And her lady mother, what would she say? Would she still want her back, after all the things she'd done?

Arya was a trail, it must be said. Half a boy and half a wolf pup. Forbid her anything and it became her heart's desire.

It was her mother she wanted, not her mother's sister.

ASOS, ARYA VI//how can I escape myself? Fatima Aamer Bilal//ACOK, CATELYN VII// I remain in darkness, Annie Ernaux// ASOS, ARYA XII

Parallels and Foils: how Cersei, Lysa and Catelyn are a warning.

It isn’t news that Cersei and Daenerys, Arya and Catelyn and Lysa and Sansa are deeply connected narratively and that you can learn a lot about them through each other. When you look into it, Cat, Cersei and Lysa are more than just parallels and foils, they also are warnings and a preview of what each girl will or was supposed to become! They warn us about the worst possible outcome for the girls and what they must recognise and avoid.

They are in three different parts of the journey through the books:

Arya, I think, has already won her battle against becoming Catelyn and is now fighting other battles; despite her personality, she had a chance of becoming just as sour and prejudiced as Cat in the beginning and even after Ned died, however, Arya’s ability to be friends with everyone from everywhere as well as her empathy to others, even those who hurt people, made it so that any chance of that happening was destroyed. Jon's love and validation also gave Arya a base of support that Catelyn probably didn't have. ---- Arya Stark has avoided her fate and now is moving on to other things.

Daenerys and Cersei are foils of each other, Cersei being essentially what people believe Daenerys is going to become (the show's Ending doesn't help). Many people, both readers and In-Universe characters, believe Daenerys to be a Mad Queen or that will she burn KingsLanding, however, Cersei is the one that will be known as the Mad Queen (she is literally going crazy) and she will burn KingsLanding. And while we can say with certain confidence that Daenerys will never be like Cersei, in the books she still needs to work and prove herself a bit more. ---- Daenerys is still avoiding this ending.

Sansa, unfortunately, we can't say with certainty that she won't be like Lysa Tully. Maybe in the beginning Sansa wasn't going to become like her aunt but as the story progressed and Sansa continued with the same beliefs and with a general lack of character growth, it is becoming harder to see an ending for Sansa that won't make her Lysa 2.0; Unless Sansa either drastically changes her views on every one that isn't her, stops being willfully ignorant, starts taking care of herself and makes allies or has a deeply life-changing journey in the next two books, I don't see how can Sansa avoid becoming a deeply sad, lonely woman (Sansa is isolated from her family) who was essentially tricked and manipulated her whole life (tricked by society into believing that acting certain way would guaranty her a good life/ manipulated by almost everyone) and that is trapped in a deeply unhappy marriage (Lysa married to an older sexist dude/Sansa possibly married to Henry, who has bastards and probably won't stop having affairs). Thankfully there is a chance that a life-changing journey might happen in the next two books since Little Finger might get caught trying to poison SweetRobin and the fact that Sansa is not his bastard daughter but a lady accused of conspiring to assassinate the king. That might force Sansa to live with the Small Folk and finally force Sansa to grow. -------- Sansa is losing

You can’t win as a woman in fiction. Be too positive, you become a Mary Sue, have flaws and those flaws are why almost nobody likes you. Be moderate, you have wet-cabbage personality, be exuberant, you are an unrealistic example. Have strong morals, and you’re badly developed, be morally corrupt and you’re hated with such vigour fans will send hate mail to the actress who plays the character. Be kind and soft and in love, you’re a representation of sexism, be cruel, harsh and cold and you’re just a bitch. Be a complex, realistic, ambiguous character, and either your flaws or your positive traits will be ignored or blown out of proportion and into oblivion. There is no winning for female characters.

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

I'm in a redesign mood lately, so here some Stark crests!

Here the old ones: Eddard, Catelyn, Jon, Robb, Sansa, Arya, Bran, Rickon.

