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Episode 153: A STORM OF SWORDS, CATELYN I: "The Lost and the Dead" SHOW NOTES!
🕑 Added 2021-08-30 14:01:02 +0000 UTCHello and welcome to the Not A Cast … podcast: the one true chapter-by-chapter podcast going through A Song of Ice and Fire one chapter a week. I’m one of your hosts Jeff better known as BryndenBFish.
And I’m your other host Emmett, better known as PoorQuentyn.
Welcome to the one hundred and fifty-third episode of the Not A Cast, titled: “The Lost and the Dead: An Analysis of ASOS, Catelyn I” in which, at last, we come to the darkest, lowest place Catelyn will ever be in ASOIAF. This is rock-bottom, and that means she can only go up from here.
This episode is brought to you by our NotASmallCouncil:
- Hand of the King WolfmanZack
- Grandmaester Timbob, troubleshooter of systems and designer of circuit boards
- Lord Commander of the Kingsguard Mark N.
- Ser Keith J, Master of Whisperers
- Lord Philip the Merciful, Master of Laws
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- Lord James: the Jim that was Promised
- Lord Jake, Assistant (to the) Hand of the King
- Lady Xena Valyrian
- Ser Jack, Lord of Ser Arthur Dayne and Prince Rhaegar Targaryen's Sad Prophecy Boys Club
- His Grace’s High Inquisitor Frank
- Laurence, Prince of Dorne
- Kelly, Warden of the East and Mistress of (Old) Bay of Crabs
- Steven the Steadfast, Master of Hounds
- The Blue Winter Rose Knight of Highgarden
- Lady Stephanie
- Lord Carlos
- Lord Andrew the Restless, a Priest of the Drowned God
- Ser Sourcedelica
- Sugar Tits Dent the Troglodyte Warrior
- Lord Penchant for Nostalgia
- Queer Alex, Beyonce's Favorite Stan, Herald of Cher, and Bastard of Chromatica, Exalter of Black Lives and Defender of Trans Lives, Rainbow Commander of the Theydes and Gentlethems and the Not A Cast’s Nonbinary Not an Army.
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- Lord Adam T
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- Ser Kristoph Logas, Bloody Scorpion of the Red Field, Defender of the Letter of Kin, and the Wolverine of house Qorgyle
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- Ser Veyor, Chief of Parties in the Frozen Wastes
- Lord Peter
- The Dead Sheppard Reborn, Preacher of the Poor Fellows
- Marshall Harrison—Absent, shipwrecked in the Jade Sea
- Grave-Robb Stark, the Cadaver King and Horror of Harrenhal
- Olaf, proponent of establishing a feudal, pseudodemocratic system of Great Councils, wherein every count votes
- Ser Tim: The Knight Who Was Guided By Voices
- Lord Nick
- Thucydides, Lord of Plagues
- Ser Jack, Lord of Ser Arthur Dayne and Prince Rhaegar Targaryen’s Sad Prophecy Boys Club
- Lady Anna, The Lovely Castellan
- Pat Yronwood, the bloodroyal and guardian of the Boneway
- Luke, Lord of Lone Leaf & The Pillar of Autumn
- Joe Snow “King of the Metro North and protector of the Tri-State”
- Squire Matt S, future Ser Matt S, the one who will bring balance to the Kingdoms
- Lord Kyle
- Lord Samuel Seaworth
- Ser Max, Lord Commander of the Constitutional Guard
- Lady Ivory Dayne, aspiring noble author in the seven kingdoms, lady of Starfall, wardeness of the south, and patron of freewheeling bisexuals
- Lady Jemisa, She Who Suggests That Coconuts Migrate
- Lord Kristoff of Arendelle, official ice master and deliverer, the valiant pungent reindeer king, keeper of feisty pants, and prince consort to his ginger sweet love Queen Anna (Pronounced Ah-nuh)
- Lord Sir Septon Ruthers
- Ser Grizzly Adams, the King’s Justice, Warden of the Kingswood and Sheriff of the Seven Kingdoms
- Ser Kell, Contractor in Charge of Continually Extending the Small Council Table
- Lord Travis, Master of Ships and Warden of the Waves, Captain of the war galley NIGHT WOLF, the ship that stalks the Seven Seas, and Wielder of the Valyrian Steel trident SUMMONER, the blade that brings the Deep Ones
- And our newest members of the small council:
- Lord Anonymous II
- Lord Tyler, the prince that promises to wait patiently, for the winds of winter
Spoiler warning: All published books, 5 novels, 3 Dunk and Egg novellas, histories, interviews, TWOW sample chapters, as well as Game of Thrones the TV show. Anything and everything!
Question
Ser Snark Knight, a Sworn Sword patron, asks:
Your Graces,
While I have read the essay, listened to the bonus episodes, and watched the discussion with Joe the Magician, one part of the Eldritch Apocalypse theory I haven't absorbed yet is, how does it end? The Tyrells suffer the Worf Effect, knocked out to show the threat, Oldtown is reduced to a sandcastle in high tide, Euron gives the horn a toot to bring the wall down, maybe he takes a dragon off the board or has a psychic confrontation with Bran. But then what do you think happens? In Cosmic Horror the person summoning the eldritch abomination is always the first devoured. Or does he go out mewling and pathetic like Harold in The Stand? Nothing ever ends but Euron seems destined to end sooner than others, maybe our final human antagonist in the saga.
So, thank you Snark Knight for the question. If you’d like to ask us questions that we’ll answer here on the NotACast pod-cast, you are welcome to become a Sworn Sword or higher level patron over at patreon.com/NotACastASOIAF where you can get show notes, bonus episodes (like our upcoming analysis of the movie Waltz with Bashir), free merch, access to the NotASlack and more!
