#robb tag

[kingsmoot]

from the way robb tells this story i am absolutely convinced that jeyne was explicitly instructed (most likely by her mother sybell but maybe by others) to seduce robb the wounded king

this was ill done. robb was injured and weak, likely on pain killers, and emotionally destroyed by news of theon's betrayal and of bran and rickon's deaths. this was dubcon in its most charitable reading and i would judgementally pressing my thumb down on the scale towards non-

and robb really floors me here with the way he weighs his actions and jeyne's position

he is the only man in the series (to my memory!! it's a big series and 'one of the only men' doesn't make my point as well) that recognizes that leaving a highborn girl potentially pregnant means the social end of her life. no matter how pretty or gently born she is she will always be damaged goods!! some other man's scraps!! whether she actually was pregnant or not (and we know she was not) the potential that king robb got a bastard on her would remove her suitability from other better-matched marriage prospects. and that's just the social implications!! that's not even mentioning the actual physical dangers of getting a girl pregnant. or the financial consequences.

"it was the only honorable thing to do" !!!!!!!!! robb is ridiculed by his men and by his mother for being a foolish child so in puppy love that he would lose the military support of house frey over a cute girl from a nothing house. but he does not wed jeyne for puppylove nor for folly. he weds her for honor!!! because it would be dishonorable to bed her and leave her to her own devices afterwards. it would be wrong!!! even if he bedded her under suspicious and dubious circumstances in which it wouldn't have been possible for him to give lucid and informed consent. he doesn't even care about that!!! he cares about her and where their one night stand would leave her.

robb :(((

[kingsmoot]

Variation on earlier question: would Robb have executed Theon, if say he'd never sent him to the islands and Balon had attacked anyway (as he clearly was going to)?

re: https://kingsmoot.tumblr.com/post/788080613380030465/do-u-think-ned-wouldve-been-able-to-kill-child

i'm less clear on this answer but my instinct is "no". i think he would have a lot of people around him telling him to kill theon, but i think robb would refuse to do so on account of his own attachment to theon and just based on practicality. killing theon would not stop balon from his assault on the north, since the threat of doing so did not stop him from doing it in the first place.

would robb and his war council all rationally know that since threatening to kill theon did not stop balon, killing theon won't stop him either? i honestly don't know. mainlanders don't do much to consider the personhood and psychology of iron islanders. it's possible they would have decided to kill theon just to send a message to balon. but, you know, maybe word of asha captaining the black wind would reach them and they would figure out that she is balon's son and heir, not theon? that seems unlikely as well

rickard karstark was very insistent to robb that he wanted the kingslayer dead to even the score since he killed both of his sons. robb did not capitulate to this and kept him as a prisoner instead because it was the more sound and rational thing to do. and robb didn't like jamie!! jamie is part of and emblematic of a house that is trying (and succeeding at) exterminating robb's. but he kept him alive as a hostage instead of killing to him to send a message because he was a better bargaining chip.

and also because:

so my gut says no, robb would not kill theon, but he would definitely be urged to do so, and maybe one of robb's men would kill theon if their own home was ransacked or their family was raped and murdered by ironmen.

also, since my last answer talked about ned being firmly lawful good and believing in the ultimate justice and his ultimate service to the law of westeros, i will point to my oft-cited and celebrated example of robb wedding jeyne westerling because they took one another's virginity and leaving a highborn girl "ruined" by a kind is wrong (btw a good counterpoint to robert baratheon's many many many bastards and famous wenching) even though he was bound by his own vow to the frey girl. so i think even if the reasoning presented to him was "the terms of theon's captivity were always very clear, he would be killed if balon raised any more rebellions" i can very much imagine him saying that theon was blameless for his estranged father's actions and killing him wouldn't do any good.

[kingsmoot]

acok; chapter 7, catelyn i

acok; chapter 56, theon v

[kingsmoot]

Oh no I'm not trying to argue that Robb is necessary underwritten because I think it's a very deliberate choice by GRRM like you said. I just have never understood the fascination with him as his own individual since he's very much written to be the Fantasy Archetype protagonist(TM) and to me we don't really ever need any Robb interiority because we as readers know the gist of this trope.

i very much agree!!!

i think if we were looking to Explain™️ why fandom gravitates to robb despite him being a (successful and purposeful) standard fantasy trope is that blank slates are good for shipping purposes

easy to do shipping when one half of your yaoi is an outline of a person

[kingsmoot]

You're so right about throbb... not gonna lie as a massive Robb hater I've never understood what so many people's fascination with him is. He's literally just a sexy lamp for Catelyn and Theon to project around...

mdngdjkff a sexy lamp cradled by mother and hostage brother...

i do think robb's lack of interiority is due mostly to the No King POVs rule. we get i think some good if fleeting glimpses at how he is struggling to fit into his role as boy king.

i don't personally find robb to be underwritten, just dull. he and stannis are similar to me in that way.

throbb is nothing to me because i find robb boring. i like how pathetic it is that 19yo theon is so desperate for 15yo robb's approval and i like how their social stations compare to one another. i like that theon has been denied every goalpost of manhood at 19 that robb has been rushed past at 15. but robb isn't an interesting character to me so shipping them is not an exercise for me.

[kingsmoot]

all these posts about jon being down horrendous for jaime and none for arya being an rpf fujoshi queen

[kingsmoot]

i'm not too often moved by robb but this noble act that everyone around him misconstrues as youthful folly really kills me

it didn't matter that she was pretty, jaime!! robb wasn't even in love. he just knew that it was wrong to bed a girl (even a girl who came to you presumably under order of her lady mother when you were recovering from festering wounds and the news of your baby brothers' deaths) and leave her, deflowered and unwanted. it would be wrong. it would be wrong to bed a highborn girl, to risk her getting pregnant, to ruin her chances of a future wellborn match, and to leave her. so robb could not. did not. it did not matter that she was pretty. it did not matter if he liked her. it would be wrong not to marry her. so he could not do otherwise.

[kingsmoot]

ok