Is everyone going to be evil?

[Tammy]

Jon is becoming convinced that he needs to be in charge because he's the only one focused on the threat and that everyone else is a short-sighted fool. And he's right! But it's dangerous when you become convinced that you are irreplaceable. All sorts of actions become justified because you have to be in charge. His messiah complex will be fed even further when R+L=J is revealed.

I don't think Jon's anyway near close to thinking that he's irreplaceable. He knows he's the only one of those who are likely to be in charge that are concerned about the present situation and putting aside prejudices and thinking long term. But, he's constantly wishing for counselors, he's constantly asking his men what are the options, what different could be done. He just always gets the same bonehead answers that don't actually help the situation.

If he thought he was irreplaceable, I think we'd have more internal dialogue ala Cersei. But instead we get someone who's constantly worrying about the effect of his decisions, seeing no other way, but wishing there were practical men around to help with the situation. I don't see a messiah complex; he's never praising himself for things he's doing, which i would expect if he were thinking he was the messiah.

[The Lost Lord]

Your definition is correct, but needs to be qualified to suit Bran's unique position. He isn't trying to harm Hodor, neither is he deliberating exploiting him. Bran is a cripple; can we please get off our moralistic high-horses and be practical, or should we be classing him with the likes of Euron, Victarion, Gregor, Ramsay and Roose?

Yeah it's important judge moral transgressions with appropriate context. Finding a way to squeeze human warging into the definition of rape and then treating Bran as if he thus must have the mindset of a rapist just gets you down an entirely wrong path.

Look, Bran knows what he's doing is wrong, he clearly feels guilty about it, he clearly recognizes that Hodor is terrified by it, but he rationalizes it and does it anyway because it feels good and because he hasn't been "caught" doing it so far. That is not a healthy road to be on, especially when you have incredible mind control powers where no one can stop you from doing whatever you want. Now he's starting to muse about how it would feel to give Meera a "hug" in Hodor? And this doesn't disturb you guys?

I could put on Hodor’s skin, he thought. Hodor could hold her and pat her on the back. The thought made Bran feel strange, but he was still thinking it when Meera bolted from the fire...

On Jon:

I don't think Jon's anyway near close to thinking that he's irreplaceable.

I think the stage has been set by his ADWD work, and when he's warged into Ghost in TWOW and sees the wildlings and Night's Watch start killing each other with him gone, it will be pretty hard for him not to come to that conclusion. And of course, R+L=J...

[brashcandy]

Look, Bran knows what he's doing is wrong, he clearly feels guilty about it, he clearly recognizes that Hodor is terrified by it, but he rationalizes it and does it anyway because it feels good and because he hasn't been "caught" doing it so far. That is not a healthy road to be on, especially when you have incredible mind control powers where no one can stop you from doing whatever you want. Now he's starting to muse about how it would feel to give Meera a "hug" in Hodor? And this doesn't disturb you guys?

No, it just saddens me.

On Jon:

I think the stage has been set by his ADWD work, and when he's warged into Ghost in TWOW and sees the wildlings and Night's Watch start killing each other with him gone, it will be pretty hard for him not to come to that conclusion. And of course, R+L=J...

Oh yes, Jon in Ghost is going, "see I know they couldn't do without me!! And later, "I always knew I was special, gee, I'd like to see Catelyn's face now!"

Absolutely preposterous.

[The Lost Lord]

Oh yes, Jon in Ghost is going, "see I know they couldn't do without me!! And later, "I always knew I was special, gee, I'd like to see Catelyn's face now!" Absolutely preposterous.

No, as I said above, Jon will accurately see that his assassination leads directly to chaos, war between the wildlings and Night's Watch, and disastrous consequences re: the approaching Others attack. Without him, it all fell apart. He will accurately view Bowen Marsh and the wildlings as fools for killing each other. He'll decide that he needs to get his body back to unify these warring factions with an iron fist and face the Others. That he needs to be in charge, and that anyone who objects is a fool who must be disposed of. And, for the most part, he's right. But this is a mindset that can quickly lead to overreaching and tyranny. This is how power works.

