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[Book spoilers] The Frey situation


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Ok, let me get a few things clarified. I was re watching some episodes of season 1 and season 2.

In S1E9, Catelyn tells Robb that the Frey's men were his to command.

In season 2, we don't see any frey soldiers.

When Robb talks with Talisa, we don't get the impression that there are any Freys fighting for him. They only mention the bridge, and how he's marrying her 'for the bridge'. And when he marries Talisa they talk about the bridge thing but it's like yeah whatever.

In this season, Robb says that Frey is the only lord who has not yet declared for either side. This clearly implies that they were not in his army.

So my question is..

Did Walder Frey give his support and withdraw it at some point? It doesn't seem that way from season 2 and 3.

But if they were neutral throughout, what explains the line in season 1?

Next, how many soldiers are there in Frey's army?

We know that the Karstarks are half of Robb's forces, so about 10k. Robb seems to imply that Frey army is just as large. Has it ever been mentioned.

What about the Tully's army?

Related to my complaint about Northern lords, we never see any river lords either. No Freys ofc, and also no Pipers, Blackwoods, Mallisters, Vances, etc.

What do you think?

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It's called "plot-hole". One of the many that the show has.

Yes. This evident plot hole makes Robb seem like a complete moron even when his back is up against the wall. He knows he's losing the war, but he beheads Karstark anyways. He got some Frey men when he agreed to marry one of his daughters, they seem like they took off when that promise was broken. Now Robb needs to go back and ask for them again? The King of the North has some balls to say the least. Plus the fact that they are making the Frey forces equal to or greater then the Karstark forces that just left him. Hell, why not just go back to the Greyjoys and see how they are doing as well... oh yea, i forgot. They betrayed him too.

Book Robb seems a bit more understanding in his mistakes, probably because we see him through Cat's POV. To her, he was just a boy. In the TV show, he seems like a guy who is trying to capture the same values as Ned but Robb's death will not impact like Ned's beheading did. We got a lot of connection time with Ned and every second he was on he did things that were honorable and just. That is why there was such an outcry when Ned was taken out. We won't get that with Robb.

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According to Bryan Cogman, the Frey's withdrew their support between seasons two and three.

This doesn't match what we see on screen in season 2.

If you follow Robb/Talisa's facepalmingly awful scenes where they develop their twu wuv, they don't mention any Frey soldiers. Only the bridge.

'You're marrying her for a bridge'

'A very important bridge'

'I'm sure it must be a very beautiful bridge'

etc.

To be honest I kind of skipped these scenes the first time I watched it because I hate twu wuv stuff and fastforwarded through most of it..

If the Freys/Karstarks comprised half his army, you'd think he'd have been more worried about that than some bridge.

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Yeah it was made clear in last weeks episode during the meeting with the Freys that they were indeed a part of Rob's army but withdrew their support after he broke his pact - although theres nothing in season 2 that implies he has Freys in his army.

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What do you think?

I was under the impression Robb left the bridge with the few men escorting his mother back and the boy he was supposed to take as squire. Frey kept his army on the show and did not help Stark any further after he got married.

Hence why Robb has to marry off his uncle to secure the army Frey still has with him.

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What about the Tully's army?

Related to my complaint about Northern lords, we never see any river lords either. No Freys ofc, and also no Pipers, Blackwoods, Mallisters, Vances, etc.

Wrong. We see a dead Mallister Lord/Knight in Harrenhall.

Also, the show has enough characters. We dont need more, especially when they add very little to the story.

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Wrong. We see a dead Mallister Lord/Knight in Harrenhall.

Also, the show has enough characters. We dont need more, especially when they add very little to the story.

The producers of the show have read the books. They knew what they were getting into before they started filming the adaptation.

To not include, even for just a passing moment, more of the minor characters, while re-writing significant portions of the story and inventing characters of their own, they've diluted the story they've been trying to tell.

Particularly Robb/Cat and Jon Snow's arcs.

Not including The Frey army being up in arms, and omitting basically all of the Stark bannerman except Bolton and Karstark, while re-writing much of Robb and Catelyn's involvement, particularly this season, is going to lessen the impact of the Red Wedding and the events surrounding the north in A Dance With Dragons.

It also doesn't make much sense now, considering many of those same absent characters were plainly visible when the Greatjon proclaimed Robb king in the north in season one.

In my opinion, instead of trying to do a season per book, they should have just taken the entire book series as a single entity and ran with it. Meaning, Instead of the Clash of Kings material starting episode 1 season 2, it could have started,say, episode 4 season 2 and ended episode 4 in season 3. I'm just generalizing, I don't mean it specifically.

