#catelyn stark

[sophistique-century]

"I want to weep, she thought. I want to be comforted. I'm so tired of being strong. I want to be foolish and frightened for once. Just for a small while, that's all ... a day ... an hour" - Catelyn II ACoK

Andrii Kateryniuk - Evening Glow (detail)

[jackoshadows]

It's funny that the same folks who make up nonsense about 'blood supremacy' and 'eugenics' to hate on the Targaryens are obsessed, like really, really obsessed with Sansa calling herself 'the blood of Winterfell' and use that as the reason for their favorite Jonsa crackship and for why Sansa will rule the North.

Having a certain 'blood' is apparently very important for shipping reasons and for why one feudal queen should rule over the peasants and serfs. But it's also Aryan ideology and 'blood supremacy' if other characters uphold their house in the same way.

It's funny that they bring real world ethics into this fictional fantasy world to argue blood supremacy to hate on certain characters and houses while all the time justifying in world Westerosi child abuse, classism, sexism, bullying and ableism as being right because it's the done thing.

In a fantasy world where certain groups of people do have magical powers based on who they are and their bloodline - Targaryens having prophetic dreams and Starks having warging powers - it's funny they are trying to argue that a girl fighting against slavery is the real evil because of her house and her blood and she has to die in violent and painful ways since in her case eugenics and blood purity applies and ALL TARGARYENS MUST BE EXTERMINATED. Except for Jon Snow who weirdly escapes the evilness despite having Targaryen blood because he has the SUPER GOOD SPECIALEST STARK BLOOD that dilutes the evil Targaryen blood. also he's THE BLOOD OF WINTERFELL!.

Here's the deal:

Arya being the only Stark child to have the Stark look IS IMPORTANT TO HER STORY, plays a part in her narrative and foreshadows her future arc.

[I love how stans get triggered when this is brought up in terms of Arya's character and her importance but use it generously to prop up their shitty crackship. Oh, Sansa imagines one of her kids would look like Arya? This means she has children with Jon ❤️❤️❤️]

The Direwolves are important. They are gifts from the Old Gods. Nymeria being a leader of a huge wolf pack is important.

You know, I don’t like to give things away.“ says Martin, a grin spreading across his face. ”But you don’t hang a giant wolf pack on the wall unless you intend to use it.“ - GRRM

“You have five trueborn children,” Jon said. “Three sons, two daughters. The direwolf is the sigil of your House. Your children were meant to have these pups, my lord.”   - Bran, AGoT

Magical powers linked to blood are important in the fictional fantasy world of The Song of Ice and Fire. Especially when they are facing an otherworldy magical existential, apocalyptic threat from beyond the Wall. They need dragons, direwolves, prophetic dreams and magical swords to save the entire realm!

Bran, Arya, Rickon and Jon Snow being wargs who are having wolf dreams and communicating with each other through their direwolves is important.

Arya being her father's child in every way that matters IS IMPORTANT TO HER STORY. Her father literally talks to her through weirwoods and gives her strength and courage. She has learned from him on what it takes to administer Winterfell. These are necessary character building subplots for characters to ultimately end up in leading positions.

Arya being her mother's child and proactively taking charge, being a leader and getting things done in terms of surviving in a man's world is ALSO IMPORTANT TO HER STORY.

Arya has a connection to the North through her father - the North is literally rising up in ADwD to save Ned's precious, valiant little girl - and has a connection to the Riverlands and her mother - the brotherhood without banners.

Characters having certain features because they belong to a house is an important and running theme in the books. It's not just house Targaryen. The Lannisters have a certain look - hence why Ned figures out who Joffrey's father is. The Starks have a certain look - this plays into Catelyn's hatred for Jon because he looks more Stark than Robb which is important in terms of being the future heir considering ALL the Starks who have ruled the North thus far have the Stark look. Hell, the Baratheons having a certain look is what leads Ned Stark to crack the secret of Lannister incest - 'The seed is strong'. Applying real world genetics and biology to a fantasy world is idiotic.

