#transdimensional void

[atopvisenyashill]

top 5 historical starks

sansa manderly stark tell me your secrets

brandon the burner i love grief

brandon the daughterless & stark maid go hand in hand papa & his baby girl muah

arya flint WHERE DID SHE LIVE. WHAT WAS HER LIFE LIKE.

cregan stark LISTEN I THINK HES FUN & I THINK CUTTING OUT INSTEAD OF LEANING INTO THE GAY ALLEGATIONS IS WHY HOTD FAILS

[thewingedwolf]

ok but did you see hudson and chase together

I DID AND THEY WERE TALKING AND GIGGLING WHILE THEY POSED

[atopvisenyashill]

imagine you’re ned. your son and heir is nearly marriageable age and your family is down to one (1) slender branch. your eldest daughter is also a major catch and nearing an age when a betrothal might be arranged. you’ve also got a bastard son whose future urgently needs to be decided, and three younger children whose futures must be considered too. you are severely traumatized by everything that went down during robert’s rebellion, and while it’s the long summer, winter is coming. what plans do you make for your children?

i think the key thing here to understand is that ned wants to BURY this secret. that’s his MAIN priority. so personally if i’m ned, i don’t want any of my kids in the capital. rip to robert but if i was ned trying to avoid the capital, i would have made sure those kids were promised before he came calling. probably also, the best place for jon IS the wall comma but we know ned did sort of want robb & jon to continue being close and EYE think it’s mean to banish a child to the wall SO!

i’m going to apologize without apologizing to catelyn about being so hostile about the wylla of it all*** and signaling that i will be less hostile to anything she has to say regarding her feelings towards jon or wylla from this point forward.

im sitting the oldest three down and telling them You Aren’t Grown But You’re Not A Baby. i am expecting more from you but also, i didn’t know shit when i became lord, its fine if you don’t know, that’s why you have all these advisors. i’m emphasizing family togetherness here.

also im telling catelyn to have a talk with sansa about like, Being A Woman; like a for real one where she’s Serious to Sansa about the actual reality of it (bc it does seem like they don't ever....genuinely prepare Sansa which is crazy bc Catelyn seems from her own memories plenty prepared for her move & marriage)

idk that Ned notices the catelyn-arya issue as an issue. i think he sees this as very typical exasperated mom-unruly daughter thing. however, if he’s paying more attention to them bc he is being possessed by the spirit of bisexual asshole from chicago, i think the fact that sansa & arya argue all the time is p obvious, so i Do think id sit them down & be like “the hell is happening between you two” and i’m arriving much faster at “arya needs an outlet” and letting her train with the boys/finding someone who will train her. if catelyn is like “this will not help her behavior” my argument is nothing else has why can’t we try something new + i mean cat if YOU want to learn how to use a sword, i can get someone to train you too. maybe you would feel better if you got to beat the shit out of something once a day idk. i can put some padding on theon if you want and you can just go hog wild. something something the north is hard.

then i am engaging sansa POST HASTE. even one Second of thinking would tell you that robert was gonna want to engage joffrey to sansa, they are Very close in age!!! so im simply beating him to the punch PUBLICLY

but not like too publicly, i dont want robert to know im husband hunting until its too late

who do i engage her to? i mean that’s tricky bc catelyn is going to have opinions & imo if they’re too Weird of a choice, robert is going to send a raven like “hey just call that off i got joff right here.” probably the only non northern house that Doesn’t get robert’s attention in a negative way is the blackwoods, with brynden being around sansa’s age and heir.

but really staying in the north is key - you’re probably guaranteed an immediate yes and i think ned could absolutely pull the “my whole family is dead robert, let me keep my kids in the north” card. does this argument work? honestly, no idea but i think it doesn’t hurt to announce it first and if necessary ask for forgiveness afterwards.

esp bc as you say, they’re down to One (1) branch. i do think ned can and Would lean heavily on guilting the hell out of robert IF after he announces the engagement robert is like “what the fuck”

