What's it good for? - Arya Stark

[The Fattest Leech]

8 hours ago, Greywater-Watch said:

Wow, wow - hold your horses! Sansa has been disinherited by Robb? I thought it was safe to assume Robb gave Jon Snow the legitimation necessary to bear the name Stark. Which would move Jon up in the sucession line. But in my opinion that does not mean Sansa would be disinherited. Or am I wrong?

The part posters here are talking about is pasted in order below. I am going by my paperback version in Catelyn 5 and it starts around page 628 and goes to 636. Hardback may be about page 525??? I would recommend re-reading the entire section so you get the full effect and the small stuff Robb mentions along the way.

There is some talk with Robb and Cat about an heir and the Blackfyre pretenders, a few days pass, Mage and Dacey Mormont and Cat have an ominous death foreshadowing conversation, a few days pass, then the war council, and then the scene ends with Robb asking for the witnesses to fix their seals and Catelyn feels defeated.

The witnesses are:

- Greatjon (captive)

- Edmure (captive)

- Galbart Glover  (sent on boat 1 to Howland) *whereabouts currently unknown

- Maege Mormont  (sent on boat 2 to Howland) *whereabouts currently unknown

Maege's heir, Dacey, is killed at the RW

- Raynald Westerling (died)

- Jason Mallister (currently being held captive in his castle at Seagard by a Frey)

- Howland Reed should have received the will by now . But that lazy bastard isn't real quick to make an appearance!!!

A Storm of Swords - Catelyn V

...The fifth Tristifer was not his equal, and soon the kingdom was lost, and then the castle, and last of all the line. With Tristifer the Fifth died House Mudd, that had ruled the riverlands for a thousand years before the Andals came."

"His heir failed him." Robb ran a hand over the rough weathered stone. "I had hoped to leave Jeyne with child . . . we tried often enough, but I'm not certain . . ."

"It does not always happen the first time." Though it did with you. "Nor even the hundredth. You are very young."

"Young, and a king," he said. "A king must have an heir. If I should die in my next battle, the kingdom must not die with me. By law Sansa is next in line of succession, so Winterfell and the north would pass to her." His mouth tightened. "To her, and her lord husband. Tyrion Lannister. I cannot allow that. I will not allow that. That dwarf must never have the north."

"No," Catelyn agreed. "You must name another heir, until such time as Jeyne gives you a son." She considered a moment. "Your father's father had no siblings, but his father had a sister who married a younger son of Lord Raymar Royce, of the junior branch. They had three daughters, all of whom wed Vale lordlings. A Waynwood and a Corbray, for certain. The youngest . . . it might have been a Templeton, but . . ."

"Mother." There was a sharpness in Robb's tone. "You forget. My father had four sons."

She had not forgotten; she had not wanted to look at it, yet there it was. "A Snow is not a Stark."

"Jon's more a Stark than some lordlings from the Vale who have never so much as set eyes on Winterfell."

"Jon is a brother of the Night's Watch, sworn to take no wife and hold no lands. Those who take the black serve for life."

"So do the knights of the Kingsguard. That did not stop the Lannisters from stripping the white cloaks from Ser Barristan Selmy and Ser Boros Blount when they had no more use for them. If I send the Watch a hundred men in Jon's place, I'll wager they find some way to release him from his vows."

He is set on this. Catelyn knew how stubborn her son could be. "A bastard cannot inherit."

"Not unless he's legitimized by a royal decree," said Robb. "There is more precedent for that than for releasing a Sworn Brother from his oath."

"Precedent," she said bitterly. "Yes, Aegon the Fourth legitimized all his bastards on his deathbed. And how much pain, grief, war, and murder grew from that? I know you trust Jon. But can you trust his sons? Or their sons? The Blackfyre pretenders troubled the Targaryens for five generations, until Barristan the Bold slew the last of them on the Stepstones. If you make Jon legitimate, there is no way to turn him bastard again. Should he wed and breed, any sons you may have by Jeyne will never be safe."

"Jon would never harm a son of mine."

"No more than Theon Greyjoy would harm Bran or Rickon?"

Grey Wind leapt up atop King Tristifer's crypt, his teeth bared. Robb's own face was cold. "That is as cruel as it is unfair. Jon is no Theon."

"So you pray. Have you considered your sisters? What of their rights? I agree that the north must not be permitted to pass to the Imp, but what of Arya? By law, she comes after Sansa . . . your own sister, trueborn . . ."

