[ADwD Spoliers] Why young Griff is the real deal!

[iamthedave]

Hmm, I guess you only read the Daario bits then, and you were so titillated that you decided to skip those bothersome meetings with the Green Grace, holding court to hear claims, figuring out the best way to stop the Harpy, marrying Hizdahr, going out to care for the sick etc etc. So those of us who think she's a good politician must have read the ENTIRE book then, and not only the parts that gave us some cheap thrills.

I'd rather say she tries to be a good politician and fails. I believe I already said at length how completely not a good idea going out to care for the sick actually was, and in fact so did everybody else with a pulse within a mile of her.

Without sidetracking irredeemably, Dance certainly leaves a lot of questions up in the air about whether or not Dany is fit to rule Westeros, and on the surface there are several other candidates as suited or better suited for the job, of which Aegon may be one.

We can fairly assume he's been taught everything he 'needs' to know in order to rule. Whether or not he has the chops to do it, on the other hand, is a more complex issue.

I don't think the scene with the cyvasse table should be forgotten. Aegon has shown a bit of a youthful, impatient streak, and that can be just as much of a problem for him as it has been for just about every other young character in the series. He may have the perfect education, but that does not mean he has the perfect qualities.

In this regard, whether or not Aegon is 'legitimate' doesn't matter. It's only important in that it gets a young boy out of nowhere into position to rule. If it's true so much the better but if it's a lie... so what? If he has the education and the qualities needed to rule effectively, everybody in Westeros will benefit in the end and nobody will give a damn about anything else. Not even us, I'd wager.

[iamthedave]

How was this an "obvious coup d'etat"? Dany was not overthrown at all in this scene. There was an attempt made on life, but it could have come from anyone and she wasn't harmed. By all accounts she'll come back to Meereen better and stronger, with a huge Dothraki army.

Through no quality of her own, and entirely because a helpful Dragon turned up. Can't really count that as a point in her favour, and nor should anyone else.

It's the fact that Dany attempts to keep watch on her realm, empathises with the sufferings of others, holds meetings where she is actually present, and is willing to make personal sacrifices that make her such a good ruler.

She's a good PERSON. That does not necessarily make her a good RULER.

For some reason, Brash, you think those two are synonomous when they're almost unrelated.

And where are you getting this idea that Joff was the soul of courtesy in public? Not the Joffrey Baratheon we all know and love surely? This is the same Joff who had his betrothed Sansa beaten and stripped in front of a whole court of observers

I seem to recall it happened on the battlements of the castle with only the Kingsguard and a few others happening to be around, not in the court. It's stated AND shown several times that he's extremely good at putting on his good face in public.

This really is a simplistic rendering of the Dany's journey so far.

I'm not interested in writing out a mini-novel in every post, Brash. A degree of simplification is going to be needed. Need I remind you of the other thread where I was doing that?

She may not know the exact political structure in Westeros, but she's dealt with thieving, murderous manipulative men before, so taking care of some of the Lords there shouldn't be a problem

She got completely fooled by Brown Ben Plumm.

I'm really at a lost to think how Dany's Meereen's experiences can be seen as a negative.

That's because you're completely biased in her favour, and can't bear to have a single negative thing said about her under any circumstances. You would only grudgingly admit that crucifying the 163 masters was a bad idea, while in the same breath comparing it to the kind of measure taken by Tywin Lannister, who might as well have had 'Extreme measures' tattooed on his forehead.

[Nightstar]

Robert had no real talent as a ruler. And as a ruler, his real talent was recognizing that he didn't like or want the reigns of power, and allowing his small council to handle it. Which they did, admirably, resulting in several years of peace and Robert being a fondly remembered king.

I'm curious as to why you say Robert is a fondly-remembered king.

Who is there that speaks well of his rule?

Even Robert himself says he is merely a better king than Aerys (which is disputed by some of the smallfolk), and mostly wants to stay in power to keep Joffrey out of it (even the thick Robert has no illusions about Joffrey).

I think there is a huge difference between thinking well of Robert's rule, and being reluctant to get caught up in another full-scale war in every generation.