[FicusFan]

Interesting posts. My concern is not that they will all be evil, rather that GRRM makes the good side so stupid/inept that they always end up being defeated.

Bran and Hodor:

Bran is young, basically unsupervised and trapped in a crippled body. He is going to experiment - his goal is to survive and regain his freedom. None of these are evil goals. His methods are the problem.

However a simple modern view does not really apply here. He is a noble, in his world he is better and worth more

than those around him, simply due to his family. What they consider good is treating the small folk well when they use them, NOT abstaining from using them.

Bran's moral guardians - selected Hodor to be used as his means of locomotion. They didn't ask Hodor if he consented, they just took him. That may have been just a job in Winterfell, but now he is in the wild fleeing with Bran. He can die of starvation, cold, injury, disease not to mention being attacked and killed - none of which Hodor was asked to consent to. Forget mind rape, in your worldview its actual rape, yet you don't seem concerned about that ?

Bran is still young and has to make decisions about how he will develop - but he also is in transition. He seems to be about to join the ranks of the old gods. Does the question of morality even apply to a god ?

Regarding his ideas about the girl, I take that to be normal sexual development. He sees girls and he thinks about them as more than just another guy. If he weren't crippled he would be thinking about using his own body, since he is crippled he is thinking about using his crutch. I don't think adolescent sexual fantasies are always appropriate - but that doesn't mean they have advance from fantasy to action.

[FicusFan]

The issue with Jon is that he has just repeated Robbs arc. He has won all his battles but been destroyed by politics and subtlty.

Of course he acts as if power is his right because it is. He may be a bastard, but he is a noble one and most likely got the same lessons Robb got - how to command. In their world the only check on power is either a higher absolute ruler or a god. He went to the wall because knew he would never rise to any power/position in society because he was a bastard and Catelyn hated him. If she hadn't he could have been supported by the family, maybe legitimized, married to some heiress and been Robb's right hand.

His vows require him to guard the realms of men. As LC he makes the call what that will be. If he doesn't decide he is the best one to rule, someone else will rule in his place. It could be another Black Crow or it could be a ruler like Stannis who is stronger than the LC and co-opts the Watch to do what he wants.

[The Greatmatt]

Sansa never gave false testimony against Arya. She never convinced Ned to join the NW, she never even spoke to him after he was arrested. She never assisted the Tyrells in a plot to assassinate Joffrey. She did agree to let Dontos rescue her from KL, where she was being brutally abused.

Perhaps a reread is in order?

You're right on some of the points, but she actually did give false testimony. She knew what happened, and didn't say. And this was serious stuff. Joffrey alleged they had attacked him with a direwolf. Trying to kill the prince is easily a capital offense, and the king could have easily ordered Arya dead. As it was, it cost the butcher's boy his.

I wouldn't damn her forever because of this because she's a child, but that scene made me hate Sansa, and I didn't recover from that for quite a while.

[Tammy]

You're right on some of the points, but she actually did give false testimony. She knew what happened, and didn't say. And this was serious stuff. Joffrey alleged they had attacked him with a direwolf. Trying to kill the prince is easily a capital offense, and the king could have easily ordered Arya dead. As it was, it cost the butcher's boy his.

I wouldn't damn her forever because of this because she's a child, but that scene made me hate Sansa, and I didn't recover from that for quite a while.

When she cried and claimed she didn't remember after telling Ned the truth about it, I hated her too for quite awhile. Although I hated that Lady died as a result, I thought it fitting justice that she lost the symbol of her "Starkness" when she turned her back on her family. I didn't start liking her again until she started to remember who she was.

[MyDogIsNamedDanerys]

You're right on some of the points, but she actually did give false testimony. She knew what happened, and didn't say. And this was serious stuff. Joffrey alleged they had attacked him with a direwolf. Trying to kill the prince is easily a capital offense, and the king could have easily ordered Arya dead. As it was, it cost the butcher's boy his.

