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Episode 71: A GAME OF THRONES, CATELYN XI: "Independence Day" SHOW NOTES!
🕑 Added 2019-07-15 14:01:00 +0000 UTCHello and welcome to the Not A Cast … podcast: the one true chapter-by-chapter podcast going through A Song of Ice and Fire one chapter a week. I’m one of your hosts Jeff better known as BryndenBFish.
And I’m your other host Emmett, better known as PoorQuentyn.
Welcome to the seventy-first episode of the Not A Cast, entitled: “Independence Day: An Analysis of AGOT, Catelyn XI,” in which the vassals of Winterfell and Riverrun come together to declare with one voice that Robb Stark is the King in the North! King in the North! KING IN THE NOOOOORTH!
Ahem.
Emmett intros Steven
This episode is brought to you by our Small Council:
- Hand of the King WolfmanZack
- Grand Maester Timbob
- Lord Commander of the Kingsguard Mark N.
- Lord Travis, Master of Ships and Warden of the Waves
- Ser Keith J, Master of Whisperers
- Lord Philip the Merciful, Master of Laws
- Jancy O, Lady Commander of the Night’s Watch
- Lord Gene, Master of Coin
- Archmaester June, Healer of the Lesser Poxes
- Ragged Michael, Warden of the North
- Nelson the Hammer, Prince of Dragonstone
- Scarlett the Other Red Woman and Mistress of Whisperers
- Lord Baby the Onion Baby
- Lord Blackheart the Defiant, Master of Zorse
- Lord Micah: Warden of the West and the Kraken’s Bane
- Lord James: the Jim that was Promised
- The High Bearded Priest
- The Blue-Ringed Octoling
- Lord Jake, Assistant (to the) Hand of the King
- Lady Xena Valyrian
Thank you councillors very much!
Spoiler warning: All published books - 5 novels, 3 Dunk and Egg novellas, histories, interviews, TWOW sample chapters, as well as Game of Thrones the TV show. Anything and everything!
Question
Wolfman Zack, our small council hand of the king, asks:
Now that you're at the end of book 1- how have your feelings about the book changed since you started this project? Which characters did you like more or less upon closer inspection? What surprised you the most over the course of the first year+? And *******besides******* Stannis, what are you looking forward to the most about jumping to the next book? Thanks for doing this awesome thing you guys do. Print some fucking merch
Synopsis
It seemed a thousand years ago that Catelyn Stark had carried her infant son out of Riverrun, crossing the Tumblestone in a small boat to begin their journey north to Winterfell. And it was across the Tumblestone that they came home now, though the boy wore plate and mail in place of swaddling clothes.
Thus opens Catelyn XI, our final (sniff) Catelyn chapter in AGOT.
Catelyn Robb, Grey Wind and Theon are in one boat. Brynden, Greatjon Umber and Rickard Karstark were in the second. The river pushes them past the Wheel Tower, making Cat smile sadly. Soldiers and servants shout Catelyn and Robb’s name as well as “Winterfell” while the banners of House Tully fly from “every rampart.”
It was a stirring sight, yet it did not lift her heart. She wondered if indeed her heart would ever lift again. Oh Ned …
I feel you Catelyn. I really do.
The boat turns, and they come up to the Water Gate which Catelyn notes disapprovingly is red with rust. As they pass under the gate, she starts thinking tactical thoughts about whether the gate should be replaced and whether the current gate will withstand a battering ram.
Passing under the arch, walls, through shadows and sunlight, the party arrives inside Riverrun to meet with Ser Edmure Tully, GOAT of ASOIAF who only did one thing wrong in his entire life. He stands with dinted armor with beautiful auburn hair and fiery beard next to Lord Tytos Blackwood who had led the sortie against one of the Lannister camps. Edmure orders the boat brought to shore.
Grey Wind jumps out of the boat, knocking one of Edmure’s men over to everyone’s laughter. Theon picks Catelyn up and carries her to shore to avoid her getting wet which might be Theon’s best action to date. Edmure comes down to her, calls her sweet sister, but he’s sad, worn and a little wounded. Catelyn hugs him fiercely.
Your grief is mine, Cat. When we heard about Lord Eddard … the Lannisters will pay, I swear it, you will have your vengeance.
Will that bring Ned back to me? Catelyn said sharply.
This, this is why I love Catelyn Stark so much. She’s breathing emotion through events, but she isn’t wrong.
Catelyn asks to see big daddy Hoster, and Edmure says he’s in his solar. Hoster’s steward gives a bit more explanation, telling Catelyn that he’s bedridden. But he did command Catelyn to be brought to him as soon as she arrived. Edmure, who is good BTW, volunteers to take Catelyn up to him.
Catelyn and Edmure cross the lower bailey, the same one that Littlefinger and Brandon Stark had dueled, push through a door, and then Catelyn asks how bad Hoster is. Edmure soberly tells her that Hoster is dying. And Catelyn is filled with anger.
You should have told me. You should have sent word as soon as you knew.
Edmure would have sent word, but Hoster had commanded that no word of his frailty should escape Riverrun, lest the Lannisters should seize on the news and attack or something.
Catelyn curses herself, stating that if she hadn’t taken Tyrion prisoner, none of this would have happened. And I just want to encourage Catelyn to go back and listen to episode 28 of the NotACast, because she’s being very hard on herself in ways that aren’t entirely fair to herself.
When they get to the top of the staircase, they enter Hoster’s chambers with Edmure explaining that Hoster likes to sit in the sun. Edmure tells Hoster that he’s brought Catelyn to see him.
