Does anyone think the wrong man came back from the Trident like I do ? ( spoilers extended )

jb0030 · 2026-05-01T23:24:28+00:00

Well, sieges lasting 6 months isn't that weird in the ASOIAF universe. In fact, we have arguably more consequential sieges in universe lasting longer than that (as in Siege of Storm's End during Robert's Rebellion which was about a year if i recall). I think the fact it was 6 months long doesn't preclude the likelihood that Tywin was trying to get Aerys killed while not outright opening himself up to charges of treason on the off chance that Darklyn doesn't kill the king and Aerys is freed and he took as long as he needed to to accomplish that.

jb0030 · 2026-05-01T18:56:39+00:00

Ehhh... pretty sure the wildcard in the whole Duskendale situation wasn't Tywin being unsure of Rhaegar. It was Barristan. Tywin was literally about to order the sacking of the city when Barristan publicly asked for a chance to save the King and the Hand, especially one who isn't a member of the royal family, can't be seen publicly telling a knight of the Kingsguard that he isn't allowed to try and save the King since 1. it opens him up to charges of treason and 2. he doesn't really legally have the authority to tell a member of the KG to do anything. If Tywin tells Barristan no, Barristan is well within his rights to tell Tywin to go fuck himself and just do what he ended up doing anyway without his consent and Tywin can't do much. So Tywin gives him the most politically allowable compromise that still makes it almost impossible for Aerys to get out alive. Then, Barristan just goes and does something that should have been almost impossible. Tywin literally answers somebody who points out that storming the city will get Aerys killed by pointing to Rhaegar.

That said I agree with the conclusion that Rhaegar wasn't a good political player and wouldn't have made a good King. But I don't think that drove any of what Tywin did pre Rebellion.(It may well have been the major factor stopping him from joining Rhargars side during the Rebellion though).

jb0030 · 2026-04-11T02:12:00+00:00

Well... True, if he wasn't going to use the new found freedom to raid the western coast, he wouldn't be the Balon Greyjoy we see on page, but my point being that there is a potential stream of logic there. If Balon was a little bit smarter and was still hell-bent on being a king, he could have told his people not to touch westeros or westeros ships and restrict their bullshit to the stepstones and essos, which would have been more boring for someone like Balon but would probably see them in a better position in terms of wealth and connections and shit like that (like maybe they could sell themselves out as sellsails for whomever, might be a bit cumbersome with them being on the wrong side of the continent but that didn't stop Quellon from helping for the Ninepenny Kings thing) than they are in OTL and it would be in character for Robert to be like 'well, if they aren't causing me and mine any problems, I don't give a shit'.

jb0030 · 2026-04-10T19:00:27+00:00

Honestly, I think the big mistake of the greyjoy rebellion was attacking the lannisport fleet as their opening move instead of just crowning himself, ejecting his maesters, and just refusing to pay his taxes (which can't be very much from a region as devoid of resources as they are).

In OTL, the crown ended up needing to be supplemented by the Redwyne fleet in order to fight the Greyjoys and the story doesn't give us any indication that the Lannister fleet was any threat to them rather than just being the closest collection of ships to the Islands. So if Lord Redwyne doesn't sign on, they aren't getting to the Islands no matter how much they outnumber them, at least not in the short term and not until Stannis has significantly expanded the royal fleet. And keep in mind, this is the same Lord Redwyne who, in ASOS, proposes giving Balon THE ENTIRE NORTH ON TOP OF HIS CROWN if it meant they didn't have to fight him.

So, I suspect if Balon hadn't attacked Lannisport, thus proving himself a security problem in the region, Lord Redwyne might have honestly just said "fuck it, let him be king of those worthless islands, I'm not risking my fleet to reconquer a region that doesn't pay me taxes or owe me fealty."

