I suspect you're thinking Melisandre The Red Woman, not Mirri Maz Duur the Maegi.
(And no. Sansa is EVIL. Everything bad that happens to EVERYONE in Westeros is more or less directly Sansa's fault, except for The Others - and if they reached the Wall and were all "we promise to stop all this White Walker shit if you give us Sansa because WE JUST HATE HER SO DAMN MUCH"? Let's just say I wouldn't be surprised.)
What does Sansa do? - She fails to tell the truth about the Arya/Joffrey/Nymeria incident, getting Lady killed and possibly Mycah too. Bad but hardly world-shaking. - She tells Cersei that Ned was going to ship her and Arya back home, possibly keeping herself and Arya from getting safely back to Winterfell. Absolutely irrelevant to the success or failure of Cersei's plot since NED tells Cersei himself exactly what he has planned. - From then on she's basically completely powerless until she gets a chance to run away, and then she's still completely powerless but she's under Littlefinger's thumb. She's a pawn at best - and hey, telling the Tyrells the truth about Joffrey may have contributed to their decision to poison him, so - bonus!
Sansa is annoying, especially in book 1, but you're vastly overstating her importance. Littlefinger is the real evil mastermind who causes everything to go to hell. - Convinces Lysa to poison Jon Arryn and blame it on the Lannisters. - Lies about the knife used in the attack on Bran, which led to Catelyn seizing Tyrion, which was the proximate cause of the war. - Betrays Ned (if Ned had had the city guard on his side, he would have pretty much ended the war by holding Cersei and Joffrey hostage and giving the throne to Stannis).
She tells Cersei that Ned was going to ship her and Arya back home, possibly keeping herself and Arya from getting safely back to Winterfell. Absolutely irrelevant to the success or failure of Cersei's plot since NED tells Cersei himself exactly what he has planned.
It can be argued that by running to Cersei and saying 'He's sending us home tonight!', she made it clear to Cersei that the time to act was right the f*ck now. Whether Littlefinger would still have betrayed Ned at that specific point in time, or waited until later when Tywin inevitably marched on King's Landing, is the question.
You're right about Littlefinger being the true evil behind events, and I've always wondered if Littlefinger whispering in Joffrey's ear helped prompt him to take Ned's head. Think about it, while people certainly know Littlefinger sided against Ned, he has been relatively free of the entire shit storm that those events kicked off. Plus he's out of the way, building up power while all of the major powers in the Seven Kingdoms bash themselves (and each other) to bits.
Though much of it is happenstance, by the end of Crows pretty much every major player on the first tier of Westeros is out of the picture, either permanently or otherwise. Since Littlefinger is at the top of the second tier that's good news for him. The bad news being that there are first tier players who ain't in Westeros yet/ :)
Not true at all. [book-spoiler book-spoiler book-spoiler]. Neither Tyrion Lannister nor Peter Baelish ever owned *or touched* it.
That's how Tyrion points out Baelish's lie: in order for Tyrion to have won the knife, he would have had to have been betting for Jaime Lannister TO LOSE, and he never, ever does that.
(I have no idea if you've read the books, so I redacted the explanation that I was going to give - beyond that Baelish *was* lying, the knife was neither his nor Tyrion Lannister's)
(Also: Jon Snow has cleverly sent Aemon Targaryen and Samwell Tarly and Mance Rayder's Son away from The Wall, leaving no royal blood there for the Red Woman.... except himself, blood-nephew of Aerys Targaryen, "brother", cousin, and declared heir of The King In The North Robb Stark.
How is attempting to shut down the family line of a bunch of civilization-wrecking sociopaths so evil? Killing one man and causing an abortion seems pretty mild compared to enslaving entire cities.
The Dothraki have been doing it before, will do it after, and in fact do it immediately AFTER Mirri Maz Duur murders Drogo, too. And the fractured horde did *more* damage, not less.
Her actions accomplished nothing to even slow the Dothraki down, and she knew that. She knew *exactly* what was going to happen. What she *did* was vindictively punish the only person who was kind to her, going out of her way to inflict the most pain to Daenarys that she could.
(Yes, yes, prophecied baby, lol - except that the prophecies *were wrong*, and Drogo's son was not the one. The Dragons are - and they were only born *because Mirri Maz Duur tried to stop it*.)
Judging the damage done by the disunited horde is a very difficult case to make, especially when the point of comparison is a predicted Genghis Khan analogue.
The "kindness" she was shown was by the queen of the people who murdered or enslaved everyone in her village. Yeah, Daenarys seemed pretty nice and didn't do any killing. The same can be said of Eva Braun (yes, I Lose).
