By popular demands the family with too many alive members (they didn’t fit into one picture). I hope all this green hurts your eyes as much as it hurts mine :D
Top picture left to right: Willas, Margaery, Olenna, Alerie and Leonette
Bottom picture left to right: Garlan, Mace and Loras
Hey, remember the time that Catelyn Stark insulted Jaime Lannister's honor by kicking over a waste bucket?
"Your honor as a Lannister is worth less than this." She kicked over the waste pail.
– ACoK, Catelyn VII
Because Jaime remembers.
[Jaime] remembered the pail Lady Catelyn had kicked over in his cell. A strange woman, to trust her girls to a man with shit for honor. – ASoS, Jaime I
Jaime definitely remembers.
Urswyck spread his hands. "What Timeon means to say is that the Brave Companions are no longer in the hire of House Lannister. We now serve Lord Bolton, and the King in the North."
Jaime gave him a cold, contemptuous smile. "And men say I have shit for honor?”
– ASoS, Jaime III
Not that it bothers him or anything.
"Why is it that no one names Robert oathbreaker? He tore the realm apart, yet I am the one with shit for honor.”
– ASoS, Jaime V
He probably means that generally, and not just because of the one time Cat kicked a bucket over-
Jaime stood. "I am tired of having highborn women kicking pails of shit at me, Father."
– ASoS, Jaime VII
(Love how he says that like it wasn't a thing that happened literally once, while he was an enemy captive, talking to a woman whose children (plural) he had tried to kill. I know, I know, it's the spirit of the thing.)
New book, new Jaime, hahahaha just kidding, AFFC Jaime's still brooding about Cat and her refuse pail.
Give me leave to pick my own men, and the Kingsguard will be great again. Put that baldly, though, it sounded feeble; an empty boast from a man the realm called Kingslayer. A man with shit for honor. Jaime let it go.
– AFFC, Jaime II
Jaime Lannister, king of letting things go. Clearly.
He's so good at letting things go that he's still thinking about the pail when he goes to Riverrun.
"Do you wish to resume your captivity? Your old cell is still available. We have put fresh rushes on the floor."
And a nice new pail for me to shit in, I don't doubt.
– AFFC, Jaime VI
Never change, Jaime.
He could feel the eyes on him; the Tully men upon their battlements, the Freys across the river. If they are not blind, they'll all know he threw my offer in my teeth. He would need to storm the castle. Well, what's one more broken vow to the Kingslayer? Just more shit in the bucket.
– AFFC, Jaime VI
(It's nice to know that oh-so-honorable Ned isn't the only Stark living in his head rent free, you know?)
maidens if you are going to flee dramatically from my castle in the middle of the night once i reveal my true nature to you please leave your candelabra on the little ledge by the portcullis we are running out of them
starting to think these maidens are stumbling in soaked through from the rain just to steal my beautiful gowns and homeware are any of you actually lost
Ok so this is a very broad ask but - who are the Starks and why are they all so deliciously miserable?
Great question! There are a lot of Starks and this got very long, so lets makes this The Starks (and why they're so deliciously miserable) pt. 1: General Info, and the Lord and Lady of the House (Ned and Cat). BIG BOOK 1 SPOILERS AHEAD. SO MANY. Milder/vague spoilers from books 2-5.
Quick reminder about the world:
The Seven Kingdoms has 9 major regions and 8 Great Houses that serve as the Lords Paramount in each region (plus the royal house as quasi Lords of the 9th region and Kings of Westeros.)
Educated people in-universe believe the world is fairly low-magic. Historical records of crazy magic events are considered either a) exaggerations or b) “things were different back in the old days.”
The Starks are the Great House, the Lords Paramount, of the North, ruling from the great castle keep of Winterfell. The North is big. It’s cold. It’s desolate. It’s far enough removed from everything happening in the South that they usually stay out of royal politics and do their own thing. But approximately 15 years ago, their family was at the heart of the crisis that sparked rebellion, and Eddard “Ned” Stark was the face of the rebellion, alongside his bff King Robert Baratheon.
House Sigil: The Direwolf
House Colors: Grey and White
House Words: “Winter is Coming”
What you have to know about the Starks is that the family is old. Old as balls. Older than recorded written history in Westeros. The Starks are blood of the First Men; they keep the Old Gods. Old gods worshiped in a grove of pale white trees with red leaves. And carved (?) faces. That seem to weep-blood red sap. They’re Always Watching You.