Nope, it definitely did not. The Hound did not even know that Arya had been found by the time he returned with Mycah's corpse. Sansa's testimony occurred after Mycah's death and hence had nothing to do with it.

It is possible that Lady's life would have been spared had Sansa backed Arya's story, but we really don't know. Cersei would have just proclaimed Sansa a liar, too, and Robert may still have been too weak to contradict her. But I guess we will never know.

[The Lost Lord]

However a simple modern view does not really apply here. He is a noble, in his world he is better and worth more

than those around him, simply due to his family. What they consider good is treating the small folk well when they use them, NOT abstaining from using them. Bran's moral guardians - selected Hodor to be used as his means of locomotion. They didn't ask Hodor if he consented, they just took him. That may have been just a job in Winterfell, but now he is in the wild fleeing with Bran. He can die of starvation, cold, injury, disease not to mention being attacked and killed - none of which Hodor was asked to consent to. Forget mind rape, in your worldview its actual rape, yet you don't seem concerned about that ?

Hodor demonstrated his consent to going on the grand adventure by walking along with them happily and cheerfully. Hodor demonstrated his lack of consent to Bran's taking control of his body by fighting back, expressing his terror and fear until he was beaten into submission. On your strange point about "using" the smallfolk, Maester Luwin specifically tells Bran in book one, "Hodor is a man, not a mule to be beaten." He's not a skin to be slipped into either.

Bran is young, basically unsupervised and trapped in a crippled body. He is going to experiment - his goal is to survive and regain his freedom. None of these are evil goals. His methods are the problem.

When Bran has mind control powers and he starts taking control of people's bodies even when he knows they are fighting back and desperately want him not to, that is a problem. It shows a capacity to shut out other people's pain so you can get what you want. I might add that many posters here are doing the same, ignoring Hodor's pain and just saying, "Well, Bran doesn't mean anything by it! He's just experimenting!" Yes, and his experiments are causing people pain, and he knows it, but he does it anyway.

[Alexia]

Let's try this again. Sansa never gave false testimony against Arya. And why the hell is it "fitting justice" for Lady to be killed as revenge against Nymeria's misdeeds? And how does a scared kid prevaricating in a courtroom count as turning her back on her family? :lol:

It is possible that Lady's life would have been spared had Sansa backed Arya's story, but we really don't know. Cersei would have just proclaimed Sansa a liar, too, and Robert may still have been too weak to contradict her. But I guess we will never know.

Cersei Lannister had already declared her intention to not allow the wolves to come south with them, and the crown prince had still been mauled by a wolf.

I've said it before and I'll say it again. Alas, the Hound left his cell phone in Cersei Lannister's tent so he was unfortunately unable to receive her urgent call when she tried to let him know that he shouldn't kill the butcher's boy after all. :rolleyes:

[MyDogIsNamedDanerys]

Cersei Lannister had already declared her intention to not allow the wolves to come south with them, and the crown prince had still been mauled by a wolf.

Right, but it was only Robert's weakness that let this proceed. I think that Robert just might have allowed Lady (and Nymeria) to return north alive if Sansa had backed Arya's tale.

Still I don't think that's really what Sansa should have done. After all calling her fiance a liar is going to have some pretty severe consequences for her. And in any case, Robert should have done the right thing regardless of what Sansa said.

[Alexia]

Right, but it was only Robert's weakness that let this proceed. I think that Robert just might have allowed Lady (and Nymeria) to return north alive if Sansa had backed Arya's tale.

I think that the fact that this is super-unrealistic is exposed when Robert tells Ned that he did Sansa a major wrong and that he knew all along that Joffrey was lying. I repeat, Robert says that he knew that Joffrey was lying. He even apologizes to Ned for it.

