Why did people of Stoney Sept help Robert?

[StarksInTheNorth]

Up to that point Robert had wine every battle, depending on who is telling the narrative. Gulltown, Summerhall (x3), and Ashford was a dubious victory. If it looks to the small folk that he might actually win, they would maybe want to be seen as loyal and support him. 

[John Suburbs]

22 hours ago, frenin said:

No, he attacked settlements with military value. He went there to attack loyalists. He didn't attack them out of spite when the battle was lost.

Robb was out there in the Westerlands making them pay in kind, yet I have a very hard time seeing him attacking people with no beef with him.

Military value? A little village, out in the middle of nowhere? And all because their lord remained a loyalist? I doubt very much that even a single villager did anything disloyal to Hoster, but he sacked and burned the place anyway. Sounds like spite to me.

Plus, the Battle of the Bells did not end the war. If Stoney Sept was a seat of loyalism, Hoster would burn it, not because of spite but because of its military value.

 

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Is it now?? Hoster did kill Lord Goodbrok but he didn't end his line and he made his peace with the son.

Right. Tywin ended the Reyne and Tarbeck lines. I was responding to you comment that not even Tywin would attack his own people, and yet he did, to a worse extent than Hoster.

 

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Is it now?? We're never told.  Not big enough to provide a solid hideout tho.

It's a walled town with a market square and a fountain and a stout holdfast, inns, brothels . . .   It's at a key trading spot. There was fierce street fighting during the BotB. Yes, it's a big town, on the order of Saltpans.

 

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This assuming that there was an actual safest place or that JonCon didn't have a men or two in every searched site nearby. You're assuming way too much.

Your the one who said it was a methodical search. Methodical is predictable.

 

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Maybe, or it just indicates that the search forced them to do so without help. As said. It's not unlikely.

It is however, pretty difficult to believe.

If JonCon was just searching through the city, methodically, house by house, then they wouldn't have to move him so much. Just find the farthest place from the search, and move him only if/when the search got close. The fact that they kept moving him means JonCon was getting close, repeatedly. And the only way he could do this repeatedly is that he was getting tipped off to where Robert was.

 

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That has little to do with him remembering whether he received help or not. That's one way to dismiss a primary source.

Yes, JonCon's recollections are unreliable. That was my point.

[Lord Lannister]

2 hours ago, John Suburbs said:

Yes, JonCon's recollections are unreliable. That was my point.

I think this as well. His thought that Robert had to be moving from place to place because his men couldn't find him seems self fabricated to justify his failure in his head. If you're trying to avoid being seen the last thing you want to be doing is constantly moving around.

[Ivashanko]

On 11/1/2021 at 4:30 PM, Loose Bolt said:

Money.

 

I suspect this is going to be a significant part of whatever the answer is. That and Holster obviously had some friends in the city.

 

JonCon is universalising blame, but it is much more likely that Robert was saved by a relatively small group of people.

[BRANDON GREYSTARK]

On 10/31/2021 at 4:03 PM, EggBlue said:

 

I might have missed something since I'm not done rereading the books but I can't figure out why people of this town were so loyal to Robert Baratheon .

now Stoney Sept is big town , not a small village. so how did Robert won every single one of the smallfolk over? he does seem to have been a charismatic leader in his youth .... but that much? 

It would have made perfect sense if Stoney Sept was in Stormlands considering that it seems Robert had been a good Lord, but it is in Riverlands which I think hadn't even openly declared for Robert in that time yet .

It would have been also understandable if Aerys's mental health was so commonly known that his subjects secretly loathed him . still that doesn't seem to be the case since his reign was supposedly prosperous for the smallfolk and his madness was only for the nobles he thought to be enemies.

It would have even made sense if Connington was unpopular among citizens of this specific town but he was a lord from another land and he was recently made hand. they didn't seem to have any reason to defy him... I thought he might have been too harsh since the beginning of the search but then again Jon also thinks of how he offered rewards . and even if he didn't and was just hanging people from the start, why would they defend a foreign rebel lord instead of saving their own people?