Hoster Tully had always been a big man; tall and broad in his youth, portly as he grew older. Now he seemed shrunken, the muscle and meat melted off his bones. Even his face sagged. The last time Catelyn had seen him, his hair and beard had been brown, well streaked with grey. Now they had gone white as snow.
Hoster’s eyes open, and he calls out “Little Cat” and smiles and reaches for her face. “I watched for you.” Edmure bugs out with a bow, and Catelyn kneels and takes Hoster’s hand in hers, noting how Hoster’s hands were large, but they’re weak now.
You should have told me. A rider, a raven …
Riders are taken, questioned. Ravens are brought down, he answers.
Pain overcomes Hoster, and he grips Catelyn’s hands and tells her about the crabs pinching inside his stomach. It’s some horrifying imagery that makes me not look forward to dying one day. Ahem.
Hoster’s been taking milk of the poppy, but he hadn’t taken any today as he wanted to see Catelyn.
I’m here, Father, Catelyn says. With Robb, my son. He’ll want to see you too.
Hoster remarks that Robb had his eyes, and Catelyn says that he did and he still does. Robb also took Jaime prisoner and liberated Riverrun. Hoster had seen all this. He watched it from the gatehouse the night prior: how the torches came in a wave, how the sweet cries floated across the river, how the Lannister siege tower went up in flames. He could have died happy just witnessing all that. Was all that Robb’s doing? Catelyn takes great pride in telling Hoster that it was. Oh, also Brynden, your brother, is back. Any thoughts on this development, Lord Hoster?
Some thoughts, yes. But we’ll get to those momentarily. In the meantime, Hoster asks after Lysa and whether she’s back, and Catelyn has to admit that she’s not. Big Daddy Hoster is sad at this development. He wanted to see her again before … y’know, he died. But she ain’t here. She’s in the Vale with “Lord” Robert Arryn. But enough about that brat, let’s talk about Robb. Does Hoster want to see him now? He most certainly does. He had Hoster’s eyes. How about Brynden?
Blackfish? Has he wed yet? Taken some girl … to wife?
No, he has not, Lord Father. And then, and I just love how George develops minor characters especially here, Hoster gets angry about Brynden not marrying. Hoster had told Brynden to marry, but he refused a great match with Bethany Redwyne. Is she still waiting for Brynden? Ah, no. She’s married to Lord Rowan with three kids now.
Hoster asks again if Brynden has married, and you can sense Catelyn’s impatience here. No, dad. He hasn’t wed yet. But he fought his way to Riverrun. Begrudgingly, Hoster admits that Brynden was “was ever the warrior.” Then, exhausted, Hoster asks for Brynden to come later on. He needs to sleep. Catelyn kiss him and leaves him “in the shade of his keep, with his rivers flowing beneath.”
It’s just these minor flourishes that George puts into his books that make me utterly unjealous of his writing ability.
Where was I? Ah, yes.
Catelyn walks down to the lower bailey, and meets up with Brynden. She tells him that he’s dying, and the Blackfish looks pained by the admission. He asks if he can see Hoster, and Catelyn reports that he’s sick, too sick to fight. Brynden chuckles.
I am too old a soldier to believe that. Hoster will be chiding me about the Redwyne girl even as we light his funeral pyre, damn his bones.
Cat smiles and asks after Robb. Brynden says he was with Theon last time he checked. So, Catelyn goes down to the Great Hall and hears Theon talk about the tactics that they used during the Whispering Wood. When she doesn’t see Robb, she asks where he went. Theon tells her that he’s gone to the godswood.
It was what Ned would have done. He is his father’s son as much as mine, I must remember. Oh, gods, Ned …
She finds Robb in the godswood, kneeling in front of a weirwood tree, his sword stuck in the ground in front of him, his hands around its hilt. Northern lords and Tytos Blackwood surround him in kneeling prayer. At witnessing this sight, Catelyn muses that she’s becoming something of an agnostic these days. But she doesn’t disturb their prayers. She waits. And as she waits, watching the river, memories come “flooding” back to her. (See you, George)
Catelyn remembers how Edmure broke his arm by these trees and how she and Lysa played a kissing game with Petyr Baelish. Even then, Littlefinger was eating mints and trying to get to 1st base with Cat. He tried french kissing Catelyn, but she’d refused him. He tried with Lysa, but she hadn’t refused him. She liked it.
Robb rises, sheaths his sword and Catelyn wonders if Robb ever kissed a girl. Maybe Jeyne Poole or one of the serving girls. But now Robb had led men in battle and killed. This makes Catelyn cry angry tears. When Robb sees her, he states that they need to call a council. When Catelyn reports that Hoster wants to see him, Robb states that they need to meet in council first. Lord Terrorist Renly Baratheon has become King Terrorist, claiming Robert’s crown.
Catelyn is shocked. Wasn’t Stannis Robert’s heir? Everyone had thought so, but Renly had gotten himself his traitor’s crown. And listen up, Renly-stans, EVEN CATELYN STARK IS ALL LIKE, UH, WTF RENLY.
So, a war council meets in the Riverrun Great Hall. Edmure sits in Hoster’s place on the high seat of the Tullys with the Blackfish at his side and the riverlander soldiers flanking them on both sides. Lots of river lords were here (now that Robb had beaten the Lannisters). Karyl Vance was here, Marq Piper, Ser Raymun Darry’s ten year old son. Jonos Bracken and Tytos Blackwood are there, as far apart from each other in the room as they could be. Meanwhile, the fewer northern lords sit opposite from the river lords.
The council begins as all councils should begin with arguing late into the night, shouting, cursing, reasoning, cajoling, japery, bargaining, slamming drinks down, threatening, walking out, returning, all the usual council business. News that Roose Bolton had reformed his army at the Twins is brought forward. More news that Tywin crossed the Trident and made for Harrenhal is announced. And there was that whole business of two kings.
