Rickon's role to play

[Lost Melnibonean]

On 3/19/2018 at 4:01 PM, SecretWeapon said:

He'll be the next KBTW at best. People who think Sansa isn't becoming LoW are cute

Do you expect that she would go to war against Rickon to secure her claim? 

[Lost Melnibonean]

On 3/19/2018 at 4:45 PM, zandru said:

I'm still holding out for finding Robb's will that disinherits her... And, lest you argue that only a True King can name an heir or disinherit one, a Lord (and Robb was undoubtedly Lord of Winterfell after Ned died) can certainly determine who does or doesn't inherit his own property.

I don't believe such power is absolute. 

[Lost Melnibonean]

On 3/19/2018 at 6:18 PM, kissdbyfire said:

Then he was asked if Rickon would ever get a chapter, and Martin said that the only thing worse than writing an 8-year-old (Bran) would be writing a rabid 4-year-old. He did say that "perhaps" Rickon will have "days in the sun" when he grows up a little, but that we shouldn't expect viewpoint chapters from a 4-year-old. He also said that if he'd stuck with the 5 year gap, Rickon might have been more feasible in that role.

http://www.westeros.org/Citadel/SSM/Month/2005/11

That suggests that a dozen years ago The George was not intending to off Rickon right away, no? 

[Lost Melnibonean]

36 minutes ago, Kandrax said:

Too old.

Who's too old? Tyrek? 

[Bitterblooms]

On 3/19/2018 at 1:44 AM, TPTWP Timett said:

Rickon is my favorite Stark and like others have stated before the time skip was cancelled I expected big things from him. Now I'm not sure what will happen but I want Rickon to have Winterfell. My guess is Manderly marries him to his awesome granddaughter and uses him as a figurehead for now. But you have to remember what a Shaggy Dog story is so we may never see him again. On my first read having heard that George likes to subvert tropes I just knew Rickon was a subvert of a Shaggy Dog story I hope I was right it will take one heck of a piece of writing to get him there. Why I bet it would take more than 7years to write such a story.

Agreed. I'm thinking his whole story and the Davos quest will literally be a Shaggy dog story. It's not exactly like the phrase is used commonly, so it's not the blazing of a clue for most readers.

Usually this kind of story has no point. But if it IS a Shaggy dog kind of plot, it's obviously very purposeful on the authors part. Is he trying to make a statement about pointlessness? 

Edited to add: I hope the pointlessness of the story is not to build him up as the lynchpin of Manderly's plan and after all that he is dismissed as he enters the gates of Winterfell or something. Like the Wizard of Oz: "you mean, I could have gone home at any time?" "you mean, there was actually no point to getting reckon here because we are going to join team Jon/Danaerys/Whomever anyway?" or Davos does all that work to get rickon so that manderly will support Stannis and Stannis dies. :/

[TPTWP Timett]

4 hours ago, Kandrax said:

Too old.

Wouldn't stop me if I was Manderly that's the absolute best power play he could make.  Then if his plot works his family is sitting pretty.

[TPTWP Timett]

3 hours ago, Bitterblooms said:

Agreed. I'm thinking his whole story and the Davos quest will literally be a Shaggy dog story. It's not exactly like the phrase is used commonly, so it's not the blazing of a clue for most readers.

Usually this kind of story has no point. But if it IS a Shaggy dog kind of plot, it's obviously very purposeful on the authors part. Is he trying to make a statement about pointlessness? 

Edited to add: I hope the pointlessness of the story is not to build him up as the lynchpin of Manderly's plan and after all that he is dismissed as he enters the gates of Winterfell or something. Like the Wizard of Oz: "you mean, I could have gone home at any time?" "you mean, there was actually no point to getting reckon here because we are going to join team Jon/Danaerys/Whomever anyway?" or Davos does all that work to get rickon so that manderly will support Stannis and Stannis dies. :/

If I remember correctly a shaggy dog story is a lot of build up with no pay off. I'm really hoping Rickon will be no build up huge payoff somewhat reversing the typical Shaggy dog story. And yes it's a uncommon phrase I learned what it was on this site.

