Episode 108: A CLASH OF KINGS, CATELYN IV: "Judgment Day, Part 1" SHOW NOTES! (Patreon)

Hello 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 one hundred and eighth episode of the Not A Cast, titled: “Judgment Day, Part 1: An Analysis of ACOK, Catelyn IV,” in which Catelyn faces down the gods and emerges with a clarion call for peace in our time...and then has to deal with King Terrorist Renly Baratheon making fun of her. Ugh. I can’t believe I have to wait until next week to watch him die.

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
• 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 Micah: Warden of the West and the Kraken’s Bane
• Lord James: the Jim that was Promised
• The High Bearded Priest
• Lord Jake, Assistant (to the) Hand of the King
• Lady Xena Valyrian
• Hedrigal, Captain of the Air Ship Arrogance
• His Grace’s High Inquisitor Frank
• Ser Jasper the Cruel, the King’s Justice
• Laurence, Prince of Dorne
• Kelly, Warden of the East and Mistress of (Old) Bay of Crabs
• Steven the Steadfast, Master of Hounds
• The Blue Winter Rose Knight of Highgarden
• Lady Stephanie
• Lord Anonymous
• Lord Carlos
• Lord Andrew the Restless, a Priest of the Drowned God
• The King's Cook, Nolly (No-lee) Olly (Oh-lee), Master of Cannoli
• Ser Sourcedelica 
• Prince Matthew of House Targaryen - Proud Soy Boy of Summerhall, Defender of the 5th Book and Swing Dancer with Dragons
• Ser K.W. Dent, Elsie of the Blackwood Guard, and Batman of the Seven Kingdoms
• Lord Penchant for Nostalgia
• Queer Alex, Rainbow Commander of the They-des and Gentle-thems (ladies and gentlemen)
• Lord Clint, Esq., Master of Absolutely, Positively NOT Serving As A Spy for Several Unnamed High Lords and Ladies In Order to Further the Secret Blackfyre-Style Conspiracy to Overthrow The Oppressive Small Council
• Haldivar, The Waiter for TWOW
• A-a-ron Damphair Prophet of the Forsaken and High Priest of Euron Crows Eye
• Lieutenant Glenn Lord of H town
• Vanerys of the House Colgaryen, the First of Her Name, Princess of Dragonstone, Mistress of Art, The Overworked, Queen of the Pencils, the Eraser and the First Draft, Queen of Monochrome, Devotee of the Great GOT, Portraitist of the Realm, Lady Realist of the Seven Kingdoms, Blender of Paints and Maker of Drawings
• Seanwell the Slayer
• Lord Adam T
• Lady Alexandra of Tarth
• Ser Kristoph Logas, Bloody Scorpion of the Red Field, Defender of the Letter of Kin, and the Wolverine of house Qorgyle
• Lady Elizabeth, Mistress of Horse (Faced Lesbians)
• Ser Josh Snow Bastard Bounty Hunter of the North
• Ser Veyor, Chief of Parties in the Frozen Wastes
• Lord Peter
• And our newest small counsellor: Lady Ashley who joined the evening we recorded and hasn’t given us a name yet. Thank you, Ashley!
• Thank you to all our counselors!

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

The High Bearded Priest, a small council member, asks:

Your Graces, We love the character. And it would be worth it just to see the look on Mace and Littlefinger's faces. But do you think Stannis (Stannis. STANNIS!) would be a good king?

So, thank you High Bearded Priest for the question. If you’d like to ask us questions that we’ll answer here on the NotACast podcast, you are welcome to become a Sworn Sword patron at patreon.com/NotACastASOIAF where you can also get 25 bonus episodes ASOIAF episodes, 6 Fevre Dream episodes, show notes, access to our exclusive slack and more! we are closing in to our next stretch goal of attaining 900 total patrons! When we hit that goal, we’ll do a full-out, multi-part, analysis of The Forsaken! If that or the other patreon benefits interest you, consider heading on over to patreon.com/NotACastASOIAF to join our patreon for as little as $1/month. 

As of this recording, we’ve only got 18 of patrons to go before we hit our goal! (It was 42 last month!) But enough about Patreon for now. Let’s turn our attention back to Catelyn Stark! Last week, good mom Catelyn had witnessed two children squabbling over who would play with the toy they both want (the Iron Throne). Let’s find out what happens with Catelyn next in this synopsis of ACOK, Catelyn IV, part 1!

Synopsis

Catelyn arrives at the village sept after sunset to pray. She wonders if the village had a name, but there’s no one around to ask, because all of the people had fled. She enters the sept and finds a decrepit looking building with seven cracked walls. And where richer cities and towns had ornate statues, this sept only had charcoal drawings.  

Catelyn studied the faces. The Father was bearded, as ever. The Mother smiled, loving and protective. The Warrior had his sword sketched in beneath his face, the Smith his hammer. The Maid was beautiful, the Crone wizened and wise.

And the seventh face . . . the Stranger was neither male nor female, yet both, ever the outcast, the wanderer from far places, less and more than human, unknown and unknowable. Here the face was a black oval, a shadow with stars for eyes. It made Catelyn uneasy. She would get scant comfort there.

Catelyn kneels before the mother and asks that she spare all the sons about to go to battle. As we’ll find out in part 2 of this analysis of ACOK, Catelyn IV, the mother has a refined sense of irony. She also asks the mother to watch over her sons too. And, oh boy. About that …

Catelyn notices that the wall has a crack down the charcoal etching of the Mother, and it looks like a tear to Catelyn. She hears Wendel Manderly and Robar Royce talking outside, but everything else is quiet, the gods most of all. She wonders if Ned ever heard the old gods talking to him, and … hm. Yeah.

Flickering torchlight danced across the walls, making the faces seem half alive, twisting them, changing them. The statues in the great septs of the cities wore the faces the stonemasons had given them, but these charcoal scratchings were so crude they might be anyone. The Father's face made her think of her own father, dying in his bed at Riverrun. The Warrior was Renly and Stannis, Robb and Robert, Jaime Lannister and Jon Snow. She even glimpsed Arya in those lines, just for an instant. Then a gust of wind through the door made the torch sputter, and the semblance was gone, washed away in orange glare.

Boy, am I loving all of this. I see why Catelyn is your favorite POV in ACOK, Emmett. 

But then the smoke is in her eyes, and she rubs them with the backs of her scarred hands. When she opens her eyes again, she sees her mom Lady Minisa Tully, and we get some of the only references to Lady Minisa in the narrative. She was calm, had soft hands and a warm smile. She died in childbirth. Hello dead ladies club. Her child died with her. Catelyn wonders what Minisa would make of her, and she thinks her mom would think little of her -- especially given she’s away from her children and wasn’t even there when Ned died. Oh, Catelyn. It’s okay, mom. It’s not your fault.

Catelyn’s head starts swimming, and the shadows shift around her. She thinks she should have eaten something today, but she had been too busy. Well, no. Not too busy.