Many of the lords want to march on Tywin at Harrenhal. But Marq Piper urges Robb to attack Casterly Rock. Others counsel Robb to stay put here and figure out what to do. Besides, Jason Mallister puts in that Riverrun stands athwart Lannister supply lines back to the Westerlands. This would give them the chance to rest their troops anyhow. But Tytos Blackwood wants mount up and march for Harrenhal, bringing down Roose Bolton’s army. Jonos Bracken, who I do not like, states that they should pledge their sword to King Terrorist and join with his army down in Highgarden.
Renly is not king, Robb said. It was the first time her son had spoken. Like his father, he knew how to listen.
Galbart Glover remarks that Joffrey killed Ned. They can’t swear to some evil king. Robb agrees that they can’t. But …
That makes Joffrey evil. I do not know that it makes Renly king. Joffrey is still Robert’s eldest trueborn son, so the throne is rightfully his by all the laws of the realm. Were he to die, and I mean to see that he does, he has a younger brother. Tommen is next in line after Joffrey.
Marq Piper states that Tommen is a Lannister, and Robb agree, troubled. Regardless, they can’t swear to Renly. He’s Robert’s younger brother. Stannis comes before Renly. Lady Mormont, who I like, agrees. Stannis has the better claim. But Marq stupidly states that Renly is crowned, and that Highgarden and Storm’s End are rallying to his cause. And Doran Martell will join with him too. The Dornishmen will not be laggardly. Lol, George.
All the same, joining with Renly would put six of seven kingdoms against the Lannisters, and then they can mount Cersei, Joffrey, Tywin, Tyrion, Jaime and Kevan’s heads on spikes. Why should they join with Stannis? What does he have that Renly doesn’t.
The right, Robb says absolutely correct.
Edmure asks if Robb means for them to declare for Stannis, but Robb doesn’t know. He prayed to the gods for guidance, but they didn’t answer. While Robb knows for goddamn sure that the Lannisters murdered his dad, because they lied about him being a traitor, but does that make them traitors if they fight against Joffrey?
Enter Ser Stevron Frey who urges Robb to let Renly and Joffrey duke it out amongst themselves and then declare for the winner. Maybe give Tywin a truce in the meantime. And, of course, everyone erupts into a fury with the Greatjon shouting “Craven!” at Stevron Frey. Besides, Maege Mormont puts in, they don’t want to seem weak now.
Why not a peace? Catelyn asks.
Everyone looks at Catelyn, but it’s Robb’s attention that she feels the most. Robb states that the Lannisters murdered his dad and Catelyn’s husband. He unsheathes his sword and lays it on the table in front of him.
This is the only peace I have for Lannisters.
Greatjon “Yeah boiiiis” Robb while everyone erupts into shouts and fist pumping. But Catelyn’s ain’t done yet.
My lords, Lord Eddard was your liege, but I shared his bed and bore his children. Do you think I love him any less than you? Catelyn took a long breath and steadied herself. Robb, if that sword could bring him back, I should never let you sheathe it until Ned stood at my side once more … but he is gone, and a hundred Whispering Woods will not change that. Ned is gone, and Daryn Hornwood, and Lord Karstark’s valiant sons, and many other good men besides, and none of them will return to us. Must we have more deaths still?
Greatjon says something totally cool about how chicks don’t understand this war shit as if Maege and maybe Dacey Mormont are not sitting right there with their well-used maces and morning stars in hand. Rickard Karstark adds in that bros need vengeance. But Catelyn understands. If she had Cersei, she’d show how gentle women can be. Sure, Cat might not understand all the war shit, but she knows futility.
We went to war when Lannisters armies were ravaging the riverlands, and Ned was a prisoner, falsely accused of treason. We fought to defend ourselves, and to win my lord’s freedom.
But now all that is done. Cat will mourn for Ned forever, but she has to think of the people who are actually alive. Arya and Sansa. She’d trade all four Lannisters for them. She wants Robb safe in Winterfell, ruling from Ned’s seat.
I want you to live your life, to kiss a girl and wed a woman and father a son. I want to write an end to this. I want to go home, my lords, and weep for my husband.
Everyone gets good and goddamn quiet at that until Brynden Tully, having just recently read Isaiah 2 in his small group Bible study, puts in that peace is great and all, but it’s no good hammering your sword into a plowshare if you must forge it again on the morrow.
Rickard Karstark, engaging in some sunk cost fallacy, says what did his sons die for if he returns to his castle with only their bones. Jonos Bracken agrees, talking about how Gregor Clegane burned his holdings. He ain’t bending the knee to them. And to Catelyn’s dismay, Tytos Blackwood agrees with Jonos. They can’t declare for Joffrey and then have Renly win. They’d be traitors to Renly. Marq Piper, always hot, says he won’t call a Lannister his king. The Darry boy lord agrees. Everyone shouts. And Catelyn laments.
She had come so close, she thought. They had almost listened.
Peace isn’t going to happen. Robb had cast the die when he crossed the Twins and pleged to marry Walder Frey’s daughter.
But she saw his true bride plain before her now: the sword he laid on the table.
Catelyn wonders if she’ll ever see Sansa and Arya again when the Greatjon Umber lurches to his feet. And ooo boy, you knew I was going to read as much of this as I can.
MY LORDS! Here is what I say to these two kings! Renly Baratheon is nothing to me, nor Stannis neither. Why should they rule over me and mine, from some flowery seat in Highgarden or Dorne? What do they know of the Wall or the wolfswood or the barrows of the First Men? Even their gods are wrong. The Others take the Lannisters too, I've had a bellyful of them. Why shouldn't we rule ourselves again? It was the dragons we married, and the dragons are all dead! There sits the only king I mean to bow my knee to, m'lords. The King in the North!
