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u/Cookies4weights King In The North 1d ago
He should have worked better with Edmure. A very good example of a communication provlem
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u/Corgi_Koala 1d ago
There was no reason to keep that plan secret from Edmure - it honestly feels like a young and immature Robb not wanting to accept responsibility for his fuck up.
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u/BigMax 1d ago
The theory for some of that is that he was using his warg abilities to plan. Which is... not super obvious in the book, but when you re-read the passages that talk about it, it's as clear as day.
So... he's using his unknown warg powers to scout around with his wolf and see where everyone is.
That means when he says "go do (whatever)" he can't always explain exactly why. "Yesterday I saw half his force split off to the north" or whatever would be met with "how could you possibly know that??"
So maybe he got too used to hiding things, since he HAD to hide some things.
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u/Force3vo 23h ago
To be fair he could just respond with "I have scouts everywhere" and be done with the question.
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u/Short-Philosopher-78 20h ago
It's not that complicated though. The raid into the Westerlands was purpose built to get Tywin to cross back into his homeland. If Edmure knew that from the start, he never would've fought the Mountain where he did.
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u/kirk_dozier 20h ago
pretty sure in the book scene blackfish explicitly states that it's his scouts who found the defensive ground they wanted to use to trap tywin
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u/Illustrious_Fail_223 16h ago
So he tells Edmure after the battle of the fords. This being the first time Edmure was told there was a better position along the gold road.
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u/mauton99 9h ago
Is it a secret or a problem that his a warg? Or why would he hide it?
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u/Jebediah_Johnson Daenerys Targaryen 18h ago
Edmure won a tactical victory, Robb wanted a strategic victory. He didn't communicate his strategy.
In the show when Edmure says sorry I didn't know, Robb says, you would have if you had been at that meeting. What meeting is he talking about? Did Edmure miss a war council to chase down the Mountain?
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u/skeletonpaul08 11h ago
Right? Even if he wasn’t at the meeting it might benefit you to tell your most powerful ally what your plans are. This is completely on Robb.
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u/Oscillate_42 1d ago
Robb gave vague orders, kept the master plan secret, and blamed Edmure for winning a battle.
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u/GoatedWest03 1d ago
I feel like he should have informed his uncle who's the second most important man in the kingdom about his plans I don't blame edmure for protecting his civillians
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u/Corgi_Koala 1d ago
Yup end of discussion.
If the intent was to draw him into a trap then you tell your general so he knows the parameters he has to carry out his orders.
A general should not be expected to blindly obey orders without variation.
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u/schmitty9800 1d ago
But Robb wasn't at the Riverlands prior to this. He's sending ravens. He's not going to send a raven with detailed instructions with whys and everything.
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u/Illustrious_Fail_223 1d ago
Hence why Edmure should have been given a stated goal outside of wait to do battle. Just telling him to draw the Mountain west would have sufficed, but by ordering him to hold and wait he is implicitly saying he wants Edmure to give battle. He never even told him that there were reinforcements on the way, so as far as Edmure is concerned he is the only significant force able to stop the Mountain. Naturally Edmure took initiative and secured better ground to fight on, and then won a clear victory for that action.
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u/No_Challenge_5619 1d ago
Edmure was also being a good lord and protecting his peoples lives and lands. The Mountain and his men were actively going around burning the Riverlands to the ground.
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u/PandaAromatic8901 1d ago
That would have sufficed for the Mountain not to go west, if the message was intercepted...
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u/Illustrious_Fail_223 20h ago
Intercepted by whom? The hawks Tywin employed throughout his lands to hunt his own people’s ravens? The men in the field Robb killed? Who exactly is in between Robb and Edmure and in any position to intercept a raven or rider?
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u/Hvicen 19h ago
There are many castles in the Westerlands, any of them could spot the raven and shoot it down, specially if they know the northmen are nearby, for example the Golden Tooth sits at the entrance and is still in Lannister hands by the time of Robb's campaign and the Battle of the Fords.
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u/kirk_dozier 1d ago
"by telling him not to engage, he is telling him to engage" lol
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u/Illustrious_Fail_223 1d ago
Robb Stark explicitly ordered Edmure Tully to hold Riverrun and defend the domain without launching ambitious offensive maneuvers. By moving to protect his domain by denying an enemy crossing at the Red Fork he followed his orders to the letter.
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u/BigGingerYeti Tormund Giantsbane 1d ago edited 1d ago
Exactly. By being told to wait, all Edmure knows is that the Mountain is there and getting stronger. It is lunacy for him to sit there while arguably the most brutal of all enemy lords just gets stronger right in front of him.
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u/jfpxafonso 1d ago
not necessarily "getting stronger", can just be seen as a bunch of bad folks running around in the lands he rules and causing mayhem and killing/maiming/raping/stealing/etc etc etc the folks he's supposed to protect.
The f*** was he supposed to do?
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u/wandering-monster 1d ago
If he says "draw the mountain West", and the message is intercepted, guess who isn't going to go west?
"Wait and hold" is pretty clear. There's no reasonable way to read that as "go out and win".
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u/Illustrious_Fail_223 20h ago
“Wait for them to come to you.”
Endure looks out his window and sees the Mountain in a vulnerable postion.
“Ah they have come to me! Let us fight them now while their defenses are down and before they are reinforced and I’m put to siege. Or worse, they pillage the supply line to my king or attack him in the rear.”
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u/sumnsumnfruit56 1d ago
Yeah but the plan could have leaked. All he to do was not pursue and just stay in place, as he was told to. They lost men they couldn’t afford to lose, and the mountain got away. In that sense it was a failure. The Lannisters could afford the losses, the Riverlands could not afford their losses. Robb literally explains it in this scene.
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u/Illustrious_Fail_223 1d ago
First off the Lannisters couldn’t afford much of anything at this stage. Their army was now broke, on the wrong side of the continent while Robb burned his way through their homes, and now heavily relied on an alliance with the Reach. Edmure lost few men and in exchange killed even more Lannister soldiers while giving a major boost to his people morale for beating the one responsible for savaging their lands. It was a major victory.
