Why do people hate these starks

[Daenerysthegreat]

31 minutes ago, Springwatch said:

I'm curious, what was the bribe? Her wedding dress? Winterfell?

When did sansa take or give a bribe. She hasn't even been married to harry the heir yet

[SeanF]

36 minutes ago, Springwatch said:

I'm curious, what was the bribe? Her wedding dress? Winterfell?

Aunt Lysa's dresses and jewels are her reward for lying on behalf of Littlefinger.  Like most corruptors, he offers both threats and rewards.

[Springwatch]

37 minutes ago, SeanF said:

Aunt Lysa's dresses and jewels are her reward for lying on behalf of Littlefinger.  Like most corruptors, he offers both threats and rewards.

There's no sign of LF offering a deal like that  (dresses and jewels in return for compliance). If there's no deal, she's not accepting a bribe. She has to comply anyway - there's three ways she could get dead here: LF murders her to keep her quiet, the Vale lords condemn her as a murderer's accomplice, or the Vale Lords expose her as Sansa the Regicide.

The rich gifts are all about grooming, not bribery.

[SeanF]

29 minutes ago, Springwatch said:

There's no sign of LF offering a deal like that  (dresses and jewels in return for compliance). If there's no deal, she's not accepting a bribe. She has to comply anyway - there's three ways she could get dead here: LF murders her to keep her quiet, the Vale lords condemn her as a murderer's accomplice, or the Vale Lords expose her as Sansa the Regicide.

The rich gifts are all about grooming, not bribery.

The deal is implicit, not explicit.  Don't snitch on me, and you can enjoy your aunt's possessions.  You scratch my back, I'll scratch yours.

I agree she's between a rock and a hard place.  For her, the risks of revealing the man's crimes are terrifying.  But, she is becoming an accessory to his crimes, and he is rewarding her.  The vast majority of the blame in this situation lies with Littlefinger.   I do think he will try to draw her further into his schemes, and attempt to get her to play an active role in Sweetrobin's demise, holding out the prospect of becoming Lady of the Vale.

[Springwatch]

7 minutes ago, SeanF said:

The deal is implicit, not explicit.  Don't snitch on me, and you can enjoy your aunt's possessions.

I agree she's between a rock and a hard place.  For her, the risks of revealing the man's crimes are terrifying.  But, she is becoming an accessory to his crimes, and he is rewarding her.  The vast majority of the blame in this situation lies with Littlefinger.   I do think he will try to draw her further into his schemes, and attempt to get her to play an active role in Sweetrobin's demise, holding out the prospect of becoming Lady of the Vale.

There's no deal yet - the gifts, the lies: her hand is forced every time. All the blame lies with Littlefinger.

But I agree he wants to mould her, manipulate her. Make her more like him, less like a Stark.

 

[Mourning Star]

17 hours ago, Arthur Peres said:

I don't think if fair to call Robb a fool. He was just facing impossible odds from the start. He had a giant shoes to fill, against a enemy that most people were terrified, he was cut off from anyone that could support him, his mother went crazy with grieve, his brother are send away, or too young, his sisters and father are prisoners, he is betrayed by his vassals(Frey, Bolton and Karstarks), his family (Catelyn freeing Jaime), his best friend (Theon).  

People give him too much crap... but there is no one that could win on his situation, everything that could go wrong went worse...

"all men are fools, and all men are knights, where women are concerned."

Kings doubly so!

Calling him a fool is perhaps a little bit dramatic, I'm not saying he's stupid, but rather honorable and brave to the point of foolishness. 

I'm not big on hypotheticals, but I'm not sure Robb was doomed from the beginning, certainly had he not tried to save the Riverlands, the war would seem much more manageable. I bring this up, because the order Ned gives Cat, to keep Theon close and hold the Neck, would seem the obvious alternatives to the Young Wolfs mad campaign south.

Dealing with the Frey's is a colossal blunder from the start, and I hate to come back to Cat again, but she should have know better. It's a prime example of her abysmal ability to asses character. Between Littlefinger and the Late Lord Frey, she convinces her husband and son to trust men she should well know can't be trusted and in both cases this is arguably the single largest factor in their deaths. Not to mention releasing Jaime, talk about oblivious and selfish. Cat even encouraged Rob to trust Roose Bolton, ooof. In one breath she tells Rob these men are not his friends, and in the next that he should give up a large part of his army to a man with cold cunning. If you want a hypothetical, I'd ask, if the Catspaw assassin had killed Cat, would Ned and Rob have died?