(if robert asks about arya, well first of all i’m making the same argument, second of all, i will have prepared for that and had a betrothal for her too that i can’t possibly break.)

but we’re threading a thin needle here when it comes to all these engagements being Good but not Suspicious. the girls are tricky are on their own but jon is a whole can of worms. i dont need to get jon engaged any time soon - men get married later often anyway, and if i give him a nice match, catelyn is going to have a heart attack. but i think ned would just fully commit to Giving Jon A Place At Winterfell if he gets to make the choice before robert comes (is sending him to the wall easier? probably, but so was sending him with howland so). to tell jon “you will be to robb what i would have been to brandon, what i wish i would have had.”

i think id just like, foster jon somewhere. and not in a “im sending you away” way, i would once again compare him to myself, since ned also got fostered, and i'd ask for jon's input to make it clear this isn't a punishment for Existing As A Bastard. two ways to do this. either i get the boys together (EYE Rani VisenyasHill would also bring sansa in but i do Not think that would occur to ned) and say “what are your opinions on which of our vassals we should foster a stronger bond with by sending them jon for a few years?” OR im going “and i know just who to send you to - my good friends HOWLAND REED” whatever causes ned less anxiety. robb gets to escort jon there (do i go with?? idk, worried that would make Robert look at me too much) and stay for a bit (brandon seemed to travel a lot, i think ned should encourage the same with robb. get these kids out of the fucking house ned!!). might send robb out on a lil tour just so people don’t get jealous idk

Prepare for Winter. idk what this entails when you have years longs winters. are they hoping to get one more round of produce planted and grown? do they start consolidating in the same castles for warmth and safety in case of snow? do they flock to the southern north houses, like does white harbor get Super packed during winter? i would assume white harbor gets kind of important as the only major port city but how far out does the ocean freeze?

anyways i think i’d float the idea of fostering bran out to white harbor, so he can become a knight and live in The Big City, with the aim of preparing him to start his own Stark cadet house. I'd focus on making it kind of Manderly-esque, in that the house is meant to be built around a city (maybe another port city?) and meant to culturally be a lil Southron-y.

i would ask jon & robb what they would prefer - jon living with bran (eventually) or jon returning to winterfell.

NOW ROBB'S MARRIAGE. okay, like, the thing is, i think it wouldn't hurt to continue fostering a sense of unity with the south by reaching out to a rich house who will give me a bride with a huge ass dowry that we can use to continue Preparing for Winter. but also. again it's about not pissing robert off. would he be upset if i said like, hey i'm engaging robb to margaery tyrell? maybe a myrcella match would make robert feel less jilted, especially since i am potentially sending jon off to foster elsewhere, so robert won't even have contact with the kid nor will myrcella until they're all grown up. but i do worry robert would get greedy, and also that this would be too much for ned's nerves.

not to be like, ned should be angling to be known as the Stark Who Cured Winter Starvation, but i do think Ned should have been really digging in and trying to make it easier to travel in the north. it gives him a great excuse to ignore robert, it regains some points with some of the lords in the north who seem to feel bitter about rickard & brandon's behavior, it cements his own legacy as A Lord Who Rose To The Occasion, A Lord Who Cared (which, imo, seems to be something Ned cares about - he is quite preoccupied with his reputation tbh!!), and it helps him get his house rebuilt.

tldr - foster jon somewhere in the north and let him feel like its his joint decision alongside robb (and sansa, maybe). get sansa & arya engaged BEFORE i even THINK about contacting robert for anything. send bran to foster at white harbor (not right away). Prepare For Winter (whatever that means). get robb a rich fiance so i can Prepare For Winter and be known as the stark who Prepared For The Winter. call me Ned the Prepared. Ned the Winter Killer.

all of this is so that by the time robert comes north after jon arryn has been off, i don't have to send sansa & arya down there, jon is already gone, and potentially I can say that myrcella can marry robb if robert gets pushy. also, this would allow me some semblance of control over the south if i have to go there - i've already started working on shit with wyman, mending fences through arya and sansa's engagements, and i have CRONIES to bring south. then i am immediately and i mean IMMEDIATELY going to fire the entire small council including renly, putting my own people in there, and telling stannis that if he doesn't get his ass to the capital right now i am accusing him of conspiring against the king and having him marched across the goddamn bay to answer for his behavior.