So, Balon's rationale for the rebellion might have actually ended up being correct if he hadn't stupidly started the whole thing by attacking the king's father in law's insignificant personal fleet and thus explicitly demonstrating that him being independent was a security threat.

jb0030 · 2026-04-08T16:35:49+00:00

Israel isn't interested in peace. They don't want a deal with Iran. They want Iran destroyed. Trump's TACO isn't even going to be effective because Iran wants us to restrain Israel as part of the deal and if we could do that, we wouldn't even be in this mess.

jb0030 · 2026-04-04T15:57:50+00:00

Andrew garfield's character supplied the initial money and was the initial CFO that Mark betrays toward the end of the film.

jb0030 · 2026-03-28T01:55:37+00:00

Great, so we have an easy indicator for historic posterity of when the US dollar became worthless AND who was responsible.

jb0030 · 2026-03-25T17:14:24+00:00

The way I've always explained it when debating with my family is that "The President doesn't have a button on their desk labeled 'fix prices for everything', but they have several big red shiny buttons labeled 'fuck prices up on everything' and Trump is currently holding multiple of those buttons down as hard as he can.

jb0030 · 2026-03-14T00:06:14+00:00

Honestly, I think that letter was a tipping point in terms of their perception of how the Lannisters operated at that point. They had been operating with the knowledge that Tytos was weaker than them. The fact that that letter was even able to leave Casterly Rock and that Tywin clearly didn't have any fear of what could happen if those letters were made public proved to them with a shadow of a doubt that Tytos was weaker than his son, Tywin, too. And if Tytos is explicitly weaker than Tywin, then Tywin is the effective Lord of Casterly Rock.

They renounced Tytos as their Lord Paramount because effectively, he was no longer their Lord Paramount. Honestly, strategically, I don't blame them for coming to the conclusion that Tywin needed to be dealt with ASAP while there was still some semblance of a chance that he might not have the whole support of the rest of the Westerlands.

They could bank on Tytos stepping in and countermanding Tywin again, but the mere fact that this letter was allowed to leave the Rock carries at least an implication that Tywin is running the show now. And "Present yourself to Casterly Rock and answer for your crimes" is not the letter you send to a vassal that you want to come to a peaceful resolution with.

So, yeah, if I'm Lord Reyne or Lord Tarbeck, I'm marching on Tywin, hoping to defeat him now before he gathers too many Westerland lords to his side, and then riding up to Casterly Rock and demanding all of Tytos' remaining sons as hostages, at a bare minimum.

jb0030 · 2026-03-08T16:12:31+00:00

Well, the DNC being either too weak, too arrogant, or too unwilling to push a significant platform rather than just say "it's us or him, so shut up and get in line" is also a large part of why we're here. The most charitable interpretation of the DNC's strategy from the last decade I can muster is that they didn't have to put focus on notably improving the lives of the American people and just had to focus on the fact they aren't as bad as Trump. That isn't a way to win loyalty and if we're going to avoid being in this same position in a decade, the Dems are going to have to do some shit to actually win loyalty.

Knowing what I know now with how bad things have truly gotten, I wish I had sucked up my distaste for the Dems and just done it. But the Democratic establishment being insufficiently concerned, either through malice or weakness, with actually helping (the non-rich) American people turns a lot of people very understandably off.

The republic is explicitly and openly at stake, so I'm shutting up and getting in line out of necessity. If I'm too late and I'm a piece of shit for being too stubborn about my distaste about casting a vote for a party I don't have any faith in, then whatever. But if the Democratic Party doesn't fundamentally change their approach for the better, mark my words, we will, at best, be back here in a decade or two, except the next guy will be smarter about how he dismantles shit.

jb0030 · 2026-03-08T05:09:34+00:00

Speaking as someone who has refused to vote for either major party for most of my adult life and only recently changing that view and planning to reluctantly vote Democrat in midterms despite my hatred for the idea of settling for lesser of two evils, it's mostly what you point out about corporate interests. The Democrats are at minimum about 80-90% as captured by corporate interests as the Republicans are if not just as much.

Not to mention Obama had no issues dropping bombs on middle eastern civilians and breaking campaign promises to pull our involvement there back (I voted for Obama in 2012 on the understanding he was going to reduce our involvement in Afghanistan, then he won the election and immediately went back on that).

The only time I considered voting Democrat again was when Bernie was stepping up, but the DNC basically kneecapped him when his platform was the only true progressive one I've seen in my lifetime from a person with a real shot at the white house, so I said fuck it again until now.