But, Rob can't escape all the blame, at the end of the day he wore the crown.

Rhaegar fought valiantly, Rhaegar fought nobly, Rhaegar fought honorably. And Rhaegar died.

And the same can be said of Rob, it's not even really a knock, nobody sings songs about old men who die in their sleep. But by the same token, there's a bit of foolishness on the other side of that coin. We all have to live, and die, by our own choices.

He's a pretty great example of a classical tragic character, doomed by his own choices, even if he was trying to do what was right. IMO anyway.

[Springwatch]

8 minutes ago, Mourning Star said:

I bring this up, because the order Ned gives Cat, to keep Theon close and hold the Neck, would seem the obvious alternatives to the Young Wolfs mad campaign south.

I don't remember, have you got a quote for this?

9 minutes ago, Mourning Star said:

If you want a hypothetical, I'd ask, if the Catspaw assassin had killed Cat, would Ned and Rob have died?

Yes.

[Daenerysthegreat]

12 minutes ago, Springwatch said:

I don't remember, have you got a quote for this?

Yes.

It is in catelyn 4 agot I think

[Mourning Star]

25 minutes ago, Springwatch said:

I don't remember, have you got a quote for this?

When the door had closed behind him, Ned turned back to his wife. "Once you are home, send word to Helman Tallhart and Galbart Glover under my seal. They are to raise a hundred bowmen each and fortify Moat Cailin. Two hundred determined archers can hold the Neck against an army. Instruct Lord Manderly that he is to strengthen and repair all his defenses at White Harbor, and see that they are well manned. And from this day on, I want a careful watch kept over Theon Greyjoy. If there is war, we shall have sore need of his father's fleet."

A Game of Thrones - Eddard IV

[Springwatch]

28 minutes ago, Mourning Star said:

When the door had closed behind him, Ned turned back to his wife. "Once you are home, send word to Helman Tallhart and Galbart Glover under my seal. They are to raise a hundred bowmen each and fortify Moat Cailin. Two hundred determined archers can hold the Neck against an army. Instruct Lord Manderly that he is to strengthen and repair all his defenses at White Harbor, and see that they are well manned. And from this day on, I want a careful watch kept over Theon Greyjoy. If there is war, we shall have sore need of his father's fleet."

A Game of Thrones - Eddard IV

To be fair, she did beg Robb to keep Theon close.

[Mourning Star]

32 minutes ago, Springwatch said:

To be fair, she did beg Robb to keep Theon close.

Yes, but not very strongly...

 "There was no one else."
"No one?" she said. "Pray, who were those men I saw here a moment ago? Roose Bolton, Rickard Karstark, Galbart and Robett Glover, the Greatjon, Helman Tallhart … you might have given the command to any of them. Gods be good, you might even have sent Theon, though he would not be my choice."

A Game of Thrones - Catelyn VIII

She might have mentioned what Ned said to keep Theon guarded and why, or you know, not suggest giving Theon command of the army! Which at least Rob didn't do. Also, might have mentioned the men Ned clearly trusted, Tallhart and Glover, as they might have been obvious choices to trust with command, as opposed to say, Roose Bolton.

At the end of the day it was Rob's mistake to trust Theon as far as he did, as was trusting Frey and Roose, but Cat really didn't help much where it seems like she really should have been able to. Although, to her credit, she absolutely tried to get Rob to send someone other than Theon.

But even Rob's justification for trusting in and sending Theon fits the noble fool archetype, and just maybe, Theon will end up redeeming himself in the end.

[Arthur Peres]

11 hours ago, WhatAnArtist! said:

- Sending Theon to Pike despite there being the very real risk that he would defect when he reached his real family and was pressured to conform to their culture - exactly as Catelyn warned, and exactly as it ended up.

 

This can be a mistake, but is also a show of good will to a future ally. For example LF wanted both of the Redwyne twins free to propose the alliance with the Tyrells.

This folly is not on Robb but on Balon, that failed to reconize that they were natural allys, and made the most non sense move in the series...attack the only person willing to reconize his titles.