". . . and dead. No one has seen or heard of Arya since they cut Father's head off. Why do you lie to yourself? Arya's gone, the same as Bran and Rickon, and they'll kill Sansa too once the dwarf gets a child from her. Jon is the only brother that remains to me. Should I die without issue, I want him to succeed me as King in the North. I had hoped you would support my choice."

"I cannot," she said. "In all else, Robb. In everything. But not in this . . . this folly. Do not ask it."

"I don't have to. I'm the king." Robb turned and walked off, Grey Wind bounding down from the tomb and loping after him.

What have I done? Catelyn thought wearily, as she stood alone by Tristifer's stone sepulcher. First I anger Edmure, and now Robb, but all I have done is speak the truth. Are men so fragile they cannot bear to hear it? She might have wept then, had not the sky begun to do it for her. It was all she could do to walk back to her tent, and sit there in the silence.

 

...

"My lady," Maege Mormont said to her one morning as they rode through a steady rain, "you seem so somber. Is aught amiss?"

My lord husband is dead, as is my father. Two of my sons have been murdered, my daughter has been given to a faithless dwarf to bear his vile children, my other daughter is vanished and likely dead, and my last son and my only brother are both angry with me. What could possibly be amiss? That was more truth than Lady Maege would wish to hear, however. "This is an evil rain," she said instead.

Dacey Mormont looked up at the sky. "I would sooner have water raining down on me than arrows."

 

...

All lost now, she reflected. Winterfell and Ned, Bran and Rickon, Sansa, Arya, all gone. Only Robb remains. Had there been too much of Lynesse Hightower in her after all, and too little of the Starks? Would that I had known how to wield an axe, perhaps I might have been able to protect them better.

 

...(talk of Balon dying, Euron returning and Theon being the heir, and how the Iron Born succession might go, and then plans to take Moat Cailin back)...

"We will be no worse than before. But they will not fail. My father knew the worth of Howland Reed." Robb rolled up the map, and only then looked at Catelyn. "Mother."

She tensed. "Do you have some part in this for me?"

"Your part is to stay safe. Our journey through the Neck will be dangerous, and naught but battle awaits us in the north. But Lord Mallister has kindly offered to keep you safe at Seagard until the war is done. You will be comfortable there, I know."

 

...

"I left my wife at Riverrun. I want my mother elsewhere. If you keep all your treasures in one purse, you only make it easier for those who would rob you. After the wedding, you shall go to Seagard, that is my royal command." Robb stood, and as quick as that, her fate was settled. He picked up a sheet of parchment. "One more matter. Lord Balon has left chaos in his wake, we hope. I would not do the same. Yet I have no son as yet, my brothers Bran and Rickon are dead, and my sister is wed to a Lannister. I've thought long and hard about who might follow me. I command you now as my true and loyal lords to fix your seals to this document as witnesses to my decision."

A king indeed, Catelyn thought, defeated. She could only hope that the trap he'd planned for Moat Cailin worked as well as the one in which he'd just caught her.

 

...aaaannnnd, end scene!

[sweetsunray]

8 hours ago, Greywater-Watch said:

Is it possible to disinherit someone in the world of ASOIAF? I thought there were three possibilites only to be removed from the line of succession:

1) death

2) being sent to the Wall

Have I missed something?

A king can determine who is not in line of succession (see Aerys disinheriting Aegon and making Viserys heir instead). There are no laws that restrict a king on the decrees he can or cannot make. If Robb wrote as king in his will that Sansa is excluded from the Stark line of inheritance, then yes, Sansa was disinherited. The whole reason why George had Robb become KitN imo was because it made him have the exclusive right to

• legitimize Jon as a Stark
• relieve him of his vows to the NW (at least socially, though not in a sense that Jon would be free from his vows to the Old Gods
• exclude Sansa and her children from inheriting, ever
• name his heir

That Sansa and her future children after her were in fact excluded is highly likely for two plot reasons: everybody tries to arrange some marriage to Sansa for her claim on WF. Sansa herself is getting sick and tired of it. At some point, I can see her do a happy dance, when she's free to marry whomever she wants without ever needing to be reminded of a "claim" at all. The latest schemer betting on Sansa and her claim (in years to come) is Littlefinger - and he knows nada of Robb's will. If he lives long enough to ever learn about it, man ouch will that sting!

The will most likely will not come out into the open before independance can be declared again by the North, and thus not before Stannis dies. The lords of the North saying often The North Remembers suggest they will follow Robb's last will, which was already implied with Lyanna's letter to Stannis.