[Tyrionthebest]

Hmm, I guess you only read the Daario bits then, and you were so titillated that you decided to skip those bothersome meetings with the Green Grace, holding court to hear claims, figuring out the best way to stop the Harpy, marrying Hizdahr, going out to care for the sick etc etc. So those of us who think she's a good politician must have read the ENTIRE book then, and not only the parts that gave us some cheap thrills.

No , i read the whole book and i only saw some dumb teenage girl who knows nothing at all about rulling and she even admits all through her boring chapters that she'd rather be with Daario . Oh, and btw, yes i thought that her chapters are the weakest in the book but i didn't skip them so you have no reason to attack me other than your obvious fanboyism for Dany .

[brashcandy]

In this regard, whether or not Aegon is 'legitimate' doesn't matter. It's only important in that it gets a young boy out of nowhere into position to rule. If it's true so much the better but if it's a lie... so what? If he has the education and the qualities needed to rule effectively, everybody in Westeros will benefit in the end and nobody will give a damn about anything else. Not even us, I'd wager.</p>

Whilst it's true that Aegon's legitimacy might not matter much to the average peasant in Westeros (they'll all believe he's a Targ and if he's effective then all the better), I think it would matter a great deal to persons like Dany and other nobles (can you imagine Stannis' reaction), and it will matter even more to the reader. I haven't invested so much time in this series to see a pawn of Varys and Illyrio sit the Iron throne. For all the talk about birthrights not being important, it's still satisfying to see someone on the seat who both should be there and actually has the right kind of characteristics to be there. So if Aegon is legitimate then great - he'll probably still fail because education cannot extinguish natural tendencies, but at least he had some right to be there. I'm backing Jon for the Iron Throne though, but then again Jon can do no wrong in my eyes ;)

[brashcandy]

No , i read the whole book and i only saw some dumb teenage girl who knows nothing at all about rulling and she even admits all through her boring chapters that she'd rather be with Daario . Oh, and btw, yes i thought that her chapters are the weakest in the book but i didn't skip them so you have no reason to attack me other than your obvious fanboyism for Dany .

Fangirlism, please.

[Tagganaro]

As for Dany being fit to rule, I'd say that the entirety of Dance and her time in Mereen was a practice run for Westeros.

The fact of the matter is that although she made many bad mistakes, she was never going to be able to rule Mereen effectively. Her place is in Westeros where people will back her right to rule, and where slavery is not an engrained part of the culture.

I see her time in Mereen as learning how to rule better and how to work in Westeros. She will need to/and has learned imo that others to help alleviate her burden are necessary. She can't rule all the time, she needs to defer to her small council and trusted allies to help her rule.

Also, Dany learned about how being a good person doesn't necessarily make you a good ruler. A good ruler needs to be willing to get their hands dirty, to use her Dragons and not chain them up.

So no, I don't really think Dany has been shown one way or another to be adept or inadept at ruling. I think she is simply an inexperienced young girl who spent the entirety of ADWD stuck in a futile situation, and that she will be a much better ruler if she ever comes to Westeros where she has a legitimate claim to rule and her value system matches up more closely with those of her subjects.

[Tyrionthebest]

Fangirlism, please.

Oops, i didn't realise you were a girl, sorry .

[tze]

We can fairly assume he's been taught everything he 'needs' to know in order to rule. Whether or not he has the chops to do it, on the other hand, is a more complex issue.

I've always thought one of Dany's major problems was the fact that she had very little opportunity to watch someone else rule. No real mentor, I mean. Jon and Robb could remember watching Ned rule and basically ask "What Would Ned Do?" when problems arose among their men. Jon watched the Old Bear rule the Watch. He watched Mance Rayder rule the Free Folk, and when Jon has his own dealings with the wildlings, he thinks back to what Mance told him about ruling them. Jaime keeps thinking "What Would Tywin Do?" when he conducts his war council, and the whole baby-in-the-trebuchet threat is total Tywin Lannister. Robert was a crappy king in part because Jon Arryn never really untied the apron strings---Robert was accustomed to Jon being his surrogate father, and Jon never really forced Robert to stand on his own two feet because Jon was always swooping in as Hand of the King to do Robert's job for him; I'd speculate that Ned's awesome ruling skills in the North were the result of a combination of lessons learned from Lord Rickard and Jon Arryn, as well as the fact that with Jon Arryn busy in King's Landing cleaning up after Robert, he couldn't head North to do Ned's job for him, so Ned was forced to "grow up" and fend for himself.

