Stark who was High Septon

[Prince Yourwetdream Aeryn]

Maesters don't have surnames and GRRM used it for Maester Aemon's revelation in the first book. You can say that he removed High septon names to avoid further name invention in the story. But I personally believe that GRRM will use it for the same purpose.

Quote

"No," Ned said. He saw no use in lying to her. "Yet someday he may be the lord of a great holdfast and sit on the king's council. He might raise castles like Brandon the Builder, or sail a ship across the Sunset Sea, or enter your mother's Faith and become the High Septon." But he will never run beside his wolf again, he thought with a sadness too deep for words, or lie with a woman, or hold his own son in his arms.

Ned's quote to Bran shows that Stark being High Septon is not unusual like other examples. Cregan Stark was member of small council. Brandon Stark sailed across the Sunset Sea. And one of Starks became High Septon.

My guess is Jonnel One-eye Stark. We have Bloodraven (with one eye) who serves old gods and one-eyed crone in Vaes Dothrak. Beside it, Jonnel lost his eye as Bran lost his legs. Ned would think that a person with disability may serve well as High Septon although his knowledge about this topic is limited.

 

 

[Lord Vance II]

I think the qualifier "enter your mother's Faith and become the High Septon" is pretty key.

You can't be High Septon if you keep the Old Gods (unless you believe Howland is the High Septon, I suppose) and the Starks are pretty vehemently and famously of the Old Gods. 

The other two examples don't need a qualifier because, as you said, they've been done before by Starks. The third does because it has not. 

The maesters don't use their surnames, but folks still know. Manderly talks about how his maester was a Lannister of Lannisport and he can't trust him. Even if he didn't use the name, folks would know he was a Stark because of the novelty. 

I suppose it's not impossible a Stark became High Septon, but I feel like we would know about the Stark who abandoned the Old Gods.

[Seams]

Keep in mind Ned's words to Arya, too:

"You," Ned said, kissing her lightly on the brow, "will marry a king and rule his castle, and your sons will be knights and princes and lords and, yes, perhaps even a High Septon."

Ned's vision for his children's future in the faith of the seven doesn't make any sense to me unless there is a hidden message. Catelyn was a devout follower of the new gods, but they had obviously decided their children would be raised in the Stark religion of the old gods. Maybe Ned was just being open-minded when he contemplated the future in store for his children, but it's still a pretty big leap to imagine that his descendants would become the head of a religion he had rejected.

I think the key is to figure out the wordplay around Bael the Bard, King Baelor (and, possibly, Petyr Baelish) as well as the pun around "sept" and "step."

Ned is executed on the steps outside of Baelor's sept. sweetsunray did a very interesting analysis of where Ned's bones might have disappeared to, and she theorized that they might be in the pile of septon's bones piled around the statue of Baelor outside of the sept - back at the place where Ned was executed.

People in the story keep talking about the Stark blood being special and having particular magic or appeal beyond the Wall, but I suspect there is a different kind of magic in Stark blood that gives them unique power below the Neck. And that separate strain of magic blood may come from the Bael the Bard wildling bloodline that entered the Stark bloodline.

If someone wants to sort out the many stone steps that are featured in the Stark POVs, that would be very helpful. Bael the Bard hides with the daughter of the Stark lord in the crypt at Winterfell, and there are important stone steps leading to / from that chamber. Arya hides her sword, Needle, behind a loose stone on steps leading to a canal in Braavos. She also scrubs the steps at Harrenhal and seems to run up and down steps quite a bit. Bran seemed to avoid steps and instead climbed the outsides of walls. Theon arrives with Robb, Grey Wind and Catelyn at the stone steps at Riverrun and he lifts Catelyn by the waist so that she does not get her feet wet on the stone steps there.

But other characters have step encounters: Tyrion comes down the stone steps on the outside of the Winterfell library. (The author does not describe his climb up the steps.) Is it significant that Tyrion climbs a ladder to reach Tywin's chamber in the Tower of the Hand? Cersei's walk of shame begins at the same steps outside of the sept where Ned died.

In other places, people make journeys that do not involve steps: The House of the Undying appears to be flat from the outside - no towers and no steps. The path to the Eyrie is steep and rocky, but I don't believe there are steps along the way. Ned and Sansa are led along a secret path outside the Red Keep that avoids using steps. There are steps at the Wall, but they are used rarely and are damaged in the wildling attack. We usually see people ascend the wall using the pulley-operated cage.

