Well, Tywin and Roose specifically have the Harrenhal curse hanging over them, and unlike the Shavepate, they’re just pure assholes, lacking a progressive endgame encouraging GRRM to keep them around. (Not that this excuses the Shavepate’s violence; it makes him a different category of character from those two, however. More like Varys: an idealist in his ends, hideously pragmatic about his means.)
But hey, Big Walder’s a stone-cold killer, and is transparently being set up to rule the Twins. Same with the Tattered Prince and Pentos. Besides, while murdering a hundred children is undeniably horrific, as with Ryman and Edmure, don’t take hostages if you’re not going to be able to bring yourself to kill them when their family refuses to surrender. Or take Baelor the Blessed–while I admire his decision to pardon the Dornish hostages on a personal level, on a political level, he left unresolved the staggering blow of Daeron I’s taboo-breaking murder, and indeed frequently made it worse (as did Daeron II, lbr). This was a huge contributing factor to the Blackfyre Rebellions, in which way more people died.
In other words: of course it’s best not to kill, but you need to figure out another way to solve your problems, not just refuse to kill and then sit on your hands.
This discussion of hostages is really interesting to me. Their value as a deterrent is obvious, but once hostilities are renewed, I can’t imagine that killing them would be particularly effective. Won’t the death of an innocent child only further inflame any possible conflict? If you’ve got a bunch of hostages (like Dany or Jon) killing one after the first violent incident is obviously critical to maintaining a plausible deterrent. But it also vilifies you as a child-killer, and lends credence to the arguments of those who oppose you. When you’ve got a Theon situation, with only one hostage, it seems like it’d be even more of a challenge. Once you’ve killed him, you’re completely out of leverage.
How have these things worked in real life? I imagine the history is at least as bloody as anything in aSoIaF. @racefortheironthrone, would you be willing to enlighten us?
As with anything else, sometimes it works at sometimes it doesn’t.
When Caterina Sforza was besieged within her fortress of Ravaldino, the Orsi family threatened to murder her children who she had left as hostages to get inside the fortress. Standing on the walls of the fortress, Caterina flashed the besieging army and dared them to kill her children, saying that she had the “equipment to make other children.”
When John Marshal was besieged inside Newbury Castle by King Stephen during the Anarchy, Stephen threatened to hang his son William if he didn’t surrender. John Marshal replied, ”I still have the hammer and the anvil with which to forge still more and better sons!“ (Presumably while motioning to his crotch.)
But most people were not Caterina Sforza or John Marshal, and thankfully the two never had a chance to mate, lest the world be overrun by badasses.
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