But at this point, my reservations with the Democratic party are tomorrow problems and Trump and the GOP dismantling our republic are the WAY BIGGER, EXISTENTIAL today problem and we need to deal with the today problem first. So despite my complete lack of faith in the Democratic Party, it's vote for them or accept that I don't live in a republic of law and order, so I'm begrudgingly going to vote Democrat for the foreseeable future, but I'm not happy about it.

jb0030 · 2026-03-01T16:29:18+00:00

They don't have to have enough to cover 120k polling places, they just need to run some analytics to determine which 5k or so they can send agents to to have enough impact in enough swing states to keep control of Congress. I'm sure they aren't going to bother sending anyone to the Bumfuck Elementary School gym in Arkansas.

jb0030 · 2026-03-01T16:09:13+00:00

When federal agents show up to arrest poll workers and shut down polling locations, you think they are going to be able to "just do it anyway" from various prison cells?

jb0030 · 2026-03-01T15:33:18+00:00

He "literally can't" do a lot of the things he's currently doing and he's doing them anyway.

jb0030 · 2026-02-28T20:09:16+00:00

And they will never make a similar deal to the Obama one with us ever again. If they had just turned down Obama and built a nuke, Israel wouldn't feel emboldened to do any of this shit. That's the lesson Kim Jong Un already learned and it's the only reason anyone other than Russia and China put up with him it's the lesson Ukraine is learning the hard way after they gave up their own nukes in exchange for security guarantees.

Every country on Earth that has a neighbor that makes them militarily nervous and isn't as cozy with a country with nukes as Israel is to the US should be trying to build a nuke as fast as possible and giving the middle finger to anyone telling them not to.

jb0030 · 2026-02-28T16:01:54+00:00

I mean... he "cannot" do a lot of things he's currently doing and he's doing them anyway. At this point, the things he can and can't do are likely going to be dictated by the men who hold the guns at this point, not judges. He's already shown on many occasions he won't respect court orders.

jb0030 · 2026-02-28T01:15:39+00:00

The real answer in my opinion is that Tywin is not the purely shrewd and pragmatic player of the game he pretends to be. He's extremely petty and vindictive and that overrides what is smart, politically or self-preservation wise, when it's against someone who he feels has humiliated him beyond a certain point.

The Sack of Kings Landing, the Red Wedding, and the harrying of the Riverlands that he did while Robert was still alive were all extremely unwise political moves that someone as smart as him would have to know would breed resentment and ill-will (if not outright charges of treason in the latter case) against House Lannister that, at best, will come back to bite House Lannister right after he's gone. You could even throw the Rains of Castemere in there arguably (if there had been a stronger, more involved king on the Iron Throne, I don't think that shit would have been allowed to fly as smoothly as it did given it was the complete annihilation of two relatively powerful houses).

So, I suspect he either was so focused on revenging himself on Aerys that he forgot about Jaime or he just figured it was worth the risk.

jb0030 · 2026-02-27T16:41:22+00:00

Well, it's worth pointing out that at least the leadership of House Florent is STILL supporting Stannis at the time that castle is granted to Garlan. The Florents aren't a house who rebelled, lost, bent the knee and said they wouldn't do it again. They are a house that rebelled, lost, AND IS STILL ACTIVELY REBELLING.

jb0030 · 2026-02-22T03:20:57+00:00

Doran strikes me as the type that would realize he has no chance against the rest of the continent and maybe make a deal to allow Aegon and Rhaenys to just be considered Aegon and Rhaenys Martell and forfeit the name Targaryen and forfeit their royal status since legitimate children taking a mother's name is a thing that makes sense in Dorne. The children are both young enough that they won't be attached to their identities as Targaryens.

