Jump to content

So did Stannis basicly win the war of five kings


Mr.Black

Recommended Posts

the war is officially over and the Lannisters won, the rebelling regions of the Reach, Stormlands and North have all come back under the control of the throne, Stannis remains but he has little to no fighting power, no dragonstone and has now setting his sights on the Wall in order to gain the Throne, he lost the war and is now trying to regain his strength. As for the Ironborn, they only attacked the North which was rebelling against the Throne, they've been forced out of the North, Moat Calin and Deepwood Mott are no longer under ironborn control, Balon lost his war. Euron's regime should be considered ongoing post-war conflict.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Well lets examine the players and their aims.

Renly Baratheon: Fought for the Iron Throne. Current Status: Dead, former troops now fighting for Stannis or Lannisters/Tyrells. Cause lost. Zero Victory here.

Robb Stark: Fought for Free and Independent North, also to kill Jofferey. Current Status: Dead, Kingdom divided in Civil War. However Jofferey is dead, and Iron Born incursions have been removed. Also North will be effectively free from the Yolk of the Iron Throne if it can overthrow the Bolton puppet governmant. Cause still alive. Partial Victory here.

Jofferey Baratheon: Fought to keep Iron Throne and all seven Kingdoms while killing off other claimants. Current Status: Dead, succeeded by Tommen. Death, continuing rebellion in the North and Iron Islands, likely rebellions to arise in Dorne, and possible rebellions to arise in the Reach, Riverlands, and Vale. Cause still alive. Partial Victory here.

Balon Greyjoy: Fought for Free and Independent Iron Islands, also invaded North for territory. Current Status: Dead, succeeded by Euron. Northern possesions lost, but gained possesions in the Reach in return. Free from authority from Iron Throne. Cause still alive. Partial Victory here.

Stannis Baratheon: Fought for Iron Throne, sought to kill off other claimants. Current Status: Displaced and weakened by combat and attrition. However killed off Renly and gained new support in North to replace some losses in the South. Cause still alive. Partial Victory here.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The War Of The Five Kings was misnamed from the get-go. It was actually three wars.

1. Iron Islands invasion of the North (Balon vs. Robb)

2. War of Northern Independence (Robb vs. Iron Throne)

3. War of Baratheon Succession (Stannis vs. Renly vs. Lannisters)

-- The Iron Islands invasion was won by the North when Theon Greyjoy surrendered the remains of the garrison at Moat Cailin to Ramsey Snow's army.

-- The War of Northern Independence was won by the Iron Throne when Robb Stark was murdered and his most loyal bannermen were either killed or captured at the Twins. The titular Warden of the North, Roose Bolton, has bent the knee to the Iron Throne. Those Northern nobles who have not aligned with Bolton have either publicly or secretly joined King Stannis in rebellion against the Iron Throne, but that would be part of the War of Baratheon Succession since Northern independence is essentially not on the table.

-- The War of Baratheon Succession is still being waged by King Stannis, with Bolton and his bannermen essentially acting as proxies for King Tommen.

Since then we have two new wars, the Targaryean Invasion of Westeros led by Young Griff and Lord Connington and the Iron Islands Invasion of Westeros lead by Euron Greyjoy. Sides are still forming up for these. What is interesting is that Griff's first major win seems to be the seizure of Storm's End, which was under control by Stannis, but their real immediate threat is to Lannister and Tyrell interests.

As far as we know, the Iron Islanders have only seized the Shield Islands in their new invasion, but have been raiding the Mander almost as far as Highgarden and around the Dornish peninsula to Shipwrecker Bay.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Jofferey Baratheon: Fought to keep Iron Throne and all seven Kingdoms while killing off other claimants. Current Status: Dead, succeeded by Tommen. Death, continuing rebellion in the North and Iron Islands, likely rebellions to arise in Dorne, and possible rebellions to arise in the Reach, Riverlands, and Vale. Cause still alive. Partial Victory here.

Partial? Despite the war not being really over, the Lannister/Tyrells still have a bigger advantage over everyone else. Far too many factors for the opponents to ever reach the grasp of victory, for instance:

  • Even if Stannis conquers the North, he has no force to go south and defeat the Lannister/Tyrell force.
  • Even if Aegon takes the entire Stormlands with GC and the Dornish, he can't hope to triumph without the Reach.
  • As to Euron's cause, we all known he's not getting any actual dragon to boost his cause and so far all we've seen was a Pearl Harbor-stylish attack. They've awaken a sleeping giant and the first wave of counter-attack is already onto them. Shite just got real.

