Most Evil Families in the series

[StarkTullies]

3 hours ago, Oana_Mika said:

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

That never happened.  Robb had two missions, and he split his army into two groups.  The larger group was under the command of Roose Bolton to march on Kings Landing.  They distracted Tywin from Robb's smaller army, but that is more because the "master war leader" was overconfident and underestimated Robb for being "green".  Nowhere in the books did it imply that Robb willingly sacrificed them as a diversion, nor did Roose's troops 100% get wiped out.  You're thinking of the "alternate telling".

To answer the original question... I did not answer the original question because I generally agree with SeanF that there are no good or evil families... just good or evil individuals.

[Oana_Mika]

1 hour ago, StarkTullies said:

That never happened.  Robb had two missions, and he split his army into two groups.  The larger group was under the command of Roose Bolton to march on Kings Landing.  They distracted Tywin from Robb's smaller army, but that is more because the "master war leader" was overconfident and underestimated Robb for being "green".  Nowhere in the books did it imply that Robb willingly sacrificed them as a diversion, nor did Roose's troops 100% get wiped out.  You're thinking of the "alternate telling".

I might remember things wrong then.

1 hour ago, StarkTullies said:

To answer the original question... I did not answer the original question because I generally agree with SeanF that there are no good or evil families... just good or evil individuals.

Agreed

[James Arryn]

Literally every ‘noble family’ became noble through extortion and violence. Feudalism is a form of society built around the formalized process of extortion. An average medieval landscape not already controlled by some ruthless and extortionist racket is a patchwork of castles built like drug lord holdouts, from which the ‘knights’ would routinely ride out to burn, kill, rape and destroy in the surrounding countryside…this serves two functions, it gives the men access to booty/sanctioned rape victims and it wears down the locality’s ability to eat/shelter/survive. Eventually some give up and prefer making formal their acceptance of the ‘knights’ occasional plunder in order to stave off the newly incessant kind that is their current status quo.
 

That is how a ‘noble family’ is born, murderous hoods taking over an area through murder, theft, arson, rape, kidnapping, you name it. Again, think of mafia dynamics, except there is no police force, no governmental agencies to trouble their reign of terror…until the ‘mafia’ BECOME the local ‘officers of the law’ and get to decide which of their victims is breaking it.

So, no, there are no noble feudal houses with clean hands. Even in Westeros hyper-conservative thousand-year-houses everywhere odd environs, the serfs are kept beholden to their masters by violence or the threat of violence. Which does make such a passionate and wide-ranging anti-slavery sentiment in Westeros pretty ironic, as historians often debate where the line between serf and slave truly lies at various points throughout history. 
 

That being given, just as no noble house has clean hands, every noble house is living off the sweat of their subjects and maintains that status quo through extortion/noble laws entirely written/initiated by nobles (and Barth?) designed to maintain noble power, so too do no long-standing noble families consist entirely of evil people, even if they all benefit from an evil racket. 

Edited March 28, 2023 by James Arryn

[SeanF]

16 minutes ago, James Arryn said:

Literally every ‘noble family’ became noble through extortion and violence. Feudalism is a form of society built around the formalized process of extortion. An average medieval landscape not already controlled by some ruthless and extortionist racket is a patchwork of castles built like drug lord holdouts, from which the ‘knights’ would routinely ride out to burn, kill, rape and destroy in the surrounding countryside…this serves two functions, it gives the men access to booty/sanctioned rape victims and it wears down the locality’s ability to eat/shelter/survive. Eventually some give up and prefer making formal their acceptance of the ‘knights’ occasional plunder in order to stave off the newly incessant kind that is their current status quo.
 

That is how a ‘noble family’ is born, murderous hoods taking over an area through murder, theft, arson, rape, kidnapping, you name it. Again, think of mafia dynamics, except there is no police force, no governmental agencies to trouble their reign of terror…until the ‘mafia’ BECOME the local ‘officers of the law’ and get to decide which of their victims is breaking it.

So, no, there are no noble feudal houses with clean hands. Even in Westeros hyper-conservative thousand-year-houses everywhere odd environs, the serfs are kept beholden to their masters by violence or the threat of violence. Which does make such a passionate and wide-ranging anti-slavery sentiment in Westeros pretty ironic, as historians often debate where the line between serf and slave truly lies at various points throughout history. 
 

