which ironically, highlights one of the uglier characteristics of the extreme who are hung up on honour and morality. Ned, who beheaded a guy for running from the undead, and in turn lost his own to give fair warning to an enemy. Robb, who lost half his army, and thus the war, for the death of two prisoners. Cat, who started the war (which ended up killing Ned and Robb and placing the lives of her entire family in peril) because of a single piece of evidence.
mr. jp may be insane for picking on the death of the Frey girl of all things, but it is an insanity he shares with the Starks.
That’s from Tywin’s perspective, I suppose. Can we keep in mind that Cat’s son had been pushed from the top of a tall tower by Jamie (though she didn’t know that part at the time) and she’d been assured by Littlefinger (yeah, not too smart to trust him either) that the assassin who came to finish Bran off was carrying Tyrion’s knife.
Yeah, kidnapping Tyrion wasn’t the most strategic move, but if we’re looking for a single event that triggered what has happened in the show since (always a fool’s errand), we can go all the way back to the final scene in the pilot when Jamie shoved Bran out of a window so no one would discover that he was fucking his sister.
I think it is remarkable that you consider Jaime’s worse. Jaime would be dead if he didn’t kill Bran, Cat’s killing achieved nothing. Jaime’s was self defense, Cat’s was desperation / rage. I think it is clear that Cat’s killing was worse. If the problem is that she had to keep her oath, then she shouldn’t have made the oath to start with.
So you think I am devoid of empathy because I don’t want to kill an innocent girl for no gain? Are you rolling your eyes at my claim that I wouldn’t kill her? I have never killed anyone, I don’t even know if I could if I thought it was the right decision.
Robb had been winning since the start of the war. The new wife was taking his heart out of the battle and the Iron Islanders fucking up the north were slowing their progress, but were they losing? The Karstarks departure was a blow in terms of numbers but the Frey troops were going to shore up that hole.
Was the Castlerey Rock gambit meant to be seen as a desperation move on his part? I did not get that impression.
he has lost his home base and half his strength. he is stranded and weakened in enemy territory. his plan needed him to beg the Freys for forgiveness to even have a remote chance of success. and there is no plan B. if it failed he would be sandwiched between Tywin’s forces and the sea. it’s do or die.
There is precisely zero evidence in the show to suggest that is the case. Lyanna has not been mentioned even once since season 1 and Rhaegar the rapist perhaps twice. There is a lot more evidence that Jon is what is claimed, Ned’s son. Hell you could be forgiven for thinking that “Ned Starks Bastard” is his real name.
I think the truth is somewhere in between. His plan was like the Allied invasion of Normandy. He had been winning the war, but the Lannisters were now in a defensive posture that they could have held onto indefinitely without some bold and decisive action by Robb’s army to force their hand.
His forces were weakened, but still strong enough to maintain the status quo. The problem was, the status quo kinda sucked.
Yeah, but but… Robb broke an oath! An oath I say! That makes the Starks *worse *than the Lannisters! How can you even put tiny things like murder, rape & torture up there with oathbreaking!?
There’s exactly as much evidence as that suggesting that it isn’t.
The known facts are that Ned came back from the war with a babby in tow, that he wanted raised as if it was family. That’s it. Nobody knows who the mother is, nobody even remembers him being with a woman at all on the war trail, not even his old war buddy who could only wager that she must have been hot to make Eddard Stark forget about his precious honour (to which Ned pointedly remained silent).
There’s also the fact that Jon’s hair is raven black, while Ned’s got brown hair along with Robb, Arya, Bran and Rickon.
There is small evidence, admittedly, but non-zero. Add in the fact that Barristan Selmy (by all evidence an upstanding and honest guy) sang Rhaegar’s praises to Dany and Jorah early this season, saying what a great guy he was, with no mention of him being a rapist. (granted, not the sort of thing you bring up to someone’s sister, but if you know a guy is a rapist, you don’t have to overpraise him like Selmy did.)
Benjen didn’t join the Night’s Watch until after Robert’s Rebellion (basically once Robb was born and he was no longer the heir), so parenting a child would have been embarrassing but not life threatening. Same for Ned’s older brother and father, who both died a few months prior to Jon being born. Ned’s sister would have died at roughly the same time Jon was born.
Jon being the son of any of them would qualify as “having [Ned’s] blood.”
I remember that now that you point it out. I find this compelling, since at the time I thought Ned’s reaction was off somehow. Add in the other points you bring up and I’m convinced.
Yes, I am rolling my eyes at you, Dr Sheldon Cooper.
Not only that, Robb’s mother kept her oath as a Stark and a Tully to kill that woman if her son was killed. Making her even worser than Robb and all the Lannisters and Freys too. Because if there is anything worse than an oathbreaker and-- let’s face it, there isn’t-- it’s an oathkeeper
I had the same reaction. Ned is presented as a person of such high honor that he’d probably have cut his own naughty bits off before he’d fool around with a lowborn woman … especially during his best friend’s war.
For Jaime and Cersei to be punished for what Bran saw, Bran would have had to understand what he saw and convince people it was what it was. Jaime could have talked his way out of it, but he didn’t take time to think. “Fucking my sister? My sister?! Kid’s been spending too much time in the farmyard.”
Concerning the Red Wedding scene again–I was wondering how realistic the throat-slittings were. Would people really just kind if immediately go faint-to-unconscious the moment the cut was made? Or would they reach up and grab their neck and stumble around in a conscious panic for some number of seconds first?
I think throat cutting would be more spurty, less fountainy. And they’d be conscious for at least a few seconds and probably flail around a bit. It’s believable that Cat didn’t, because she was basically catatonic at that point, but it seemed like it was lights out for everyone.
It would actually be more gruesome if we got some struggling and some gurgling noises.