Some people have asked why fans seem so angered by Tywin melting down Ice into Widow’s Wail and Oathkeeper?

I think the reasons are firstly, it was revealed after the Red Wedding, so it kind of adds insult to injury. Secondly, it was plain theft given even if he believed House Stark was extinct, by rights Ice would go to his gooddaughter, Sansa and her husband, Tyrion. Sansa was his prisoner, and he knew she couldn’t do anything about it, so it was essentially the equivalent of taking candy from a baby. 

Your thoughts?

I think you’ve identified two of the bigger reasons. 

I would also add that it’s a hugely petty act that doesn’t show his House Lannister legacy obsession in a good light. House Lannister loses its Valyrian sword, gets a complex about it, Tywin tries to bribe his way into a new one, and then when no one will give him one willingly, steals it, and then makes a big show of giving them to his chosen heir (which is pretty thoughtless given the hand thing, and is a naked bribe to get Jaime to break his vows and the law) and to Joffrey in a rather gauche display of one-upmanship. 

The whole affair is just completely lacking in class. 

Actually, that’s something that’s come up a bit on comments to the original piece. 

Here’s why I don’t think he did it of his own accord: from what we learn of Mandon Moore from those who spent the most time with him (i.e, members of the Kingsguard), he had “no friend but his sword and no life but duty.” 

When we see him in person, he’s almost completely emotionless and lacking in affect. He shows no emotional response at all to the news that Vardis Egan is dead – all he says is that he knows Vardis Egan. 

As far as loyalty goes, he laughed at Ser Barristan Selmy getting dismissed from the Kingsguard, so it doesn’t seem to run deep. We learn that Jon Arryn brought him into the Kingsguard, but due to Mandon Moore’s competence rather than any deep friendship or attachment to House Arryn.

Combining those facets of his personality, I don’t see Mandon Moore as someone who acts according to his own desires. If he swung the sword, it’s because someone told him to. 

Well, what you tended to have happen was some form of community policing, and not in the modern sense, supplementing an undermanned official force. So for example, in Medieval England, the Ordinance of 1233 established royal night watchmen who were supposed to “to arrest those who enter [villages] at night and go about armed.” Those got supplemented by the Assize of Arms of 1252, which established local constables in every parish whose job it was to gather evidence for local justices, quell riots, and arrest lawbreakers and hand them over to the sheriffs. 

However, the constables and watchmen were generally few in number. So they were given the authority through the Statute of Winchester of 1285 to make a “hue and cry,” i.e to draft any able-bodied man in earshot to help them pursue a criminal until that criminal was arrested. To put some teeth into this requirement, the entire community (known as a hundred of a shire) would be held legally responsible for any theft and robbery if they failed to catch said criminal. 

And that was basically the dominant form of law enforcement in England up until the Bow Street Runners in 1749, the Glasgow City Police in 1800, and Peel’s Metropolitan Police Act of 1829. 

In other words, legally sanctioned (indeed, legally mandated) vigilante justice.

Both. The Byzantine Empire had had military units dedicated to the protection of the Emperor and the capitol from the beginning, although the names of these units, their structure, function, and organization would change dramatically in different periods. 

Some of these units were used as police – the Tzakones started out as marines and ended up as palace guards, the Vardariotai were basically riot police armed with whips and staves, the Skythikoi were mercenaries who also were drafted in as police at various times.

But there were also a regular city police force called the taxiōtai (as well as a night watch) who served under the urban prefect of Constantinople, who was in charge of the jails and the law courts.

Depends where you’re talking about. Western Europe, no. Byzantium, yes. 

I’m saying that LF might think that Tyrion would accuse him of it, because of the dagger and setting Tyrion up. 

Again, depends on the family, because the limiting factor with daughters seems to be dowries. If you can splash out for a lot of daughters, then they’re a bonus because you can make ties to more families than just the one – if you can’t splash out, you’re in trouble. As Dickens wrote, “"Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen [pounds] nineteen [shillings] and six [pence], result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery.“

Ah, I gotcha. Well, there’s a number of things Littlefinger gains from the PW:

1. Gives him an in with the Tyrells.
2. Punishes Tyrion for tricking him, divides the Lannister faction against itself, and ensures that Tyrion won’t be there to provide assistance to the Lannister faction down the road.
3. Ensures that Tyrion can’t accuse him of the murder of Jon Arryn or the attempted murder of Bran Stark or the framing of Tyrion Lannister. 
4. Frees Sansa, which gives him potential claims to Winterfell and maybe Harrenhal and  Riverrun. 
5. Ends Sansa’s marriage, which he wants for both political and personal reasons.
6. Focuses Tywin’s attentions on the trial and not, for example, on the Vale.
7. Delays the production of a Baratheon/Tyrell heir. 
8. Punishes Cersei for denying him Sansa. 
9. And most importantly…giving him a wonderful warm fuzzy feeling inside because he’s the smartest man in the world. 

Well, it entirely depends on the circumstance of the family and the characteristics of the sons in question. If the family has tons of land and multiple holdings, there’s ways to spread the wealth around without diluting the family’s power – at the extreme, you can create a cadet branch; one step down from that, you can probably hand out landed knighthoods; one step down from that, you can give out positions as castellans and master-at-arms and the like. 

If the family doesn’t, then you need to find different occupations for younger sons – if you’ve got influence with your liege lord and/or the royal court, you might try to get one a position as a courtier, both because that gives them a living and royal favor is one way to get your hands on land if you’re not born with it; if you’ve got money, you could send your son to be trained as a maester at the Citadel, which is a decent living and has a good amount of political influence, and I’ll bet gets you either a free maester or a discount because the Citadel wants to get literate novices who know how to behave around highborns; if you don’t, you can send them to become a Septon, where they could rise in the Faith’s hierarchy. 

But in both cases (land/not), it depends on the characteristics of the sons – a son who’s a good fighter makes for a good castellan or could get farmed out as master-of-arms or household knight at a more powerful House, but if your son can’t swing a sword to save their life, those options are foreclosed. Likewise, if your son is thick as a castle wall, he’s probably not going to be welcome at the Citadel, and if he’s a notorious drunk and lecher, the Faith might turn their noses up at him. Likewise, you run into problems with redundant skill-sets: what happens if you have two younger sons who’re good fighters and only one opening? The youngest might have no option but to become a hedge knight or join the Night’s Watch. 

So rather than a single ideal number, it depends very much on the circumstances.