The 'Sorta' Mad King?

[Brienne Of Bombay]

Seeing as how being crazy means you don't realize you're actually doing anything other people would deem insane. Is it possible The Mad King realized killing so many important people was not only wrong but likely to cause him trouble so in response he demanded the deaths of anybody likely to cause a fuss. That doesn't sound like a crazy person to me. Just somebody who made a horrible mistake and is trying to shore up his bases so it doesn't come back to bite him in the butt. Now clearly he did crazy things but is it possible that his actions are simply insane, self indulgent, whims? Because if he were ACTUALLY crazy he wouldn't have realized what he'd done to Rickard and Brandon was dangerous. He'd have thought it justice and wondered why anyone would think anything any different.

He did not have to kill them in the first place!! If he were in any way sane he would've seen that. Also raping your wife and killing thousands of people on account of being a sore loser doesn't seem sane to me.

[Mr Hodor]

Well it is a book of grey characters, and all we know about Aerys came from people who hated him. So wondering if his actions could be interpreted in any other way is reasonable.

I think almost everyone (xcpt maybe viserys ) calls him "the mad king"

[pamparius]

Now you've done it. You've riled up the rape'o'philes and now we'll have yet another endless thread dedicated to arguing whether or not a rape actually occurred.

OT: Aerys was clearly sick. The way he disposed of Brandon and Rickard is pretty indicative of his insanity. Then to be pushed to the point of sexual desire afterwards just makes it all the worse. My opinion, Aerys was probably the result of generations of inbreeding. And you can see the same sick sadistic tendencies in Joffrey as well, another product of an incestuous union.

[JaegrM]

So he also didn't actually rape Rhaella after burning Rickard - he's just a fetishist, and they had a safe word pre-arranged?

I'm sorry, but this made me laugh

[Theda Baratheon]

While he is a bit overly touched in the head, I think a lot it was he just didn't give a _ _ _ _. Look at what is happening today in dictator and extremist regimes world wide. Some people are just evil, plain and simple.

Not everyone that commits such heinous acts are mentally sick. Sometimes they are. In some cases though, I think mental illness is used as an excuse. It makes the rest of society feel better and people do not have to accept that the human species is capable of such things.

Although I do sometimes think mental illness is used as an excuse for actions (for example: you have to be a bad person ASWELL as being a psychopath to be a serial killer, not just a psychopath, that doesn't automatically make you go out and kill people because you lack empathy whereas being a bad person will)

However, I do also think mental illness is a lot more more rife than some people would care to admit and it is sad, but like I said, just being mentally ill doesn't make someone commit evil acts just like The Mad King, he was a bad person too BUT HE WAS ALSO COMPLETELY INSANE.

[The Broke Howard Hughes]

Not making light of the subject by any stretch of the imagination. I realize wrong is wrong all the time and i had to actually reread the passages to see the poster's point. He did all sorts of crazy nonsense to her, beatings, bitings, and the like. I clearly stand corrected.

[SeanF]

Aerys was paraonid and sadistic, and it's very likely that there was some element of mental illness in him. There's obviously something wrong with you if you get sexually aroused by burning people alive.

In terms of paranoia, Aerys may have had something to go on. It seems likely that Rhaegar was seriously contemplating deposing him, with the backing of other lords, or at any rate, removing all power from him. Of course, Rhaegar was probably increasingly concerned that a cruel and paranoid ruler was a liability to the dynasty (as proved to be the case) and other lords were increasingly frightened for their own safety. So paranoid suspicion became self-fulfilling.

One irony is that Aerys may well have been on the point of having Rhaegar imprisoned or executed, but was nevertheless infuriated by Brandon's threats against his son. Another is that Rhaegar was alienating the people whose support he needed against his father, by eloping with Lyanna**.

Regardless of the extent of Aerys' mental illness, his treatment of the Lace Serpent, Brandon and Rickard Stark, Lord Chelstead, and his intention to burn down King's Landing were all evil in the extreme.

** (Given the lack of bitterness that Ned feels towards Rhaegar, and given what we're told of his character, I think that he and Lyanna eloped, rather than he kidnapped Lyanna and raped her).

[Wynter Manderly]

...

In terms of paranoia, Aerys may have had something to go on. It seems likely that Rhaegar was seriously contemplating deposing him, with the backing of other lords, or at any rate, removing all power from him. Of course, Rhaegar was probably increasingly concerned that a cruel and paranoid ruler was a liability to the dynasty (as proved to be the case) and other lords were increasingly frightened for their own safety. So paranoid suspicion became self-fulfilling.

...

I think Rhaegar only fully grasped that his father was crazy was when he rode of to fight Robert, or so says Jaime in his POV. Maybe he was in denial too.

