House Tully: Family, Duty, Honor

[Rhondinella]

Here's a thread to discuss the house in general or subsets of it instead of an individual character.

[Prospero]

Surely you meant "Family, Duty, Hodor".

[Fen]

The Histories and Lore thing for House Tully is really good.  The idea that their House words really come from the fact that they used marriage as their main means of gaining influence and power makes it easier to understand them - Cat especially.

[Lady S.]

I guess this would be the place to discuss Lady Lysa Arryn Baelish née Tully and her relationships with her sister and niece.


(Unless her story about Cat is verified, I'm going to assume she was actually the fat one growing up.)

[CletusMusashi]

That place is even crazier than the Dreadfort. I mean, Roose Bolton employs some wingnuts, sure, but at least he knows they're crazy. Up in the Eyrie, though, everyone with any power is a few monkeys shy of a barrel. They shouldn't name it after an eagle nest. They should name it after whatever you call an attic full of bats.

[Constantinople]

Lysa must have really hated her sister.

So much for family meaning everything to her.

That place is even crazier than the Dreadfort. I mean, Roose Bolton employs some wingnuts, sure, but at least he knows they're crazy. Up in the Eyrie, though, everyone with any power is a few monkeys shy of a barrel.

It's the thin mountain air. Not enough oxygen getting into their heads.

[Lady S.]

Well, her definition of family was narrowly limited to her son. But then she was letting him play way too close to the hole in the floor, so I guess he doesn't mean much compared to getting that Baelish dick either.

[Constantinople]

My Tully Ranking

 

1. Blackfish - MIA so far this season.  I was greatly amused how he backhanded Karstark to the ground when Karstark back talked to Robb.  I also liked his remark to Catelyn that has to remind himself that in the darkest days of war, there are places where nothing is happening at all.  Hope he gives Walder Frey hell.

 

2. Hoster - He might not be contributing much to the family now that he's dead, but at least he's not screwing things up either.

 

3. Edmure - Normally a drip like Edmure wouldn't rank so highly, especially after the fiasco of attacking the Mountain at the farm.  But consider the alternatives.  Plus, he was willing to play ball and marry a Frey sight unseen.

 

4. Roslin - A Tully by marriage.  Her ranking could fall if we find out she knew about the Red Wedding beforehand (but it would never fall below Lysa's since Roslin could have never done anything to stop it).

 

5. Catelyn - Kidnapping Tyrion and letting Jaime go free really weren't good ideas (I doubt Tywin would have backed Frey's Red Wedding if Jaime were still captive).  Nor was believing Littlefinger when he said Tyrion bet against his brother Jaime in a tournament, thus allegedly resulting in Littelfinger losing the dagger to Tyrion.  Still, as hot headed as she is, she's not

 

6. Lysa - Killed her husband and, in my view, responsible for the deaths of her brother-in-law, sister, nephew and countless others, all so her screams could be heard across the Narrow Sea as Littlefinger littlebanged her.  She stinks on ice.

[ParadoxLost]

I was rewatching season 1 this weekend and it occurred to me that most of the males have "family" as their first instinct and then default back to duty and how much better off they would be if they followed the Tully order.

Then I remembered how well that work's for the Tully's and thought again.

[Lady S.]

Alternatively, if Robb had kept family first he could have at least tried trade Jaime for Sansa as long as the Lannisters met his other demands. And he really should have stuck with his first instinct to head back North when he heard of the ironborn invasion, instead of trusting that Theon would never hurt his brothers and then trusting Bolton and his bastard to reclaim the family homestead. And since he had such open lines of communication, he could've tried communicating with the uncle who was technically his highest ranking general and give more specific instructions. And of course he could have listened to his uncle, his mother, and his wife when they advised him to keep Karstark alive, at least until the war was done.

[Constantinople]

Three Tullys are sleeping with the fishes, a fourth is a prisoner, a fifth is actually a Frey and only a Tully by marriage and the sixth, probably the only Tully worth a damn, is MIA.

 

Things look even worse for them than the Starks.  At least Stannis is in the North, and thus presumably of some concern to the Boltons.  But the Tullys don't even have that, and Daenerys is stuck in Mereen.

 

Littlefinger talked about the Vale lords marching, but I'm not sure if he was serious or just blowing hot air.  But even if he were serious, I suspect he wouldn't be doing it to restore the Tullys to power, but to consolidate his own position in the Riverlands under the guise of helping the Tullys.  And since the Riverlands are much more exposed than the Vale, I'm not even sure he'd want to do that.

[Oscirus]

I always amuse my self by wondering what would happen if the Tullys were  aligned with the lannisters and Edmure was the archer assigned to shoot the fire arrow at the wild fire. Silly I know but the image still makes me laugh.

[Lady S.]

Three Tullys are sleeping with the fishes, a fourth is a prisoner, a fifth is actually a Frey and only a Tully by marriage and the sixth, probably the only Tully worth a damn, is MIA.

 

Things look even worse for them than the Starks.  At least Stannis is in the North, and thus presumably of some concern to the Boltons.  But the Tullys don't even have that, and Daenerys is stuck in Mereen.

