Post by markg171 on Jul 23, 2015 19:42:55 GMT
It seems a no brainer that after the Trident Ned Stark was sent ahead to seize King's Landing as Robert was wounded and couldn't right? Well that's not quite what the text says.
"We were not Sworn Brothers of the Kingsguard," Ned said. The time had come for Robert to hear the whole truth, he decided then and there. "Do you remember the Trident, Your Grace?"
"I won my crown there. How should I forget it?"
"You took a wound from Rhaegar," Ned reminded him. "So when the Targaryen host broke and ran, you gave the pursuit into my hands. The remnants of Rhaegar's army fled back to King's Landing. We followed. Aerys was in the Red Keep with several thousand loyalists. I expected to find the gates closed to us."
"I won my crown there. How should I forget it?"
"You took a wound from Rhaegar," Ned reminded him. "So when the Targaryen host broke and ran, you gave the pursuit into my hands. The remnants of Rhaegar's army fled back to King's Landing. We followed. Aerys was in the Red Keep with several thousand loyalists. I expected to find the gates closed to us."
Ned says that Robert told him to pursue the royalist army... not that he should go on ahead to King's Landing. The army he was told to pursue simply fled there. It seems to me that Robert was the one who was supposed to go on to deal with King's Landing while Ned was away dealing with the rest of Rhaegar's army.
Which kind of leads into Robert not particularly caring that the Lannisters sacked the city, while Ned is horrified by what happened
"Treachery was a coin the Targaryens knew well," Robert said. The anger was building in him again. "Lannister paid them back in kind. It was no less than they deserved. I shall not trouble my sleep over it."
"You were not there," Ned said, bitterness in his voice. Troubled sleep was no stranger to him. He had lived his lies for fourteen years, yet they still haunted him at night. "There was no honor in that conquest."
"You were not there," Ned said, bitterness in his voice. Troubled sleep was no stranger to him. He had lived his lies for fourteen years, yet they still haunted him at night. "There was no honor in that conquest."
He remembered the angry words they had exchanged when Tywin Lannister had presented Robert with the corpses of Rhaegar's wife and children as a token of fealty. Ned had named that murder; Robert called it war. When he had protested that the young prince and princess were no more than babes, his new-made king had replied, "I see no babes. Only dragonspawn." Not even Jon Arryn had been able to calm that storm. Eddard Stark had ridden out that very day in a cold rage, to fight the last battles of the war alone in the south.
There's also many things that don't add up with the story of the Sack that we're told.
The war had raged for close to a year. Lords great and small had flocked to Robert's banners; others had remained loyal to Targaryen. The mighty Lannisters of Casterly Rock, the Wardens of the West, had remained aloof from the struggle, ignoring calls to arms from both rebels and royalists. Aerys Targaryen must have thought that his gods had answered his prayers when Lord Tywin Lannister appeared before the gates of King's Landing with an army twelve thousand strong, professing loyalty. So the mad king had ordered his last mad act. He had opened his city to the lions at the gate.
"Ned Stark was racing south with Robert's van, but my father's forces reached the city first. Pycelle convinced the king that his Warden of the West had come to defend him, so he opened the gates. The one time he should have heeded Varys, and he ignored him. My father had held back from the war, brooding on all the wrongs Aerys had done him and determined that House Lannister should be on the winning side. The Trident decided him.
Tywin supposedly refused to call his banners for either side during the war, only decided to take action after Robert won the Trident, and beat Ned's army to King's Landing despite the distance from Casterly Rock to King's Landing and the Trident to King's Landing being roughly the same and Ned should have had a head start if Tywin only left after word reached him while Ned left immediately after the battle. But the biggest thing that doesn't add up to the story that we're told of the Sack is who Tywin brought to King's Landing on this supposed last minute march
Ser Elys Westerling and Lord Crakehall and others of his father’s knights burst into the hall in time to see the last of it, so there was no way for Jaime to vanish and let some braggart steal the praise or blame. It would be blame, he knew at once when he saw the way they looked at him... though perhaps that was fear. Lannister or no, he was one of Aerys’s seven.
“The castle is ours, ser, and the city,” Roland Crakehall told him, which was half true. Targaryen loyalists were still dying on the serpentine steps and in the armory, Gregor Clegane and Amory Lorch were scaling the walls of Maegor’s Holdfast, and Ned Stark was leading his northmen through the King’s Gate even then, but Crakehall could not have known that. He had
not seemed surprised to find Aerys slain; Jaime had been Lord Tywin’s son long before he had been named to the Kingsguard.
“The castle is ours, ser, and the city,” Roland Crakehall told him, which was half true. Targaryen loyalists were still dying on the serpentine steps and in the armory, Gregor Clegane and Amory Lorch were scaling the walls of Maegor’s Holdfast, and Ned Stark was leading his northmen through the King’s Gate even then, but Crakehall could not have known that. He had
not seemed surprised to find Aerys slain; Jaime had been Lord Tywin’s son long before he had been named to the Kingsguard.
Of the Lannister men who are named to have partaken in the Sack, only Gregor Clegane could have taken part in a last minute march to seize King's Landing as his is the only house on the way to King's Landing from Casterly Rock. House Westerling and House Crakehall are from completely opposite ends of the Westerlands (the north and south ends). There's no possible way that Tywin could have summoned them after hearing about the Trident and then marching to King's Landing to prove his worth to Robert with them in tow. No these men indicate that Tywin had summoned his banners long before the Trident.
So we have Robert possibly trying to send Ned away from King's Landing for the upcoming Sack, Robert being okay with the Sack while Eddard is horrified by it, and Tywin's actions indicating that his seizure of King's Landing was a very premeditated event. So what do you think? Was the Sack a planned event?
a week ago:
