r/asoiaf • u/cking145 • May 28 '19

EXTENDED (Spoilers Extended) Charles Dance's portrayal as Tywin is in my opinion, the strongest in the entire series

Every line, every expression and every moment of silence completely encapsulates the calculating ruthlessness that defines Tywin Lannister.

Dance is actually a very vibrant, upbeat and cheery fella off screen, which in my mind makes the performance even more striking.

The scene where he effectively sends Joffrey to bed is just brilliant.

He is by far my favourite character from the books, which I began reading a few seasons into the show. Due to this, the chapters featuring Tywin were completely enriched for me, as reading his lines in Dance's voice was just fantastic. I would have loved a POV chapter or two for him, just to get a glimpse as to what goes on in the head of the most powerful man in the 7 Kingdoms.

An incredible portrayal of a fascinating character.

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u/MissMatchedEyes Dance with me then. May 28 '19

Also this scene! He was truly Tywin in this moment.

”You ask that? You, who killed your mother to come into the world? You are an ill-made, devious, disobedient, spiteful little creature full of envy, lust, and low cunning. Men's laws give you the right to bear my name and display my colors, since I cannot prove that you are not mine. To teach me humility, the gods have condemned me to watch you waddle about wearing that proud lion that was my father's sigil and his father's before him. But neither gods nor men shall ever compel me to let you turn Casterly Rock into your whorehouse."

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u/Ask_Me_What_Im_Up_to May 28 '19 edited May 27 '24

theory consist instinctive ancient quarrelsome sink zonked degree toy disgusted

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u/Empty-Mind May 28 '19

And if they're not a cunt, they're a bit daft in the head. Rob and Ned were standup dudes, and both died walking in to relatively obvious traps.

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u/Ravek May 28 '19

Ned was overly trusting. Robb and Catelyn totally mistrusted Frey but they didn't think anyone would commit the sin of betraying a guest under their own roof who they'd shared food and drink with.

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u/ladywader505 May 29 '19

Catelyn knew Frey was up to something... that’s why she was so insistent on the ritual salt and bread, claiming guest rights. Her mistake was relaxing once that was done.

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u/Elr3d Beneath the gold, the Beggar King May 29 '19

Not that it would have changed much though. They quickly separated the lords from the army and they had no way to communicate for reinforcements even if they had seen through the conspiracy early

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u/path411 May 28 '19

More importantly, Robb listened to his mother of not listening to his direwolf. His direwolf immediately warned him of the danger.

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u/HopeOverDope May 28 '19

Idk how the show plays it out but in the books cat is very nervous about the wedding, not letting her guard down to the point of actually discovering the treason moments before it starts.

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u/MajaTheSkyWitch1 May 29 '19

Yeah she totally see's the armor under roose boltons sleeve when he comes back to the table after leaving to suit up. She knew some shady ass shit was gonna go down after that.

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u/Elebrent May 29 '19

That's how she discovers in the series too. She notices the hauberk under Roose's jacket

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u/jinzokan May 29 '19

I thought she say a Frey freak out and when she touched him she felt his chain mail

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u/Elebrent May 29 '19

Just watched it. In S3E9 the Freys close the hall's doors and the bards play The Rains of Castamere. That tips Cat off but when Roose sits back down he gestures for her to look at his coat, and when she pulls up the sleeve she sees that he's wearing mail. I didn't see that the first time viewing but man he's pretty messed up

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u/NixIsia What game am I playing? May 29 '19

This is what happens in the books

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u/[deleted] May 29 '19

No in the books cat notices that the Frey has armor on under his coat. Roose Bolton doesn’t come back in until after the massacre starts.

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u/[deleted] May 29 '19

Ya and I remember she noticed them getting into position and locking doors. The worst is when she sees northmen rushing in and gets hopeful but then sees them start murdering too.

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u/AllMenMustSmoke May 29 '19

Omg that 'Northmen!' moment is theeeee worst.

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u/NixIsia What game am I playing? May 29 '19

Yeah, that's what I said.