In important scenes in Jon, Sansa and Sam's arcs, the POV characters say to themselves, "One step and then another." Or a variation on that line. They are trying to draw on inner resolve to keep going in a difficult situation.

Anyway. If we can figure out steps, I think it will help to make sense of the idea that Starks will become septons.

[YOVMO]

2 hours ago, Grazdan zo Azer said:

Maesters don't have surnames and GRRM used it for Maester Aemon's revelation in the first book. You can say that he removed High septon names to avoid further name invention in the story. But I personally believe that GRRM will use it for the same purpose.

Ned's quote to Bran shows that Stark being High Septon is not unusual like other examples. Cregan Stark was member of small council. Brandon Stark sailed across the Sunset Sea. And one of Starks became High Septon.

My guess is Jonnel One-eye Stark. We have Bloodraven (with one eye) who serves old gods and one-eyed crone in Vaes Dothrak. Beside it, Jonnel lost his eye as Bran lost his legs. Ned would think that a person with disability may serve well as High Septon although his knowledge about this topic is limited.

 

 

I honestly love this -- especially because of the symmetry you point out. However, my big question is always "so what"

Let's say that Jonnel Stark became High Septon (again, awesome symmetry and I just love the idea) what would it mean? Jonnel Stark was 150 years before out story begins give or take. He was too long after the long night to really have anything relevant to say about the walkers and too long before our story begins to have anything relevant to say about current events. He was too far removed from the conquest to have anything relevant to say about that. So if he was high septon, so what?

Also, there is another problem. Jonnel was the reigning lord of winterfell and is buried in the crypts of winterfell. If he abdicated the lordship of winterfell and served as high septon surely whichever Targaryen was sitting the iron throne at the time would have recognized his former warden of the north showing up as high septon and even if he didn't we can assume that someone did at the time of his death as his bones were brought back to winterfell to be interred in the crypts.

If it were the case that a LoW and WOTN abdicated the high seat at winterfell, jointed the faith and eventually became high septon it would have been very common knowledge especially as it was (in Stark Family terms at least) in recent history.

 

So, while I do admire your thinking and absolutely love the symmetry you point out with Bloodraven as well as with Bran I think that because a) if true it doesn't actually give us any meat in the story and b ) seems unlikely that it wouldn't be common knowledge that it is ultimately an incorrect idea.

[cpg2016]

4 hours ago, Seams said:

Maybe Ned was just being open-minded when he contemplated the future in store for his children, but it's still a pretty big leap to imagine that his descendants would become the head of a religion he had rejected.

Why is this a leap?  Arya will be expected to adopt the faith of her husband, or at least pay it lip service.  And her kids will almost certainly be expected to follow the faith of their father, not their mother.  So it's perfectly within reason that one of Arya's kids could be High Septon.

But it misses the point of the passage, which is to lay out to Arya that she can't do any of those things, that she'll have to live and achieve through her kids.  Which... is the kind of thing free-spirit Arya is guaranteed to reject.

[Angel Eyes]

5 hours ago, Lord Vance II said:

I think the qualifier "enter your mother's Faith and become the High Septon" is pretty key.

You can't be High Septon if you keep the Old Gods (unless you believe Howland is the High Septon, I suppose) and the Starks are pretty vehemently and famously of the Old Gods. 

The other two examples don't need a qualifier because, as you said, they've been done before by Starks. The third does because it has not. 

The maesters don't use their surnames, but folks still know. Manderly talks about how his maester was a Lannister of Lannisport and he can't trust him. Even if he didn't use the name, folks would know he was a Stark because of the novelty. 

I suppose it's not impossible a Stark became High Septon, but I feel like we would know about the Stark who abandoned the Old Gods.

Maester Yandel would have something to say about it.

[Dorian Martell's son]

10 hours ago, Grazdan zo Azer said:

Maesters don't have surnames and GRRM used it for Maester Aemon's revelation in the first book. You can say that he removed High septon names to avoid further name invention in the story. But I personally believe that GRRM will use it for the same purpose.

Ned's quote to Bran shows that Stark being High Septon is not unusual like other examples. Cregan Stark was member of small council. Brandon Stark sailed across the Sunset Sea. And one of Starks became High Septon.

My guess is Jonnel One-eye Stark. We have Bloodraven (with one eye) who serves old gods and one-eyed crone in Vaes Dothrak. Beside it, Jonnel lost his eye as Bran lost his legs. Ned would think that a person with disability may serve well as High Septon although his knowledge about this topic is limited.

So far there has not been a Stark high septon ever mentioned in the book. So he is just being open minded to his crip son. Letting him know of possibilities