Chapter 232 - My SI Stash #32 - Shields Will Be Broken, A Realm Will Be Forged by ArkosArc (AsongofIceandFire) (1/2)
-Recently published fic~ Here comes another Joffrey SI but with worse morals than we're used to!
Sypnosis: He smiled as he did it. Hundreds of thousands would die and yet Joffrey smiled. In that moment, Jamie knew that he had stabbed the wrong king, and yet even as his hands twitched, yearning to pick up a sword, he stilled it. Nevertheless. Joffrey caught the movement. With a bittersweet smile, he asked, ”Are you going to stab me too... Father?”
Rated: M
Words: 10K
Posted on: fanfiction.net/s/13519163/1/Shields-Will-Be-Broken-A-Realm-Will-Be-Forged-Joffrey-SI (ArkosArc)
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Chapter 1-2 (exceptional)
At the tic-tic-tic of the clock situated on the wall next to him, the one who had become Joffrey Baratheon admitted, to himself if no one else, that canon had gone just fine for the one-who-was-him.
Well up to the Purple Wedding, at any rate. That had a simple enough solution to it. After the Red Wedding, all he would have to do was kill Sansa. Without her to tattle to the Tyrells, everything would be fine.
Failing that, he could just not drink wine at his wedding. No wine until he was wedded and bedded.
And yet… and yet the Joffrey-of-before was a c_u_n_t and the war wouldn't end with the death of Stannis and Robb. There was Daenerys Targaryen to consider and the White Walkers besides.
How would one go about preparing the realm for ice zombies and dragons? Guns perhaps? The printing press?
Despite himself, Joffrey began laughing. A fools solution. A permanent problem to a replace a temporary one.
He started to sing, despite himself, ”Ah! ça ira, ça ira, ça ira, les aristocrates à la lanterne! Ah! ça ira, ça ira, ça ira, les aristocrates on les pendra!”
As he sang his mind translated those lyrics to English. ”Ah! It'll be fine, It'll be fine, It'll be fine, aristocrats to the lamp posts! Ah! It'll be fine, It'll be fine, It'll be fine! The aristocrats, we'll hang them!”
Gunpowder and the printing press wouldn't solve much. What it would do was signal the beginning of the end. The first step in a long road to democratic revolution.
Once trained, even the worst were still better than peasants and thanks to skill and superior armaments, they were capable of mowing down dozens of them, especially when fighting in formation.
If he made the switch to gunpowder, then soldiers would take about four months to train, giving a lot more power to the peasants. Given that starvation was eminent, that seemed like an awful idea.
And of the printing press? Joffrey thought back and recalled the protestant reformation. How did that spread? How did the American Revolution? How did the French Revolution spread?
The last thing Joffrey wanted was a pamphlet simliar to that of Thomas Paynes 'Common Sense' spreading throughout his kingdom, calling for the downfall of monarchy.
Even if he managed to side-step all that nastiness while he lived, what of when he passed? Even if he were a just and wise king, there was no guarantee his son wouldn't be an imbecile.
Monarchy was a bit like a coin flip. For every Catherine the Great, there would be an Ivan the Terrible. As Aerys the Mad demonstrates, it takes only one to topple a dynasty.
Joffrey paused as he considered this. Casting his mind wide he contemplated the map of Westeros and went through the houses that were currently rebelling against him. For the first time, he saw not a war of survival, but a war of opportunity.
In a single second, he saw it, his vision of what Westeros could be.
”Hound,” he shouted suddenly, drawing a clatter from the outside of his room. Creaking, the door opened to reveal Ser Sandor Clegane standing outside his door. In silence he waited for Joffrey's command.
”Order Pycelle to summon the High Septon.” There was gleam in Joffrey's eyes as he concluded his thoughts with, ”I wish for a meeting.”
Chapter 2
Indubitably, the Joffrey of Old was in the wrong. He had started this war through sheer stupidity when he lopped off Eddard Stark's head, and the history books weren't likely to forget it.
Joffrey the New aimed to make the best of the situation he had been handed. Once he had won the war, he intended to expand the powers and lands of the monarchy at the expense of his enemies. While that ensured that this war wouldn't be a total waste in his mind, ”I want that land down by the river,” didn't exactly make him seem like a good king. In all honesty, it made him seem like a greedy cunt.
If Joffrey wanted to seem like a just king, he needed a better reason to march to war. He needed to rebrand this entire war, and in order to do that, he needed the support of the faith.
Back in the medieval era, the church was the most useful source of propaganda a king had available. In a world as deeply moved by religious faith as medieval Europe, a sizeable portion of the populace would attend church every Sunday, where they would all hear the words of their local priest. Given his status as a holy man, questioning him would be heresy, regardless of whether you were questioning his statements on religious or political matters.
To that end, whatever the priest said went mostly unchallenged and rapidly spread through a city, garnering support for the king. In this way, both Britain and France came to believe they carried the favor God during the Hundred Years War.
In this case, with Renly dead, the only king left in the war that remained in the Light of the Seven was Joffrey. Robb Stark worshipped the Old God's of the forest, Stannis Baratheon worshipped the Red God, and Balon Greyjoy worshipped the Drowned God.
With this in mind, Joffrey began meeting with the High Septon, the Westerosi equivalent of a Pope. It took five minutes to get the High Septon to agree to denounce the other kings in the war. It took another three to get the High Septon to reaffirm Joffrey's title of ”Defender of the Faith.”