 

does anyone have any idea or clue? 

OR ...  do you think Martin didn't really thought of that and wanted to have a traumatized JonCon who had done everything in his power before so is now potentially ruthless? 

Robert was tall ,good looking ,had money and was wounded , but nobody knew him on sight .

[Seams]

I have a few guesses based on literary clues and on the history of the town.

The literary clues come from the bell / rebellion wordplay, The Peach symbolism as well as an anagram: Stoney Sept = One Step Sty.

If you look at the wiki summary of Stoney Sept's role in Westeros history, they often support rebels. The "bell" wordplay may tell us that the town tends to support rebellion.

There are a lot of details still to pin down, but I have been putting a lot of thought into peach symbolism recently. One of the key clues for me is a line from Ser Eustace in The Sworn Sword about the Lannisters wanting to take a bite out of the Reach, referring to an attempted invasion and takeover that was narrowly defeated by a relatively minor noble from House Osgrey. I believe that Reach and Peach symbolism are connected.

• In their all-important meeting in the Winterfell crypt, Robert tells Ned he has brought peaches from the Reach as a gift and that they represent the reason Ned should move south to become the Hand of the King.
• Brienne believes that Gendry is the spitting image of (a reborn) Renly. Renly famously ate a peach after offering it to Stannis, who rejected it.
• Robert's natural daughter, Bella (another bell symbol) tries to seduce Gendry at the Peach. 
• Gendry stops Biter from eating more of Brienne's cheek (a symbolic peach) by stabbing Biter through the back of his head. 
• Gendry is a member of the the BwB. Stoney Sept likes the BwB. The BwB were originally sworn to serve King Robert. 
• Peaches have pits. The Peach brothel may be a symbolic dragon pit or fighting pit or some kind of pit. (Related to "the seed is strong" symbolism? Dragonseeds? The Baratheon line began as bastard Targaryens, aka dragon seeds.) This is important because the three main hills of King's Landing host the Red Keep, the Dragon Pit and Baelor's Sept. If one of the "games" of the Game of Thrones is to conquer those three landmarks, earning the support of Stoney Sept may provide symbolic victory for the "sept" and the "pit," leaving only the Red Keep to be mastered. 
• Of course a pit can also be called a stone. So the Stoney Sept might be a place that worships peach pits. 

The phrase "one step and then another," or variations on that phrase, appear in several important POVs: Jon Snow, Sam Tarly, Sansa / Alayne. Arya hides her sword, Needle, behind a stone step. She also washes stone steps at Harrenhal. Theon remembers learning to fight on stone steps and running into Old Nan and knocking her down on the stone steps in a Winterfell tower. It seems that GRRM uses stone steps or the "one step" metaphor to show how characters make major efforts to make progress in their journeys. I imagine, if the steps decide to "help" you in your journey, you would have an advantage. 

It's interesting that Stonesnake leads Jon Snow in his "one step" journey (the name Stonesnake may be tied to the Stoney symbolism) and Mya Stone leads Alayne on her "one step" journey down from the Eyrie. 

The leftover "sty" letters in the possible "Stoney Sept = One Step Sty" anagram might refer to the pig symbolism in the books. Robert is associated with pig symbolism (I believe) because of puns on "rob / boar" and his eventual death due to a boar attack. Ned asks Robert to spare the direwolf Lady because of the love he "bore" his sister (or something along those lines - I can't remember the exact context of that line). At any rate, a "sty" is a place that a pig would live. There may be pig symbolism associated with Stoney Sept that leads the town to favor a leader with a symbolic pig connection.