The truth was that food had lost its savor in a world without Ned. When they took his head off, they killed me too.

That aching melancholy: it’s so good.

But then the torch spits, and Catelyn sees … a mother. Lysa. But then the eyes. The eyes weren’t Lysa. They were Cersei. She thinks that whatever vile crimes Cersei committed, those kids were hers, and she felt them kicking and bore them in blood and pain. But if they were truly Jaime’s, well … She wonders if Cersei prayed to the Mother which factcheck: she does once in ADWD. She fake-prays to the Mother to pretend at piety. 

Catelyn thinks that Robert would have killed Joffrey and Cersei if he found out what Cersei had done, and few would have condemned Robert for it. Oh, sure. Bastards were common in Westeros, but incest was a monstrous crime and sin. The Targs did it, but they had dragons, and they didn’t answer to gods or men.

Ned must have known, and Lord Arryn before him. Small wonder that the queen had killed them both. Would I do any less for my own? Catelyn clenched her hands, feeling the tightness in her scarred fingers where the assassin's steel had cut to the bone as she fought to save her son. "Bran knows too," she whispered, lowering her head. Gods be good, he must have seen something, heard something, that was why they tried to kill him in his bed.

Catelyn gives herself over to the gods, praying to the Smith to watch over Bran, the Maid to give courage to Arya and Sansa and guard their innocence, the Father for justice and strength and wisdom, the Warrior to keep Robb strong and safe and the Crone to show Catelyn wisdom. But then footsteps arrive behind her. It’s Robar Royce, and he says that they need to get going before the dawn comes.

Weary, Catelyn rides away from the sept and village, through woodlands where trees lean away from the sea. Then they ride through Renly’s camp to the sounds of steel and the whinnying of horses. Banners are all around Catelyn, but she can’t pick out the banners.

A grey army, Catelyn thought. Grey men on grey horses beneath grey banners. As they sat their horses waiting, Renly's shadow knights pointed their lances upward, so she rode through a forest of tall naked trees, bereft of leaves and life. Where Storm's End stood was only a deeper darkness, a wall of black through which no stars could shine, but she could see torches moving across the fields where Lord Stannis had made his camp.

Inside Renly’s tent, Catelyn finds candles glowing, making the tent feel like a magical castle “alive with emerald light” (SO GOOD). Two rainbow guards stand outside of the tent with their rainbow cloaks draped over their shoulders. They allow Catelyn in, and she finds Brienne armoring Renly for the battle with Lord Mathis Rowan and Lord Randyll, small peen, Tarly standing around him. 

Catelyn demands to speak with Renly, but he brushes her off as Brienne fastens a blackplate to breastplate. The “king” orders Mathis to continue, and Mathis talks about how the army is drawn up and ready for battle, but, um, why are we attacking at dawn again? Ah, because according to Renly, he doesn’t want it said he won “unchivalrously.” He is not about that type of treachery. That is way beneath his dignity. But Randyll Tarly points out that this time was picked by Stannis, and that they’d be charging against the rising sun and be half-blind. But Renly waves him off, saying that Loras will break him with a charge. Mm-hm. 

But what if Stannis yields, Randyll asks.

"Yields?" Lord Rowan laughed. "When Mace Tyrell laid siege to Storm's End, Stannis ate rats rather than open his gates."

Then Renly starts to get cute. He tells the story of Storm’s End’s master-at-arms Ser Gawen Wylde, and how at Storm’s End, he tried to sneak out of the castle with three knights. But he was stopped, and then Stannis ordered the man strapped to a catapult and thrown over the walls. 

Lord Rowan appeared puzzled. "No men were hurled from the walls. I would surely remember that."

"Maester Cressen told Stannis that we might be forced to eat our dead, and there was no gain in flinging away good meat." Renly pushed back his hair. Brienne bound it with a velvet tie and pulled a padded cap down over his ears, to cushion the weight of his helm. "Thanks to the Onion Knight we were never reduced to dining on corpses, but it was a close thing. Too close for Ser Gawen, who died in his cell."

Now, mea culpa. I originally wrote “What George is communicating here is that Renly is FUCKING LIAR. God. Why do people like this guy?” But a fair reading of this scene is that Stannis orders Ser Gawen strapped to the catapult, but Maester Cressen convinces Stannis at the last minute not to toss Gawen over the walls, because they might need someone to eat. Of course, Renly may have been lying, and he was hoping that Randyll and Mathis saw his meaning with the ellipses. But that’s not in the text. Mea culpa, Renly. You’re still a monster, but at least you may not have lied in this one particular spot.

Anyways, Catelyn cuts in and says that Renly promised her a word. So, Renly agrees and waves everyone off to their battle tasks and drills. But if they find Ser Barristan on the battlefield, spare his life. Rowan objects that Barristan hasn’t been seen recently, and Renly knows this. Barristan needs a king to serve, and if he’s not at Robb’s camp, he’s very definitely in Stannis’ camp. That is such a self-own, Renly lol, but Rowan and Tarly agree, bow and leave.

Now alone with Renly and Brienne, Catelyn says that the Lannisters tried to kill her son Bran. She had always wondered why, but now she thinks that he caught Cersei and Jaime in the act when Robert was out hunting at Winterfell. So, she wants to go to Stannis and tell him what she suspects. Renly asks her why, and Catelyn says that Robb will put aside her crown (she hopes). And then Stannis, Robb and Renly can call a great council, have Bran come down from Winterfell and reveal the Lannisters for their treasons. And then the great lords of Westeros will choose the next king.

Renly laughed. "Tell me, my lady, do direwolves vote on who should lead the pack?" Brienne brought the king's gauntlets and greathelm, crowned with golden antlers that would add a foot and a half to his height. "The time for talk is done. Now we see who is stronger." Renly pulled a lobstered green-and-gold gauntlet over his left hand, while Brienne knelt to buckle on his belt, heavy with the weight of longsword and dagger.

And that is ACOK, Catelyn IV, Part 1! I’m reallllllllllllllly glad we split Catelyn IV up into two parts, because man, there’s just so much to unpack in the whole of this chapter. I love all of it, and I think you do too, ser!

Depth

Much as I sang the praises of Catelyn III for the last two weeks, I think I love Catelyn IV even more! The two chapters are perfect complements, of course, fitting together into a perfect whole, just as Stannis and Renly are refusing to fit together into a perfect whole. I wonder if that might be a deliberate move on George’s part. Form meets content: the showdown of two matched opposite characters takes shape as two matched opposite chapters.

Catelyn III was all about politics, dialogue, family dynamics, and a tone of comic absurdity and frustration. Catelyn IV is all about magic, imagery, inner monologue, and a tone of tragic sorrow and loss. Now, just as Stannis and Renly have a lot in common under the surface, these chapters have a lot in common still. Catelyn III showed off Lightbringer; Catelyn IV has some very important political dialogue. But I think these chapters are meant to stand out as iconic in their own unique ways just like the Baratheon brothers. Catelyn IV is not only a perfect followup and counterpoint to Catelyn III, it is a spectacular work of art in its own regard. Every image feels sculpted in light as if by a cinematographer. Every paragraph has a turn of phrase that burns its way into your memory. This is as good as it gets.

