A Song of Ice and Fire/Characters/House Stark: Difference between revisions

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== '''Eddard Stark* ''' ==

 

'''Eddard''': ''That is the only time a man can be brave.'' }}

 

* [[Cool Sword]]: Ice is forged of Valyrian steel, and as such is tremendously sharp. It also never dulls.

* [[Deadpan Snarker]]: Several times. Most notable when Cersei slaps him in the godswood, and he answers "I shall bear that as a badge of honor", echoing what she says when her husband beats her.

'''Eddard''': Thank you, Grand Maester Pycelle, I fear we may have forgotten that if you had not pointed it out. }}

** And in response to [[The Medic|Pycelle's]] claim that "Sleep is a great healer." Eddard says, "I hoped that was you."

* [[Decoy Protagonist]]

* [[Fish Out of Water]]: [[Country Mouse]] in a [[Deadly Decadent Court]], roughly (he's not precisely ''rural'', but he ''is'' from the Westerosi equivalent of Alaska).

* [[The Good Chancellor]]: He attempts to be one towards Robert.

* [[Grim Up North]]: Subverted, as he's one of the few unambiguously good guys in the setting, but he's still a hard and grim man.

** That said, {{spoiler|its increasingly evident that several characters, such as Varys and Littlefinger, were hell-bent on war no matter what he did, whilst Cersei soon went out of her way to hunt down and murder all of Robert's bastards to hide her infedlity, and neither Stannis nor Renly would likely have gave a damn about what course of action he took. For all the talk about his [[Honour Before Reason]], he was arguably both the [[Only Sane Man]] (despite what Cersei thinks, thrones are not a game and the civil war is a direct result of sch a mentality) and damned no matter what he did- by the time he got involved, events were in motion beyond both his perception and his control.}}

* [[Horrible Judge of Character]]: For trusting Cersei.

* {{spoiler|[[Killed Off for Real]]}}

* [[Lawful Stupid]]: He can sometimes come off as this. {{spoiler|Good job warning Cersei, idiot.}} But in fairness, there were several dangerous conspiracies afoot at court that neither he nor others were aware of that played a hand in what happened, and ''nobody'' could have reckoned that Joffer would {{spoiler|have him ''executed'' and spark off a civil war for no good reason.}}

* [[The Promise]]: [[Arc Words|"Promise me, Ned"]].

* [[The Stoic]]: Sometimes called "cold-hearted," Eddard is a very reserved man.

== '''Catelyn Tully Stark* {{spoiler|/ Lady Stoneheart}}''' ==

 

 

Wife of Eddard Stark, originally from the House Tully and above all devoted to her father, brother, husband and children. After Jon Arryn dies, she receives a letter from her sister Lysa, Jon's widow, who blames the Lannisters for Arryn's death. While her husband joins the royal court, she stays in Winterfell in order to protect her children. {{spoiler|She gets killed along with Robb, but is resurrected as insane and possibly undead.}}

* {{spoiler|[[Crusading Widower]]}}: Gender-flipped.

* [[Despair Event Horizon]]: {{spoiler|Th;e Red Wedding as a whole, but ''especially'' when poor Robb is killed. Take into consideration taht she believes Bran and Rickon, as well as Arya, to be dead.}}

* [[Foil]]: To Cersei. They're both extremely determined women who [[Mama Bear|would do anything to protect their children]], but at first Catelyn is presented much more sympathetically, as a [[Team Mom|wise, protective maternal figure]] as opposed to a [[Evil Matriarch|scheming bitch who will attempt to destroy anyone she even perceives as a threat to her offspring]]. However they later become [[Not So Different|increasingly similar]] as the results of their respective actions on behalf of their children play out, {{spoiler|particularly after Catelyn comes back from the dead and goes on a killing spree directed at anyone who ever wronged her family while she was alive}}.

