Most Evil Families in the series

[Lady Stonehearts Simp]

11 minutes ago, Oana_Mika said:

Also,IDK why he put Aegon I there. Guess because he burned Dorne villages in response to Rhaenys' death. I guess the Targaryen were the only ones who burned places in retaliation. Still, there are far more "good" Targaryens than "bad" ones.

Explain the difference between Tywin ordering Gregor to butcher the Riverlands Vs Aegon himself burning innocent people with his dragon.

[Oana_Mika]

7 minutes ago, King Maegor the Cool said:

Explain the difference between Tywin ordering Gregor to butcher the Riverlands Vs Aegon himself burning innocent people with his dragon.

My problem is not with your cualification of that act being bad, because it is. It's with the fandom ignoring similar tihngs that other did. I would love to see you discuss that. Including how the northeners hanged innocent for "sleeping with lions" in TWO5K and how they also destroyed villages in retaliation.

Edited March 28 by Oana_Mika

[Lady Stonehearts Simp]

1 minute ago, Oana_Mika said:

My problem is not with your cualification of that act being bad, because it is. It's with the fandom ignoring similar tings that other did. I would love to see you discuss that. Including how the northeners hanged innocent for "sleeping with lions" in TWO5K and how they also destroyed villages in retaliation.

The northerns did evil things we have no indication they were under Robb’s orders to do that.

[Oana_Mika]

7 minutes ago, King Maegor the Cool said:

The northerns did evil things we have no indication they were under Robb’s orders to do that.

And what about using your men as decoy? Send them to get killed so you can win a battle?

And as I said, you can cualify Aegon as evil (although he gave many years of prosperity) for burning Dorne villages , again, in retaliation (not because he enjoyed being cruel) and there are still far more good Targaryens than bad ones.

Edited March 28 by Oana_Mika

[Oana_Mika]

19 minutes ago, King Maegor the Cool said:

Raped a 13 year old girl.

 

Is this about Mushroom saying he teached how to give b**wjobs? I'm not sure if this is what you are reffering to.

[Oana_Mika]

@King Maegor the Cool so I genuinely wanted to make a list with the evil ones. Tell me if I miss someone and what he/she did because I read F&B a while ago and I don't remember exactly what everyone did.

 

• Maegor I 'the Cruel’ Targaryen
• Prince Rhaegel Targaryen
• Aerion 'the Monstrous’ 'Brightflame’ Targaryen
• Aerys II 'the Mad King’ Targaryen
• Viserys 'the Beggar King’ Targaryen
• Aenar Targaryen (I guess you will consider him evil because he had slaves although House Targaryen did not enslave after they fleed to Westeros and likely they slaves become servants)
• Visenya Targaryen
• Aegon I Targaryen
• Viserys I Targaryen (since you said he raped a 13 y/o)
• Aemond 'One-Eye’ Targaryen
• Daeron I 'the Young Dragon’ Targaryen (since he fought to conquer Dorne)
• Daemon 'the Rogue Prince’ Targaryen  (since you also put it on the list)
• Aegon III 'the Younger’ Targaryen* (Had a temper, I guess?)
• Aegon II 'the Elder’ Targaryen (Was cruel?)
• Aegon IV 'the Unworthy’ Targaryen (Was a shitty person, I guess?)
• Brynden 'Lord Bloodraven’ Rivers (Was kind of a shitty person, I guess?)
• Aegor 'Bittersteel’ Rivers (Had a temper, I guess?)
• Rhaenyra Targaryen (for how she became at the end of her reign I guess)

So so far, there are 18 out of more than 100 Targaryens that you could label them as evil (though I would only consider evil the ones like Aerys II or Viserys III)

[Alester Florent]

46 minutes ago, King Maegor the Cool said:

Raped a 13 year old girl.

I'm assuming this refers to Aemma. I think we need to be a little careful about slinging around accusations like rape in this context. There's no indication that Aemma didn't consent, and this is a society where not only does statutory rape by reference to a standardised AoC not seem to be a thing but we know that thirteen-year-olds are capable - at least by their own estimation - of enthusiastically consenting to sex (see: Dany).

By reference to a modern standard it looks worse, but AoCs vary from country to country even today. Spain only raised its AoC above 13 in 2015. Japan still retains a national AoC of 13. And many countries have age discrepancy laws that permit consensual sex down to 13 so long as both parties are within a few years of each other. Given that Viserys himself was 16 at the time, sex with Aemma would have been entirely legal in, say, Italy, provided she consented.

To be clear, I do think this is an issue, but I'm not sure it's an issue we can take out on the characters  so much as the author, because while it's clear that IC there is an awareness that prepubescent girls are off-limits, once they "flower" anything goes, and that happens at varying ages. While 13 is clearly towards the young end in Westeros, we see Sansa married at 13 and Jaehaerys married Alysanne when she was also 13. In both cases, any criticism of the marriage is not over the bride's age (indeed, the J-A marriage was in part to stop her being married off elsewhere) but over the political situation. And while Jaehaerys held off on a consummation initially, it's also clear that this was at his discretion rather than out of any kind of social expectation, and they were banging a year later anyway.