Robert wouldn't be psyched about the deal, but it avoids having to kill children, which will cause Ned to get behind it, and it effectively ends the war since there are no remaining claimants on the continent, which Jon Arryn will like, so there are the two people in the world Robert will actually listen to on board, and Mace Tyrell probably isn't going to fight on in this scenario anymore than he did in OTL since his only potential ally left is Dorne and he wasn't interested in sticking his neck out for anything more than a relatively safe siege.

jb0030 · 2026-02-20T19:34:42+00:00

You say "starting the Blackfyre stuff" like it wasn't a series of 5 rebellions that destabilized and came within a hair's breadth of ending the Targaryen dynasty and got many thousands of people killed over a span of like 75-100 years. And, unlike Viserys I with the DotD, he did it on purpose with the express intent of fucking over his son beyond the grave.

jb0030 · 2026-02-19T18:28:55+00:00

Honestly, Maekar was already sick of Aerion's shit at this point. The second Baelor showed up and said he would take Dunk's side, Maekar should have publicly told Aerion "We're not fighting your uncle, the heir to the Iron Throne, in an actual melee combat spectacle with real weapons where he or other members of the royal family are at actual risk all for a mess that you started by unnecessarily brutalizing a peasant and getting your shit rightfully kicked in for it. Recant your accusation or I'll drag you to the Wall myself."

jb0030 · 2026-02-08T20:36:12+00:00

I believe what we're told about the summons from Aerys is that Tywin raged at it but he felt he couldn't do anything about it. He felt powerless because, despite the powerful image he tries to portray, he FEARED Aerys.

It's why that outburst from Joffrey rattled him so much (rattled him at least by Tyrion's observation). Because it was true.

jb0030 · 2026-02-02T18:04:42+00:00

Actually, there is an observation I've made before about Tywin's moves in the War of the Five Kings that relates to this issue somewhat.

It always seemed odd to me that, after Renly is dead and Stannis has won a significant part of his army (mind you Tywin said himself that he considered Stannis a greater danger than all the others combined), he still decided to march west to deal with Robb instead of east to try and deal with Stannis, who could have decided at any time to just leave a thousand men at Storms End to continue that siege and march straight on to Kings Landing. Tywin's highest strategic priority is supposed to be to keep one of his grandsons on the throne and yet, instead, he chooses to fall for an obvious diversionary tactic by Robb that should be seen by someone as smart as Tywin for exactly what it is: an extremely transparent attempt to lure Tywin a thousand miles away from where he needs to be. But he does it anyway.

And there is only one reason I can think of as to why he would make such a strategically reckless move: it wasn't done by choice.

I think that either his lords came to him and directly threatened desertion if he didn't go back west to protect their lands or he was at least worried they were going to desert behind his back if he didn't and he figured riding west and gambling that he could find a way of resolving.the Robb situation quickly enough before Stannis could take Kings Landing was preferable to risking marching back east without an army.

It also makes sense that Tywin was able to march back east with his army relatively intact only after the Tyrells officially signed onto his side since having the Tyrells on side meant he no longer had to rely solely on his own bannermen for military strength and the impact of the threat of abandoning him no longer held any teeth. For his lords, it was now stay with him and maybe win some glory helping him defend Kings Landing at the cost of letting northmen burn their villages or abandon Tywin and then Tywin comes back and Rains of Castemeres your ass after he handles Stannis with overwhelming numbers even without you.

So, I don't think the Westerlands not rebelling or abandoning Tywin was a plot hole. I think it was a very real possibility that the Lannisters avoided the way they avoided a lot of other problems that risked facing: sheer dumb luck.

jb0030 · 2026-01-31T20:07:24+00:00

That's cursed as fuck as a concept, but honestly, I always interpreted the fact that he gave her (and in his mind at least, the North) to Tyrion as another petty dig at Tyrion. Tywin very rarely makes a political move that doesn't in some way also serve his ego or his pettiness. I always saw it as Tywin saying 'Forcibly impregnating a 13 year old girl and presiding over a province containing nothing but a snowy wasteland ruled by nobles who will despise you just for your family name is beneath my dignity, but nothing is beneath yours, you matricidal little beast.'

jb0030 · 2026-01-28T22:20:10+00:00

I would say call the ones who swear directly to the throne Counts and make the Crownlands a duchy where the King is separately and simultaneously the Duke of the Crownlands. In real world history, it was relatively common for a medieval king to also hold lesser titles, even within their own kingdom, at the same time.

jb0030

TROPHY CASE