*** listen i can’t tell cat. this isn’t a debate about whether he should have it’s about If Ned Realized His Kids Would Grow Up One Day What Would He Do. if i want to keep jon around and fight marginally less with my wife about it, i think id just be up front about The Lie. that is to say, i'd apologize without apologizing (i dont think he’d would want to apologize when he’d do it again and i also think ned is too Like That to just lie to manipulate cat and say he’s sorry for how he’s approached it - and i do think we’re really stretching the limits of ned’s ability to lie here), and just tell her something about wylla. like, she was married & i completely fucked her life bc i was horny & sad and then i took her kid away from her and i’ve been really touchy about whether that was a good thing to do or not. something. say anything. fucking anything. just acknowledge he’s been a dick & also make her feel a little bad (he said that line about brandon, he’s not above a little guilt & low blows).

(the ashara story would work BETTER to get cat’s sympathy - like she KILLED HERSELF do you know what kind of yarn he could spin about that & his guilt keeping jon here bc of that!! but he’d never do that lol. tbh i’d also just bring up ashara - i would say that i reacted so negatively bc like, i murdered her brother and then she killed herself 😭 that’s bad enough and now people are saying she had my BASTARD? that i ruined her life TWICE and then she killed herself?? of course i was pissed off people were gossiping about it, but i should have been nicer to cat about it. but anyways, ned would just never lie on ashara’s name, he had the wylla story in mind and that’s the one he went with. but,,,, he HAS a story. ned SAY THE STORY OUT LOUD.).

Does this fix everything in their marriage? Obviously not, i’m sure Cat is still going to push about Jon, but I think signaling that i'm going to be less hostile about this would bring Cat’s hostility down in turn.

[atopvisenyashill]

okay but oberyn/benjen parallels. younger brother who grew up close to his only sister. she dies in an utterly devastating manner, and the loss seems to send him spiraling. benjen runs away from home after lyanna's loss. oberyn finally comes home after elia's. each forswears marriage. oberyn conspires with doran to give the exiled targaryens back their birthright. benjen perhaps conspires with ned to keep jon's targaryen secret an identity. the loss of each sets their niece/nephew on a new path.

cookinnnnnng i gotta find a way to do some sort of dorne/north rr era chart because it's RICH. this also makes me wonder a LOT about benjen - oberyn died screaming elia's name and trying to call attention to what it is tywin covered up and not necessarily what it is the mountain did. if we ever see benjen again...does he die refusing to say lyanna's name and what it is he and ned covered up? is he already dead and it was somehow related to his own grief over the fact that he never told jon about lyanna?

[atopvisenyashill]

i’ve thought a lot about the fire vs. ice themes with regards to the “fire consumes but cold preserves” thing. like, dany’s whole thing is that she’s blazing ahead without a real plan and just heaping destruction upon destruction. the targaryen dynasty burned out in a mere three centuries.

meanwhile the starks have ruled for an estimated EIGHT THOUSAND YEARS. i think that is meant to be just as disturbing as the idea of the targaryens bursting onto the scene and fucking everything up royally before flaming out. the north is stagnant. the dead linger on as zombies. the old ways have been observed for time out of mind. no one is allowed to grow and change. i wonder if part of the stark past has to do with their rule in the north being artificially and magically prolonged. “there must always be a stark in winterfell” could be sinister if what lies behind it is some horrible blood magic that ensures that the starks stay in power. what do you think?

YES I've brought up a kind of similar dichotomy between the dragons & direwolves - the dragons cause the destruction and the direwolves feast on the aftermath. One seems more violent than the other but both are, ultimately, gaining from the suffering of others. How do you reconcile both animals being sentient (ish) beings with the destruction they cause? Can they represent freedom and death? Well, clearly they already do!