* [[Happily Married]]: As noted above, what began as an Arranged Marriage to the younger brother of her murdered fiancee ended up with her and Ned truly falling in love with each other.

* [[Mama Bear]]

* [[The One That Got Away]]: For Littlefinger.

* [[Settle for Sibling]]: Enforced.

* [[Silk Hiding Steel]]: The Tully motto is ''Family, Duty, Honor," and those are the words Cat lives by-- {{spoiler|even after becoming Lady Stoneheart.}}

* {{spoiler|[[Tragic Villain]]: After her resurrection as Lady Stoneheart, she's sliding towards this territory}}

* [[Wicked Stepmother]]: A rare protagonist example, and she has a pretty sympathetic (if not really excusable) reason for it. When your husband (who will prove to be loving and faithful thereafter) comes home with an infant he claims as his bastard son, insists on openly raising said bastard at home in defiance of all custom, and not only refuses to discuss the matter but actually ''frightens'' you when you try to ask who the mother is, it's gonna be pretty hard to bear in mind that it's really not the kid's fault.

* [[You Should Have Died Instead]]: Catelyn's only [[Kick the Dog]] moment is when she tells [[The Unfavourite|Jon]] he should have been crippled instead of Bran. Jon was trying to comfort her at the time.

 

== '''Robb Stark''' ==

 

 

Eddard's oldest son and heir. While young, he proves to be a bold and promising ruler when his father leaves to join the King's court. He is loyal to his father's people and shares his father's commitment to honor above all, {{spoiler|which gets him killed as well, for forsaking a marriage vow to "do the right thing" after he sleeps with another woman in a moment of passion.}}

* [[Badass Normal]]: He's sixteen during the bulk of the story, he never loses a battle.

** {{spoiler|[[Badass Abnormal]]: He's probably a [[Our Werewolves Are Different|Warg]] just like his siblings.}}

* [[Blue Eyes]]

* [[Could Have Avoided This Plot]]: Robb's single biggest mistake in the whole war, more so than {{spoiler|trusting Roose Bolton, Theon Greyjoy, or Walder Frey}}, more so than {{spoiler|skipping out on his arranged wedding}}, more than {{spoiler|not trading Jaime for Sansa and using an arranged marriage with her to broker an alliance with another house}} boils down to this; {{spoiler|not telling his uncle Edmure Tully about his plan to lure Tywin into the Westerlands. If he had told him, then Edmure wouldn't have made his disastrous [[You Shall Not Pass]] stand against Tywin; Tywin's forces would have been decimated by Robb's on Lannister home ground, putting the pressure on them instead of the Riverlands, Stannis would have sacked King's Landing, destroying the Lannister's central power-base(and really the whole reason they were at war to begin with, what with Joff being a head on a spike), and Tywin would have been forced to surrender. Bolton would have never had cause to turn traitor, and Walder's reaction to the arranged marriage falling through would have been sulking in a corner.}}

* [[Blue Eyes]]

* [[Broken Bird]]: She becomes one over a slow, painful process.

* [[Dye or Die]]: Sansa must dye her distinctive auburn locks to a generic brown to mask her identity.

* [[Fallen Princess]]

* [[Our Werewolves Are Different]]: According to [[Word of God]], all the Stark children are wargs, though we haven't seen anything from Sansa yet, possibly because {{spoiler|her direwolf, Lady, is one of the series' first casualties.}}

* [[Princess Classic]]: As with her sister Arya, a [[Deconstruction]]; she is what happens to this kind of character when they grow up in a [[Sliding Scale of Idealism Versus Cynicism|non-Disneyfied]] [[Crapsack World|setting]].

* [[Replacement Goldfish]]: {{spoiler|Littlefinger seems to have transferred his unrequited affections from Catelyn to Sansa, who strongly resembles her mother.}}

* [[Sibling Yin-Yang]]: The Stark sisters are about as different as they could possibly be. They even look very different, with Sansa getting her mother's auburn hair and blue eyes, and Arya taking after her father.