[Narea]

Aerys is one Targaryen where I can be confident that his insanity wasn't due to genetic predisposition but due to circumstance. He started out as a kind, good king and successfully passed age where most mental illnesses manifest. Sure, he was unhappy with his marriage but that was merely an annoyance at the time. Then, when he was imprisoned by his bannerman for who knows how long, he started down a slippery slope. He started to become increasingly paranoid (though with good cause) and was most likely plagued by dragon dreams. This all added up to him feeling like he lost control and he attempted to regain it which showed first in his clashes with Tywin (to show that it was him that ruled the Hand not the other way around) and later resulted in pyromania.

He did not have to kill them in the first place!! If he were in any way sane he would've seen that. Also raping your wife and killing thousands of people on account of being a sore loser doesn't seem sane to me.

Actually he had to execute at least Brandon because he committed high treason by threatening life of a member of royal family. There were several acceptable punishments for high treason, most often used were beheading and burning.

As we know Rickard asked for the trial by combat which he would have most likely lost because he'd he facing a member of the KG under usual circumstances and we didn't hear anything about his fighting skills just about his ambitions. The outcome would have been Brandon's and Rickard's death anyway.

OT: Aerys was clearly sick. The way he disposed of Brandon and Rickard is pretty indicative of his insanity. Then to be pushed to the point of sexual desire afterwards just makes it all the worse. My opinion, Aerys was probably the result of generations of inbreeding. And you can see the same sick sadistic tendencies in Joffrey as well, another product of an incestuous union.

Well, rapists are often first pyromaniacs as both crimes are about the control. Both of these tendencies are most likely rooted in the fact that Aerys didn't have control over whom he married and then completely lacked it during the Defiance of Duskendale. However, Aerys is not a product of an incest, his marrying his sister was first such marriage in at least four generations. You can also see the same sadistic tendencies in Cersei.

And unless I am mistaken the night that Dany was conceived was the first time Aerys went to Rhaella after Viserys was born and also the first time he was so brutal. By that time in his life and that point in the rebellion he must have been desperate for any sort of control...

[TheBlackBard]

Whoa now. Marital rape is still rape. It doesn't stop being rape just because she's your wife.

And yes Aerys was insane — a paranoid pyromaniac. He was already loony before Robert's Rebellion.

Actually around the medievile time it you wasnt considred rape if it was your wife, it was seen as the mans right to bed his wife even if she wasn't wiling.. marital rape is a relatively new thing. It was also legal to beat your wife with a stick as long as it was no thicker than your thumb up until quite recently.

Ahhh the good old days!

[James Arryn]

Actually around the medievile time it you wasnt considred rape if it was your wife, it was seen as the mans right to bed his wife even if she wasn't wiling.. marital rape is a relatively new thing. It was also legal to beat your wife with a stick as long as it was no thicker than your thumb up until quite recently.

Ahhh the good old days!

Rape, yes.

The rule of the thumb is pretty overblown. Ifmit was applied, it was applied in a limited fashion in a specific region.

That said, wife-beating was a pretty accepted thing throughout a lot of the medieval period across a wide swath of Europe,though there is a sense it was often regarded with distaste; ie, legally acceptable but morally wrong, and the wife's family often could/would get involved if it was a pattern.

[SeanF]

Marital rape would not have been treated as a crime in medieval societies, but many people would have seen it as poor behaviour. And, some people in Westeros see it as poor behaviour, given Jaime's desire to protect Rhaella from Aerys, and Robert's embarassment when Cersei confronts him the morning after he forced her.

There were occasions when Church and Manorial courts ordered separations from violent husbands.

[Narea]

Actually around the medievile time it you wasnt considred rape if it was your wife, it was seen as the mans right to bed his wife even if she wasn't wiling.. marital rape is a relatively new thing. It was also legal to beat your wife with a stick as long as it was no thicker than your thumb up until quite recently.

Ahhh the good old days!

You could actually not accuse and/or convict of rape any man who either was married to the victim or at a later date married her even as recently as WW2.

[Theda Baratheon]

Marital rape is still rape though, it might not have been seen as a crime but if it is not consensual then it is rape. Simple. Whether or not a couple are married and whether or not it didn't used to be seen as a crime in the eyes of the law when a man commits rape he is a rapist...

[James Arryn]

Marital rape is still rape though, it might not have been seen as a crime but if it is not consensual then it is rape. Simple. Whether or not a couple are married and whether or not it didn't used to be seen as a crime in the eyes of the law when a man commits rape he is a rapist...

It's really hard to post-apply crime like that, though.

For example;

*Slavery is immoral.

*Almost all societies in history practiced slavery.

So, almost everyone was immoral?

An individual's relation with moral decisions is often broken down as a conflict between what he is told/believes to be wrong and what he wants. If he is told/believes it is not wrong, then it is a different conflict.

Huckleberry Finn, for instance.