My point is that Dany has only ever watched one ruler do his job firsthand: Khal Drogo. She knows she doesn't want to lead like he did, but she doesn't have firsthand knowledge of how to make any other kind of rulership work. So she's basically swimming in the dark when she tries to rule, because the only type of rulership she knows (Dothraki) is the one kind she doesn't want to apply. She knows alternatives exist, and she tries to fashion her own way of doing things, but she makes huge mistakes because she's had nobody to teach her how to rule the way she wants to rule. Viserys couldn't teach her anything about ruling because he'd never actually been a ruler and the one ruler he'd seen---Aerys---wasn't exactly a helpful example. Illyrio was a merchant, not a ruler. If Dany had been fostered in some ruler's court, I really wonder if she'd be having the kinds of trouble she's having (the Sons of the Harpy, for example. Dany's response to them is to basically do exactly what they want, marry Hizdahr. GIving in there wasn't doing Dany any favors in the long run.)

Aegon has a very similar problem. He's been living in exile with Jon Connington practically his entire life, and I seriously doubt Connington was bringing Aegon to meet rulers in Lys, Tyrosh, and other cities in Essos, because he wanted Aegon's existence to be a total secret. Connington has been a ruler (Lord of Griffin's Roost), so he can teach Aegon intellectually how to rule, but Aegon has never had the opportunity to see him rule firsthand. Varys's plan was presumably to stick Connington as Aegon's Hand and let Aegon learn by example for the first few years of his reign, but Connington's greyscale changes all of that: it's only a matter of time before he dies or his symptoms become too difficult to ignore, and then Aegon is on his own. The obvious answer would be for Varys to get himself named Hand of the King, but we know Connington hates Varys---who's to say that he didn't communicate that hatred to Aegon, making Aegon less inclined to name Varys his Hand and more inclined to name someone (coughPetyrBaelishcough) his Hand who perhaps doesn't have Aegon's best interests at heart.

[brashcandy]

The obvious answer would be for Varys to get himself named Hand of the King, but we know Connington hates Varys---who's to say that he didn't communicate that hatred to Aegon, making Aegon less inclined to name Varys his Hand and more inclined to name someone (coughPetyrBaelishcough) his Hand who perhaps doesn't have Aegon's best interests at heart.</p>

You've made some great points here Tze. A lot of what hampers Dany so far is that she is flying blindly, but her natural instincts haven't been bad either. We can only ever try to emulate people to an extent, but after that we do have to rely on our own impulses to get things done [if Ned had been in Jon's place he may have executed Mance, and conversely I can see Jon listening to that wildling that Ned executed in AGOT)Both Dany and Jon are trying to make sweeping changes in extremely conservative environments. Their two main decisions - ending slavery and readmitting the wildlings - have no real precedent, so these two have to base their actions on what they feel is right and necessary. As for the Aegon/Varys/Littlefinger angle, I for one am really disappointed in Varys. He and LF seem to have been masterminds at court but they're completely naive when it comes to trying to make a real play for the Iron throne. LF however, may be able to usurp power from Varys as you contend, because he has the pretty girl that he can offer to Aegon for a marriage pact. However, Sansa herself isn't going to go meekly. So right now both Varys and LF's plans are resting on quicksand.

[Silverin]

I'm curious as to why you say Robert is a fondly-remembered king.

Who is there that speaks well of his rule?

Even Robert himself says he is merely a better king than Aerys (which is disputed by some of the smallfolk), and mostly wants to stay in power to keep Joffrey out of it (even the thick Robert has no illusions about Joffrey).

I think there is a huge difference between thinking well of Robert's rule, and being reluctant to get caught up in another full-scale war in every generation.

Dondarrion and the BwB. The people at the Stony Step (Did I wrote it right?). The whole idea of the BwB was to fulfil the real king's (Roberts) orders (It was actually Neds). even after his death, which was to protect he innocents from the troops of Gregor Clegane and punish the pillagers.

[MedStudentEmily]

I like Dany. I think she knows that ruling is a skill that she needs to learn, and she is trying. I don't think that having a sexual interest in someone who is otherwise not a very good match for her means that she is a bad ruler. Neither Barristan, nor Jorah, nor Viserys know anything really about ruling, so they have been lackluster tutors. Khal Drogo was a good ruler but for the Dothraki- some of that probably translates to the general case, and some of it probably doesn't.