[Kandrax]

8 hours ago, Lost Melnibonean said:

Who's too old? Tyrek? 

Wylla.

[Lollygag]

23 minutes ago, Kandrax said:

Wylla.

Marg is ~8 years older than Tommen. Wylla would be about ~10 years older than Rickon. 

[Night Train to Kathmandu]

Having been raised by savages and cannibals make Rickon unsuited for the life of a lord.  Manderly will very soon realize this.  

[Lost Melnibonean]

2 hours ago, Kandrax said:

Wylla.

Sorry, I neglected to use the sarcastic font. If Lannister could wed Tyrek to Ermesande Hayford, Manderly could wed Wylla to Rickon Stark. 

[SecretWeapon]

20 hours ago, Lost Melnibonean said:

Do you expect that she would go to war against Rickon to secure her claim? 

I don't expect Rickon to even want to be south of the Wall (if he doesn't die) so i don't expect any claim war

[Lost Melnibonean]

29 minutes ago, SecretWeapon said:

I don't expect Rickon to even want to be south of the Wall (if he doesn't die) so i don't expect any claim war

When is he going to go north of the Wall? 

[chrisdaw]

I think Rickon's role may be for Jon to let him die. Obviously I'm borrowing from other media to come to this conclusion.

The circumstances would be Rickon is taken captive by Jon's enemy and Jon is threatened with Rickon's death unless he lays down his weapons. And the new implacable frozen eyed ice hearted bastard blooded king of winter Jon, will not be turned from his course for anything.

[kissdbyfire]

59 minutes ago, chrisdaw said:

I think Rickon's role may be for Jon to let him die. Obviously I'm borrowing from other media to come to this conclusion.

The circumstances would be Rickon is taken captive by Jon's enemy and Jon is threatened with Rickon's death unless he lays down his weapons. And the new implacable frozen eyed ice hearted bastard blooded king of winter Jon, will not be turned from his course for anything.

I don't see it. And not just b/c the abomination sorta did that w/ a massive dose of saccharine and no guilt for St Snowflake. 

I don't think Jon will die, but that doesn't even matter here. I believe he will be changed by the experience, but not a different person altogether. I can see the character becoming 'darker', ruthless, implacable. But not anything like you suggest. 

When Jon read the PL he chose love. He killed the boy, and chose love. He will be even more determined to save as many as he can, and his ruthlessness will be directed at those who try to oppose him.

But to just use Rickon as bait, or simply "let him die" as if he now is bff w/ Selyse?

Really, really don't see it. 

[chrisdaw]

10 hours ago, kissdbyfire said:

I don't see it. And not just b/c the abomination sorta did that w/ a massive dose of saccharine and no guilt for St Snowflake. 

I don't think Jon will die, but that doesn't even matter here. I believe he will be changed by the experience, but not a different person altogether. I can see the character becoming 'darker', ruthless, implacable. But not anything like you suggest. 

When Jon read the PL he chose love. He killed the boy, and chose love. He will be even more determined to save as many as he can, and his ruthlessness will be directed at those who try to oppose him.

But to just use Rickon as bait, or simply "let him die" as if he now is bff w/ Selyse?

Really, really don't see it. 

You have for some reason reimagined the scenario that I put forth. In the simplest terms, Jon and Ramsay about to fight for the North, Ramsay has Rickon hostage, Ramsay tells Jon to surrender or he kills Rickon. And that seems about as close to the line as GRRM could walk Jon, the hardest dilemma he could face. And it is beautiful because Jon already answered the scenario with Arya, and got it wrong. New Jon would get it right. And it would echo Ned's behaviour regarding Cersei. Ned gave Cersei time to leave to save her children, but in the end he acted in the belief that they would die but their blood Ned was comfortable would be on her hands and not his. Should Jon refuse to surrender to save Rickon, then he will have let an innocent child die that he could have saved, but the blood would be on his hands no more than Ned's would have been for Cersei's children.