Anyway, none of the IT's opponents are as of yet remotely near any victory condition but lucky for them, the Lannisters alliances are not so tough, credit goes to...Cersei!

Virtually, the IT controls the Riverlands, Westerlands, Reach, Stormlands (minus Aegon's castles), Crownlands and half-North.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Stannis is an excellent character as he is, so I'll never understand why his fanbase try to white-wash him at every opportunity.

Stannis sucked at the war. He cheated and used black magic to gain Renly's forces, then his fleet was destroyed at Blackwater. His army slaughtered a mass of wildling hippies with ease, but when it came to the actual war? Not even the most meat-headed, fanatical Stannis fanboy could convince me he won it.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Stannis sucked at the war. He cheated and used black magic to gain Renly's forces, then his fleet was destroyed at Blackwater. His army slaughtered a mass of wildling hippies with ease, but when it came to the actual war? Not even the most meat-headed, fanatical Stannis fanboy could convince me he won it.

Well, he sure as hell won it more than the late Robb, the late Joff, the late Balon, and the late Renly...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Stannis is an excellent character as he is, so I'll never understand why his fanbase try to white-wash him at every opportunity.

Stannis sucked at the war. He cheated and used black magic to gain Renly's forces, then his fleet was destroyed at Blackwater. His army slaughtered a mass of wildling hippies with ease, but when it came to the actual war? Not even the most meat-headed, fanatical Stannis fanboy could convince me he won it.

Im going to copy paste a post i made on Stannis' ability at war.

I would say Stannis Baratheon is one of, if not the best battle commander. Let’s start with his holding storms end. (At the age of 17)

During Roberts’s rebellion Stannis is put in charge of holding storms end, an easy enough task until about 100 thousand tyrells show up and put him under siege. Then after some time the garrison begins to starve, no shipments of food and soon enough men start to question why they should starve for their lord when they will be given amnesty. The fact that stannis is able to keep complete control of the castle and keep discipline in starving men AT THE AGE OF 17 is miraculous and shows how good of a leader he really is. Yes, this victory does not show any type of logistical or organizational skills, but it does show his iron will, tenacity, and never give up no matter what attitude. He stops at nothing; he will get the job done or die trying.

Then he is tasked with taking Dragonstone, now this is interesting in that Robert entrusts this seemingly important task to his younger brother, instead of someone else. We don’t really know much but stannis takes the castle and Dany and Viserys are smuggled out by the last targ loyalists in the westeros.

Fast forward a bit and we have the greyjoy rebellion. The greyjoys rebel and burn lord tywins fleet, also raiding in the riverlands. Robert baratheon entrusts Stannis with the complete and utter destruction of the ironborn fleet. Now, before we get into the skill required let’s think about the gravity of this task and what failure would have meant. The ironborn live on islands, so destruction of their fleet is imperative to success in the war, should Robert ignore their fleet he won’t be able to transport any good amount of men to the islands to fight. Cramming ships with men when an enemy fleet of raiders is prowling around is not a good idea. The mainland ships would be slow and vulnerable while so full of men and supplies. The ironborn would have had a field day with this, they would catch up to Roberts fleet and sink a ton of ships, crippling Roberts ability to smash the ironborn and leaving westeros vulnerable to more raids. So destroying the iron fleet is an extremely important task. Robert once again entrusts an extremely important task to his little brother Stannis. Failure was not an option as it would mean the royal fleet and the redwynne fleet (the only 2 fleets left to them at this point) would be smashed leaving Robert unable to get any men at all to the islands. We don’t know the details of the battle, but we do know a few things. The ironborn fleet was commanded by an excellent naval commander (say what you will of vic, at sea he knows his shit), we also know the ironborn sail, reave, and raid all day every day. So one on one, each ironborn will be superior to the average westerosi man at sea. The ironborn weakness is at land, not sea. At one point they controlled everywhere you could hear the waves, underestimating them just to wave away Stannis’ accomplishment at this battle is stupid and unproductive. Stannis manages to trap them at fair isle and bring the full capabilities of the royal and redwynne fleet to bear, smashing the iron fleet and paving the way for troops to be landed on the isles.