[iamthedave]

I've always thought one of Dany's major problems was the fact that she had very little opportunity to watch someone else rule. No real mentor, I mean. Jon and Robb could remember watching Ned rule and basically ask "What Would Ned Do?" when problems arose among their men. Jon watched the Old Bear rule the Watch. He watched Mance Rayder rule the Free Folk, and when Jon has his own dealings with the wildlings, he thinks back to what Mance told him about ruling them. Jaime keeps thinking "What Would Tywin Do?" when he conducts his war council, and the whole baby-in-the-trebuchet threat is total Tywin Lannister. Robert was a crappy king in part because Jon Arryn never really untied the apron strings---Robert was accustomed to Jon being his surrogate father, and Jon never really forced Robert to stand on his own two feet because Jon was always swooping in as Hand of the King to do Robert's job for him; I'd speculate that Ned's awesome ruling skills in the North were the result of a combination of lessons learned from Lord Rickard and Jon Arryn, as well as the fact that with Jon Arryn busy in King's Landing cleaning up after Robert, he couldn't head North to do Ned's job for him, so Ned was forced to "grow up" and fend for himself.

Though ironically, WWND turned out to be Robb's undoing. He tried to be too much like his dear old dad when he should have walked his own path.

You know, I think it's actually Tyrion who lives under the rule of WWTD, more than Jaime. Jaime thinks about it sometimes, but Tyrion's the one who obsesses (and obsessed) over his father for obvious reasons. In part he wanted to be NOT like Tywin, and in part Tyrion totally wanted to be like him, and could do it. Which was why dear Genna Lannister pissed in Tywin's tea by telling him that Tyrion was his father's son and not Jaime (who has none of Tywin's smarts and is altogether a more physical sort of fellow).

I'd love to have seen Jon and Robert and Ned back in the glory days. I do get the feeling Jon's shadow looms large over Robert's reign. We know little of him but he seems to have been a collected sort of fella.

As for Ned's awesome ruling skills... I don't think they are that awesome. Run with me here: The North more or less runs itself. It's simply too big to be governed centrally. Think about what Roose says about the Bolton lands, and how the right to the first night is still held both by him AND the Umbers (I imagine it's true, on the grounds of its an odd thing to lie about especially given who he's talking to at the time). Did Ned know these things? I doubt it. If so he would have tried to stamp them out because of the law. That's the exact situation where all you need to do is be a good person, rather than a good ruler. There aren't as many squabbles to deal with, and you never have a situation where you've got fifty people all under one roof day in day out all intriguing at the same time. This is why he's so horribly out of his depth in King's Landing. Basically, his lords haven't got as much trouble with one another, and their own lands are sorted out their way.

Or so is my impression.

My point is that Dany has only ever watched one ruler do his job firsthand: Khal Drogo. She knows she doesn't want to lead like he did, but she doesn't have firsthand knowledge of how to make any other kind of rulership work. So she's basically swimming in the dark when she tries to rule, because the only type of rulership she knows (Dothraki) is the one kind she doesn't want to apply. She knows alternatives exist, and she tries to fashion her own way of doing things, but she makes huge mistakes because she's had nobody to teach her how to rule the way she wants to rule. Viserys couldn't teach her anything about ruling because he'd never actually been a ruler and the one ruler he'd seen---Aerys---wasn't exactly a helpful example. Illyrio was a merchant, not a ruler. If Dany had been fostered in some ruler's court, I really wonder if she'd be having the kinds of trouble she's having (the Sons of the Harpy, for example. Dany's response to them is to basically do exactly what they want, marry Hizdahr. GIving in there wasn't doing Dany any favors in the long run.)

Illyrio does know a bit about how to rule, though. I also doubt Dany would have done better in a lord's court. Let's not forget she was firmly under Viserys' thumb. It wasn't until she was married off that she began to grow up. I'd say if she were married off to a lord it would have worked out well. But if that had happened she'd never have been given a reason to become who she is today.

I agree with the basic point, but Dany has a secondary issue: She's too prideful to ask for help.