* [[Tomboy and Girly Girl]]: She plays the girly-girl part to Arya's tomboy.

* [[Virginity Makes You Stupid]]: At the beginning.

** She's generally considered now to have had some of the best character development of the whole series, along with Jaime Lannister.

* [[Wrong Genre Savvy]]: Had Sansa realized sooner that world wasn't like a fairytale, she would've gone through less hardship. [[Justified Trope|Then again]], had she gone through less hardship, she wouldn't have realized that the world wasn't like a fairytale...

== '''Arya Stark/Cat of the Canals* ''' ==

 

 

Eddard's free-spirited tomboy daughter who doesn't fit into her highborn role at all. During the beginning, she mostly exists as a foil for her older sister Sansa. When the war breaks out, Arya plunges into the wide world and becomes embroiled in a surprising number of violent adventures despite her tender age.

 

* [[Attempted Rape]]: Even though she's nine years old at the time.

* {{spoiler|[[Ax Crazy]]: She has been displaying signs of this since the end of ''A Storm Of Swords''. When she needs money, her first idea is to kill and rob someone where nobody can see.}}

* [[Becoming the Mask]]: {{spoiler|She starts to think of herself as Cat of the Canals rather than Arya by the end of ''A Feast For Crows''. She's not quite there yet, though...until, at the end of ''A Dance With Dragons'', she is finally 'no one'.}}

* [[Bond Creatures]]: Like all the Starks, has a potential to be a warg; it's theorised that the reason she's not doing well with her Faceless Man training is because part of her is still running around Westeros, in the form of Nymeria. In ADWD {{spoiler|while blind, she discovers she can see through the eyes of a cat}}.

* [[Broken Bird]]: Poor Arya's gone from spirited tomboy to a cold-blooded and possibly insane killer. Her casual attitude towards killing has given several other characters the heebie-jeebies, justifiably since she's not even hit puberty yet.

* [[Enfant Terrible]]

* [[Heroic BSOD]]: As her sister, she has one after {{spoiler|the Red Wedding}}.

* [[I Call It Vera]]: Needle, Jon's gift to her.

* [[I Have Many Names]]: She takes on number of identities to survive: Arry, an orphan boy; Weasel/Nymeria/Nan, servant at Harrenhal then cupbearer to Roose Bolton; Salty, when aboard the ''Titan's Daughter'' on her way to Braavos; Cat of the Canals, an orphan from King's Landing whose father was killed by a bravo; Beth, a blind beggar girl.

* [[Madness Mantra]]: Her mantra doesn't necessarily show insanity, but her constant repetition in her head of people she wants dead is rather unnerving for a girl who, once again, hasn't hit puberty yet.

* [[Morality Pet]]: Both she and Sansa are this for Sandor Clegane.

* [[Our Werewolves Are Different]]

* [[Plucky Girl]]: She'll never give up on her goals. Sure, as of late, these goals are murder, but still, gotta admire such persistence.

* [[Sweet Polly Oliver]]: She disguised herself as a boy more than once to keep her true identity hidden. Even after giving up the disguise, she is still often ''mistaken'' for a boy because of her short hair, male clothing, and un-girlish bearing.

* [[Tomboy and Girly Girl]]: She plays the tomboy part to Sansa's girly girl.

* [[Unusual Euphemism]]: "Dancing" and "needlework" for her less-than-ladylike swordfighting training.

 

== '''Bran Stark* ''' ==

 

 

Eddard Stark's kind and gentle eight-year-old son who dreams of being a knight and loves to climb and explore, until Jaime Lannister {{spoiler|pushes him out a window and he becomes crippled from the fall. While in a coma, he has a dream of a three-eyed crow that gives him prophetic visions as well as magical abilities to take control of his pet wolf}}.

* [[Obliviously Evil]]: As a skinchanger Bran does things he considers harmless, but other skinchangers would call "abominable."