That being given, just as no noble house has clean hands, every noble house is living off the sweat of their subjects and maintains that status quo through extortion/noble laws entirely written/initiated by nobles (and Barth?) designed to maintain noble power, so too do no long-standing noble families consist entirely of evil people, even if they all benefit from an evil racket. 

Within that overall system, there are still people who are better, and people who are worse, than the norm. 

No society switches overnight from medieval ethics to those of a modern liberal democracy (which are probably less impressive than we like to think).  Progress is always incremental, but within that, there are people who try to make things better, and others who definitely try to make things worse.

[James Arryn]

17 minutes ago, SeanF said:

Within that overall system, there are still people who are better, and people who are worse, than the norm. 

No society switches overnight from medieval ethics to those of a modern liberal democracy (which are probably less impressive than we like to think).  Progress is always incremental, but within that, there are people who try to make things better, and others who definitely try to make things worse.

And yet the only people we see giving any thought to challenging that overall system are people like LF, Euron, maybe Varys, and religious fanatics. Because long before they care about ‘making things better’, they are eternally preoccupied with retaining their own power. They call that peace. They make a desert, etc. 

But yes, some individual members of the extortionist class are nicer people than others, and sometimes that means they treat their subjects better so long as they aren’t breaking the laws/threatening their authority/dominance. 

[sifth]

9 hours ago, Alester Florent said:

Even if you don't like Jaime and Tyrion, and you don't count Torment and Myrcella, I think Daven and to a lesser extent Kevan and Lancel take the curse off the Lannisters a bit as a house during ASoIaF.

Didn’t Kevan help Tywin commit most of his crimes against humanity?

[EggBlue]

11 hours ago, Alester Florent said:

Even if you don't like Jaime and Tyrion, and you don't count Torment and Myrcella, I think Daven and to a lesser extent Kevan and Lancel take the curse off the Lannisters a bit as a house during ASoIaF.

to be honest, I quite like Jaimie and I definitely enjoy Tyrion's chapters . It doesn't change the fact that Jaimie's been a piece of shit most of his life to the point that he was more than ready to maim an 8 yr old girl because he thought his sister demanded it during sex. And also doesn't change the fact that Tyrion is a creep who has a singer killed and cooked in a stew for the poor. maybe "evil" is too much for Jaimie and Tyrion to an extent, but they are not good enough to outweigh their father and sister's evil. 

as for the rest, I'm pretty sure I said prominent members. I counted Tywin and his children as core House Lannister as Cersei's children are raised as Baratheons. Even Joffrey is proud to be Robert's son. but if we are going to count brothers and cousins, then I'd say Kevan is definitely one of the worst men in Westeros . not only the man is a partner in crime to Tywin , but he is also responsible for the terrible punishment of "walk of shame" for his own niece. the rest of the Lannisters, Genna, Daven, and Lancel (even though he is a little fool) are ok I guess. but again, they affect the overall reputation of Lannisters as Merrit "the innocent" Frey does the Freys . 

[The Commentator]

The Starks. They practice human sacrifice. They warg and skin change. They rebelled twice. Bastard son of the House betrayed the night’s watch. Bran intrudes on poor Hodor’s mind.  

[Lord of Oldstones]

House Wyl. Though we only know a single instance where they came into wedding uninvited, gelded & killed groom and raped & sold bride to slavery. They are regarded as mad House.

But these acts are pretty standard with proto slaver/ reavers such as ironborn houses except maybe Farwynds.

So i go with Ironborn houses.

 

 

[GZ Bloodraven]

13 hours ago, The Commentator said:

The Starks. They practice human sacrifice. They warg and skin change. They rebelled twice. Bastard son of the House betrayed the night’s watch. Bran intrudes on poor Hodor’s mind.  

The Targaryens. They practice human sacrifice. They fuck dragons. They fled their comrades in Valyria and owned slaves. Bastard son of the House went North and betrayed the night's watch. Aerys II would have burned all of King's Landing alive if it were not for noble Jaime.