The thing that's really interesting about the North being stagnant is that geographically, they're super isolated. Robb calls the banners weeks before Ned is captured in anticipation of something fucked up happening specifically because by the time the Northern army would get south, everyone would already be mobilized and in the middle of a war. I mean hell, even attempting to move quickly Robb still gets there after Tywin has started reaving in the Riverlands. It's a good reason to be isolated....except they don't really even attempt to do anything to overcome it. They have one (1!!) major port city in White Harbor, and all the other ports are more like seaside towns than actual cities (and icr if White Harbor is the smallest of the cities in Westeros, but compare it to like Lannisport, Oldtown, Gulltown, it does feel significantly further behind developmentally). Especially - this is like, complete theorizing on my part I suppose - when you compare it to Dorne. Doran mentions they never really recovered population wise from the Dornish wars but note that Dorne at several points a) gets concessions from the Iron Throne to help with this b) have rebuilt every single town in Dorne since and c) attempt marriage matches outside of Dorne frequently likely to encourage more growth within Dorne. The Starks and the North in general pretty infamously don't like doing that. Rickard trying it nets him a lot of unhappiness and resentment (altho, tbf, that resentment also comes from Brandon being a fuckboy so). And also Egg trying to help nets him resentment from the South. People want the North to stay stagnant. Why??

And some of that "desire" to stay stagnant probably does come from the winters. I was thinking about Dragon Age, lmao, because this is a topic that kind of comes up a lot there - why is Thedas so weird on a technological level? Well it's because they deal with a multi year apocalypse every 200 or so years. Similarly, the North is so weird because they're dealing with like 30 days of night type shit except its happening over multiple years and it can start at any time. I think it's easy to cling to traditionalism and isolationism under those circumstances - what works keeps us alive, and never mind if that life is a bit miserable (and it's not even that miserable is part of the problem - this isn't the Riverlands or Dorne, they're not getting invaded regularly, it's just cold. I'm sure facing horrific winters seems perhaps a bit less scary than areas that get notoriously fucked during times of war) (and like, it's not to excuse any sort of fuedal violence from the North; some of that imo is like, in universe prejudice against them *coughing at Alysanne* but it is a fact that Roose still claims the right of first night, and Ned either isn't involved enough to figure that out or purposefully turns a blind eye to the unsavory parts of his men until he can't ignore it like Jorah's slaving - neither of those speaks very highly of Ned. I do imagine Robb would have been exactly the same. But ya know, probably it's still better than the fucking Riverlands where even a competent or smallfolk-loving leader can only do so much).

So thematically it's like....yes, like you said, the Targaryens are fire and fire consumes, so they consume the continent, and themselves, in under 300 years. They can't help it. It's not in their nature to direct that fire into doing good, they are pulled & give into the inclination to use it to amass power (because like...fire is not inherently bad! it is warmth! it is life! there are even climates where controlled burns are necessary to cleanse the land and help it flourish!). But the Starks are cold and cold preserves, so they preserve their own power, their own wealth, their own status, in their little frozen bubble. You can preserve food, supplies, language, culture, but they amass & preserve only their own power. They can't help it. It's not in their nature to change!

Probably this is why I find it so grating when people say Ned isn't a "real" Stark or a "real" Lord of Winter. I mean compare him to Viserys as like, The Modern Day Patriarch - Viserys burns hot, burns fast, burns out. Maybe he's not a true dragon but he is a Targaryen through and through. Ned is, like the entire rest of the North, standing still. His whole story is about how he is frozen in time, frozen at the Tower of Joy holding Lyanna as she dies, forever. He can never escape it, just like Viserys can never escape the memory of losing his mother & escaping on a ship in the night, terrified and so, so young. Ned doesn't change anything, except, of course, the Sept he builds out of love (out of LOVE just like his dying promise to Lyanna, it all comes back to love, and what love was lost not just to Ned but for Viserys as well, during the Rebellion). Love is enough to get him to change, slightly. But does he do anything else in the North besides exist as a warm body in Winterfell? He keeps the status quo - he doesn't know how to do anything else. It wouldn't even occur to him to do anything else.