Jon Snow looking like a Stark is important in terms of his secret mystery parentage and who his mother is. His special bond with Arya gains significance considering she looks like Lyanna and that is Jon's mother. Lyanna having the Stark look is important. Sansa looking like Catelyn is the major component of her relationship with Petyr Baelish spanning over 5 books.

GRRM is not randomly writing characters looking a certain way for shits and giggles. These are important, narrative and foreshadowing plot points.

[butch-nightwing]

no cause like. the first thing Catelyn says to Robb after they find out about Ned's death is "you've ruined your sword" and I understand how that can seem cold (and i think i took it that way my first watch of the show) but. what is she supposed to say? she's grieving the loss of her husband as much as Robb, if not moreso because that was the father of her children. that was her love. and how could she say anything to comfort him in that moment? the grief was overwhelming for both of them, and they're both probably thinking it's coming for Sansa and Arya next, so that fear combined with the grief?

"you've ruined your sword" means so much more than that. it's a grounding statement. it's telling Robb that he needs to keep fighting. it's telling Robb he still has his mother. it's connecting Catelyn to her son despite their shared grief and pain in this moment. it's so so so real. how many people have just faced a devastating loss and could only focus on one simple thing in their surroundings? it's such a raw and real line and it's overlooked and my god.

like you can tell how devasted Catelyn is. it's so obvious by her sob in the woods before coming to Robb and like. i don't think she can focus on the fact that Ned is dead, she has to be objective because her son is suffering too, and that's her baby, no matter how old or kingly he is. she can't afford to lose it in front of him because he's losing it in front of her. she brings him back to reality in a single line but still shows him how much she cares about him. like god. GOD.

robb...you've ruined your sword....

[gotham-at-nightfall]

House Stark 🐺

Ned and Catelyn Stark

Robb and Sansa Stark

Ayra, Bran and Rickon Stark

Jon Snow and Benjen Stark

Rickard, Brandon and Lyanna Stark

By TheMarkyGallery

[laurellerual]

Day 4: House Stark

Arya, the lone wolf, still lived, but the wolves of the pack had been taken and slain and skinned.

[a-chaotic-dumbass]

i think its so funny that cersei thinks of catelyn as a meek little mouse in her povs when its like. that woman bashed a man's head in with a rock. she grabbed a valyrian steel blade without hesitation. she traveled across westeros to form an alliance with renly only to steal one of his kingsguard too. she set jaime free from the dungeons and got him to swear to get her daughters back. even in her last chapter she shanked a mf with a knife before going insane. catelyn stark was more of a lioness than cersei im sorry to say

[all-lee24]

I like when Catelyn starts killing people in her brain

[lmaowh-at]

Catelyn heard someone snigger behind her. She loves him, poor thing, she thought sadly. She'd play his squire just to touch him, and never care how great a fool they think her... (and some other things)

[tomapoganka]

harpy hare, where have you buried all your children?

[jackoshadows]

Anytime someone mentions the Arya/Ned similarities and how she is following her father's advice and guidance and the connection they have, there is always someone piping up that no no no, despite their appearances it's Sansa who is a Ned Jr and Arya who is like Catelyn like that is some kind of great twist. And it's just so insulting to Catelyn as a character?

So if Petyr is mistaking Sansa to be Cat and she turns out to be like Ned, what then? Sansa is going to win against LF by being a mini Ned? Did everyone forget that LF cooked Ned in KL?

And why are these folks so eager to strip away Catelyn's intelligence and proactiveness as a mother and wife in a feudal, patriarchal medieval world? Winterfell was also Catelyn's home.

As Arya says:

Needle was Robb and Bran and Rickon, her mother and her father, even Sansa. Needle was Winterfell’s grey walls, and the laughter of its people. Needle was the summer snows, Old Nan’s stories, the heart tree with its red leaves and scary face, the warm earthy smell of the glass gardens, the sound of the north wind rattling the shutters of her room.

Needle was Jon Snow’s smile. He used to mess my hair and call me “little sister,” she remembered, and suddenly there were tears in her eyes.