If Catelyn III was the last glimmer of peace, that is the last chance for the Baratheon brothers to quell the storm and put their swords aside, but it all ended when Stannis drew Lightbringer and then sheathed it declaring that we would see what there was to see come the dawn. That dawn has come, but instead of it bringing newfound light, the possibility for the sun to shine, Catelyn spends this chapter shrouded in a predawn gloom with shadows (very deliberately inserted throughout the early part of this chapter by George) all around. This is the short night, and it calls us readers to think of the long one that’s coming.

• Given over to the gods
  • Before Catelyn IV grows to encompass the death of kings, it starts on the simplest note imaginable: one soul alone in the dark, reaching out for the light. Catelyn has mourned and fasted and is prepared to give herself to her gods
  • Night has fallen. There’s no one else in the village. They fled, taking their families and their treasures and even the candles they lit for their gods with them
  • Why did the people in this village run? They ran because King Stannis showed up with his army...or because they heard King Renly was on the way with his
  • We’ll never know which, and it doesn’t really matter, because they’re already gone. The damage is done. That’s a perfect microcosm for what’s happening between the Baratheon brothers and across the realm they both claim to rule
  • Just like how their ancestor Durran exposed his people to the elements to sate his pride, Renly and Stannis will salt the earth with their drive to get at each other, producing nothing with their industry but Lannister victory at book’s end
  • The lines of responsibility between them blur. The act of murder itself is shrouded in ambiguity, both in execution in this chapter and how it’s discussed later on
  • But I think one takeaway should be clear. Both Baratheons are responsible for what happens here. They chased each other down the drain to rock bottom
  • Stannis’ jaws happen to close a second quicker. Renly is just as ready to kill him. That, itself, is the tragedy. Brother killing brother. Who cares which one wins?
  • Either way, the kingdom loses. Either way, the idea of family, one pack to survive the winter, loses. Even the winner loses. There are no winners, only losers
  • Something is rotten in the state of Westeros, and the solutions seem to be canceling each other out and leaving the problem untouched
  • Individuals and institutions alike seem cursed with a profound moral darkness, a blindness infecting good as well as bad: “too much light can blind the eyes.”
  • It’s really not so much of who has the legal right or which king is casting the better shadow on the wall at this point.
  • It’s primal: Stannis and Renly drowning each other in blood and The time for talk is over. Now we see who is stronger.
  • We get all this from Renly’s perspective which shades this traitor in an unflattering lens, but can the conversation be different across the field in the torch-lit camp of King Stannis?
  • Most assuredly not -- though Stannis is technically asleep at this point.
  • And of course, George uses the absence and presence of light throughout this chapter to illuminate its absence as Catelyn enters her dark night of the soul.
  • Like you and Salladhor Saan were saying, Emmett, too much light.
  • From this mess, an act of blood magic and kinslaying is born to shake Westeros
  • When the walls close in, when the floor gives way, when the truth is found to be lies and all the joy within you dies...you gotta get right with god. Or gods.
  • Catelyn Stark walks alone into this darkness at the start of the chapter without a candle. Without a guide. A stranger in a strange land, as she was when she arrived in Winterfell, only this time she doesn’t even have Robb
  • She’s bereft of her children, heartsick and guilty, especially after failing to make peace between Stannis and Renly, and that changes what her gods mean to her
  • When she was an innocent at Riverrun, the Seven were smiling faces. Watching and waiting, just as she watched and waited for Hoster. All was well in the world
  • At Winterfell, domain of the old gods, the world of Catelyn’s adulthood, the Seven became carved masks. This reflects how she has come of age
  • Gods are no longer simple caricatures meant to reassure you. They are aspects of identity, archetypes representing all humanity: masks that you must wear
  • Catelyn has to deal with a world of deceit, murder, war, grief. But also a world of love, family, home, her squalling infant son grown into a man
  • The seven faces are one. Light and dark, ice and fire, Stannis and Renly: these things you think are opposites, they are one in god’s eyes (the God’s Eye?)
  • You are the sum total of every mask you wear, every light and dark element within you. You are Mother, Father, Warrior, Smith, Maiden, Crone, and Stranger
  • A good act does not wash out the bad, nor a bad act the good. We must reconcile them. Truth is produced through a dialectical process: not thesis nor antithesis, but what results from the combination of the two. R+L=J, in short!
    • “My lord father told me about mountains, but I never saw one till now. I love them more than I can say."
      
      Bran made a face at her. "But you just said you hated them."
      
      "Why can't it be both?" Meera reached up to pinch his nose"
      
      "Because they're different," he insisted. "Like night and day, or ice and fire."\
      