11 hours ago, WhatAnArtist! said:

- Breaking his marriage agreement with the Freys, a severe insult and a dishonourable action - yes, marrying Jeyne was also honourable in its own way, but breaking your word with a powerful lord is a big no-no, and Robb should have known that. He knew how unreliable Walder Frey was, and how important he was for the war cause. Robb should have thought about the practical consequences of this.

 

This was a big mistake, but the only change it made it was that he changed a death on the battlefield for one at the RW. GRRM said himself that Walder would not keep fighting for a lost cause and would disassociate himself from Robb. He couldn't return north without the Freys or Lysa since the IB controlled the Moat, he would just stayed trapped in the riverlands and die on the battle facing overwhelming numbers.

11 hours ago, WhatAnArtist! said:

- Executing Karstark. Yes, it absolutely was the honourable thing to do, and Eddard would have approved and probably done the same,  but as Martin is apt to remind us, the honourable thing is often not the smart thing. Losing the entire strength of one of your most powerful bannermen over the death of a couple of hostages was not a good trade-off from a pragmatic point of view. 

 

This had no major repercution, the Karstarks already betrayed him, he send his cavalry to raid the riverlands before Robb past the judment, and Robb as a fresh and young lord, cannot tolerate a bannerman going so much against him without losing face. If Karstark could get away with that, what would stop others from flipping on him too? That was not right anwser in that situation, damn if you do, damn if you don't.

11 hours ago, WhatAnArtist! said:

Ultimately, Robb's downfall was the same as Eddard's - he put honour over pragmatism, and paid the price for it. No one disputes that Robb had a strong sense of personal honour, but I don't think it's accurate to say he wasn't foolish. Look at the situation at the start of ACoK compared to midway through ASoS - at the start of ACoK, he'd won every battle he'd fought, routed the Lannisters several times, had the full strength of the North and the riverlands with him, and his own homeland was completely protected. But because of the three decisions listed above, by midway through ASoS - despite still not having lost any battles - he: had lost parts of the North to the Greyjoys and had his capital burned down because of Theon, had turned Walder Frey into a ruthless enemy (the most strategically important of all the riverlands lords), and had lost a sizable part of his Northern host because of executing his own bannerman. No wonder the Lannisters felt so confident in beating him.

 

Yes, he was winning at the start of Clash and by the end of it he lost, but he didn't made any mistakes (maybe Theon on your vision) that putted him there. He tried and did everything on his power to win, he almost did until Edmure arguibly F things up. 

The move that doomed Robb was Winterfell, and he can be blamed for sending Theon to Balon, but I don't think is fair to expect that major backlash for such a action. Even more when considering that Balon and Robb had the same goal of Indepence.

11 hours ago, WhatAnArtist! said:

I disagree with your claim that he was facing "impossible odds to begin with". He had the full strength of the North and the riverlands behind him, and his early victories gave him a strong strategic position. Additionally, until midway through ACoK, he was fighting only one enemy - the Lannisters, focused mostly on the south-western front. The Lannisters, on the other hand, were having to defend themselves on three different fronts - north against the Starks and Tullys, east against Stannis, and south against Renly. It's the Lannisters that were in the abysmally bad position until the victory at Blackwater.

But he was facing impossible odds. He never had the full strenght of the North and Riverlands. He marched on hasty from the North and did not brought everything, and the forces of the Riverlands were already badly beaten before he even arrived thanks to Edmure's leadership. Robb never had control of the full of the Riverlands for example... at the high of his power he only had 30k men to work with...

Robb had two natural allys, Lysa (by blood) and Balon (by goals), the first completly shuts him down, and the later turned on him.

He could never save Renly, and for that reason he is stuck not only fighting the Lannisters but also the Tyrells... since Stannis botched the battle of Blackwater, even the Stormlords join Joffrey and the dornish already had declared nominal support for the Lannisters. Robb by the end of Clash was facing the whole realm by his own, and his forces were already expended, without controlling the North or the Riverlands, with part of his vassals turning on him.

[Lord Lannister]

5 hours ago, SeanF said:

Aunt Lysa's dresses and jewels are her reward for lying on behalf of Littlefinger.  Like most corruptors, he offers both threats and rewards.

I think you're reaching there. The gift, if you want to call it that Sansa didn't exactly have a choice about taking it, was for Littlefinger tin ingratiate himself to Sansa. Not a corrupt bargain on her part. 

