Now that the dust has settled. Can we finally Agree to Stannis Baratheon being an Ambitious and Evil man?

Even in the show the decision to burn his daughter doesn't make sense.

Eh, Daenerys deals in slaver's bay aren't as bad as many think but the war with the slavers was inevitable the moment they sensed weakness.

Perhaps it was, but it's not necessarily a bad thing. When Tyrion takes a look at what a fighting force the slavers have assembled, he immediately says that slavers are going to lose, badly, and he must make sure "his" company switches sides in time.
And Tyrion doesn't even know about the ironborn yet, or that Daenerys is going to return with dothraki.

War with the slavers was inevitable regardless. She was shitting on their way of life.

Muh slaves

It's all a matter of position, the Ghiscari legions could hold against anything Daenerys had (not counting the dragons). But their conflicting chain of command and complete lack of preparation stole any chance of victory.

>He didn't want to be king, the duty was thrust upon him.

Varys had an especially poignant taunt towards Kevan at the end of the last book that pretty much described Stannis to a letter.

The kingship is not a right, it is a responsibility.

And what makes Young Griff a better king than Stannis? Sure, he is young and pretty, apparently smart and groomed to be king, but in the short time we knew him he managed to display a lot of negative qualities and a severe gullibility.

That's simple, he isn't. Despite all the effort that went into making Yong Griff a good king the reality is he simply will fail short, not for a lack of trying from his part or his supporters but because not everyone is cut out for the position or at the very least to win the position.

>tfw entire Essos rightfully looks down on Westeros for clinging to archaic ideas of kings and lords
Well, not the entire continent, since Yi-Ti is a thing, but you get the idea.

>And what makes Young Griff a better king than Stannis?

He's not, as you pointed out the kid was given every opportunity to become an Arthurian Hero-King destined to retake the throne in the kingdom's hour of need... Yet we meet him and he's petty, vain, and quite the cunt to someone who's only offering him life lessons and advice.

Varys either thinks those are minor issues, or is willingly ignoring them because he can't face the truth. One of the more popular theories out there, and one I personally ascribe to, is that Varys is in fact a child of House Blackfyre, and shaves his head so often to hide his silver hair (just like Egg did with Duncan.) Varys is not a creature that "loves" easily, if he loves at all, but he's clearly got heavy personal investment in Aegon succeeding, and if GRRM is the hack-fraud we know he is, the foreshadowing he put in place earlier will confirm Aegon Targaryen is in fact Aegon Blackfyre.

>And what makes Young Griff a better king than Stannis

The spectre of legitimacy. The realm's been ripping itself to shreds since John Warwick and Richard York went and stole the throne from its rightful* dudes.

King's blood's got power but the Mannis and Robert only had a fraction of Targ blood. Gotta get more plausible Targ in there.

>The spectre of legitimacy
Legitimacy means shit, if it's more profitable to call you a fake. Especially when others have a pretty good evidence of you being a fake, with you being last seen dead, with your head split open. Who will really support Aegon's claim?
I mean sure, he's conquering Stormlands, so I suppose there's that. But North, Riverlands and Vale (will) belong to Sansa. Iron Isles are behind Euron, who's about to decimate the Reach. That only really leaves Dorne, who probably will support Aegon, but even they doubt him being an actual Targaryen.

Also, Aegon is going to look really silly when it turns out that he has no dragons, and Daenerys has three.

Varys main failing with Young Griff is that he failed to understand what made Aegon, Aegon.

In broader terms, Varys is Like Kreia with Young Griff being his Jedi Exile. Only that Young Griff was/is being taught the Wrong Lessons.

It's not that Young Griff was given the wrong lessons, its that Young Griff is still an individual, and the individual he is isn't really all that kingly or even kind. It's like Varys spent decades pouring talent and gold into crafting this perfect king... But the lessons never stuck. The qualities Varys described of Griff in that moment are especially telling; he knows how to fish, what it's like to go hungry, how to make medicine and do all these other things. He could have learned those things from the people manning the boat, but did he? I kind of doubt it, as he pointedly threw a small tantrum about his lessons on the Seven.

This isn't Kreia and the Jedi Exile who was trained wrong. This is Kreia and the Kedi Exile who was trained right, but the Jedi Exile was a petulant whiny man-child.

D&D are to blame for this move.

Not really, Young Griff is still a bit of a child but he tries we see he wants to be an active and involved king. Going as far as wanting to participate in the taking of Storm's end. I believe his fall will come from a simple lack of talent and ability instead of his minor character flaws. Remember in the end he took Tyrion's advice so shows the willingness to learn and take advice from others.

>Young Griff is still a bit of a child

He's fifteen, he's a grown ass man

I say he is making the transition, he is Jon and Rob age at the start of the books. Back then they were a little childish too.