This post is relevant a lot here - for ME the thing that sticks out about the crypts is Jon's dream about the bloody wolf and the way the stone kings seem to reject him. I also think about like, how kind of similar to how we don't ever see Dany from the POV of other people actively only in the past tense, a lot of our time in Winterfell is spent through the eyes of people are miserable there, who feel trapped. Even Bran in ACOK - a lot of his chapters there are about how alienated he feels, about how much everyone pities him and how he hates them for it. Standing above them but never touching them. The Cat chapters we get in Winterfell are times of great change & distress, pretty clearly paralleling the Rebellion for her emotionally (her always waiting for her men). Winterfell is protection in many ways...but also a cage. A self imposed one - Catelyn sitting in the room waiting for Bran to wake up evokes a feeling of being trapped even though she is the one who has willingly trapped herself there (and she's so distressed I do think part of why she needs to get to Ned right after this is because she has to let him know she's okay, she's snapped out of it, she can continue being the wife he needs, look she traveled across the continent to help him - she got out of Winterfell). And of course all that time with Theon (and Jeyne).

Again complete conjecture here, but it's like....if fire is Targaryens, dragons, King's Landing blowing itself up after barely 3 centuries of standing because it simply cannot contain all of the rot and doom that it's leaders bring to its doors.....would the opposite of that not be Starks, Others, and Winterfell being a cage locking its people in for eons hotel california style so they can never leave, they can never change, they can never grow (dragons plant no trees and direwolves do not belong in the man-rock cities!). Like, explosion vs implosion. The fire of anger, the ice of bitterness.

Back to actual plot and not just themes, I have been thinking lately in a more firm way that Winterfell was originally a jail (for WHAT? idk) and that a jail + the Wall (also a way to keep something OUT, it's made o' blood as Ygritte says!) is how the last Long Night was stopped. I think the idea of the first Brandon Stark somehow caging the Others & perhaps using some freaky blood magic to bind them inside Winterfell is an interesting sort of parallel to the concept of the Valyrians using slaves in their blood magic experiments. I also think it's an interesting sort of parallel of like, the sin of the Targaryens and the focus of Dany's story is the harm they did to other peoples, their slaving empire & the way Dany's own desires overtake her stated goal of actually freeing the people of the Bay, and the sin of the Starks and the focus of the Stark story is the harm they did to their own lands, and the idea that they damaged their natural home in their pursuit of magic or power or whatever. I really really feel, considering our glimpses of it really come up most with Theon, Jon, and Bran (Theon's multiple fucky magical moments but also that whole scene with Barbrey in the crypts + Jon has some pretty fucked up crypt dreams + Bran my magical toddler) I think they're going to follow the crypts somewhere (also, tbh, that kind of explains why f&B and TWOIAF are structured the way they are - that a direct reveal of how Northern magic works comes through multiple POVs while Dany doesn't really get any answers and unlike with Northern magic, no one else is interested in that shit but her lol). I know it's popular that like, oh the BODIES THE DEAD BODIES WILL ATTACK from the crypts and like yeah idk maybe but I think there's something much worse than that in the crypts.

[atopvisenyashill]

“robert wouldn’t have abused lyanna” okay, but he DID abuse cersei? isn’t what he actually did way more important than what he hypothetically might have done under different circumstances? and you know ned was thinking of lyanna when he saw how robert treated his wife.

also, i do not believe that lyanna would have been any more accepting of robert’s carousing, drinking, and neglect of his duties than cersei was (maybe even less so) and are we really truly going to claim that somehow he wouldn’t have gotten violent with lyanna the moment she called him out on something? he screams and yells at ned anytime ned challenges him and probably the only reason he doesn’t hit ned is because he knows ned can fight back. (plus, you know, he respects him because he’s a man and you don’t just SLAP another MAN. that would be so UNMANLY and DISHONORABLE, unlike slapping a woman which is totally fine and normal).

