Robb's worst sin

[SeanF]

2 minutes ago, StarkTullies said:

Tywin Lannister initiated his Riverlands genocide before Robb Stark chose to rebel.  The Riverlands and Northern lords seceded and named Robb as their king after the war began... as a result of the war that Tywin Lannister began.

Which doesn't make Karstark murdering Lannister children any more justified.  They are not responsible for their despicable uncle (or their cousin Jaime, who is the one Karstark actually murdered them over).

Did some of the Northern soldiers commit atrocities in the war too?  Of course they did.  But in what is somewhat contrived, most of those acts were done by the eventual Stark betrayers: the Boltons (your namesake's closest allies) and the Karstarks (the guy you are defending).

My take is that Robb would have been within his rights to execute the squires, in retaliation for what the Lannisters did.

But, he’s also within his rights to spare them.  They can be ransomed, and/or exchanged for other prisoners.

That is a decision for Robb to take, as commander in chief, and for Robb alone.

Once he chose to spare them, Karstark has no business trying to override Robb’s decision, still less, murdering their guards.  He was traitor, a mutineer, and a common murderer.

As an aside, the same principle applies to Mossador, in the Abomination.  Daenerys is within her rights, either to execute, or spare prisoners.  Mossador has no right to override the decision of his commander.

[sifth]

5 hours ago, The Lord of the Crossing said:

Those children POWs were active participants in the war.  They chose to squire.  They were not exactly innocents with clean hands.  I consider them part of the support crew who were helping the killers do their jobs better.  They were killers in training.  The innocents are the village children who were the victims of the Stark Rebellion.  The ones who lost families, food, and shelter because Robb chose to rebel. 

You know Tywin started the war right? Basically committing genocide, to everyone who lived in the Riverlands.

[Quoth the raven,]

On 2/16/2023 at 10:40 PM, The Gizzard of Oz said:

Robb Stark's worst sin is not the murder of Rickard Karstark.  It was his betrayal of House Frey.  He broke his oath to the Freys because he wanted Jeyne Westerling.  He followed the calling of his heart instead of doing what he had sworn to do.  This is far from a minor sin.  Robb broke what is the equivalent of a contract and the other party is entitled to compensation.  The cheated party is also entitled to inflict Robb with punitive damages. 

https://slate.com/business/2013/06/game-of-thrones-economics-red-wedding-robb-stark-and-breach-of-trust-in-marriage-alliances.html

 

Robb Stark was the stronger party and punishing him was beyond the capabilities of the Freys.  An ambush like the red wedding was the only means the Freys had to punish Robb.  It was also the price requested by Lord Tywin before he allows the rebel lords Walder and Roose to win their way back to peace with King Joffrey.  Seen from this view, what Walder decided is perfectly understandable.  Roose had his own reason and even they can be justified. 

Robb Stark was dumb.  Robb had very little skill in politics.  He pissed off two important backers at the worst time possible. 

[Angel Eyes]

17 hours ago, SeanF said:

My take is that Robb would have been within his rights to execute the squires, in retaliation for what the Lannisters did.

But, he’s also within his rights to spare them.  They can be ransomed, and/or exchanged for other prisoners.

That is a decision for Robb to take, as commander in chief, and for Robb alone.

Once he chose to spare them, Karstark has no business trying to override Robb’s decision, still less, murdering their guards.  He was traitor, a mutineer, and a common murderer.

As an aside, the same principle applies to Mossador, in the Abomination.  Daenerys is within her rights, either to execute, or spare prisoners.  Mossador has no right to override the decision of his commander.

Not to mention Karstark tried to sell his daughter to Vargo Hoat...

[Quoth the raven,]

17 hours ago, SeanF said:

As an aside, the same principle applies to Mossador, in the Abomination.  Daenerys is within her rights, either to execute, or spare prisoners.  Mossador has no right to override the decision of his commander.

Bringing that awful show into the discussion does not really prove a point.  But fine, let us continue.  The situations are different.  Queen Daenerys is the ruler of the city.  She is Khaleesi, Azor Ahai, rightful Queen of Westeros, a Targaryen, and Mother of Dragons.  She has authority and privileges which Robb Stark does not have.  Daenerys rescued the slaves from a situation worse than death.  His life belonged to her.  Karstark's did not belong to Robb. 

This is a question of judgment more than authority.  Daenerys could afford the displeasure of the slaves.  Robb Stark could not afford to piss off the Karstarks.  Daenerys is more shrewd, more calculating, more intelligent.  Robb might be better on the battle field but Daenerys is the better ruler. 

[Darth Sidious]

Humiliating the Freys and betraying them is the bad decision that ended the Starks’ chances for a successful rebellion. 
Beheading Lord Karstark didn’t help his cause though. This is one of those times where he should have dealt with the matter with finesse and some good acting. Call in Karstark and say, “You ignored my order. But I will give you mercy because of your loyal service. I feel your grief. I know how you feel. I will forgive you this one time.”  
 

Robb Stark did more damage to his own honor when he broke his oath than anything Karstark did.