Contrary to what I said above, GRRM could walk Jon to a harder decision, that is he could do the same scenario with Arya. Again. And really Arya. But GRRM can't do that, because new Ice Jon has to give the correct answer this time, it is an arc and he has learnt, and GRRM can't have Arya die. So instead there's baby Rickon.

[kissdbyfire]

39 minutes ago, chrisdaw said:

You have for some reason reimagined the scenario that I put forth. In the simplest terms, Jon and Ramsay about to fight for the North, Ramsay has Rickon hostage, Ramsay tells Jon to surrender or he kills Rickon. And that seems about as close to the line as GRRM could walk Jon, the hardest dilemma he could face. And it is beautiful because Jon already answered the scenario with Arya, and got it wrong. New Jon would get it right. And it would echo Ned's behaviour regarding Cersei. Ned gave Cersei time to leave to save her children, but in the end he acted in the belief that they would die but their blood Ned was comfortable would be on her hands and not his. Should Jon refuse to surrender to save Rickon, then he will have let an innocent child die that he could have saved, but the blood would be on his hands no more than Ned's would have been for Cersei's children.

Contrary to what I said above, GRRM could walk Jon to a harder decision, that is he could do the same scenario with Arya. Again. And really Arya. But GRRM can't do that, because new Ice Jon has to give the correct answer this time, it is an arc and he has learnt, and GRRM can't have Arya die. So instead there's baby Rickon.

As they say, beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

I completely disagree with the bold. Jon got it right the first time. His mistake was underestimating the bias, prejudice, stupidity and cowardice of Marsh & co. 

 

[Shouldve Taken The Black]

On 21/03/2018 at 11:43 AM, Night Train to Kathmandu said:

Having been raised by savages and cannibals make Rickon unsuited for the life of a lord.  Manderly will very soon realize this.  

Manderly is a cannibal, so I doubt he shares your scruples. If anything being raised by cannibals would be a point in Rickon's favour, as far as Lord Too-Fat-To-Sit-A-Horse is concerned. 

I'm skeptical of a major role for Rickon. As the books progress, I think we're going to see a whittling down of claimants, both to the throne and the North, very swiftly. There's going to be a major war/s in the next book, and I think we'll see a lot of claimants and pretenders die very swiftly. 

Rickon, I think, will either play a role in gaining support for one or another player (Jon/Sansa/Stannis), or reappear simply to die in a way that progresses the plot a bit.

Of course, if he fulfils either of these functions by becoming King of the Savages mounted on a unicorn, that's just gravy. 

[Euron Lannister]

I think there will be the point, where the northern lords have to decide if the leader of the north should be Sansa, who is assumed to be the heir to Robb most of the time, most likely have ruling qualities and an army or Rickon who is the true heir, but a young wild boy or whoever Robb choose in his will, which wouldn't have been signed when he had known better about rickon and bran being alive.

If the lords choose Sansa, Rickon will be pissed

If the lords choose Rickon, Sansa would be pissed, which might end in Sansa usurping him (if litlefinger had enough influence on her and she has an Army)

If the lords choose Robb's will, both will be pssed and Sansa might usurp aswell

[kissdbyfire]

40 minutes ago, Euron Lannister said:

I think there will be the point, where the northern lords have to decide if the leader of the north should be Sansa, who is assumed to be the heir to Robb most of the time, most likely have ruling qualities and an army or Rickon who is the true heir, but a young wild boy or whoever Robb choose in his will, which wouldn't have been signed when he had known better about rickon and bran being alive.

If the lords choose Sansa, Rickon will be pissed

If the lords choose Rickon, Sansa would be pissed, which might end in Sansa usurping him (if litlefinger had enough influence on her and she has an Army)

If the lords choose Robb's will, both will be pssed and Sansa might usurp aswell

Rickon isn't the heir, Bran is. 

And I don't really see things playing out as you propose. We'll have to wait and see.