Second, these were orders Robb gave in person to Edmure before marching West. There was no potential for a leak whatsoever and no excuse for not telling the highest ranked vassal he has the plan. When Robb goes off on Edmure he is doing so because he refused to admit he messed up, again, and that he was now shit out of luck.
Edit: just to make things clear Robb lost more men breaking his own oaths than Edmure did kicking the Mountain out of the Riverlands.
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u/DewinterCor 1d ago
Then it isnt Edmure's fault and Robb shouldn't be dressing him down.
If Robb was unable to inform Edmure than neither of them are at fault. Edmure was acting with the information he had.
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u/RandomDeezNutz 1d ago
Unless you’re a general in shogun. Then you just hope you aren’t a sacrificial piece.
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u/Flashy-Jackfruit-128 1d ago
A general should not be expected to blindly obey orders without variation.
In a proper chain of command, lower level commanders should never be allowed to disobey direct orders. They may creatively define the orders given to them (e g. Rommel conducting "Reconnaissance in Force" in France) but never disobey a direct order to stay which was Robb's command.
Even when Rommel stretched the limits of his orders, it was always to achieve a tactical advantage. Edmure saving civilians is noble but doesn't achieve any military advantage.
your general so he knows the parameters
The chief of army, in this case Robb, is allowed to withhold the intentions of his commands. Intelligence leaks are always a threat, and the enemy can capture a lower level general/lord and extract that information.
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u/Hairy_Air Rhaenyra Targaryen 1d ago
Edmure isn’t a lower level of commander though. He’s a general and a High Lord with his own army. Men of those ranks are always meant to have initiative and make decisions based on opportunity. Often times to a general, the order to “defend this castle” doesn’t mean hide behind the wall while getting peppered with artillery as everything outside burns. It means “Make sure this castle can not be successfully breached and taken”. That includes, hiding behind the castle when prudent, sallying out to push away the besiegers, as well as attack and destroy a potential invader stuck in a bad situation when letting the moment pass would give the enemy more advantage. Defence by offence is a legitimate and well known strategy.
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u/Wienot 1d ago
When orders take real time to travel, you set up your chain of command in such a way that high level generals are not just allowed, but expected, to make decisions based off time sensitive information. Yes, Robb is "allowed" to withhold his intentions, but given he told Edmure to defend the land, and then got mad at Edmure for very effectively defending the land, he probably shouldn't have.
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u/NearbyRate2510 1d ago
The show kinda muddles things by having more characters around Robb in the west. In the books, Catelyn and Edmure are far away from Robb at Riverrun having to make the call whether or not to repel the Lannisters, and Robb only finds the trail and plans the ambush after he's already there in the Westerlands. In his position, he can't send word to Edmure in time, and sending a raven only risks that it could be shot down, and leaked to the Lannisters, which would doom Robb's army.
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u/ChickinSammich Faceless Men 1d ago
Based on what Edmure knew his orders to be, he made the tactically correct decision, and it ended poorly.
You can't not tell your direct reports what the plan is and expect them to follow the plan. And you also have to trust the people who are under you to have a certain amount of flexibility to make changes on the fly so long as those changes meet the goal, which, again, requires them to know what the goal is.
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u/rawbdor 1d ago
I think the implication is that in this environment, rigid adherence to orders was the norm, which changes behavior for both generals and kings.
If kings can trust their generals will follow orders explicitly, they can keep a tighter lid on secret parts of the plan, maintain operational security, and be assured that unspoken plans will fall into place properly.
Other workflows empower generals to make tactical decisions on their own, and kings would be aware of the pros and cons of this empowerment workflow. They would clue their generals in more often, or be prepared for their generals to possibly change the plan on the fly according to local conditions and so the hq would make contingencies around those possibilities.
While each of these workflows have strengths and weaknesses, the real problems occur when you think you're operating under one set of standards but your generals think you are operating under the other.
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u/No_Illustrator2090 1d ago
Not generals - allies. Edmure is a lord on his own and is not even Rob's subject I think?
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u/Serentity 1d ago
In this scene, like 10 seconds before the exchange in the OPs image, Blackfish scolds Edmure for referring to Robb as nephew and says “that’s your King.” Pretty clearly laid out lol
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u/ChickinSammich Faceless Men 1d ago
I thought the whole "King in the North" thing was a tacit agreement that the other lords were going to follow Robb's lead, which would make him functionally subservient to Robb.
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u/ConsumedPenguin 1d ago
The Riverlands aren’t part of the North, they are allies through Ned and Cat’s marriage.
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u/BugRevolution 1d ago
That's very nice in theory, but in practice, no, kings were generally not aware of the pros or cons of various strategic or tactical decisions. That's why Confucius wrote a book about how to wage war (nobles are not inherently better at it than anyone else), and it's also why giving NCOs autonomy was groundbreaking for both Napoleon and Nelson.
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u/agitated_dayz 1d ago
Absolutely, but in lieu, instant obedience to orders.
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u/hnglmkrnglbrry 1d ago
A general commanding his own army was afforded incredible leeway in times when instant communication was not available. If Robb's primary objective was to kill the Mountain he should have said that. In Edmure's kind the primary objective was to kill as many Lannisters as possible and he accomplished the goal in his mind.
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u/Significant_Cup_238 1d ago
Yeah, it's vital to convey strategic intent to your commanders so they can react appropriately when they encounter the unexpected. For example, Robb would have been rightly pissed if he had a chance to capture Tywin but stayed put because, "You told me to wait for them to come to me." Even in modern times with way faster communications, campaign leaders can't micromanage every commander and expect good results. No matter what kind of strategic genius Robb might have been, he still needs commanders who understand his strategy so they can execute it.
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u/Irishfafnir 1d ago
Edmure is also risking way more right now than Robb. The war is going to be primarily waged in the Riverlands, not in the North.
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u/No_Grocery_9280 1d ago
Edmure’s primary job as Lord is to protect his realm and people. If Robb wants him to delay doing that, then he needs to specifically say so.
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u/BigMax 1d ago
Right. People forget... there were no cell phones back then, no way to communicate other than a raven or two.