Yes indeed! And as a reminder, we have a long-term stretch goal, but we’re going to be changing that up next week. So, come become a patron, get cool shit and be my hero.
But enough about patreon. When we last checked in with Catelyn Stark, she had learned that Bran and Rickon were “dead” and then, in a unambiguously heroic act without any downsides or consequences, she freed Jaime Lannister from Riverrun in hopes that she’d be able to get Sansa and Arya back from the Lannisters. Let’s find out how this all goes exactly to plan in this synopsis of ASOS, Catelyn I!
Synopsis
Ser Desmond Grell had served House Tully all his life. He had been a squire when Catelyn was born, a knight when she learned to walk and ride and swim, master-at-arms by the day that she was wed. He had seen Lord Hoster's little Cat become a young woman, a great lord's lady, mother to a king. And now he has seen me become a traitor as well.
Obviously, this is the lowest point for Catelyn Stark, and things can only improve from here on out in A Storm of Swords, right? RIGHT?
Catelyn thinks about how Edmure named Ser Desmond Grell castellan which meant that he had to deal with Catelyn’s criminality. Desmond had brought Utherydes Wayn with him to ease the burden of having to confront Catelyn. But these men were disgraced by Catelyn’s conduct. Desmond Grell comforts Catelyn over the loss of her sons, and that’s totally why Catelyn released Jaime, right?
"I understood what I was doing and knew it was treasonous. If you fail to punish me, men will believe that we connived together to free Jaime Lannister. It was mine own act and mine alone, and I alone must answer for it. Put me in the Kingslayer's empty irons, and I will wear them proudly, if that is how it must be."
"Fetters?" The very word seemed to shock poor Ser Desmond. "For the king's mother, my lord's own daughter? Impossible."
"Mayhaps," said the steward Utherydes Wayn, "my lady would consent to be confined to her chambers until Ser Edmure returns. A time alone, to pray for her murdered sons?"
"Confined, aye," Ser Desmond said. "Confined to a tower cell, that would serve."
"If I am to be confined, let it be in my father's chambers, so I might comfort him in his last days."
Desmond says that’s fine, but Catelyn will not have freedom of the castle until Edmure returns. But now that the distasteful task is done, these dudes want to get out of here. Utherydes does pause at the door to tell Catelyn that Robin Ryger will retrieve Jaime soon or kill him.
Catelyn had expected no less. May the Warrior give strength to your sword arm, Brienne, she prayed. She had done all she could; nothing remained but to hope.
Catelyn’s things are moved into Hoster Tully’s bedchamber by the river balcony. When Catelyn arrives, she finds Hoster asleep. Catelyn wonders if she’s actually bringing Hoster comfort, but she feels solace being around him. She wonders what Hoster would say if he knew about Catelyn’s crime. What would he do if it were Lysa and Catelyn in the hands of their enemies?
The room smells like death, and Catelyn thinks it reminds her of her “dead” sons. She thinks the world is supremely unfair to take Ned and Bran and Rickon away.
"It is a monstrous cruel thing to lose a child," she whispered softly, more to herself than to her father.
Lord Hoster's eyes opened. "Tansy," he husked in a voice thick with pain.
He does not know me. Catelyn had grown accustomed to him taking her for her mother or her sister Lysa, but Tansy was a name strange to her. "It's Catelyn," she said. "It's Cat, Father."
"Forgive me . . . the blood . . . oh, please . . . Tansy . . . "
Catelyn wonders if there was another woman in Hoster’s life. Maybe a woman after Minisa had died? She asks Hoster who Tansy was, and whether she’s still alive.
Lord Hoster groaned. "Dead." His hand groped for hers. "You'll have others . . . Sweet babes, and trueborn."
Others? Catelyn thought. Has he forgotten that Ned is gone? Is he still talking to Tansy, or is it me now, or Lysa, or Mother?
When he coughed, the sputum came up bloody. He clutched her fingers. ". . Be a good wife and the gods will bless you . . . sons . . . trueborn sons . . . aaahhh." The sudden spasm of pain made Lord Hoster's hand tighten. His nails dug into her hand, and he gave a muffled scream.
At that, Maester Vyman shows up with the milk of the poppy, and Hoster falls asleep again. Catelyn asks Vyman about this Tansy woman, and the maester has no idea who Hoster might mean. When Catelyn tries to reason through maybe a serving girl or a woman from a village, Vyman can’t remember anyone by that name -- though the smallfolk name their daughters after flowers and herbs. Maybe she was this widow who came by to sole shoes? Catelyn corrects Vyman. That was Violet. The maester apologizes but then says he’s not supposed to talk to her unless duty requires. Catelyn tells Vyman to do his duty, thanking her lucky stars that she’s free of the war for a little while in this room. She gets into a woolen cloak and walks out to the balcony, searching to see if anyone is returning up the river with Jaime. And though a raven comes, there’s no sign of Robin Ryger or Jaime.
At dinner time, Vyman brings Catelyn some bland-sounding food, telling her that there’d been no such person as Tansy at Riverrun. Okay, well how about that raven. Is Jaime taken? Nope. Battle? Nope. Robb? Uh, well, um, Vyman is not supposed to say, but Tywin has left the Riverlands. Fine. Where did the raven come from? The west. Was it about Robb?
He hesitated. "Yes, my lady."
"Something is wrong." She knew it from his manner. He was hiding something from her. "Tell me. Is it Robb? Is he hurt?" Not dead, gods be good, please do not tell me that he is dead.
"His Grace took a wound storming the Crag," Maester Vyman said, still evasive, "but writes that it is no cause for concern, and that he hopes to return soon."
Catelyn asks what kind of wound, but Vyman assures Catelyn that Robb is being cared for at the Crag, but seriously, Vyman can’t talk about that! He then beats feet as the milk of the poppy does its work on Hoster. Lord Tully starts to drool, and Catelyn wipes his mouth.