Your judgement about the prophecies being wrong is much more meta-fiction than anything you could reasonably attribute to the judgement of a witch woman inside a fantasy story.
I doubt we'll convince each other, but in my book, avenging her village and trying to prevent the rise of the Great Khans is barely bumping the evil-O-meters's needle off the lower peg.
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theweaselking
(no subject)
Date: 2011-06-21 01:56 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-06-21 02:02 am (UTC)(And no. Sansa is EVIL. Everything bad that happens to EVERYONE in Westeros is more or less directly Sansa's fault, except for The Others - and if they reached the Wall and were all "we promise to stop all this White Walker shit if you give us Sansa because WE JUST HATE HER SO DAMN MUCH"? Let's just say I wouldn't be surprised.)
(no subject)
Date: 2011-06-21 04:04 am (UTC)What does Sansa do?
- She fails to tell the truth about the Arya/Joffrey/Nymeria incident, getting Lady killed and possibly Mycah too. Bad but hardly world-shaking.
- She tells Cersei that Ned was going to ship her and Arya back home, possibly keeping herself and Arya from getting safely back to Winterfell. Absolutely irrelevant to the success or failure of Cersei's plot since NED tells Cersei himself exactly what he has planned.
- From then on she's basically completely powerless until she gets a chance to run away, and then she's still completely powerless but she's under Littlefinger's thumb. She's a pawn at best - and hey, telling the Tyrells the truth about Joffrey may have contributed to their decision to poison him, so - bonus!
Sansa is annoying, especially in book 1, but you're vastly overstating her importance. Littlefinger is the real evil mastermind who causes everything to go to hell.
- Convinces Lysa to poison Jon Arryn and blame it on the Lannisters.
- Lies about the knife used in the attack on Bran, which led to Catelyn seizing Tyrion, which was the proximate cause of the war.
- Betrays Ned (if Ned had had the city guard on his side, he would have pretty much ended the war by holding Cersei and Joffrey hostage and giving the throne to Stannis).
(no subject)
Date: 2011-06-21 02:20 pm (UTC)It can be argued that by running to Cersei and saying 'He's sending us home tonight!', she made it clear to Cersei that the time to act was right the f*ck now. Whether Littlefinger would still have betrayed Ned at that specific point in time, or waited until later when Tywin inevitably marched on King's Landing, is the question.
You're right about Littlefinger being the true evil behind events, and I've always wondered if Littlefinger whispering in Joffrey's ear helped prompt him to take Ned's head. Think about it, while people certainly know Littlefinger sided against Ned, he has been relatively free of the entire shit storm that those events kicked off. Plus he's out of the way, building up power while all of the major powers in the Seven Kingdoms bash themselves (and each other) to bits.
Though much of it is happenstance, by the end of Crows pretty much every major player on the first tier of Westeros is out of the picture, either permanently or otherwise. Since Littlefinger is at the top of the second tier that's good news for him. The bad news being that there are first tier players who ain't in Westeros yet/ :)
(no subject)
Date: 2011-06-21 03:56 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-06-21 04:02 pm (UTC)That's how Tyrion points out Baelish's lie: in order for Tyrion to have won the knife, he would have had to have been betting for Jaime Lannister TO LOSE, and he never, ever does that.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-06-21 04:06 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-06-21 04:03 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-06-21 10:50 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-06-21 03:36 pm (UTC)I'm not saying that sarcastically. She becomes much more fun to watch when you realize that.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-06-21 02:09 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-06-21 10:02 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-06-21 03:41 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-06-21 03:55 pm (UTC)Her actions accomplished nothing to even slow the Dothraki down, and she knew that. She knew *exactly* what was going to happen. What she *did* was vindictively punish the only person who was kind to her, going out of her way to inflict the most pain to Daenarys that she could.
(Yes, yes, prophecied baby, lol - except that the prophecies *were wrong*, and Drogo's son was not the one. The Dragons are - and they were only born *because Mirri Maz Duur tried to stop it*.)
(no subject)
Date: 2011-06-21 04:14 pm (UTC)The "kindness" she was shown was by the queen of the people who murdered or enslaved everyone in her village. Yeah, Daenarys seemed pretty nice and didn't do any killing. The same can be said of Eva Braun (yes, I Lose).
Your judgement about the prophecies being wrong is much more meta-fiction than anything you could reasonably attribute to the judgement of a witch woman inside a fantasy story.
I doubt we'll convince each other, but in my book, avenging her village and trying to prevent the rise of the Great Khans is barely bumping the evil-O-meters's needle off the lower peg.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-06-21 06:02 pm (UTC)