ASOIAF/GOT: Is Robb's reason for breaking his vow to the Freys better in the book than in the show?

t is more interesting — incalculably so — in the books.

It’s the difference between tragedy and melodrama.

Books:

Ultimately Robb was trying to erase the stain of his father Ned’s dishonor by marrying Jeyne Westerling, which is all the more tragic when you consider that Ned actually did NOT in all actuality father a bastard. It was a choice between hurting WAlder Frey’s pride and ruining Jeyne Westerling’s life.

In the show it was a selfish move, pure and simple. A soap opera plot, something that modern readers can relate to.

In the books, Robb is put in the kind of position that GRRM likes to put characters: a bad one in which he has no choice but to choose between two courses of action which are evil. He is driven into Jeyne’s arms in a moment of weakness brought on by a wound and extreme grief over the death of his brothers, Brandon and Rickon.

But in the show there is no death of his brothers to motivate him(or Catelyn). IN fact, the show goes out of their way to emphasize that by having Theon have all the ravens killed so that news of the Stark princes’ “death” does not get out. Whereas in the books, he sends that news far and wide.

After having dishonored Jeyne, Robb feels he has to marry her, so as to keep the dishonor of her deflowering from staining her. He knows full well that he is also breaking his wedding vow but he considers that the right thing to do, the lesser of two evils: he does not want the same smirch on his honor that that his otherwise wholly honorable father had on his: he has seen the pain it causes, the way it has affected his half-brother Jon Snow.

Who does he really hurt by casting aside his vow? Only the Freys’ pride.

Compared to that, ruining Jeyne Westerling’s reputation and possibly fathering a bastard on her, destined to grow up outcast and alone, seems much worse to him.

Now you could argue he made the wrong decision. That’s especially clear with hindsight. But he did it for the right reasons.

Show Robb?

He wanted Talisa. He took her. He willfully broke his vows.

He wasn’t grief-stricken. His feelings for Walder Frey are decidedly more cavalier and arrogant. There is no logical reason for him wed Talisa: she is not a Westerosi noble and not bound by the strict rules of their society. Her society, indeed, seems much freer about sexual mores and so on. So not marrying her does her no damage. It’s a choice between hurting Frey’s pride and…well, not pleasing his own sexual urges. IN our society, that would be OK. But not in Westeros.

There is no wrestling with his conscience. No conflict of honor.

He just didn’t care. It was an idiotic, honorless move.

Now I’m not criticizing the show too much. They only have ten hours a season to tell an incredibly complex plot and I can imagine that the original storyline was something very hard to pull off in a few scenes and lines of dialogue: even in the book it all happens ‘off-page’, so to speak. So this was their work around.

For lovers of soap opera, the show’s version is fine. Hey, when I was 14 I liked All My Children. Watched it every day.

But it is the book version which has the logic, heft and complex beauty to it that makes me a fan of the series.

Written Jan. 16