Supreme Court of Westeros, ruling 130

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Welcome to the Supreme Court of Westeros! Every week, three pressing questions from the community will be answered by the esteemed judges Stefan (from your very own Nerdstream Era) and Amin (from A Podcast of Ice and Fire). The rules are simple: we take three questions, and one of us writes a measured analysis. The other one writes a shorter opinion, either concurring or dissenting. The catch is that every week a third judge from the fandom will join us and also write a dissenting or concurring opinion. So if you think you're up to the task - write us an email to stefan_sasse@gmx.de, leave a comment in the post, ask in the APOIAF-forum or contact Amin at his tumblr. Discussion is by no means limited to the court itself, though - feel free to discuss our rulings in the commentary section and ask your own questions through the channels above.

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And now, up to ruling 130! Our guest judge this week is David Getty, who runs his own Game of Thrones inspired site A Game of Thrones Guide. You can also follow him on Twitter.  

What if Joffrey had been nice? 

 Main Opinion: Stefan

He certainly would be alive today and happily married to Sansa. Without him being the prat he is, he doesn’t dash all of Sansa’s illusions, keeping the marriage much more feasible. He also doesn’t kill Ned Stark, who is instead allowed to take the black, and we covered the consequences of that already. Even if he still disowns Sansa out of political expedience later, he doesn’t give Margaery’s grandma any rationale to kill him. The people of King’s Landing don’t hate him, which blunts much of the impact of the Sparrows. He might even curtail his mother in a more efficient way, making use of her the same way Mace Tyrell uses his mother. Tyrion doesn’t get maimed because he’s never sent to King’s Landing in the first place, instead remaining with his father, most likely dying at some point. This also allows Stannis to really crush our nice version of Joffrey, by the way, and take the throne from the Lannisters. Joffrey’s cruelty really comes full circle, come to think of it.

Dissenting Opinion: Amin

While I agree with much of the outline portrayed by Justice Stefan, I fundamentally disagree with the conclusions, which is really what matters for this question. Sparing Ned allows Tywin to make a deal with him and the North to keep the Starks out of the war, because Ned will keep his word and use his moral and fatherly authority to make Robb stay out of it (making things go a lot better for the North and Wall storyines). If the Starks are out of the war, then the Tullys are forced to make peace as well or at least Tywin is not forced to try and go West again. That allows Tywin to focus on Stannis and Renly. Assuming Renly dies the same way and the Tyrells come to the Lannisters, then there is no reason for King’s Landing to be underdefended or for Stannis to attack KL in the same way. Stannis presumably knows that he faces a greater challenge on the mainland, so we get an interesting showdown between Tywin and Stannis, and rematch of Tarly vs Stannis from what happened at Storm’s End. Stannis has less numbers and the odds are against him for a win unless Dorne gets involved. Then you have Aegon potentially heading over with Dany (Tyrion not there to mess things up), so a big showdown in the South, with Dany being the one most likely to take Joffrey out, if anyone.

Concurring Opinion: David Getty

This is a fascinating question to contemplate, simply because Joffrey’s cruelty is the fuel for so many key points in the series. Going off of Steffan’s points; If Ned never dies, and is rather sent to the Wall, who knows how this might have affected Jon’s own personal developmental growth. Jon might have not become the Lord Commander, if he is kept under the parental wing of Ned at the Wall. Joffrey would have married Sansa, and subsequently Lady wouldn’t have ever died. Also Nymeria wouldn’t have had to flee, and Arya would most likely have stayed in Kings Landing with Sansa. Without Tyrion’s military expertise, Stannis would easily win the battle of Kings Landing. And thus take the Iron Throne from the Lannisters. With Stannis sitting the Iron Throne, he would most likely pardon Ned Stark because he knows the acquisitions Ned made to be true. Also Theon never takes Winterfell, because Rob most likely never goes to war because Joffrey never sends an assassin to kill the unconscious Bran. The effect that a nice Joffrey has in the series changes almost everything. You could push this theory so far as to say that Robert would not become a ragging alcoholic because he would like his “son” more, and therefor Robert may still even be alive. 

Final Verdict: Joffrey being nice would have far-reaching consequences. 

Did Baelor Breakspear die by accident at the hand of Maekar, or was something else going on?

Main Opinion: Stefan

Where do these ideas come from? I don’t get it. What should have been going on? Maekar gave out the blow, he admitted as much, and he certainly didn’t intend to kill his brother. The Trial was an unforseeable event, so who would have engineered anything like that? Sometimes an accidental kinslaying is just an accidental kinslaying.

Concurring Opinion: Amin

Maekar killed him by accident, while he was struggling to get to his fallen son. He admits it to himself when talking to Dunk and is bitter that people might take it the other way.

Concurring Opinion: David Getty

This is an absolute ludicrous question. There is not a single possibility that Maeker intentionally killed Baelor during the trial. First of all if there had been any “Littlefinger” like players who might have wanted to kill Baelor, there wasn't adequate time to plan all of this from happening. I simply do not believe that there was enough time for them to have foreseen this trial by combat being a possibility. The death of Baelor Breakspear is simply what it is, an accident. We must remember that Martin depicts these type of deaths over and over again through the ASOIAF series. Even the most noble and honorable people are not above sheer happenstance. 

Final Verdict: No. No. No. 

Martin already began writing ASOIAF at the start of the 90s. What is the most notable difference between his ASOIAF writing style then and now?

Main Opinion: Stefan

That’s a hard one. There are some content issues he resolved (like Tyrion’s acrobatic skills and the direwolves hating him), but that’s not necessarily a question of style. In my eyes, the most notable evolvement is in his development of themes that permiate the later novels, especially Feastdance, but other than that, I don’t see really big differences.

Concurring Opinion: Amin

Justice Stefan has pointed out some of the content changes, but as he noted, style is difficult to say. I don’t think much has changed because while the series has taken a long time, Martin was already in his mid to late 40s when he started writing the series, after 20 years of already being an established writer. I think a person’s writing style, along with many other things, is pretty established once they reach that age. If there is a noted difference, it would be between the first three books, which were all written in a quick time scale (though Game of Thrones actually took a while due to other work), and the last two which took far longer. The main difference is that the last two books are far more into worldbuilding. Part of this was to be expected in the middle of any large series, but part of it was also due to the fact that GRRM never had quite this level of financial success before, which has allowed him to take as much time as he wants at least in terms of financial pressure (though he still faces pressure from his fans and publishers).

Concurring Opinion: David Getty

This is a difficult question to answer. I think the main thing that has changed in Martin’s writing style is that the scope of ASOIAF has grown since A Game of Thrones. We’ve seen the amount of POV characters, and the history of the world expanded so far as the books have gone on. Game of Thrones started with 8 POV character’s all of whom were relatively close (with the exception of Dany). And now we have seen these POV characters scattered all across Westeros and Essos. We’ve also seen History books written, like The World of Ice and Fire. I think the story Martin had in mind has grown exponentially since he first started writing the series. Originally Martin planned to have the series be a trilogy, and as the time has gone on the series is now planned to be seven books in total. We need to remember that Martin had originally planned to contain a major time jump. 

Final Verdict: More in structuring, less in style.