It's not that she thinks she's perfect, she knows she isn't, but at the same time she won't bend the knee and seek someone to listen to. She has no Hand, nor does she seem to think she needs one. Everytime she trucks out her 'I'm only a young girl' line, it has a strain of mockery towards the person she's using it on, the unspoken ending of 'but I still know better than you', when really she doesn't.

As I've noted before, Dany's actually quite awkward to talk to if you want her to really listen. Barristan Selmy is horrible at it, because the moment Dany gets angry - and she has a flash temper - he just stutters and goes silent. Jorah was much better at it, and somehow even when he made her angry, Dany usually took his advice on board. Sometimes she ignored it, but you never had the feeling she just shoved it straight out of her mental window and never thought about it again as you often do with Barristan's efforts in Dance, especially when he tries to clue her in on some of the realities of her past family life. Skahaz and the Shavepate seemed even worse for this a lot of the time.

Varys's plan was presumably to stick Connington as Aegon's Hand and let Aegon learn by example for the first few years of his reign, but Connington's greyscale changes all of that: it's only a matter of time before he dies or his symptoms become too difficult to ignore, and then Aegon is on his own. The obvious answer would be for Varys to get himself named Hand of the King, but we know Connington hates Varys---who's to say that he didn't communicate that hatred to Aegon, making Aegon less inclined to name Varys his Hand and more inclined to name someone (coughPetyrBaelishcough) his Hand who perhaps doesn't have Aegon's best interests at heart.

No way would Varys want to be hand of the king. He's intrigued to kill at least one Hand of the king (kevan), may have had something to do with another (Jon), and knows all about what happened to the third even if he wanted him alive (Ned). Just like Littlefinger, Varys understands how dangerous it is to be noticed.

Varys would want to be at Aegon's side, controlling all the information the King receives, far too valuable to get rid of or replace, and far, far too knowledgeable to ignore.

There are different readings to take out of Dance, absolutely. To me, though, everything I've seen tells me Dany is best suited on the frontlines as a general. She seems to fit naturally into that role, whereas she seems to actively hate everything that comes from being a ruler. I can't think of anything she seemed to enjoy in Dance. Even the little victories she got seemed to be wearisome to her. Compare with Tyrion, who loved every single second of being Hand of the King, even and perhaps especially when he knew everybody was gunning for him and he had to think one step ahead of them.

I guess at the very least we can say she's learned the truth of old Aegon's adage that a crown should never sit easy on the head.

[CrypticWeirwood]

Like Henry Tudor, who won the throne of England in battle in 1485 but no one even considered prior to 1483? Granted, there's no reason this is a one-to-one analogy for the Wars of the Roses, but YG/Aegon (especially if he is a Blackfyre) is EXACTLY what Henry Tudor was - the last descendant of a legitimized bastard line that was all but wiped out by those previously occupying the throne, who spent nearly his entire life in exile (France vs Essos) before seizing an opportunity to land with a token force of mercenaries, winning some quick battles in an area which was sympathetic to him, but still in such a way that no one expected him to succeed, and then seeing his support swell.

With that in mind, while I'm not saying Aegon will hold the throne at the end, I don't think his failure is guaranteed either.

Thank you very much for reminding us of that! I think you’re exactly right.

Also for attempting to bring the thread back on track. Alas, the rabid Dany-lovers seem to have had their way with it; don’t they have their own thread somewhere? }-;

[kg1982]

I'm curious as to why you say Robert is a fondly-remembered king.

Who is there that speaks well of his rule?

Even Robert himself says he is merely a better king than Aerys (which is disputed by some of the smallfolk), and mostly wants to stay in power to keep Joffrey out of it (even the thick Robert has no illusions about Joffrey).

I think there is a huge difference between thinking well of Robert's rule, and being reluctant to get caught up in another full-scale war in every generation.

Robert actually has one important skill for ruling - he can win friends and influence people. Stannis conveys a story about the two lords who rebelled against Robert in the initial rebellion and later died for him at the Trident. That's a clue that despite his disgust about the details of ruling, he actually did have one of the most important qualities necessary to be a good ruler - being good with people.

