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Post by Roshambo on Nov 17, 2017 5:47:40 GMT
I'm not saying good in a moral or ethical way, but rather, in a effective and efficient way. In that the reign of Aerys II was peaceful and prosperous for the Seven Kingdoms.
In that numerous characters, both lowborn and highborn, saw Aerys reign as being one of peace, law, justice, and prosperity. An example of such is the peasant that Arya speaks to in one of her chapters with Hot Pie and the gang. The peasant is talking about how things were better under the old king, when Arya asks if he means Robert, the peasant replies that he means Aerys.
I'm not saying that Aerys caused this prosperity himself, no, he didn't. Tywin, and Tywin's sucessors, did the majority of the work. However what is good about Aerys was that he knew, at least on a subconcious level, that he at least needed a proficient Hand to govern the realm for him.
It's why even after Tywin resigned as Hand, his successor Hands were still able to keep the realm running till the rebellion. And even after the rebellion, the royal coffers were still packed to the brim.
When you look at Robert's reign, the entire thing was a disaster. This can be seen in the idea that his choice for Hand, Jon Arryn, may not have been a proficient administrator and was also a pushover when it came to Robert; hence why the realm fell six million into debt.
So, what do you guys think?
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Post by soulbourne on Nov 17, 2017 6:04:24 GMT
Madness and competence aren't mutually exclusive. Neither is being a sadistic bastard who enjoys creative ways of causing death and suffering for personal amusement, and competence. Generally the rarest trait for leaders is the ability to make proper use of talent around them. And one could argue if the risk of being a bandit and getting caught alive is given a noose for a necktie, lit on fire/placed on a giant skillet, and having a sword just out of reach so you either burn your feet off or suffocate yourself in a panic-generally most people reconsider lifestyle choices as long as the economy allows it.
A good example of a slightly less insane ruler who tended to be cruel in history would be ivan the gronzy. Dude executed imprisoned and all sorts of fun so many people. Killed his son when he complained ivan beat his pregnant wife to miscarraige for no reason at all, and generally was a cruel man. But he also stripped the hereditary nobles of incredible amounts of power, centralized government authority in the ruler of russia, created estates of appointed often lowborn officials to replace the traditional estates he was pissing all over, and basically laid the groundwork for massive government reform and centralized power that future rulers of russia would all benefit from when europe still occasionally had issues with nobles making petty demands. His personal life left...much to be desired, and more to be questioned. His political savvy on the other hand is a lot more solid.
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AYEM
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Post by AYEM on Dec 15, 2017 16:09:06 GMT
There's a really interesting post on the asoiaf subreddit called Aerys Was (sort of) Right: The Tragedy of Rhaegar's Plot. The gist of it is Aerys is insane, but he ends up being mostly right. His beloved by all son was planning to overthrow him, the lords of his kingdom were forming this huge alliance (with Robert Baratheon at the center, the man who had the best claim to the Iron Throne if Aerys and his sons died), three of his kingsguard actually belong to his son, Tywin Lannister eventually betrayed him and Jon Connington would do whatever Rhaegar told him to do, let's be honest. He believed himself to be surrounded by enemies and he was absolutely right. When you look at the stuff he does i'm 100% sure i would have done the same while playing ck2, like the OP also said. The thing is he's still insane so obviously he's not gonna handle it right. Was he actually a little aware of what's going on or was he just a complete paranoid who was right by chance? You should also take into account that some of the people who ended up betraying him were people he put into positions of power and supposedly trusted at some point in his life. They helped him have a mostly stable reign but also ended up contributing to his demise by taking advantage of his trust in them (Tywin/Pycelle, Varys). Robert's reign was a disaster imo.
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Post by verkos on Dec 16, 2017 19:59:13 GMT
Aerys was not an effective king. His only sensible choice was naming Tywin as Hand. After that he would make grandiose promises to the different lords that were never completed, he raised taxes extremely high in all the ports, then he started to mock and work against his hand without firing him. That led to confusion in court and undermined the orders from Tywin. This ultimately led to the Defiance of Duskendale as Aerys only went to spite Tywin. Even if he was ultimately right to be wary of his heir, he ultimately harmed his own governing by undermining his right hand.
