MovieChat Forums > Game of Thrones (2011) Discussion > King Joffery's legacy.

King Joffery's legacy.

posted 5 years ago by Sandman81 (1502)
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How would the average commoner in King's Landing have felt about Joffery after his death?

While there were definitely stories and rumors about his cruelty as well as a general distain for Lannisters (as we saw with Cersei's walk of atonement). And his lineage was always in question. Most commoners would not know these stories for fact, and as we saw with the play in Braavos, the stories can be twisted.

The only things known for fact were that during his short reign he won two wars, one of which while under siege and attempted invasion of Kings Landing. The only people who knew Joffery was hiding in the Red Keep were the men actually there when he left. Tyrion never got any credit for his role. As far as anybody knew, it was Joffery and Tywin who saved the day.

Then word of Lady Margery's kindness and charity helped her gain favor among the people, and by proxy Joffery. And after the defeat of the North, we see a statue of Joffery holding a dead wolf. How the war was won, and the Red Wedding may not have been common knowledge, except that those in the know.

[–] ColdOfWinter (145) 5 years ago

That's an interesting question. I think Cersei back in season one made reference to the fact that the King gets to write the history, when she was describing how Joffery "bravely" fought off a Dire Wolf. However, soldiers talk, and a lot of soldiers saw exactly how Joffery was during the battle.

I suspect that his current subjects would all know what a weasel he was, but would only talk about it in hushed whispers, while all the history books would set to the task of reshaping/rewriting Joffery's rule. I could see how looking back, he might have been viewed as a good King, or even as a tragically short lived ruler. I doubt that anything could be done about the people while he lived though.

[–] Otter (24464) 5 years ago

It was only the people of King's Landing who had any direct experience with the little shit's cruelty and cowardice, and they didn't experience it for long as the little monster's reign only lasted for a year or two and Tywin Lannister was running the government competently the whole time. And most of the horrible rumors about Joffrey himself would have been forgotten when Tyrion supposedly killed the king and the hand of the king in quick succession, his own uncle and father. At that point, Joffrey would have been forgiven a lot on the grounds of immaturity, while Tyrion would have been held up as a monster in every possible way, and his reputation would only have gotten worse when he joined up with Danerys and became part of her invasion.

Frankly, his reputation would be SO bad by now that she'll probably have to drop him at some point, if they both live through the Long Winter and she wants to be accepted as the good queen of Westeros.

Anyway, the marvelous play in Bravos about Good King Joffrey was entirely plausible, Littlefinger and Cersei may have commissioned that and some singer's ballads. Or maybe not, maybe that's just how events looked from a continent away. I absolutely adored that play, BTW, the play and Arya's reaction to it was my favorite moment of that season.