ASOIAF: Could the Red Wedding have been prevented?

Of course it could have been prevented. Just not visiting the Twins would have prevented it.

But I think that we have to realize how very, very, very radical and unusual the Red Wedding was. It was simply unthinkable that anybody in Westeros would have broken the taboo of guest right the way that Walder Frey shattered it. Breaking that taboo means that it’s much harder for any side in any conflict in Westeros to enter a negotiation with another; it is one of the chief seams that keep the fabric of Westerosi society from unravelling into disparate threads of utter savagery..

The only time in Westerosi history that I recall someone else doing it was when Brynden “Bloodraven” Rivers killed a Blackfyre visitor to court to remove his political threat.

He was imprisoned for it and eventually sent to the Wall. And he was the Hand-of-the-damn-King and what he did really did have an element of political expedience in it.

But the Freys are paying for it: the brace of hanged Freys in the Riverlands, Frey pies in the North and the complete and utter contempt the rest of the Realm feels for them attests to that.

And all they got out of it, really, was Riverrun. And some marriages that are all ending in utter disaster

There seems to be this belief that Robb was some kind of fool to trust Walder Frey. In fact, he was no more a fool than any politician visiting any other country. Were Gorbachev and Reagan fools when they met in the 80s? Would it have been a good idea for either one of them to have the other one murdered at that meeting? Of course not. It would have been terrible for both the USA and the USSR and terrible for the entire world — even without the threat of nuclear annihilation.

Or better, Should the USA have arrested or murdered Mahmoud Ahminemajab when he addressed the UN in New York City? I mean, Iran and the US were pretty much enemies at that point. No. Of course not.

We all need and benefit from diplomatic immunity. Only the most dangerous and radical of political bodies does not recognize that; and diplomatic immunity is, essentially, what guest right is.

Written Sept 25