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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.

After about 6 months I was finally able to finish this piece of fanart! At first it was only supposed to be a Rhaella and Joanna piece, but over time I decided to add the Princess of Dorne into this fa as well. Decided to have them outside in one of the sections within the royal garden. I still plan on making more fanart of Rhaella but I'm currently working on Joanna piece which I'm aiming to post by the end of this month.