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AYEM
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Post by AYEM on Dec 17, 2017 6:28:41 GMT
I mostly agree with you. What i was trying to say is that he is aware that he is universally hated by everyone and tries to act to protect himself (in his own twisted way), as he should because these people are out to get him (justifiably), and ends up making things worse (because he is a twisted and incompetent individual). We now know that Aerys always had mental health issues and what the Defiance did was only make it 10x worse. He has always been paranoid and histrionic, never made good on his promises and only cared about sleeping around. I'm just pointing out that a lot of things Aerys believes turns out to be right in the end, and it's more or less his fault. I know he started undermining Tywin long before the Defiance, but he ends up making a pretty accurate prediction about Tywin too: he wants Cersei to marry Rhaegar and rule as Queen (although i doubt they both wanted Aerys to die in that dungeon). btw court people never liked Tywin to begin with because Tywin was never a court idiot like Aerys. It's a mix of self-fullfiling prophecies, a broken clock being right twice a day, a shard of awareness, whatever.
One of the reasons i brought attention to that post was because OP said that Aerys' reign was decent in comparision to Robert's. The post gives some insight on why Robert's reign was pretty much set up to fail. Robert doesn't want to be king, Jon Arryn couldn't control him, Cersei is insane and fucking her brother, their heir is also insane and a bastard of incest, the Martells are angry, the Tyrells are power hungry upstarters that feel left out, Jon Arryn's heir is a sickly spoiled little boy and he won't have more children, Targaryen/Blackfyre/White Walker invasion incoming, religious fanatics are feeling increasily disgruntled by the vices of the monarchy, Tywin can't control his lackeys to save his life, Ned Stark is too decent and dumb and so is his son and the Greyjoys can smell blood in the water. I think Robert and Jon knew to some extent, and couldn't find it in themselves to care.
I just thought i'd point out the tragedy of it all because there's not even a point in answering the initial question. Aerys is objectively a bad king. Only smart thing he ever did besides surrounding himself with competent people was being very charitable with some nobles. Aerys: alt 21 cash send gift send gift send gift A more interesting question would be: could Tywin Lannister deal with all the shit that is about to happen, secure the throne for House Baratheon, if he was still alive and hand of the king?
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Post by verkos on Dec 18, 2017 16:43:25 GMT
Are you meaning like if Tywin were around in Feast and Dance? I don't think that Tommen's rule would be so chaotic to begin with. If he was still there I don't see how the faith militant would be restored, nor would any of Cersei's choices for the council be on it. I don't see Tywin alienating the Tyrells like Cersei. Now do I think he could deal with the Golden Company's invasion coupled with the Ironborn? That I am not sure of. He would really only be able to call on the Reach, the Westerlands, and the Crownlands. Much of the Reach would be occupied with dealing with the Ironborn, I am unsure if just the Westerlands and Crownlands would be enough to beat the Golden Company. I think that it would most likely go to the Golden Company, due to the experience of the Golden Company in comparison to feudal levies, and the presence of elephants would greatly shock the common people of Westeros. But, I could be completely wrong.
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Post by Paxter Redwyne on Feb 2, 2018 12:51:02 GMT
I don't think Ivan IV Grozny is good example of competent ruler. His accomplishments were quickly lost after his death and period of famine, war and chaos known as Time of Troubles begun in Russia.
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Post by Scorpius on Feb 4, 2018 14:00:04 GMT
AYEM You mix up cause and consequence when it comes to the mad king.
Robert... was a good person but a bad king, indeed. But Ned being too honorable is not Roberts fault. Nor is Baelish's ambition and manipulation, that one fooled everyone except the Stark kids. Nor Salmys treason (when he helped Cersei vs Ned). Nor Dornes neutrality in the war (unless you blame him for not starting another war to replace the peace loving prince Dorne had). So yes, he fucked up his finances, but the war was not his fault. Had Eddard been less honorable, the Lannister property could have been used to repay the crowns debts to the Iron Bank, and the debt to the Lannisters would have been solved by itself.
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Post by Shoo on Apr 1, 2018 9:13:27 GMT
I think Aerys reign was effective, all the time he wasn't involved. Tywin was an efficient and able administrator and those that surrounded Aerys, were generally capable, enough so that they managed to contain the large amount of discontent in the face of Aerys increasing madness and paranoia, no matter how justified it might have been. In those instances, were Aerys took direct action and made his own decisions, he made terrible choices, for awful reasons. His being taken prisoner and held captive, largely came about because of his own poor decision making.
Indeed, it was with the loss of Tywin, Aerys gains greater control of his kingdom, but the situation begins to destabalise and deteriorate rapidly. Because it's now Aerys who is ruling and not Tywin.
No I think that Aerys was a bad ruler, who had good advisors and administrators. His reign was likley prosperous and largely peacable, not because of Aerys, but because of the people he put in power, but that just means that he put the right people int he right place, his own ability to rule, was far inferior.