[Many-Faced Votary]

2 minutes ago, Darth Sidious said:

This is one of those times where he should have dealt with the matter with finesse and some good acting. Call in Karstark and say, “You ignored my order. But I will give you mercy because of your loyal service. I feel your grief. I know how you feel. I will forgive you this one time.”  

"Leave him!" Robb's voice rang with command. Umber stepped back away from the captive.

Lord Karstark spit out a broken tooth. "Yes, Lord Umber, leave me to the king. He means to give me a scolding before he forgives me. That's how he deals with treason, our King in the North." He smiled a wet red smile. "Or should I call you the King Who Lost the North, Your Grace?"

The Greatjon snatched a spear from the man beside him and jerked it to his shoulder. "Let me spit him, sire. Let me open his belly so we can see the color of his guts."

Catelyn III, A Storm of Swords

 

Even setting aside the sensible reasons Robb would have for punishing treason punitively, Rickard himself left Robb with no choice with these words.

[Craving Peaches]

4 hours ago, Quoth the raven, said:

Queen Daenerys is the ruler of the city.  She is Khaleesi, Azor Ahai, rightful Queen of Westeros, a Targaryen, and Mother of Dragons.  She has authority and privileges which Robb Stark does not have.

Robb ruled over a kingdom and did such a good job that the only way to get rid of him was to break a sacred pillar of society to stab him in the back. Daenerys can't rule a single city and so far it seems her enemies are fine to let dysentery do their work for them.

[Darth Sidious]

20 hours ago, Quoth the raven, said:

Robb Stark was dumb.  Robb had very little skill in politics.  He pissed off two important backers at the worst time possible. 

Robb sucked at being a ruler. His timing was bad because he didn’t understand the bigger picture. He married Jeyne without fully understanding the consequences. 

[Barbrey Dustin]

If the violation of guest rights is a sin in the eyes of the gods then so is oathbreaking.  Robb is an oathbreaker and he paid for his sin with his life.  He chose to play the game of power and lost.  The game is not forgiving of idiots and Robb was an idiot.

Edited February 22, 2023 by Barbrey Dustin

[King_Tristifer_IV_Mudd]

14 minutes ago, Barbrey Dustin said:

If the violation of guest rights is a sin in the eyes of the gods then so is oathbreaking.  Robb is an oathbreaker and he paid for his sin with his life.  He chose to play the game of power and lost.  The game is not forgiving of idiots and Robb was an idiot.

lol you are kind of right. He played the game (because he was forced to) and lost. And he is an oathbreaker. But comparing breaking a marriage pact brokered through extortion of a teenager to violating one of the most sacred laws of the world is absurd. It’s like comparing a DUI to Mass Murder. 
 

Robb was not stupid, he was naive and inexperience. Much like Daenerys, who constantly fucks up, Robb was a teenager. Who unlike Dany, was forced into the situation he was in.

My advice to you, and accounts that share your horrid opinion, is to come up with better arguments, because y’all keep recycling the same bullshit as the last one.

[Craving Peaches]

18 minutes ago, Barbrey Dustin said:

If the violation of guest rights is a sin in the eyes of the gods then so is oathbreaking.

Breaking a marriage pact does not equal oathbreaking unless Robb swore an oath to Walder. We know he didn't because Catelyn was the one who did all the negotiations. Robb wasn't even present. So no Robb did not break an oath. You are essential saying that breach of contract is equivalent to thousands of counts of murder. It is not. The books stress the importance of guest right and the sacred laws of hospitality so many times. Even if Robb broke his oath to Walder, which he didn't as he never swore an oath to Walder in the first place, that would only 'entitle' Walder to revenge himself upon Robb, not to murder all the other nobles and men present.

[Terrorthatflapsinthenight9]

The Stark-hating spammers are really annoying.

[King_Tristifer_IV_Mudd]

2 minutes ago, Terrorthatflapsinthenight9 said:

The Stark-hating spammers are really annoying.

I wouldn’t mind them so much if they had new arguments. But they don’t they say the same thing over and over again. 
 

I literally have a list of accounts from this kind of vein, so I remember not to take anything those accounts say seriously or think they have any merit.

Edited February 22, 2023 by Lord Edmure of Riverrun

[SeanF]

On 2/21/2023 at 6:55 AM, Craving Peaches said:

Robb ruled over a kingdom and did such a good job that the only way to get rid of him was to break a sacred pillar of society to stab him in the back. Daenerys can't rule a single city and so far it seems her enemies are fine to let dysentery do their work for them.

Fortunately, dysentery is killing the besiegers, too.  

[Craving Peaches]

4 minutes ago, SeanF said:

Fortunately, dysentery is killing the besiegers, too.

The Dysentery is killing everyone. Which is not ideal. Because Daenerys doesn't want it to kill her people. If everyone dies it is not a good outcome either. But it has already reached the city so I don't know what Daenerys can do about it now.