House Baratheon is in pretty bad shape too, with Stannis as the only legit male heir, his only child marked for his red witch, and Gendry drifting aimlessly somewhere in the sea. But I think House Arryn may be the worst off with the family's future dependent on a sickly boy only recently weaned, who may or may not be Littlefinger's seed but is definitely in the control of Uncle Petyr the chaos demon, one of the murderers of the previous Lord Arryn. If Robin ever does marry Sansa, Baelish could always just put a baby in her himself as he'd probably like to.

[Oscirus]

Rethinking season one, it just occurred to me how reckless Catelyn's plan really was.  Kidnapping Tyrion  was admittedly spur of the moment but directing people towards Winterfell as opposed to the well-guarded Vale was extremely dangerous and put her sons' lives in danger.  Was there a part in the books to guard against such a thing happening that D&D didn't put in the show?

[Skeeter22]

Geographically, it would have been impossible for the Lannisters to march on Winterfell. Tywin settled for raiding the Riverlands, not because Cat was a Tully, but because it was the easiest target. 

 

I don't think it's fair to characterize Tyrion's capture as "kidnapping". Cat lawfully arrested him. We know he was innocent, but Cat had good reason to be suspicious of him. Tyrion himself insinuated to his brother that he knew what really happened to Bran, but he wasn't going to do anything about it. 

[Lady S.]

Rethinking season one, it just occurred to me how reckless Catelyn's plan really was.  Kidnapping Tyrion  was admittedly spur of the moment but directing people towards Winterfell as opposed to the well-guarded Vale was extremely dangerous and put her sons' lives in danger.  Was there a part in the books to guard against such a thing happening that D&D didn't put in the show?

Cersei mentions in an early episode that it's pretty much impossible for southerners to successfully invade the North--not that Cersei's any military genius but this sounds like something she heard from Tywin---the ironborn only managed it because so many fighting men had gone south, and even so Theon's capture of Winterfell only worked because he outwitted a 10yo with his Torrhen's Square ruse. I don't think the Vale was really all that more secure than the North. None of them were in any real danger with Robb in charge with all his bannermen there to support him. As for the book,

yes, Ned instructed her upon their parting to make sure the Neck was extra-fortified in case things boiled over with the Lannisters, Robb's not a PoV, but Bran mentions him getting ravens from Mother at the Eyrie and making plans all the time, so I think she did relay Ned's orders.

But, and this is something the show failed to mention even when introducing Moat Cailin, the Neck is basically swampland, so that's a natural barrier to any overland invasion, another reason why the ironborn as a purely naval power were able to take advantage.

 

If anything, Cat should have been more worried about the Riverlands, but I think a key factor there is she hadn't seen any of her Tully family for years, and didn't realize her father was on his deathbed and Edmure was already effectively the Lord in all but name. Riverrun should have heard the news of Tyrion's Catnapping pretty soon after, as in long before Cat actually reached the Eyrie and was in a position to send ravens, as the whole thing started at an inn in the Riverlands with knights and men-at-arms of Tully bannermen heeding Cat's call. Presumably Hoster would realize this would put the Tullys in the line of fire and could maybe do a better job than Edmure of guarding Riverrun. Because that was the first true act of war, Jaime being sent ahead of Tywin to invade the riverlands and besiege Rivverrun, not Tywin setting Gregor loose to rape and pillage. Sending Gregor out to lead men disguised as bandits was really more some kind of medieval terrorism than anything, and that was what caught the Stark-Tullys off-guard, not that they were too dumb to realize Tywin would respond, but they didn't realize he would do so undercover in an attempt to provoke the Stark-Tullys into making the first official move.

 

I don't think it's fair to characterize Tyrion's capture as "kidnapping". Cat lawfully arrested him. We know he was innocent, but Cat had good reason to be suspicious of him. Tyrion himself insinuated to his brother that he knew what really happened to Bran, but he wasn't going to do anything about it. 

I'd say it was a bit of both, Tyrion was really more a hostage than someone under arrest, but she did use official language and the bounds of the king's justice to capture him. At the outset, at least, she fully believed he was in on the mysterious evul Lannister conspiracy (and he could have been if he was a different kind of person, he'd have the exact same motive as Jaime of protecting the family), but it's important to note that wasn't what triggered his capture, it was a reactive move because Tyrion clearly knew she was up to something and so she made the first move when it seemed like shit with the Lannisters was about to hit the fan in any case. Meaning contrary to popular belief, Cat didn't really capture him with the intention of summarily executing him, things really got out of her control once Lysa got involved, but in addition to the Eyrie being impregnable, a reason to go to Lysa would be the assumption that she had some reason to send her letter of lies and could shed some light on the mysterious secret the Lannisters were murdering to protect. It really wasn't a kidnapping in our sense of the term though, Westeros has no murder detectives or anything resembling modern legal procedure, the Great Houses have full authority to exercise their justice on behalf of the king, and Tyrion was the Queen's brother not a member of the actual royal family. Problem is, the Starks' jurisdiction would be within their own lands and I don't think Cat really had any authority over her father's men, but those knights were still acting for the sake of their duty to the Tullys, not as some vigilante gang, that is knights and anyone else serving the riverlords, not sellswords, Bronn was always out for monetary gain.