[Arthur Peres]

4 hours ago, Mourning Star said:

I'm not big on hypotheticals, but I'm not sure Robb was doomed from the beginning, certainly had he not tried to save the Riverlands, the war would seem much more manageable. I bring this up, because the order Ned gives Cat, to keep Theon close and hold the Neck, would seem the obvious alternatives to the Young Wolfs mad campaign south.

 

He cannot leave the Riverlands, he is trapped there after the IB took Moat Callin. He also needs to beat the Lannister army enough to force them to return Sansa and Arya to him.

4 hours ago, Mourning Star said:

Dealing with the Frey's is a colossal blunder from the start, and I hate to come back to Cat again, but she should have know better. It's a prime example of her abysmal ability to asses character. Between Littlefinger and the Late Lord Frey, she convinces her husband and son to trust men she should well know can't be trusted and in both cases this is arguably the single largest factor in their deaths. Not to mention releasing Jaime, talk about oblivious and selfish. Cat even encouraged Rob to trust Roose Bolton, ooof. In one breath she tells Rob these men are not his friends, and in the next that he should give up a large part of his army to a man with cold cunning. 

 

Robb did not have the option to ignore the Freys... at the time he was rushing because of Edmure's failures, and he wanted to rescue his father... the rest I agree, Catelyn freeing Jaime probably was the last nail on Robb's coffin, and trusting LF is a no no, and I am on the team that belives that Roose botched the battle of the Greenfork on purpose.

4 hours ago, Mourning Star said:

And the same can be said of Rob, it's not even really a knock, nobody sings songs about old men who die in their sleep. But by the same token, there's a bit of foolishness on the other side of that coin. We all have to live, and die, by our own choices.

 

Well, Robb did not had a choice... he was pushed into a war because Ned blundered his way in KL, and Catelyn started the agression by kidnaping/arresting Tyrion.

He tried getting allies and ended up with more enemies, he trusted his friend and family and was betrayed by both... everything that could go bad for him went worse... if he wasn't doomed from the start, he has the worst luck on the books.

[Arthur Peres]

4 hours ago, Mourning Star said:

If you want a hypothetical, I'd ask, if the Catspaw assassin had killed Cat, would Ned and Rob have died?

It would not change much on Ned... he never really trusted LF and only relied on him for lack of alternative. Ned had the chance to win but turned it down when he refused Renly.

Hard to say about Robb... He was very imature in AGoT... how would he react if his mother is killed? if the Catspaw is catch and tortured to confess that he was hired by Joffrey, things would escalete very quickly. Maybe with this he would start the real war instead of the Lannisters...but imagine the general confusion when Robb starts to raise a army to march south...

[Mourning Star]

3 minutes ago, Arthur Peres said:

He cannot leave the Riverlands, he is trapped there after the IB took Moat Callin. He also needs to beat the Lannister army enough to force them to return Sansa and Arya to him.

I think there is a misunderstanding here, I mean never going south to lift the siege of Riverrun.

3 minutes ago, Arthur Peres said:

Robb did not have the option to ignore the Freys... at the time he was rushing because of Edmure's failures, and he wanted to rescue his father... the rest I agree, Catelyn freeing Jaime probably was the last nail on Robb's coffin, and trusting LF is a no no, and I am on the team that belives that Roose botched the battle of the Greenfork on purpose.

I disagree, but again, not worth getting to far into hypotheticals, and I don't think we are really even talking about the same hypothetical.

3 minutes ago, Arthur Peres said:

Well, Robb did not had a choice... he was pushed into a war because Ned blundered his way in KL, and Catelyn started the agression by kidnaping/arresting Tyrion.

There is always a choice.

3 minutes ago, Arthur Peres said:

He tried getting allies and ended up with more enemies, he trusted his friend and family and was betrayed by both... everything that could go bad for him went worse... if he wasn't doomed from the start, he has the worst luck on the books.

I don't think it's really luck, and everyone faces adversity. At the end of the day everyone is responsible for their own actions, no mater the mitigating circumstances, otherwise there is no free will and what are we even talking about.

The deck may have been stacked against him, but it was still his own choices that doomed him, in classic tragic fashion.

