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Sansa becomes the lady of Highgarden and Bran becomes lord of Winterfell. Unsure which stark then becomes Bran’s heir. If Rickon isn’t dead maybe he has kids, or if in this scenario, the rest of the series plays out as it does, only Cersei is defeated by the Tyrells, then Jon still comes down from the wall and becomes King in the North. In this situation I don’t think the northern lords would bend the knee to Tommen. Sansa would marry Loras to achieve peace but the North would remain independent.
Because the winters are of variable length, northerners store up massive amounts of food. But if the winter runs long with no end in sight, older people will tell their loved ones goodbye, walk into the snow and let the elements take them.
Boat then horse or foot. They can also import food before it gets too bad.
The Starks whole motto is "winter is coming." They know to prepare. Everyone in the North has survived because they (and their ancestors) knew how to prepare.
Moving food by horse is wildly inefficient because horses need to be fed. You can justify it for feeding a marching army for short periods of time, but feeding entire towns like that wouldn't be feasible.
The Starks whole motto is "winter is coming." They know to prepare.
Everyone in the North has survived because they (and their ancestors) knew how to prepare.
Aegon V had to send the North food during a five year long winter to stop people from dying from a famine. That was in a situation where they had time to prepare for winter.
The North had been fighting a war since season 1. The Boltons didn't prepare for winter while they were running things. Jon and Sansa don't bring in any food either.
Normal times they can harvest and store food for the winter. This was war time. Men were fighting Instead of tending fields and grain reserves were funneled to the army
The older men would find some way to get themselves killed and then everyone would struggle until winter was over. This got cut from the world book, but one of George's co-authors said they had a bit in the book that mentioned the northmen raiding the Riverlands as winter started.
Olenna is overrated as a strategist. Unlike Tywin, we don't hear of any past stories that justify her aura. She just has a big mouth on her but there's no reason to put her on the same level.
The North is impregnable without dragons, so the only way to remedy that would be to appease through marriage and concessions.
I think their biggest mistake was not getting rid of Cersei when they had the chance, not poisoning Joffrey.
The death of Joffrey helped them get rid of Tyrion, Tywin and Oberyn in the small council and let them marry Margaery to Tommen (a more usefull too for their plans).
Well i'd argue Cersei ended the Tyrells blowing up the sept of Baelor. Though there must have been other lesser branches of the tree who could have become Lords of Highgarden.
I will gladly admit the whole affair was circular, I didn't really pin down my opinion on Olenna until she confessed to Jaime. Honestly, the show returns to that well a lot. Lysa, Catelyn, Olenna, Elaria. Hell, even Cersei.
They all think they're masters of the game. But they're slighted, and that makes them take stupid actions that doom each of their houses. It's even interesting how attempting to counter one of the others tends to lead to their doom.
I think Sansa would be fine. She had understood the game to be able to identify dangerous targets and to also understand you can’t close your eyes and hope it passes. You need to take action, and the sooner the better.
The action also needs to be centred around preservation, and identify when schemes might be started. For the most part, she wanted to avoid ‘the game’.
Makes her a good leader to have, peaceful at heart but able to identify danger and attempt to outmanoeuver it
Joffrey needed fo go. Sooner or later he was going to be a threat to Margery. Getting rid of him was the right move.
Obviously they should have also dealt with Cersei, but we say that with the benefit of hindsight. There's no way they could have anticipated that she would somehow have the means to blow up the entire Sept with every one of her enemies inside.
Point is, Olenna literally killed her house by poisoning Joff.
Her houses destruction came down 3 or 4 important events downstream of the poisoning of Joffrey. Largely Varys releasing Tyrion, the murder of Twyin, the weaponization of The High Sparrow and Cersei being cornered enough that she would turn against her own kinsman
Who could have ever known what might happen when she killed Joffrey? All those events were unpredictable. Both she and Margaery they were getting more power through a more naive king.
Olenna underestimated what Cersei was capable of wrt blowing up the sept, but she also didn't see the Tywin murder coming. She figured she was setting Margaery up with a naive young King in a pretty stable setting overseen by Tywin as Hand, and with Cersei away from the capital (although I think she was worried about Loras, and clearly didn't want that marriage).