      "If ice can burn," said Jojen in his solemn voice, "then love and hate can mate. Mountain or marsh, it makes no matter. The land is one."
  • But the flipside, as Meera says, is that the whole is “over wrinkled.” None of it saves you from mortality. Heroes die; villains die. Some die for reasons born wholly of their decision making, others are in the wrong place at the wrong time
  • If all is one, then the death of one is the death of all; Davos will make precisely this argument the next time Stannis is deciding the fate of a blood relative
  • Ned Stark’s blood gushed over the Sept of Baelor. Where were Catelyn’s gods then? Where were his gods, she wonders? Neither of them saved him
  • So now all she has is rough chalk drawings, the faint gestures of gods. In part, this reflects the class realities of Westeros; only in the “rich septs of the cities” are there statues of the Seven, only for Lady Tully were there masks
  • But it also reflects Catelyn’s very particular spiritual place at this time, as well as the spiritual place of Westeros. The gods are looking pretty fragile! Thousands are praying, crying out for delivery from the war; those prayers go unanswered
  • So we see the Seven as crude sketches on a wall. This is all they are, all they ever were. The gods are stories we tell to make children behave. When you grow up, when you leave Riverrun and head north to bear your children in the valley of the shadow of death, you put childish things like those smiling gods aside
  • As the token spiritual co-host. I kid, I kid. But excellent reference to the Apostle Paul’s putting away childish things
  • Love the statues to masks to charcoal etchings that Catelyn notes in her spiritual journey which Emmett will unpack in just a few minutes.
  • Catelyn is showing the maturation of faith from early childhood wonder to the adult mom going to church variety to a crisis of faith.
  • Catelyn doesn’t want to be in a crisis of faith here, but from my own experience, sometimes, it takes a spiritual crisis to grow in faith and as a person.
  • To Catelyn’s great credit, she doesn’t give herself over to fear or become a nihilist (at this point, anyhow).
  • She fasts and holds vigil overnight in the presence of her god, gods.
  • It’s in the imagery of vigils that we see Catelyn performing an almost knightly ceremony in this sept. 
  • Would-be knights would spend the night before taking their vows fasting and praying in a church or sept.
  • Catelyn is a knight of a different sort. She’s a mother. 
  • So while she prays to all the gods, she singles out the mother for special attention in the same way that a soon-to-be knight singles out the warrior for his prayers.
  • And later in ACOK, she’ll make this comparison between battle on the battlefield and the unique battles a mother faces quite deliberately:
    • "Children are a battle of a different sort." Catelyn started across the yard. "A battle without banners or warhorns, but no less fierce. Carrying a child, bringing it into the world . . .”
  • Catelyn knows she’s on the eve of battle, but she doesn’t ready herself to fight in the traditional sense.
  • She prepares her heart as only a mom can: praying for the lives of all the sons (and daughter. Never forget Brienne!) who will fight in the morning.
  • The problem is that Catelyn’s vigil is supposed to provide her individual comfort and solicit the gods’ help in this time of crisis.
  • But all Catelyn can see is shifting shadows.
  • As Varys says: power is a shadow on a wall. We give power its shape, as much as the other way around. The First Men show respect for their gods by not naming them, by simply alluding to an ancient power they dare not give a face
  • In this moment of brokenness, feeling like her family and her country and her very self have been smeared on the highway in history’s rearview mirror, Catelyn seems to realize that the Seven were never there. It was only ever her and hers
  • It was only ever Ned, Robb, Arya, Jon. It was only ever the Lannisters, the Baratheons, her father, her mother, her sister. These are the faces of her life, and so these are the faces she projects onto her gods as light fades from the world
  • They say your life flashes before your eyes when you die. Catelyn says she is dead, that they killed her when they killed Ned. Is this scene showing us what waits after death? A soul standing naked before the fire casting the shadow on the cave wall, still only able to see the puppets of her own life’s stageplay?
  • Or is this scene showing us the essence of life? We are all playing out these archetypes whether we know it or not; we are all participating in the great wheel of time. The essence of life, the essence of story. Does life require death to give it meaning, like gods and stories need an audience? Does summer need winter?
  • This is such a bittersweet and emotionally complex moment, because even as George is deconstructing the gods, he’s reminding us of their enduring power
  • The fact that the gods are just shadows on walls, empty vessels into whom we project our own individual fears and desires: this is a strength, not a weakness
  • The Father endures, not because there’s actually a robed bearded guy named The Father up there in space, but because you project your father into him
  • That’s what storytelling is: shadow puppets given life by the audience. Crude suggestions into which you project your own story. If that process resonates, then it lingers, passing from story into myth, keystone of collective identity. We complete ASOIAF, as Catelyn completes the chalk drawings of her gods
  • That’s what makes this scene one of the most powerful moments of the series to me. We are being shown how to relate to songs, stories, heritage, history, culture, meaning, after the bloom has fallen off the rose, after winter has come
  • Paradoxically, the emptiness of signs and signifiers is precisely why they’re so powerful. They are not an iron constant, but the opposite: a fluid, subjective vessel for transformation. They are there to be whatever you need them to be. They change with the flickering of the torchlight. They change as you change
  • Catelyn is sitting in a dark room, a light projecting still images that seem to be moving, faces she relates to those she knows. Is Catelyn...watching a movie?
  • What are movies but religious experiences, transubstantiation on the silver screen, a shaft of light in a dark room? They are not real, but their impact is
  • Master Japanese filmmaker Yasujiro Ozu used to say that it is the films that watch us. In the beginning, Man made God, a flashlight shining back at us. We tell stories and myths to make sense of not only the world, but ourselves 
  • We are inchoate shapes, writhing masses of contradictory emotions; luminous beings are we, not this crude matter! We invent containers, archetypes, ideas of who we are, and fill them like liquid or smoke. King. Father. Mother. Azor Ahai.
  • “Kaneda! What do you see!?”
  • To borrow from the Apostle Paul again (and continuing from our last quote from Paul): What we see now is like a dim image in a mirror; then we shall see face-to-face. What I know now is only partial; then it will be complete-as complete as God's knowledge of me
  • Catelyn can only barely make out the shapes in front of her, and they shift as gusts of wind flick her torchlight against the wall.
  • It strikes me that Catelyn is having a vision in the flames so to speak, seeing what the fire illuminates.
  • And I love what you were saying about the flickering lights as films. You can also call what Melisandre, Axell Florent, Stannis and Moqorro see as films too. 
  • But it seems as though the film the R’hllorites are watching is more clear, showing the future or potential-futures in the flames.
  • But as Stannis will later recount to Davos, it ain’t so clear:
    • Stand before the nightfire and you'll see for yourself. The flames shift and dance, never still. The shadows grow tall and short, and every man casts a dozen. Some are fainter than others, that's all. Well, men cast their shadows across the future as well. One shadow or many. Melisandre sees them all.
  • But as we know from Davos smuggling Edric Storm out of Westeros, Melisandre doesn’t actually see all.
  • And the true visions glimpsed in the fires are often misinterpreted by Mel.
  • We referenced this quote for ACOK, Bran V, but let’s bring it up again in a new context: "The vision was a true one. It was my reading that was false. I am as mortal as you, Jon Snow. All mortals err."
  • Please tell me that Melisandre’s quote isn’t a meta reflection on how fans of various mediums get the wrong interpretation on the stories they love.
  • But tying it back to this chapter, Catelyn’s interpretation of the shadows on the wall is even less clear than the visions in the flames. It’s more like … the after-midnight cinema that was inexplicably scrambled when I attempted to watch as a #teen.
  • And so Catelyn only needs the faint suggestion of a face on a wall, like a cave painting, the simplest form of communication and culture and art imaginable, to project all the overwhelming rush of emotions and backstories at play in the war
  • She is reading the faces of the Seven like we read the characters in ASOIAF. Just as we notice parallels between characters who seem so different, who fight each other viciously in the wars, so Catelyn sees Cersei’s eyes in Lysa’s face
  • This is political commentary and metanarrative commentary at the same time. George is saying both that these characters have much in common and that accordingly, maybe they shouldn’t be waging this destructive civil war
  • If I would fight and die to keep my children safe, Catelyn thinks as she feels the knife wounds on her fingers, how can I judge Cersei for doing the same? It led to my husband’s death. But I do not mourn the man who tried to kill Bran. Why should Cersei mourn anyone who might have endangered her children?
  • Cersei’s children are children like Catelyn’s children, no matter whether you project Jaime or Robert’s face onto the Father, whichever shadow on the wall
  • We have motives in common. We have archetypes in common, fears and desires in common. All of this applies to Stannis and Renly, of course, and that’s what makes it such a tragedy that one kills the other. We kill each other, we set our hearts on fire, not because we are so different, but because we are the same
  • That crack running down the Mother’s eye like a tear expresses so much. You can see it as the Mother weeping that Stannis has smuggled R’hllor into Westeros like Davos smuggled his onions; it is the Mother that Davos thinks he hears post-Blackwater reproaching Team Dragonstone for “calling the fire”
  • Or you can imagine it’s Cassandra, Stannis and Renly’s mother, weeping from beyond the grave like Joanna Lannister in AFFC for what’s become of her family
  • Or you can see it in Catelyn’s terms, a mother weeping that her sons must think her “cold and unnatural,” a Mother who was not with the Father when he died
  • Or you can see it as just a crack in the wall! It only looks like a tear because Catelyn says so. If she was in a good mood, it wouldn’t look like a tear at all
  • The red comet is whatever you want it to be. Stories crack you open and reveal you, not the other way around. All these shadows that seem to haunt ACOK are mirrors, windows onto not what’s outside you, but what’s inside you
  • As Septon Meribald will say in AFFC, these higher mysteries are not only abstract, they’re also not terribly comforting, and so he keeps the simpler ways
  • But Catelyn knows that the seven are one; that the Mother can be as fierce as the Father, that the Crone can be as beautiful as the Maiden
  • Again, this is in part about storytelling: even as creators use these archetypes, they should flesh them out in a way that speaks to their common humanity
  • Yet that common humanity only becomes clear because of those archetypes! These opposing categories gives you a framework by which to judge similarities
  • That’s the usefulness of character archetypes, simplistic as they are. They briefly clarify the vast contradictory nature of humanity so we can connect the dots
  • There’s the phenomenon in filmmaking called the Kuleshov Effect, wherein if you show an audience an image of a man’s neutral expression after a shot of delicious food, they will say he looks hungry, but if you show them the same image after a shot of rotting garbage, they will say he looks disgusted
  • What does this demonstrate? That the central art of filmmaking isn’t the shot, it’s the cut. Two images put together is what matters, not one on its own, because the audience mind will intuitively bridge the gap and therefore create meaning...even when the meaning isn’t intended. Shadow on a wall!
  • And so, opposing archetypes like Stannis v. Renly create more meaning together than they could’ve on their own. Out of seven, one. Thesis + antithesis = truth
  • We see that in action with Catelyn. By understanding these similarities, faces running into one another in the torchlight, she is able to discover truth
  • She combines Stannis’ revelations with the projected play of light across the crude faces left by anonymous villagers to arrive at an answer to her questions
    • “Ned must have known...Bran knows too...that was why they tried to kill him in his bed.”
  • Spiritual journeys like this one are always about finding the truth, after all. You make yourself naked before the truth, and the truth returns the favor
  • Now, it’s worth noting that Catelyn’s truth isn’t true in the strictest sense; Joffrey is responsible for Ned’s death and the dagger sent after Bran, not his parents
  • And once more, Catelyn misses the hidden knife of Littlefinger, because her own projections and biases as a reader prevent her from seeing him as the Stranger
  • She also, of course, can’t see herself as the Stranger, which is exactly what happens when she returns as Lady Stoneheart. The shadow is a mirror.
  • But as with the comet, as with the carved masks of the gods, what matters is what you bring to the table and what you take away
  • Catelyn walks away from her gods feeling strong enough to make a last attempt at peace. The knowledge she has uncovered in her sacred quest drives her on. The faces she saw were projections, the truth she uncovered is just another shadow on the wall. But does that matter if it’s helping her do the right thing?
  • You don’t fix faith, it fixes you. The power of the shadow on the wall is precisely that it’s immaterial. Catelyn found the strength that was within her all along, but she needed the vessel of seven crude drawings expressing one singular truth
  • I promise that’s the final Bible verse. All the same, there is something empowering in thinking and emoting in silence.
  • Be silent in the LORD’s presence and wait patiently for him. Don’t be angry because of the one whose way prospers or the one who implements evil schemes.
  • Meditation upon your god, just in silence to hear your thoughts can provide clarity -- I find this often in my own life.
  • Catelyn has found herself in the midst of silence, and when she emerges from her vigil, she’s stronger than when she entered.
  • And she has a plan.
• A final plea for peace
  • As Catelyn sets out for Renly’s tent to make her final plea for peace, we see that beautiful prose I talked about earlier. This is some of GRRM’s best imagery:
    • The long ranks of man and horse were armored in darkness, as black as if the Smith had hammered night itself into steel. There were banners to her right, banners to her left, and rank on rank of banners before her, but in the predawn gloom, neither colors nor sigils could be discerned. A grey army, Catelyn thought. Grey men on grey horses beneath grey banners. As they sat their horses waiting, Renly's shadow knights pointed their lances upward, so she rode through a forest of tall naked trees, bereft of leaves and life. Where Storm's End stood was only a deeper darkness, a wall of black through which no stars could shine, but she could see torches moving across the fields where Lord Stannis had made his camp.
      