* [[Our Werewolves Are Different]]

** [[The Bus Came Back]]: {{spoiler|In ''Dance'' we finally see what he and his companions have been up to behind the Wall.}}

* [[Psychic Dreams for Everyone]]

== '''Rickon Stark''' ==

 

 

The youngest Stark, a spirited and energetic four-year old boy. Over the course of the story he grows scared and violent when his world disintegrates around him. His pet wolf, Shaggydog, is unique among the direwolves for being black and unusually savage.

* [[The Load]]: Not his fault; he just has the bad timing to be four years old during a blood-drenched civil war that his family is heavily involved in.

* [[Our Werewolves Are Different]]

* [[The Unfettered]]: They needed four people to pacify him. He's four.

* [[Wild Child]]: Rickon grows wild without parental guidance. Shaggydog's fear and rage is a reflection on his personality.

* [[The Oathbreaker]]: subverted in the first book. Keeps his vows even though he'd rather break them and go riding off to help Robb fight the War of Five Kings.

** Played straight in the third, when he breaks his [[Celibate Hero]] vow. (In fairness, it was a "[[If You're So Evil Eat This Kitten|If You're So Evil, Fuck This Girl]]" situation. And as early as the first book it was clear that few brothers of the Night's Watch take this one seriously.)

* [[One Steve Limit]]: Averted. Jon is a very common name in Westeros, partly because of Jon Arryn, whom this character was named after.

* [[Reasonable Authority Figure]]: As {{spoiler|Lord Commander.}}

* [[Our Werewolves Are Different]]

* [[Scylla and Charybdis]]: Toward the end of ''ADWD'', Ramsay Bolton sends the Night's Watch a letter blaming Jon for kidnapping Arya and demanding her return, threatening to attack if she isn't sent back. Jon knows Bolton wouldn't believe the truth(that they don't have her) and will therefore attack anyway, so he's basically forced to prepare to attack Bolton first. The other officers of the Watch, viewing this as taking sides in a conflict, disagree. [[Knife Fight|Vigourously.]]

* [[Tell Me About My Father|Tell Me About My Mother]]: Averted. Jon Snow does not know the identity of his mother, and for reasons yet to be revealed Ned never bothered to tell him (or anyone else for that matter; when Catelyn asks about Jon's mother, Ned apparently responds in such a negative manner that he scared the shit out of her). Ned's refusal to discuss Jon's mother has caused several [[Epileptic Trees]] to form around Jon's parentage, both in-universe and amonst the fandom. Ironically, when Ned was going to King's Landing and Jon was going to the Wall, Ned promised to tell him about her when they next met - which, of course, they never did.

* [[The Strategist]]: {{spoiler|In the beginning of ADWD, he acts as an unoffcial military advisor to Stannis, and his advice turns out to be very good.}}

* [[The Unfavorite]]: To Catelyn, because he's not her son - but Eddard insists on raising him at home, in defiance of custom, and refuses to even discuss the matter of who his mother is.

** Though Catelyn notes it's mostly in defiance of ''Southron'' custom, and that it's a "peculiarity" of the Northmen that they tend to keep their bastards close by and actively participate in their upbringing. See also Jon's [[Shadow Archetype]] Ramsay Snow.

** Made explicit with the Maester's advice upon his promotion: "Kill the boy (within you)."

* [[You Are in Command Now]]: Has to take charge of the defense of Castle Black when all the Night's Watch men who outrank him are dead or somewhere else.

== '''Benjen Stark''' ==

 

 

Ned's younger brother, Benjen is First Ranger of the Night's Watch at the beginning of ''A Game of Thrones''. He comes to Winterfell to attend the dinner honoring the arrival of King Robert, and tells Ned about his worries over events north of the Wall. He also talks with Jon Snow about the boy's ambition to join the Watch, but when Jon actually arrives at Castle Black he is distant with his nephew, reminding him that men of the Night's Watch forswear family ties when they take their oaths. Shortly thereafter he heads out on a ranging in an attempt to find out what has become of Ser Waymar Royce, and disappears north of the Wall; the search for his whereabouts becomes a major plot point in Jon's part of the story.