[James West]

The most evil of the families, and I think the series will slowly reveal them, are the Stark family.  Not only because of the millions they have sacrificed to their trees for thousands of years but of what Theon Stark (brutality), Robb (rebellion), Rickard (he was planning to take power from the Targaryens), Jon Snow (betray the watch), Arya (mass murderer) have done.  Ned and Catelny's kids are skinchangers.  Bran ate rotten flesh through his wolf and he is the Dark Prince.  It was Catelyn who provoked the Lannisters.  (Yes, Jaime tried to kill Bran.  Jaime is an evil thing.  But that does not give Catelyn the right to arrest Tyrion.)   

[Craving Peaches]

1 hour ago, James West said:

Not only because of the millions they have sacrificed to their trees for thousands of years

1. No proof.

2. If it were millions the North would be severly depopulated.

3. If Starks are evil for sacrificing millions of people to trees, of which there is no evidence, then the Targaryens, for which there is evidence, are certainly evil for slaving, incest, blood magic rituals, staring wars that killed millions, burning people alive for sexual pleasure, forcing weird proto-fascist religious doctrine on people, torture, eugenics, failure to save others in Valyria, etc...going by your own criteria the Targaryens are far more evil than the Starks so your whole argument that the Starks are most evil disintegrates.

This is a ridiculous take which almost tops the other recent ridiculous takes of 'Jon = Aerys' and 'The Starks disrespect the dead'. Why do people enjoy spouting such nonsense? No effort is even made to try and back it up with the text anymore, if there ever was one.

Edited March 29, 2023 by Craving Peaches

[Here's Looking At You, Kid]

Most Evil Families in the series?

Members of a clan are individuals.  But if we want to generalize and paint them with a broad brush, the Greyjoys.  Most evil are then the Greyjoys.  They come from harsh lands and thus produce a lot of cruel folk.  We can generalize further and apply the same logic to the Free Folk like Harma and then the Starks.  Harsh conditions nurture the worst in people. 

[Alester Florent]

1 hour ago, Here's Looking At You, Kid said:

Most Evil Families in the series?

Members of a clan are individuals.  But if we want to generalize and paint them with a broad brush, the Greyjoys.  Most evil are then the Greyjoys.  They come from harsh lands and thus produce a lot of cruel folk.  We can generalize further and apply the same logic to the Free Folk like Harma and then the Starks.  Harsh conditions nurture the worst in people. 

I thought for the first time I was going to agree with you about something and then oh no, it's just a way of bringing it round to hating the Starks.

[Rondo]

Pick any of the slaving families in Meereen.  Or Astapor or Yunkai.  What they do to slaves is worse than anything in Westeros with the exception of the Others controlling the wights.  Those who use mind control to force the dead or the living to do their bidding are the worst of humanity but they are not limited to a single family.  Varamyr and Bran are the main offenders among the humans.  

[Curled Finger]

On 3/27/2023 at 10:19 PM, King Maegor the Cool said:

Raped a 13 year old girl.

His wife? 

[Daeron the Daring]

House Smallwood.

They just have that small dick energy.

[Curled Finger]

You're getting all excited about established noble houses on the Iron Islands and mainlands when you know full well none of these come close in comparison to the set ups we see in Essos.  That weirdness aside we do have extreme cases in Westeros of a type of nobility in Skagos and the wildlings.  There is a legend in the Vale about an Arryn daughter having been kidnapped in raid by the Mountain Clansmen some time back who (or her descendant) may actually have a claim on poor Sweetrobin's er seat.  Would this make a Vale clansmen nobility?  Thenns and Skagosi have lords after a fashion though their ideas about running things do seem er different from other northern houses.  All I have are rumors about Skagos, but we've spent time with the Thenns and and the Vale clansmen.  We know they are both gangs of freaks.  I bet money they both have crimes in the walls of their caves that out gloom and doom and horrify anything the established nobility could ever come up with.  Things that would make Ramsay Bolton blush.  

[Here's Looking At You, Kid]

On 3/29/2023 at 8:50 PM, Alester Florent said:

I thought for the first time I was going to agree with you about something and then oh no, it's just a way of bringing it round to hating the Starks.

It's not hating on the Starks to talk about them.  It just so happens they have and continue to do awful things. 

[Craving Peaches]

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

It's not hating on the Starks to talk about them. 

But you never just 'talk' about them. You repeatedly post ridiculous claims about how bad the Starks are over and over again with nothing to back them up, and spam them in irrelevant threads, and people are fed up.

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

It just so happens they have and continue to do awful things. 

Like what?