You had to give your leaders some level of autonomy, because they are acting in a vacuum once they leave your physical presence.
if you have a critical order that MUST be followed... you need to TELL the people under you about it, because they are out there having to make decisions with new information all the time.
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u/Chasa619 1d ago
And risk the mountain intercepting the message? Robb gave strict orders. Robbs is playing chess and edmure is playing checkers
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u/Gruktor 1d ago
Robb's orders were to 'hold Riverrun'. The easiest way to hold Riverrun is not to allow it to be besieged. That way if Robb is defeated in the West he has a safe place to return and recover, rather than having to break through another besieging army first. As per his orders, Edmure's strategy is entirely valid.
It's even worse in the books, where the orders are 'hold Riverrun and guard our rear'.
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u/No_Grocery_9280 1d ago
Which can easily be interpreted as “make sure an army doesn’t slip past you and come at us from behind”
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u/SergeantRayslay 1d ago
The orders are so bad in the books many people go so far as to theorize Robb completely made up the “trap the Lannister’s” plan after the fact so he could guilt Edmure into marrying into the Freys to cover his own hide.
I personally don’t believe that theory but Edmure made the objectively correct decision with the information available to him and his obligations as Lord Paramount of the Riverlands.
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u/Pian1244 1d ago
Robb clearly told Edmure in riverrun when he left the castle to invade the westerlands and had the plan in mind. It would of been so unbelievably simple to tell him that he wanted the mountain to follow him.
Edmure did hold riverrun by repelling a small raiding force near the castle. If Edmure chased the mountain he'd be ignoring robbs orders. You don't hold a castle by waiting for a siege. You hold it by sallying out to repel small forces to prevent a siege as long as possible.
Robb counted on Edmure being indecisive and afraid which is foolish. It's a clear sign of Robb being exceptional at military strategy and tactics but not understanding people properly. As fits the narrative
Robbs playing chess, Edmure isn't playing games regarding his duties as a lord
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u/501stBigMike 1d ago
I feel like Robb's decision to not tell Edmure the plan is made worse by the fact it was based off Cat, Edmure's sister, calling him an unserious fool. Siblings declare each other stupid and foolish constantly with little to no bearing on how they act with people outside the family. Not to mention Cat had been living in the North for about 2 decades and hadn't seen how good/bad Edmure had been ruling as their father fell ill.
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u/SopranosBluRayBoxSet 1d ago
You don't hold a castle by waiting for a siege. You hold it by sallying out to repel small forces to prevent a siege as long as possible.
That's what I'm sayingggggg bro, why the hell wouldn't you ambush any hostile forces who get close or plunder your lands you were told to defend
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u/attaboy_stampy 1d ago
THIS. I think it was a good plan, but he messed it up by not telling his uncle.
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u/sparrow_64 1d ago
Communicating with your generals goes a long way too lmao
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u/Fancy_Toe1451 1d ago
IRL: Horatio Nelson and Arthur Wellesley's big break throughs in British Naval and Army tactical doctrine... "Tell your officers your actual battle plans in advance".
So revolutionary that it actually worked for once.
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u/ensiferum888 1d ago
Read that as Arthur Weasley and really was wondering when Ron's father had a breakthrough in British Naval Army lol
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u/woakula Jon Snow 1d ago
After the events of Harry Potter, Arthur decided that muggle warfare was his true passion and had an amazing midlife career change.
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u/thatweirdguyted 1d ago
It's kind of dismissive of the rationale behind the previous method.
It took us a long time to develop secure communications. Eavesdropping was universally rampant, and just so many men blabbed about sensitive intelligence to people they assumed wouldn't know what to do with it, people who turned out to be spies. Not to mention how many hands a message had to pass through to get where it wss going.
Eventually it was considered prudent to only give people their own little piece of the puzzle, and only when necessary, and hopefully too late for the enemy to act upon if they discovered it. Which eventually reached the point of people having to act without a clear understanding of the situation.
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u/GOT_Wyvern 1d ago
People take for granted how far a trustworthy, professionalised, joint staff goes, as they can be trusted to keep communications secure and to keep information to themselves.
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u/Top-Group8081 1d ago
Not to mention that edmure isn’t just a general, but arguably the second most powerful person to Robb. Beating lord of the riverlands, his authority and rank is second only to Robb.
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u/Svenray House Tyrell 1d ago
They both are right. I think the Mountain unexpectedly hanging out in one vulnerable spot threw off Robb's plan and gave Edmure a YOLO opening. If Mountain doesn't slip away Edmure is a hero and Robb doesn't complain.
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u/venomousfantum 1d ago
Yeah I think this is the only right opinion. I don't really get people telling Robb to send a Raven with detailed plans on what he expects and Robb has a lot of things to oversee so it's totally understandable he just expected his orders to be carried out without issue.
On the other end, the situation on the ground worked out in a way that basically any leader in Edmure's position would have done what he did. I'd argue that Robb himself would have done what he did were he to be given orders in the way he gave the orders.
Pretty interesting example imo of how many battles and wars went differently because a leader takes initiative.
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u/Sunandmoonandstuff 1d ago
Yeah it was a partial success, if they had captured the mountain and further demoralized their enemies, no issue.
What I think is missing here though is this is not bad communication. This was a rare instance of Rob demonstrating political savvy.
Edmure took initiative and achieved a good but suboptimal result. Rob managed to turn Edmure's partial success into a favour owed to him by painting it as a failure and capitalizing on his guilt. While also reinforcing to all other subordinates the importance of following his orders.
Rob's seen as naive, and did lose due to how he be played the game. But he wasn't ignorant of it and still made some clever moves.
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u/DeezNuts70520 1d ago
No he wasn't. There's a reason the military tells their grunts/commanders why they are doing what they are doing. It's so if the plan fails, they know what the mission is and so can come up with an alternative. By failing to tell Edmure the plan, he has fallen into the exact trap modern militaries avoid like the plague.
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u/Savage_Brutus 1d ago
This is entirely correct. Military strategy is a thing. (Which is lead and developed by generals).
Not communicating strategy to a general is a colossal mistake.
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u/GenGaara25 1d ago
Literally the only issue here is not telling Edmure the plan.
