So Robert Baratheon was probably always on borrowed time as King. He was not very good at his job, and when Jon Arryn died and Ned replaced him as hand of the king, it truly exposed how terrible of a ruler Robert really was.

The very first domino to fall in A Game of Thrones is with the death of Jon Arryn, and as we move forward in this story we learn that the King, Robert Baratheon was hyperdependent on his hand Jon Arryn. With Jon Arryn dead, replacing him with someone as trusted for the position truly left Robert with only one candidate in his mind for replacement and that is Eddard Stark aka Ned Stark.

Its easy to see that without Robert participating as ruler, so many plots and schemes were allowed to develop directly under his nose. Now I would argue that the greatest conflict in Robert’s reign as king was actually not until the current events told in A Game of Thrones when tensions between The Starks and Lannister began to grow. The Lannisters are justified in their grievance that Tyrion has been abducted by Catelyn Stark, and Tywin, Jaime, and Cersei all actually have no idea why this has happened. Although Catelyn makes the claim that Tyrion conspired to murder her son, we have nothing in the books that suggest this accusation was made public to anyone outside the Inn at The Crossroads which I think is hard to believe, but there’s no mention from anyone that suggests they know why Catelyn abducted Tyrion. And of course, the reasoning for Tyrion’s abduction is kept secret from Robert and here’s the problem with Robert not being a participant in his small council meetings or truly anything politically. He simply does not ask questions, and nobody seems comfortable in sharing with Riberts their suspicions. Both Ned Stark and Stannis Baratheon refuse to share the conspiracies with Robert that are being committed by Cersei. Ned refuses to share the information that Lysa Arryn had shared in a letter to Catelyn.

#gameofthrones #nedstark #robertbaratheon #georgerrmartin