Lady Catelyn Tully Stark and her daughters 🐺❄️

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Just another morning in Winterfell

"he was never unfaithful to robert, was he?" - jaime, acok

ha. ha ha ha. the irony of this line is incredible. what's so striking to me is how one dimensional the realm's understanding of eddard stark as an honourable man is - honour itself is an incredibly complicated and unattainable ideal in asoiaf and i think ned as the stereotypical emblem of it encompasses many of the reasons why. because whilst he absolutely does consider acting in a conventionally honourable way important, he always prioritises those he loves. he defended cat's actions as his own without a second thought when she arrested tyrion. his main priority in king's landing is to see his daughters safe, not to secure the succession. lyanna is the prime example: jon's existence is not the result of the lapse of honourable ned stark, it was honourable ned stark choosing his love for his sister over his duty to his king. that and his personal ethical belief that the political murder of a child is never morally acceptable.

no one in the realm has the insight into his personality we get in the first book. none of his children, vitally, understand that he would always prioritise their safety over any honourable scruples. all of the starklings question what their honourable father would think of their actions - killing in self-defence, marrying jeyne westerling, sleeping with ygritte to name a few examples - without recognising that ned's true first priority was always his family's safety.

in fact, he betrayed robert far more than he ever betrayed cat and he would have betrayed honour for his family's safety every time.

starks + theon DONE

more here

Your braids like a pattern, love you to the moon and to saturn

Lady Catelyn Stark braiding her daughters hair.

If this ends up on anti-Sansa or anti-Catelyn tumblr I’m throwing hands

When she said that, it felt as though a giant hand were squeezing her chest. 

Sansa was a lady at three, always so courteous and eager to please.

Arya was a trail, it must be said. Half a boy and half a wolf pup. Forbid her anything and it became her heart's desire.

ACOK-Catelyn VII// German Master- Portait of a girl in a castle park (detail)//Alfred Elmore- Portait of a girl saying their prayers (detail)// Alexander Mark Rossi- Windy Poplars room(detail).

If there is one line I like to over-analyze in the ASoIAF books it is a rather famous thought that goes inside Cat's head before her death. As the steel is close to her throat Cat thinks "No, don’t, don’t cut my hair, Ned loves my hair." And this line and her entire inner monologue is absolutely heart-breaking but one thing I fixate on is the actual sentence itself.

"Ned loves my hair."

Anyone who has read the books knows that Cat holds contempt for the fact that except for Arya, she has failed to give Ned children who look like him. It is also one of the reasons she dislikes Jon so much, because the mother of Jon (who she assumes to be Ned's bastard son) has managed to give Ned a child that looks just like him while she, his lawfully wedded wife gave birth to five of his children only for four of them to come out looking exactly like her. Red hair, blue eyes. Unlike Jon (and Arya) who share Ned's dark hair and dark eyes.

And knowing that it is so interesting to me that Cat's last thought about Ned (and her last thought ever) was that Ned loves her hair.

Because Ned loved her, he loved her hair, he loved her the way she was. And every time he looked at Robb, Sansa, Bran and Rickon he saw the reflection of the woman he loved, while Cat was so upset that they weren't all reflections of the man she loved.

Every time Ned ran his fingers through their hair, he ran his fingers through the hair of the woman he loved. He never resented Cat for the fact that four of his children didn't look like him, he loved that they looked like their mother, again, the woman he loved so much. He loved that they had the same hair he loved on Cat, and judging by it being her last thought Cat also knew that Ned loved her hair (and the way she looked), whether she ever came to the realization that Ned was perfectly happy with the way their children looked at all, or if she realized after he was dead and it was too late, it is unclear. But all those years she beat herself up over nothing.

Ned loved her the way she was, Ned loved his children the way they were, when they looked like him and when they didn't. Because when they didn't look like him, they looked like the love of his life, his darling wife.

And if the books decide to go with R+L=J it also adds another layer to Cat and Ned's relationship. Because Jon's mother was always a woman she didn't know but was still competing with in her mind for Ned's love for all these years. Turns out she didn't even exist. Turns out she didn't need to feel inferior to the woman Ned loved enough to not even talk about with her, no need to feel bad about the fact that she was able to give Ned a child that looked like him while Cat "failed".

At the end of the day, all the voices in her head making her feel insecure in her marriage never needed to be there, because everything she thought of as a problem with her were not problems at all for Ned. He was perfectly happy with her and their children.

ned is a feminist king for getting fridged for his wife and daughters character development

I don’t even know how to compliment your art. Just calling it amazing is not enough❤️❤️ may I ask if you’ve ever drawn old Catelyn and grown up Arya together?

Part 1, Part 2