      The candles within Renly's pavilion made the shimmering silken walls seem to glow, transforming the great tent into a magical castle alive with emerald light. Two of the Rainbow Guard stood sentry at the door to the royal pavilion. The green light shone strangely against the purple plums of Ser Parmen's surcoat, and gave a sickly hue to the sunflowers that covered every inch of Ser Emmon's enameled yellow plate. Long silken plumes flew from their helms, and rainbow cloaks draped their shoulders.
  • The night itself is steel, a set of armor like Renly’s. But Renly’s armor is green, so this must be Stannis’ armor: night falling over the army that will be his
  • As such, all the gorgeous colors that defined Renly’s camp at Bitterbridge back in Catelyn II have fallen away, replaced by gray, capturing the moral ambiguity of both Renly’s campaign and Stannis’ lethal response. What’s the right thing to do?
  • The spears are trees, because as I said before, Renly stands in for the Children of the Forest overwhelmed by the First Men, and the First Men overwhelmed by the Andals, and the Andals overwhelmed by the Targaryens
  • The trees suffered with each successive wave. So in the midst of R’hllor’s wave, naturally the trees are bereft of leaves and life. They’ve been converted to weapons, they’re about to be put in service of a hungry fire god, and will soon burn at the Blackwater like the Storm’s End godswood
  • Storm’s End is a wall of black blotting out the sky; again, it’s a parallel to the Wall. Stannis’ men hold torches, as they will at the Wall: the lights in the darkness
  • Are they, though? As we’ll see in Davos II, bright lights can cast terrible shadows. And as Loras says in ASOS: when the sun has set, no candle can replace it
  • This is a terrific visual metaphor for Stannis’ campaign. Is his torch worth the destruction of sun and stars? Is his crown worth the murder of his own brother?
  • He comes north to save Westeros as its king, but his torches burn the wildlings’ tree gods, leaving them alone in the dark. His candle cannot replace their sun. In his efforts to save the world, will Stannis reduce what he’s trying to save to ash?
  • And recall here in ACOK, Stannis is still in cart-before-the-horse territory. 
  • He’s willing to burn down his family, his castle, the godswood that stood for centuries at Storm’s End to achieve a crown which will definitely work as a substitute for the love he was denied.
  • But as you point out, even when Stannis’ outlook shifts in a more positive direction: placing the defense of the kingdom ahead of the crown, it’s still animated by a destructive, fiery impulse.
  • If it had stopped with burning the Seven on the beach, if it had stopped with Renly, if it had stopped with Edric, if it had stopped with burning the weirwoods and force-converting the wildlings, if, if, if.
  • It all ends in one final act of destruction for Stannis -- one which may be ironically rooted in his desire to safeguard Westeros ahead of his crown and the lineage of House Baratheon.
  • When Stannis burns Shireen in Winds or Dream, his motivation may be drawn from Davos’ later ASOS statement that he place the kingdom before the crown.
  • In ACOK, in ASOS, in ADWD, in TWOW, Stannis is the living embodiment of destroying the village (his gods, his castle, his ancestors’ gods, his brother, his daughter) to save the village. 
  • The only color persisting in this fallen world is Renly’s tent. Amidst the wall of black and the forest of grey, it glows green: a magical castle alive with light
  • You could read this as Renly being the true light in the darkness, as he undoubtedly thinks of himself, but George immediately undercuts this
  • The green light clashes horribly with the plums and sunflowers decorating the Rainbow Guard knights outside the tent: 
    • The green light shone strangely against the purple plums of Ser Parmen's surcoat, and gave a sickly hue to the sunflowers that covered every inch of Ser Emmon's enameled yellow plate.
  • Again, this is a brilliant visual metaphor. We are being shown how Renly’s campaign has, if anything, too much color where Stannis’ has too little
  • Renly’s signature green is clashing with his followers’ colors, creating not a gorgeous rainbow, but a sickly cacophony. It’s too much of a good thing, contrasting with the abandoned village and its simple chalk sketches of the gods
  • Describing the emerald light of candle through canvas as “magical” also sets up the magical phenomenon about to occur in that tent...but of course, this magic doesn’t belong to Renly like the tent does, and indeed will kill him
  • That’s another reason for George to describe the green light as clashing with the Rainbow Guard’s armor. Renly thinks that magical light belongs to him, but it’s about to turn against him and his summer knights. Winter has come, for them
  • It also made me think about the green light in Great Gatsby, standing in for romance and happiness forever just out of reach. That’s Renly and his peach for Stannis; that’s what the memory of Renly will be for Loras and Brienne
  • The imagery continues inside the tent. George describes Renly’s green armor as being like a forest, with the gold highlights looking like distant fires in that wood
  • It’s as if the imagery outside has carried over to the inside; those distant fires are the torches in Stannis’ camp, and the shadows they cast are coming for Renly
  • Not only will his armor fail to save him, it foreshadows his death, as if his death is coming from inside him. The call is coming from inside the house
  • Even as you can go through each specific image in this passage and talk about what they mean, though, it’s important to consider them together as a whole
  • Taken together, what these images do is establish a strong visual presence in our mind. Just like how Catelyn was metaphorically watching a movie in the sept, George is relying on a cinematic use of color to ground us in the scene
  • George knows that if we are watching this scene unfold in our mind’s eye, not just reading it but seeing it, the shadowbaby’s arrival will be all the more effective
  • After all, the shadowbaby attack is all visual. The audience needs to see it unfold just as Catelyn does for it to stick with us, and we’re more likely to be able to picture it now that George has done all this work grounding us in the imagery
  • It’s an important lesson for a writer to learn. When you have a big signature moment, you need to prime the audience for it. Ground them in the visuals, the tone, and your big moment will land so much more than it would’ve in isolation
  • George lets the silence of Catelyn at the sept, gloom of the early morning, the sickening look of how the green colors play against the rainbow knights direct readers towards the feeling that something big is coming …
  • … While then also making us feel that nothing could possibly happen. 
  • Just look at the big army that Renly has around him, he has rainbow knights standing right outside the tent.
  • Inside, he’s got two of the greatest lords of Westeros in there.
  • And then there’s Brienne in the tent too, and we saw her win at the melee at Bitterbridge
  • And Renly himself is armored to the fucking teeth, literally!
  • George spends a ton of time describing how every breastplate, gauntlet, helmet and piece of armor is attached to Renly. 
  • He’s an armored tank surrounded by other armored tanks.
  • But that sinking feeling that George imbues into the scene, the silence, the unease: that’s how you do a twist. 
  • Catelyn enters the tent to find Brienne armoring Renly for battle...a battle that won’t happen, and the armor won’t protect him, because as the light indicates, we’re in the domain of magic now. Magic cares not for armor or large armies
  • But for the moment, Renly is going over strategy with his most experienced and cunning lords: Mathis Rowan and Randyll Tarly
  • Tarly is the military mind, Rowan seems to be the political one. We see that in how he glances carefully at Catelyn before continuing. Can she be trusted?