Dividing it up like they have, condensing it so much, has lost a lot of the little nuances that the books handled so well. Not including those minor characters, the Bronze Yohn Royce's and the Ghost of High Heart and such, along with some more back story/history, is just giving up way too much of what made the books so great.

In my opinion.

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The producers of the show have read the books. They knew what they were getting into before they started filming the adaptation.

To not include, even for just a passing moment, more of the minor characters, while re-writing significant portions of the story and inventing characters of their own, they've diluted the story they've been trying to tell.

Particularly Robb/Cat and Jon Snow's arcs.

Not including The Frey army being up in arms, and omitting basically all of the Stark bannerman except Bolton and Karstark, while re-writing much of Robb and Catelyn's involvement, particularly this season, is going to lessen the impact of the Red Wedding and the events surrounding the north in A Dance With Dragons.

It also doesn't make much sense now, considering many of those same absent characters were plainly visible when the Greatjon proclaimed Robb king in the north in season one.

In my opinion, instead of trying to do a season per book, they should have just taken the entire book series as a single entity and ran with it. Meaning, Instead of the Clash of Kings material starting episode 1 season 2, it could have started,say, episode 4 season 2 and ended episode 4 in season 3. I'm just generalizing, I don't mean it specifically.

Dividing it up like they have, condensing it so much, has lost a lot of the little nuances that the books handled so well. Not including those minor characters, the Bronze Yohn Royce's and the Ghost of High Heart and such, along with some more back story/history, is just giving up way too much of what made the books so great.

In my opinion.

While I agree with some of your points, it is wishful thinking, and would simply not make good TV. We already have the books for such nuances and details, but the show HAS to be diluted massively if it wants to appeal to a wider audience, and it also needs a full arc for each season.

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While I agree with some of your points, it is wishful thinking, and would simply not make good TV. We already have the books for such nuances and details, but the show HAS to be diluted massively if it wants to appeal to a wider audience, and it also needs a full arc for each season.

Season 1 was a much more faithful to the book adaptation, and it made for excellent T.V. Seeing how it launched the show and many of the cast into superstardom.

Then we get an uber-condensed Clash that made for a fairly poor adaptation, though still enjoyable show. I liked it, but had they expanded on the material from clash just a bit more, and extended it to say 1and a 1/2 seasons, it would have been way better.

Now we're on S3, and they're butchering quite a bit of SoS, yet dividing it into 2 seasons.

I don't buy that adding a few minor characters and scenes, while eliminating some of the filler we've gotten, would make for bad T.V. Sorry, I just don't get that mentality and never will.

There is a boatload of back story, important stuff from the books, that has been completely ignored, so we can get more shots of some whore's tits and Talisa's ass.

I still watch and like the show though, I just know it could be better had they stayed closer to the source material in many instances.

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In the TV show, he seems like a guy who is trying to capture the same values as Ned but Robb's death will not impact like Ned's beheading did. We got a lot of connection time with Ned and every second he was on he did things that were honorable and just. That is why there was such an outcry when Ned was taken out. We won't get that with Robb.

Not all things Ned did were honorable. In the first episode of Season 1, I hated him because it starts with him behading that poor young guy who had seen the white zombies. Instead of letting him tell his story, Ned just beheaded him as a deserter. And, even more cruel, he made Bran and the others watch. When Jon told Bran that he shouldn't look away because Ned will know, I just hated Ned and thought he was "the bad guy". Took a while to change that picture, but it stayed somewhere in the back of my mind. Just like Jamie's bad deeds will never be completely forgotten.

Robb, on the other hand, may come across as a bad strategist but as a good person. The Karstark beheading is a strong moment because he does something extremely brutal, but at the same time viewers understand because that man has murdered two children out of an outdated (per today's Western views) sense of revenge. To revenge a crime by killing family members of the person you're after, and children, that is so contrary to today's sense of justice that I understood Robb and shared his anger. I understood Ned's reasoning for beheading the deserter only from an historic analytical point of view, but was not able to relate to him at that moment. Later yes, of course.

But Robb will surely be missed. He is a modern thinking man. His biggest mistake in the show was to agree to the marriage promise to begin with. Fighting his way through or around Frey's forces would have been more in line with his modern thinking.

