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A Sword Without a Hilt: A Song of Ice and Fire/D&D 3.5 Crossover

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You know, we don't threaten people anymore.

The last time we gave a speech about stacking a person's entire species up into a pyramid of skulls was when we made a truce with the Deep Ones.

These days we just show up unannounced. Almost like people know by now what to expect if they cross us...

You know who else doesn't have to explain themselves?

Asmodeus.
 
Crake said:
You know, we don't threaten people anymore.

The last time we gave a speech about stacking a person's entire species up into a pyramid of skulls was when we made a truce with the Deep Ones.

These days we just show up unannounced. Almost like people know by now what to expect if they cross us...

You know who else doesn't have to explain themselves?

Asmodeus.
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It's a shame we never did get around to that skull pyramid.
 
Crake said:
You know, we don't threaten people anymore.

The last time we gave a speech about stacking a person's entire species up into a pyramid of skulls was when we made a truce with the Deep Ones.

These days we just show up unannounced. Almost like people know by now what to expect if they cross us...

You know who else doesn't have to explain themselves?

Asmodeus.
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That's not quite true. We did have to threaten a bunch of people in Westeros tonight.

A few people even "called the bluff".
 
It's amazing how everyone is subscribing super powers to Barristan Selmy. That he single handedly could have done anything to change things. If he was going to crack to break his word it would have been when Aerys was burning people alive. Remember this is a man who's first King was Egg, someone worth the title.

This is a man that had no good options, do we like the options he picked, no. But we have no reason cruelty here unless we think he should have killed Aerys, and/or Rhaegar which would be pretty fucking hypocritical of us. Compared to Aerys at least Robert was only a absent king, and not and insane evil king.
 
lancelot said:
It's amazing how everyone is subscribing super powers to Barristan Selmy. That he single handedly could have done anything to change things. If he was going to crack to break his word it would have been when Aerys was burning people alive. Remember this is a man who's first King was Egg, someone worth the title.

This is a man that had no good options, do we like the options he picked, no. But we have no reason cruelty here unless we think he should have killed Aerys, and/or Rhaegar which would be pretty fucking hypocritical of us. Compared to Aerys at least Robert was only a absent king, and not and insane evil king.
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That's a nice strawman there.

Nobody here says he could have meaningfully changed things, or demands that he should have killed Aerys or Rheagar. But, you know, he placed his oath over the morality of his actions when he kept serving Aerys. But the moment that Aerys was losing the war, he suddenly noticed that his oath to protect the entire royal family and the rightful king, which was Rheagars son Aegon before the sack and Viserys after it, was not all that important.

There were certainly no good options for him, but someone allegedly moral and honorable, there sure is a startling tendency of his choices to have fallen wherever it was the most convenient for him personally at this time. And the optics get even worse when he kept shitting on Jaime in canon for having killed Aerys and thus having violated his oath, while he was still happily serving Robert. It's almost as if he didn't care about that oath at all, just that Jaime had brought dishonor on the Kingsguard and thus, by association, on him.
 
lancelot said:
It's amazing how everyone is subscribing super powers to Barristan Selmy. That he single handedly could have done anything to change things. If he was going to crack to break his word it would have been when Aerys was burning people alive. Remember this is a man who's first King was Egg, someone worth the title.

This is a man that had no good options, do we like the options he picked, no. But we have no reason cruelty here unless we think he should have killed Aerys, and/or Rhaegar which would be pretty fucking hypocritical of us. Compared to Aerys at least Robert was only a absent king, and not and insane evil king.
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Ultimately it boils down to this--what oaths does he value at all?

His oaths as a knight sworn to protect the innocent and the helpless?

Broken, when he stood guard for Aerys to beat and rape Rhaella, not to mention all the people Aerys burned alive in court.

His oaths as a Kingsguard sworn to protect his king and the Targaryen dynasty?

Broken, when he abandoned the last remaining Targaryens in favor of turning his cloak to serve Robert instead.