The Greatjon kneels and lays his sword at Robb’s feet. Lord Rickard Karstark declares that he’ll have peace on those terms. He draws his sword and kneels besides the Greatjon. Maege Mormont stands, “The King in the North!” She lays her spiked mace next to the swords. River lords rise. Blackwood, Bracken, Mallister.
And I just have to read to the end …
Catelyn watched them rise and draw their blades, bending their knees and shouting the old words that had not been heard in the realm for more than three hundred years, since Aegon the Dragon had come to make the Seven Kingdoms one … yet now were heard again, ringing from the timbers of her father’s hall:
ALL TOGETHER NOW BOYS
The King in the North!
The King in the North!
THE KING IN THE NORTH!
And that is AGOT, Catelyn XI.
THE
KING
IN
THE
NORTH
So, I’ve gotten asked a few times what my process is for doing these chapters week-by-week, and what I typically do is I listen to the chapter on audiobook, then read it (because I actually read lol), then listen, then read it again before I go through the chapter while writing the synopsis, then read it 2-3 more times as schedule permits, writing notes on other topics in the podcast.
So, no shit, there I was this past Wednesday listening to the audiobook of this chapter, on my way to grab some lunch, and when the dearly departed Roy Dotrice read the closing lines to this chapter, I stopped in the parking lot and just let the wave of emotion overwhelm me again. It’s been 8 years since I saw this event on-screen in GoT, S01E10, 7 since I read it in AGOT. And there I was sniffling in broad daylight like a big baby.
Even knowing what’s to come, this chapter packs an enormous emotional punch years after I first encountered the scene. It’s synthesized emotion, musical. You start to understand why this book and book-series is magical.
What did you guys think?
Depth
Obviously, there are countless reasons A Game of Thrones did as well it did--critically, commercially, and in terms of generating an intense fanbase. But rereading it over this past year and a half and now arriving at the end, it’s clear that this book launched what is now a massively successful franchise in large part due to the one-two punch it leaves you with. “KING IN THE NORTH!” and the music of dragons: two phenomena that haven’t occurred in living memory, the culmination of the political and magical plots side by side. It’s thrilling even now.
Given that, it seems ridiculous to call Catelyn XI underrated, but like any chapter (or episode of television) that becomes known for its knockout climax, the buildup often goes underappreciated by comparison. We want to dig into that buildup in this episode, not only because it’s interesting in its own right, but because it makes that climactic moment more complex than it might seem long after the initial shock has faded. That’s why we wanted Steven on to tease out those layers.
Steven opening thoughts:
- Dilemmas of war: which way do we march? What happens if we get it wrong?
- Dilemmas of politics: which king do we support? What happens if we get that wrong?
- Dilemmas of nationalism: what is the war about? What is the North?
When we covered Bran VI, I talked about how the trope of marching off to war is subverted or deconstructed by having the camera stay at Winterfell, focusing on those left behind instead of following Robb off to war.
Here, you can almost read this as pastiche to traditional fantasy tropes of the boy hero becoming king. We pump our fists at KING IN THE NORTH! Hell, we just basically did it a little bit ago. But I don’t think it’s pastiche. And the reason is the POV.
That voice in the background, wondering about the chances Robb has at victory, giving us a clear-eyed perspective on the costs of war, despite the triumphant victories, despite the triumph of the end-scene: that’s our POV for this chapter. Grief-stricken yet honest, Catelyn urges peace and speaks against the war, because she thinks (and is ultimately proved right) that it will be futile. People have already died, and more will die if Robb continues the war.
George’s deconstruction of the trope of thrilling battle and political heroics is having our POV not be Robb or Theon or one of the other lords bannermen shouting KING IN THE NORTH at the end of the chapter. It’s having Catelyn, an anti-war voice, be our POV for the chapter. And for that, I’m sure glad Catelyn is our POV for this chapter.
But there’s a quite different tone struck on the Thrones show!
- Opening moments v. the show
- Something that struck me on reread was how different the opening of Catelyn XI is from the first Robb-Catelyn scene after Ned’s execution in Season 1
- Everyone loves that scene--the sword, the tree, the spinning camera, we have to save your sisters and then we’ll kill them all, you had Stoneheart right there…
- Really makes you wonder whether the show was going for Stoneheart, then pulled up the reins after their big talk with George in 2013, sigh.
- There’s also a big thematic difference in Catelyn’s POV. She’s an anti-war, anti-vengeance voice here whereas the show has Catelyn taking the “get the girls back and then kill them all.”
- This is part of the reason why Stoneheart is an amazing tragic figure in the books -- it twists Catelyn’s anti-vengeance viewpoint towards being one consumed with avenging Robb.
- It lends Robb a vulnerability, tying into the devastation we see with his siblings
- But that’s not what we get in this chapter, which opens instead with a hero-shot splash-panel designed to make Robb look like the most awesome person ever:
- Robb sat in the bow with Grey Wind, his hand resting on his direwolf’s head as the rowers pulled at their oars.
- Even Robert would doff his cap at how thoroughly Robb nails the image of the young charismatic warrior-king, and from his name on down, Robert is the model Robb is drawing on at Riverrun (albeit organically and probably unconsciously, unlike Renly’s deliberate reverse-engineering of Robert’s image in ACOK)
- George wants to show us the Young Wolf, not merely tell us about him. He wants us to feel that Robb is larger than life so his crowning makes intuitive sense.