[Timur Khal]

The problem is that, viewing from a modern perspective, everyone would be evil. The same as in the Middle Ages. Of course, from their viewpoint they do what they have to do, and in many ways might consider modern culture to be full of evil sinners. The world is grey, especially back when things were rough and deadly and extremely unfair and all this was considered normal and even a luxury (from the peasant's point of view, anyways). Many of these arguments are based around children who were raised with pre-conceived concepts of superiority and a right to control one's situation through the use of those socially under you. Raping your wife was seen as a husband's right, and you were considered kind to a flaw if you treated your smallfolk well while using them, and concepts of equal rights were still not really in existence in Westeros. And, in a time of war, as a lonely child grown up with these notions before being wrenched from your family into the brutality of chaos and war and realpolitik, and no one to guide you but people often far worse...do you really expect that person to go "but a peaceful person sitting at a computer thinks this is of questionable ethic!" and become saints? GRRM is portraying a medieval world in total chaos rather accurately, where good men and women do terrible things, and pure evil is rare.

Arya, for example, has spent her formative years killing people, surviving in a war-torn land off little food and a lot of blood. She spends her nights involuntarily dreaming of devouring people as a wolf, and becomes so tormented by the destruction of her family and her hardships that she chants people she wants to murder's names as a prayer. Hardships, tragedy, and pain known only to those living in a savage warzone do things to people. It doesn't make sense to have people, might as well young people who are more easily influenced, to just go through this equivalent of a wartorn, medieval state and come out with angels singing and flying over rainbows of innocence? Now, with modern society, it is far, far easier to do what is right most of the time and rise to power while remaining decent (and even then, people are often changed for the worse), than in a society like Westeros or England during the Dark Ages, where the stakes were so much higher, and with few morality rules that actually stay in place once blades are drawn. All I'm saying is that, yes, these characters made decisions that for someone on this forum to make would be a horrible, evil thing to do. But that doesn't necessarily make them evil, it just makes them less innocent and naive (and in a story such as this, innocence and naivety can easily get you killed).

Just sayin :tantrum: :leaving:

[MyDogIsNamedDanerys]

I think that the fact that this is super-unrealistic is exposed when Robert tells Ned that he did Sansa a major wrong and that he knew all along that Joffrey was lying. I repeat, Robert says that he knew that Joffrey was lying. He even apologizes to Ned for it.

Of course he knows Joffery is lying. But if there are two witnesses to the lie, in front of the entire court it's going to look way worse for Robert to give into Cersei. It already looks terrible, of course. But if we have Sansa and Arya both backing the story, the path of least resistence (Robert's favorite path) shifts from Cersei's side to Ned's side.

Anyway did you miss the part where I said Sansa probably shouldn't do it anyway? Or the part where I said that Mycah's death had nothing to do with Sansa's actions? :dunno: We're on the same side here.

[Tammy]

Let's try this again. Sansa never gave false testimony against Arya. And why the hell is it "fitting justice" for Lady to be killed as revenge against Nymeria's misdeeds? And how does a scared kid prevaricating in a courtroom count as turning her back on her family? :lol:

You're right, merely evading the truth in a courtroom doesn't count on her turning her back on her family. Thankfully though we have Sansa POVs from which we can round out her own motivations, desires, actions and wishes. It's been awhile since I read AGoT, but what I got from her POVs is someone who is desperate to be at KL among the court and be married to her true knight prince, Joffrey. She was selfish at most every turn during that book and went out of her way to make sure she didn't have to go back to Winterfell, even to the point where she spilled her father's plans to Cersei and helped bring about his and her demise. (I don't think she did this purposefully to bring down her father, mind you, but she still turned her back on her father and his desires for her own selfish reasons.)

Chalk that up to her being a child, that's fine. I actually don't know what she could have done differently in the Joff/Arya/Mica/Nymeria situation, although I don't really know how you can call Nymeria's attempts to protect Arya and Micah as "misdeeds." She was in a rock and a hard place there; however, not once in her POV does her internal dialogue suggest this. The only thing I read from her is placing the blame on Arya at every turn. She never laments that she didn't like "pretending" like she forgot because she didn't know what else to do.

So, yeah I saw that as an indication of her turning her back on who she was and her loss of Lady was symbolic of that. Just as I saw her building a snow Winterfell at the Vale as a symbol of her remembering who she was.