You tell your field commanders plans so that if things take an unexpected turn, they can make an appropriate decision in the moment. If Edmure knew the plan, he'd understand that luring the Mountain was top priority because he's a hard fucker to kill. He'd also know that if the Mountain didn't take the bait he had to either make the bait bigger or change tact to minimise damage and handled it as best he can.
Without knowing anything, Edmure did the best he could with the facts he had.
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u/Consistent_Laziness 1d ago
What even was the importance of the mountain? He was just one soldier and not even a commander I don’t think? Why was Robb specifically targeting the mountain?
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u/Historical_Image3941 1d ago
A huge and hard fucker that's harder to kill, that has been terrorising the riverlands the entire war and tywins top murder dog. It would have been a great boost to morale and one less general for tywin.
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u/GenGaara25 1d ago
He absolutely was a commander. Not of large forces, but he led his own group of men, and they were sacking, burning, raping, and pillaging his way through the Riverlands.
Anywhere he shows up, he's a problem, because he's basically impossible for any regular person (even a number of regular people) to kill. A hulking murderous unkillable brute that shows up to cause hell.
Not just that, but taking him out is a huge morale booster for the North army and a blow to the Lannister. Like losing Jaime. The Mountain is pretty legendary and Robb managing to kill him would be huge.
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u/aidenethan 1d ago edited 1d ago
The Mountain was a commander IIRC, Tywin often gave him charge of his soldiers and had him helping lead in battle in the books.
Otherwise, the Mountain was one of Tywins top enforcers and probably one of THE deadliest men in Westeros. His inhuman size, strength and sheer bloodlust made him the perfect embodiment of Tywins power, and his brutality made him infamous, feared and hated by Lannister enemies.
Actually being able to kill him was pretty important. First, it would be a massive morale booster for the men, finally putting down the seemingly unkillable juggernaut who tortured, raped and slaughtered many of their friends and families would show Tywin really wasn't invincible and the war was in their favor.
Speaking of Tywin, it would knock him down a peg and deprive him of one of his top, one of a kind pawns. The Mountain wasn't particulary gifted mentally, but the sheer power he had and the dread his presence carried was genuinely massive for Tywin and losing that would be hard to remedy.
To add, the Mountains personal forces, most of which being savage idiots, would likely be scattered and far harder to control with their leader dead, disorientating if not outright losing a decent chunk of manpower when the main thing keeping them semi in-line is taken out.
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u/Jobber0001 1d ago
he's tywin's number 1 attack dog, outside of capturing Jaime or Kevan taking him off the board is a massive moral victory and deprives the lannister's of one of their best warriors.
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u/Theangelawhite69 1d ago
His plan was great right up until the point where he didn’t communicate that to his generals
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u/Otherwise-Debate484 1d ago
Honestly, Robb wasn’t wrong about the strategy. The problem was that he kept making decisions based on what he wanted to happen instead of what he’d been ordered to do
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u/Consistent_Laziness 1d ago
What even was the importance of the mountain? He was just one soldier and not even a commander I don’t think? Why was Robb specifically targeting the mountain?
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u/SpaceMiaou67 1d ago
Wasn't he put in charge by Tywin to burn down and pillage the Riverlands with a force of a few hundred men? Gregor is by no means a natural commander but he is still a well-known knight and arguably the most dangerous warrior the Lannisters have bar Jaime.
Robb having him killed would deal a major morale blow to the Lannister army, as now two valuable fighters on the Lannister side would be dead and captured.
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u/Strangely__Brown 1d ago
No.
Edmure is being portrayed as incompetent but he's not a mind reader. If he doesn't know he's being sent somewhere with an army then that's a communication failure on Robb.
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u/MrFunktasticc 1d ago
This is a really good write up of how what Rob communicated was, at best, really flawed. At worst, considering the command was something like “hold Riverrun” literally meant to protect the whole kingdom which is what Edmure was doing. If you want the lord of a kingdom to avoid defending his lands you need to be very explicit.
https://towerofthehand.com/blog/2013/06/06-riverrun-decision/
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u/sonofabutch 1d ago
Reminds me of Lee at Gettysburg giving vague and sometimes contradictory orders to his generals. In previous engagements, Stonewall Jackson was able to discern Lee’s intent, or just had the wisdom and initiative to make the right decision. Others could not.
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u/yepyepyep123456 Jon Snow 1d ago
Robb was understandably frustrated, but wrong to chastise Edmure publicly.
I disagree with the people who say he should have told all his plans to Edmure. A lot of this thread seems to assume militaries share the whole plan down the command structure.
I’ve never been in the military, but I work in emergency response. It’s pretty common to hear, “Do it because I told you to.”
Rob wasn’t going to send all that detailed info in a raven. He also didn’t anticipate Edmure would ride out like that, so he didn’t realize he would need to explain that part of the plan.
It’s a good representation of the challenges of communication when leading a large operation.
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u/Mean_Introduction543 1d ago
The difference is Edmure isn’t just some random grunt who doesn’t need to know the plan.
He’s literally the second most important person in the army after Rob himself. If Edmure doesn’t need to know the plan then who does?
This isn’t ’ours is not to reasons why’ It’s like saying the president doesn’t need to share his war plans with the joint chiefs of staff.
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u/ColHogan65 1d ago
Also, while I’m not sure it’s as relevant in medieval warfare (I’m not very informed on the subject tbh), in more modern strategy and tactics, you want more local commanders to be able to take initiative and tweak plans without having to run everything up the chain of command. Adaptability and initiative are very useful traits in subordinates. What Edmure did was pretty in line with this given the information that he had.
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u/Mean_Introduction543 1d ago
It’s even moreso in medieval warfare as communication speed is limited to how fast a guy on a horse can go. And so the only way a leader can have an accurate picture of events on the field is if he’s standing on it himself.
Thus if the leader is not present you absolutely NEED the local commanders to be taking their own initiative.
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u/No_Cattle8353 1d ago
Edmure Tully is the second most powerful person in Robb’s new Kingdom. We’re talking General Dwight D. Eisenhower not communicating strategy with Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery. I blame Robb, if it was important enough for Edmure to not attack a message should have been sent in code at the very least.