GRRM has given us additional layers of meaning in Stoney Sept - Connington mentions that he sent men through the sewers to search: I believe sewers tie into the "flow / wolf / fowl / flower" symbolism in the books. They also connect to sewing and to the "we do not sow" words which, in turn, connect to the idea of sowing seeds (see peach pit, above) and, through a pun, back to female pigs which are called sows. 

The trout fountain has to allude to the Tully sigil - and the Riverlands is also tied to the "flow" motif and explains why Catelyn (flow) and Ned (wolf) may have made such a good match. But Catelyn is an important mother figure in the books, in a world where The Mother is one of the seven aspects of the gods. At Edmure Tully's wedding, people joke about the trout as a phallic symbol. It might be that the trout and fountain together make a complete fertility symbol, male and female, telling us that an important "birth" will occur in the town. As the headwaters of the Blackwater Rush river, there is further fertility symbolism at the site. (And the river flows to King's Landing, giving it a special link to the seat of the king.) 

But there is also an interesting possibility that is a new thought for me: Vaes Dothrak is the "womb of the world" and also has statues and holy places like Stoney Sept. What if Stoney Sept, with the fountain and the trout statue is symbolic of the kind of "birth of a king" role we see at Vaes Dothrak? Once the Dosh Khaleen have identified the Stallion that Mounts the World, that baby is going to be the next great ruler and they would not easily change their minds just because a guy like Jon Connington wants them to. If the people of Stoney Sept chose Robert as the next king, maybe they felt a loyalty to him similar to the legitimacy bestowed by the Dosh Khaleen when they choose a future Khal.

Finally:

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What sort of king was that, who would hide behind the skirts of women? (ADwD, Chap. 61, The Griffon Reborn)

I took a look at one point at the way the author uses references to rustling skirts or hiding behind skirts. It is strongly associated with a king's relationship to his mother: Robb hiding behind Catelyn, Joffrey hiding behind Cersei. So Robert hiding behind the skirts of women at Stoney Sept might tell us that he is destined to be a king. 

Interestingly, though, the first reference to rustling skirts in ASOIAF refers to Septa Mordane at Winterfell. Is she a secret queen? Who is hiding behind her skirts?

[Universal Sword Donor]

20 hours ago, Seams said:

I have a few guesses based on literary clues and on the history of the town.

The literary clues come from the bell / rebellion wordplay, The Peach symbolism as well as an anagram: Stoney Sept = One Step Sty.

If you look at the wiki summary of Stoney Sept's role in Westeros history, they often support rebels. The "bell" wordplay may tell us that the town tends to support rebellion.

There are a lot of details still to pin down, but I have been putting a lot of thought into peach symbolism recently. One of the key clues for me is a line from Ser Eustace in The Sworn Sword about the Lannisters wanting to take a bite out of the Reach, referring to an attempted invasion and takeover that was narrowly defeated by a relatively minor noble from House Osgrey. I believe that Reach and Peach symbolism are connected.

• In their all-important meeting in the Winterfell crypt, Robert tells Ned he has brought peaches from the Reach as a gift and that they represent the reason Ned should move south to become the Hand of the King.
• Brienne believes that Gendry is the spitting image of (a reborn) Renly. Renly famously ate a peach after offering it to Stannis, who rejected it.
• Robert's natural daughter, Bella (another bell symbol) tries to seduce Gendry at the Peach. 
• Gendry stops Biter from eating more of Brienne's cheek (a symbolic peach) by stabbing Biter through the back of his head. 
• Gendry is a member of the the BwB. Stoney Sept likes the BwB. The BwB were originally sworn to serve King Robert. 
• Peaches have pits. The Peach brothel may be a symbolic dragon pit or fighting pit or some kind of pit. (Related to "the seed is strong" symbolism? Dragonseeds? The Baratheon line began as bastard Targaryens, aka dragon seeds.) This is important because the three main hills of King's Landing host the Red Keep, the Dragon Pit and Baelor's Sept. If one of the "games" of the Game of Thrones is to conquer those three landmarks, earning the support of Stoney Sept may provide symbolic victory for the "sept" and the "pit," leaving only the Red Keep to be mastered. 
• Of course a pit can also be called a stone. So the Stoney Sept might be a place that worships peach pits. 