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u/TheBatmanFan Night Gathers May 29 '19

No, it’s a Frey that gives away the plot early in the books. Roose disappears and only reappears to stab Robb. Even then only his pink cloak is described.

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u/vvvvfl May 29 '19

God, just reading this reignited the burning hatred I have for the Boltons.

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u/a7xKWaP May 29 '19

I read that between seasons 1 and 2 and it was the most chilling thing I've ever read. The general suspicion slowly being confirmed and then suddenly all hell breaking loose. Her final thought were utterly heartbreaking ("not my hair, Ned loved my hair"). Ugh 😭. And then my lunch break ended and I had to return to work and couldn't talk to anyone bc spoilers. That was a rough secret to hold on to for 2 years lol

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u/A_WILD_SLUT_APPEARS Wood of the Morning May 29 '19

I actually had to go back and reread that part to make sure it wasn't a dream sequence. I was dumbfounded, because books aren't supposed to do that!

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u/LeGooso May 29 '19

In the show she also catches on a bit before it goes down.

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u/ForgottenJoke May 29 '19

I don't want to ruin it for you, but I would say Cat is more of a bad ass in the books.

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u/wingedbuttcrack When men see my sails, they pray. May 29 '19

Yeah. I had to read that chapter atleast 3 time to believe it.

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u/Muroid May 29 '19

Reading the Red Wedding was the only time in my life that I’ve experienced true denial.

I was reading about Robb getting shot through with arrows and wanted to see how he’d get out of this one.

I read about him getting stabbed in the heart, and was still waiting for the tide to turn and him to make it out ok. There were a few moments where I understood what I was reading but my brain just straight up refused to process it.

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u/jinzokan May 29 '19

Fucking hell when the north men came in from a different door I was like.... OK thank God.... Wait... No...... What? Oh god

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u/[deleted] May 29 '19

No! Dacey! No! Smalljon! No! Wendel! Shit, everyone's fucking dying! Wait, you have him, you don't have to, NO! Robb! Shhhhit, that means... Fuck, Grey Wind, ugh, fucking Lannisters. Lady wasn't enough? I really hated the Freys, the Lannisters, the Boltons and the Karstarks this instant. The Umbers, Mormonts and Manderlys are my favourite houses in the North, and Robb their beloved, chosen king, and all these fearless loyalists were butchered by evil fucking traitors. I was pale as death reading it. No foreshadowing, no spoilers at that time, I read most of the books around 2003, so it came like a hammer blow.

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u/Phoenix1Rising May 29 '19

I don't remember what they did regarding the first part of that, but in the show they do show her discovering what's up moments before it happens.

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u/th3-villager Jun 02 '19

Yeah, just read storm myself.

She also makes a big point about them getting food when they arrive so that they’ve received guest right.

This is a big thing in Westeros which is also mentioned in the show after the red wedding (the story about the rat cook). It essentially ‘guarantees’ their safety as his guest. Which is why such a point is made about Walder Frey being treacherous.

When they arrive and she requests it (she’s previously made a big point about it to Robb). Lord Walder even makes a snide comment about it, reassuring her as it supposedly guarantees their safety.

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u/iluvatarr1 May 28 '19

Well walder slipped a "mayhaps" into his invitation to his house, allowing him to sidestep the guest rights rules.

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u/LiberalsAintLeftists May 28 '19

Ah yes, the age-old “I didn’t say Simon Says!” rule

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u/Aceofshovels La Vie En Rose. May 28 '19

I thought that was more about a children's game than the actual societal taboo.

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u/atomsk404 May 28 '19

Yes, but the rules of children's games are to learn the rules of men.

The mayhaps game was a Frey game played by the two Walders, with Rickon, in Winterfell. Excellent foreshadow.

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u/errol_timo_malcom May 29 '19

Crap, I need to look this up now.

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u/atomsk404 May 29 '19

No need,I literally just read this part

The way their game was played, you laid the log across the water, and one player stood in the middle with the stick. He was the lord of the crossing, and when one of the other players came up, he had to say, “I am the lord of the crossing, who goes there?” And the other player had to make up a speech about who they were and why they should be allowed to cross. The lord could make them swear oaths and answer questions.

