Mod 2 here weighing in with my thoughts because I have thought about this a lot. I am not sure if Sansa will meet Lady Stoneheart. She may hear of her because the outlaws are becoming more and more notorious for their actions. Whether she would ever understand who it is I’m not certain about.
I am rather more certain that Arya will meet her. Arya already had association with the Brotherhood. I believe her conversations with Lord Beric and Thoros had some importance, particularly this said by Beric:
“Can I dwell on what I scarce remember? I held a castle on the Marches once, and there was a woman I was pledged to marry, but I could not find that castle today, nor tell you the color of that woman’s hair. Who knighted me, old friend? What were my favourite foods? It all fades. Sometimes I think I was born on the bloody grass in that grove of ash, with the taste of fire in my mouth and a hole in my chest. Are you my mother, Thoros?” ASOS
And never forget:
I certainly do, though I can also see her dying without seeing them again. I’ve never actually understood where the idea that she wouldn’t recognize her daughters comes from.
“Can you bring back a man without a head?” Arya asked. “Just the once, not six times. Could you?” ASOS
Arya also learned the gift of mercy from Sandor Clegane as well as having the faceless men teaching that death can be a merciful end to suffering (I think there is more to it with the FM but it is relevant to this example). If anybody is in need of mercy it is the resurrected Catelyn Stark. It just seems that Arya learned from Beric of how it felt to be resurrected, that it did not feel right AND expressed a wish to have a parent resurrected.
Whatever people think of Lady Stoneheart and the quest for vengeance, it is an awful way for Catelyn Stark to live. Those conversations Arya had combined with learning to give mercy to end suffering feels as though it has to be leading to something.
Tag: asoiaf meta
Selyse and Shireen
Some snippets (few, but I think we can all agree that GRRM doesn’t bother to write about Selyse often):
Lady Selyse gave him a measured look. “And what will you tell him, Maester? How he might win half a kingdom if he goes to the Starks on his knees and sells our daughter to Lysa Arryn?”
A Clash of Kings, Prologue
“Eastwatch is not safe.” The queen put a hand on her daughter’s shoulder. “This is the king’s true heir. Shireen will one day sit the Iron Throne and rule the Seven Kingdoms. She must be kept from harm.”
A Dance with Dragons, Jon, 44
That brought Wun Wun lurching to his feet. The queen grabbed hold of Princess Shireen and pulled her back, her knights reached for their swords, and Patchface reeled away in alarm, lost his footing, and plopped down on his arse in a snowdrift. Wun Wun began to laugh. A giant’s laughter could put to shame a dragon’s roar. Patchface covered his ears, Princess Shireen pressed her face into her mother’s furs,
A Dance with Dragons, Jon, 44
The queen pulled her daughter closer to her and kissed her cheek.
A Dance with Dragons, Jon, 68
Selyse does:
- blame Robert and Delena (and Edric by proxy) for the fact that she has no sons, saying “Robert and Delena defiled our bed and laid a curse upon our union.” (A Storm of Swords, Davos, 55)
- lament the fact that she has borne no sons, which in a society built upon misogyny and male primogeniture, is not uncommon, and now that she’s a queen, she would feel additional pressure to bear boys.
Selyse does not:
- hate her daughter
- blame her daughter for her lack of sons
- want to beat, maim, or otherwise harm her daughter
I’m not sure where those ideas stem from, but they don’t come from the text. In her interactions with Shireen she’s stern, but displays something that I’d call absent affection. She’s adamant about Shireen being heir, and and wants to protect her always. There’s no indication of resentment towards Shireen on Selyse’s part, and saying that there is is just an attempt to paint with her a very old, very tired brush.
This is not a “Selyse is perfect” post. She’s complicit in a bunch of genuinely awful things and she’s fervent about her religion to the point of fanaticism. (Although, I could make a case for Selyse being more obsessed with Melisandre than R’hllor, but that’s a subject for another day.) I love her, but I of course recognise that she has flaws. But it’s pretty frustrating to see people continue to misrepresent her relationship with Shireen.
Selyse Baratheon isn’t perfect, but she loves her daughter. Thanks for listening.
NB: I don’t mention their relationship in the show because I don’t watch it.
lauri-l 