When she touched him, Lord Hoster moaned. "Forgive me," he said, so softly she could scarcely hear the words . "Tansy . . . blood . . . the blood . . . gods be kind . . . "
His words disturbed her more than she could say, though she could make no sense of them. Blood, she thought. Must it all come back to blood? Father, who was this woman, and what did you do to her that needs so much forgiveness?
Catelyn has nightmares of her dead children and wakes with Hoster’s words about blood and children in her head. She wonders why Hoster would say that. Sure, she’d believe that Edmure was off their making bastards but not her dad. Maybe Tansy was a nickname for Lysa? Maybe. But he did say something about trueborn children. And Lysa had miscarried five times. Detective Catelyn starts to put the pieces together. Lysa and Catelyn married the same day at Riverrun, but where Catelyn got instant pregnant from Ned’s super sperm, Lysa had only had a late period. And when Catelyn had handed Robb to Lysa, she burst into tears and ran away.
If she had lost a child before, that might explain Father's words, and much else besides . . . Lysa's match with Lord Arryn had been hastily arranged, and Jon was an old man even then, older than their father. An old man without an heir. His first two wives had left him childless, his brother's son had been murdered with Brandon Stark in King's Landing, his gallant cousin had died in the Battle of the Bells. He needed a young wife if House Arryn was to continue . . . a young wife known to be fertile.
Catelyn rose, threw on a robe, and descended the steps to the darkened solar to stand over her father. A sense of helpless dread filled her. "Father," she said, "Father, I know what you did." She was no longer an innocent bride with a head full of dreams. She was a widow, a traitor, a grieving mother, and wise, wise in the ways of the world. "You made him take her," she whispered. "Lysa was the price Jon Arryn had to pay for the swords and spears of House Tully."
Well, Catelyn. That is not a terrible deduction! But you are missing a component. Maybe if you think back to what Hoster was croaking about back in ACOK, you might be able to put it all together.
Catelyn realizes that this was why Lysa’s marriage was so loveless. Jon Arryn was probably kind and dutiful, but Lysa needed warmth. The next day, Catelyn decided to write to Lysa. She wrote to him about Bran and Rickon, but mostly, she wrote to her sister about her father dying
His thoughts are all of the wrong he did you, now that his time grows short. Maester Vyman says he dare not make the milk of the poppy any stronger. It is time for Father to lay down his sword and shield. It is time for him to rest. Yet he fights on grimly, will not yield. It is for your sake, I think. He needs your forgiveness. The war has made the road from the Eyrie to Riverrun dangerous to travel, I know, but surely a strong force of knights could see you safely through the Mountains of the Moon? A hundred men, or a thousand? And if you cannot come, will you not write him at least? A few words of love, so he might die in peace? Write what you will, and I shall read it to him, and ease his way.
But even when she finishes this well-written letter, Catelyn thinks it won’t do any good. Hoster would be dead soon, and Lysa would probably not even come. Still, Catelyn heads to the sept to pray about it as well as offer prayers for her father, mother, Lysa and the babies she lost. Jesus. Man. That’s some hard shit.
Later in the day, Catelyn hears voices and trumpets. She climbs up to the roof, thinking that it might be Robin Ryger, but instead, Catelyn is relieved to find that it’s Edmure Tully returning to Riverrun. It only takes two hours for Edmure to come see Catelyn as the castle reunites noisily underneath. Edmure arrives in Hoster’s room, and she notices that he looks thin, drawn and unkempt with mud spattered on his boots.
"Edmure," Catelyn said, worried, "you look unwell. Has something happened? Have the Lannisters crossed the river?"
"I threw them back. Lord Tywin, Gregor Clegane, Addam Marbrand, I turned them away. Stannis, though . . . " He grimaced.
"Stannis? What of Stannis?"
"He lost the battle at King's Landing," Edmure said unhappily. "His fleet was burned, his army routed."
Catelyn isn’t exactly thrilled that the Lannisters won, but she’s not sad that Stannis lost given that she saw Renly unexpectedly, accidentally, who-did-it, die peacefully back at Storm’s End. She remarks that Stannis was no more a friend than Tywin. But Edmure corrects her. Highgarden declared for Joffrey, and Catelyn released Jaime? What the fuck, Catelyn? You had no right.
"I had a mother's right." Her voice was calm, though the news about Highgarden was a savage blow to Robb's hopes. She could not think about that now, though.
"No right," Edmure repeated. "He was Robb's captive, your king's captive, and Robb charged me to keep him safe."
Well, according to Catelyn, Brienne will keep Jaime safe and deliver him to King’s Landing to bring back Arya and Sansa. Edmure says that Cersei ain’t going to release the girls. Ah, well, Catelyn planned to conduct the exchange with Tyrion. See, Catelyn has thought of everything. Except that Tyrion took an axe wound to the head and might be dead before Brienne reaches King’s Landing.
"Dead?" Could the gods truly be so merciless? She had made Jaime swear a hundred oaths, but it was his brother's promise she had pinned her hopes on.
Edmure was blind to her distress. "Jaime was my charge, and I mean to have him back. I've sent ravens-"
"Ravens to whom? How many?"
"Three," he said, "so the message will be certain to reach Lord Bolton. By river or road, the way from Riverrun to King's Landing must needs take them close by Harrenhal."
"Harrenhal." The very word seemed to darken the room. Horror thickened her voice as she said, "Edmure, do you know what you have done?"
Edmure says that it’s fine. Catelyn’s part has been left out of it. The letter claims that Jaime escaped, and he’s offering a thousand dragon reward for his recapture. Does that make it better, Catelyn? No. Not at all. It is much worse. She cries as she tells Edmure that what Edmure has done is make it look like an escape instead of an exchange for hostages.
