The rebellion was definitely started after Rickard and Brandon Stark were killed. After their murders Aerys demanded that Jon Aryn turn over Ned and Robert, both of whom he was fostering.
Nature. The Targaryans had more than their share, no doubt in part due to their habit of wedding brother to sister. Remember that Ser Barristan said as much to Dani when he sought her out – that he wanted to see if she was nuts before her served her.
Absolute monarchy can be a pretty good system of government - if you’ve got a pretty good monarch. But there’s no way to assure that you will have one, and if you don’t, watch out.
It was Hodors fault
Declan
Technically speaking, the Seven Kingdoms are a feudal monarchy, not an absolute one.
Any monarchy where the king can have someone burned to death before his eyes on his sole say-so is pretty damn absolute.
And as a result of burning then, his feudal vassals rose in revolt.
Anyone can burn people alive. An absolute monarch can burn them with impunity.
Stannis is really the “Honor at all costs” guy in the books, and we see how he’s described and how he acts. Ned was definitely concerned with honor, but more concerned with doing what he saw as being right, unlike Stannis.
Before we go blaming Rhaegar lets keep in mind he knew what was going to happen, he knew about the prophecies and his wife was sickly and weak and could not have had more children. The dragon needed three heads, maybe he was not as rash and impulsive as we think.
He should have also known that Robert Baratheon wasn’t going to respond very favorably ;).
Well its Tywins fault. He should not have resigned in a huff. As Hand of the King, he kept the King in check, as is the duty of any good deputy. If he had not gotten all pissy over the whole Cercei/Rhaegar thing or Jamie in the Kingsguard or the whole bannerman tongue cutting thing, Rhaegar would have been King, Jon Targaryen would be the heir to the throne and we would be spared the mind numbingly stupid (except for the I-am-sure-are-bastards Arya and Brandon) Starks.
Ooo… I hadn’t thought of that. Would you care to elaborate on this theory?
I’m guessing just because they’re the only Stark kids who aren’t idiots. There’s certainly nothing in the book or the series that suggests that Catelyn was cheating on Ned.
Were you hoping that Arya was a natural blonde or something?
It seems to me that the relationship between Tywin and Aerys had been going downhill ever since Tywin’s marriage. If Aerys was already showing signs of going to the dark side, Tywin might just have been too much a target himself.
Aegon would likely have a stronger claim over Jon (official wife, older, etc).
Though, as pointed out, Tywin may have been killed as well when he tried to push back against Aerys as Hand.
Some of those are definitely honor, though
For instance, 3, because killing women and children isn’t honorable.
I flatly reject that.
There is no rule of honor that says that a traitor gets to go free just because she’s a woman.
Honor and duty would require a traitor (an adulterous queen) to be seized and charged. It would also require that the king be allowed to determine what happens to the children.
Ned did what he did out of sympathy and compassion, and that’s what he tells himself.
He is violating his duty and his honor to do so, and he knows that if it works, he will be denounced for it.
To the extent that he does adhere to some code of honor, it’s not a blind honor that he’s been taught. Ned examines every decision and every act and decides independently whether it is right or wrong.
Frequently, his decisions work out to his disadvantage, but (1) he recognizes that he makes mistakes and (2) he is willing to suffer the consequences—at least for himself—when he chooses to do what he thinks is right.
Now that might fit under a general heading of “honor,” but Ned exercises a very modern form of morality. He’s not a dumb honor-robot as is often made out.
I love how well put together this series is such that the events of 15 years before the actual narrative, revealed in bits and pieces, is consistent and deep enough for people to analyze to this extent. Things go off the rails a bit in books 4 and 5, but Martin really did an amazing job with the first 3 novels.
As to the topic of the thread, it seems that you can blame the silly War of the 5 Kings on any number of people:
- Aerys for being a crazy homicidal maniac king that burns high lords for fun and induces rebellion in the first place
- Robert for being an irresponsible king and husband that drives Cersei to not bear legitimate children and eventually paving the way for his own demise.
- Rhaegar for not taking Aerys out of power earlier. Also for having that romance with Lyanna that spawned Robert’s Rebellion, which potentially prevented him from dealing with Aerys himself
- Jon Arryn for sticking his nose where it doesn’t really need to be - no incest research means none of the fallout, which means no war.
- Ned Stark for a) following the thread of incest research too far b) completely bungling the advantage he had with Renly in taking control of KL after Robert died c) holding out for Stannis, which alienated both Renly and Littlefinger
- Catelyn for seizing Tyrion like an idiot
- Cersei for not having legitimate children. She could have still banged Jaime on the side but bore some real Baratheon babies too. Also for getting Robert killed.
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Jaime and Cersei for not finding a more discreet place to fuck, which led to Bran watching, causing the whole chain of events that had Catelyn seizing Tyrion
-** Bran** for being a little monkey climber that didn’t listen to his mommy telling him it was dangerous (the night is dark and full of Lannisters) - Littlefinger for aiding in all of the various plots, including Jon Arryn’s death (probably), Ned’s beheading (probably) and betraying Ned in the first place
- Joffrey for being a little shit and beheading Ned, causing the North to double down on the war effort (a banished Ned would probably have Robb just suing for peace + prisoner exchange at some point)
- Stannis for being too proud to support Renly, despite Renly being a a decent human who had way more support. If the Baratheon brothers had united, the war would have been over just as soon as it began. Hell, even if Stannis had stayed out and not sent the shadow queef assassin after him, the war would have effectively been over as well.
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Renly for not accepting Stannis’ claim and vying for the crown himself. If he had put his Tyrell friends under Stannis’ banner, again, it would have been game over.
A lot of people had the opportunity to either prevent the war (though perhaps not realizing it of course) or severely limit its scope. But since people are flawed, emotional, ambitious bastards, clusterfuckery happens. Yay!
True. However, Sansa thought Arya was a bastard because she resembled Jon.