Author: stevenattewell

Where do you suppose Ned got his gender equality notions from given how he indulges Arya’s tomboyish inclinations? Catelyn is very conventional while the Vale is depicted as ultra conservative, while Robert wouldn’t have been the best influence on how to view women I would think.

I don’t know if I’d go with gender equality notions per se, after all Ned is still the one who says this:

Arya cocked her head to one side. “Can I be a king’s councillor and build castles and become the High Septon?”

“You,” Ned said, kissing her lightly on the brow, “will marry a king and rule his castle, and your sons will be knights and princes and lords and, yes, perhaps even a High Septon.”

Arya screwed up her face. “No,” she said, “that’s Sansa.” She folded up her right leg and resumed her balancing. Ned sighed and left her there.

I think the thing with Ned is that he cannot help but see Lyanna in Arya’s face, and so he can’t bring himself to outright forbid Arya to pursue those things she has in common with Lyanna. It’s a personal thing, founded in his specific relationship with Lyanna, as opposed to a general commitment to gender equality as a concept. 

Squaring the circle between Ned’s allowing Arya to have a “dancing master” and telling her that she can’t follow a male-gendered “career” path is that Ned is also someone profoundly marked by his past: 

“It has a name, does it?” Her father sighed. “Ah, Arya. You have a wildness in you, child. ‘The wolf blood,’ my father used to call it. Lyanna had a touch of it, and my brother Brandon more than a touch. It brought them both to an early grave.”

“Lyanna was beautiful,” Arya said, startled. Everybody said so. It was not a thing that was ever said of Arya.

“She was,” Eddard Stark agreed, “beautiful, and willful, and dead before her time.”

So while Ned can’t bring himself to stop Arya from mimicing Lyanna, he also feels strongly that Lyanna’s “wolf’s blood,” her “willful” nature lead to her early death and doesn’t want Arya to go down that path. Thus, he’ll allow her indulgences like swordfighting training, but he wants her to be safely married and live a long and conventional life. 

Maester Steven, may I please ask what steps you think the Durrandans should have taken to strengthen their rule over the Trident after the Deluge? (I thought about cross-frontier fostering and perhaps making the Heir Apparent “Lord Paramount of the Trident” – though it did strike me that fostering with one River House was an excellent way of making enemies amongst the others).

  • Well, definitely making sure that they were acclaimed King of the Rivers/Trident is a good start.
  • Second, have the oldest son who was married to a Blackwood be Prince of the Trident with a seat in the Riverlands and make sure they have an heir born in the Riverlands.
  • Third, wouldn’t be a terrible idea to raise a seat at the mouth of the Rush and have that be the second son’s seat so that the Durrandons have a secure base of operations that’s closer than Storm’s End.
  • Fourth, it’s important to demonstrate that the Durrandons are investing as well as taking out of the kingdom. Roads, canals, bridges, road and riverrine patrols to keep the peace, royal courts, issue some town and city charters. 
  • Fifth, fostering is good, as are cross-kingdoms marriages. Hostage-taking might also be necessary.

On Robert’s Rebellion, considering that the implicit message of the pro-Aerys/Targaryen faction is that the King can burn people/Crown Prince can elope with another woman, why were the Tyrells so openly pro-Targaryen? Dorne had Elia, but after seeing Aerys at Whent’s tourney, and the precedent set by a victory, it doesn’t seem in their interest to concede that kind of royal power.

opinions-about-tiaras:

This is perhaps overly cynical; after all, many Vale Houses remained loyal to Aerys as well, as did a lot of the Riverlands, and some major players sat things out until after the Trident.

The people of Westeros take the idea of loyalty to their king, even a shitty king, very seriously. Even Stannis Baratheon talks about what a difficult choice it was; Aerys was burning people alive without trial and had declared Stannis’ brother an attainted traitor who he intended to also execute without trial, and Stannis still said:

racefortheironthrone:

Desperate for royal favor; Mace has wanted a daughter to be Queen and Viserys’ hand was open. 

“If you only knew … that was a hard choosing. My blood or my liege. My brother or my king.“

(Davos IV, ASOS)

The Tyrell’s may have wanted Targaryen favor, but it is also entirely possible that like many, many others did, they simply decided “we’re loyal Targaryen men for three hundred years, we follow the Targaryens.”

That’s a fair point. There were plenty of people who supported Henry VI in the Wars of the Roses despite his manifest unfitness for the job because they just couldn’t get over the fact that he was a god-anointed sovereign whom they had sworn an oath of fealty to. 

But Mace Tyrell does not strike me as a loyal anything. Hence his actions at Storm’s End. 

On Robert’s Rebellion, considering that the implicit message of the pro-Aerys/Targaryen faction is that the King can burn people/Crown Prince can elope with another woman, why were the Tyrells so openly pro-Targaryen? Dorne had Elia, but after seeing Aerys at Whent’s tourney, and the precedent set by a victory, it doesn’t seem in their interest to concede that kind of royal power.

Desperate for royal favor; Mace has wanted a daughter to be Queen and Viserys’ hand was open. 

What was Renly’s original plan for Margaery and Robert? I assume he planned to reveal the truth about Cersei and her children, and have Robert marry her, but how would that benefit him at all?

I’ve written about this at length, but the short version is:

  1. Get Robert interested in Margaery. 
  2. Reveal Cersei’s incestuous adultery, remove her and her children.
  3. Pop Margaery into Robert’s bed to console him.
  4. Marry Margaery to Robert, produce a new legtimate line of succession.
  5. Replace all Lannisters in government.

As for what Renly gets out of it? 

  • Well, he eliminates a deadly rival in Cersei and the Lannisters, who need to have him killed along with Stannis to secure the throne against the legitimist Baratheon claim. 
  • Moreover, he’s in the best possible place to reap the benefits – as the man who not only exposed Cersei’s infidelity but also introduced Robert to the new hotness, Renly is likely to get richly rewarded by Robert and could very easily become the next Hand of the King. 
  • And even if he doesn’t get that particular prize in the moment, he’s already a member of the Small Council, and as Loras’ husbando he’d definitely be the leading force of the dominant faction in court politics (since he can run rings around Mace any day of the week).