As for Ned's awesome ruling skills... I don't think they are that awesome. Run with me here: The North more or less runs itself. It's simply too big to be governed centrally. Think about what Roose says about the Bolton lands, and how the right to the first night is still held both by him AND the Umbers (I imagine it's true, on the grounds of its an odd thing to lie about especially given who he's talking to at the time). Did Ned know these things? I doubt it. If so he would have tried to stamp them out because of the law. That's the exact situation where all you need to do is be a good person, rather than a good ruler. There aren't as many squabbles to deal with, and you never have a situation where you've got fifty people all under one roof day in day out all intriguing at the same time. This is why he's so horribly out of his depth in King's Landing. Basically, his lords haven't got as much trouble with one another, and their own lands are sorted out their way.

The fact that there is lots of residual love for Ned in the North suggests otherwise. The clansmen were happy to march through a blizzard for Ned's little girl. That wouldn't have happened if he wasn't a good lord. Also, the Boltons and other enemies didn't act until the Ned had been executed and his fifteen-year-old son was in charge. Yes, he didn't call out Roose Bolton on every thuggish behavior because he didn't have proof, but Ned was definitely uneasy around him.

Of course, both Robb and Ned were horribly out of their depth in the South, but that has more to do with cultural clashes than anything else. The court intrigue of the South has little place in the North, where both were naturally at home. Ruling has as much to do with understanding the culture as much as anything else.

[brashcandy]

There are different readings to take out of Dance, absolutely. To me, though, everything I've seen tells me Dany is best suited on the frontlines as a general. She seems to fit naturally into that role, whereas she seems to actively hate everything that comes from being a ruler. I can't think of anything she seemed to enjoy in Dance. Even the little victories she got seemed to be wearisome to her. Compare with Tyrion, who loved every single second of being Hand of the King, even and perhaps especially when he knew everybody was gunning for him and he had to think one step ahead of them.

Dave, I've speculated elsewhere that the one interpretation of the line "dragons plant no trees" could mean that she has decided not to be a Queen anymore. Not that she's going to slash and burn down cities (as The Lost Lord would claim) but that she doesn't like how she has to compromise her principles, and she wants to be on the outside making things happen and looking after her people instead of being inside a palace. So who knows where GRRM will take her storyline. Assuredly she'll head to Volantis and free the slaves there, and then on to Pentos and Westeros, but will she be in the role of a conqueror still, I'm not sure...

[The Dornishman's Wife]

Awesome post Dave with many excellent points. Nitpicker that I am, I'll just point to one point I don't quite agree with:

Though ironically, WWND turned out to be Robb's undoing. He tried to be too much like his dear old dad when he should have walked his own path.

I assume you talk about Rob doing the honorable thing and marrying the girl he impregnated rather than honoring his promise to Frey. However, that is exactly the point where he diverges from what he must think Ned would do: According to common knowledge (although not actually true if R+L=J), Ned also impregnated a girl which he did not marry, but he instead did take the wife that was important to the war effort (and the Tullys joined the rebellion after he did).

Long argument for why Jon was indeed conceived before Ned was married (skip if you're already convinced of that or don't care): The Sisterlord from Davos's chapter informs us that some people believe Jon was fathered on a fisherwoman during Ned's flight from the Vale (i.e. at the very beginning of the rebellion). That only makes sense if Jon is a little bit older than Robb, as Robb was conceived after that event. As we don't know how soon into the rebellion the Tully-Stark-Tully-Arryn double wedding was, we don't exactly know how much older he must have been, but at least some time must have passed for them to arrange the whole thing, meet up and actually have it - it's said that Riverrun only joined after the marriage, so it was before the Battle of the Bells and probably shortly before it. That should result in a recognizable age difference of the babies, so Robb can't have looked younger than Jon. But if Jon's older than Robb, who was conceived at the consummation or extremely shortly afterwards (Eddard didn't hang around; he had a war to fight), Ned must have been unmarried when he fooled around with Jon's mother, so he could have married her - but he did the politically sensible thing instead and married for swords. Well, that's what it looks like at least, most readers believe that actually Jon was conceived between R+L and probably around the beginning of the rebellion (possibly a bit before). But we're talking about Robb's perspective here of course.

[iamthedave]

Robert actually has one important skill for ruling - he can win friends and influence people. Stannis conveys a story about the two lords who rebelled against Robert in the initial rebellion and later died for him at the Trident. That's a clue that despite his disgust about the details of ruling, he actually did have one of the most important qualities necessary to be a good ruler - being good with people.