i straight up have made like "robert wasn't even that bad of a king" jokes and been partially serious about it, and we all know i want to fuck him bc of my daddy issues but can we be serious. he shows a real pattern of at best selfish behavior but realistically, of abusive behavior, and not just towards cersei who "deserved" it but towards every single person in his life.

he is deeply selfish in his relationships with stannis & renly - if BOTH your brothers' first reaction to finding out you've been cucked for nearly fifteen years is to shrug and declare themselves king, i think you've failed at being a loving brother to them! he actively fights for his crown, not just as a way of saving his own life or saving ned's or revenge for the people slain but to be king it's why he kills rhaegar on the trident rather than taking him hostage to ask where lyanna is or to force a truce....and then he immediately passes off all responsibility to Jon Arrryn and Stannis, and instead of using Jon's death as a way of maturing, he once again passes all responsibility to Ned. He doesn't take any sort of control of the small council, which allows for rampant cronyism (cronyism that GETS HIM KILLED) and for Varys and Petyr to plot to straight up overthrow him and his family.

But as you say - he is not a good friend to Ned. He is very selfish when he talks about Lyanna with her, and it's something we know annoys Ned because he snaps at Robert every time it happens. When he makes that "oh she should be out in the sun not here" he is thinking about the projection of a woman and not what Lyanna would have wanted, and Ned directly says that. When Ned argues with him over killing Dany, he once again attempts to leverage the murders of Rickard, Brandon, and Lyanna against Ned, as if it isn't Ned's family that was slaughtered! He uses Lyanna as a justification for his abuse after Ned sees him slap Cersei. And through that whole convo Robert is doing some serious and fucked up emotional manipulation. He essentially corners Ned while Ned is high off painkillers to emotionally blackmail Ned into coming back to the council, and completely absolves himself of responsibility for the fighting between the Starks and Lannisters getting so bad so quickly, then fucks off to go hunting without a real apology. He wants Ned to fix all his problems but refuses to back Ned up even one time - not at the Trident over the direwolves, and not in the capital after Bran is nearly murdered, Jory is murdered, and Tywin has let Gregor start reaving in the Riverlands.

And the Cersei of it all. I mean let's look at what he does to her-

Her eyes burned, green fire in the dusk, like the lioness that was her sigil. "The night of our wedding feast, the first time we shared a bed, he called me by your sister's name. He was on top of me, in me, stinking of wine, and he whispered Lyanna." Ned Stark thought of pale blue roses, and for a moment he wanted to weep. "I do not know which of you I pity most."

Ned touched her cheek gently. “Has he done this before?” “Once or twice.” She shied away from his hand. “Never on the face before. Jaime would have killed him, even if it meant his own life.” 

Taena warmed the bed as well as Robert ever had, and never tried to force Cersei’s legs apart.

Those had been the worst nights, lying helpless underneath him as he took his pleasure, stinking of wine and grunting like a boar. Usually he rolled off and went to sleep as soon as it was done, and was snoring before his seed could dry upon her thighs. She was always sore afterward, raw between her legs, her breasts painful from the mauling he would give them. The only time he’d ever made her wet was on their wedding night.

For Robert, those nights never happened. Come morning he remembered nothing, or so he would have her believe. Once, during the first year of their marriage, Cersei had voiced her displeasure the next day. ‘You hurt me,’ she complained. He had the grace to look ashamed. ‘It was not me, my lady,’ he said in a sulky sullen tone, like a child caught stealing apple cakes from the kitchen. ‘It was the wine. I drink too much wine.’

The rest had all been lies, though. He did remember what he did to her that night, she was convinced of that. She could see it in his eyes. He only pretended to forget; it was easier to do that than to face his shame. Deep down Robert Baratheon was a coward. In time the assaults grew less frequent. During the first year of their marriage he took her at least once a fortnight; by the end it was not even once a year. He never stopped completely, though. Sooner or later there would come a night when he would drink too much and want to claim his rights. What shamed him in the light of day gave him pleasure in the dark.