* [[Badass]]: Like most of the family. His competence as a ranger is one of the primary reasons Jeor Mormont decides that his disappearance couldn't have been due to something as mundane as a Wildling attack.

* [[The Ghost]]: He becomes this after his disappearance.

 

== '''Lyanna Stark''' ==

 

 

Ned's younger sister, Lyanna was betrothed to Robert Baratheon until Rhaegar Targaryen abducted her, starting the Rebellion. She died for unknown causes in "a bed of blood" when Ned found her.

* [[Berserk Button]]: Don't beat her father's men. And don't tease her 'cause sad songs made her weep.

* [[Blood-Splattered Wedding Dress]]: She appears as a sad girl with a white dress splattered with blood in a dream.

* [[Characterization Marches On]]: At first looks like she was a [[Princess Classic]], then we learn that it wasn't the case.

* [[Dead Little Sister]]: To Ned

* [[Died in Your Arms Tonight]]: She died in Ned's arms something like five minutes later he found her.

* [[Hot-Blooded]]: Maybe. Ned says Lyanna had “the wolf blood”: her first reaction when she saw Howland Reed being beaten was not to call for help but to beat his attackers, and she threw a cup of wine on Benjen because he teased her. In front of the Prince. And the court. Ned also notes that [[Wild Child|Arya]] bears a lot of similarities to Lyanna, including appearance.

* [[Identical Granddaughter|Identical Niece]]: At one point Bran sees a vision of Lyanna as a child, but she looks so much like Arya that he thinks it's some muddled vision of his sister, not his aunt.

 

== '''The Direwolves''' ==

 

During the very first chapter of the series, the Starks find a dead direwolf (impaled through the throat with a deer antler) and its six pups; three males (Grey Wind, Summer, Shaggydog), two females (Lady and Nymeria) and an abandoned mute albino male (Ghost). "[[Does This Remind You of Anything?]]," the characters ask each other. Each Stark child takes a pup, with the bastard Jon Snow taking the albino, which is an outsider like him. The personalities of the wolves mirror their owners', as do their fates...

** [[Heroic Mime]]

* [[Meaningful Name]]: Nymeria was named for a famous warrior queen who lead her people from the eastern continent to Dorne. As of A Dance With Dragons she leads a pack of wolves numbering in the hundreds around central Westeros.

* [[Never Found the Body]]: Grey Wind. During the Red Wedding, he was kept chained to a post outside the castle, and so when letters came to King's Landing saying that {{spoiler|his head had been lopped off and sewn to Robb's chest}}, there's no reason not to believe it. It wasn't until two books later that {{spoiler|it was remarked that during the massacre, one of the Westerling knights had freed him from a net the Freys had thrown over him}} and that he was last seen running toward the woods. True, his immediate future wasn't looking too good, what with {{spoiler|being pierced by several crossbow bolts and all}}, but his {{spoiler|previously reported death}} now isn't a 100% certainty.

** Then again, Daenerys had a vision of the Red Wedding, including a man with the head of a wolf.

* [[Not Now, Kiddo]]: Despite their connection, the Stark children have a tendency (at the worst possible moment) to view them just being restless animals.

** When Ghost becomes increasingly uncontrollable to the point of going berserk, Jon leaves him behind attributing it to his desire to hunt a huge boar. {{spoiler|It's because his Night's Watch brothers are about to betray him}}.

* [[Pet Monstrosity]]: Eddard warns his kids about making sure this doesn't happen, since these wolves will grow a lot.

* [[Undying Loyalty]]: In contrast to many of the human characters.

* [[We Hardly Knew Ye]]: {{spoiler|Lady.}}

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Characters]]