Given that there's nothing much in FaB to indicate that anyone thought Viserys's marriage and consummation was particularly scandalous (just some maesters wondering if the bride's age impacted her fertility) and another open question as to how much agency Viserys had as to the marriage anyway, I find it hard to criticise him too much for it, let alone call him "evil".

To put it another way, when I read Drogo's sex scenes with a 13/14-year-old Dany, I'm not skeeved out by Drogo, I'm skeeved out by GRRM.

[Alester Florent]

31 minutes ago, Oana_Mika said:

@King Maegor the Cool so I genuinely wanted to make a list with the evil ones. Tell me if I miss someone and what he/she did because I read F&B a while ago and I don't remember exactly what everyone did.

 

• Maegor I 'the Cruel’ Targaryen
• Prince Rhaegel Targaryen
• Aerion 'the Monstrous’ 'Brightflame’ Targaryen
• Aerys II 'the Mad King’ Targaryen
• Viserys 'the Beggar King’ Targaryen
• Aenar Targaryen (I guess you will consider him evil because he had slaves although House Targaryen did not enslave after they fleed to Westeros and likely they slaves become servants)
• Visenya Targaryen
• Aegon I Targaryen
• Viserys I Targaryen (since you said he raped a 13 y/o)
• Aemond 'One-Eye’ Targaryen
• Daeron I 'the Young Dragon’ Targaryen (since he fought to conquer Dorne)
• Daemon 'the Rogue Prince’ Targaryen  (since you also put it on the list)
• Aegon III 'the Younger’ Targaryen* (Had a temper, I guess?)
• Aegon II 'the Elder’ Targaryen (Was cruel?)
• Aegon IV 'the Unworthy’ Targaryen (Was a shitty person, I guess?)
• Brynden 'Lord Bloodraven’ Rivers (Was kind of a shitty person, I guess?)
• Aegor 'Bittersteel’ Rivers (Had a temper, I guess?)
• Rhaenyra Targaryen (for how she became at the end of her reign I guess)

So so far, there are 18 out of more than 100 Targaryens that you could label them as evil (though I would only consider evil the ones like Aerys II or Viserys III)

Mixing up "mad" and "bad" here I think. While some were both (Aerys II), Rhaegel, for instance, was harmless. Aegon IV was perfectly sane but a thoroughly nasty piece of work.

With regard to the earlier list, a lot of the names on the "neither" list are people about whom we know nothing except a name (especially pretty much any Targs prior to Aegon) or who died young without having the chance to be either.

In any case, I don't think the exercise is particularly meritorious. Whether or not on the whole the Targs were more "good" or "bad", any family that can throw up both Maegor the Cruel and Baelor Breakspear can't be fairly categorised as either, and morality isn't something heritable by blood in any case. While GRRM clearly has a thing for houses who have persistent reputations for honour or the contrary, I think if we come away from the series believing that any family is inherently evil, or inherently good, something has gone wrong.

[Oana_Mika]

1 minute ago, Alester Florent said:

Mixing up "mad" and "bad" here I think. While some were both (Aerys II), Rhaegel, for instance, was harmless. Aegon IV was perfectly sane but a thoroughly nasty piece of work.

With regard to the earlier list, a lot of the names on the "neither" list are people about whom we know nothing except a name (especially pretty much any Targs prior to Aegon) or who died young without having the chance to be either.

In any case, I don't think the exercise is particularly meritorious. Whether or not on the whole the Targs were more "good" or "bad", any family that can throw up both Maegor the Cruel and Baelor Breakspear can't be fairly categorised as either, and morality isn't something heritable by blood in any case. While GRRM clearly has a thing for houses who have persistent reputations for honour or the contrary, I think if we come away from the series believing that any family is inherently evil, or inherently good, something has gone wrong.

I agree but well, I mostly see Starks = good Targaryens = evil comments (and that without not knowing much about the Starks but pretty much of the dirty laudry of the Targaryens) so I just want to point out that thiese are just biases people have. As Martin said : "The Targaryens have not all been heroic, after all… some of them have been monsters, madmen, so…" (Source)

So just some of them have been "madmen,monsters" .

[Alester Florent]

19 minutes ago, Oana_Mika said:

I agree but well, I mostly see Starks = good Targaryens = evil comments (and that without not knowing much about the Starks but pretty much of the dirty laudry of the Targaryens) so I just want to point out that thiese are just biases people have. As Martin said : "The Targaryens have not all been heroic, after all… some of them have been monsters, madmen, so…" (Source)

So just some of them have been "madmen,monsters" .