Now everybody heard him. "No," he thundered in a voice that drowned out all other speech. Sansa was shocked to see the king on his feet, red of face, reeling. He had a goblet of wine in one hand, and he was drunk as a man could be. "You do not tell me what to do, woman," he screamed at Queen Cersei. "I am king here, do you understand? I rule here, and if I say that I will fight tomorrow, I will fight!" Everyone was staring. Sansa saw Ser Barristan, and the king's brother Renly, and the short man who had talked to her so oddly and touched her hair, but no one made a move to interfere. The queen's face was a mask, so bloodless that it might have been sculpted from snow. She rose from the table, gathered her skirts around her, and stormed off in silence, servants trailing behind. Jaime Lannister put a hand on the king's shoulder, but the king shoved him away hard. Lannister stumbled and fell. The king guffawed. "The great knight. I can still knock you in the dirt. Remember that, Kingslayer." He slapped his chest with the jeweled goblet, splashing wine all over his satin tunic. "Give me my hammer and not a man in the realm can stand before me!" Jaime Lannister rose and brushed himself off. "As you say, Your Grace." His voice was stiff. Lord Renly came forward, smiling. "You've spilled your wine, Robert. Let me bring you a fresh goblet." Sansa started as Joffrey laid his hand on her arm. "It grows late," the prince said. He had a queer look on his face, as if he were not seeing her at all. "Do you need an escort back to the castle?"

He doesn't just slap her "one" time. He rapes her from their wedding night, every single time they have sex he rapes her while he's drunk. He publicly humiliates her, so regularly it seems like Renly is prepared for it with his fawn response here, and that Joffrey is used to it and potentially dissociates when it happens.

And Cersei isn't the only person he is abusing (the Ned of it all aside). I mean look at what he does to his own kids, to his lovers that aren't Cersei-

The girl had been so young Ned had not dared to ask her age. No doubt she'd been a virgin; the better brothels could always find a virgin, if the purse was fat enough. 

"Joffrey . . . I remember once, this kitchen cat . . . the cooks were wont to feed her scraps and fish heads. One told the boy that she had kittens in her belly, thinking he might want one. Joffrey opened up the poor thing with a dagger to see if it were true. When he found the kittens, he brought them to show to his father. Robert hit the boy so hard I thought he'd killed him."

He is an abuser. He wouldn't have been any nicer to Lyanna, and this is something Ned is eventually forced to come to terms with - that she was right not to want to marry Robert. His whole emotional arc in the first book is about realizing that Robert not only isn't the man he thought he was, but that Robert never was the man Ned thought he was, Robert isn't capable of being the man Ned thought he was. It was a front, a facade that easily fools Ned because Robert is bound by the constraints of his society and can't knock Ned on his ass for talking back without getting his shit rocked right back. And Ned realizes it, that he was a fool to ever believe Robert was a good man. He loved him, he mourned him in those few days he outlived Robert, but in a way, just like Robert was "mourning" a Lyanna that never existed, Ned was mourning a Robert that never truly existed, and Ned knew it.

[atopvisenyashill]

what's your theory about the pregnant woman bran sees praying at winterfell's heart tree in his visions? she seems to exist chronologically between dunk's visit to winterfell (if we assume that the knight as tall as hodor was dunk) and ned's childhood, but that's a pretty big chunk of time with a lot of people in it. i want to think it's sansa or serena, but the timing doesn't seem right...

oh gosh, i think what’s tricky there is it’s probably between the she wolves of winterfell & lyanna’s childhood, which would place it between 215 (ish) to the 280s (ish). so for context, the vision comes between two others and the timeline moves backwards-

She slashed the boy across his thigh, so hard that his leg went out from under him and he fell into the pool and began to splash and shout. "You be quiet, stupid," the girl said, tossing her own branch aside. "It's just water. Do you want Old Nan to hear and run tell Father?" She knelt and pulled her brother from the pool, but before she got him out again, the two of them were gone. After that the glimpses came faster and faster, till Bran was feeling lost and dizzy. He saw no more of his father, nor the girl who looked like Arya, but a woman heavy with child emerged naked and dripping from the black pool, knelt before the tree, and begged the old gods for a son who would avenge her. Then there came a brown haired girl slender as a spear who stood on the tips of her toes to kiss the lips of a young knight as tall as Hodor. 