Absolutely. I think it's actually quite significant that both Tyrion AND Jaime expressed like for Robert at some point, given that their house was arrayed against him. Didn't Tyrion say he 'was quite fond of Robert, great blustering oaf that he was'? Something to that effect. Even at his most dissipated, there was just something likeable about Robert.

And it must be granted: he knew how to throw a party.

His skill at winning people to his side is often remarked on. Stannis seems bewildered by it. He's bein all prudent and suggesting wise course, and there's Robert just laughing and going 'nah, let's have fun instead. Who needs cells, eh? Let's go shoot some animals and eat them!' And somehow that ends up with his captives fighting and dying for him a year down the line. Or was it six months?

The fact that there is lots of residual love for Ned in the North suggests otherwise. The clansmen were happy to march through a blizzard for Ned's little girl. That wouldn't have happened if he wasn't a good lord. Also, the Boltons and other enemies didn't act until the Ned had been executed and his fifteen-year-old son was in charge. Yes, he didn't call out Roose Bolton on every thuggish behavior because he didn't have proof, but Ned was definitely uneasy around him.

Of course, both Robb and Ned were horribly out of their depth in the South, but that has more to do with cultural clashes than anything else. The court intrigue of the South has little place in the North, where both were naturally at home. Ruling has as much to do with understanding the culture as much as anything else.

I'm not saying he was a bad lord, just that he wasn't forced into the sort of intense political shenanigans that ultimately killed him. The Stark name itself carries huge weight in the North, and they hang very heavily on tradition, duty and such, far more than in the South where it's a lot more about 'well what have you done for me, lately?'

And if I'm right and all he really needed do was make sure to be personable and get to know the lords without interfering too much in their running of their lands... why wouldn't they like him? He wouldn't ever have had to do anything that would make them dislike him. Ned was very very good at being a generally awesome bloke. But when he was forced into politicking even HE pissed people off left and right, and even faster than someone like Tyrion who everyone hates.

I assume you talk about Rob doing the honorable thing and marrying the girl he impregnated rather than honoring his promise to Frey. However, that is exactly the point where he diverges from what he must think Ned would do: According to common knowledge (although not actually true if R+L=J), Ned also impregnated a girl which he did not marry, but he instead did take the wife that was important to the war effort (and the Tullys joined the rebellion after he did).

No, I mean in general. Robb at some point stated 'I wanted to be a king that father would be proud of'. That's a slight paraphrase but that definitely is said, I think it's right before he executes Rickard and he gives his speech about how everything's become so muddled and he doesn't understand how. I hope R + L=J isn't true, but I'm not wedded either way. I'm fairly sure at this point that it'll be irrelevant even if it is true.

I just felt that Robb went into every situation thinking 'what would father have done?' and that it hobbled him a little. Ultimately he wasn't his father, and it's always dangerous for a boy of... sixteen was he? Seventeen? to try and live up to the standards of a man of Ned's experience and stature.

You've pretty much pointed out the problem. Robb didn't truly know his father, the way boys never do. He only ever got a snapshot, distilled wisdom from a man who always seemed reluctant to talk about his past, without ever even knowing the events which shaped his life, let alone understood them. Take how the Stark kids respond to Robert when they meet him. They have no idea of the bond Ned obviously shares with Robert. I mean, when he's first told Robert's coming, Ned seems happier than I think we ever see him again in the book. He's practically dancing. Things sour of course, but that reaction alone speaks volumes.

I feel he should have tried to keep his father's advice in mind, but thought more practically. Both marrying Jeyne and executing Rickard, to me, read like him trying to do what Ned would have done, when it's highly possible Ned wouldn't have done either of those things in that situation. I'm near-certain that Ned wouldn't have executed Rickard, on the kinslaying grounds at least even if his honour over-rode practical concerns.

[ARYa_Nym]

Jeyne Westerling wasn't pregnant when he married her. He married her only because he slept with her and possibly because he was infatuated. This wouldn't have been a problem if he was like Brandon Stark. Jeyne said that they were trying to conceive after they had married.

[Silverin]

And that is how Young Griff was totally forgotten.