The Dead Layds Club And Why Lyanna Is A Bad Example

The Dead Layds club and why Lyanna is a bad example

@joannalannister Some may be aware of the dead ladys club in asoiaf, if not: https://joannalannister.tumblr.com/post/162408885186/the-dead-ladies-club

and a lot about that is true, that is important, it isn’t that I don’t agree with the post, a lot of it is absolulty true.

But reading it I noticed that Lyanna is always (not just by https://joannalannister.tumblr.com/ mentioned first) and that just makes no sense to me. Honestly I’d put the unnamed princess of Dorne first, because all the other Ladys have at least something and she doesn’t even get a name.

But on Lyanna Stark:

The only POV that actually knew Lyanna we have is Ned Stark. There are other people alive who knew her, but not like her own brother and we don’t get POVs of course.

And Ned does not like to talk or even think about his family members, understandable it causes him pain to think of them. But from all his dead family members Lyanna is actually the one we know the most of in terms of personalitly. There are 2 dead women and 2 dead men in his family and Lyanna Stark is the one we actually have knowledge about her character from her brother. To cover the other first: Ned does not talk about his mother, she is dead and that is it. (good fit for the dead ladys club, even if I think that there is no neccessity for her to get more pages). She died sometime between Benjens birth and the War of the 5 Kings, the exact moment isn’t known, but considering that Ned’s children and Cat don’t know her I’d say she died before Cat and Neds wedding 283AC (so Ned would’ve been just 20 years old, too young to loose both parents without it leaving deep wounds). And information about her is purely context information. Then there is Rickard Stark. We know his story (prelude to Roberts Rebellion) but the only character information we have can be based on his reaction to his dauhter getting abducted and his son imprisoned which was ...normal? Like what are supposed to do but go and get them back, that does say he cares like a normal person about his family (considering the Starks in general are one of the more functioning familys in Westeros not something surprising). Then we have Brandon Stark. Who we have 2 POVs about, counting Cat who actually knew him in. Who we actually have some information on. Because Ned talks about him and Lyanna to Arya, mostly it not being a good idea to be so hot-blooded and having wolf-.blood (which Ned considers the thing that led to their early graves, hey Ned isn’t perfect when it comes to sexism either ok). We know about his looks from Cat and Barbrey and about his personatlity aswell, a lot of it actually coming from Barbrey who isn’t even a POV character. And what we know isn’t that positiv, which I take part of his wolf-blood personality trait. (See fucking Barbrey, demanding the head of the crown prince.) The postiv things we know about him are the typical Stark traits about making things fair, right and honest, something at core all Starks share (making the fight against Littlefinger fair, offering him to yield, going to save his sister): But most of the information we have on him are from 1.Background information about what happend (Lyanna, his death, etc.), so just the storytelling. 2.From Cat who knew him for w short while. 3. From Barbrey who hooked up with him and was in love with him (still is). We nearly get nothing from Ned about him. Because Ned doesn’t like to think about his dead family members, he remarks that he wanted none of what he has (Cat, Winterfell, Hand of the King, Brother in Law of the King) because he never wanted his brother dead of course. And lastly Lyanna: Lyanna is the dead family member Ned thinks about the most. Which is why we have the most information about her from all his dead family members. He’s the only POV who actually knew her and we get so much more from him about her than about his brother, father of mother. She is in his mind so often, probably because she is his little sister and he was there when she died. People who didn’t know her always talk about her beauty (especially Robert). But those who knew her always mention that she was wild, she is often described to have a resemblance to Arya in character, more rebellious. Ned states that if Lyanna had been allowed to carry a sword she’d have done it,she had a strong will, that she was beautiful but “he had “iron underneath” and it’s multiple times stated that she loved to ride (getting called half a horse herlsef and a centaur) Lyanna knew that Robert was whoring around and didn’t like it, said to and even told Ned that he wasn’t going to change, she attacked men with touney swords when they bullied Howland Reed and is believed to be the Mystery Knight, who deafead the exact 3 men who bullied Howland. We have no knowledge if she knew Howland before that attack, but she defended him because he was her fathers man and she tended to his wounds later. She was a caring person with a strong sense of right and wrong and had no issue opening her mouth about it. She poured wine of Benjens head when he made for of her for crying about the sad song that was being played. She loved flowers and music.

And we needed none of those things for the canon that is currently infolding. Lyanna could’ve been the perfect little lady Robert imagined and it would not have changed a thing of the plot that is happening right now. But she wasn’t. Like both her nieces she wasn’t a picture perfect lady the men wanted her to be and we know that from context. And yes she died. She was 16, she got a fever, she (we all know it, even if it’s not in the books yet) gave birth way to young. And yes 16 is too young, even at 16 the body is still developing and not properly equipped to handle childbrith yet. Having children too young is one of the major reasons women die in childbrith in our world. And in her death she sill made Ned promise her something (Jon’s savety), she was strong, maybe her body did give out because she got pregnant at 15 from a man which a family history of stillbirths due to incest and was barely 16 when she gave birth but it doesn’t make her a lesser chacaters. JoannaLannister also mentied that we don’t know what Lyanna felt about what happend from getting the crown of beauty and love to her death and we can’t know that. Because everybody involed is dead.There aren’t any people to ask. The Kings guard members that were involved are dead (Jamie wasn’t there, we have no knowledge abour Barristan being involed), Rhegar is dead (and might not be the best guy to ask anyways) and Lyanna the only person who actually knew what she was thinking is definitly dead. If we know more about the events we’d know too much (aka Jon Snows parentage) for the story to unfold and we don’t have any POVs so far that could give us any insight whatsoever anyways.