Oh, definitely. I think some of the Targ hate is magnified in response to the mindless Stark hate that keeps cropping up, and is overcompensating.

[Oana_Mika]

1 minute ago, Alester Florent said:

Oh, definitely. I think some of the Targ hate is magnified in response to the mindless Stark hate that keeps cropping up, and is overcompensating.

I think that too though in my experience in the fandom I saw more Targaryen (specially Daenerys) hate than Stark.

[Craving Peaches]

2 minutes ago, Oana_Mika said:

I saw more Targaryen (specially Daenerys) hate than Stark.

Well that's certainly not been my experience on this site. There are multiple Stark hate threads for everyone one Targaryen, and they are posted with much greater frequency. And Stark hate posts crop up all over the place, including in unrelated threads, whereas Targaryen hate posts don't and are much rarer. I think it may have been different a few years ago though.

[Oana_Mika]

1 minute ago, Craving Peaches said:

Well that's certainly not been my experience on this site. There are multiple Stark hate threads for everyone one Targaryen, and they are posted with much greater frequency. And Stark hate posts crop up all over the place, including in unrelated threads, whereas Targaryen hate posts don't and are much rarer. I think it may have been different a few years ago though.

I was talking about my experience in the fandom in general, not only on this site and yes, I know about what kind of posts you reffer to.

[Craving Peaches]

26 minutes ago, Oana_Mika said:

I was talking about my experience in the fandom in general

Where else? I am not on any other sites but I heard Reddit was not good.

[Oana_Mika]

6 minutes ago, Craving Peaches said:

Where else? I am not on any other sites but I heard Reddit was not good.

Everywhere : facebook, tumblr. I'm not on quora but I also heard that you should avoid it like pest, as well as twitter. The most bitter part is the "If you like Dany/Targaryens you would probably support Hitler" and stuff like that. GOT did not help at all, since they also wanted Daenerys fans personally ashamed for liking her character, not just the character being seen as the worst thing ever to happen in Planetos. Oh, and the "If you did not see it coming you are dumb" jabs.

Edited March 28 by Oana_Mika

[Alester Florent]

37 minutes ago, Craving Peaches said:

Well that's certainly not been my experience on this site. There are multiple Stark hate threads for everyone one Targaryen, and they are posted with much greater frequency. And Stark hate posts crop up all over the place, including in unrelated threads, whereas Targaryen hate posts don't and are much rarer. I think it may have been different a few years ago though.

It seems to go in waves. When I was last a regular on here, there was a lot of hate directed at Sansa and Cat. I see almost nothing of that now.

[Craving Peaches]

Just now, Oana_Mika said:

I'm not on quora but I also heard that you should avoid it like pest

You certainly should, and not just for ASOIAF but everything in general. A lot of pseudo-intellectuals like to share their... special... political views on there.

[Oana_Mika]

1 minute ago, Craving Peaches said:

You certainly should, and not just for ASOIAF but everything in general. A lot of pseudo-intellectuals like to share their... special... political views on there.

Oh, I'm not gonna even open that site.

[Craving Peaches]

Just now, Oana_Mika said:

Oh, I'm not gonna even open that site.

And I don't even think the Yahoo Answers closure was to blame. People on Yahoo were (from what I saw) just stupid, not bigoted. And that tripe was on Quora well before the closure.

[SeanF]

ASOIAF/GOT criticism on Quora is dominated by Kelsey Hayes, who used to post here as Apple Martini, and always gives me the impression that Daenerys has wronged her personally.  A lot of posters just repeat what she says.  Unlike the Stark haters here, who just post rubbish, her articles do have textual backing, but almost always involve removing actions from their context, ignoring contrary evidence, and attributing the basest of motives to characters she doesn't like.

So, a favourite argument of hers is "Daenerys is a slaver, and therefore a hypocrite to condemn slavery".  It is trictly true that Daenerys owned slaves, but also completely misleading, when you read that she took slaves to spare them rape and murder at the Lhazareen town, and freed her slaves as soon as she was able.

WRT the War of the Five Kings, I don't think Robb can be blamed for what Roose Bolton did at Harrenhall.  He was out of the loop, fighting in the West.  I can't believe for one moment he would sanction mass rape. 

But, the orders to hang collaborators (including women who lay with lions) would have come from the top.  These people were hanged quite openly, with no attempt at concealment.  The order would probably be "punish collaborators", and it was left to the discretion of local commanders as to how that order was interpreted.

By way of comparison, I've just completed a dissertation, which deals in part with Spanish guerillas in the Peninsular War, and they had no compunction about hanging women who they deemed collaborators.  Reading, as I did, an account at the National Archive, written by a British liaison officer, that Mina Y Esposa, "instantly put to death", six Spanish ladies who were captured with a French military detachment, was quite startling.

Edited March 28 by SeanF