The phrase "one step and then another," or variations on that phrase, appear in several important POVs: Jon Snow, Sam Tarly, Sansa / Alayne. Arya hides her sword, Needle, behind a stone step. She also washes stone steps at Harrenhal. Theon remembers learning to fight on stone steps and running into Old Nan and knocking her down on the stone steps in a Winterfell tower. It seems that GRRM uses stone steps or the "one step" metaphor to show how characters make major efforts to make progress in their journeys. I imagine, if the steps decide to "help" you in your journey, you would have an advantage. 

It's interesting that Stonesnake leads Jon Snow in his "one step" journey (the name Stonesnake may be tied to the Stoney symbolism) and Mya Stone leads Alayne on her "one step" journey down from the Eyrie. 

The leftover "sty" letters in the possible "Stoney Sept = One Step Sty" anagram might refer to the pig symbolism in the books. Robert is associated with pig symbolism (I believe) because of puns on "rob / boar" and his eventual death due to a boar attack. Ned asks Robert to spare the direwolf Lady because of the love he "bore" his sister (or something along those lines - I can't remember the exact context of that line). At any rate, a "sty" is a place that a pig would live. There may be pig symbolism associated with Stoney Sept that leads the town to favor a leader with a symbolic pig connection.

GRRM has given us additional layers of meaning in Stoney Sept - Connington mentions that he sent men through the sewers to search: I believe sewers tie into the "flow / wolf / fowl / flower" symbolism in the books. They also connect to sewing and to the "we do not sow" words which, in turn, connect to the idea of sowing seeds (see peach pit, above) and, through a pun, back to female pigs which are called sows. 

The trout fountain has to allude to the Tully sigil - and the Riverlands is also tied to the "flow" motif and explains why Catelyn (flow) and Ned (wolf) may have made such a good match. But Catelyn is an important mother figure in the books, in a world where The Mother is one of the seven aspects of the gods. At Edmure Tully's wedding, people joke about the trout as a phallic symbol. It might be that the trout and fountain together make a complete fertility symbol, male and female, telling us that an important "birth" will occur in the town. As the headwaters of the Blackwater Rush river, there is further fertility symbolism at the site. (And the river flows to King's Landing, giving it a special link to the seat of the king.) 

But there is also an interesting possibility that is a new thought for me: Vaes Dothrak is the "womb of the world" and also has statues and holy places like Stoney Sept. What if Stoney Sept, with the fountain and the trout statue is symbolic of the kind of "birth of a king" role we see at Vaes Dothrak? Once the Dosh Khaleen have identified the Stallion that Mounts the World, that baby is going to be the next great ruler and they would not easily change their minds just because a guy like Jon Connington wants them to. If the people of Stoney Sept chose Robert as the next king, maybe they felt a loyalty to him similar to the legitimacy bestowed by the Dosh Khaleen when they choose a future Khal.

Finally:

I took a look at one point at the way the author uses references to rustling skirts or hiding behind skirts. It is strongly associated with a king's relationship to his mother: Robb hiding behind Catelyn, Joffrey hiding behind Cersei. So Robert hiding behind the skirts of women at Stoney Sept might tell us that he is destined to be a king. 

Interestingly, though, the first reference to rustling skirts in ASOIAF refers to Septa Mordane at Winterfell. Is she a secret queen? Who is hiding behind her skirts?

It also spells step Stoney, so pretty sure he was only using it in a step Stoney fashion to get the throne. And there are no peaches in the step stones, only pirates. And what do pirates do? Drink heavily, get booty, and oppose governmental tyranny 

that’s why he didn’t scour the iron islands. He couldn’t do fellow pirates like that. If balon  had seized Stoney sept he’d be a king too