Hi! Just found your blog and so far i loved pretty much all of your analysis', they're just so complex and deep in the characters feelings and motivations.
May i ask, do you think that there was ever a real chance that Robb might have survived and triumphed in the end, or his journey was just doomed from the moment that he was crowned King? I think that most people give way too much credit to Robb's marriage with Jeyne as the beginning of his downfall, but i believe that the Freys would've end up betraying him wheter he married one of them or not. What do you think that were his fatal flaws? There was something that he could've done that would actually give him a real chance of winning? What about Catelyn, could she have done anything to prevent her son's tragic fate?
(Sorry for any misspellings btw, English is not my first language)
No worries! I'm a monoglot, so anyone who speaks more than one language is already doing better than I am.
First, I want to direct you to @turtle-paced's excellent post here, discussing the author's thumb on the scale to bring down Robb Stark. I don't want to simply repeat all the points of that post, but to summarize in my own words, while Robb as a character definitely made mistakes, the author set up a considerable number of dominoes to be knocked over toward the downfall of Robb and the Stark cause during the War of the Five Kings.
Anyway, I do want to point out (since that post does not discuss it) what you bring up regarding Robb's marriage. Thankfully, GRRM has already spoken to this point:
We know that Roose Bolton had already taken Walda Frey to wife before Robb married Jeyne Westerling. Does this then mean that Walder Frey had already planned to ally himself with Bolton to murder Robb before Robbās marriage betrayal, or was his anger towards Robb and his reasoning towards his own family as to why Robb had to be killed more than just a pretext, and the genuine reason for the Red Wedding?
āWhat ifā questions are impossible to answer with any certainty ā¦ [sic] knowing old Lord Walderās character, it is likely he would have searched for some way to disentangle himself from a losing cause sooner or later, but his desertion would likely have taken a less savage form. The Red Wedding was motivated by his desire to wash out the dishonor that was done him ... [sic]
That "losing cause" is accurately outlined in "Arya X" ACOK:
Ser Harys Haigh, who was a Frey on his motherās side, nodded vigorously. āIf Lord Tywin could defeat a seasoned man like Stannis Baratheon, what chance will our boy king have against him?ā He looked round to his brothers and cousins for support, and several of them muttered agreement.
āSomeone must have the courage to say it,ā Ser Hosteen said. āThe war is lost. King Robb must be made to see that.ā
Roose Bolton studied him with pale eyes. āHis Grace has defeated the Lannisters every time he has faced them in battle.ā
āHe has lost the north,ā insisted Hosteen Frey. āHe has lost Winterfell! His brothers are dead ā¦ā
āHad Stannis won, all might have been different,ā Ronel Rivers said wistfully. He was one of Lord Walderās bastards.
āStannis lost,ā Ser Hosteen said bluntly. āWishing it were otherwise will not make it so. King Robb must make his peace with the Lannisters. He must put off his crown and bend the knee, little as he may like it.ā
Late- and post-ACOK Robb was a doomed Robb, no question about it, and this was primarily due to the fall of Winterfell and the defeat of Stannis at the Blackwater (though the critical military undermining of Robb at Duskendale was yet to happen, of course). It's not that marriage to Jeyne was a political boon, or even a political nonevent, for him - it provided the Freys a credible excuse to withdrawing support, and unknowingly gave Robb a mother-in-law actively working to ensure he could not father a child who could be used as a rallying point for Stark resistance in the future - but this was a cause Walder Frey was already trying to remove himself from before any new of the "dishonor" to the Twins reached Harrenhal, a cause that to Walder Frey and others looked lost.