You get the aesthetic.
So reason number 1 the Starks are so miserable:
It’s traditional.
The Starks start Book 1 as the presumptive main character house. ASOIAF is told via a series of limited third-person PoVs, and house Stark has six, count ‘em, SIX out of the only eight PoVs in Book 1.
We'll start with Mr. Lord Stark himself, Lord of Winterfell and Warden of the North:
Eddard "Ned" Stark (PoV Character)
The Lord of Winterfell. Ned loves honor, honesty, more honor, and his family. Did I mention honor? That's a big thing. Doesn't like Lannisters, especially Jaime Lannister. Played by Sean Bean in the TV show, so you can imagine how things go for him.
WHY IS NED SO MISERABLE? Oh let me count the ways.
Ned was a second son who was never trained to inherit. But then, when poor Ned was just a teen, his beloved sister was abducted and his father and older brother went South to get her back. They never returned. On account of being executed by the Mad King.
So now terminally-second-son Ned has to honor his brother’s marriage alliance, help lead a rebellion, oh, and, rule all of the North as Lord of Winterfell. Good luck, little buddy.
Ned hates lying, and he’s almost certainly been living a daily lie about his “son” Jon Snow for 14 years. (see next post)
His bff King Robert is, it turns out, kinda bad at being King. This makes Ned sad :(
Ned hates politics, but his bff King Robert drags him to his court as an advisor and it goes SO SO BAD.
This poor guys is. Like. 34.
Since we're full on spoiling book 1... Ned finds out that the royal princes and princesses are bastards born of incest. This is very stressful, as you can imagine.
The fallout of this discovery is that King Robert is killed in a hunting """accident””” and Ned goes from presumptive main character to Very Very Dead. Because he's beheaded as a traitor. :( :(
This is, relatedly, a starting point for why all the other Starks are so miserable
WE MISS YOU, NED.
2. Catelyn Stark, nee Tully (PoV character):
Lady Catelyn is Ned’s wife, Lady of Winterfell, and daughter of the Lord Paramount of the Riverlands. It’s a tough contest, but I’m considering giving Cat the award for Most Miserable Stark. The poor woman is GOING THROUGH IT.
Why is Catelyn Stark so, so miserable?
She’s a daughter of the South and the North is so so cold.
She was supposed to marry Ned’s brother, but then he died.
(The first thing Ned did after he came home from the war, still basically a stranger, was tell her his bastard was going to live in their house. This is not as bad as the other stuff, but it stressed her out a lot.)
She grew to love Ned, and then he died.
SOMEONE (Jaime Lannister) pushed her eight-year old son out of a tower and then SOMEONE (ironically not Jaime Lannister) tried to stab him before he woke up, while Cat was still in the room.
Her loved ones keep being hurt and killed, all series long, no matter what she does
At one point she believes that 4 out of her 5 kids are dead. It's bleak out there.
SORRY EVERYTHING SUCKS, CAT.
There's no way to talk about Lady Stoneheart and her connection to Cat without MASSIVE book 3 spoilers and another wall of text. Let me know if you want to know about Lady Stoneheart. (She's the zombie-looking lady with scars around her eyes I've reblogged art of.)
The Starks (and why they're all so miserable) pt. 2: BOYZ NIGHT ('s watch), ft. Jon Snow and Robb
Book spoilers continue; I'm trying to not fully spoils books 2-5, but there's one big book 5 spoiler in here. I have no compunctions about spoiling book 1 because it's essentially table stakes for comprehension.
3. Jon Snow (PoV character)
Not technically a Stark, but absolutely a Stark. Jon is allegedly Ned’s bastard son, born during the rebellion. Almost no irl book-readers believe this, but most everyone in-universe does. It probably helps that Jon looks like a mini-Ned. Snow is the surname given to (noble) bastards in the North. He was raised at Winterfell with Ned's other kids, and he's especially close to Robb (who is almost the same age) and Arya.
(For the curious, Jon is probably the son of Ned’s sister, Lyanna Stark, and the previous Targaryen crown prince. We don’t know this for sure, but it’s pretty heavily foreshadowed.)