>Remember in the end he took Tyrion's advice so shows the willingness to learn and take advice from others.
Remember the circumstances in which he took this advice, and don't forget that it's bad advice. Tyrion WILL be Aegon's undoing.

>Legitimacy means shit
It means a great deal to Stannis

I haven't been following along with the books or show for shit, but isn't Stannis the closest legitimate heir to the throne? Stupid cult religion aside, the land needs a king, and not one that's going to rest on their laurels and not solve the problems that have cropped up.

I'm going to stab you through that visor you fluted cuck

>isn't Stannis the closest legitimate heir to the throne

Naw it's Dany.

King Bob only held the throne based on an extremely tenuous connection to the Targ bloodline and lots of turbomurder.

You need to bring either a lot of Targaryen or a lot of murder. Stannis brought a little of the one and a lot of the other.

>isn't Stannis the closest legitimate heir to the throne?
If we respect that the Baratheon claim supercedes the Targaryen claim then yes. Legally he should have succeeded Robert.

All the "Rightful king" bullshit doesn't mean much. It's just a matter of whoever can manage to actually put their butt on the throne. The Targs did it with dragons and killing, Robert did it with just killing, the Lannisters have so far managed it with money, intrigue and deals. Stannis has so far failed to bring enough to the table to get the crown, so for all his claim he may as well be just another usurper and if he fails history will remember him as such

The lannisters failed. They are being propt up by the tyrells

>All the "Rightful king" bullshit doesn't mean much

Yeah it does. It's an integral collaborative fiction that prevents mass murder just because some cunt warlord wants a pretty iron chair.

The combined cuntishness of Aerys and Robert almost permanently toppled the fiction, and it needs to be restored to at least temporarily to stop all the murder.

Right of conquest is the only true. Heirs are a crock of shit.

But that's only because we as readers know that Bob's a cuck and the kids aren't his.

The actual heir is Tommen, since Stannis has no proof.

Nonsense. Right of conquest is all well and good for uncivilized cucks, but you need heirs and all the other fancy stuff to prevent people from fucking each other with swords all the time.

This. Of course IN PRACTICE yes, divine mandate is bullshit. But all systems of government require participation and a degree of sacrosanctity in order to function. We willfully subliminate our individual mandates so that organization can function and we can all enjoy higher standards of living (get fucked Stirnir)

Divine Mandate is essentially, an open lie, most everyone knows it's a lie, but we still participate for the good of the nation state.

Power resides where people believe power resides, as Varys says. We can all agree that once someone has solidified their power, it's probably in everyone's best interests that we don't start rebelling at every opportunity, but at the same time Dany has about as much right to the throne as anyone with the strength of arms to take it.

You'll notice that only one of Dany's followers is there because he thinks it's hers by right, and really he's only there because he feels bad for serving her insane dad. Everyone else just wants her to be queen and thinks she has a chance.

Also he wants to bone her

Fucking Ser Friendzone

He's talking about Barristan the Unboneable user

But he was given the wrong lesson. Aegon became a good king because he was not sheltered and was given a chance to see how peasantry life was at its natural state. While young griff is sheltered who can only see how peasantry life is in a controlled enviroment.

Pretty stoked for him to drown the Freys and burn Ramsay alive.

Walder Frey did nothing wrong. Fucking Robb, he should have just dumped Jayne, get his cute Frey wife and bend the knee until the time was right for the North to rise again.

Robb was sixteen. He was just doing what people told him to do, including his dead father.

Robb is not Ned. If he really took a page from his father's book, he would have left his teenage crush to marry the daughter of one of his most powerful allies like it was agreed previously.

Everyone told him marrying that Westerling Girl was Fucking stupid. He still did it anyway

Didn't Stannis 'write' to every lord of the land saying what Ned told him? Or was that show only?

>Didn't Stannis 'write' to every lord of the land saying what Ned told him? Or was that show only?
Show only.
In the Books he had already known and was planning on revealing Robert about it with Jon Arryn but Jon was killed which terrified Stannis.

I would have just killed the fucking Freys when they were least expecting it. I mean everyone knows that Waldo's a traitorous cunt. Better kill him to secure your back instead of a tenuous negotiation with him, he was likely to drop whenever he got a better offer.

I'm not sure if Ned's letter reached him in the books, but he was already aware of the incest and preparing himself for the civil war for a bit by assembling his banners, recruiting mercenaries and pirates and conspiring with Stormlords. He sent letters to all the lords of the kimgdom and criers to villages along the coast to accuse the Lannisters and calling all good men to join him after Robert died.

>cute Frey wife
Let's be perfectly fair, the fact that there WAS a cute Frey was seen as an utterly shocking development by basically everybody ever.

Thanks been ages since I read GoT. And I haven't read the others because I'm waiting for the rest to be released. Though considering how that's going....

>Only that Young Griff was/is being taught the Wrong Lessons.
So, exactly like kriea with the exile?