So, while beating your wife was probably often seen as wrong even when it was legal, at least if it was something someone often did, the very concept of raping your wife would have been so foreign to the minds of people in the past that it would have confused them just to consider it.

Equally, we consider it wrong to beat a child. But again, most parenting in history involved acts we would now consider abuse. So, was everyone a child abuser?

Marriage often happened before the age of what we would now consider consent...was that sexual assault of a minor?

Marriages were often done in exchange for land or material goods...human trafficking?

Etc.

If the people/societies then did not consider it to be wrong, we can look back and still view the act as wrong in our eyes, but it's a little arrogant to label the actors as wrong when nothing in their experience would have afforded them the perspective to even consider it that way.

[The Dornishman's Wife]

[...]

So, while beating your wife was probably often seen as wrong even when it was legal, at least if it was something someone often did, the very concept of raping your wife would have been so foreign to the minds of people in the past that it would have confused them just to consider it.

[...]

I get what you're saying, but I think it's a reasonable rule of thumb that when freaking Jaime Lannister (two handed version, no less) is morally mature enough to be outraged, it can be expected to be sufficiently obvious to everyone in his society.

[Theda Baratheon]

It's really hard to post-apply crime like that, though.

For example;

*Slavery is immoral.

*Almost all societies in history practiced slavery.

So, almost everyone was immoral?

An individual's relation with moral decisions is often broken down as a conflict between what he is told/believes to be wrong and what he wants. If he is told/believes it is not wrong, then it is a different conflict.

Huckleberry Finn, for instance.

So, while beating your wife was probably often seen as wrong even when it was legal, at least if it was something someone often did, the very concept of raping your wife would have been so foreign to the minds of people in the past that it would have confused them just to consider it.

Equally, we consider it wrong to beat a child. But again, most parenting in history involved acts we would now consider abuse. So, was everyone a child abuser?

Marriage often happened before the age of what we would now consider consent...was that sexual assault of a minor?

Marriages were often done in exchange for land or material goods...human trafficking?

Etc.

If the people/societies then did not consider it to be wrong, we can look back and still view the act as wrong in our eyes, but it's a little arrogant to label the actors as wrong when nothing in their experience would have afforded them the perspective to even consider it that way.

And a man or woman that hits a child is a child abuser, a man that commits rape is a rapist. I am not judging the past by the standards of today's society but if you rape you're a rapist. Whether or not it's justifiable depending in what era you were living in is not the question here and it is not something I even said anything about. I said a man that commits rape is a rapist. Simple as that. So to call a character an insane rapist pyromaniac psychopath is fair because that is what he is. Marital rape is rape regardless of whether or not past societies deemed it okay.

[James Arryn]

I get what you're saying, but I think it's a reasonable rule of thumb that when freaking Jaime Lannister (two handed version, no less) is morally mature enough to be outraged, it can be expected to be sufficiently obvious to everyone in his society.

Yeah, you can argue that Westeros is a fictional land written about a medieval mindset, but from a modern perspective...it's problematic and hard to pin down, but it's arguable.

But post applying what we now consider to be moral or immoral to people in the past who did/could not see it that way, that's a whole other ball game. I mean, entire political systems were premised on practices we would now consider criminal...if we keep doing this, who shall scape whipping?

And if we find ourselves in a place where we are judging the vat majority of humanity as wrong, we might want to consider how future generations will consider us, even while having no idea what lines that will fall along. What if in 200 years scientist discover that plants are social, communicate pain and suffering and imprisonment in our farms and agony in our kitchens, and people then consider eating plants as morally wrong...are we all now immoral as a result?

[James Arryn]

And a man or woman that hits a child is a child abuser, a man that commits rape is a rapist. I am not judging the past by the standards of today's society but if you rape you're a rapist. Whether or not it's justifiable depending in what era you were living in is not the question here and it is not something I even said anything about. I said a man that commits rape is a rapist. Simple as that. So to call a character an insane rapist pyromaniac psychopath is fair because that is what he is. Marital rape is rape regardless of whether or not past societies deemed it okay.

You are a rapist if you commit the crime of rape.

It was not a crime then, hence you were not a rapist.

If you commit the act of selling a slave, you are a slave trader. But most cultures throughout history 'sell off' children for land, cattle, material goods, and many of them have moral issues with slave traders. To say that they were so themselves would disregard the mens rea part of the guilt.

Suppose in the future medical issues etc. lead to a situation where sexual consent requires a written agreement. By your reasoning we would all now be rapists.

[TheBlackBard]

The rule of the thumb is pretty overblown. Ifmit was applied, it was applied in a limited fashion in a specific region.

the "rule of thumb" applies to setting cement, i.e. If the indentation of the thumb remains, it would be ok to build upon it. I believe its from the roman times.

Nit picking I know, but its fun.