Jon Snow doesn’t enjoy being a bastard son without a proper place at Winterfell, so he decides to join the Night’s Watch, the organization that guards Hadrian’s Wall the Wall at the Northern border of the Seven Kingdoms. Brothers of the Night’s Watch are sworn for life and completely give up the life they leave behind. They cannot have titles or lands, they cannot marry or have children, and in theory they’re supposed to be celibate. In the old days the Night’s Watch was a respected order, but these days it’s turned into a defacto penal colony – joining the watch is often given as an alternative to other punishments. There are still some Northern lords and knights who join from a sense of duty, but the whole thing is pretty grim and under-staffed.
Which isn’t great, because OH SHIT ALL THE OLD LEGENDS WERE TRUE AND THERE IS AN ARMY OF WEIRD COLD CREATURES AND ZOMBIES AMASSING IN THE FAR NORTH BEYOND THE WALL.
Bonus fact: All the Stark kids have a pet direwolf they have a mystical warg connection with. Jon’s is named Ghost. He’s albino, with white fur and red eyes like the trees of the Northern gods, and he's the best boy :D
Why is Jon Snow so miserable?
The whole bastard thing. It’s a real sticking point for him.
THERE ARE ZOMBIES AND OTHERS. ATTACKING THE REALM. WHY IS NO ONE IN ANY OTHER STORYLINE WORRIED ABOUT THIS, asks local Night's Watch brother Jon Snow
People keep trying to get him to break his oaths. The thing he hates doing!
“Pspsps, Jon Snow, have some duty vs. desire vs. confusion about what duty even is in a complex context” –everyone around him, constantly
People he loves keep dying (it’s a Stark theme) and he’s not allowed to do anything about it.
He’s almost certainly the Chosen One™ of like a dozen different prophecies. And not even fun ones.
Despite all this…Jon miiight be the least miserable Stark right now?
Aside from. Uh. One liiiiiiittle itty bitty thing that happened at the end of book 5. But it’s fine. Totally fine.
(BOOK 5 SPOILER: Jon was stabbed to death by a bunch of his co-workers, Julius-Caesar-style. But it’s fine! He’s fine!! He’s in so many prophecies!!!)
(Resurrection is very rare and very Not Fun in this universe, so Jon might quickly climb the Miserable Stark Rankings if Book 6 ever comes out.)
I always forget how much I like Jon Snow until I do a reread. I quite like Jon Snow! He’s got some great chapters.
4. Robb Stark
Ned and Cat’s oldest (shared) son. Not a PoV character. I don't think a lot about Robb Stark, but he's a good kid.
Robb's direwolf is named Greywind!
Why is Robb Stark so miserable?
He’s 14 when his dad’s thrown in prison as a traitor.
So just like Ned before him, he rallies the North to his banner to go South and try to save his family. And, as is Stark custom, he fails.
Have fun being 14-year old Lord of Winterfell.
Gets peer pressured into declaring himself a rebel king.
King in the Nooooooooorrrrrttthhhh
(It goes bad)
Great at winning battles, terrible at winning wars.
[Book 2 and 3 spoilers redacted. But it goes so so bad.]
His best friend is Theon Greyjoy. Bad choice, Robb.
(Maybe I'll talk about Theon as a Bonus Stark at the end; tl;dr he's a hostage from another noble family being raised as a ward of the Starks. And he sucks. Love his chapters, though!)
The Starks (and why they're all so miserable) pt 3.: Completing the Stark Kid Set (Sansa, Arya, Bran, Rickon)
(Book spoilers continue, especially for book 1 and a bit of 5)
5. Sansa Stark (PoV character).
My precious princess!!!! Sansa loves pretty dresses and lemoncakes and stories about noble knights and beautiful ladies. She is courteous and perfectly ladylike and doing her best to be kind in a cold, hard, world. She wishes everything could just be nice, all the time :( And it isn't :((
Sansa came South to the royal court with her father, and she was engaged to the young crown prince, Joffrey. If you've heard that name before, you know this Did Not Go Well.
After her father's death, Sansa is kept at court as a hostage. Her chapters are achingly beautiful while also being full of plot and intrigue. I love reading Sansa chapters.
Dear George R. R. Martin, please give Sansa a castle and a pony and a gentle knight to destroy everything bad that comes near her. Please and thank you!!!!
