A Song Of Ice And Fire

Hard to said, he probably dosent see the reason of why he should be there anyway. the castle is fucking huge and is clearly a nominal position.

While Harrenhal itself is a (potentially) cursed ruin, the lands surrounding it are fairly rich and fertile.

The fiefdom is valuable enough to carry some prestige - not to mention its role as a former royal seat - which is likely why Joffrey awarding it to an upstart like Slynt was so controversial in the first place.

And for Littlefinger the fief is a straight-up upgrade from his little tower and flock of sheep. That he also got the title of Lord Paramount of the Trident at the same probably didn't hurt either.

So overall probably not a bad fief, as long as you avoid living in Harrenhall itself.

The fiefdom is pretty sweet as long as you don't try to maintain the money sink castle that comes with it.

Edited by M84 on Apr 12th 2022 at 6:03:11 PM

@Ultimatum - That's a good call. I've also kind of wondered about Shakespeare. At least in some of the apocryphal biographies of him (IIRC John Aubrey), he's referred to as doing butcher's work as well.

I know Shakespeare's father was a glover and while I don't think they doubled as butchers (?) I guess it's not that big of a leap since the gloves would be made from animal skin.

Also, Shakespeare had basically the same sigil as Slynt (a golden spear), and there's some evidence that his was similarly seen as being in poor taste.

Semi-related tangent - I've noticed with a lot of these "upjumped commoners" that it can be difficult to tell what their exact background was like, because their critics exaggerated how low born they were. And in the case of Shakespeare, fueled conspiracy theories about the authorship of his plays.

Like I've heard that Wolsey's father was a prominent and wealthy townsman who owned multiple butcher shops. And similarly, Shakespeare's father was an important person in Stratford.

Another big example is Thomas Cromwell (one of the probable inspirations for Littlefinger), with lots of conflicting accounts of his upbringing.

You know, having thinking for a while I may wonder.....

Do you think Littlefinger would want revenge against the killer of Catelyn?

We know Littlefinger is obsess with Cat to a very unhealthy degree and also want a sort of pay back to Westero for all that happen to him....but now Cat is dead, in a brutal manner thanks to the damn lannister and their Frey and Bolton lackey.

Do you think he have a plan for them?.

Nope, he's already moved on to Sansa.

He already sorta got revenge by assisting in Joffrey's murder.

I wonder if he will move against the Bolton: first they a threat to his plan and second he know they must pay.

Even in the books if Littlefinger isn't a sociopath, he's not too far off. Maybe he doesn't care enough to go all out on a revenge spree. That said, I'm going to give him the benefit of the doubt he's capable of more genuine connections. So maybe because the Freys are being targeted across the board for the Red Wedding Petyr figures he doesn't need to take revenge because people are doing that for him. Out of the main players only Roose is close to being a Karma Houdini for the whole thing

Speaking of the Freys, I wonder if their overall shitty behavior was a thing before ultimate Slimeball Walder Frey came to power. I don't think we know anything about their house's status quo before Walder was born beyond elitist, stick-up-the-ass Westerosi nobles being annoyed they were a young house lucky enough to have a strategic power

Nah, Petyr immediately shifted his creepy obsession to Sansa. That's how much his feelings for Cat really counted.

As for the Freys, it seems like the Slimeball behavior started with Walder's parents spoiling him as a child.

While it's true that House Frey was looked down on by the other Houses, previous generations of Freys did seem to at least have some respect since they didn't act like Walder.

Edited by M84 on May 22nd 2022 at 2:52:49 AM

Isn’t the Frey’s poor reputation solely because Walder shirked his oaths in the rebellion and only turned up when there was no risk for him? It seemed like a lot of the dislike for the Frey House stems from dislike from Walder.

While there was some stigma against House Frey for being relative "new money" and toll collectors, they did seem to enjoy respect. It is indeed Walder Frey's slimeball behavior and sense of entitlement which he passed on to most of House Frey's later generations that caused respect for House Frey to go downhill fast.

Edited by M84 on May 22nd 2022 at 5:50:31 PM

They probably would have been thought of a lot better if it weren't for "the late Lord Frey" only declaring a side in Robert's Rebellion when he knew who would win. That basically told every noble house that he was an opportunistic, cowardly slimeball.