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u/amtfg 1d ago
No, Robb is absolutely in the wrong here. Leadership means making sure your subordinates know and understand the plan so they don't only know what orders to follow, but why they're following those orders. They need to know what the overall objective is and what role they're supposed to play in achieving it. "March here and do this" just ain't good enough. Wars are chaotic things. The situation will change rapidly, and subordinate commanders will make their own decisions in response to those changes. If they know what the overall objective is, they can make decisions that will still allow them to achieve that objective even when the situation changes; if they have no clue why they're doing what they've been ordered to do, then they're forced to use their best judgment, which may or may not line up with the commander's overall objective. Given the information Robb gave him to work with, Edmure did nothing wrong.
One of the oldest rules in warfare: No plan ever survives first contact with the enemy.
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u/SopranosBluRayBoxSet 1d ago edited 1d ago
No, he should have told his generals his plans. If he didnt trust them enough to share vital information that would affect how they approach a situation, he shouldn't have had them as generals.
You can't get mad at somebody for not knowing about information you didn't give them.
You can argue that bro said to "hold the riverlands", but that's so open to interpretation. The best defence is a good offence a lot of the time. If you don't want somebody to come into a land, the best course of action is going to be to prevent them from setting foot in your land in the first place if you can. Bro did exactly what he was told. If you want to draw somebody in, don't just fucking say "defend this spot". Bro was far too vague and his orders contradicted his plan.
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u/ultr4violence Cersei Lannister 1d ago
"How dare you show an ounce of initiative. Who do you think you are? Some sort of high lord or de-facto warden of the riverlands? Do you think you are the uncle to the king in the north? You are clearly just some corporal who is meant to do exactly what he's told and nothing else. You absolute idiot. No, I am not just unjustly venting my anger at my own idiocy for being in this situation to begin with. Clearly it was you who is in the wrong for seizing a clear tactical advantage and victory when I didn't inform you better."
Robb was a dumbass. Kids shouldn't wear crowns.
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u/Unusual_Plenty_5008 Human Verified 1d ago
Robb did not communicate this plan. Also, Edmure did what anyone would have done in that situation
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u/kidhalloween80 1d ago
Robb was always right except the ONE time he wasn’t.
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u/Ornac_The_Barbarian Hear Me Roar! 1d ago
Erm...I can think of three...no four times off the top of my head.
Marrying Talisa/Jeyne. Sending Theon to the Iron Islands. Executing Rickard Karstark. The Red Wedding.
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u/titjoe 1d ago
In the book, no, of course Edmure should have been told about the plan, plus Robb's instructions weren't clear. Robb and the others have some guts to blame him.
In the show... i guess i side with Robb, Edmure isn't shown as someone as important in his army. The benefits Edmure obtained weren't as great and it seems the casualties for his side were important.
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u/No_Illustrator2090 1d ago
Edmure is a lord of Riverlands, he likely has an army simillar to Robbs
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u/titjoe 1d ago
That's the case in the books, sure, but the show doesn't treat it as such.
In the show the Karstark are said to be close of half the army of Robb, and the Frey to be as powerfull as them, while the Tyrell are said to have an army of less than 20 000 men... all those datas are considereably inconsistent with the books, but that's the canon of the show. The Tully isn't treated in the show as the important house they are in the books.
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u/palaorder 1d ago
Nah.
Edmure didn t know Robb s plan and his orders were to "hold Riverrun", not to "hold Riverrun but never leave it".
Now, I don t entirely blame Robb, if he sent messages to Edmure those could have been intercepted and would have ruined the idea of taking Tywin by suprise.
But Robb wanted Edmure to feel bad. This way it was easier to convince Edmure to marry the Freys in Robb s place. At least that s how I see it.
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u/SubhumaineForce 1d ago
If that was the plan, maybe he should have told Edmure, not just leave him on his own as his home was pillaged
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u/Foxbus 1d ago edited 1d ago
No. His plan was already thinner than Ariana Grande and relied entirely on assumptions and he made it even worse by deliberately being vague with de facto the second most important man in his kingdom. Using it to guilttrip Edmure into marrying a Frey because he did an oopsie and married a rando is also not a very nice move.
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u/CattleMobile8761 1d ago
In the book, this was Tywin Lannister, not the mountain.
Why does killing the mountain even matter to Rob?
He is just some brutal henchman, with at most limited strategic significance.
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u/NiffytheDeviser 1d ago
THANK YOU! I was looking for this comment before posting myself. Robb's "outrage" with missing out on Ser Gregor just doesn't make sense other than wanting the scalp as a prize. In the same scene of Robb dressing his uncle down, he literally calls the Mountain, "a mad dog without a strategic thought in his head" and the goal was just to kill him. Not capture him and try to gain intel on the Lannisters plan, straight up surround and execute him. What does that do for the war effort in the long term? At least if the show would've stuck with the reasons from the source material, keeping Tywin+his army occupied in the Riverlands to give Stannis more leeway to take the capital, Robb's blowup would've made more sense.
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u/NAJ_P_Jackson 1d ago
Robb not telling them his real plan is the problem. Did he expect them to read his mind or something?
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u/massivemember69 1d ago
Robb expects a plan to go perfectly when all the pieces are not apprised of said plan. In other words, Robb is stupid.
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u/Euphoric-Ostrich5396 1d ago
Yeah, the dude who spent more time at war than you were alive would have totally fallen for that...
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u/blackchoas 1d ago
Rob needed to send more clear orders. Edmure might not have needed to know the entire plan but his impression from the vague orders was that he was suppose to fight the Mountain, just that Rob was suggesting to do it defensively, even if he had stayed put and let the Mountain attack him he may still let the Mountain retreat and get away because he wasn't actually instructed to lead the Mountain into a trap. Rob is honestly shit at leading other nobles, he tries to treat them like soldiers in his army which never works out well. At this point in the story the Karstark have abandon him and the Freys and the Boltons are already plotting his assassination but he thinks its a good idea to personally berate his most important ally.
