hello my little santee! I hope you have been getting my messages the past few days <3 I have a question for you today! I was wondering if you had any specific headcanons about how robb feels about being NITN? if his opinions on it changed at all or how it compares to how he thought ruling winterfell would have been (had ned lived, etc.) ?? :)
I have and I love them all! I am so sorry this is coming in late. It’s been a wild week. I’m guessing you mean King In the North? If so, then yes, and can I say that I love you even more now? Thank you for asking! I’m always a slut for headcanons.
Robb always knew he was going to rule something somewhere one day (though he thought it would just be Winterfell), and I think that’s why he made such an effort to get to know everyone growing up. We already know that he’s best friends with his family’s bastard and ward (two people that aren’t exactly “approved” friendships for a little heir) and I headcanon that he also would have made friends with the servants and cooks if he could because Ned drilled into him early on that you can’t expect anyone to serve a ruler they don’t know. He definintely took that mentality to the war with him and would always make sure he was on the front lines and would chat with as many of his lords or soldiers (even the very very low born ones) as often as he could and ask about their families and just try to show, generally, that he was going to be a part of their lives and that he wanted to get to know them. That if they were going to die for him, he’d live for them.
I think one of the things that terrified him the most about becoming King was that he knew Winterfell, and so he thought he was ready to be lord, but everything just became so much bigger than Winterfell. He spent his whole life there, knew every little piece of the castle and the lands, and (as said above) he knew the people. He doesn’t know all of the North, and I think he would have been scrambling to try and expand his horizons on that as quickly as possible. Especially when he takes on the Riverlands as well. (And we see in the books Robb asking his mom for stories as they move around, trying to get to know the history of the land.)
Robb thinks of ruling (as Ned taught him) as being a father and all of the people are his children. So just like with a parent, I think, he both loves and fears that responsibility. He finds out pretty quickly that he likes his new role (he gets to know people, he gets to look out for them, he gets to carve out this new plan for the future, and it’s all very exciting) but it’s also the most terrifying thing he’s ever done because he now has thousands of lives in his hands, and he wants to please everyone (just like you never really want to play favorites with your children and want to be diplomatic and find the right solution to appease them all), but you literally can’t please that many people at once, and that’s difficult for him to learn.
He’s just confident and arrogant enough to accept the title and to believe that he actually can be king (not that he was given a lot of choice) and once he makes up his mind, he’s very stubborn (and he has a very rigid sense of right and wrong), but he’s also learning on the job, and he’s open to criticism and advice and knows how to apologize/suck up his pride and grovel when he needs to. I think he called for council quite a lot and genuinely wanted his lords’ and his mother’s advice, but at the end of the day, if he didn’t look like he believed in himself, no one else would, and he was constantly fighting against being seen only as a “boy” so he often just had to make the executive decision and pretend he was confident in it and hope it worked out (which we know it didn’t always).
He’s learning as he goes along that “good” and “what works” are not always the same thing, and he’s always stubbornly going to pick “good.” Because he’s so unwilling to be morally flexible, ruling starts to feel like a pretty impossible job.
He takes the job very seriously and that’s why he never sleeps, barely eats, never does anything but obsess over what to do next. He definitely doesn’t take the responsibility for granted.
I’ll stop there before this becomes way too long!