Edited by theLibrarian on May 22nd 2022 at 11:12:35 AM

We've seen Walder's dad in one of the Dunk & Egg stories. He married one of his daughters to Lord Butterwell and the marriage is used by Blackfyre loyalists as a cover to prepare another uprising - the whole plot ultimately failed due to the protagonists' (at first unintentional) meddling, but Lord Frey doesn't seem to have suffered any punishment for being at least in the know (Lord Butterwell only kept a tenth of his wealth due to his involvement). I assume Frey sold the plotters out after fleeing Butterwell's castle.

Walder also shows up in the same book and he's a little shit.

Edited by DrunkenNordmann on May 22nd 2022 at 9:07:50 PM

Another possibility is that Walder's dad was working with Bloodraven all along. He did seem to know about the whole plot from the beginning, so he might even have told Lord Frey to feign collaboration with the Blackfyre loyalists in order to catch Daemon. Just a WMG on my part though.

You know as much as the series uses grey morality I have to wonder if some people like most of House Bolton, Rorge and Euron were just evil since the sperm.

I mean, part of the Central Theme of the books is how hypocritical and ridiculous the feudal system's prestige is based on. The Dunk and Egg books point out that Blackfyre became a valid contender for the throne not because of any positive qualities he possessed as a human being but because he looked good at tournaments and disdained reading.

In the case of the Freys, they're looked down on because of the fact thet have a thriving business interest in toll taking that provides them a lot of cash money. Which is true to Japanese feudalism and several other historical European families. Making money is considered beneath "true" nobles (and why so many families collapsed).

Edited by CharlesPhipps on May 22nd 2022 at 5:36:57 AM

The Blackfyre thing was mostly because Aegon the Unworthy legitimized him and gave Daemon the sword Blackfyre. People who didn't like Daeron II latched on to that as "proof" that Aegon wanted Daemon to be the next king.

And House Frey's reputation took a nosedive when Walder Frey became Lord because he not only collected tolls, he also used the position to extort favors such as political marriages. If he just gathered tolls, people wouldn't have given him shit for it. After all, nobles in medieval times collected tolls all the time.

Edited by M84 on May 22nd 2022 at 9:58:07 PM

Its not just the tolls, its how much money the tolls have made the Freys. They're meant to be a minor family but are now one of the strongest ones in the Riverlands.

Though the bigger issue is that Walder doesn't just charge high tolls. He'll also demand something like you or your family members marrying into his (or vice versa) just so you can cross.

I don't think he does that normally - Robb was in a desperate situation where he needed to cross the Trident ASAP, so Walder had a lot of leverage.

If he tried that with every noble wanting to cross the Trident, they'd probably just take the detour instead.

Yes, that was a one-time thing where there was a desperate need on Rob's part.

Besides, under normal circumstances, he's still under the command of House Tully.

Who can just order him to knock that shit off.

@ M84: Even if legitimized, Daemon Blackfyre is still the younger son. Regardless of getting the ancestral sword the only good reason anyone could say he's the rightful king is if they buy Aegon IV's claims Daeron was the result of an affair...and as Aegon IV is a godawful king who hated Daeron for not being godawful it's obvious Daemon supporters are utterly biased

Robb wasn't the only one. There's a reason the Freys have an Everyone Is Related entry. Walder Frey had a habit of trying to get as many of his family members married off to establish connections with other noble houses. And because he wanted to get them to move out of his house already.

Note that one of the reasons he resented House Tully was because he thought they should have had one of their own marry into his family. Which speaks volumes as to his sense of entitlement.

The sword thing however was a huge part of it. Daemon's strong physical resemblance to Aegon the Conqueror and the sword made some people think of him as essentially the second coming of Aegon I.

Edited by M84 on May 22nd 2022 at 11:59:09 PM

My point was that Robb was the only one Walder strongarmed into a marriage promise by otherwise denying him passage.

I don't think Walder does that on the regular - especially since most of the people who marry his children tend to be of equal or lower standing to him, the possible exception being Genna (and that's mostly due to her dad wanting to please Walder for some unfathomable reason).

Regarding Daemon Blackfyre, there's also the usual anti-Dornish prejudice involved on the part of his supporters - one former Blackfyre supporter whom Dunk serves for a time talks about how King Daeron's court was "full of Dornishmen".

Edited by DrunkenNordmann on May 22nd 2022 at 6:40:32 PM