy their way back to the side of the Lannisters.  Staying neutral was not an option for the Freys.  The Tullys and the Starks are brutal.  Just look what the Tullys did to the Goodbrooks for staying loyal to Aerys.  It was also not an option to face the Starks on the battlefield.  Some kind of trick was needed to defeat the Starks.  The red wedding didn't happen just because of feelings.  It was a trick for the weaker Freys to take down the stronger Starks.  The red wedding would still happen because Robb broke his oath to the Freys. 

Walder had only two choices.  Continue to support Robb after the boy broke his oath and humiliated him.  His other choice is to destroy the Starks and the Tullys.  Edmure Tully is not going to say to himself: "My nephew is a good for nothing oathbreaker.  I will let Walder off the hook for leaving the battlefield.  I understand his reason."  The Tullys and the Starks would have destroyed Walder's villages and punished him like they did the Goodbrooks.  Blood is thicker than water.  The Starks and the Tullys would support each other even if they are wrong.  Walder and Roose had to make sure of their safety.  The only way to do that was to destroy the Starks and the Tullys.  Which they can't do in a fair fight. 

The Freys have the strongest individual house in the Riverlands. They didn’t need to attack the Starks to go unpunished. What they did was in no way justifiable. Yes. They had good reasons to be angry, but they should have fought the Starks openly and honestly instead of murdering them under a peace banner.

It seems unlikely that Stevron would be unaware of their plans. He’s Walders heir and the second most important Frey. I doubt that he’d support it though. He’d probably try to argue against it and be sent away. I can’t see him participating. Then again, if Walders first son and heir doesn’t die for a broken promise, maybe Walder wouldn’t have taken such a big risk with Red Wedding.

[broken one]

12 hours ago, Bernie Mac said:

Roose was his ally, someone who never betrayed him and he stood by him.

Whose ally was Roose Bolton, Walders? How long has this "alliance" lasted? It sounds as if they had been best friends since always XD Roose warned Robb against Walder Frey when the northern army approached Twins (aGoT), saying Frey was treacherous and would have imprisoned him and sold to Lannisters . Walder and Roose became partners in crime, nothing more, the 'alliance' was 100% tactical as the circumstances were changing. Roose was loyal only to himself and it just screams from the books.

11 hours ago, Bernie Mac said:

Part of the reason it happened was because Walder lost his heir, the heir he had been grooming for the majority of his life.

Walder treated his offspring as totally disposable, boasting he had many enough so losing few did not make much problem. Check his conversation with Catelyn, He groomed them all within reason, and no more.

When I think of Walder's hurt feelings I got tears in my eyes, for real. Same with Roose. I cried when I read how the miller had got married without his permission. Oh wait, Roose had no feelings!

No matter how GRRM spoon feeds us with info on most Freys and the two living Boltons some readers prefer odd centrism.

It had not much to do with humiliation, much more with the fact Robb was losing imo. Why did Bolton and Frey support King of the North? It is the same story with all bigger state organisms falling to pieces in medieval history - there was a phase called feudal fragmentation. Great lords always supported the process, because it was better to be a big fish in a small pond than a small fish in a big one. In united Westeros these guys were quite unimportant. In the kingdom of the North they could have expected big titles and offices. Since it was all going down after Winterfell had been sacked they knew they had to change sides.

[Bernie Mac]

1 hour ago, broken one said:

Whose ally was Roose Bolton, Walders?

Yes. They made an agreement and so far both parties have stuck to it. Roose Bolton has kept his word to Walder Frey, Robb Stark did not. Roose Bolton made a marriage alliance with Walder Frey, Hoster seemed disgusted by the idea.

Roose Bolton has been a stronger ally to Walder than both the Starks and the Tullys, and in return Walder has supported him.

No one is claiming that Roose is a saint or that he won't eventually turn on the Freys, but he's not going to do it because he found a girl attractive and had to have sex with her while she was his prisoner.

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Walder treated his offspring as totally disposable,

This is exactly what I'm talking about. People who can't accept the fact that characters they don't route for are capable of normal human emotions. It is almost as if you want this to be a fairy tale, with goodies vs baddies.

Walder does not consider his offspring as disposable

His father was querulous and stubborn, with an iron will and a wasp's tongue, but he did believe in taking care of his own. All of his own, even the ones who had displeased and disappointed him. Even the ones whose names he can't remember. Once he was gone, though . . .

When Ser Stevron had been heir, that was one thing. The old man had been grooming Stevron for sixty years, and had pounded it into his head that blood was blood.

 

Walder's actually pissed at Robb's audacity that an apology would be good enough (as we know for a fact that Robb would not accept a simple apology from Joffrey in the same circumstances).

 

What would Your Grace do if Petyr had broken his neck, heh? Give me another apology in place of a grandson?

 

The Freys are just as human as the Starks, capable of emotions. They are not faceless orcs, that is something that GRRM was trying to improve on the many other fantasy books. Sadly whenever these kind of discussions come up there will always be people who do not want to accept that; people who can't understand that Walder has as much of a right to be mad at Robb, as Robb does at Joffrey or fans of Robb have with the Freys.

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It had not much to do with humiliation, much more with the fact Robb was losing imo.

The other excuse. Robb did nothing wrong and they would have turned on him anyway is pretty common.