  • Rowan is encouraging Renly to attack before dawn. Of course he is! Hasn’t that been this whole campaign, the lords of the Reach using Renly as a vessel, a Rorschach blot, a shadow on the wall, to grab as much power as they can?
  • Renly shoots back that this would be unchivalrous, and he doesn’t want his reputation to suffer. This perfectly captures Renly’s strengths and weaknesses
  • On the one hand, he’s always got an eye toward the audience, thinking about his image, because it’s the source of his power. He’s a very good politician!
  • On the other, Renly didn’t seem to give a damn about respecting Stannis and doing the right thing when it came to claiming the crown itself
  • Same goes for his command that Stannis’ corpse be respected. That’s nice and all, but you’re still only killing him to silence the truth and cement your own power
  • Renly makes minor concessions to honor in the context of a deeply dishonorable campaign. It’s also how the Tyrells work; he learned it from watching them
  • It’s like how he clearly intends to revert to the strict primogeniture system after shattering it in his own case. Renly wants to get past how he’s coming to power; he wants to be able to tell himself he’s being chivalrous even as he kills Stannis
  • Catelyn is here to prevent him from just moving past all of this. After her spiritual journey in the sept, she has come to stand up for the truth
  • Renly is busy ignoring the advice of Randyll Tarly, his best general, and prepares to send the unexperienced Loras Tyrell into the teeth of the rising sun. As such, he might not even be able to kill Stannis after all, honorably or otherwise!
  • How ironic that Renly, repeatedly associated with the sun, fails to respect its power. That perfectly sums up his superficiality, how he refuses to take power seriously even as he accumulates more of it than any of the other kings
  • We’re also seeing why it’s so crucial the role Jon Arryn and Ned Stark played in moderating Robert’s hot-headedness.
  • Jon Arryn provided the stable hand of governance of Westeros while Catelyn notes that Ned would have counseled Renly not to make the headlong rush to Storm’s End.
  • But no disrespect to Mathis Rowan who seems like an okay person for a lord and every disrespect to Randyll Tarly, they’re not Jon Arryn and Ned Stark respectively.
  • But even if they were made of the same stuff that Jon Arryn and Ned Starks were in their leadership abilities, they’d still be on Renly’s side for ignoble reasons.
  • They’re two men who have thrown in their lot with Renly for, as Stannis correctly notes in Davos II, no better reason than dreams of power and glory.
  • And that type of mentality has its impacts on leaders. 
  • At a core level, Ned Stark and Jon Arryn supported Robert because of the injustice and murder perpetuated by Aerys II Targaryen.
  • They came into the war with a righteous casus belli on their side.
  • They, or at least Ned, left not feeling nearly so justified in rebelling as when he started.
  • But that’s such a contrast to Randyll Tarly and Mathis Rowan.
  • These guys were first Targayen loyalists, then ostensibly loyal to Robert, now Renly, later Joffrey and Tommen and will probably end up on Young Grift’s side in TWOW.
  • Their loyalty is to their own self-interest, and so long as what the king says or does, doesn’t interfere with that, they’re not going to object (though Mathis might look fit to gag at such orders -- basically, Barristan Selmy in lordly form)
  • When the order is given, they’re the shut up and color types, seeing only the endstate rather than the road littered with the corpses of the knights of summer.
  • Right after that, though, there is an important exchange about Stannis that in my opinion comes the closest to a real justification for Renly’s coup
  • Tarly asks what happens if Stannis yields. Rowan laughs at that, reminding Tarly that Stannis ate rats when he was the one holding Storm’s End against them. He’ll break before he bends; as Asha says, he’ll never turn back from his course
  • On one hand, this elevates Stannis above a world dominated by corruption and indulgence. Rowan seems to have some grudging admiration for Stannis’ resilience, and I think the readers are supposed to share that admiration…
  • ...to a certain extent. Because then Renly chimes in with his own memories of the siege of Storm’s End, and in the process, explains his attitude towards big bro
  • As I said in our Catelyn III episodes, one of the reasons Stannis is so furious at Renly is that he starved in part to keep Renly out of the hands of the Mad King
  • Stannis never got those calories back; it’s why he’s so skinny compared to his brothers. And now here comes Renly with his feasts, stealing Stannis’ crown, ignoring the sacrifice that was made for him. I do sympathize with Stannis there
  • But as in Catelyn III, we have to consider how this looks from Renly’s perspective. And from Renly’s perspective, Stannis is the punisher, not the savior
  • Stannis was the man who strapped down their master-at-arms, a man Renly had known and presumably liked for his whole young life, and prepared to catapult him off the walls of Storm’s End. Renly can’t forget the man’s eyes. Horrifying!
  • This is the same heinous shit Joffrey will pull at the Battle of Blackwater: catapulting Stannis loyalists into the middle of the battle, where they explode
  • Of course, Stannis isn’t a cackling sadist like Joffrey or the Mad King. As Davos thinks to himself in ASOS, there had been no anger in Stannis when he cut off Davos’ fingers, only “an iron sense of justice.” Stannis isn’t a monster, but a well-intentioned man committed to a worldview that is irreconcilable with reality
  • Does that matter to the victims, though? Would Ser Gawen Wylde have suffered any less from his catapulting because his killer was trying to do the right thing? There is no creature on earth half so terrifying as a truly just man, after all…
  • Stannis only holds back because Cressen tells him they might have to eat those men if the siege continues. So he only avoids one atrocity by preserving the opportunity to commit another one; same deal with Davos saving Edric Storm’s life but failing to convince Stannis that sacrificing innocents is unacceptable
  • It’s galling to come back after ADWD and realize what a hypocrite Stannis is on the subject of cannibalism. During the Siege of Storm’s End, cannibalism was a prospect he was actively considering, enough to influence his decision making
  • But when the Peasebury men do it on the march to Winterfell, that’s over the line and they have to burn? Even though the men they ate were already dead?
  • It’s definitely hypocrisy! But as always with the Stan-man, it’s hypocrisy with pragmatic purpose
  • Don’t fling Gawen over the walls, we might need to put meat back on the menu
  • Don’t do cannibalism in ADWD or this army will cease to be.
  • I totally get George’s intent is to show Stannis as a hypocrite, that a just man can act unjustly.
  • But I like that George makes Stannis’ hypocrisy a pragmatic, greater good sort rather than a purely self-interested one.
  • The problem, as ever for Stannis, is that no one can see past the dark lord vibes he’s putting out (because he never or rarely explains himself!)
  • Stannis may see himself as a font of justice in an unjust world. That’s how Cressen and Davos see him, too, and they have reason to see him that way
  • But that’s not how Renly sees him. For Renly, Stannis is forever associated with the look of horror in Gawen Wylde’s eyes and the memory of him dying in his cell
  • The Tyrells, his future in-laws, are the ones who fed him after the siege ended. We can sputter and shout and point out that the Tyrells are the ones who denied him food in the first place, but that doesn’t change the effectiveness of it
  • The same pattern persists after the Blackwater. The people of King’s Landing embrace the Tyrells for delivering food, even though it was the Tyrells cutting off supplies to the capital that led to mass starvation in the first place