"It will never come to that. The Kingslayer will be returned to us, I have made certain of it."
"All you have made certain is that I shall never see my daughters again. Brienne might have gotten him to King's Landing safely . . . so long as no one was hunting for them. But now . . . " Catelyn could not go on. "Leave me, Edmure." She had no right to command him, here in the castle that would soon be his, yet her tone would brook no argument. "Leave me to Father and my grief, I have no more to say to you. Go. Go." All she wanted was to lie down, to close her eyes and sleep, and pray no dreams would come.
And that is the synopsis of ASOS, Catelyn I! Melancholy beauty. That’s what this chapter is all about. As with every Catelyn chapter, I love it. What did you think, ser?
Depth
Catelyn was my favorite POV in ACOK. Her chapters ran the gamut from Robb to Jaime, Renly to Stannis, brightest day to blackest night. George was showing us all the options available for Westeros, and also showing off everything he could do as a writer. Now he boils down that dramatic range to its tragic essence. Catelyn’s storyline in Storm is structurally perfect: a one-way ticket to hell. Abandon hope, all ye who enter here! I compared her story in Clash to a rainbow: an arc told in bright colors. In Storm, all that color is bleached out, leaving behind only black and white and grey, with a burst of red right at the end.
So where last week Jaime I opened him up to a wide horizon to reflect his rebirth, Catelyn I pulls in close and tight around her to reflect her doom. It’s a very interior chapter, a self-contained chamber piece. It’s like an overture to an opera, establishing everything to come in miniature. Davos is my favorite POV in ASOS, but Catelyn’s a very close second.
Beautifully said, ser. Love the color commentary on Catelyn in ACOK and ASOS. Catelyn’s ACOK chapters were just outstanding in so many ways, but one of my favorites from ACOK was just how much physical ground they covered. From Riverrun to Bitterbridge to Storm’s End, Catelyn was a walking world-builder, expanding the reader’s perspective on the wider world of Westeros. That is not the case in ASOS. Though we will visit Oldstones in one of the most gorgeously-written chapters in ASOIAF, Catelyn is “confined to quarters”, chained to Riverrun - a place she’s been at since ACOK, Catelyn V and then thrust forward to the Twins - a place she visited back in ACOK, Catelyn IX.
These are all familiar places for Catelyn, and that location creates a claustrophobic feeling for Cat. She’s stuck. She’s on a one-way ticket towards doom. It’s almost like the first six Catelyn chapters are Catelyn on death row. Her seventh chapter is the execution. It truly is, as you said, a one-way ticket to hell.
- House arrest
- Catelyn’s story in this book is all about things falling apart. Everything you could believe in is betrayed, from social structures to personal relationships, leaving you alone with death and despair
- In her next chapter, we learn that Robb broke his marriage pact, and that Edmure’s victory at the Fords helped the Lannisters win at the Blackwater
- Rickard Karstark betrays Robb and murders unarmed boys in their beds; Robb executes Lord Karstark, father to those who died for him in battle
- Hoster dies, and not only that, but Edmure can’t even manage his funeral rites properly. Robb stares down the crumbling statue of a king, his face worn away, his words lost to time. Nothing lasts
- It all feeds into the Red Wedding: the ultimate collapse of community bonds, in which a wedding becomes a slaughter and the sacred tradition of guest right is violated
- As effective as the Red Wedding is in isolation, it wouldn’t hit as hard without the buildup, the slow decay that finally gives way
- While this storyline ends with Catelyn as the victim of violated norms, it begins with her as the renegade who has defied protocol
- Catelyn’s pretty clearly violated the chain of command here, releasing a valuable prisoner without Robb’s consent, nor Hoster’s, nor Edmure’s
- Everyone breaks the rules. Sometimes, it’s because the alternative seems worse; sometimes, it’s because the rule itself seems harsh or absurd; sometimes, it’s just because you think you’ll get away with it
- Our social roles are just that: roles, masks we wear. Society is a performance, and through Catelyn’s eyes, we watch the performance break down. The Red Wedding is the biggest and most devastating expression of that theme...so here at the beginning, we get the opposite, the most small-scale, the most comedic
- We get this funny scene where the men Edmure left in charge of the castle show up to arrest Catelyn and then can’t bring themselves to do it
- Desmond Grell and Utherydes Wayn spent their lives in service to House Tully. But now their duty doesn’t seem so clear
- What are they supposed to do when House Tully turns on itself, when Hoster’s daughter goes behind the back of Hoster’s son? Are they supposed to arrest the lady of the castle, put her in chains? Inconceivable!
- Jaime said it best, to Catelyn herself: your oaths will inevitably come into conflict, like the human heart always in conflict with itself
- And the human heart is also at play here. After all, these men have known Catelyn her entire life. They remember her as a little girl. Cat thinks that Ser Desmond was just a squire when she was born
- It is very difficult for them to see her as a traitor, just as it’s difficult for her to see Littlefinger as an enemy, just as Robb can’t see his new in-laws the Westerlings for what they are until it’s too late
- So they have to dance around the obvious, refusing to directly face what she’s done. Like a lot of great comedy scenes, the roles are reversed
- Instead of her making the excuses, they make them for her. She was driven by grief for her boys: “mother’s madness.” You didn’t know what you were doing!
