Would Red Wedding still have gone ahead without Jeyne Marriage?

[SaffronLady]

5 hours ago, James Arryn said:

He literally greets Cat by whinging about how wrong it was for Ned…just recently dead Ned, mind…to have been Robert’s Hand instead of him.

Looks like there is some merit to the theory that Stannis, being an (apparently false) Azor Ahai, is actually meant to tell us something about what sort of person the Bloodstone Emperor was: a power-hungry younger brother willing to use magic even for the crime of fratricide. Perhaps book Stannis would inadvertently cause the 2nd Long Night.

[Castellan]

Back to the OP, I was remembering that the Freys are Lords of the Crossing and basically use that to get deals in return for allowing people to cross the river and that is the basis of their wealth and power (more powerful than the Tullys). They are deal makers and everyone knows that. Walder held back deciding which side to support and only supported Robb after making a good deal with several marriages attached. To simply break the major betrothal in that deal was in fact a slap in Walder's face. He was bound to abandon their cause. And having abandoned their cause, an opportunity to totally repudiate Robb and his allies and do Tywin's dirty work for him through mass murder and breaking guest right seems like a good deal to Walder. He may have had his eye on just what a vengeful enemy Tywin could be, a la Reynes, and outdid him.

We all know that the Frey population explosion means Walder is desperate to get girls married off, but I just noticed in the wiki that Hoster Tully had previously refused a Frey bride for Edmure and had not attended Walder's latest wedding, and that the Arryn's had refused to foster some Frey children at court and had also refused to have Robert fostered at the Twins (not that Lysa would let him go anywhere but Walder's not to know that). So I suppose he already had simmering resentment on the whole topic of marriages.

 

 

 

[BRANDON GREYSTARK]

On 7/25/2023 at 2:28 PM, Craving Peaches said:

Was it this insult that pushed Walder over the edge or was it more to do with the fact that Robb's position was looking un-winnable, with having to retake the North and defend the Riverlands in the face of the much larger Lannister-Tyrell army? Would Walder have gone ahead with the plan if Tywin offered, even if Robb was the one marrying a Frey?

Both .

[Lee-Sensei]

On 7/25/2023 at 12:28 PM, Craving Peaches said:

Was it this insult that pushed Walder over the edge or was it more to do with the fact that Robb's position was looking un-winnable, with having to retake the North and defend the Riverlands in the face of the much larger Lannister-Tyrell army? Would Walder have gone ahead with the plan if Tywin offered, even if Robb was the one marrying a Frey?

No. Walder would have probably reduced his support and backed down if Robb looked like he was going to lose, but the Red Wedding was a direct response to the insult to his family. I'm pretty sure George said that himself.

  

On 7/26/2023 at 11:23 AM, James Arryn said:

The decisive moment for Lannister hopes did not happen at the BW, but in a pavilion outside Storm’s End (or more accurately wherever he was when he decided that murdering his brother was the plan) with one man deciding that his getting to be the one who beats them is worth risking/reducing the ability to beat them itself. The BW is just further evidence that he was wrong.
 

Among the kajillion issues, if the Lannisters are the enemy and this isn’t just about who gets power, why not Shadowbaby Tywin or Joff? Because beating the Lannisters was secondary. So crediting the guy who makes the decision to make that a secondary consideration as being ~ Freedom’s Last Hope is imo faulty in the extreme. I get that from Robb’s pov, which is what people are arguing here, the BW was definitely more bad news, but let’s not lose focus on whose decision it was that everything rested on the BW in the first place. 

There's a lot of criticism for Stannis, but he was ultimately right to deal with Renly. Renly was a usurper. Either he believed Joffrey was Robert's son and owed loyalty to him or he believed Joffrey was Cersei's bastard and he owed loyalty to Stannis. Hell, Edric was at Storm's End. If he'd tried to put him forward, that would at least not be self serving. Renly wanted a crown and he was prepared to kill off his own family to get it.

Stannis could have and should have done more. He could have gone to Robert with what he knew. Or if he didn't believe Robert would believe him, he could have gone to Ned like he went to Jon Arryn. He did neither of those things and ultimately, Ned and Robert died like Jon Arryn and the Lannisters were able to secure the throne. I do think he was power hungry, but so was Renly. At least Stannis had some legitimacy.

Edited August 6, 2023 by Lee-Sensei