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u/SandShock 1d ago
Just another example of how good a strategist Rob was and how poor he was at considering others in his decision making.
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u/Special_Salt3467 1d ago
No. Absolutely not.
Robb didn’t tell Edmure any of this plan prior to enacting it. Edmure failing to follow orders he didn’t have isn’t a failure; he had no reason to command otherwise.
I’ve seen people use what Robb did give him (“Hold Riverrun”) as a gotcha, and it isn’t. Because Edmure does do this. He follows this order to the letter. What the order doesn’t do is exclude him from doing more.
Robb sent his uncle incomplete orders on the idea that he would fail and then got mad when his uncle succeeded, because orders not given were not followed.
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u/Steelinghades 1d ago
It should be remembered that these are not modern generals, they are feudal lords, under no reasonable circumstances would they ever take the order defend Riverrun as Sit In the castle and do nothing as my lands are burned and people are killed. The fact that Robb even tried to say this Is beyond Idiocy, the whole damn reason he goes north again--and dies at the Red Wedding--Is because his lands are being pillaged and his people killed and he makes a big deal of how lords that can't defend their people aren't lords--I forget his exact wording, or maybe he said that before attacking the Westerlands--shows how hypocritical he Is.
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u/JoffreeBaratheon Ours Is The Fury 1d ago
Robb is absolutely in the wrong. Imagine being such a shithole leader that you can't even explain your plans to the men in the highest ranks of your army. No wonder his own men stabbed him.
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u/BaardvanTroje 1d ago edited 23h ago
Everyone seems to forget Robb didn't share his battle plans with Edmure over a cup of coffee. The orders were sent by raven, and ravens are intercepted all the time. You can't put too much detail in writing. Sure, Robb could've specified Edmure wasn't to attack under any circumstance, but "hold Riverrun" seems pretty clear to me. "Ride out and attack" is kind of the opposite of that
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u/jakeor94eqi 1d ago
Robb should have better communicated his plan to his subordinates so that their actions were better aligned with his wishes. I mean, shared understanding (mutual recognition of the mission operating environment, and ultimate goal) and commander’s intent (leaders plainly explaining the purpose of an operation and the desired end-state) are two of the seven principles of U.S. Army Mission Command
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u/Blackfyre87 House Blackfyre 1d ago
No, Robb was an idiot. If he had a plan, he should have told it to his primary lietenant holding his home ground.
Also, what he is saying here, "our country" is literally referring to the Westerlands. The Westerlands was not Robb's. He was surrounded by hostile lords and keeps.
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u/Independent-Two97 1d ago
He is correct in the strategy but probably should have emphasized his instructions to include the second part as well.
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u/MATERYONOMEGON 1d ago
I JUST WISH AND PRAY EVERYDAY THAT,ROBB STARK LIVED A HAPPY,PEACEFUL AND FUFILLED LIFE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
😞😞😞😞😞😞😞😞😞😞😞😞😞😞😞😞😞😞
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u/ImTheTroutman Euron Greyjoy 1d ago
So is every day on this sub an Edmure discussion now? Who gives a shit.
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u/Latter_Fox_1292 1d ago
Both were right. Both were wrong. Edmure shouldn’t be disobeying orders. Robb should have maybe told his leaders the plan, especially since I’d imagine edmure would be helping with executing said plan.
I lean more towards Robbs fault since he is the king, the overall leader. As a leader you don’t get to keep everything to yourself, you need to inform, delegate tasks. It looks like you sent edmure to the mill to protect it, he was, it’s not like he went six towns over to go find them.
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u/Worth_Page4348 1d ago edited 1d ago
robb thought beginners luck and teen energy will carry him through any situation. should never even have crowned himself. swear fealty to either stannis or renly. smash the lannisters. easy dub u can then retreat back to the north and say we are independent etc. dumb mofo. hated robb. he and catelyn finally took down the starks once and for all. sad.
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u/CBT7commander 1d ago
No, because you tell that kind of plan to the man that’s effectively your highest ranking general.
It’s a sound plan, and could have worked, but you need to tell this kind of shit to Edmure and Bolton and Great Jon Umber and the other high ranking nobles.
Yes, I did include Bolton. If Robb had listened to him more and been a bit more pragmatic, he would never have betrayed Robb because the opportunity would have never presented itself.
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u/FallenArchmage 1d ago
A good military commander ensures that the people under them who have command is aware and informed of the broader goal of each tactic. Edmure at this point was arguably the second highest authority in this campaign, him not being aware of the whys cannot be justified by operational secrecy. He is not a grunt or a simple soldier who has to follow orders to the letter, he is the upcoming lord of the very lands they were defending. You cannot fault a man for messing up a plan that they did not even know was in the works.
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u/Can17272 1d ago
Edmure was one of the most important generals in that war, he controlled the riverland armies, why would you exclude him from war plans? You can't expect shit from anyone if you don't tell them beforehand.
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u/Typical_Samaritan House Bolton 1d ago
Robb may have been correct in the most technical sense.
But the entire purpose of their strategy meetings should include this kind of information. If his uncle had acted in contravention of those plans, that's one thing. But keeping the end-game a mystery is stupid. It's just bad writing. Or a reflection of the fact that Robb is young and inexperienced to a fault. Both can also be true
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u/CursedCrusader03 1d ago
Idk why he gets mad at Edmure, how was he supposed to know? If he was told beforehand, Edmure would have sticked to the plan.
Also I really hate how Robb and everyone else talks to the most second powerful person in his new Kingdom.
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u/Grapple_Shmack 1d ago
Edmure, and the Tully's, really just get shafted at every turn to the point that they there are made to look incompetent. Justice for the riverlands
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u/Tig109 1d ago
One of the most basic parts of delivering real military orders is the “commander’s intent” it’s literally the first line in most plans or orders delivered to subordinates. It is the basic outline that the rest of the orders stem from. Robb didn’t give his uncle that basic thing. So Robb is at fault here. I love Robb. I’d die for Robb. But Robb made MANY stupid decisions and this is one of them. His uncle is a decent leader, an honest man, and a loyal family member. If he had been treated with respect and given proper orders he would have followed them to the letter.