- Catelyn is the one who makes the case against Catelyn. Far from being mad with grief, she lays out the facts with admirable clarity: I committed treason. If you don’t punish me, everyone’s going to think you were in on it
- It’s ironic because Desmond Grell is the one overcome with emotion, the one who can’t think clearly! It’s so funny to watch Catelyn patiently negotiate her own house arrest. Jaime was freed, but remains in chains; Catelyn has been imprisoned, but is still seen as an authority figure
- She has to lock her own cell door behind her, walking these men through the unthinkable, making it thinkable, making it policy: the new normal
- That’s what the Red Wedding is, too: not just chaos, but one kind of ritual devouring and replacing another, making use of the old world as it dies
- Catelyn is trying to restore order after having broken it, and is willing to pay the price. She will pay far more than she ever bargained for
- That’s what’s going on systemically. On an individual level, Catelyn is also trying to maintain her own dignity and sense of self-worth
- I did this, she says. It is my crime; I will suffer for it proudly, because it is mine. Desmond and Utherydes have good intentions, they wish her well. They want to control the narrative so she’s not a pariah
- But when they tell her she didn’t know what she was doing, they stand in for a political culture that has kept Catelyn perched on the cusp of power
- She’s had to play a woman’s role in a man’s world. The point isn’t that this automatically justifies anything she does with the power she does wield; the point is that she has to fight even to be held responsible for her actions
- Desmond and Utherydes don’t want Catelyn to suffer. They want her to play her role: daughter of the lord, mother of the king, keeper of the conventional wisdom. She plays along to make it easier on all of them: confine me like a princess in a tower, let me grieve with my father, proper womanly stuff--but she’s beginning to realize what a farce it all is
- Nothing they do now really matters, as far as she’s concerned. She put her faith in Brienne, someone who is always standing outside the norms. All she can do now is sit, and wait, and hope for the best
- It’s hard to imagine someone with less of the privilege Catelyn has getting the type of soft-treatment Catelyn receives from these men.
- Given a hypothetical situation where a smallfolk person rescued Jaime from the dungeons of Riverrun and sent him back to King’s Landing, would these noble-seeming guys go kid-gloves on him or her? I think very much not.
- Another way I thought of this scenario is a familiar one: the son or daughter of a rich or prominent person receiving lenient treatment because the judge is a friend of Senator Witherspoon or some other WASP name of a senator.
- As the daughter of Hoster Tully, Catelyn is basically let off with a warning for committing treason.
- Given what Jaime and Brienne witnessed at the inn from just the last chapter, you see how desperately unequal justice is in Westeros.
- As you were saying: for the crime of surviving, making a living, the sex workers at the inn were hanged by Stark loyalists.
- Look, I don’t think Catelyn deserves the noose for her treason, but really, when you look at what she did vs what the women at the inn did, Catelyn’s crime is substantially worse.
- She freed Jaime fucking Lannister, a general in the war against her son, the son of strategic commander of the anti-Stark forces.
- Catelyn I occurs right after Jaime I, and while I think GRRM sequenced this for a variety of reasons, I think the contrast in punishments is one of the main reasons.
- Of course, she tried to make it more understandable. She got Jaime to swear vows against taking up arms against the Starks and to return her daughters.
- But that’s part of the point. We all have our reasons as George said when talking about why people do the things they do. We all have our justifications.
- For that matter, what Catelyn did will have ripple effects outside of the act itself.
- Lord Rickard Karstark will justify his murders of Willem Lannister and Tion Frey by throwing an accusation back at Catelyn. If she did treason, so can I.
- Now, I don’t think there’s quite a moral equivalence between murder and Catelyn’s desperate all-in to save her daughters.
- But as you were alluding to, Catelyn’s action is the latest fragment in the decaying social norms of Westeros.
- Once the norms start to become undone, it creates a stronger permission structure - no matter how illogical or immoral - for greater deviations from the norm.
- But to lay that all on Catelyn is a huge stretch. So much of what these inheritors of Robert’s Rebellion are doing in the current time has deeper roots in the sins of the fathers.
- Tansy
- And so Catelyn is left alone with her father. Throughout the story so far, Hoster has stood in for an older generation that is passing away, taking with it Catelyn’s memories, her nostalgia for the way things used to be
- The stench of death hangs on the room where she was born, and Catelyn’s only comfort is that Hoster is too far gone to learn of her shame
- What would he make of her now, she wonders. Would you call it a mother’s madness? How could I have done otherwise?
- Catelyn thinks of her boys, sweet Bran, fierce Rickon, forever gone. Makes me wanna reach into the page, tell her it’s not true! But her grief is real, as present as the smell of death around her father. Losing him is hard enough. Losing Ned, even worse. But to lose children is unbearable
- An inversion of nature: they’re supposed to bury us, not the other way around. I could not take it. What would you have done if it were your own kids at stake? Well...what did he do when it was his own kids at stake?
- Lord Hoster’s eyes opened. “Tansy,” he husked in a voice thick with pain.
- Hoster in his delirium thinks Catelyn is Lysa, the inverse of Littlefinger thinking Lysa was Catelyn the first time they slept together...which is what Hoster is actually talking about! He thinks it’s still the Rebellion era
- The way George pulls off this transition is really brilliant. Catelyn whispers to herself that it’s a monstrously cruel thing to lose a child, and immediately Hoster’s eyes open, and he is reliving the moment when he reveals to Lysa what he did to her.
- As a writer, it is sometimes exceptionally hard to do a hard plot-pivot in a chapter occurring in real-time.
- But George nails it here. Catelyn is feeling the grief so hard that she can’t contain it in her own head. She has to verbalize it.
- And that verbalization leads to the Tansy pivot and Hoster’s fevered re-living of the conversation he had with Lysa back in 283 AC.
- Back when Catelyn was an innocent child, not a grieving parent. She remembers Lord Hoster ruling the Riverlands wisely and well
- But as with anyone, the legend doesn’t line up with the person. Catelyn thinks at first that “Tansy” is a woman’s name, some woman Hoster loved after her mother died. Suddenly, she feels like she never knew him at all, and she’s right about that, even if she’s wrong about what “tansy” means
- It’s similar to Cersei finding Shae’s naked body in Tywin’s bed. The all-mighty patriarch was a man of flesh and blood like anyone else; in the end, he did not shit gold
- Tywin, of course, has been framed explicitly as a villain from the very beginning. In Hoster’s case, we’re as shocked to learn the truth as Catelyn. Do we really know our parents? Do we even know ourselves?