- Same goes for how he frames Robb praying for Ned in the Riverrun godswood:
- His longsword was before him, the point thrust in the earth, his gloved hands clasped around the hilt.
- He just looks the part. No wonder Jeyne Poole gave him moist-eyed glances!
- Robb is auditioning to fill the hero shaped hole Dad left behind, and so has to keep up a public image as he did: what Bran and Catelyn call “the lord’s face”
- Sansa’s predicament is obviously very different, but both Starklings have to play characters from the songs even while aging into different perspectives on them
- This opening shot of Robb isn’t as psychologically intimate as the one in Season 1 Episode 10 of the show...but hey, this is why Catelyn’s the POV and not Robb!
- George isn’t as interested in showing us Robb’s thoughts and feelings right now as in measuring his political impact, and that’s tied up in his image
- You need a perfect storm of skill, charisma, and timing to put a seaworthy rebellion together (again just look at Robert, or Daemon Blackfyre), and George uses every tool throughout Catelyn XI to communicate that Robb has it
- As Robb sails into Riverrun to the cheer of the crowds, you can see why he has the North and the Riverlands at his back, tying together both sides of the family
- The Riverlands see the Tully looks, the North sees the direwolf. The Riverlands see the savior of Riverrun with the Blackfish returned home at his side; the North sees a conqueror who will avenge not only Ned but all their losses in the south.
- Battle of the Camps
- As we said in our episode on Tyrion IX, we wanted to save our breakdown of Robb’s victory at Riverrun for this chapter with Steven, and what a victory it is!
- In taking this new look at the Battle of the Camps, it really seems more substantive, important and impressive than the Battle of the Whispering Wood for a few reasons:
- Robb’s ability to time his maneuvers on the Lannister army from geographically-isolated directions
- Robb’s empowerment of his subordinate commanders to operate effectively in the field
- Most importantly: its long-term impact on the overall size of the Lannister host.
- Background to the Battle
- The numbers game
- As always, the f’n nerds (and me who, BTW, is not a nerd) are into the numbers and order of battle for the battle itself. Let’s do that quickly
- Stark/Riverlanders
- 6000+ cavalry
- 500ish infantry (Tully garrison and Blackwood retainers)
- Lannister/Westermen
- 12000 infantry (equal division between archers and spears/swordsman if Forley Prester’s camp is representative)
- 500 cavalry
- As always, the f’n nerds (and me who, BTW, is not a nerd) are into the numbers and order of battle for the battle itself. Let’s do that quickly
- So, Robb is going into battle outnumbered roughly 2 to 1. But Robb has a five major force multipliers going into this battle
- He’s neutralized most of the Lannister cavalry, negating the ability for the Lannisters to counter-maneuver on him in force
- With Brynden and Theon still killing Lannister scouts outside of Riverrun, the Stark cavalry force mitigates the possibility that their pre-planned positions can be detected.
- Robb and Brynden have also conducted extensive reconnaissance on the Lannister positions as we’ll talk about in a moment. So, they have a clear view of the disposition and defensive structures the Lannisters have erected around their camps
- Robb’s army is all-mounted, meaning that they have a monopoly on the violence of action or “the unrestricted use of speed, strength, surprise, and aggression to achieve total dominance against your enemy”
- Most importantly, Robb has Jaime prisoner. So, there’s no overall commander controlling the individual camps, just individual Westermen lords and knights leading their camps
- Terrain, terrain, terrain
- The numbers game
- Let’s talk about how damnably hard it is to besiege Riverrun.
- Sitting at the point where the Red Fork and Tumblestone rivers diverge, the Tullys open their “sluice gates” on the Tumblestone to create a third river running southeast from the Tumblestone into the Red Fork, effectively making Riverrun an island
- So, Jaime had to split his army into three contingents to besiege the castle.
- This means that the armies can’t easily come to the aid of each other in the event of an attack
- Battle of the Camps
- Something that I don’t think I noticed before was how seemingly, the Lannisters were on the verge of launching an assault on Riverrun.
- The Lannisters have fully-constructed siege towers in the southern camp near enough to Riverrun that Hoster watches them burn later on.
- Reads to me that Jaime was growing exceptionally bored by just sitting around. He was going to attack the castle.
- Prelude to Battle
- The first thing Robb does is split his army into two, moving south from the Whispering Wood
- In command of one army is Brynden Tully whose target is the northern Lannister camp with Robb in command of the second army moving against the southern camp.
- Robb had to ford the Tumblestone river at some point west of Riverrun itself
- Then there’s the choice of attacking at night.
- I’ve studied medieval warfare (11th century Byzantine and First Crusade Warfare in Anatolia to be specific) a decade ago as an undergrad, but Steven, how common was night warfare historically?
- As a tactic, this helps conceal movement, numbers. It also means that many of the westermen are asleep, not arrayed in battle
- Attack on the northern camp
- Brynden Tully opens the attack by killing the sentries positioned north of a palisade of wooden stakes north of the northern camp and then clears the palisades
- This shows the value of a good recon of the area. Instead of plunging into the camp and into the sharpened wooden stakes, the Blackfish kills the sentries and then clears the obstacles, allowing for freedom of movement into the camp
- The Blackfish’s outriders then clear the palisades before the main force of cavalry moves en masse into the
- Brynden’s riders flow into the camp, cutting down westermen soldiers and burning the tents
- Effective use of mobility + sowing terror into the westermen army
- The voyage of the very brave Lord Brax/Holding the shore
- Having heard the battle from the northern camp, Lord Brax attempts to cross the Tumblestone to aid the northern camp, but the current pushes Lord Brax and his boats downstream (either west along the Tumblestone or southeast along the artificial river)
- The Tullys throw rocks at the boats, Lord Brax’s boat is overturned, and he is killed.