The Freys would not have committed the Red Wedding simply because Robb was losing. They knew he was losing and wanted to talk sense to him. They would more than likely have backed out, but they'd not have turned on Robb like that. His betryal is what they reacted to.

[Lee-Sensei]

19 minutes ago, Bernie Mac said:

Yes. They made an agreement and so far both parties have stuck to it. Roose Bolton has kept his word to Walder Frey, Robb Stark did not. Roose Bolton made a marriage alliance with Walder Frey, Hoster seemed disgusted by the idea.

Roose Bolton has been a stronger ally to Walder than both the Starks and the Tullys, and in return Walder has supported him.

No one is claiming that Roose is a saint or that he won't eventually turn on the Freys, but he's not going to do it because he found a girl attractive and had to have sex with her while she was his prisoner.

This is exactly what I'm talking about. People who can't accept the fact that characters they don't route for are capable of normal human emotions. It is almost as if you want this to be a fairy tale, with goodies vs baddies.

Walder does not consider his offspring as disposable

His father was querulous and stubborn, with an iron will and a wasp's tongue, but he did believe in taking care of his own. All of his own, even the ones who had displeased and disappointed him. Even the ones whose names he can't remember. Once he was gone, though . . .

When Ser Stevron had been heir, that was one thing. The old man had been grooming Stevron for sixty years, and had pounded it into his head that blood was blood.

 

Walder's actually pissed at Robb's audacity that an apology would be good enough (as we know for a fact that Robb would not accept a simple apology from Joffrey in the same circumstances).

 

What would Your Grace do if Petyr had broken his neck, heh? Give me another apology in place of a grandson?

 

The Freys are just as human as the Starks, capable of emotions. They are not faceless orcs, that is something that GRRM was trying to improve on the many other fantasy books. Sadly whenever these kind of discussions come up there will always be people who do not want to accept that; people who can't understand that Walder has as much of a right to be mad at Robb, as Robb does at Joffrey or fans of Robb have with the Freys.

The other excuse. Robb did nothing wrong and they would have turned on him anyway is pretty common.

The Freys would not have committed the Red Wedding simply because Robb was losing. They knew he was losing and wanted to talk sense to him. They would more than likely have backed out, but they'd not have turned on Robb like that. His betryal is what they reacted to.

I’m pretty sure that George has said that the Red Wedding wouldn’t have happened if Robb hadn’t dishonoured them by marrying a Jeyne over a Frey girl.

[James West]

7 hours ago, John Suburbs said:

Your father or your king? It's the same choice Jaime Lannister had to make. Hard to tell how Stevron would have acted, but he was loyal to his father for a lot longer he was loyal to Robb. And it was Robb who broke faith with the Freys, not the other way around . . .

At the very least, I can see Old Walder sending Stev on some errand if he felt he wasn't up to the job.

To me, though, the big question isn't whether the RW would have happened if Stevron lived, but would it have happened if Catelyn hadn't released Jaime?

That's a good one.  My opinion is a no, it would not happen with Jaime in Stark custody.  Tywin would not risk his golden son.

[Bronn Urgandy]

What’s Stevron going to do to stop it though? The old man authorised it and people like Black Walder are backing it, all poor Stevron can do is ring his hands because even he would know, deep down, that the Frey’s need to prove their newfound loyalty. It’s not like it would have been had it happened in peacetime, where Robbs honour would have been stained but there wouldn’t be a thing the Frey’s could do about it, except make wisecracks and maybe old Lord Walder could fart in Robbs pillowcase

[Angel Eyes]

On 10/19/2020 at 3:01 PM, John Suburbs said:

Your father or your king? It's the same choice Jaime Lannister had to make. Hard to tell how Stevron would have acted, but he was loyal to his father for a lot longer he was loyal to Robb. And it was Robb who broke faith with the Freys, not the other way around . . .

At the very least, I can see Old Walder sending Stev on some errand if he felt he wasn't up to the job.

To me, though, the big question isn't whether the RW would have happened if Stevron lived, but would it have happened if Catelyn hadn't released Jaime?

I'd say unlikely. On the other hand, would Catelyn have been desperate enough to Jaime if Robb made an attempts to rescue Sansa and Arya from King's Landing? Ned would never have left Lyanna to die like that.

[John Suburbs]

17 minutes ago, Angel Eyes said:

I'd say unlikely. On the other hand, would Catelyn have been desperate enough to Jaime if Robb made an attempts to rescue Sansa and Arya from King's Landing? Ned would never have left Lyanna to die like that.

I can't imagine how such a rescue attempt would work. Look at all the trouble Petyr had to go through to get Sansa out. And nobody even knows where Arya is.

And if Lyanna was being held in King's Landing, there isn't much Ned could have done about it. Look what happened to Brandon and Rickard when they tried.

[TheLastWolf]

On 10/19/2020 at 9:49 PM, The Young Maester said:

But I very much doubt he would betray his own house and spill the beans to robb.

When his blood was planning something so horrible that would stain their already shitty name for eternity? 

I think otherwise 

On 10/20/2020 at 3:28 AM, Bernie Mac said:

The Freys would not have committed the Red Wedding simply because Robb was losing. They knew he was losing and wanted to talk sense to him. They would more than likely have backed out, but they'd not have turned on Robb like that. His betryal is what they reacted to.