After his smashing victory at Fair Isle Stannis is entrusted with taking great wyke, no details are given other than the fact that great wyk falls to Stannis.

Fast forward once again and we come to the war of five kings, the first engagement Stannis fights in this war is the blackwater. His only defeat ever, but I think this battle is an interesting one, I also feel that it does not in any way lessen the fact that stannis is among the best. First of all, he had pretty much won, the men in the city were broken, running and killing their leaders to retreat. The leader tyrion was mia, it was chaos. Then 100 thousand tyrels and lannisters show up and charge Stannis in his rear, Stannis manages to orgainise a rearguard and him and his best men fight their way clear of kl while tons of his troops switch sides thanks to renlys ghost (fucking uneducated traitors) The mistake Stannis made here was not actually made here, it was made after he had renlys cavalry. What I think he should have done is go to bitterbridge executed Randyle tarly(he’s to dangerous/ambitious to be left alive) and taken the infantry and gotten mace to bend the knee to him. Had he of done that, he would have won the war as tywin can’t fight all that power, it’s simply not feasible. The blackwater was lost by Stannis its true, but I can’t really say that it was a blunder. No way could he have taken all those enemies on while his men were storming a fortified position and switching sides at the same time. Remember hindsight is 20/20 and with the information Stannis had at the time, the decision to take KL was a good one, especially with tywin engaged against robb.

Then we have the battle at the wall. Let me start by saying that after the defeat at KL most men would have given up, but not stannis. An important part of being successful in life is how you respond to failure, at some point or another EVERYONE fucks up somehow. The fact that Stannis is willing to continue his war even after such a demoralizing defeat speaks volumes of the man’s character. He doesn’t give a fuck, he won’t ever stop. Now onto the battle itself.

Stannis uses the men of Eastwatch to guide him and his thousand men to castle black. He launches a phenomenal three pronged assault on the wilding horde. He attacks the wildling soldiers and Mance tries to put up an effective defense, but it’s too little too late. Stannis has three columns of heavy horse assault Mances men. Stannis knows he can’t hope to take Mance in a pitched battle, Mance has too many men it’s simply not feasible at all. So he plays to his strengths, he knows that individually his men are better equipped and trained then your average wildling so he launches a daring and bold lightning attack designed to capture or kill the enemy commander or cause as much chaos and discord in the enemy ranks as possible getting them to break or accomplishing both tasks (which he does). Mance also had unconventional wepons in the form of giants and mammoths. No other commander in westeros has ever fought anything like this before, it was stannis’ first time against them as well. They manage to perform very well against the armored column sent against them. But the failure of one column did not affect the other two, now that is a damn good showing of Stannis’ leadership. This is imo, Stannis’ most impressive victory. Mance is himself no slouch at leading his men, he jumps right into action as soon as he hears the trumpets blaring, it’s too bad for him that Stannis planned this attack in such a way that it would have been extremely hard for Mance to win. The battle was not lost because of mances incompetence; it was lost because Stannis played to his strengths. He smashed an army far larger then his, and the wildlings had unconventional weapons in the form of giants and mammoths. We see how he split his heavy horse into 3 separate columns to surround, encircle, and crush mances hosts ability to fight back. His assault on the wildings completely demoralized them and crippled their ability to respond. He accomplished all of his objectives here, the complete and utter destruction of the wildlings ability to wage war, and the capture of the king beyond the wall.

Let me now address some common point’s people who don’t really know what they are talking about in regards to medieval warfare use to lessen this accomplishment.

1. The wildings had only a few thousand warriors!

That’s not true. Mances horde is placed at 100k people. Now the rate of fighting men in the wildling society is far greater then that of most other places. This is due to their lifestyle and their values. Its an extremely warlike society and only the strong survive for long. Even some of their women fight. These people will be big, strong, and fierce. We also have this quote by stannis on the wildling host.

Stannis bristled at that. "I defeated your uncle Victarion and his Iron Fleet off Fair Isle, the first time your father crowned himself. I held Storm's End against the power of the Reach for a year, and took Dragonstone from the Targaryens. I smashed Mance Rayder at the Wall, though he had twenty times my numbers. Tell me, turncloak, what battles has the Bastard of Bolton ever won that I should fear him?"

Twenty times his numbers is not accurate if Stannis is counting all the wildings in the horde, if hes including the old men, children, and woman who don’t fight the wildings have 100 times his numbers(he has 1k men the wilding host is 100k strong) so Stannis is counting only the wilding warriors. The ones that actually fight.