Or for Tywin either, there was no way to predict that Tyrion would be able to do this. Either he'd be outright sentenced to death, or kept in the cells and taken from there to the Wall. Even if you predicted that someone would try to help him escape, the logical thing to do would be to....escape. Not start looking for daddy, who conveniently was unguarded and unarmed in a vulnerable position with a ready weapon for Tyrion nearby.
Olenna's plan was awesome, she was taken down by the necessities of the narrative.
Marg and tom, sansa and Loras would have been great. Olenna was a very clever woman. She only wanted Loras to marry sansa for the North control. She wanted her granddaughter to marry a king for full control. Unfortunately it wouldn't work out that way. If it did, how do you think she would have handled Dany?
I’m pretty sure they would have had the same attitude that Renly did. He basically told Cat that Rob could call himself King as long as he continued to give loyalty and taxes. That would be enough to avoid a war. A few marriages later, and everything would be back to normal.
Olenna plays the long game (even if she doesn’t live to see the end of it) and manipulates the Karstarks and / or Boltons to usurp the Starks through bribes or marriages, or by withholding food deliveries when winter comes.
They are about to go through a ten year winter. Even ignoring how they've been getting food imports from the south since Aegon's Conquest, if not longer, this could absolutely bring the North to its knees. That's not to say its hopeless, its just a dramatic way of expressing that they do rely on food from the south.
If they still control the Riverlands things might not be as bad, but it still will be very bad.
I don’t think there’s a world where they’re happy with northern independence permanently. I feel like they’d potentially act accepting of it at first if they already had a plan to bring them back into the fold in some way.
Sansa was to marry Loras, that was the initial plan. Certain foiled it. Hence Margery and Tommen as plan 2. So why wouldn’t that plan be picked up again?? It’d to the north and Tyrell’s.
They’d first consolidate their army with the Lannisters, assuming Cersei is out of the way and Jaime is on their side.
They then negotiate peace relations with the North, which is ruled by the Boltons at the time. They soon learn about Jon and Sansa and their efforts to take back Winterfell, so they support them alongside the Vale in a Stark victory.
Assuming Cersei is no longer an option and Tommen is still king, the only threats left that Olenna has to deal with are Littlefinger and Daenerys, but she can still be an ally to the latter. Furthermore, Olenna can pledge her support and armies to fight the dead as she’s obviously more reasonable than Cersei ever was.
I think the Tyrells would be savvy enough to reconize the benifits of direct control of the south vs economic and (possibly via marriage political) inflaunce over an allied independent North vs a costly campaign to reclaim control over the region that will just leave them in control of a hostile population.
They would simply make peace with the North, possibly through a betrothal.
Consider:
The North needs the food from the Reach, and are their biggest client
The Reach cannot conquer the North due to the chokepoint in the Neck
The North would definitely not want a war with the Tyrells, the Tyrells cannot afford another war while trying to pacify the Crownlands, the Westerlands and the Riverlands, conquering the Stormlands and fending off the Ironborn.
At that point in the story, if Tyrells went to war against the Starks, the Martells would either sit this one out or side with the Starks, since they still hold a grudge against the Tyrells.
Last but not least, the Starks are widely known to be honorable Good Guys with little ambition to conquer others; why antagonize them needlessly?
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Sir Loras marries Sansa Stark... End credits.
Sansa becomes the lady of Highgarden and Bran becomes lord of Winterfell. Unsure which stark then becomes Bran’s heir. If Rickon isn’t dead maybe he has kids, or if in this scenario, the rest of the series plays out as it does, only Cersei is defeated by the Tyrells, then Jon still comes down from the wall and becomes King in the North. In this situation I don’t think the northern lords would bend the knee to Tommen. Sansa would marry Loras to achieve peace but the North would remain independent.
"Willis, here's a wife for you." Points at Sansa.
Grain, gold, and marriages would’ve done the work.
Yup. North needs food.
let them claim independence once winter hits they’ll come crawling back for food
Is that normally what happened each winter?
What did they do before Aegon's Conquest?
Correct me if I'm wrong
Because the winters are of variable length, northerners store up massive amounts of food. But if the winter runs long with no end in sight, older people will tell their loved ones goodbye, walk into the snow and let the elements take them.
