Unfortunately, the political realities of declaring himself king meant that he could not side with either Baratheon when the banners were raised from Dragonstone to Storm’s End. Despite being a great warrior with a noble and just cause to fight after his father was accused of treason (never mind unfairly beheaded), Robb still gave into a vanity hidden within most Starks’ unspoken dreams: to be the king who un-knelt. Ignoring the numerous missteps Robb took as a tactician in this war, which will undoubtedly fill a ponderous tome in Oldtown one day, the one non-Frey related error Robb made that most precipitated his fate was declaring himself King in the North by proudly accepting that mantle at Great Jon Umber’s insistence.
Nonetheless, Robb played a decisive role in turning what could have been a swift, successful rebellion into a protracted conflict that cost him his life, his mother’s life, the lives of thousands of bannermen, and even the loss of a wife and unborn child… To be sure, most of the groundwork was already laid prior to Robb even setting out from Winterfell to march south, and his low placement on this list is indicative of the fact that he more escalated and exacerbated this war, as opposed to throwing the first wildfire canister. Martin novels to be the virtuous doppelgänger of Joffrey Baratheon and embodied by uber-dreamy Richard Madden on the show-played a hand in the forging of this historic war. So join us as we unpack it all by examining the nine characters most responsible for starting the war.Īye, we have to begin where the truth hurts the most: the valiant and gallant boy king Robb Stark-written in the George R.R. Who exactly is responsible for this war? Despite being the driving monster for all of the non-zombie and dragon related storylines in Game of Thrones, it is still a tangled web we are only now fully unraveling. After all, this was the central war that has claimed the lives of nearly every beloved character on the show-Ned Stark, Robb Stark, Catelyn Stark, and even a few non-Starks like Theon Greyjoy’s mojo.
This reveal about Littlefinger and Lysa’s conniving schemes that predates even the series premiere (all the way from 2011!) is another example of putting an entirely new spin on matters that used to seem as settled as Hodor’s simplicity. “When you gave me those drops and told me to pour them into Jon’s wine, my husband’s wine when you told me to write a letter to Cat, telling her that it was the Lannisters-“
“What wife would trust you with the way I’ve trusted you,” Lady Lysa Arryn of the Vale rhetorically asked Petyr Baelish, the man known as Littlefinger.