So first Lyanna & Benjen, then the mysterious pregnant woman, then that scene of the couple kissing. The assumption here is that the young woman is Old Nan when she was young and the young knight "tall as Hodor" is Dunk - which would place that one during "she wolves" roughly 214-226. So the pregnant woman has to come after that. So IF those assumptions are correct, it narrows the scope significantly and also doesnt narrow it that much because we don't have like, a lot of information on a lot of what was happening.

Anyways that basically means it can't be Sansa or Serena lol which immediately gets complicated because they're pretty clearly the best candidates. Let me bring up my Stark Timeline thing-

the red box is where we're looking at (probably). So imo our most likely contenders are

Lorra Royce -> most unlikely bc of the timeline but it's possible given that Beron is dying of an attack from a wildling that Lorra was also attacked by wildlings & is hoping for vengeance

Serena's girls -> similarly, it's not impossible that Aranna and Aregelle were the ones swearing vengeance, maybe even for wildling related reasons, but also maybe in honor of their mother (like, let's say they're still peeved that Beron and his son got everything)

Melantha Blackwood -> this one feels like the most likely to me? one, george loves a blackwood. two, notable that william, her husband, is married before her, but his son died, so he remarries melantha and that's who the stark line is descended from

Lysara Karstark -> she also fits pretty neatly into the timeline and note her son is Artos the Implaccable so it's very possible that she's involved in that whole big thing with Raymun Redbeard + I can see a guy like Artos marrying a crazy lady

Alysanne -> we know nothing about her so she cannot be discounted technically

Anyways none of these options are that interesting to me alskdjfklasdjf. the most interesting ones are the ones that it couldnt be. Sansa, Serena (well Aregelle or Aranna could be interesting, and I think Lysara has some juice bc the Artos story is kind of fun), or Wylla Fenn were my personal favorites for this one.

[atopvisenyashill]

(feel like i might have asked this before so ignore if so)

jon arryn’s “the seed is strong” seems to have been him attempting to tell robert about cersei’s kids. what do you think would have happened if he had successfully gotten his point across on his death bed? cersei seems to have fled from the capital temporarily around that time, so do you think it turns into war between the lannisters and the crown?

Yeah interesting chain of events there - there's a tourney just as Stannis & Jon Arryn start getting sus and right after Cersei leaves for a few weeks to Casterly Rock. GEorge loves to do that - people tend to figure stuff out at tourneys & get dramatic right after. now considering cersei & jaime seem at least a little aware that jon arryn was getting sus, it's possible she left specifically because of that - out of side out of mind, with the kids all together in case she needs to run. Then while she's gone, Jon Arryn dies suddenly & Stannis leaves.

So if Robert got the message - he's bringing it to his council immediately & he's saying they have to kill Cersei & the abominations. Probably he's going to assume Tywin already knows and order all of the Lannisters killed for attempting to usurp him and his throne. Stannis will probably do something similar to canon ie send letters out to everyone letting them know the kids are abominations & that Robert expects some sort of show of loyalty. The Lannisters are definitely getting the blame for Jon Arryn's death.

And if they're at home, like, Tywin isn't just gonna hand them over lol. He's going to put the blame on someone else, he's going to say Jon Arryn was old & lying and he's going to have Pycelle in his corner backing that up. So yeah, haha, it's going to immediately descend into war. The main thing the Lannisters have going for them is that the North hasn't mobilized BUT the main thing they have against them is that they do not have control of the capital - and that's a pretty big knock.