2. The wildings are ill equipped and have no formal training at arms!

This is true; they don’t have training by a master at arms fight with lesser weapons and are not very disciplined. But they are fierce, savage and have a huge number of fighters compared to stannis. I also find it troubling that people use the fact that stannis’ men are better equipped than the wildings as a way to lessen this victory. That’s nonsense. A good commander uses his men’s strengths to his advantage, and he tries to downplay their weaknesses. That’s precisely what makes him a good commander. Furthermore, you won’t hear any historian ever say how a better equipped forces leader is not good because his men had better equipment. Think about it, no one bitches about the romans having better equipment and training then 90% of their enemies, same for alexander the great his men were far superior to what he was fighting, yet no one says “lol brah he sucks because his men were better than the enemy” Also, let’s put some of you guys saying this about the wildlings in some plate or mail, give you a steel weapon and put you up against 5 screaming savages intent on killing you and see how long it takes them to knock you down and kill the shit out of you.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Stannis is an excellent character as he is, so I'll never understand why his fanbase try to white-wash him at every opportunity.

Stannis sucked at the war. He cheated and used black magic to gain Renly's forces, then his fleet was destroyed at Blackwater. His army slaughtered a mass of wildling hippies with ease, but when it came to the actual war? Not even the most meat-headed, fanatical Stannis fanboy could convince me he won it.

If Stannis hadn't "cheated", he would have "sucked at the war" even more by chosing to pit his 5,000 men against Renlys 100,000, not to mention by this act of "cheating" Stannis also saved the lives of thousands of men. I think his failure at Blackwater was partially the result of him getting cocky; Stannis is a man who is used to the hard fight, see the Siege of Storm's End, Fair Isle. And he seemed to have had it made with Blackwater he allowed himself to make bad judgement calls like letting Imry Florent lead his fleet into Blackwater Bay (Stannis should have at least made sure Imry sent scouts). All that said though, The War of 5 Kings is not over, an while I wouldn't go as far as to say Stannis has won it yet, hes certainly doing better than the other 4 guys he went into it with...

Also that "mass of wildling hippies" Stannis' army slaughtered outnumbered his own men 20 to 1. Just saying.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Sorry about the wall of text, but when people say stannis sucks at war it makes me want to scream.

If Stannis hadn't "cheated", he would have "sucked at the war" even more by chosing to pit his 5,000 men against Renlys 100,000, not to mention by this act of "cheating" Stannis also saved the lives of thousands of men. I think his failure at Blackwater was partially the result of him getting cocky; Stannis is a man who is used to the hard fight, see the Siege of Storm's End, Fair Isle. And he seemed to have had it made with Blackwater he allowed himself to make bad judgement calls like letting Imry Florent lead his fleet into Blackwater Bay (Stannis should have at least made sure Imry sent scouts). All that said though, The War of 5 Kings is not over, an while I wouldn't go as far as to say Stannis has won it yet, hes certainly doing better than the other 4 guys he went into it with...

Also that "mass of wildling hippies" Stannis' army slaughtered outnumbered his own men 20 to 1. Just saying.

Well said.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I realize this is OTT but ...

I've never understood why the loss of the battle of Blackwater is attributed to Ser Imry? Imry is criticized for not taking the time to scout out the river but all that meant, in practice, is that Tyrion got to show off his wildfire plan before Stannis was hit in the flank by the Lannister-Tyrell army. If Imry had dallied, and been more cautious, it wouldn't have halted the approach of the 70-90,000 men with Renly's Ghost that caused the defeat. Stannis was going to lose no matter what Ser Imry did.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I realize this is OTT but ...

I've never understood why the loss of the battle of Blackwater is attributed to Ser Imry? Imry is criticized for not taking the time to scout out the river but all that meant, in practice, is that Tyrion got to show off his wildfire plan before Stannis was hit in the flank by the Lannister-Tyrell army. If Imry had dallied, and been more cautious, it wouldn't have halted the approach of the 70-90,000 men with Renly's Ghost that caused the defeat. Stannis was going to lose no matter what Ser Imry did.

Yeah, i blame the storm and Stannis' refusal to go after the tyrell infantry rather then the city. Oh how i wish he had scooped up the host at bitterbridge.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

×
×
  • Create New...