Having many Winterfell crypts thoughts of late, but did want to theorize about the possible unintended results of the break-in-procedure that Ned committed when he had statues made for his siblings Brandon & Lyanna:
"And there's my grandfather, Lord Rickard, who was beheaded by Mad King Aerys. His daughter Lyanna and his son Brandon are in the tombs beside him. Not me, another Brandon, my father's brother. They're not supposed to have statues, that's only for the lords and the kings, but my father loved them so much he had them done." [AGOT, Bran VII]
Yes, bittersweet, however also wanted to touch on this in the face of Winterfell being partially a necropolis (the crypts are larger than the entire castle!), and how Lyanna having this effigy relates to her presence through the books. We actually meet Lyanna through that very crypt statue (Ned leads Robert down to pay respects) and the gravesite symbolizes a final rejection of Robert when he says he would have buried her on a hill, outside, beneath a fruit tree and the sun only for Ned to remind him that she wanted to "rest beside Brandon and Father." Immediately, she's an active presence. During this visit, Ned feels that the dead are watching & even speaking to him. He sees the empty grave where he will be buried. He acknowledges that this is "his place."
This is the last time Ned visits the crypts before his death. Aside, I think that's interesting because while Ned's physical remains are a point of contention it's implied that Maester Luwin commissions a statue of him prior to dying, so we can assume that even if his tomb is forever empty, Ned Stark will still have a place in the crypts. That does connect to the point I'm making, that the crypts of Winterfell are less important as a gravesite than as a living site of memory.
Bran and Rickon live in the crypts during Winterfell's occupation & we know they interact with the Rickard/Brandon/Lyanna area because they take Brandon's sword (it's absence later noted by Barbrey). This is also when Bran communicates with Jon beyond the Wall:
He could reach Summer whenever he wanted, and once he had even touched Ghost and talked to Jon. Though maybe he had only dreamed that. [ACOK Bran VII]
[Jon as Ghost during a wolf dream] sniffed at the bark, smelled wolf and tree and boy, but behind that there were other scents, the rich brown smell of warm earth and the hard grey smell of stone and something else, something terrible. Death, he knew. He was smelling death. He cringed back, his hair bristling, and bared his fangs.
Don't be afraid, I like it in the dark. No one can see you, but you can see them. But first you have to open your eyes. See? Like this. And the tree reached down and touched him. [ACOK Jon VII]
How did Bran do that? This is a conscious dreamsharing sequence we don't see again in the series. I dunno if it has anything to do with Lyanna at all but we know the dead are always watching, that they're present in the connection between Jon & Bran, and more importantly, that Winterfell's dead have been in Jon's dream before. As he recounts to Sam, he has a recurring nightmare about the crypts:
I find myself in front of the door to the crypts. It's black inside, and I can see the steps spiraling down. Somehow I know I have to go down there, but I don't want to. I'm afraid of what might be waiting for me. The old Kings of Winter are down there, sitting on their thrones with stone wolves at their feet and iron swords across their laps, but it's not them I'm afraid of. I scream that I'm not a Stark, that this isn't my place, but it's no good, I have to go anyway, so I start down, feeling the walls as I descend, with no torch to light the way. [AGOT Jon VI]
He dreamt he was back in Winterfell, limping past the stone kings on their thrones. Their grey granite eyes turned to follow him as he passed, and their grey granite fingers tightened on the hilts of the rusted swords upon their laps. You are no Stark, he could hear them mutter, in heavy granite voices. There is no place for you here. Go away. [...] Up above he heard drums. They are feasting in the Great Hall, but I am not welcome there. I am no Stark, and this is not my place. His crutch slipped and he fell to his knees. The crypts were growing darker. A light has gone out somewhere. "Ygritte?" he whispered. "Forgive me. Please." But it was only a direwolf, grey and ghastly, spotted with blood, his golden eyes shining sadly through the dark [ASOS Jon VIII]
The Lyanna connection to all this is clear. There's something in the crypts waiting for him but it's not the Kings of Winter—that narrows it down a bit then!
Ned wasn't supposed to give Lyanna a statue, but she asked to be buried there, and he did, and now Jon has dreams of something reaching out to him. Bran possibly hitches onto this line to speak to Jon. Before Ned died, he also dreamed of Lyanna's statue reaching out to him:
He was walking through the crypts beneath Winterfell, as he had walked a thousand times before. The Kings of Winter watched him pass with eyes of ice, and the direwolves at their feet turned their great stone heads and snarled. Last of all, he came to the tomb where his father slept, with Brandon and Lyanna beside him. "Promise me, Ned," Lyanna's statue whispered. [AGOT Ned XIII]
Staying on Jon's crypt dreams however, I've talked about this somewhere before but ACOK Theon shares Jon's ASOS crypt dream, albeit from a different angle. Jon is in the crypts but Theon is at the feast upstairs. As in life, Jon is not welcome at Robert's welcoming feast, while Theon technically is. Both of their dreams end with Grey Wind appearing.
But there were others with faces he had never known in life, faces he had seen only in stone. The slim, sad girl who wore a crown of pale blue roses and a white gown spattered with gore could only be Lyanna. Her brother Brandon stood beside her, and their father Lord Rickard just behind. Along the walls figures half-seen moved through the shadows, pale shades with long grim faces. The sight of them sent fear shivering through Theon sharp as a knife. And then the tall doors opened with a crash, and a freezing gale blew down the hall, and Robb came walking out of the night. Grey Wind stalked beside, eyes burning, and man and wolf alike bled from half a hundred savage wounds. [ACOK Theon V]
And who is present in Theon's dream? Lyanna. The face he's only ever seen in stone. Because she has a statue in Winterfell's crypts.
Which brings us to three people who've specifically had Lyanna's crypt statue haunt their dreams. That statue which is an anomaly and shouldn't exist. It makes me wonder. Wonder if Ned didn't do a little something there.
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