Why is Sansa so miserable:
She thought she was going to marry a beautiful, chivalrous, fairy-tale prince. Then he chopped her father's head off, right in front of her.
Joffery's just generally a horrible little sadist who is at war with her family and takes it out on her. It's a bad scene.
She used to have a direwolf. Her name was Lady. Everyone agreed Lady was the sweetest of the litter :(
Three guesses what happened to Lady :( :(
(The Lannisters happened to Lady)
People keep trauma dumping at her. (Looking at you, Sandor Clegane!)
She has to spend extended time with deranged wine aunt Cersei Lannister.
People she loves keep, you guessed it, dying.
This guy who's obsessed with her mom keeps being creepy at her >:(
Everyone wants to marry her off for politics.
She's struggling to find agency and meaning, and some kind of middle ground that's neither naivety nor outright cynicism, and it's hard!!
"She felt so numb and dreamy. My skin has turned to porcelain, to ivory, to steel." - ASoS, Sansa V
6. Arya Stark (PoV Character)
Arya is the next Stark sister. She's the tomboy who dreams of adventure and the blood of her enemies. She has a little sword named Needle, and her dire wolf is named Nymeria. Arya and Nymeria are separated early in Book 1, because Arya’s not allowed to hold onto anything nice, but they’re still connected through dreams.
When Ned dies and Sansa is trapped at court, Arya manages to escape and blend in to the countryside. Arya's big theme is identity, and the loss thereof. She also ends up being our window into the suffering of the common folk during war, as she wanders through the land trying to find her loved ones and a place of safety.
Why is Arya so miserable?
Also watched her dad get killed D:
Has gone through so many names and roles even she can’t keep them straight.
Her identity touchstone is a list of names of people she wants dead. She recites it at night before she sleeps so she doesn’t forget.
People keep promising to return her to her family and failing.
War is bad!!! My girl has seen too much!
So very small. So badly trying be brave. So lost and alone.
“A long time ago, she remembered her father saying that when the cold winds blow the lone wolf dies and the pack survives. He had it all backwards. Arya, the lone wolf, still lived, but the wolves of the pack had been taken and slain and skinned.” -AFFC, Arya II
7. Bran Stark (Pov Character)
Spooky Boy! Bran is our first main PoV, and he's 8 years old. He loves climbing around the walls of Winterfell, riding, and generally training to someday be a knight.
Or, well, he did. Until SOMEONE (Jaime Lannister) shoved him out a tower window. Ever since then, Bran's been having weird dreams about a Three-Eyed Crow telling him to fly. His dreams have overall been getting increasingly prophetic, and he can warg mind-meld with his direwolf Summer with much more ease and regularity than any other Stark kid.
He might be King of Westeros someday, if you believe that George told the HBO folks what's what.
Why is Bran so weird miserable?
Getting thrown from that tower window left him partially paralyzed.
A weird bird is harassing him in his dreams.
Theon Greyjoy's Bad Choices™ [Book 2 spoilers redacted]
Skin-changer ethics are hard for an 8-10 year old to really grasp.
Turns out you can do some kinda messed up stuff when you're 10 and can take over brains?
Almost everyone thinks he's dead.
He's got three (3) friends left and he might have eaten one of them without knowing.
#JojenPasteIsReal
He's turning into a tree. Or something. It's strange out there in Bran plotline world.
Winter is, in fact, coming. And Bran's clearly on the front lines.
(Not sure what side. But he's there.)
8. Rickon Stark
What can we say about Rickon Stark? Rickon's the baby of the family (3 at the start, now 5). He's semi-feral. He bites people. His direwolf is named Shaggydog. Shaggydog also bites people.
I don't even know what's up with Rickon but all the other Starks need to get on his level.
Why is Rickon so miserable?
Honestly for all I know Rickon is living his best life on the Isle of Skagos.
We haven't seen him in so long. Multiple books.
Apparently there are cannibals on Skagos. And unicorns.
I hope Rickon's a weird unicorn riding cryptid forever.
More book spoilers for Books 2 and some tiny ones for books 3 and 5
BONUS:
Benjen Stark and Theon Greyjoy
9. Benjen Stark
Ned Stark’s younger brother; head ranger of the Night’s Watch. We don’t know that much about Ben Stark, because he disappears North beyond the Wall super early in Book 1.
So instead of talking about why he’s miserable (he’s almost certainly dead), I’m going to talk about my Benjen related distress.