- Those lucky westermen who reach the shore are met with (I think) Brynden Tully’s army.
- Attacking the south camp
- With the battle in the northern camps and on the river in full swing, Robb launches an attack on the camp to the south and east of Riverrun
- Two columns
- Greatjon Umber’s column moves against the siege towers where he burns them
- Robb Stark’s column moves against the westermen who haven’t mounted boats with Lord Brax
- The westermen are able to form a shieldwall and hold against Robb’s first attack.
- But then, quick thinking: Tytos Blackwood drops the drawbridge and leads the Riverrun garrison from the castle itself and attacks the western camp from the rear.
- He also frees Edmure Tully
- The eastern camp
- Unengaged but now outnumbered, Ser Forley Prester retreats with 4000 men
- Something that I don’t think I noticed before was how seemingly, the Lannisters were on the verge of launching an assault on Riverrun.
- Aftermath
- Lannister losses: Of the 12,000 Lannisters, 8,000 are captured, killed or routed. Only Forley Prester’s 4,000 men in the eastern camp survived and retreated in good order.
- Stark/Riverlander losses: insignificant
- Overall objectives gained
- Riverrun is relieved
- Edmure is freed
- ⅔ of the Lannister army is destroyed/captured/routed
- Tyroshi sellswords turncloak to Robb’s side
- Riverlords join with Robb en masse
- Intro to Riverrun, Edmure, and Hoster
- Riverrun has been built up a lot and is one of the story’s most prominent settings, and Edmure and Hoster Tully both prove to be significant secondary characters
- Of course, none of that really comes into play until ACOK/ASOS/AFFC! Still: brother, father, and castle are all well established here in terms of Catelyn’s story
- Catelyn is trying to suppress her depression and self-loathing in the wake of Ned’s death, but the state of her home and family make that impossible
- On the one hand, she has repeatedly associated Riverrun with the nostalgic memories of childhood, and that continues here:
- The splash and rumble of the great waterwheel within was a sound from her girlhood that brought a sad smile to Catelyn’s face.
- But it’s a “sad smile,” because the rippling banners and cheering crowds and even the sense of being home can’t paper over what Catelyn has lost:
- From every rampart waved the banner of House Tully: a leaping trout, silver, against a rippling blue-and-red field. It was a stirring sight, yet it did not lift her heart. She wondered if indeed her heart would ever lift again. Oh, Ned . . .
- And her relationship to this place that once stood for innocence and peace has now been irrevocably changed in her mind’s eye by maturation and war:
- Catelyn gazed up at the bars and wondered how deep the rust went and how well the portcullis would stand up to a ram and whether it ought to be replaced. Thoughts like that were seldom far from her mind these days.
- Edmure and Hoster are framed the same way--representative of this larger fall from grace, the good times for House Tully giving way to the hard times
- Edmure came down the steps to embrace her. “Sweet sister,” he murmured hoarsely. He had deep blue eyes and a mouth made for smiles, but he was not smiling now. He looked worn and tired, battered by battle and haggard from strain. His neck was bandaged where he had taken a wound.
- Hoster Tully had always been a big man; tall and broad in his youth, portly as he grew older. Now he seemed shrunken, the muscle and meat melted off his bones. Even his face sagged. The last time Catelyn had seen him, his hair and beard had been brown, well streaked with grey. Now they had gone white as snow.
- Edmure is one of many characters in ASOIAF who used to be full of joie de vivre but now isn’t; like Drogo, Hoster was once a larger-than-life figure riding all over his territory, but now can only sit and stare
- Catelyn’s reminiscences about Dad have made clear that he was her mighty pillar, and the news that he’s on his deathbed shatters the reserve she’s been trying to maintain in the face of Ned’s death. Everything spills out at once:
- A blind rage filled her, a rage at all the world; at her brother Edmure and her sister Lysa, at the Lannisters, at the maesters, at Ned and her father and the monstrous gods who would take them both away from her.
- Of course, it wouldn’t be a Catelyn chapter if she didn’t blame herself for it all:
- It was your doing, yours, a voice whispered inside her. If you had not taken it upon yourself to seize the dwarf...
- Council is in session
- As with Tyrion IX, George focuses on a fractious council meeting as a handy way to summarize where this storyline is right now and hint at where it’s going next
- While Tyrion IX was all about the Lannisters being in deep trouble, however, Team Robb is in a more ambiguous position, with opportunities and pitfalls alike
- There were two kings in the realm. Two kings, and no agreement.
- George emphasizes that “each lord had a right to speak, and speak they did” to get across the political fluidity of the moment--this isn’t as simple as Robb and Edmure just deciding what to do and giving everyone their marching orders
- There has to be a genuine attempt to reach consensus, or the Blackfish’s warning about plowshares hammered back into swords will come true
- Consensus is difficult to reach, however, because while there are plenty of options for Team Robb, they all have significant downsides
- Marching on Lord Tywin seems like the obvious choice, but Harrenhal is more than strong enough to negate Robb’s numerical advantages
- Even so, the numerical advantage Robb has (even if he brings Roose down from the Twins) could be mitigated by the castle itself
- One man on a wall was worth ten beneath it. - Tywin
- Plus, think the logistics! How do you keep ~40K soldiers fed while besieging the castle?
- Can’t really scavenge for food, lest alienate the riverlords who are now a part of your coalition.
- So, you have to attack, and those odds aren’t good. The northmen and rivermen would only have a 2 to 1 advantage -- probably not enough to take the castle.