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Not all things Ned did were honorable. In the first episode of Season 1, I hated him because it starts with him behading that poor young guy who had seen the white zombies. Instead of letting him tell his story, Ned just beheaded him as a deserter. And, even more cruel, he made Bran and the others watch. When Jon told Bran that he shouldn't look away because Ned will know, I just hated Ned and thought he was "the bad guy".

haha this gave me a laugh. I know you are serious and I know you understood his actions later but its quite funny I never considered it being viewed this way before.. I wonder if other people who viewed the TV show with out reading the books first came to a similar conclusion at that point.
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Not all things Ned did were honorable. In the first episode of Season 1, I hated him because it starts with him behading that poor young guy who had seen the white zombies. Instead of letting him tell his story, Ned just beheaded him as a deserter. And, even more cruel, he made Bran and the others watch. When Jon told Bran that he shouldn't look away because Ned will know, I just hated Ned and thought he was "the bad guy". Took a while to change that picture, but it stayed somewhere in the back of my mind. Just like Jamie's bad deeds will never be completely forgotten.

Robb, on the other hand, may come across as a bad strategist but as a good person. The Karstark beheading is a strong moment because he does something extremely brutal, but at the same time viewers understand because that man has murdered two children out of an outdated (per today's Western views) sense of revenge. To revenge a crime by killing family members of the person you're after, and children, that is so contrary to today's sense of justice that I understood Robb and shared his anger. I understood Ned's reasoning for beheading the deserter only from an historic analytical point of view, but was not able to relate to him at that moment. Later yes, of course.

But Robb will surely be missed. He is a modern thinking man. His biggest mistake in the show was to agree to the marriage promise to begin with. Fighting his way through or around Frey's forces would have been more in line with his modern thinking.

I don't think you understand honor from the perspective of the the books or medieval times. Did the man desert? Yes. What is the penalty for desertion? Death. His story doesn't matter. Wanting him to listen to his story is a modern viewpoint. His story amounts to him saying he saw a monster NO one believes exists. Should everyman on The Wall be able to make up a ghost and flee?

The scene is actually about teaching his children about honor and duty. That is why they watch, not because he revels in gore and cruelty. From my watching of the scene, he does not like what he has to do, but it IS the honorable thing to do. Even more, the fact that he does it himself is even more honorable than having someone else carry out your duty for you.

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@Tirilei. You haven't read the books right? That would explain why you feel like that. I would have liked the show to keep the whole conversation from the books. It would explain this better. This is how it was:

"The deserter died bravely," Robb said. He was big and broad and growing every day, with his mother's coloring, the fair skin, red-brown hair, and blue eyes of the Tullys of Riverrun. "He had courage, at the least."

"No," Jon Snow said quietly. "It was not courage. This one was dead of fear. You could see it in his eyes, Stark." Jon's eyes were a grey so dark they seemed almost black, but there was little they did not see. He was of an age with Robb, but they did not look alike. Jon was slender where Robb was muscular, dark where Robb was fair, graceful and quick where his half brother was strong and fast.

Robb was not impressed. "The Others take his eyes," he swore. "He died well. Race you to the bridge?"

"Done," Jon said, kicking his horse forward. Robb cursed and followed, and they galloped off down the trail, Robb laughing and hooting, Jon silent and intent. The hooves of their horses kicked up showers of snow as they went.

Bran did not try to follow. His pony could not keep up. He had seen the ragged man's eyes, and he was thinking of them now. After a while, the sound of Robb's laughter receded, and the woods grew silent again.

So deep in thought was he that he never heard the rest of the party until his father moved up to ride beside him. "Are you well, Bran?" he asked, not unkindly.

"Yes, Father," Bran told him. He looked up. Wrapped in his furs and leathers, mounted on his great warhorse, his lord father loomed over him like a giant. "Robb says the man died bravely, but Jon says he was afraid."

"What do you think?" his father asked.

Bran thought about it. "Can a man still be brave if he's afraid?"

"That is the only time a man can be brave," his father told him. "Do you understand why I did it?"

"He was a wildling," Bran said. "They carry off women and sell them to the Others."

His lord father smiled. "Old Nan has been telling you stories again. In truth, the man was an oathbreaker, a deserter from the Night's Watch. No man is more dangerous. The deserter knows his life is forfeit if he is taken, so he will not flinch from any crime, no matter how vile. But you mistake me. The question was not why the man had to die, but why I must do it."

Bran had no answer for that. "King Robert has a headsman," he said, uncertainly.

"He does," his father admitted. "As did the Targaryen kings before him. Yet our way is the older way. The blood of the First Men still flows in the veins of the Starks, and we hold to the belief that the man who passes the sentence should swing the sword. If you would take a man's life, you owe it to him to look into his eyes and hear his final words. And if you cannot bear to do that, then perhaps the man does not deserve to die.

"One day, Bran, you will be Robb's bannerman, holding a keep of your own for your brother and your king, and justice will fall to you. When that day comes, you must take no pleasure in the task, but neither must you look away. A ruler who hides behind paid executioners soon forgets what death is."