They can import food. White Harbor is known to stay unforzen even during long winters.
Can come from Essos too not necessary from other parts of Westeros.
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They have plenty of lumber, something that Braavos lacks.
Gold. Maybe furs or other items. They probably just stock pile money/gold and buy it straight up buy it.
Trying to move food by boat to any of the castles or towns inland would be damn near impossible.
Boat then horse or foot. They can also import food before it gets too bad.
The Starks whole motto is "winter is coming." They know to prepare. Everyone in the North has survived because they (and their ancestors) knew how to prepare.
Moving food by horse is wildly inefficient because horses need to be fed. You can justify it for feeding a marching army for short periods of time, but feeding entire towns like that wouldn't be feasible.
Aegon V had to send the North food during a five year long winter to stop people from dying from a famine. That was in a situation where they had time to prepare for winter.
The North had been fighting a war since season 1. The Boltons didn't prepare for winter while they were running things. Jon and Sansa don't bring in any food either.
Normal times they can harvest and store food for the winter. This was war time. Men were fighting Instead of tending fields and grain reserves were funneled to the army
The older men would find some way to get themselves killed and then everyone would struggle until winter was over. This got cut from the world book, but one of George's co-authors said they had a bit in the book that mentioned the northmen raiding the Riverlands as winter started.
Likely not well. The only way it would’ve worked is, if they could’ve been persuaded that somehow this would be beneficial for them.
Olenna is overrated as a strategist. Unlike Tywin, we don't hear of any past stories that justify her aura. She just has a big mouth on her but there's no reason to put her on the same level.
The North is impregnable without dragons, so the only way to remedy that would be to appease through marriage and concessions.
Poorly. Olenna styled herself a master, but she made the same mistakes as Tywin. People often hold them up as titans, but I don't see that.
They're scammers who managed not to get caught until their base was large enough to be unfuckwithable.
I suppose that does make them tyrants.
Point is, Olenna literally killed her house by poisoning Joff.
So yeah, they'd definitely send their armies north, and the crannogmen would drown those heavy horse knights.
I think their biggest mistake was not getting rid of Cersei when they had the chance, not poisoning Joffrey.
The death of Joffrey helped them get rid of Tyrion, Tywin and Oberyn in the small council and let them marry Margaery to Tommen (a more usefull too for their plans).
I think they did it when they sided with Renly. They could've pulled it off if not for the Dumb assery of Cersei. Cersei killed 2 great houses lol.
Well i'd argue Cersei ended the Tyrells blowing up the sept of Baelor. Though there must have been other lesser branches of the tree who could have become Lords of Highgarden.
I will gladly admit the whole affair was circular, I didn't really pin down my opinion on Olenna until she confessed to Jaime. Honestly, the show returns to that well a lot. Lysa, Catelyn, Olenna, Elaria. Hell, even Cersei.
They all think they're masters of the game. But they're slighted, and that makes them take stupid actions that doom each of their houses. It's even interesting how attempting to counter one of the others tends to lead to their doom.
Good luck Sansa!
I think Sansa would be fine. She had understood the game to be able to identify dangerous targets and to also understand you can’t close your eyes and hope it passes. You need to take action, and the sooner the better. The action also needs to be centred around preservation, and identify when schemes might be started. For the most part, she wanted to avoid ‘the game’. Makes her a good leader to have, peaceful at heart but able to identify danger and attempt to outmanoeuver it
Why go to the Neck? They have the Redwyne fleet. Just land an army North of the Neck and start capturing towns one by one.
Joffrey needed fo go. Sooner or later he was going to be a threat to Margery. Getting rid of him was the right move.
Obviously they should have also dealt with Cersei, but we say that with the benefit of hindsight. There's no way they could have anticipated that she would somehow have the means to blow up the entire Sept with every one of her enemies inside.
Her houses destruction came down 3 or 4 important events downstream of the poisoning of Joffrey. Largely Varys releasing Tyrion, the murder of Twyin, the weaponization of The High Sparrow and Cersei being cornered enough that she would turn against her own kinsman
How? Cersei didn't know that the Tyrells were the ones that killed Joffrey.
Who could have ever known what might happen when she killed Joffrey? All those events were unpredictable. Both she and Margaery they were getting more power through a more naive king.