  • It works. Politically, it works. We don’t have to like it, but it does. “Bread and circuses” is a cliched phrase for a reason
  • This is why Renly doesn’t think of his actions as crossing the line. To him, Stannis crossed the line into inhumanity long ago. He’s the boogeyman from Renly’s childhood, and so Renly thinks the realm will suffer with Stannis as King
  • I don’t adhere to Renly’s logic, but I do understand it. I don’t think this makes him a good king, but I do appreciate why he thinks Stannis would be a bad one
  • And Stannis would be a bad king here in ACOK and maybe a bad one by the time we finish ADWD
  • But there’s a real distinction between Renly and Stannis and how they reflect on their actions.
  • As we’ll see in Davos II, Stannis has given a lot of thought to his hypocritical pardons of these southron lords. Stannis is wholly introspective to a fault — again, rarely communicating his reasons, forcing readers to infer or theorize on them.
  • But Renly’s lack of introspection kind-of bothers me.
  • No, it really bothers me.
  • He starves an entire city and doesn’t expend so much as a wink thinking about the city, or hell, even empathizing with those suffering from his direct action.
  • Hell, I’d even take Renly reflecting on his own backstory as someone who suffered the same fate as kingslanders are currently experiencing.
  • Is he unaware? I doubt it. Renly is quite intelligent.
  • Instead, I think he never talks this piece, because he knows he has to shroud his campaign in chivalrous optics, and he has something like plausible deniability.
  • Plus, any reminders of Storm’s End that don’t paint Stannis as a dark lord are damaging to the optics of Renly’s cause. 
    • You’re trying to kill the guy who starved to save your life?
  • The lords depart, and Renly grants Catelyn an opportunity to make her case for peace...even as Brienne continues to armor him in splendor, hinting it’s too late
  • Catelyn lays out the narrative that has emerged clear in her head, putting all the bits and pieces together into a single explanation of what has happened to power in Westeros. She has seen what is casting the shadow on the wall
  • The opening moves at Winterfell in book one return to prominence. The first big twist of the story, Bran’s fall, takes center stage as the key moment in determining not only what’s happened to Westeros, but what happens now
  • All of ASOIAF so far is collapsed into this single moment. Catelyn puts forward a proposal that could bring about peace in the name of truth: a Great Council
  • Let’s stop the war! Let’s put down our crowns and swords and talk honestly about what has happened to our country. Let us put innocence despoiled, the injuries inflicted on children by the game of thrones, at the center of the conversation
  • Let us offer a clear coherent objection to the source of our ills. As Davos says in ADWD, they are all suffering because the Lannisters stole the throne
  • Of course, there’s a whole lot wrong with Westeros beyond that. As we saw with Chiswyck’s story, there was a whole lot wrong with Westeros united and at peace
  • But the war makes everything worse, and it’s very difficult to make anything better as long as the war continues. Catelyn is doing the right thing, committing herself to sacrificing Robb’s pride on behalf of the restoration of peace and truth
  • There’s room for debate on how realistic this is. We’ll talk about the ambiguous precedent set by previous Great Councils later, but in isolation, Catelyn’s proposal relies on Stannis setting down his crown, which he won’t. It’s also not guaranteed that she could persuade Robb into accepting the Council’s authority
  • I do wonder whether there’s a Jon Snow putting aside his kingship to save the kingdom vibe foreshadowing at work in this chapter.
  • We saw in Season 7 of the Emmy-award winning show known as Game of Thrones that Jon did what Robb probably couldn’t do and what Renly and Stannis absolutely refuse to do.
  • The point, however, is that this is the last chance to unite against the largest threat, just like Westeros still has a chance to stand together against the Others
  • If Renly really was the Good King, he would set his crown aside at this moment (like Aemon, or Jon in the show), embrace the truth and the chance for peace
  • Doing so wouldn’t even be that much of a sacrifice on his part, because the odds are good he would triumph at that council and pick his crown right back up again!
  • Renly is likable, Stannis is not. Renly already has the Reach and Stormland votes at said Council in his back pocket. Stannis has no allies, no friends
  • Renly would likely emerge as the sole legitimate king for every faction other than the Lannisters, and then probably defeat the Lannisters with ease
  • If he did that, Renly would indeed be the rightful king in my opinion, and if Stannis continued to resist him after that, he would be an unambiguous villain
  • Absolutely! Imagine the heroic, chivalric optics that would practically lift Renly onto the Iron Throne.
  • One man selflessly places the crown aside to right the wrongs of the kingdom.
  • It’s a golden opportunity to win yet more of Westeros to his side without lifting a single sword -- which is kind-of what he was trying to do through the end of Catelyn II.
  • So, it’s not even doing the right thing. It’s doing the smart thing.
  • Like Melisandre at the parlay in Catelyn III, Catelyn is giving Renly one last chance to repent and do the right thing. And just like the parlay, Renly refuses. In fact, he laughs in her face, because Renly takes nothing seriously, to the end
  • Even a slight risk to his power is unacceptable. In Renly’s mind, force offers a guarantee of victory, so he commits to stripping society down to brute force
  • Renly asks Catelyn if direwolves vote on who leads the pack. And no, they don’t, but we’re not direwolves! We’re humans! We left the state of nature long ago!
  • Philosophers like Rousseau venerate the state of nature, arguing that humanity’s inherent nature is good, which is then distorted and corrupted by all the systems and institutions we heap upon our shoulders
  • But the cynical flipside of that is that our systems and institutions separate us from jungle law, from pure survival of the fittest. Is Renly a social Darwinist?
  • “The time for talk is done.” Why? Because Renly says so? Because diplomacy is cancelled the second it might be inconvenient for the self-declared best king?
  • “Now we see who is stronger.” This is the single most crucial line of dialogue delivered by Renly Baratheon, exposing the rot behind the glittering surface
  • As in Goodfellas, your killer has come with a smile, pretending to be your friend. The court jester has promoted himself violently to king, laughing all the while
  • As Sandor tells the Brotherhood: maybe the sword’s prettier with ribbons hanging off it, but it will kill you just as dead. By the same token that Stannis’ sense of justice doesn’t comfort his victims, the atmosphere of wine and roses surrounding Renly doesn’t erase the blood he’s happy to have on his hands
  • Now we see who is stronger. The game of thrones has stripped down every bond we might have with one another, national and personal alike. You win or you die.
  • I loved what you were saying earlier about how Renly saw Stannis as a monster in his youth and how that colors his impression of his brother to this day.
  • And while I absolutely think that Renly exposes himself as the real monster just before the shadowbaby rolls in, I do see kind-of where Renly is coming from.
  • Renly has built Stannis up to be Sauron, and you cannot negotiate with dark lords. They will only bind and enslave you to their will.
  • Now, Stannis is objectively NOT Sauron in temperament and action. He’s a rather gray man who can negotiate and flexible.
  • But, in Renly’s mind, he did his part in “good faith” (which, absolutely, it was not) to talk.
  • Now, they see who’s stronger.
  • Hey wait. Does Donal Noye clue us in on this?
    • Stannis is pure iron, black and hard and strong,