And here he comes waltzing in presenting his services as if they'd be welcomed. Why would Viserys or Daenerys see the value in his sword? They have far more loyal and dependable vassals. It'd be wildly out of character for them to be kind to him in light of this.

That said, nothing is stopping him from joining the Legion if he's actually determined to serve us somehow. He's just not getting any sort of special recognition.
 
Duesal said:
That said, nothing is stopping him from joining the Legion if he's actually determined to serve us somehow. He's just not getting any sort of special recognition.
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This is ignoring that Barristan has a sort of arrogant pride of his own. Being rejected by the most powerful ruler in the land after serving kings is something he's never actually had to cope with. From the age of ten, he was told that he was a standout example of his respective archetype, a notion continually reinforced by his own skills and accomplishments.

That Viserys finds no use for him, not even as someone who bears a sword and fights for him--and if we did, we would have offered him a Legion cloak--is particularly galling. It would have been an insulting offer, since a Knight like Barristan would think of paid professional soldiers as akin to their closest cultural contemporary--mercenaries (honorless, cut throats, turncloaks).

Rather than having more honor than him, since they all swear oaths to fight our enemies, which we openly admit include fiends and monsters. That's not a career you get into without being fairly loyal to your nation and leaders.

At the end of the day, the grand irony of Barristan Selmy is that he derives his own value through the lens of being regarded as useful to the person in charge of everyone else, no matter their morals or personal inclinations, and then masks all the wrongs he allows to happen in front of him and maintains his reputation by saying "because I am following my oaths, I'm really a good man inside".

Barristan justifies later on to himself and to Dany that he didn't choose to serve Viserys because (in hindsight apparently) he was too much like Aerys.

In this quest, @DragonParadox highlights that this was Viserys having a childlike admiration for his father, being a quite sheltered child without much information about what other perspectives are like. He was told his father was a good man, and believed it, yet after having to branch out and take the world on by himself, he definitely grew beyond telling himself pleasant lies and trying to convince people it was the truth, and instead much preferred to be honest even when it wasn't in his best interest.

Barristan couldn't have done much in this situation, even with the best approach of saying he served who he viewed as the likely winner, and did what he reasonably could to be loyal to whoever he served. It would have gotten him a big fat nothing sandwich, but we'd be a hypocrite to make a big deal out of such honesty.

But that would clash with his entire identity, revolving around him being an exemplar. Again, he was escorted by his own prison guards to meet with Viserys, showing that absolutely no one in his life has actually realized who he is, because he's got this delusional ability to project this false narrative overlaying what he's done and what he'll do and fabricate this alternate reality where he is a righteous and virtuous soul, fighting for a good cause.
 
[X] "I have lived this moment in my mind more than once, Ser Barristan. I wondered if it would be anger or disappointment I would feel foremost when it came. When I now meet that moment in the flesh, however, I just feel pity. Pity for the old world and all its horrors and failings, and pity for you who should find yourself at your closing chapter just as we turn the page again."
-[X] Gesture toward the door. "Go back home."
 
Crake said:
This is ignoring that Barristan has a sort of arrogant pride of his own. Being rejected by the most powerful ruler in the land after serving kings is something he's never actually had to cope with. From the age of ten, he was told that he was a standout example of his respective archetype, a notion continually reinforced by his own skills and accomplishments.

That Viserys finds no use for him, not even as someone who bears a sword and fights for him--and if we did, we would have offered him a Legion cloak--is particularly galling. It would have been an insulting offer, since a Knight like Barristan would think of paid professional soldiers as akin to their closest cultural contemporary--mercenaries (honorless, cut throats, turncloaks).

Rather than having more honor than him, since they all swear oaths to fight our enemies, which we openly admit include fiends and monsters. That's not a career you get into without being fairly loyal to your nation and leaders.