>Now that the dust has settled
fucking cancerous /tv/ crossposter

I don't think he was going to betray Robb before he fucked up, but it's true that he wasn't super into it when the table turned against the North and Riverlands. Frey was the single largest contributor to Robb's army. In one of Arya's chapter you have his relatives talking with Bolton right after Stannis was defeated, and they try to convince him to support their case to negotiate with the Lannisters since they can't possibly beat them and the Tyrells united. The Red Wedding was mostly about taking revenge over all the "slights" he suffered.

>So, exactly like kriea with the exile?
Finally, someone agrees. I hated the fact so many people believe Kreia when she said a Jedi should come to terms with their emotions and not shun them. Fucking Dark-siders

Fuck off and die OP.

yay found the image I wanted.

I wouldn't call him evil, stubborn yes, but not evil. He saw it as his duty to become a king, because he knew that Robert's children are illegitimate and that much of the court is corrupt, which he didn't like. In short he has the best intentions but is too stubborn to make compromises when needed, which is the reason he has few allies. There's hoping that GRR won't fuck up his character in the books like they did in the show, fucking hacks

*Aerys, Robert and Ned

Ned could've just kept his god damn mouth shut. Would Joffrey's reign have been messy? Sure. Would most of the cast have been executed or exiled? Probably. Would there have been out-and-out war until the return of Daenerys? Almost certainly not.

Cept for maybe the Iron Born. Who knows if they would've made their grabs without the destabilization.

>including his dead father.
When you get down to it, pretty much everything is Ned's fault. But, due to a convoluted series of events and decisions, it's probably going to end up saving the world and leave westeros with a good ruler, so I guess he gets a pass?

Glad I'm not the only one who thinks it's important to remember that this whole shitshow is at least half Ned's fault.

user, it is time to come to terms with the fact that Grrm has zero pages and will never actually publish WoW

I mean do you thank Lelouch for Empress Nunnally?

>Everyone treats Jon like shit
Neds fault
>Winterfell falls to ironborn/Robb doesn't have any advisers he can actually trust
Catelyn's fault for driving Jon away, but it taxes back to need
>Robb marries the westerling instead of the Frey
Robb grew up seeing Jon get treated like shit because "their" father fucked up
>Jorah meets Dany
Need banished jorah
>Everything in Kings landing
Ned, unversed in politics, fucked up literally everything
>Littlefingers schemes
Ned bones catlyn, littlefingers decided to watch the world burn
>Roberts rebellion
Named after Robert, but causus belli stems from the kidnapping if ned's sister and the death of his family, making him the heir and one of the leaders of the rebellion
>Robert takes throne, becomes shitty King
Between being Roberts best friend and having possession of the rightful heir post baby murder, I'm pretty sure their are several better solutions

Tl:SR-71 it's all need fucking fault

This
>let him pass
>give him your army
>risk being executed or in the very least exiled of they lose the war
>your heir dies in his service
>marries some western slut

Based Walder throwing out the trash

>>Jorah meets Dany
>Need banished jorah
Ned was going to execute Jorah, but he ran off first. And you can't put Jorah marrying a high maintenance woman and sustaining her with slavery on Ned.
>>Littlefingers schemes
>Ned bones catlyn, littlefingers decided to watch the world burn
That's on his brother (or Cat), should've killed Littlefinger when he had the chance.

its all catelyn fault

They were Idealistic.

>Jedi should come to terms with their emotions and not shun them
Yes, they should. You know, like Luke did. Or Obi Wan. Or Yoda.

To be fair, I strongly believe that Walder would betray Robb anyway. It was becoming increasingly obvious that he's not going to win this war (thanks, Edmure), and Frey doesn't back losers.

Not even Edmure Fault to begin with. Robb Never told him anything about his Master Plan. IF anything its Robbs fault. had he been more clear than maybe they could have won.
Then again had they bend the knee to Stannis everyone would have won

>Then again had they bend the knee to Stannis everyone would have won
Isn't it Greatjon's fault for proclaiming Robb the King in the North? It's not like Robb could say
>Uh, guys, I would rather not be king and lead you to the independence you want. Rather, I would like we bend the knee to another southerner and die in his wars.

It's a shame Robb wasn't their Liege Lord.

Is Davos, Ned, and Stannis the dream team?

Nope. The dream team is about to be assembled in the next book.
>Daenerys as the queen
>Victarion as her husband, also Master of Ships
>Moqorro as Master of Whispers
>Marwin the Mage as the Grand Maester
Tyrion should not be anywhere near her court - in fact, it would be in Dany's best interest to execute him the moment they meet, but he probably is becoming her Hand.

Ha. Thought that was Stannis with a light saber, done up as a sith lord.

Gotta say. Little disappointed.

More like an overly Lawful, with some weakness of man in him. But still super True Lawful.