- Cersei clamped down on those questions, refusing to even consider them. Catelyn is drawn deep into the dreadful implications of her father’s words
- Beneath the exalted image waits the truth. Per Chinatown:
- “Most people never have to face the fact that at the right time and the right place, they're capable of...anything.”
- In this case, the circumstances were that Lysa had become pregnant by Littlefinger, who was the “wretched stripling” Hoster mentioned in ACOK
- For Hoster, this was a nightmare scenario. How can he make a good marriage for her now? She has doomed herself to a shameful life: either marrying someone unsuitable like Littlefinger or joining the silent sisters
- So he took steps to ensure that didn’t happen. He gave Lysa tansy, aka “moon tea,” as an abortifacient without her knowledge or consent
- Then he arranged for her to marry his old friend Jon Arryn, further cementing the Robert’s Rebellion coalition just in time to win the war
- I would bet that Hoster didn’t even think of this as a punishment, but as a favor he was doing Lysa after she broke the rules. After all, this way, she avoids becoming a pariah. She gets a big castle to live in, servants to see to her every need. She gets a rich powerful husband who treats her gently
- That’s her social role, like the roles Desmond Grell and Utherydes Wayn were trying to play with Catelyn even as they put her under arrest
- And just as they can’t cover up what Catelyn has done and why, Lysa’s role and everything that goes with it doesn’t make up for the hole inside
- For her, it was a punishment, and a monstrous one that destroyed any chance of happiness. Catelyn remembers how happy Lysa was when she was first married, when it looked like both of them were pregnant
- It’s heartbreaking to read about Lysa’s face lighting up as she imagined her son and Catelyn’s growing up best friends, like Ned and Robert
- But then the blood came, taking Lysa’s joy with it; even the sight of Robb, red-faced and squalling in Catelyn’s cherished memories, was a hateful sight to Lysa. It’s a reminder of a happy family life that she’ll never have. She’d been denied that which she wanted most: love
- While it’s never confirmed, it’s strongly suggested that the tansy tea wrecked havoc on Lysa’s fertility; it’s why she’s had so many miscarriages, with only one live child, and that one sickly
- That is something I’d never seen before, but that makes a lot of terrible, sad sense -- especially given how both Catelyn and Edmure conceived on their first attempt with their respective spouses and Lysa got pregnant from Littlefinger on her second attempt.
- Truly, the Tullys reflect the fertility of the Riverlands. But Hoster inadvertently poisoning Lysa’s fertility is just so utterly sad and tragic.
- One thing that might seem a little unclear from this scene (because it was unclear to me despite having advanced degrees in many, many sciences) is whether Lysa’s initial joy was over Littlefinger’s child or whether she thought she might be pregnant by Jon Arryn?
- The timeline provides something of an answer here. As we know, there were two sexual encounters between Littlefinger and Lysa in the run-up to Robert’s Rebellion.
- The first one was after the duel with Brandon Stark where a wounded and delirious Littlefinger thought he was banging Catelyn which makes … um, so much sense given the circumstances.
- The second encounter between Littlefinger and Lysa was a “fortnight” after Littlefinger “healed”, and this was when Lysa became pregnant.
- Lysa revealed this to Hoster who then forced Lysa to drink the moontea, which according to the A World of Ice and Fire app, “nearly killed Lysa.”
- Sometime later in 282, Lysa was forcibly wed to Jon Arryn and was sold to Jon Arryn based on her previous fertility given that she was pregnant once.
- That bedding ceremony resulted in this phantom pregnancy for Lysa, the one where she was happy for a moment before she got her period.
- So far from preventing further suffering, Hoster’s actions prolonged Lysa’s suffering. Instead of returning her to her proper social role, he made it so that she would never be able to play that role properly
- The result is the Lysa we met in the present day, breaking down atop a mountain, all alone. Someone we couldn’t imagine being that happy
- That’s the reality behind the image of Hoster Tully. Catelyn only realizes that now that it’s too late to do anything about it. The damage is done
- Remember what Tywin said about Robert? He saw himself as a hero, and heroes do not kill children...but he needed them dead to hold his throne
- Long after Robert tires of that throne, the stain of those murders persists, undercutting the heroism. We’ll see that with Oberyn later in the book
- And we’ll see it with Oberyn’s own children. Catelyn wonders why it always comes back to blood; the Sand Snakes declare that this will end in blood like it began, with the death of Tywin’s grandson Tommen
- In the moment, it seems like the ends justify the means, that you’re setting the world to rights or just avoiding an even worse outcome
- But as time marches on and the things you believe in fall apart, you are left alone with what you’ve done, and what we do is ultimately who we are
- The Faith of the Seven preaches that as we sin, so do we suffer. Catelyn believes that. Varys doubts it, and seems to speak for George on the matter: sin and suffering are disconnected. Innocents suffer the most
- But until the gods decide to make things plain to us, all we have is what we believe, and Hoster believes he is suffering for his sins, that the gods have sent him his own abdominal pain to account for what he did to Lysa
- “Forgive me...the blood...oh, please…”
- He did what he did for duty. He did what he did for honor. In the process, he broke apart his family, and family comes first in his own House words
- No wonder Lysa stays away. No wonder she became so alienated from her own family that Littlefinger was able to turn her against Catelyn as well
- Lannister dysfunction is more public, Greyjoy dysfunction more gleefully obscene. Tully dysfunction is a more invisible, interior drama, like this chapter, more Southern Gothic than Grand Guignol: the Tragedy of the Tullys and their Tansy
- There's no literal connection between Hoster's sins and the downfall of his House; the Red Wedding doesn't happen *because* of what Hoster did to Lysa
- But it feels like they're connected because they're part of the same structure, the same set of priorities, and they fit into the same tragic tone of Catelyn's chapters
- Catelyn only realizes the dark truth because of how bleak her own adult life has become, because she’s no longer the little girl waiting for him
- In a world where she has been sundered from her own children, “the lost and the dead” as she calls them, the unthinkable becomes thinkable, just like when the old men of the castle tried to put her under arrest
- That’s the end result of Hoster’s moon tea. Far from ensuring the strength of his family, he cursed it, poisoned it, and now it’s dying with him
- As many, including George himself, have pointed out, the Faith of the Seven strongly invokes the imagery of Roman Catholicism, but we can see the cultural ethos of Catholicism in the Tully family.