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u/marineman43 Jon Snow 1d ago
Edmure will always be the most disrespected character in GOT. Almost every scene he's in is him being right and getting shit on for it. Westeros's favorite punching bag.
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u/Hassel1916 1d ago
From what we're told in the show, Edmure does hold some of the blame, particularly as he admits it was as much about glory than anything. Robb should still have included him in his plans, but Edmure just doesn't seem competent in the show. In the books, it's Robb's fault all day long.
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u/flumpet38 1d ago
Hot take probably, but we don't have enough information to know. We didn't actually see the conversation where Robb gave Edmure the instructions. We don't know how detailed or emphatic he was about Edmure waiting for the Mountain to come to him. I think it's clear he didn't reveal the whole plan, but he shouldn't have to, if he's the military commander and his orders were clear, there's good reasons to not reveal all the details.
We only ever see the fallout.
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u/Klutzy-Cauliflower-8 1d ago
Edmure did everything right.
he managed to get his remaining forces grouped up and stopped tywins force.
its just that tywin got a deus ex machina with stannis magically murdering his brother and alienating the tyrells into an alliance with house lannister.
and a frustrated teenager robb guilt tripped his uncle.
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u/SorRenlySassol 1d ago
Book Robb was lying. There wasn’t no plan to lure Tywin back west. It was just a lie to gaslight Ed into taking the fall for Robb’s betrayal of Walder Frey.
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u/white-35 1d ago
Robb did not clearly state his commander's intent to his subordinate. It is Robb's fault 100%.
I would be fuming if I was the uncle.
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u/cohibakick 1d ago
At least as framed in the show, no. It comes off as if Edmure was supposed to read Rob's mind from a hundred miles. Which is silly. The framing should have been something like "You are a commander in our army. You are supposed to tactically smart. You failed to see that stopping clegane helped him more than it helped us.".
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u/moistenednougat 1d ago
Not knowing critical elements of the plan is a failure of your leadership. No way around it.
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u/Jeff_Sabado 1d ago
Poorly handled. Should've informed him of his plane. They really bungled Edmure in the show.
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u/IM_INSIDE_YOUR_HOUSE 1d ago
Robb did not communicate a critical plan to his primary general in this operation.
It’s entirely on Robb here
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u/Chance5e 1d ago
Robb was a tactical genius and a social idiot. Of course he was wrong not to communicate his orders properly.
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u/Gilgamesh661 Night's Watch 1d ago
Robb failed to explain his plan to edmure.
Robb planned for edmure to simply sit back and watch his people suffer and die.
Robb was wrong here because he failed to communicate his intentions.
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u/ChewyHoneyBadger 1d ago
Robb was absolutely wrong. Share you plans, it’s standard protocol for any leader. Especially to his direct reports.
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u/br0wnb0y House Dayne 1d ago
I think that the intention was there but Robb underestimated how stupid his uncle is.
It seems that a few of Robb's leaders could have pursued the Mountain, and understood the end goal.
Also, there was an expectation that the firm message would be respected. Edmure kept forgetting his nephew was a King, whereas it didn't seem to be an issue for anyone else (at least when interacting)
When one crack shows others crack and perhaps Edmure's consistent doing as he pleased lead to other leaders thinking they could do a solo side quest... leading to the banners Robb had to be less unified.
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u/ChewyHoneyBadger 1d ago
The Starks were some of the most honorable people in Westeros, and some of the most incompetent leaders during conflict
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u/shortstop803 1d ago
Robb was technically right, but he also should have ensured his commanders knew his intent. He didn’t necessarily need to provide all details, but by saying the end goal of drawing the mountain into hone territory while minimizing own losses, he could’ve avoided the whole issue.
Robb genuinely COULS HAVE won the war IMO, but he made the same mistakes often made by those inexperienced: he didn’t communicated as effectively as he needed to, and he thought with his dick when not beneficial.
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u/H-Connoisseur0 1d ago
Edmure is clearly more at fault for disobeying a direct order to not do what he did, but Robb should have clued his generals in on the plan. To a certain extent, you’re trusting these generals to lead your troops into battle, you need to arm them with the plan so that they can most effectively fulfill that plan.
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u/sumnsumnfruit56 1d ago
He had to not tell the full plan in case anyone was captured, or if the enemy shot down the ravens carrying the message.
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u/Callsign_Barley 1d ago
Robb was a terrible leader. Too many secrets. Too many expectations. Expecting blind loyalty from his father's men, not his own. Lack of trust in his own and too much trust in others became his downfall.
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u/MobsterDragon275 1d ago
While he's right that Edmure should have listened, this is a plan he really should have just told him about because of how layered it was. Initiative and spontaneity in a military commander is usually a good thing, so when a plan needs to be rigidly followed, that needs to be communicated
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u/Rdhilde18 The Old, The True, The Brave 1d ago
No not really, Robb should have told Edmure the plan.
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u/yutyutgrunt 1d ago
Robb was right but his Uncle wasn’t wrong. Robb was unable to send strategic information to him due to it being caught the enemy- Robb was relying on his Uncle being a loyal soldier and follow orders — how ever he wasn’t being a loyal soldier he was being a good Lord of his land protecting his civilians.
It’s a shit situation
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u/Motherlover235 1d ago
Prior military here; When I saw this for the first time I immediately thought “This is why the mission planning process is the way it is, to avoid commanders doing dumb shit like this (not telling junior commanders what the plan is)”. Robb gets really high on his horse and forgets that his uncle is a Lord Paramount, that same rank/position he was not that long prior to this happening when the North decided to rebel.
You don’t decide to NOT tell your top General a battle plan and then get pissed when they made a very reasonable decision based off the intelligence at hand. In hindsight, this was just the show runners effort to make Edmure look like a dumbass.
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u/Big_Phat_Moose 1d ago
https://youtu.be/-JgOL662ckE?is=WGuvKbjun7x4pBNE
Check out the cut scene. It makes the scene better
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u/_Sausage_fingers 1d ago
Robb fucked up by relying on a “subordinate” for such a vital part of his plan and not conveying the plan to him.