Buoyed by his success, Joffrey eagerly pushed on to draw further concessions and promptly slammed his head onto a metaphorical brick wall. The High Septon would not budge.
The legislation had recognized the monarch as the Supreme Head of the Church of England and gave civil laws precedence over religious laws.
Joffrey wanted the same privileges, but the High Septon refused to part with his power for obvious reasons, leading to a stalemate. In the interim, the Septs had taken to denouncing his enemies as devil worshippers and heretics. If Joffrey wanted that to continue, he couldn't force the issue, despite having an army in the capital.
This left him with only one option. Negotiating.
In the end, three weeks of negotiations resulted in the High Septon being granted a seat on the Small Council, one that would be inherited by all High Septons for the rest of time. Further, the monarchy would take on the burden of supporting the Septs financially. In exchange for this, the monarch would be recognized as the 'Supreme Head of the Faith of the Seven and Lord Temporal of the Faithful,' a title that would be purely ceremonial.
By the end of the negotiations, both sides walked away feeling as though they had won. The High Septon felt as though he had tricked a child into increasing the wealth of the faith, as well as granting himself further opportunities to influence said boy-king. In exchange, all he had to do was support the only religiously acceptable king in this war, something he ought to have been doing anyways, as well as granting him a ceremonial title that didn't mean anything.
Joffrey on the other hand? Joffrey had just won both the war, as well as the peace that would follow.
The chamber of the Small Council was filled with stifling silence as the King entered the hall, flanked by the High Septon and the Lord Commander of his Kingsguard.
Glancing at his council briefly, Joffrey curled his lips into a tight smile. ”No need to stop on our accord. Carry on as you were.” Despite his words, Joffey stopped at the head of the table, at the seat occupied by Tyrion Lannister. Looking down at the horrid creature disdainfully, he spat, ”You're in my seat, imp.”
Tyrion made a displeased sound, somewhere between a hum and a grunt. As he vacated his seat, Tyrion replied, ”Forgive me, your grace,” coming from Tyrion the 'your grace' sounded more like an insult than a title of honor, ”We were not expecting you. And to what do we owe this unexpected… Honor?”
The sarcasm heard faintly in the 'your grace' strengthened throughout the sentence until it coalesced into a near physical force at the word honor, causing Joffrey's eyes to narrow. ”Watch your tongue, imp, lest I have it removed.” Without waiting for Tyrion to reply, Joffrey continued, ”For your information, I will be attending all meetings held by the small council from now on. As will the High Septon.” Seating himself in the chair Tyrion had vacated with as much poise as he could Joffrey looked up at his council. Pretending not to notice their discomfort, he steepled his fingers and asked, ”So, what news of the war?”
There was a brief silence as the members of the small council considered what to say to this. Ultimately it was Vary's that spoke in his high effeminate voice, ”Forgive me, your grace, but did you mention that the High Septon will be joining the small council?”
”I did. It was a part of a deal that I've worked out with the faith. What news of the war?”
Not thinking it wise to ask the King to clarify a second time, Varys instead decided to answer his question, ”Not well, I fear. Robb Stark has won a great victory at Oxcross, a mere forty miles away from Casterly Rock. The Lannister host raised by Lord Stafford has been shattered by the Stark host, leaving them unchecked in the heart of the Westerlands.”
The council braced for the kings anger. They knew him well enough to know that plenty of screaming and threats were soon to follow, most along the lines of 'I'll have his head,' and what-not. That expectation served to compound their surprise when all their king did was allow his lips to curl into a satisfied smile and let out a whispered, ”Fool.”
Louder, King Joffrey said ”Correct me if I'm wrong, but this means, in order to reach King's Landing, he would have to travel through the hills of the Morelands, through the mountain pass of Deep Den, before once more crossing the hills of Drox.”
Glancing down at the map, Tyrion was surprised to note that his nephew was correct, but ”All he has to do is follow the Gold Road. Perhaps more importantly, Paynehall, Byford, and Bramsfort are all flat terrain. Plains. The Stark army will have a very easy time crossing over when the time comes. More importantly, at this rate, we won't have an army to challenge his when he does.”
To this, Joffrey was characteristically dismissive. ”In the entirety of the North, there are less than a million people. In King's Landing alone, we have more than that, never mind the other great cities sworn to us like Rosby and Duskendale. We can raise another army from our smallfolk. The Stark boy can't. The army he has now is the army he will die with.”
Joffrey briefly though back to two other great generals who suffered similar fates. The first would be Hannibal Barca, general of Carthage, during the second Punic Wars, one of the best generals in the history of the Earth.
He delivered devastating blow after devastating blow to the Roman armies. The Romans sent out a legion at Trebia. He annihilated them. The Romans raised another legion. He ambushed and annihilated it at Trasimene. The Romans fused four legions and sent out their mega legion at the Battle of Cannae. Cannae would be remember as the bloodiest day in Roman History.
To Hannibal, it must have felt like battling a hydra. The more legions he killed, the more legions the Romans raised and deployed. Even while he was winning every battle, Hannibal was bleeding skilled soldiers that he couldn't replace, while the Roman horde seemingly multiplied. Eventually they defeated him through sheer overwhelming numbers.
Another example of this being true could be seen in the American Civil War, where Union General Ulysses S. Grant did the same thing to Confederate General Robert E. Lee. The Confederates won every battle they fought against him, but Grant recognized the Confederates were at a severe disadvantage in men and material.