Robert, ofcourse was far better at asserting his authority but he often ignored or floated wise counsel. He didn't have an administrator or even a rulers mindset.He was alright at strategy, he understood power within the seven kingdomsm but he paid little heed to long-term consequences of his choices and was all to keen to give up those aspects of his rule, tht he didn;t like or wasn't adept with, to people of questionable loyalty and capability. He simply left it in their hands and hoped that it worked out and if it didn't, that he could browbeat people into fixing things.
They were both bad kings and rulers. Robert because he had the bearing of a king, but wasn't really interested in being one and Aerys, because you wanted so badly to be an effective ruler and knew all too well he wasn', envied those that were and was driven mad by his own inadequecies.
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Post by warleader0996 on Sept 16, 2018 19:28:26 GMT
I think Aerys Was a good king to a point, his best decision as king was making Tywin hand of the king. The insanity happened because of the Defiance of Duskendale , I would say he is not the worst king to sit on the Iron Throne.
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Post by hiigara129 on Sept 18, 2018 19:05:19 GMT
Quite frankly Aerys II is a bit of a mystery. I mean we all know about him being "mad"; the burnings, raping his wife, putting random people to death, his paranoia and everything else, but everyone that tells us these things has reason to say he was insane. Robert, Ned and the other rebels wouldn't say a kind word, he rejected Tywin's daughter as Crown Princess and generally abused his Hand so that relationship ultimately collapsed, Barristan was a turncloak and Varys had his own games. We never hear the opinions of a Targaryen (NOT RHAEGARIST) loyalist about the late King.
What's really sad is that while Aerys fully escalated the situation that allowed Robert's rebellion to happen in the first place, he wasn't wrong. You have the Stark heir and his highborn friends riding into the capital and demanding the Crown Prince's head. No King is just going to ignore this challenge, especially one as paranoid as Aerys. Nor can he be sure that this isn't something more than drunk fools being stupid. He's already been burned once by a vassal and seen off the beginnings of a plot by his own son, so whose to say this isn't the first wave of a third plot against him. Sure the smarter thing would be to keep them hostage (he had the Stark and Arryn heirs after all) but someone as paranoid as the King would never have considered it.
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Post by andremassena on Jan 23, 2019 23:57:41 GMT
I'd say the worst Targ kings are Maegor, Aegon II, Rhaenyra (if we count her), Aegon IV, Aerys I, and Aerys II in some order. I'm tempted to go with Aerys II since he is the one who ended it and he committed the most evil acts after Maegor.
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Post by jdsweetmeat on Mar 27, 2019 22:14:12 GMT
AYEM You mix up cause and consequence when it comes to the mad king. Robert... was a good person but a bad king, indeed. But Ned being too honorable is not Roberts fault. Nor is Baelish's ambition and manipulation, that one fooled everyone except the Stark kids. Nor Salmys treason (when he helped Cersei vs Ned). Nor Dornes neutrality in the war (unless you blame him for not starting another war to replace the peace loving prince Dorne had). So yes, he fucked up his finances, but the war was not his fault. Had Eddard been less honorable, the Lannister property could have been used to repay the crowns debts to the Iron Bank, and the debt to the Lannisters would have been solved by itself. One quirk here. Robert was to blame for Dorne's neutrality. He pardoned Tywin Lannister, Amory Lorch, and Gregor Clegane of any wrongdoing. Pragmatic or not, that refusing to give the Prince of Dorne justice for the murder and rape of his kin would alienate said Prince to the of treason is not rocket science. Robert could have seen that coming from a mile away if he'd have even considered for a second his actions. Hells, even if we accept that Robert politically could not afford to punish Tywin, he could easily have punished, say, Amory Lorch for stabbing Rhaegar's daughter to death half a hundred times, or Gregor Clegane for bashing Aegon's head in and raping Prince Doran's mother. If I were Robert, I'd have tied the two of them up and sent them to Dorne with an armed guard to be punished however Oberyn and Doran saw adequate.
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Post by ManicMayo on Mar 28, 2019 12:38:22 GMT
Aerys was 'good' in the sense that he didn't assert his royal authority during his early reign and let more capable men do the job for him when he was clearly not competent enough to manage the realm's finances or public works with any degree of proficiency. Ultimately though, he oversaw the end of his dynasty in a realm-wide rebellion against his rule. Not even Aegon the Unworthy, probably considered the worst king Westeros has ever had, managed to achieve this. Make of that what you will. It wasn't that Aerys was a good king, it was that Tywin was a very capable Hand. By himself, Aerys was inept at best and tyrannical at worst.
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Post by Don't Wake the Dragon on Apr 2, 2019 3:15:58 GMT
Based on everything we know about him, I think he was a decent King early on, but when he started doing petty, vindictive things to people like Tywin and denying house Darklyn their charter, it was the beginning of his downfall.
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