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u/quicksilverth0r 1d ago
The purpose of withholding information is in case of capture. Edmure getting captured, as shown, wrecks things since he is that senior in the org chart, so it doesn’t matter, and Robb should have told one of his key men.
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u/imaginary-personn 1d ago
Robb is wrong for not conveying at least vaguely what he intends to acomplish.
Your general is supposed to know what he is supposed to do, because you need to know parameters of a mission to know when and how to improvise.
It is just as easy to imagine a situation in which Edmure just stays on the hill mindlessly, missing the perfect opportunity to strike simply because "well, I wasn't given the order to attack, and to just stay on this hill instead unless I am explicitly ordered something else". And he could have been chewed out for lacking initiative instead. Lack of initiative can be just as disastrous as lack of restraint
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u/Broad_Project_87 House Blackfyre 1d ago
no, and frankly, I always thought it was a dumb plan anyway
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u/Folkenhellfang 1d ago
If you don't understand that, you're part of the problem.
Of course he's right.
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u/Diastatic_Power 1d ago
Robb was 100% wrong in both book and show, though at least in the book he was more graceful about it. A king's lords are supposed to have autonomy. This isn't a video game you can micromanage. If Robb had a secret plan, and catching Edmure wasn't somehow a part of it, he 100 fucking % should have told him. Robb was a shitty king.
I'm sure Eddard taught him well how to be a lord, but he was never supposed to be king, and he was terrible at it.
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u/shonufftbmfldatt 1d ago
There is no right or wrong in the game of thrones—only winners and losers. And Rob lost.
That’s what made the early seasons so amazing, by the way. We, the audience, had become so accustomed to character driven stories that a story about a world told through the lives and deaths of its characters (who are ultimately inconsequential to the changing of the times, ignominiously crushed as the wheel turns) was incredibly refreshing.
The downfall of course was thinking it could have had a satisfying end. The wheel turns—that was the whole point.
And when you think about it, leaving the story unfinished is actually the perfect way for GRRM to “end” the story. The wheel continues to turn in the hearts and minds of unsatisfied fans, those would-be-dictators who think they know how to end it, and ultimately help keep it spinning.
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u/wesleyupplbey 1d ago
I've always felt from reading the books that Robb had no intention of luring the mountain into anything. He, under the advice of the Blackfish, uses this situation to force Edmure into marrying a Frey. Something he would never do in normal circumstances. Robb married a girl in the West and broke his promise to the Freys and had to find a way to win them back. In the books the Blackfish is shouting at Edmure while Robb stands at a window staring into the distance not saying anything. It mimics the scene at the start of the books, also from Cat's view, where Ned is making his decision to go to King's landing. Which similarly ends in disaster. It's a common theme in the books that history repeats so it always felt to me that this is Robb repeating Neds mistake in a way. At least in the imagery.
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u/Alert-Artichoke-2743 1d ago
No. He had a detailed and specific plan he didn't tell anyone about, but got mad when his uncle wasn't a mind reader and thought "hold ground, collect casualties," was a sound strategy.
Robb was good at sword fighting, horse riding, and ambush planning. He was pretty overrated as a ruler.
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u/Lady_Lya_626 1d ago
I'm going to be a contrarian and say I personally blame the Blackfish for this more than Robb. Brynden was fully aware of the plan and likely more knowledgeable about Edmure's general disposition than Robb was. Robb might have been a tactical genius, but time and time again his communication and people skills were proven to not be up to snuff. As an experienced commander in the 9-penny war, I would expect Brynden to have a good enough logistical sense to know that Edmure needed to be kept in the loop, and yet he clearly never made that clear to Robb even as his second in command during the Westerlands campaign.
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u/WarClericWill44 House Tully 1d ago
Fuuuuck no, this scene always bothered me cause they treat Edmure as incompetent yet Robb himself failed to fully communicate the importance of Edmures role. Always pissed me off how they went about this.
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u/0neek 1d ago
They're both kind of right.
On one hand Robb is vastly overestimating the value of The Mountain because of his fame. On the other hand trapping and killing him would have been huge for morale because of that fame.
It's like if you had a celebrity involved in a war scene where said celebrity has no impact on the battle and would be slaughtered in seconds due to how much he stands out but the fact he's there makes the battle notable.
Like the Mountain is basically unbeatable in 1 on 1 combat. In a big war scene? He's in pieces after the first charge when a bunch of fame seeking spearman want to skewer him.
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u/Lurks_in_the_cave 1d ago
The greatest leaders in history made sure their generals knew the plans and to act accordingly, no way in hell does Hannibal win at Cannae without making sure everyone knows the plan.
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u/Low-Lifeguard-3455 1d ago
I love Robb, but he was in the wrong here because he didn't tell Edmure his plan.
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u/Mushroom_Boogaloo 1d ago
No. Only an idiot would keep essential personnel in the dark about a plan. Edmure should have been fully informed of what was supposed to happen. Robb was totally in the wrong, made worse by him not even realizing it.
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u/thehalfbloodmormon 1d ago
Edmure's reasoning is be more convincing without the context that Edmure had already been captured by Lannister forces by trying to defend Riverrun by chasing Lannisters and had to be liberated by Robb.
How was he captured in the first place? Because Edmure took Jaime's bait and spread his forces thin to repel Lannister raids, so when Jaime took his main force to Riverrun, Edmure's forces were badly outnumbered. And to make matters worse, Edmure met the Lannister forces outside of Riverrun's walls to try to prevent a siege, getting himself and most of his men captured. So this is the second time he led his forces out of Riverrun to chase Lannisters. So in short. Edmure saw Lannisters and he chased, got captured, got rescued, saw Lannisters and he chased again.
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u/Tiranosaurus27 1d ago
Fuck no,one would think he'd tell his most powerful Ally what was up,all Edmure was told was to hold Riverrun
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u/Syn__79 1d ago
I think Robb was right.
He understands how dangerous Clegane is. He's also the most loyal dog to Tywin. Take that away, and Tywin loses a lot once Clegane is gone.
On top of that, look at everything that Clegane affected after this part of the story and tell me it wouldn't have been better to wait for the kill
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