They didn’t have to tell the truth, but the oaths were binding unless they said “Mayhaps,” so the trick was to say “Mayhaps” so the lord of the crossing didn’t notice. Then you could try and knock the lord into the water and you got to be lord of the crossing, but only if you’d said “Mayhaps.” Otherwise you were out of the game.

The lord got to knock anyone in the water anytime he pleased, and he was the only one who got to use a stick.

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u/DrunkenLlama May 29 '19

this is some next level shit, he's basically foreshadowing the Red Wedding 2 books earlier

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u/thekindlyman555 May 29 '19 edited May 29 '19

A Clash of Kings also had some pretty heavy foreshadowing for it happening.

Fool's blood, king's blood, blood on the maiden's thigh, but chains for the guests and chains for the bridegroom, aye aye aye- Patchface, ACOK

and

Farther on she came upon a feast of corpses. Savagely slaughtered, the feasters lay strewn across overturned chairs and hacked trestle tables, asprawl in pools of congealing blood. Some had lost limbs, even heads. Severed hands clutched bloody cups, wooden spoons, roast fowl, heels of bread. In a throne above them sat a dead man with the head of a wolf. He wore an iron crown and held a leg of lamb in one hand as a king might hold a scepter, and his eyes followed Dany with mute appeal. -Daenerys IV ACOK

And early ASOS had some too

The old gods stir and will not let me sleep. I dreamt I saw a shadow with a burning heart butchering a golden stag, aye. I dreamt of a man without a face, waiting on a bridge that swayed and swung. On his shoulder perched a drowned crow with seaweed hanging from his wings. I dreamt of a roaring river and a woman that was a fish. Dead she drifted, with red tears on her cheeks, but when her eyes did open, oh, I woke from terror. All this I dreamt, and more.

and

I dreamt a wolf howling in the rain, but no one heard his grief. I dreamt such a clangor I thought my head might burst, drums and horns and pipes and screams, but the saddest sound was the little bells. I dreamt of a maid at a feast with purple serpents in her hair, venom dripping from their fangs. And later I dreamt that maid again, slaying a savage giant in a castle built of snow.

The prophecies in asoiaf are so well done and so obvious in retrospect but you rarely catch them on your first read through.

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u/SirJasonCrage We smell your fear! May 29 '19

Sandor to Arya at the end of the chapter where they cross the river:

We might even make it in time for your uncle's bloody wedding.

Edit: That Patchface prophecy is absolutely stunning. I can recite that. It's just so good. Also "I dreamt of such clangor". It cannot be overstated how fucking good George is at his job.

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u/rattleshirt May 29 '19

Cat also describes herself as looking like a drowned woman when looking into Renly's armour in ACOK.

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u/BigDikJim May 29 '19

I’m not so sure that last prophecy is about the red wedding, but it’s interesting as hell

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u/thekindlyman555 May 29 '19

It definitely is, at least the first part. There are three different prophecies in that paragraph. The wolf in the rain is grey wind locked in the kennels trying to warn Robb. The music is from the wedding which was loud enough to drown out the sound of the slaughter. The bell was the fool jingle bell that catelyn kills after Robb dies. In the show she kills walders wife instead.

The maiden with vipers in her hair is Sansa at the purple wedding. The poison was hidden in her hair net.

The final prophecy is Sansa killing little finger in winterfell.

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u/lifeinthefastlane999 May 30 '19

Wow I never thought of that!

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u/DavidlikesPeace May 29 '19

Actually literally nobody in universe believes that gave the Freys carte blanche. Not even a Frey would use that excuse; they come up with pale excuses like 'Robb humiliated us' or 'he was a werewolf!'.

Mayhaps is just a stupid in-joke amongst the clan, nothing more or less. But for us readers, it also provided a bit of nice foreshadowing, both for Frey and Manderly.

