Still, there’s some reason to look back a bit critically at Maester Cressen. Renly’s choices are Renly’s responsibility, and the foundations for the Baratheon tragedy were laid by people and forces far removed from the current players. What in the world was a six-year-old doing in the cannibalism policy talks?! “Maester Cressen told Stannis that we might be forced to eat our dead, and there was no gain in flinging away good meat.” (ACOK, Catelyn IV)

I can still see Gawen’s face as they strapped him down. Stannis caught them and ordered them flung from the walls with catapults. “Near the end, Ser Gawen Wylde and three of his knights tried to steal out a postern gate to surrender. More than six during Robert’s Rebellion. The Siege of Storm’s End shaped Stannis as a commander it shaped Renly Renly was 21 as of ACOK, which means he can’t have been Also, this isn’t meant as a defense of the decisions Renly ends up making, but a look at how he became the person who would make those choices. A couple of disclaimers: I’m not particularly well-versed in child development, so I don’t know how much of this is psychology and how much it’s character construction.

Game of thrones storms end