>mfw Dumb and Dumber removed Victarion, the greatest thing to come out of Dance with Dragons
>mfw no grand stupid adventures of the charcoal-armed idiot and his Giga Nigga sidekick

>next book.
>implying

You're here forever user. Welcome to the boat.

I really want ASOIAF to receive an animated adaptation. Live action just can't do it justice, and brings numerous problems.

>Comes across an ancient evil basically inconceivable to the average denizen of Westeros
>"Dance with me then"
Waymar is so based

>Books describe the White Walkers as Not!Elves decked out in steel-ice armor and wielding viciously sharp weapons
>Show make them wearing loincloths and leather with shriveled old-man faces

It greatly offends me that show watchers refer to them as ice zombies, because the show made almost no effort to dinstinguish between the Others and the wights at all.

>(thanks, Edmure)
Hey now, that's harsh. Edmure did what he thought was best. He fought a good battle and beat the enemy. Robb should have informed him better, how the hell did he expect his elaborate plan to go without telling his most important captains.

Don't forget the Night King is Literally Satan.

Remember kids, the pointy teeth and horn-crown makes him eeeeevvvvviiiiiilllllllll!

Pretty great last words.

Now, that's just not true. Ned would have done exactly the same thing as Robb, and the book is showing that Ned and Robb both suffered their downfalls for the same reason: that they valued internal honor over external honor.

(note that the story doesn't comment on whether it's morally better to value one over the other; it only shows the consequences of putting the former over the latter)

Ned discovers that Cerci's children aren't of Robert's blood - something nobody, including Robert himself, knows. If he valued external honor, he'd keep his damn mouth shut and continue to serve as the King's Hand, maybe quietly arrange some pretext with Cerci for him to return with dignity to the North upon Robert's death (she'd be happy with him gone home too, after all), and live out a full life with every appearance of being an "honorable" guy. Instead, he acts on what he knows, and basically accuses the queen of high treason and her children of being incestuous bastards without any hard proof - because even if he can't prove it, he knows it's true, and his internal sense of honor guides his actions. This, of course, ends poorly for him. We can also see this in how he much earlier allowed his external honor to be tarnished by pretending to have a bastard son in order to protect the secrets of the Tower of Joy - he puts his promise to his sister ahead of others' perceptions of him, and even of the good of the realm (securing Robert's claim by "dealing with" any Targ-blooded children).

(cont.)

Likewise, Robb takes a minor noble's virginity while in a delirium, which pretty well ruins her prospects in a world that values the virginity of a noble maiden. The smart thing to do for his cause, not to mention the thing that best preserves his external honor, is to either quietly buy her/her family off and sweep it all under the rug, or to pointedly deny the tryst and, if she/her family press the case, imply that Jayne's a whore who's trying to cover up her own sleeping around by pinning it on him. Instead, his desire to follow his father's example - to value his internal honor above all things - leads him to marry (thus legitimize) his fevered one-night stand, even though it comes with a big hit to his external honor (publicly breaking off an arraigned marriage and offending a key noble) and ultimately leads to his downfall.

In the end, Robb's destruction is borne of him following in his father's footsteps, and meeting the same fate.

Yeah, sure. But he was still the rightful king.

he's not really evil per say, but his constant rants about honor have always been pure bullshit to hide even to himself his own selfishness. in the very first chapter we meet him we see him let the man who was basically a father to him be mocked and mistreated and kicks him out of his council because he didnt like his very good advice. which is a habit with stannis only listening to what he wants to hear. he also holds others to standards he doesnt himself live up to. he's willing to punish and reward davos for his sins and his good deeds, but he hardly holds himself or others responsible for unlawful rebellion even when non-insane legitimate heirs still live

Maybe? I only vaguely recall him.

Did anyone else belongs to the cool-but-forgetable GoT club?

>in the very first chapter we meet him we see him let the man who was basically a father to him be mocked and mistreated and kicks him out of his council because he didnt like his very good advice. which is a habit with stannis only listening to what he wants to hear

What? The reason Davos is his hand is BECAUSE Davos tells him things he doesn't want to hear. Stannis sidelines the maester because he's giving him bootlicker advice, not for daring to voice disagreement.

>he hardly holds himself or others responsible for unlawful rebellion even when non-insane legitimate heirs still live

Which heirs are those? The Targs? They're not legitimate - they are literally the definition of "pretenders to the throne." They're a bunch of Prince Charlies coming over from France, not lawful claimants.

The Iron Throne was a mistake.

Get a load of this traitor Davos.

I begrudgingly admit that every word of this is true.

Frey definitely had cause to break his alliance with Robb, but he already did that when he took his army back to the Riverlands.

However, let's not pretend that the Red Wedding was the same as breaking an alliance. It was a betrayal of the highest order. They deserve to be punished by Zombie Cat.