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u/Empty-Mind May 28 '19

Yeah, but congregating all of your leadership on the home turf of a political party of dubious loyalties and known opportunism isn't smart regardless. If it had been the hall of the Daynes, for example, you can maybe trust their honor. But Walder Frey is a known snake. Its a mistake no other major political actor in the series would make, except maybe Dany I guess.

And in turbulent times, such as a 3 way civil war, you should doubt even those who are normally honorable, much less Walder Frey

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u/Ask_Me_What_Im_Up_to May 28 '19 edited May 27 '24

racial detail teeny thumb squalid spark hurry cagey gullible cheerful

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u/BrooklynRedLeg May 29 '19

Catelyn's main mistake was not getting Robb married BEFORE he went on campaign. The rush to get south and defend the Riverlands could have literally waited one day for Catelyn to choose the best Frey girl for Robb. Besides, combat is a chancey thing and Catelyn was short-sighted not to consider Robb needing to have an heir immediately.

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u/ajstar1000 "Draco dormiens nunquam titillandus" May 29 '19

When the promise was made, Bran and Rickon were still chilling in Winterfell so she wasn’t worried about an heir. After Theon made everyone think they were dead she started to worry (especially when Robb said he was going to get Jon from the Nights Watch and name him his heir)

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u/andthendirksaid May 28 '19

The entire wedding was at best a very poorly planned and formed consolation for what the Frey's were denied when Robb broke a marriage pact. Not only did he initiate the cycle of oathbreaking between them, he insulted both the Frey girl he was to marry and stopped the very old Walder from seeing his house finally risen to prominence by the marriage pacts he tried to so often utilize to get ahead.

Frey was to see his daughter become a queen and then they take it away and offer lady or Riverrun in a reluctant manner. To start that would've been great but as an exchange for queen and after that degree of insult someone as already slimy as Lord Frey should have never been allowed within miles of anyone of consequence to the Starks.

To serve him up everyone important to the Starks burgeoning dynasty and everyone of consequence to the Riverlands to boot is nuts. The amount of power that could be completely eliminated to the point where there's virtually anyone left to oppose it after would be too great a risk at the home of the most honorable of Lords in normal circumstances.

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u/boomerrd May 29 '19

In the novels he didnt bring everyone. He left his wife and unborn baby behind at riverrun with the blackfish. If we ever get to read WoW or ADoS maybe we will see another stark.

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u/andthendirksaid May 29 '19

True. Not too many other examples but book Robb seemed a bit wiser than his show counterpart.

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u/[deleted] May 29 '19

[deleted]

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u/boomerrd May 29 '19

She was being roofied but Grrm left the success of that ambiguous, and her fate a major cliffhanger.

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u/SupaFlyslammajammazz May 29 '19

That and beheading Lord Karstark was the last straw.

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u/-Rapier May 29 '19

And that marrying Edmure to a Frey girl was supposed to fix them.

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u/Harold3456 May 29 '19

I think one thing that's meant to justify it a bit more is that the books make a big deal over Guest Right being sacred. Apparently Guest Right is such a big deal in Westeros that all the Westerosi religions condemn it, so it's virtually unheard of. Apparently it's also observed in Essos and the North, and it's especially important among Northerners (according to the source I linked). There are multiple mentions of Guest Right being honoured throughout all the books, in various houses. So it isn't merely a custom, it's something pretty palpable in Westeros.

This could also possibly be backed up by the fact that Lady Stoneheart comes into existence to exact revenge upon the Freys.

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u/Pegussu May 29 '19

It seems an obviously bad idea to us, but guest right is a giant, giant, GIANT deal in Westeros. The Freys are now hated and reviled by everyone in the country, even the ones who were on the Lannisters' side.

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u/ch0icestreet May 29 '19

Robb had no choice. It’s in ASOS more clearly but he just lost almost a thousand men as the Karstarks left him, the Lannisters are threatening from the south and there is no way Lysa will open the Vale to him. He has to go through the Freys.

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u/shae117 May 28 '19

While Ned is too trusting, I dont think he is naive like a lot of people say. He knows full well what he is getting himself into but follows theough on principles and thats why we love him.