Long Story short. I don’t think Lyanna should be part of the Dead Ladys Club, because we have 1 POV character who actually knew her (and in general doesn’t like to think about his dead family members) and we have so much information about her that isn’t just plot related, which is a really gread thing and makes her a well fleshed out character for someone who’s been dead for 14 years at the beginning of the story.

P!nk’s “The King Is Dead But The Queen Is Alive” has absolute Cersei after Roberts death vibes!

I did not mean it at all like victim blaming.

I meant it literally that women North of the Wall are trained fighters just like everyone else is and that their costum to me always seemed that the men try to steal them away and if they like the guy then they let themselves be stolen and if not, they fight him of, killing him if he doesn’t take no for an answer. Considering they don’t take rape likely either I don’t think a woman not being strong enough to fight a guy off would mean constent in their way, they are way more liberal with women’s rights, then they are in the South. But also in the South it doesn’t seem to count as rape for a lot of people if the woman doesn’t consent to the marriage (see Cersei, Lysa or Tywin talking about Sansa). Like it is a horrible system and the woman are not responsible but the society doesn’t seem to count it as rape, even though it cleary is.

Some people do point that out but for a lot of people it just seems normal, even though it is really sick. And that counts in Dany, who grew up with learning southern costums, even if she grew up in Essos.

Physically fighting off Drogo wasn’t even an option for her and if she would have tried killing him in a fight she’d stand no chance that’s what I wanted to say.

And that I always saw Free Folk traditions of stealing a woman a lot different than the marriage customs of Khals or Lords. According to the asoif wiki, women are suppost to fight of men who want to take them (and they are only allowed to take grown daughters, not wifes) all the way, but I always considered that those women were not the sit-still-and-listen-to-your-husband trained Layds from the South, these are fully fledged warriors aswell, so in my books they always had a better chance of marrying a guy they wanted, as opposed to the rules Westeros and Essos have where they just expect women to do whatever they want. And train young girls that the same will happen to them.

It’s a horrible system that is pretty much unbreakbale for most southern woman, because if they’d end up on theire own they might end up even worse. Like Lollys got left alone for a bit and got raped by 50 men. So their choice is more like which death do you want to die, instead of am I going to let this guy take me or kill him.

sethmacenzie replied to your post: writing that fic got me wanting someone to do a…

Also: North of the Wall women fight. I am positive that if they don’t want to be stolen, they just kill/fight the man. Woman in the south don’t have that choice or option at all.

@sethmacenzie …this sounds a lot like victim blaming. That somehow southern women are responsible for their own abuse and lack of choices because they’re not warriors. Likewise, that a) all wildling women are capable of killing/fighting the men that would want to steal them, and b) if they lose, they either wanted to be stolen or whatever comes next is their own fault because they weren’t strong enough.

I hope your reply was just a poorly worded way of NOT saying all that, but that’s sure what it came out as. Women are not responsible for what men do to them, nor the patriarchal system that keeps them subservient.

Honestly if I was in America and going to High School ans someone would come up to be to complain about my sleeveless clothes I’d just go: I am in America. I have the right to bare arms!

So the Boys Season 2 finale is coming. I am waiting for the girls get it done.

And with the girls I mean Maeve, Starlight and Kimiko

and with it I mean Stormfront.

Rheagar may have been a little too obsessed with fullfilling prophecies. There are a lot of points and interpretations that Rheagar started plotting against his father aswell and I think that is interesting and I wouldn’t be wondered if he did.

BUT it doesn’t change anything about the whole Lyanna, Queen of Love and Beauty situation, and especially not the part about taking her,

Even if it’s about a prophecy to save the world.

I mean there could have at least an attempt of making this diplomatic, instead of abdructing Lyanna. But I mean asoiaf I pretty well known for “adults fuck up and children suffer”.

I made the horrible mistake to look into the Elia Martell tag on tumblr looking for some nice fan theories about her, but my god people do not know the canon.

There are so many people mixing up show and book canon, and no Lyanna Stark isn’t the sole reason why they started a rebellion.

Brandon Stark went into the Red Keep and loudly announced to kill his crown prince. Rickard Stark asked for trial by combat and got fire as an opponent and Brandon stangeld himself trying to save his father. And then Aerys demanded Ned and Robert’s heads from Jon Arryn. And Jon Arryn said no. That’s the start of the Rebellion. Legitimatly Aerys had the right to kill the Starks who came to kill his son. Definitly not in the way he did, but you can’t just come into the Red Keep and say you’re going to kill your crown prince and expect it to go well.

Neither can you just abduct a noble woman, epecially a promised one, even if you are the crown prince and expect her family and finance to be fine with that.

And people blame Lyanna and Elia for what happend. The two persons who died because of this while being innocent. And no Lyanna is not at fault, even if the show says the were in love she was 16 at best.