Foreshadowing/Groundwork

Once again, George reminds us in this chapter that Barristan Selmy appears to have dropped off the face of the earth. If he’s not with Robb...or Renly...or Stannis...where could he be? He’s with the Greyjoys, of course! But seriously, he’s headed for Dany. Renly is right that Barristan needs a monarch to guard, but he never considers that said monarch might be a Targaryen.

Sansa will pray to the Seven and shiver at the sight of the Stranger before the Blackwater, just like Catelyn does before Renly’s death. This is just one of many moments in common between mother and daughter, and it cements the idea that Stannis is the Stranger given flesh. 

Catelyn wonders if the old gods ever talked to Ned, and we see this in ADWD when Bran speaks the word “Winterfell” through the heart tree, and Ned whirls around wondering who was there. I imagine we’ll see more of that come TWOW!

“We will send to Winterfell, so Bran may tell his tale and all men may know the Lannisters for the true usurpers. Let the assembled lords of the Seven Kingdoms choose who shall rule them.”

Is that King Bran foreshadowing? Called down from Winterfell to tell his story and be chosen to rule by the assembled lords of the Seven Kingdoms?

Theory/Discussion

We did a military AU last week, let’s do a political one this week! How would Catelyn’s hypothetical Great Council have gone? What can we learn from previous Great Councils?

Council of 101

• Male agnatic primogeniture becomes law of Westeros

Council of 136

• New small council selected by lords

Council of 233

• Blackfyre claim rudely rejected, Aegon the Unlikely becomes King.

Conclusion

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• Join us next week as we...stay right here at Storm’s End for the second half of Catelyn IV, in which King Terrorist Renly Baratheon is righteously vaporized by drone strike.