At the end of the day, the grand irony of Barristan Selmy is that he derives his own value through the lens of being regarded as useful to the person in charge of everyone else, no matter their morals or personal inclinations, and then masks all the wrongs he allows to happen in front of him and maintains his reputation by saying "because I am following my oaths, I'm really a good man inside".

Barristan justifies later on to himself and to Dany that he didn't choose to serve Viserys because (in hindsight apparently) he was too much like Aerys.

In this quest, @DragonParadox highlights that this was Viserys having a childlike admiration for his father, being a quite sheltered child without much information about what other perspectives are like. He was told his father was a good man, and believed it, yet after having to branch out and take the world on by himself, he definitely grew beyond telling himself pleasant lies and trying to convince people it was the truth, and instead much preferred to be honest even when it wasn't in his best interest.

Barristan couldn't have done much in this situation, even with the best approach of saying he served who he viewed as the likely winner, and did what he reasonably could to be loyal to whoever he served. It would have gotten him a big fat nothing sandwich, but we'd be a hypocrite to make a big deal out of such honesty.

But that would clash with his entire identity, revolving around him being an exemplar. Again, he was escorted by his own prison guards to meet with Viserys, showing that absolutely no one in his life has actually realized who he is, because he's got this delusional ability to project this false narrative overlaying what he's done and what he'll do and fabricate this alternate reality where he is a righteous and virtuous soul, fighting for a good cause.
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This really does make me wonder what Barristan will chose to do with himself. Will he go on another "journey of redemption" as a nameless hedge knight across the Imperium? Will he try (and fail) to join Waymar's griffin knights? Will he end up falling to his own despair and be fiend bait that we have to put down like a rabid dog?
 
Duesal said:
This really does make me wonder what Barristan will chose to do with himself. Will he go on another "journey of redemption" as a nameless hedge knight across the Imperium? Will he try (and fail) to join Waymar's griffin knights? Will he end up falling to his own despair and be fiend bait that we have to put down like a rabid dog?
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At the end of the day, Selmy is too high on himself, even at his most introspective, to allow other people to judge him. Maybe, maybe, having the judgement come out of Dany's mouth, as she does tend to have this effect, will make it sink in and be too hard to ignore, too pivotal to move past without confronting it head on.

But more than likely he will try to make something of himself, to prove he is better than we think he is, or if not for us, say if he chooses to reject our perspective as valid, then for the people who observe us having met Selmy, and turned him away without so much as exchanging more than five words with him.

I think he's got too strong a will to become fiend bait, and I think he's got too much pride to beg for a chance to prove himself.

So it's hard to say.
 
Am I the only one looking forward to an interlude with Jamie at the wall when all is said and done....

Edit. Yeah ok forgot he was killed.
 
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Crake said:
At the end of the day, Selmy is too high on himself, even at his most introspective, to allow other people to judge him. Maybe, maybe, having the judgement come out of Dany's mouth, as she does tend to have this effect, will make it sink in and be too hard to ignore, too pivotal to move past without confronting it head on.

But more than likely he will try to make something of himself, to prove he is better than we think he is, or if not for us, say if he chooses to reject our perspective as valid, then for the people who observe us having met Selmy, and turned him away without so much as exchanging more than five words with him.

I think he's got too strong a will to become fiend bait, and I think he's got too much pride to beg for a chance to prove himself.

So it's hard to say.
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The legion is one place where a man can rise high. Selmy, for all the shit we give him, is still a high level fighter. He would rise higher than most in the Legion. Hell he could probably buy a reincarnate or some other thing to make himself younger to really play it out
 
One Autumn Leaf said:
The legion is one place where a man can rise high. Selmy, for all the shit we give him, is still a high level fighter. He would rise higher than most in the Legion. Hell he could probably buy a reincarnate or some other thing to make himself younger to really play it out
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You're right that Barristan is a skilled PC, but Crake has an excellent point nonetheless that Barristan would never lower himself to serving alongside commoners, sellswords, cutthroats, etc. Commanding them, maybe. Them being his nominal peers? Hell no. His pride would never allow it.
 
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