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@Tirilei. You haven't read the books right? That would explain why you feel like that. I would have liked the show to keep the whole conversation from the books. It would explain this better. This is how it was:

"The deserter died bravely," Robb said. He was big and broad and growing every day, with his mother's coloring, the fair skin, red-brown hair, and blue eyes of the Tullys of Riverrun. "He had courage, at the least."

"No," Jon Snow said quietly. "It was not courage. This one was dead of fear. You could see it in his eyes, Stark." Jon's eyes were a grey so dark they seemed almost black, but there was little they did not see. He was of an age with Robb, but they did not look alike. Jon was slender where Robb was muscular, dark where Robb was fair, graceful and quick where his half brother was strong and fast.

Robb was not impressed. "The Others take his eyes," he swore. "He died well. Race you to the bridge?"

"Done," Jon said, kicking his horse forward. Robb cursed and followed, and they galloped off down the trail, Robb laughing and hooting, Jon silent and intent. The hooves of their horses kicked up showers of snow as they went.

Bran did not try to follow. His pony could not keep up. He had seen the ragged man's eyes, and he was thinking of them now. After a while, the sound of Robb's laughter receded, and the woods grew silent again.

So deep in thought was he that he never heard the rest of the party until his father moved up to ride beside him. "Are you well, Bran?" he asked, not unkindly.

"Yes, Father," Bran told him. He looked up. Wrapped in his furs and leathers, mounted on his great warhorse, his lord father loomed over him like a giant. "Robb says the man died bravely, but Jon says he was afraid."

"What do you think?" his father asked.

Bran thought about it. "Can a man still be brave if he's afraid?"

"That is the only time a man can be brave," his father told him. "Do you understand why I did it?"

"He was a wildling," Bran said. "They carry off women and sell them to the Others."

His lord father smiled. "Old Nan has been telling you stories again. In truth, the man was an oathbreaker, a deserter from the Night's Watch. No man is more dangerous. The deserter knows his life is forfeit if he is taken, so he will not flinch from any crime, no matter how vile. But you mistake me. The question was not why the man had to die, but why I must do it."

Bran had no answer for that. "King Robert has a headsman," he said, uncertainly.

"He does," his father admitted. "As did the Targaryen kings before him. Yet our way is the older way. The blood of the First Men still flows in the veins of the Starks, and we hold to the belief that the man who passes the sentence should swing the sword. If you would take a man's life, you owe it to him to look into his eyes and hear his final words. And if you cannot bear to do that, then perhaps the man does not deserve to die.

"One day, Bran, you will be Robb's bannerman, holding a keep of your own for your brother and your king, and justice will fall to you. When that day comes, you must take no pleasure in the task, but neither must you look away. A ruler who hides behind paid executioners soon forgets what death is."

MAN I LOVE THAT SCENE!! reading it again just now makes me want to start the all books over again tonight! it was such a simpler sweet time when all the Stark children were at home in Winterfell again. when I read the Cat scene where she is telling Ned about Robert heading North, Ned asks her where are the children, and she tells him "In the kitchen, arguing about names for the wolf pups."... what I wouldn't give to have a chapter with all the Stark children happily chatting and arguing about the names of their wolves.. it wouldn't be plot building but it would be very bitter sweet :D
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MAN I LOVE THAT SCENE!! reading it again just now makes me want to start the all books over again tonight! it was such a simpler sweet time when all the Stark children were at home in Winterfell again. when I read the Cat scene where she is telling Ned about Robert heading North, Ned asks her where are the children, and she tells him "In the kitchen, arguing about names for the wolf pups."... what I wouldn't give to have a chapter with all the Stark children happily chatting and arguing about the names of their wolves.. it wouldn't be plot building but it would be very bitter sweet :D

I KNOW RIGHT??!!!! I love that scene too. Specially the words of wisdom that Ned gives to Bran, and how Bran always remembers it. I felt sad when the show didn't include them. Specially for "Can a man still be brave if he's afraid?" "That is the only moment a man can be brave". These books are so awesome, and they are even better in re-reads. The re-reads are so sad, and bittersweet because you know what is going to happen. There is this thought of Cat about Robb during the Battle of The Whispering Wood:

Let him grow taller, she asked the gods. Let him know sixteen, and twenty, and fifty. Let him grow as tall as his father, and hold his own son in his arms. Please, please, please. As she watched him, this tall young man with the new beard and the direwolf prowling at his heels, all she could see was the babe they had laid at her breast at Riverrun, so long ago. :crying: :crying: :bawl: :bawl:

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