Winter is Coming - House Stark Appreciation

if tridentgate hadn't gone down, i think cersei would just have had lady killed when sansa went to her with ned's plans. the main consequence was that nymeria was safe and roaming free in the riverlands. arya could escape the red keep through secret passages but idt a wolf could. 

and rickon was only 3 in the book. 

I was thinking about Rickon only being three in the books the other day.

Rickon 

cat did bring up rickon's age and that's when ned uttered his "he won't be a boy forever, winter is coming" line. ned also told bran it was ok to disobey his mother and climb the castle walls like a monkey. 

Doesn't Tywin basically allude to Ned as being too permissive of a parent? Of course this is coming from a guy whose twins are involved in an incest filled relationship and he turned a blind eye to it, so Tywin really is in no position to criticize anyone's parenting.

I do think with Joffrey that Ned and company did not know how bad he really was.  They knew he was a brat but figured he'd grow out of it and given Sansa's early reactions to him, I think they thought he was showing her a different and maybe, more true side of himself.  I did like the scene in the show where Sansa was going on about how much she loved Joffrey and what a good person he is and Ned and Arya are like, "are you kidding me?"  I think it was when Ned was telling the girls they will be leaving Kings Landing and Sansa was objecting to the idea.

I think Ned was all about toughening them boys up and trying making them more mature, at times to ill effect like keep climbing Bran.  I always thought in the first book, Robb seemed very parentified, a very typical oldest child.

It's not really fair to hold the people in the story to modern standards of parenting. They would all fail by our, perhaps overly protective, standards. The way people behave is based, mostly, on a Medieval European style of morality. The Starks actually allow their children to speak up and voice opinions a lot more than most families.

Something I've been thinking about lately after we learned that Ned didn't really win the battle at the Tower of Joy and about what happened to Hodor is what honor is. I think you could say, by at least one measure, that honor is acting by a code that is bigger than just yourself or your close friends and family. You have to think broader and care about a larger slice of humanity. Ned certainly was honorable by that measure. So was Stannis by one interpretation. He sacrificed his own daughter and only heir because he thought he had to to save the world.

By this measure, Tywin was not honorable. He cared only about his own family. But we consider Sam honorable, I think, and he recently admitted that he doesn't care about "them" (well, he does, but "not really"). He only cares about Gilly and Little Sam. Why is that acceptable from Sam and not Tywin? I think because Sam is really looking out for the needs of his loved ones and not just their reputation and birthright.

Varys is honorable, if his motives are what they seem to be. He does what he does for the good of the realm. But do his ends always justify his ignoble means? And then look at The High Sparrow and Melisandre, people so full of religious fervor, and dogmatic morality, they mistreat individuals without a care in the world.

When you continuously argue with people that Bran is an awesome character. #starkfanproblems

the bran haters on reddit were getting especially gross. i still don't understand why people place no blame on the 3er. 

he said no such thing, just like he never said the night king could touch bran in a vision or what his mark would bring. at least cat telling him no more climbing was an actual clear instruction, but ofc kids disobey their mothers.