About Me

My photo
Chapter-by-chapter analysis of A Song of Ice and Fire. Essays about my favorites, Jaime Lannister and Brienne of Tarth, and others as the mood strikes me!

Friday, August 1, 2014

A Game of Thrones - Catelyn I (Chapter 2)

  • Ned is doing some post-execution cleanup of Ice when Catelyn brings him the news of Jon Arryn’s death and Robert’s imminent arrival at Winterfell, complete with Lannister queen and her brothers. The godswood makes Catelyn uncomfortable - even after all these years, she feels like a stranger at Winterfell, at least in the godswood. This is our first inkling about different religions - the North worships the ancient gods of the forest symbolized by the weirwood trees; the South worships the Seven in what sounds like a version of church (with holy oils and priests.) We also get our first mention of the “Children of the Forest” and the faces carved into the weir woods, which will, of course, be hugely significant later on. 
  • Ned acknowledges that Gared was so terrified of whatever it was he saw (and that he was the fourth Night’s Watch deserter this year.) I guess it’s too much to expect that he’d start actually asking questions before he executes these guys because it is a bit like someone telling me they’d seen a woolly mammoth. I wouldn’t believe it. But STILL!
  • Also, Ned apparently believes three years is old enough for Rickon to put his fears aside and recognize that “winter is coming.” But the words are somehow kind of rote, since a guy just told Ned that Winter REALLY is coming apparently and yet Ned isn’t hearing the underlying message. Which again, I don’t blame him for *too* much since obviously the readers know much more than he does.
  • Ned and Catelyn talk about Lysa and her son, who have fled to the Eyrie. Ned first suggests Catelyn take the children to visit their aunt and cousin and cheer them up, but of course, since Robert is coming to Winterfell that won’t work. I do wonder what would have happened if Catelyn had taken Bran off to the Eyrie. Would he have climbed/fallen there or did the specific chain of events at Winterfell have to happen in exactly the way that they did?
  • Ned clearly dislikes the Lannisters - he calls them an “infestation” and Cersei is “the Lannister woman” - and at this point, since he has no idea about the incest, it’s purely based on his having found Jaime on the throne and perhaps because Cersei took his sister Lyanna’s “rightful” place as Robert’s queen? Because he really seems to dislike her simply for being a Lannister, more than anything else: I get that he hates Tywin for the Sack of King’s Landing (and the murder of Rhaegar’s wife and children) and Jaime for being an oathbreaker, but Cersei hasn’t done anything to Ned besides “replace” Lyanna and not be too charming. 

No comments:

Post a Comment