- Even so, the numerical advantage Robb has (even if he brings Roose down from the Twins) could be mitigated by the castle itself
- Moreover, that would expose the Riverlands to both Tywin’s reavers and reinforcements from the Westerlands
- Problem is that the same logic applies to everyone just holding the line at Riverrun (as the Mallisters and Freys advise, because they’re outta Tywin’s way)
- Moreover, Robb would lose the military momentum that defines his campaign
- The other option on the table is abandoning the Lannisters in favor of Renly
- This is the first time Robb speaks up: “Renly is not the king.” Damn straight!
- His preference for Stannis makes our hearts all fiery and warm here at the NotACast, but it’s not fanboyism that leads Robb to say this. Rather, it’s this:
- “Bran can’t be Lord of Winterfell before me, and Renly can’t be king before Lord Stannis.”
- Robb senses a real destabilization at work with Renly’s claim (mirrored in everyone’s shock that it’s the younger Baratheon bro going for the crown)
- The system that keeps everyone in the room going is rooted in the line of succession, and Renly’s throwing that aside for hugely selfish reasons
- We’ll talk a lot more about this in ACOK, obviously, but for our purposes here, it’s important that Renly is being talked up by “young, hot-tempered Marq Piper”
- Like Renly himself, Marq is rash, reckless, and prone to counting his chickens before they hatch--he just assumes Dorne and the Vale will be on board
- He argues that this is their best way to rid themselves of the Lannisters, but Robb insists that there’s a deeper principle at work (“the right”) and so will Stannis
- Catelyn’s big speech
- The emotional core of the chapter (and what makes our POV more than a camera on Robb’s crowning) is Catelyn’s spotlight monologue pleading for peace
- It has strengths and weaknesses, both of which are important to address
- The strengths are pretty apparent: she wants a life worth living for the family she has left. Who wouldn’t?!
- She alone in the room senses not only that things are bad, but that they have the potential to get much worse; she wants Robb to pull back before that happens
- You can see her building to this conclusion throughout the chapter
- She rejects Edmure’s simplistic call for an eye for an eye
- She interrupts Theon’s triumphalist framing of the campaign so far
- She wonders wistfully if Robb has been kissed by a girl in the godswood
- Catelyn is expressing the most classic of literary themes: violence is circular, blood will have blood, and round and round it goes until nothing is left
- As we were discussing with Jon IX, Robb can’t bring Ned back, and the desire to do so can lead to you filling the hole left behind with blood
- You can see George drawing not only from his own personal politics but countless stories about the perils of aggression from Shakespeare to Star Wars
- And some of the responses to Catelyn fit right in with that critique--Lords Karstark and Bracken demanding that their losses be given meaning
- Understandable, relatable, but irrational and impossible; you can’t give a life meaning by piling more death on top of it
- At the same time, Catelyn’s argument does have legit flaws that some people in the room are savvy enough to point out
- The Blackfish notes that given everything that’s happened, the terms will have to be more substantial than a trade of hostages to create a lasting peace
- Even more telling is Tytos Blackwood’s objection--who is it, exactly, we’re supposed to make peace with when there are two kings in the realm?
- If we bend the knee to the Lannisters, won’t they just order us to fight the Baratheons, and vice versa? Neither option lets Robb go home and make babies
- Coming back on reread, it’s also clear how wrong Catelyn is about the job of defending the Riverlands from Tywin being complete. It has only begun.
- So while Catelyn’s argument is heartfelt, moving, and correct in the broadest possible sense, it’s not necessarily a workable solution that everyone just ignored
- The crowning
- Really, nothing is simple about this moment--what motivates it, what comes from it, what it creates and leaves behind.
- Robb’s ascension emerges less as the inevitable endpoint and more as the result of the many political ingredients that are being pressure-cooked in this room
- You can see George methodically cutting off the other options one by one
- Finally, the Greatjon lurches to his feet to cut through the Gordian Knot
- As I’ve said before, I think Lord Umber’s larger-than-life persona sometimes obscures the extent to which he’s a cunning and very ambitious politician
- Like Euron at the kingsmoot, he realizes that the weaknesses of all the options on the table intersect in such a way as to leave room for a specific new one
- And he decides that he will be the one to identify himself with that new option, and reap all the benefits--hence him calling himself Robb’s right hand
- After all, I really don’t get the sense that he discussed this with Robb beforehand!
- The Greatjon cues into all the anger in the room and finds the common element--swallowing that anger on behalf of assholes they don’t know or respect
- There is a grievance here that goes deeper than Joffrey or Tywin or even Ned
- It’s about Rickard, it’s about Brandon, it’s about Torrhen and Aegon
- It’s about a palpable sense that the South owns the North and shouldn’t
- George is clearly tapping into that well of fierce rage and joy combined, a repressed identity springing forth, and there’s immense exhilaration to it
- On the other hand, it’s worth examining the Greatjon’s speech closely
- First of all, a lot of what he says excludes most of the Riverlords
- “Even their gods are wrong” applies to every follower of the Faith of the Seven, including our POV!
- Secondly, he barely mentions the Lannisters, the instigators of all this drama (as far as everyone in the room knows, not being privy to Littlefinger’s conspiracy)
- Before mentioning them, he mentions Dorne, who haven’t even come into play!
- So this goes considerably deeper than the casus belli, and indeed is an argument that could easily be made in peacetime as much as wartime
- It’s a classic example of how inciting incidents draw deeper, older tensions to the surface. In that way, the Greatjon is the equivalent of Oberyn during Tyrion’s trial
- In both cases, it’s not so much about the explicit issue on the table, and more about a larger political restlessness that the individual downfalls only feed
- This is in part why Tywin’s attempt to snuff out the spark of Northern independence with the Red Wedding ultimately backfires
- It convinces Team Stark that they were right to turn their backs on the south all along, captured best by the story of the Manderlys as communicated in ADWD, driven from the south and taken in by the wolves of Winterfell
- That spirit is in this room, and that spirit did not die with Robb Stark.