What’s MY issue with Benjen Stark?
So, in book 3 we meet this mysterious guy beyond the Wall. He’s got a Night’s Watch cloak. He’s very clearly undead.
People call him Coldhands, for obvious reasons. (His hands are real cold.)
“Oh,” said I and everyone else I knew after book 3 came out, “That’s Benjen Stark. Hi, Benjen!”
I spent DECADES convinced we knew where Ben Stark was. Because he’s Coldhands.
LITERALLY DECADES. I READ ASOS IN LIKE 2001.
Only recently I hear that George R R Martin has confirmed that COLDHANDS IS NOT BENJEN STARK.
Where’s Ben Stark?????
Dead somewhere, I guess. Somewhere else.
If he’s somehow alive he’s going to have a hell of a catch-up session when he gets back.
And now I have to worry about who Coldhands is too!
Is it your good friend and mine, Ser Duncan the Tall?? That seems to be a popular theory at the moment. Bleak!
Maybe Coldhands really is Benjen Stark and George is just messing with everyone. Maybe he's just a random dead guy.
Who even knows anymore!!!!
10. Theon Greyjoy
Theon Greyjoy is not a Stark. Theon Greyjoy will remind you that he’s not a Stark. (Theon Greyjoy has people constantly reminding him that he’s not a Stark. Not that he’s bitter about it or anything.)
Theon is from House Greyjoy, the Lords Paramount of the Iron Island. Approximately 10 years ago, his father, Balon Greyjoy, mounted a rebellion to name himself King of the Iron Islands. King Robert and Ned put down the rebellion, and all of Theon’s older brothers died along the way.
10-year old Theon was taken to be raised as a “ward” of Ned Stark – essentially a hostage for his father’s good behavior. The implication being that if Balon rebelled again, Theon would be executed.
So! That’s a fun childhood. And those were the best days of his life – it’s all been downhill since then!
Why is Theon Greyjoy so very very very miserable?
If Theon were a Stark, he might well be the most miserable Stark.
But he’s not a Stark, so he can’t even win that.
No winning for Theon. Ever.
Theon was close to Robb and looked on him as a little brother…so when Robb rebelled against Joffrey, he trusted Theon to be his emissary to the Iron Island to get Balon Greyjoy’s support.
Balon is. Uh. Not in favor of working with any Stark ever.
Which maybe includes Theon, as far as Balon is concerned.
Theon Greyjoy would like to remind you, again, that he is not a Stark.
And if his dad didn’t want him dressing or acting like a Stark, maybe he shouldn’t have sent him away as a hostage? To the Starks?? For a decade?!?
For years Theon has been fantasizing about finally coming home and actually, you know, belonging. With his family! That he’s part of!
But if anything Balon just seems mad that Theon’s return might get in the way of his making his daughter Asha his heir.
(In fairness to Balon: Asha is pretty great. I’d rather have her as my heir than Theon too.)
Balon’s also decided that since everyone’s doing a rebellion, he’s going to do it too! Again! He declares himself King of the Iron Islands and sends his two kids off to do some old-school Viking-esque pillaging of the North while the armies are away.
So Theon decides to try to impress his dad.
By conquering Winterfell.
Theon. No. No one wants you to do that.
He uses his knowledge of the Castle to draw away the defenders, get his men inside, and force Bran (who is, I will remind you, 9) to cede rights over Winterfell to him.
Surely this will gain him respect and praise!!
It does not.
People start calling him “Theon Turncloak”
Which, he will remind you yet again, is so unfair because he’s not a Stark.
The Starks and the Greyjoys are, in fact, enemies!!
Sure thing, Theon Turncloak.
It’s not even fun. He doesn’t even like it. He spirals so fast.
And he’s got a Weird Little Guy™ he found in the dungeons encouraging allllll his worst instincts.
(Including literal child murder and pretending to have killed Bran and Rickon Stark.)
Whoops, turns out the Weird Little Guy was actually Ramsay Snow, the bastard son of a semi-rival Northern House (the Boltons).
Ramsay burns Winterfell, kills just about everyone left, and blames it all on Theon.
Theon Turncloak, most hated man in the North.
At least he’s finally being recognized for something.
(Then book 5 happens, but this is already much too long)
(Suffice it to say that he gets much more miserable)
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