- Because I’m me, I used to irritate one of my closest friends by relaying to him that my mother was the final Irish Catholic in a 1,500 year line before she switched to Protestantism in her teenage years.
- But you might leave the Church, but the cultural ethos embedded by a thousand-plus years of generation after generation passing down the ethos stays with you.
- In this case, the complex guilt my mother felt and feels from events long passed is something that stays current.
- That’s Hoster Tully. He rationalized his decision from 282 AC as the best of bad options.
- Like you said, Hoster probably thought he was sacrificing Lysa’s short-term happiness for her long-term happiness.
- But this would never be the case. Hoster destroyed Lysa’s short-term and long-term happiness through his actions.
- And he knows this. That very Catholic guilt he’s experiencing in his final days is proof that he destroyed the life of someone that he loved, that in his own mind that he loves still.
- But it’s not truly love. Hoster’s mindset is not too dissimilar to Tywin Lannister’s.
- Tywin thinks he’s doing best for his family, for House Lannister but what he’s truly doing is what’s best for himself, his own reputation.
- Tywin wanted to marry Cersei off to Rhaegar first and then to Robert, pointedly telling Cersei that she would marry Rhaegar when Cersei was only a girl, that she would be the queen.
- This excited Cersei, but the reality was that Tywin was treating Cersei like a broodmare, seeking only to enhance Tywin’s power, burnish his own reputation.
- That’s the same dynamic with Hoster Tully. Lysa could not become pregnant by a lowborn “stripling.”
- Lysa was fit only to marry a high lord like Jon Arryn or as we’ll find out in a later Jaime chapter to Jaime Lannister, the then-heir to Casterly Rock.
- And this was only to expand Tully power, to burnish Hoster’s own reputation. He was the father to the heir of Riverrun, the grandfather to the heirs of the Eyrie or Casterly Rock.
- And that gets us into the Southern Ambitions Conspiracy: the great conspiracy of Lords Paramount of the North, Riverlands, Stormlands, Vale and at one point, the Westerlands too.
- The conspiracy to bring down Aerys II Targaryen - a noble and good thing in this podcaster’s opinion - was all about the fathers and mothers of these lands using their children as the coin to solidify the political alliance to take down an increasingly erratic and tyrannical king.
- Again, at the 10,000 foot view and within a Westerosi feudal political structure, this was a noble cause.
- And yet, when you move down from the clouds, from the somewhat-noble ideology that motivated the men of Hoster Tully’s generation, there are the people at the bottom, the pawns.
- Lysa was a pawn of this conspiracy, a piece to be moved by her father to bring the Lannisters into the Southern Ambitions fold.
- And then Lysa was a pawn, a price for Hoster Tully staying inside the fold of the rebellion after it had started.
- I think there’s this concept inherent among fans where we piece together the strategic political plans and goals, and the tactics to achieve that strategy.
- And it gets to be so esoteric and sterile, like moving pieces on a map board to achieve the optimum end goal.
- There’s a version of this in Westeros, a game of thrones if you will, and Hoster Tully was moving his pieces around: Catelyn and Lysa.
- But George wants to show the human cost of the strategies and tactics of the high lords when they play their game of thrones.
- George wants us to see that when you get past the high table, below the salt, the game of thrones is not so sterile, intellectual, aloof.
- There’s blood at the level of the pawns: dead people, destroyed lives, broken families.
- It’s only now that Hoster faces that price, faces the damage he did to his daughter, nearly killing her.
- And he seeks forgiveness for a crime which Lysa can very understandably and very sympathetically never forgive.
- Hoster didn’t know the cost when he did Lysa wrong in 282AC, but he knows now in 299AC at the end of all things.
- Edmure’s return
- After such an intense scene all about Lysa, Hoster, and Catelyn, it can be easy to forget about the #BestTully: Edmure, now back from his battle
- Catelyn has to sit and wait for his reproaches. The waiting is hard, she thinks, chafing at her role, even though it suits her more than Lysa
- Edmure was also trying to live up to his role, the person he’s supposed to be, when he went out to fight at the Fords. “Tell Father I have gone to make him proud.” But Hoster’s beyond pride, and Catelyn notes that Edmure looks worried despite his victory. So what was it worth?
- Edmure delivers the bad news from the Blackwater: Stannis got his ass kicked by the Lannisters. Catelyn can’t feel too sad about that!
