#craster

[kingsmoot]

do you think craster and the Targaryens are uniquely bad in Westeros

uniquely bad in terms of their dynastic incest practices? sort of an apples and oranges comparison since craster is one guy in the haunted forest commiting to a sort of hills have eyes cult compound grindstyle and the targs ruled over the seven kingdoms for hundreds of years

plus craster specifically concentrates his power through vertical incest and polygamy while the targs held their power as a family built through monogomous arranged marriage reinforced through lateral incest, so they're playing two different games in terms of both practice and scale

but in general i do not think characters like craster (or gregor clegane, or vargo hoat) are meant to serve as examples of unbelievable/outlandish extremes outside the norms of westeros. they exist instead to show what the norms of westeros allow for, and who those norms protect.

i talk about it here where i talk about why ramsay bolton is not uniquely horrifying in the greater westerosi landscape:

Post by @kingsmoot

💬 4  🔁 6  ❤️ 37 · asoiaf universe is so much tamer and softer than real life if you think about it. realistically, every noble house should

craster and vargo are cast as lowly brutes inhuman in their cruelty, but in both of their cases, their behavior is excused and enabled by a noble lord. the brave companions/bloody mummers are only in westeros because of lord tywin's campaign and financial support. craster is allowed to live peacefully in the shadow of the wall because lord commander jeor mormont (and lord commander(s) before him as well) grants him the permission to do so as "a friend of the watch". a few dozen raped, brutalized, abused, underfed girls being forced to bear their own father's children is just the price to pay for a "friendly" wildling to sometimes host rangers and keep an eye out on other wildlings' movements.

similarly, mad king aerys was allowed to brutalize his wife and burn his sworn lords alive in their own armor because his kingsguard and small council stood by and let him do so

so, no, i do not think that craster and the targaryens are "uniquely bad" because i don't think asoiaf is a story that should be engaged with in terms of like. negative power scaling. like who is the Big Bad is not a useful question, imo. is robert baratheon worse than tywin lannister? is aerys targaryen worse than roose bolton? is craster worse than gregor clegane? i think you could weigh the actions and influence of all of these characters differently depending on what exactly you were interested in examining. but i think trying to find a Ultimate Baddie who is truly the worst of the worst that westeros has to offer isn't a useful exercise. because even if we decided on who that was, we would still have to examine how they got into their position of power and who worked hard to keep them there.

[readingreddingread]

Bad Dad Poll

Which of these mfers sucked the most at being a father?

Jaime Lannister

Robert Baratheon

Rhaegar Targaryen

Randally Tarly

Aerys II Targaryen

Craster

Walder Frey Sr.

Voting ended onJun 17, 2025

[bidonica]

GOD those Saera Targaryen posts in your queue …. Yeah there was Something Up with Jaehaerys and his daughters, especially with her. I’m glad she nearly stole a dragon, I wish she had burned the whole place down

Look, I'm not particularly big on lore because what captivates me about asoiaf is the character work, so it took me a while to finally get around to read F&B, and when I finally got to the Jaehaerys part I was reading in mild disbelief, because *surely* this couldn't be the guy so many people in-world were glazing - and to an extent, even the fandom? Sure, his reign was synonymous with a long period of peace and stability in the realm, but a lot of the more progressive and interesting stuff came from Alysanne, whose autonomy he still very much did NOT respect as he kept impregnating her even when she said she'd rather not (having a fantamillion heirs still didn't prevent a succession crisis that laid the groundwork for fucking civil war down the line ANYWAY). And yeah something struck me as iffy about Saera's story, and I haaated that he slut shamed her, but tbh I was already on the Jaehaerys hate train by that point so I didn't particularly dwell on it. Like fuck that guy and let's move on. When I came across the theory that their whole dynamic points at Saera being an incest victim though, it made a LOT of sense to me.

Of course it might be that I'm biased because I'm a #hater but it's just so... textbook it's hard to unsee once you've considered the possibility. I also think there is like, a gradient in the way GRRM uses incest in the books. On one end of the spectrum, there's the romanticized version; especially in the case of siblingcest among Targaryens, in *most* cases it's used like a spicy fantasy element, something to highlight the otherworldliness of the characters and that doesn't exactly follow the same dynamics that incest does irl. It's not devoid of abusive elements popping up here and there, mind that, but it's also largely removed from real world incestuous dynamics(*). I'd argue even Jaime/Cersei, albeit toxic, still falls under the romantic umbrella, though in this case it's more the dramatic, violent kind of "romantic". It's something forbidden and secret that they know is against social norms, and is also, dare I say crucially? Between twins, so the power imbalance is minimal (you could argue Jaime has structural power over Cersei by virtue of being a man, while Cersei has the interpersonal upper hand because she has a more assertive personality, and a lot of their relationship is a tug-of-war made of a mixture of manipulation and coercion. As I said, toxic! But dramatically oh so juicy).

Then the dial moves towards incestuous abuse, which always implies some kind of blatant power imbalance. We see it in older/younger sibling dynamics with Euron and Aeron, and Aerion and Egg (we could also argue Viserys and Dany, though that was more of a looming threat). Littlefinger and Sansa aren't actually related, but he basically is incest LARPing with her. Daemon and Rhaenyra are interesting, because while on one hand they fall under the "that's just how Targs move" umbrella, it's hard not to see the patterns of grooming happening between them (in the book more explicitly than in the show; the book also puts the possibility of Daemon/Nettles on the table, with a non zero chance Nettles was his bastard daughter).