[Mourning Star]

13 minutes ago, Arthur Peres said:

It would not change much on Ned... he never really trusted LF and only relied on him for lack of alternative. Ned had the chance to win but turned it down when he refused Renly.

I wildly disagree. Ned wouldn't end up trusting Littlefinger, something that is explicitly because of Cat. Not to mention, that if Cat is dead, Tyrion never get's kidnapped, and Jaime never attacks Ned and the Mountain is never sent to burn the Riverlands. Robert doesn't end up hiding from court and the conflict by hunting in the woods where he got killed... and perhaps Stannis has time to answer Ned. Lots would change, but I don't want to dive to deep down the rabbit hole. It gets pointless quickly.

Quote

Hard to say about Robb... He was very imature in AGoT... how would he react if his mother is killed? if the Catspaw is catch and tortured to confess that he was hired by Joffrey, things would escalete very quickly. Maybe with this he would start the real war instead of the Lannisters...but imagine the general confusion when Robb starts to raise a army to march south...

There is no evidence that Jof sent the catspaw assassin and that never made any sense anyway. All the evidence (and there isn't much) points to Mance being behind the attempt. This is low key one of the most certain upcoming twists to be revealed.

But, if Cat dies I sort of assumed the assassin got away with it... in which case Rob may well assume it was the Lannisters. Anyway, it's all hypothetical nonsense. 

[Aejohn the Conqueroo]

On 9/29/2021 at 11:12 PM, Lord Lannister said:

The child did nothing wrong. She has every right to be mad Ned "cheated" on her. She was perfectly fine being lovey dovey with Ned even while that reminder was walking around. If she had the courage of her convictions she would've taken it out on Ned and not Jon. But you know, Ned could stand up for himself the way a child couldn't.

Jon was like a compartment that she could put all of her anger towards Ned into and then absolve Ned himself. If some readers have an idealized version of Ned, Catlyn Stark's POV's probably contributed towards that because her version of the man is incredibly idealized and probably, crucially incomplete. Truth of the matter is that Ned was horribly cruel to her for telling her Jon was his and having her raise him and just as cruel each year as they went by and he kept the secret. It was cruel to Jon as well, arguably the whole Stark household.

 

[Lord Lannister]

6 minutes ago, Aejohn the Conqueroo said:

Jon was like a compartment that she could put all of her anger towards Ned into and then absolve Ned himself. If some readers have an idealized version of Ned, Catlyn Stark's POV's probably contributed towards that because her version of the man is incredibly idealized and probably, crucially incomplete. Truth of the matter is that Ned was horribly cruel to her for telling her Jon was his and having her raise him and just as cruel each year as they went by and he kept the secret. It was cruel to Jon as well, arguably the whole Stark household.

 

That's an odd sort of compartmentalization. I think it's just as simple as you can tell a lot about someone by the way they treat people they don't have to be nice to. If Catelyn took it out on Ned, it would look bad on her as a wife and could have consequences. If she takes it out on the child, he can't do anything about it. 

As to Ned being wantonly cruel, I think that's reaching. Ned certainly has a lot of character flaws. In some ways he's naive and certainly isn't flexible in his world views. We still don't know the fine details on how things went down but I think he was trying to do right by everyone as best he could and just didn't think things through. I get keeping quiet about it at first, he barely knew Catelyn. However over 15 years of marriage at some point Ned should've discovered he could've trusted Catelyn with his deepest secret. 

[Aejohn the Conqueroo]

15 hours ago, SeanF said:

Sending someone to the Wall is sending him to his death, unless he’s very lucky.  That’s why it’s used as an alternative to the death penalty.  Almost everyone there is a criminal.

Jon only survived by a succession of flukes.

It makes sense to send him there, however, if you want to get an unwanted relative out of the way.

There was nothing to stop Ned, a very wealthy man, from granting lands to Jon.  Nor from providing him with armour, horses and weapons, and sending him to be a squire for a lord in the North or Vale.  

Catelyn gets a lot of stick for her treatment of Jon, but Ned's the one who really did not do right by him.

I agree except to the point that Ned probably had reason to believe that Jon would get special treatment as a son of Winterfell at the Wall and wouldn't endure the worst of the life of a night's watchman. I wonder if he had always thought to send him to the wall or if that was a convenience he couldn't turn down when it came up, believing that leaving him with Cat at Winterfell was untenable.