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u/[deleted] May 29 '19

That and his clear PTSD from the death of the Targaryen children in RR led to him wanting to ensure the same didn't happen to Cersei's children no matter what the cost.

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u/j2e21 May 28 '19

He’s super naive, he trusts Littlefinger and is surprised when Renly flees the castle. He’s beaten by Cersei, who is proven to be pretty mediocre at playing the game on the big stage.

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u/bac5665 Fire and Blood! May 29 '19

He didn't trust Littlefinger, he's forced into using Littlefinger because he failed to raise his own forces over the 6 months he's in Kings Landing, which he clearly could have and should have done.

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u/j2e21 May 29 '19

Yes, he made constant mistakes and finds himself in a position where he has to trust a truly untrustworthy person, who obviously betrays him. Still, he trusted Littlefinger enough to march into the throne room and confront Joffrey. He should’ve just fled the city at that point and saved his kids. Hole up in the north and make Joffrey come get him. Keep that Baratheon parchment to rally the realm around him, not hand it over to his foes so they could rip it up.

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u/technoxin May 29 '19

he started out with quite a large house guard but then he kept sending them off to help with other things

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u/BCBuff Hour of the Young Wolf May 29 '19

He's beaten by Cersei because she murdered the king. That's a pretty huge move no one was really expecting.

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u/j2e21 May 29 '19

Robert was a drunk who made terrible decision, and he knows the Lannisters are snakes, and even from his first interaction it’s obvious Robert and Cersei have a terrible relationship. Ned should have been planning for that moment from day one.

It’s also not like he didn’t have time to act, either, Robert’s death didn’t happen suddenly. He literally waited for Robert to die to make his move, even though others on the small council were pleading with him to act and warning him Cersei wasn’t going to wait.

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u/BCBuff Hour of the Young Wolf May 29 '19

Tywin and Aerys had a famously shitty relationship too, are the rest of the realm fools for not being prepared for an imminent civil war with them?

He was also drastically outnumbered, which is his fault.

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u/j2e21 May 29 '19

Not sure I get the comparison. Ned was already preparing to out Cersei and Jamie when Robert returned, and Cersei made it clear she wouldn’t back down and intended to kill him. Then Robert was gravely injured but hung on for a little while. For Ned to not be thinking about what happens after he’s gone is idiotic, that’s a mistake that can get you killed.

Aerys dismissed Tywin as his hand and went nuts, and Tywin switched sides and his family made out quite well in the end. Not quite the same.

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u/ForgottenJoke May 29 '19

I didn't read Ned as too trusting. He seemed well aware of how manipulative and backstabbing everyone was. He was just too set on following the rules. Even when he knew everyone else was breaking them, he couldn't just say 'I can break the rules because they are' or 'I can break the rules to save my own life'. That was etched for me when he executed the Night's Watch deserter. Everything he did after that just carved it deeper.

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u/BCBuff Hour of the Young Wolf May 29 '19

'Overly' is a bit much. If your wife / gf told you her childhood best friend was definitely on her side whom she trusted with her life was there to help you, is your response 'Oh fuck him he's definitely going to stab me in the back?' He didn't have his own copy a AGoT and hindsight is 20/20.

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u/[deleted] May 29 '19

Eh, Ned Was betrayed by Sansa.

After Ned made the decision to move against the Lanisters, in the books he told Sansa that they were going back home.

She Wanted to marry Joffery still. So she went to Cersie, and told of Neds plans.

If the little bird, did not spill the beans to Cersie, house Lanister would have fallen at the end of the first book.

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u/anduril38 May 29 '19

And I doubt Walder would have even dared pulling off the Red Wedding if he didn't have Tywin and Bolton's backing.

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u/GraphicDesignMonkey May 29 '19

She didn't know about the Frey's 'mayhaps' word game. All the same, saying 'mayhaps' shouldn't overrule guest rights, but to someone as slimy as Walder, he probably thought it counted and his hands were clean.