[Alexia]

Anyway did you miss the part where I said Sansa probably shouldn't do it anyway? Or the part where I said that Mycah's death had nothing to do with Sansa's actions? :dunno: We're on the same side here.

I know we're on the same side, and I know this from previous conversations as well. :) But my point is that Robert is a weak, pathetic reed. Sansa's testimony had nothing to do with Lady's fate, because Lady had nothing to do with Nymeria's attack on Joffrey. And Sansa's testimony doesn't unmaul Joffrey, after all.

She was in a rock and a hard place there; however, not once in her POV does her internal dialogue suggest this.

You may wish to consider a reread.

By the way, Ned brought about his own demise when he spilled his own plans to Cersei and trusted LF. Sansa only managed to prevent herself and Arya from escaping. :lol:

[brashcandy]

No, as I said above, Jon will accurately see that his assassination leads directly to chaos, war between the wildlings and Night's Watch, and disastrous consequences re: the approaching Others attack. Without him, it all fell apart. He will accurately view Bowen Marsh and the wildlings as fools for killing each other. He'll decide that he needs to get his body back to unify these warring factions with an iron fist and face the Others. That he needs to be in charge, and that anyone who objects is a fool who must be disposed of. And, for the most part, he's right. But this is a mindset that can quickly lead to overreaching and tyranny. This is how power works.

You cannot have it both ways. You cannot declare that Jon is right in his assumptions that without his influence the wildlings and the NW will descend into fighting, and then accuse him of being arrogant and a potential tyrant because of said assumption. Jon has always been humble and conflicted in any path he chose to take concerning the wildlings and those under his command, and it is thoroughly disingenuous to suggest otherwise and ludicrous (not to mention strangely mean) to try to undermine, before the fact, any sense of pride that he should rightly feel in being the son of Rhaegar and Lyanna. I would think that any emotion Jon feels on hearing this news would actually be some sadness, loss and confusion. No matter his relationship with Catelyn, he idealised and respected Ned as a father, and was very close to his siblings. Being a Stark, bastard or no, has filled him with some sense of importance and self esteem. I don't see how learning he is a Prince would affect someone as grounded and unaffected as Jon is.

[MyDogIsNamedDanerys]

I know we're on the same side, and I know this from previous conversations as well. :) But my point is that Robert is a weak, pathetic reed. Sansa's testimony had nothing to do with Lady's fate, because Lady had nothing to do with Nymeria's attack on Joffrey. And Sansa's testimony doesn't unmaul Joffrey, after all.

Lol ok good.

About Robert being weak. IA so completely. And it's not just this but everything he does.

Considering how weak he is, I am always baffled when I reread the bit in aCoK where Donal Noye tells Jon that Robert was "The True Steel" of the Baratheon bros. Seriously? He's a weak, weak, asshole. If Stannis is Iron and Renly is Copper, Robert is like... Tin? Wood? I don't know. Not steel to be sure.

I mean, I guess we are supposed to think he was a completely different person when young, but I see no evidence for that either. Main differences were: he was better at smashing things with a warhammer, he had more babies put to death, and he delusionally thought a woman loved him that didn't. Not exactly plusses in my book.

Ugh I hate Robert Baratheon.

[Alexia]

About Robert being weak. IA so completely. And it's not just this but everything he does.

Considering how weak he is, I am always baffled when I rereat the bit in aCoK where Donal Noye tells Jon that Robert was "The True Steel" of the Baratheon bros. Seriously? He's a weak, weak, asshole. If Stannis is Iron and Renly is Copper, Robert is like... Tin? Wood? I don't know. Not steel to be sure. I mean, I guess we are supposed to think he was a completely different person when young, but I see no evidence for that either.

Ugh I hate Robert Baratheon.

:lol:

You and me both, sister. Seriously, I think that Renly was the best potential king of the brothers (although Stannis started evolving in ADWD) and Robert is so completely pitiful. He flies into a temper and beats his wife, lets the realm go to ruin and serves it up to the Lannisters on a platter, et al. I never understand how anyone could compare the man to steel -- maybe back in the day, when he was 20?