Who are the real Villains?

[Maester Hodor]

As long as Ramsay Snow dies I'll be happy

[Lord of the Night]

The Real Villains of the story are...

Ramsay Bolton

Roose Bolton

Gregor Clegane

Cersei Lannister

Tywin Lannister

Vargo Hoat

The Others

LotN

[LuisDantas]

And not Petyr Baelish? No Greyjoys?

[DurararaFTW]

I guess it depends on how you look at it. Whether or not Tywin responded out of love or pride for Tyrion is irrelavent because I'm not arguing about why he responded but when he responded.

Did WWI start with Archduke Ferdinand's death or when Austria invaded Serbia? Most people say it was the assassanation.

Motives do matter. WWI was a terrible event and should never have happened. That doesn't make why it happened somehow irrevelant. If whoever killed Ferdinand assassinated with with forethought or killed him anger and looking back on it regretted says something about that person, even if he wasn't actually solely responsible for WWI. We know which one Tywin is.

As for the rest of your points, I think this thread should have been titled "Who are the worst of the villians? Or the evilest of the villians? Because in my eyes, well they may both have differing levels of cruetly/crime, Hoster Tully and Tywin are both villians.

I do think that's what TC meant.

It's no secret that Boltons are really into flaying people. It's their sigil.

Yes it is, when POV's talk about their sigil they mention how they got it because they flayed IN THE PAST. In AGOT it was very clear they didn't know of Reek and Ramsey or that Roose was straight up dead on the inside. The Starks distrusted him. They didn't know him to be a outright monster.

George R.R. Martin has been quoted as saying he is strongly influenced by the adage "the villain is the hero of the other side" He's doing a good job.

Tyrion has a pretty sucky hero in Tywin, I have to say.

[mediocre cheese]

Hoster tully and tywin are basically the same, they both aren't sadists who kill for fun, but are willing to kill innocent people to increase their political power. Both seem to have little inherent motivation for justice, but instead act out of self-interest. Both vilely mistreat one of their children, but have a decent relationship with the other two. The reason tywin is cited as a villain and not hoster is because of stark bias, most readers love the starks and tywin destroys them, whereas the tullys fight for them and that the family member abused by tywin is tyrion, who gets a pov, whereas the family member abused by hoster is lysa who doesn't. They are both villains in any real sense of the word.

or was there a legitimate tactical reason for attacking those villages as well?

Being that he exterminated the villages entirely, I'm going to say no. There tends not to be a tactical reason for exterminating people.

[LuisDantas]

Medíocre Cheese: Tywin does not have a decent relationship with any of his children. Nor do we know enough about Hoster to assume that he is as ruthless, callous and unethical as Tywin.

[mediocre cheese]

Medíocre Cheese: Tywin does not have a decent relationship with any of his children. Nor do we know enough about Hoster to assume that he is as ruthless, callous and unethical as Tywin.

No, both jaime and cersei seem to have a decent relationship with them, both are visibly upset about his death, although not consumed with grief. And we know that hoster exterminated entire villages of innocent commonfolk and that he tricked his own daughter into miscarrying. I don't know how much more ruthless and unethical you can get, what does he have to do, pull a ramsay?

[LadyoftheNorth72]

Motives do matter.

IMO, when determining evil or villainy, motives are the only thing that CAN matter. You cannot go by outcome, because the best intentioned plans can wind up with the most horrific outcomes due to unforeseen circumstances. So all you really can do to try to determine evil (and even then it is tricky) is go back and say, what motive was TRULY at the base of this decision or this action. Self-delusion does not count, since it is ultimately an act of will, even if it has become second nature. No one is born self-deceiving, they end up that way by conscious choice.

Also there are a lot of psychological terms thrown around to describe characters and their motives (have been guilty of this myself), and to explain or excuse a particular character, whether or not they are "nuts" often comes up. But this is one area where I use modern standards to judge. Unless they are so far gone as to not be able to tell right from wrong or cannot understand the consequences of their actions, then they get no pass from me based on what they have "endured" or how nutty they might be. That means that for me, while Cersei's actions may be understandable, they are absolutely not excusable.

Whereas oddly, I think Gregor's might be. We do not have enough intel on him to be certain, but I believe the Mountain may have had a brain tumor that made him what he was. Brain tumors have caused people to act insanely many times because they interfere with normal brain function. We know he suffered from blinding headaches, for which he had become an opium addict (further adding to his issues with rational behavior) and since he probably had some form of giantism, a cancer of some sort is likely. He seemed to have issues even hearing Oberyn speak to him in their duel, which I think is the only time we hear him speak at all directly. If he did suffer from a brain tumor that affected the behavioral/inhibition/judgment centersvof his brain, then ironically, possibly the most hated man in the books would be the only one likely to be excused on a plea of insanity by a modern court.

[LuisDantas]

No, both jaime and cersei seem to have a decent relationship with them, both are visibly upset about his death, although not consumed with grief. And we know that hoster exterminated entire villages of innocent commonfolk and that he tricked his own daughter into miscarrying. I don't know how much more ruthless and unethical you can get, what does he have to do, pull a ramsay?

I beg to differ. We know enough from both Jaime and Cersei povs to state that Tywin definitely was a terrible parent, while we also lack the knowledge to have much of an opinion about Hoster. Circunstances matter.

[Catastrophe]

Hoster tully and tywin are basically the same, they both aren't sadists who kill for fun, but are willing to kill innocent people to increase their political power. Both seem to have little inherent motivation for justice, but instead act out of self-interest. Both vilely mistreat one of their children, but have a decent relationship with the other two. The reason tywin is cited as a villain and not hoster is because of stark bias, most readers love the starks and tywin destroys them, whereas the tullys fight for them and that the family member abused by tywin is tyrion, who gets a pov, whereas the family member abused by hoster is lysa who doesn't. They are both villains in any real sense of the word.

No, both jaime and cersei seem to have a decent relationship with them, both are visibly upset about his death, although not consumed with grief. And we know that hoster exterminated entire villages of innocent commonfolk and that he tricked his own daughter into miscarrying. I don't know how much more ruthless and unethical you can get, what does he have to do, pull a ramsay?

I fully concede that Hoster may be just as bad as Tywin. All I'm saying is that we can't know for sure, since we know so little about the character. Yes, he did some awful things in his lifetime, but I'm hesitant to say he's no different than Tywin is because we don't know the circumstances. Were such actions commonplace for him, or were they isolated incidents? If wiping out enemy villages and forcing Lysa's abortion were the worst things he ever did in his life, and he never did anything else that horrible, then I'm inclined to be more forgiving of him given the desperate circumstances and his later remorse. On the other hand, if those actions were representative of the way he behaved all the time, then I agree that he's just as bad as Tywin. We simply don't know.