On top of the pyramid of abusive incest sits Craster. His systemic rape of his own daughters while sacrificing any male children is something the text frames as unequivocally disgusting and barbaric, a rotten display of absolute patriarchal power over helpless girls treated as broodmares and servants in their own home. Yet, the Night's Watch attitude about it is "yeah it sucks, but the pragmatic choice is to let Craster do it because we need his hospitality."

And when you think about it, what is Craster if not a king writ small? Lives in a "castle", sends his sons to death to defend his lands, and exploits his daughters to extend his bloodline, though in this case the bloodline is a self-cannibalizing ouroboros. I think there's an interesting parallel here, if we accept the allegations about Jaehaerys as an incestuous father as true, because they are two sides of the same coin, the Ur-King, at the same time protector and abuser of his subjects, a benevolent yet monstrous father, but above all guardian of a system that keeps him firmly on top. Jaehaerys just happens to have better PR.

(*) It's worth noting that there ARE Targs, like Egg, who seem to be actively put off by the notion of incest the way most normal people would; is it because there is a genetic predisposition/dragon blood/ blah blah pulling them in that direction? Is it a nature vs nurture thing so in Egg's case living his formative years away from his family had an impact? It's all up for debate

[dorsey-divine]

You’ve been iseakai-ed into ASOIAF! Which is the worst option?

Aerys II Targaryen (after the Defiance)

Rickon Stark (the three year old)

Daemon I Blackfyre (after the start of the rebellion)

Joffrey Baratheon (after beheading Ned Stark)

Craster (at the start of the series)

Rhaenyra Targaryen (after Blood and Cheese)

Voting ended onApr 10

[pigment-enforcer]

Starting this off with some highlights from last year. These are a handful of Song of ice and Fire (from here on I’ll call SOI) characters I got done.

Despite how soft a lot of the details are on the casting of these great sculpts, I was able to get results I am really happy with. Especially Craster, Mance, and Lady Val.

Models in order Craster, Tormund, Mance Rayder, Lady Val, Ygritte, Harma, and Harma’s Bannerman

[dreadbirate]

Why do the wildlings hate bastards? They don’t even have marriage.

[cjbolan]

I agree Aegon was reckless with Sunfyre and basically got his beloved dragon greviously wounded in a fight. He was irresponsible and poor Sunfyre paid the price.

But still, kind of a stretch for some to say that he never saw Sunfyre as more than an expendable tool? I mean, heaven forbid that even an objectively bad person can have a few nicer and more endearing traits even if they don't justify his actions. He's not some one-dimensional Saturday morning cartoon villain who gloats about how evil he is.

Completely agree. There's very few one-dimensional villains in Westeros, and so far Aegon II is not one of them.

Interestingly, all the more one-dimensional villains are in GOT (Joffrey, Ramsay, Ser Meryn, The Mountain, Craster, etc.)

HOTD in comparison has more morally gray characters. I can see why some GOT fans don't like HOTD.

[goodqueenaly]

I would like to think that the reason Waymar Royce avoided sleeping under Craster’s roof was more noble than selfish. After all, we have in the examples of Waymar’s (male) family members men who, while certainly not immune to the sort of personal and political ambitions common to Westerosi blue bloods, uphold a certain moral standard at the same time. If Ser Robar Royce sought out a place in Renly’s Rainbow Guard to win the sort of personal glory denied to nobly born second sons, and approached war with a lightness that disturbed Catelyn, he still prioritized honor enough to sacrifice himself so that two innocent women could escape the site of (and blame for) Renly’s murder. If Lord Yohn Royce sought and cultivated the favor and control of both the young Lord Arryn and his somewhat older heir presumptive, Bronze Yohn nevertheless exploded with fury at Lyn Corbray’s (staged) attempt to breach the ancient tradition of guest right during their conference at the Eyrie. Nor was Waymar himself personally bereft of a sense of honor, as demonstrated in his fatal determination to defend the Night’s Watch even against a supernatural enemy he could not have hoped to defeat.

So perhaps Ser Waymar, coming across Craster’s Keep on his very first command ranging, decided that he was not going to condone the same blind-eye allowance of Craster’s rape and slavery of his daughters and “wives” which other Night’s Watch officers allowed when they stopped over with Craster. How, perhaps Waymar might have thought, could he respect the chivalric charge to protect women and the innocent (as Robar Royce would do for Catelyn and Brienne) while sitting by as Craster verbally and physically abused the women and girls in his household? (To say nothing of Craster’s sacrifice of his sons, which admittedly Waymar does not seem to have known about.) Did Waymar, as Jon would in ACOK, decide that Craster was akin to an unjust bannerman, more fit to be hanged than to be trusted as even an uncertain ally? Consequently, did Waymar make the choice Jon would - to reject the obligations of guest right, that socio-political tradition which would in the future be so vigorously defended by his own father?

Of course it’s possible that this refusal was simply a reflection of Waymar’s aristocratic arrogance - that Ser Waymar found the midden heap of Craster’s Keep too humble and impoverished to house him, the knightly son of a great lord of the Vale and an officer of the Night’s Watch. Yet I feel like the more interesting reading is to view Waymar as a sort of proto or imperfect Jon Snow. Just as Ser Waymar was another privileged but extraneous aristocratic scion whose socio-political position virtually required that he pursue a career in the Night’s Watch - and as Waymar and Jon both hold to the fundamental mission of the Night’s Watch against the Others, with Jon perhaps eventually succeeding where Waymar (not for lack of trying) failed - so perhaps Waymar and Jon shared a feudal/chivalric disgust in the unjust actions of Craster.