[Many-Faced Votary]

18 minutes ago, Craving Peaches said:

The Dysentery is killing everyone. Which is not ideal. Because Daenerys doesn't want it to kill her people. If everyone dies it is not a good outcome either. But it has already reached the city so I don't know what Daenerys can do about it now.

Unfortunately, there is very little more she can do, and not for lack of trying. She separated the healthy from the sick, and had to keep the gates of Mereen closed to the infected; but sent them healers and as much food as she could every day, and had ditches dug. In one of the best and most touching scenes in the series, she physically nursed, bathed, and cared for the sick herself (and in so doing, shamed her councilors and guard into the same), and built pyres for the dead.

[Craving Peaches]

3 minutes ago, Many-Faced Votary said:

Unfortunately, there is very little more she can do, and not for lack of trying. She separated the healthy from the sick, and had to keep the gates of Mereen closed to the infected; but sent them healers and as much food as she could every day, and had ditches dug. In one of the best and most touching scenes in the series, she physically nursed, bathed, and cared for the sick herself (and in so doing, shamed her councilors and guard into the same), and built pyres for the dead.

I can't remember how it got into the city in the first place. Daenerys was keeping the ill people outside the city in a form of quarantine. But then:

Spoiler

We see from one of the sample chapters that it has reached the city as men are willing to risk sortying with Barristan rather than stay in Meereen. What happened?

 

[Many-Faced Votary]

3 minutes ago, Craving Peaches said:

I can't remember how it got into the city in the first place. Daenerys was keeping the ill people outside the city in a form of quarantine. But then:

  Hide contents

We see from one of the sample chapters that it has reached the city as men are willing to risk sortying with Barristan rather than stay in Meereen. What happened?

Unfortunately, quarantine can only do so much even with total enforcement in modern times, so one can imagine that it spread inevitably when someone infected entered the city -- and in their world, they do not have the concept of germs and do not recognize that carriers exist.

 

We saw the first direct reference to the pale mare having entered city walls here, and it has already had a marked impact by this point in ADwD:

From here he could see four lesser pyramids, the city's western walls, and the camps of the Yunkishmen by the shores of Slaver's Bay, where a thick column of greasy smoke twisted upward like some monstrous serpent. The Yunkishmen burning their dead, he realized. The pale mare is galloping through their siege camps. Despite all the queen had done, the sickness had spread, both within the city walls and without. Meereen's markets were closed, its streets empty. King Hizdahr had allowed the fighting pits to remain open, but the crowds were sparse. The Meereenese had even begun to shun the Temple of the Graces, reportedly.

The Queensguard, A Dance with Dragons

And we were given the sense that it was unavoidable even while we see see mention of Dany's attempts to separate the healthy and the sick, since it accomplished nothing:

I have no more help to give, Dany thought, despairing. The Astapori had no place to go. Thousands remained outside Meereen's thick walls—men and women and children, old men and little girls and newborn babes. Many were sick, most were starved, and all were doomed to die. Daenerys dare not open her gates to let them in. She had tried to do what she could for them. She had sent them healers, Blue Graces and spell-singers and barber-surgeons, but some of those had sickened as well, and none of their arts had slowed the galloping progression of the flux that had come on the pale mare. Separating the healthy from the sick had proved impractical as well. Her Stalwart Shields had tried, pulling husbands away from wives and children from their mothers, even as the Astapori wept and kicked and pelted them with stones. A few days later, the sick were dead and the healthy ones were sick. Dividing the one from the other had accomplished nothing.

Daenerys VI, A Dance with Dragons

There are more chapters, including Dany's, Barristan's, Tyrion's, and Quentyn's, that show the plague spreading through Mereen and through the Astapori refugees and Yunkai'i soldiers without alike.

 

Spoiler

By the time of Barristan's TWoW sample chapter, it has become so rampant that people fear staying in the city and facing the plague more than facing the Yunkai'i seige, as you described. Just a progression from ADwD.

Out beyond the city walls, the distant thump of a trebuchet releasing could be heard. Dead men and body parts came spinning down out of the night. One crashed amongst the pit fighters, showering them with bits of bone and brain and flesh. Another bounced off the Chainmaker's weathered bronze head and tumbled down his arm to land with a wet splat at his feet. A swollen leg splashed in a puddle not three yards from where Selmy sat waiting on his queen's horse.

"The pale mare," murmured Tumco Lho. His voice was thick, his dark eyes shiny in his black face. Then he said something in the tongue of the Basilisk Isles that might have been a prayer.

He fears the pale mare more than he fears our foes, Ser Barristan realized. His other lads were frightened too. Brave as they might be, not one was blooded yet.

Barristan I, The Winds of Winter

[SeanF]

18 minutes ago, Craving Peaches said:

I can't remember how it got into the city in the first place. Daenerys was keeping the ill people outside the city in a form of quarantine. But then:

  Hide contents

We see from one of the sample chapters that it has reached the city as men are willing to risk sortying with Barristan rather than stay in Meereen. What happened?

 

I expect the faeces of the dying refugees contaminated the local water supplies, affecting both the besiegers, and the city’s inhabitants.