- She wasn’t rooting for a Baratheon victory. She still has nightmares about the shadowbaby in the south slitting Renly’s throat; she still remembers that Stannis said Robb would be next if he didn’t bend the knee
- It’s the same shadow of death haunting the whole chapter. I get why Catelyn considers Stannis to be as much an enemy as Tywin
- But as it stands, Stannis is not nearly as much of a threat as Tywin, which Edmure tells Catelyn. The Lannisters have the Tyrells on their side now
- As Catelyn realizes, this is “a savage blow to Robb’s hopes,” so devastating that she can’t even bring herself to think about it for very long
- Catelyn may not have liked the Baratheon bros much, but at least they kept the field divided. Now the south is united against Robb
- The Lannisters have a gigantic army, practically unlimited resources, and most of all, political legitimacy: they look like winners
- Without ever losing a battle, Robb suddenly seems to have lost the war. And indeed, he won’t lose it on the battlefield. He loses in the political arena, his fate decided long before the storm of swords rains down in full
- Exactly! Long before the Red Wedding, the Stark fate is all-but-decided.
- Though Robb will later say that he has a small chance of victory if he can bring the Freys back into the fold, the numbers alone tell the story.
- In the Thrones Show, Stannis tells Melisandre In a real war, the side with the greater number wins, nine times out of ten.
- And that’s what Robb Stark is facing with the combined Lannister-Tyrell army to his south.
- Given any chance, you know I’m going to bring up the military numbers here. But Tyrion later says:
- My father's own sworn swords must account for another twenty thousand. And then there are the roses. Roses smell so sweet, don't they? Especially when there are so many of them. Fifty, sixty, seventy thousand roses, in the city or camped outside it, I can't really say how many are left, but there's more than I care to count, anyway
- So, we’re talking 70-90K Lannisters/Tyrells alone with probably several thousand more Crownlanders and Stormlanders who’ve been incorporated from Renly and Stannis’ armies into the force.
- Against that Robb had fewer than 20,000 men at the start of ACOK and even with casualties taken, Robb probably, in total, has around that number given how Edmure had rallied additional Riverlanders to defend the fords into the Riverlands.
- The problem as we’re going to find out in successive Catelyn chapters is that barely half of those men are loyal to Robb. But we’ll get to all of that.
- The point here is that Robb is in a deep shit way before the Red Wedding, and political and military pragmatism would say that Robb should sue for peace from a position of relative strength.
- But here’s where genre comes in. We readers don’t want Robb to surrender to the bad guys, the people behind Ned Stark’s murder and the desolation of the War of the Five Kings.
- That’s not what heroes in traditional fantasy do. They persevere Frodo-like despite all odds stacked against them.
- But in the grounded political medievalish realism, that’s what good people do. They give in, surrender and try to make the best of a bad hand. Look only at the long history of Westeros to find the good compromising with the bad.
- Look even at the final Sansa ACOK chapter and all of the knights and lords who rode under Renly and Stannis’ banner bending the knee to Joffrey in the Red Keep.
- Unfortunately or fortunately, Robb Stark will take on the role of those few who refused to bend the knee from that Sansa chapter. Robb is the hero of his story, and damn the odds. He’s going to persevere. And it’s really not going to work out for him.
- As Varys’ riddle told us, the nature of power is fluid, depending more on the interpretation of events than the events themselves. Catelyn claims a mother’s right to release Jaime; Edmure counters that she had no right to override Robb’s authority and release a captive under Edmure’s control
- He’s used his political legitimacy to change the meaning of her actions, sending word to Roose at Harrenhal that Jaime escaped
- This finally tips Catelyn over from numbness to despair. Now the fig leaf of a hostage exchange has been torn away; why should the Lannisters return her daughters now? That’s true...but it was also true when she let Jaime go! Did Catelyn just assume Edmure would go along with this?
- Politics is theater. Catelyn went off script, and now the narrative is being taken away from her, shaped around her, cutting her off from any hope
- The invocation of Harrenhal darkens the room; as with Hoster’s sins, there’s no literal connection to the Red Wedding, but it feels like part of the same gothic fairytale landscape, the same feeling that winter is coming
- Catelyn lit her candles to the Seven like she did down at Storm’s End. The Father for her father; the Mother for both Lysa and herself. And one for the Crone, who let the ravens into the world when she peered through the door of death. Catelyn, too, is slipping into the world of death, ushered along by dark wings and dark words
- Chilling, dude! But that really is the dynamic that GRRM leaves us with by the end of Catleyn’s first ASOS chapter.
- I’ve been struck for a few weeks now about this GRRM quote I found a few months ago while writing some essays, and I keep bringing it up. I just like it so much:
- I mean, the best thing is when a unpredictable twist comes out of somewhere, but you've laid the groundwork for you. And then when the reader goes through on that reread and say, oh, he was playing fair with me.
- What I love about this Catelyn chapter is how it’s groundwork for the Red Wedding. Readers want Robb to make it, for Catelyn to get her girls back, because this is fiction, this is fantasy.
- And in fiction/fantasy, it’s always darkest just before the light. But that’s not what George is going for, but you’d be forgiven for thinking it.
- You said it best: Catelyn is on a one-way trip to hell in ASOS, and that really kicks off here.
- Funnily enough, though, where GRRM is unusually realistic in how the heroes sometimes don’t make it out alive when the odds are stacked against them.
- There is an exception though. Catelyn thinks that Edmure has condemned her daughters to death.
- But that’s not what’s going to happen ultimately. Brienne will succeed in getting Jaime to King’s Landing.
- Of course, the whole mission of trading Jaime for her daughters is dead by the end of this chapter, but the girls will (or already are in the case of Arya) get out of King’s Landing.
Foreshadowing/Groundwork
Maester Vyman gives Catelyn some hints about bad stuff going down with Robb in the west, enough to make her (and us) curious; we’ll find out much more in Catelyn II.
A lot of those references to a “mother’s madness” read as signals for Catelyn’s eventual role as Lady Stoneheart and how after Catelyn is driven to a quite understandable psychological break after witnessing the Red Wedding, someone says, “Mad," someone said, "she's lost her wits."
Theory/Discussion
Lord Hoster Tully: bad guy? Yes or yes?
Conclusion
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