Olenna underestimated what Cersei was capable of wrt blowing up the sept, but she also didn't see the Tywin murder coming. She figured she was setting Margaery up with a naive young King in a pretty stable setting overseen by Tywin as Hand, and with Cersei away from the capital (although I think she was worried about Loras, and clearly didn't want that marriage).
I don't see how anyone could have predicted that Cersei would even have the ability to blow up the Sept.
Yes, I can't blame Olenna for that.
Or for Tywin either, there was no way to predict that Tyrion would be able to do this. Either he'd be outright sentenced to death, or kept in the cells and taken from there to the Wall. Even if you predicted that someone would try to help him escape, the logical thing to do would be to....escape. Not start looking for daddy, who conveniently was unguarded and unarmed in a vulnerable position with a ready weapon for Tyrion nearby.
Olenna's plan was awesome, she was taken down by the necessities of the narrative.
Marg and tom, sansa and Loras would have been great. Olenna was a very clever woman. She only wanted Loras to marry sansa for the North control. She wanted her granddaughter to marry a king for full control. Unfortunately it wouldn't work out that way. If it did, how do you think she would have handled Dany?
I’m pretty sure they would have had the same attitude that Renly did. He basically told Cat that Rob could call himself King as long as he continued to give loyalty and taxes. That would be enough to avoid a war. A few marriages later, and everything would be back to normal.
Olenna plays the long game (even if she doesn’t live to see the end of it) and manipulates the Karstarks and / or Boltons to usurp the Starks through bribes or marriages, or by withholding food deliveries when winter comes.
The North was an independent Kingdom for 100 of years, I doubt they relie on food from the south during the Winter.
They are about to go through a ten year winter. Even ignoring how they've been getting food imports from the south since Aegon's Conquest, if not longer, this could absolutely bring the North to its knees. That's not to say its hopeless, its just a dramatic way of expressing that they do rely on food from the south.
If they still control the Riverlands things might not be as bad, but it still will be very bad.
Also Ice Zombies.
The reality is that the North and the Riverlands were devastated by the war.
In the best of times, the North struggled to get through long winters. Targ kings had to send them aid at least once.
Them fighting for years instead of farming would mean they weren't at all prepared for winter.
I don’t think there’s a world where they’re happy with northern independence permanently. I feel like they’d potentially act accepting of it at first if they already had a plan to bring them back into the fold in some way.
Sansa was to marry Loras, that was the initial plan. Certain foiled it. Hence Margery and Tommen as plan 2. So why wouldn’t that plan be picked up again?? It’d to the north and Tyrell’s.
They’d first consolidate their army with the Lannisters, assuming Cersei is out of the way and Jaime is on their side.
They then negotiate peace relations with the North, which is ruled by the Boltons at the time. They soon learn about Jon and Sansa and their efforts to take back Winterfell, so they support them alongside the Vale in a Stark victory.
Assuming Cersei is no longer an option and Tommen is still king, the only threats left that Olenna has to deal with are Littlefinger and Daenerys, but she can still be an ally to the latter. Furthermore, Olenna can pledge her support and armies to fight the dead as she’s obviously more reasonable than Cersei ever was.
I think the Tyrells would be savvy enough to reconize the benifits of direct control of the south vs economic and (possibly via marriage political) inflaunce over an allied independent North vs a costly campaign to reclaim control over the region that will just leave them in control of a hostile population.
They probably would have allowed it. Olenna knows an open war against the North won’t work and they don’t have any resources worth fighting over.
crushing the north would be expensive and pointless - olenaa was too pragmatic for that
They would simply make peace with the North, possibly through a betrothal.
Consider:
The North needs the food from the Reach, and are their biggest client
The Reach cannot conquer the North due to the chokepoint in the Neck
The North would definitely not want a war with the Tyrells, the Tyrells cannot afford another war while trying to pacify the Crownlands, the Westerlands and the Riverlands, conquering the Stormlands and fending off the Ironborn.
At that point in the story, if Tyrells went to war against the Starks, the Martells would either sit this one out or side with the Starks, since they still hold a grudge against the Tyrells.
Last but not least, the Starks are widely known to be honorable Good Guys with little ambition to conquer others; why antagonize them needlessly?