Roose Bolton's Defense

[Thandros]

6 hours ago, Here's Looking At You, Kid said:

The Starks became rebels when Robb was declared king.  That was illegal and like putting the cart before the horse.  The Starks needed to win their war for independence before Robb can be king.  Roose Bolton was protecting King Joffrey in killing Robb Stark.  The victors can rewrite laws and even rewrite history.  It doesn't mean it's right but who can say it isn't legal. 

The violation of the sacred tradition was Walder's fault.  He was the host. 

Two points. Roose owes Joffrey absolutely no loyalty. He sworn no oath to him whatsoever and legally owed more loyalty to the Lord of Winterfell who was executed on trumped up treason charges.

Two legally Robb had every right to be King. He'd been support to be declared as such by his Northern Bannermen and the Riverlords. Arguably he had more right to be King in the North and King of the Trident than Joffrey ever had as King on the Seven Kingdoms even after his victory. I guess it depends whether you believe in divine right of kings or popular sovereignty ( in this case the people in question being the lords and landed knights rather than necessarily the general populace).

A third point even if Walder was the host Roose was clearly a big part of the conspiracy around the Red Wedding and without his involvement Walder may have elected to be more cautious in his methods of ensuring the Stark's downfall rather than open breaking of guest right. Roose is still guilty of conspiracy to breech guest right even if technically he wasn't the host.

One last point of Roose. The only reason he opposes Ramsey killing Barbrey Dustin and turning her skin into boots is that she is one of the few certain allies Roose can count on and as such needs her support and that Human skin boots aren't very good. The only difference between Roose and Ramsey is that Roose has just enough intelligence and self control not to do something stupid that people will hear of it and to keep his crimes nice and quiet. No doubt the list of his crimes against his smallfolk are almost as long as Ramsey's.

[Lord Lannister]

17 hours ago, The Young Maester said:

I would certainly love to have a law where I can undermine my boss because he/she is doing something illegal. This way instead of actually reporting them to the authorities or HR, I can instead just take the piss, and completely sabotage the workplace in secret.

You have more faith in HR than I do. Most companies HR I've worked for definitely was there to protect the company, and not the employees. Reporting an illegal situation to them would just alert them they need to cover up the issue before they're investigated then get you fired for something completely unrelated down the road. 

[Bowen 747]

Sure he has a legal defense.  He was ordered by the king, through Tywin, to remove the threat of the Starks.  Tywin did not give him boundaries.  He just wanted the job done.  Tywin was speaking for the king. 

[Julia H.]

Westeros knows very few laws as we understand laws. Generally, you have to follow the orders you get from your lord or your king, but what if you get conflicting orders? Are there laws to protect you? Cersei ordered the killing of innocents in King's Landing. Was that legal? Tyrion certainly found those actions criminal, so he sent the men who committed the killing - but not Cersei - to the Wall. Legality, as we know it, does not often come into these things.

When two kings fight each other and both demand your services, you need to choose. Chances are, neither king will accept your "legal" reasons for choosing the other one. (The concept of legality would protect the person who must choose, but there is no such protection.) The question is not what is legal but where your allegiance is. Loyalty and betrayal, however, are terms these people understand perfectly. But they are not legal terms either.

Yet, there are certain laws in Westeros that do seem to work like real laws. I call them divine (or sacred) laws because they are ancient laws and they bind even kings, and not even kings can change them. The most prominent of these is the taboo on kinslaying and guest right. These two laws are sacred - and the reason is that they form the basis on which Westerosi society can exist as a society, not just a bunch of competing individuals.

In this very dangerous world, the taboo on kinslaying ensures that people can feel safe among their family members, that they even want to have families - because aging fathers don't have to be afraid of their grown-up sons, because brothers and cousins are more likely to cooperate than compete, and all this makes the survival of the family more likely. Guest right, on the other hand, ensures that people can move about in wider circles, among people who are not family members. Guest right makes it possible that people or families can negotiate, arrange business deals, form alliances, reach agreements with each other - since guests can trust their hosts and vice versa. Therefore breaking one of these laws harms not only the immediate victims but also the whole society, as such an act undermines the existing framework of social interaction and may destroy trust among potential cooperating partners everywhere.

That is the crime the Freys committed during the Red Wedding, and Roose Bolton was complicit. One reason is, of course, that he obviously helped the host to have his guests killed, but also on his own account. Guest right does not only oblige hosts, but guests as well. Hosts usually have more possibility to harm their guests than vice versa, nevertheless, guests are also obliged to refrain from killing their hosts - or other guests under the same roof. Therefore Jaime Lannister also broke the guest right when he pushed Bran out of the window - for this reason Roose Bolton's last words to Robb, implicating Jaime (who played no part in the Red Wedding whatsoever), are a kind of poetic justice, as Jaime had broken guest right under Stark roof before.

It is noteworthy that, apart from the breaking of guest right, kinslaying also occurs in the current generations of Freys, Boltons and Lannisters. That does not make all Freys or all Boltons or all Lannisters guilty, but it further indicates that there is something very wrong with the way the fundamental values of society are passed down in these families. 

[The Young Maester]

On 1/11/2022 at 3:05 PM, Lord Lannister said:

You have more faith in HR than I do. Most companies HR I've worked for definitely was there to protect the company, and not the employees. Reporting an illegal situation to them would just alert them they need to cover up the issue before they're investigated then get you fired for something completely unrelated down the road. 

Lol yeah I know, I don’t trust em neither. Once I had to wait a whole month for them to respond to my email, and at that point I already solved my problem.

Thats why when my bosses do something dirty I be dirty back.