And yeah, I think it would be great when Arya leads Winterfell and the North as a mini Catelyn because Cat has so much strength of purpose and determination. Arya has lots in common with both her parents.

The irony of trying to prove Sansa's 'Northerness' by falsely claiming that Arya has nothing in common with Ned and has more in common with Catelyn and in effect stripping Catelyn of her own belonging and connection to the North.

[sunfyredefender77]

“sadness is condition of motherhood”

[kudriaken]

House Stark. New fanart family portrait from ASOIAF. My favorite cute beans.

[ladystoneboobs]

so, one aspect of catelyn which i think is underrated (certainly the biggest adaptation loss which nobody talks about) is her, let's say superstitiousness, or better yet, let's call it genre-savviness, being one of the few adult characters open to magic and the supernatural in this fantasy world. we first meet her in the godswood, home of gods which are not truly hers, yet she is still very aware of their power. when she and ned talk of the deserter he killed, he hopes he won't have to go with the nw to deal with mance rayder, but she has even more fear of that idea bc there are worse things beyond the wall than just wildlings. ned scoffs and says she's been listening to old nan too much, but she's right. we already know from the prologue that she's right! and here she is, understanding the genre of their world better than her husband, who was actually born and spent his earliest years in this northern land of deep magic, listening to old nan's stories. same with the direwolves, where she was uncomfortable with them at first, but later believed in them as guardians from the old gods even after robb had lost his own faith. and once again, we know she's right even if she doesn't know the evidence to back up her instincts, bc summer and shaggydog did not fail bran and rickon and robb was almost certainly a warg like his brothers. (perhaps making it more fitting that she's the one brought back as a fantasy vengeance monster, not ned and robb, the most unbelieving dead starks.) and in her 2nd agot chapter, everyone focuses on her ambition in wanting ned to agree to the hand job (pun intended) and sansa's betrothal, and while she does recognize the value of their daughter being a future queen more than ned does, that's only her stated argument bc she thinks it's rational enough for ned to listen to. (if ambitious matchmaking were as important to her as to her father she never would have made those frey betrothals fandom loves to blame her for.) in her own head there's a deeper urge driving her. she keeps thinking of the dead direwolf with antlers in its throat, an omen which filled her with dread from the first she heard of it, before robert's arrival, and thinking of it again is what makes her desperate to convince ned not to refuse robert. she had to make him see. and really, she's not wrong, as jon snow would say. the dead direwolf was an omen of ned and robert getting each other killed. it's just one of those misread portents, with no way of knowing the danger to ned was in his loyalty to robert, not conflict with him. BUT the next time she's dealing with baratheons, she knows exactly what she's talking about. it's catelyn, not brienne, who sees the shadow slaying renly, and explains that it was stannis who did that through some dark magic. with no way of knowing how it was achieved and no prior expectation that such a thing were ever possible, she realizes with no hestitation that stannis was guilty and that his red witch was capable of pulling this off somehow. really, the only instinct of the supernatural she's wholly wrong about is her insistence that varys gathered his knowledge through some dark enchantment. however, though that might offend varys, given his own personal experience with a sorcerer, i'd say it's a reasonable assumption without knowing the dude had children moving through walls everywhere like oversized rodents. and imo it just shows she had a healthy respect and awe for varys's power which most other characters lack.

oh, oh, and let's not forget that she also believed in the curse of harrenhal, from her own childhood and the stories old nan told her kids. "and every house that held Harrenhal since had come to misfortune. Strong it might be, but it was a dark place, and cursed. 'I would not have Robb fight a battle in the shadow of that keep,' Catelyn admitted." sure, that wasn't enough to save robb, but he did not die from the curse of harrenhal. that doom was meant for his enemies from tywin lannister to roose bolton.

[laurellerual]

Day 2: Family

When the snows fall and the white winds blow, the lone wolf dies, but the pack survives.

[daenysthedreamer101]

Mother's Fury

Mothers of ASOIAF feeling rage because their children were murdered/mutilated.

Grief/ Protection/Embrace

[joekeerys]

ROBB STARK and JACAERYS VELARYON + parallels