Crown wrote:Patroklos wrote:I don't think you can divorce Karstark's (and Bolton's) willingness to be rebellious from the general lack of competence displayed by Robb, which is only partially due to his marriage fiasco but also from them watching him let his mother off near scott free in yet another instance greatly harming their war effort for selfish Stark reasons. Robb is a raging hypocrite who puts his own personal wants above those of his allies and their war effort on a whim, that does not inspire confidence or discipline. The results are pretty obvious at this point.
Robb is an undefeated general on the field who lacked the political nous to navigate through the waters of petty prides and injustices. The way you're describing him in what I've quoted (and I haven't read anything you've written other than that in regards to this topic) is a caricature of the man; not in any way shape or form fully representative of who he is or what is going on around him.
Everyone always jumps to the "he's undefeated" defense. It doesn't change anything. He was indeed a selfish bastard who rationalized away possible harm for bullshit reasons.(And yes, I know why he of all people would not want to sire a bastard but well, fuck him anyway). Well,he did in the books, in the show he was just an asshole. Honor? Bullshit. And the worse thing? Talisa is right there with him. He never learned anything from her and she also abandoned her morals. Wasn't the whole point of her character early on to point out to Robb the effects of war on ordinary men? How it fucked them? Then what do they do? They both go out and fuck them some more.
Petty prides and injustices? This is Robb's field, he should know better. And he did. He was just an entitled bastard who felt that he could get away with breaking a treaty after he'd already milked his ally (not vassal like in the books) to achieve his goal. Luckily, unlike in the books, Walder Frey's heir, the only one who could hold the family together didn't die so he's less of a douche but he still let them bleed for him and abandoned them. He knew exactly what he was doing and chose to do it. Inexcusable.
While I'm not fully certain that Robb's men would have totally abandoned him -war in Westeros rarely seems to be total or unrelenting, peace generally seems to lead to all houses settling back with non-fatal sanctions so it's not a good idea to cut and run- he definitely did not make it easy for anyone. Certainly he had a lot of help from the circumstances of the war and his early performance and-most importantly- the Stark pedigree that he inherited from his father and ancestors.
Not a powerful house to be sure, but still a house with vassals and soldiers and some sort of wealth all of which makes more sense than a camp follower. But most importantly House Westerling were bannermen to the Lannisters and their defection has some propaganda value. Who was the last house to dare betray Tywin?
Propaganda value? Robb marries into a poor, fallen house and it's gonna be a PR coup? I doubt it. Not to anyone with a brain.