Foreshadowing/Groundwork
As many have noted, George essentially does a cover version of Catelyn’s plea for peace in ADWD. Ellaria Sand, paramour of the late Prince Oberyn, begs his eldest daughters to clamp down on the cycle of bloodshed after the arrival of his killer’s skull (or is it???) in Sunspear:
"Oberyn wanted vengeance for Elia. Now the three of you want vengeance for him. I have four daughters, I remind you. Your sisters. My Elia is fourteen, almost a woman. Obella is twelve, on the brink of maidenhood. They worship you, as Dorea and Loreza worship them. If you should die, must El and Obella seek vengeance for you, then Dorea and Loree for them? Is that how it goes, round and round forever? I ask again, where does it end?" Ellaria Sand laid her hand on the Mountain's head. "I saw your father die. Here is his killer. Can I take a skull to bed with me, to give me comfort in the night? Will it make me laugh, write me songs, care for me when I am old and sick?"
It makes sense that George would return to this earlier scene for inspiration, especially given the parallels between the Starks and Martells. But while the similarities between Catelyn’s monologue and Ellaria’s are clear, the contrasts are also worth noting. Ellaria is specifically pointing out that everyone who directly harmed House Martell is dead and gone. Any more bloodshed can now only be directed at innocents, particularly Tommen and Myrcella. In the case of the North and Riverlands, not only does the direct harm continue (and indeed ramp up), but the architects of the first wave of doom--Joffrey, Cersei, Tywin--continue to shape policy. As such, I think there’s a case to be made that Ellaria’s speech is more persuasive than Catelyn’s.
“And Lysa?” A cool wind moved through his thin white hair. “Gods be good, your sister . . . did she come as well?”
He sounded so full of hope and yearning that it was hard to tell the truth. “No. I’m sorry . . . ”
“Oh.” His face fell, and some light went out of his eyes. “I’d hoped I would have liked to see her, before . . . ”
Here George introduces a thread that will pay off with major dividends in ASOS: Hoster longing to be forgiven by Lysa for “tansy” before he dies, and her refusing him that (along with refusing to send military aid to Robb). The first time through, this doesn’t stand out, or if it does all you can conclude is it’s Lysa being paranoid, isolated, etc. Coming back on reread, you can see George setting up the rot that’s eating away at House Tully just like the “crabs” in Hoster’s belly. The reveal in ASOS of why Lysa has cut herself off from her family, especially her father--and what that has led her to do--is devastating and one of my favorite twists in the story. Can’t wait.
Speaking of which…
“He tried to put his tongue in my mouth,” Catelyn had confessed to her sister afterward, when they were alone. “He did with me too,” Lysa had whispered, shy and breathless. “I liked it.”
This is the origin story of not only Littlefinger’s destructive climb, but Lysa’s equally destructive decision to hitch her wagon to his star. Catelyn comes so close to putting the pieces together…
Lord Rickard Karstark, gaunt and hollow-eyed in his grief, took his seat like a man in a nightmare, his long beard uncombed and unwashed. He had left two sons dead in the Whispering Wood, and there was no word of the third, his eldest, who had led the Karstark spears against Tywin Lannister on the Green Fork.
Lord Karstark’s downward spiral is another element set up at the end of AGOT that pays off in ASOS. George provides more connective tissue with his line “a man has a need for vengeance” here, as well as him stomping out when Robb offers the Lannisters peace terms in ACOK.
The new young Darry lord declares that he will NEVER call a Lannister his king...and nope, he sure won’t! As we learn from the Blackfish in ACOK, Gregor kills the kid soon after he returns home. As with Renly’s “knights of summer” vis-a-vis the Blackwater, the braggadocio of Edmure’s circle of young lords dries up quickly in the face of Tywin’s total war on the Riverlands.
“It was the dragons we married, and the dragons are all dead!”
But of course, the dragons return in the very next chapter. Does this foreshadow the next King in the North bending the knee to the dragon queen? “Married” is an interesting choice of words!
Theory/Discussion
So what do we think of this brand new independent Kingdom of the North and Rivers? Is the secession justified? How do you measure some of the more intangible rewards of independence against material costs? What are the new polity’s long term chances of survival (if you mentally erase the Red Wedding)? And what does “long term” even mean in this context, anyway?
There’s a danger in presentism as we talked about in our analysis of AGOT, Tyrion IX. We know that the endstate of this new kingdom is the Red Wedding. But at the same time, it’s important to note that it’s not quite presentism to talk about the long odds this new kingdom faces. Catelyn, herself, brings up the issue in this chapter:
"Perhaps I do not understand tactics and strategy … but I understand futility. We went to war when Lannister armies were ravaging the riverlands, and Ned was a prisoner, falsely accused of treason. We fought to defend ourselves, and to win my lord's freedom.”
In a 2012 AMA, George RR Martin was asked about whether this new kingdom had any chance to survive, and he responded:
Question: Provided the Ironmen had not attacked the North and the Red Wedding had not taken place, would/could the North and Riverlands have survived as an independent kingdom?
GRRM: The north, perhaps. The riverlands are more problematic. With no real natural boundaries, the riverlands are vulnerable to attack from all sides, which is why their history has been so full of blood and tumult.
It’s interesting. Steve, you were talking earlier about the geography of the Riverlands. Maybe GRRM isn’t giving full credence to the complexity of the Riverlands geography here? Maybe the Kingdom of the North and Rivers has a fighting chance (at this juncture in the story)!
Conclusion
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