Episode 106: A CLASH OF KINGS, CATELYN III: "Brother Love, Part 1" SHOW NOTES!

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 sixth episode of the Not A Cast, titled: “Brotherly Love, Part 1: An Analysis of ACOK, Catelyn III,” in which Catelyn arrives at the mighty fortress of Storm’s End hoping to make peace between the Baratheon brothers, but the signs, they aren’t good. 

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
• And our newest member of the small council
  • Lord Peter
• 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

Ser Jon of the Misty Isle, a Sworn Sword patron asks:

Hi,

I have a question for the upcoming Catelyn episodes:

Why did Renly not support Stannis's claim to the throne? Before Jeff says it is because he is a traitor and a terrorist (which of course he is) hear me out! To me the logical move on Renly's part would be to put his weight behind the incest claim, back Stannis and once he takes the Iron Throne have him murdered and let Renly take the throne as the legitimate heir. Given that Renly is backed by plotters like Littlefinger and the Tyrells this seems like a normal move on their part. Is there a good story reason for this or simply that a combined army of the Reach and Stormlands led by Stannis would be too powerful and end up with the Lannisters wiped out by the end of ACOK?

So, thank you Ser Jon for the question. If you’d like to ask us questions we’ll answer here on the NotACast podcast, you are welcome to become a Sworn Sword or higher patron at patreon.com/NotACastASOIAF where you can find show notes, patreon posts and bonus episodes!

Speaking of bonus episodes, our next patreon-only bonus episode: “Snowmen”: our in-depth analysis of the Grand Northern Conspiracy is out now if you’re listening on the release date or coming out this week if you’re watching the livestream! So, come on over to patreon.com/NotACastASOIAF to find that and 25 other bonus episodes!

That episode was a lot of fun. Thank you for our patrons for voting on it, and if the episode you voted for wasn’t picked, stay tuned! But enough about patreon. When we last checked in with Catelyn, she had arrived at Bitterbridge to find King (ugh) Renly and his massive army partying away as Westeros burns around them. But King Stannis had interrupted Renly’s fancy feast by besieging Storm’s End. Let’s find out what happens next in this synopsis of ACOK, Catelyn III!

Synopsis

The meeting place was a grassy sward dotted with pale grey mushrooms and the raw stumps of felled trees.

Catelyn, Hallis Mollen and Ser Wendel Manderly are the first to arrive at the meeting ground between the two armies. Hallis holds the direwolf sigil above his head as the smell of salt fills the air around them. Catelyn takes note of her surroundings and sees that Stannis Baratheon’s foragers had cut down a grove of trees for their siege engines. She wonders if Ned came to this grove back when he marched on Storm’s End to lift the siege at the end of Robert’s Rebellion. That battle was bloodless as the Tyrells and their vassals surrendered rather than fight.

Gods grant that I shall do the same, Catelyn prayed.

None of her men wanted her to come to the parlay, thinking that it was too much of a risk, but Catelyn wasn’t about to let some scaredy cat bros tell her that she was at risk. Everyone was at risk, you spaghetti spines.

Catelyn looks up to Storm’s End, sees the massive walls and then looks down and sees Stannis Baratheon’s much small army encamped around the castle. And this leads Catelyn to serve as the instrument of GRRM’s famous worldbuilding — this time about Storm’s End: Back in the day, Storm’s End was originally built by Durran, the first Storm King who loved Elenei, daughter of the sea god and goddess of wind. They fucked, and she became mortal. Her totally lame parents sent storms against Storm’s End as a result. And Elenei sheltered Durran. Then, #teen Durran, a super badass rebel who probably had his own car, declared war against the gods and rebuilt Storm’s End … five more times. And Elenei’s parents kept fucking shit up and knocking over the castle. It was only during the seventh construction of Storm’s End that Durran built a successful Storm’s End with an assist from Bran the Builder.

No matter how the tale was told, the end was the same. Though the angry gods threw storm after storm against it, the seventh castle stood defiant, and Durran Godsgrief and fair Elenei dwelt there together until the end of their days. Gods do not forget, and still the gales came raging up the narrow sea. Yet Storm’s End endured, through centuries and tens of centuries, a castle like no other. 

Storm’s End’s walls were a hundred feet high with the stones smooth with no crevices. And the walls were thicc: forty feet thick at their narrowest and eighty feet thick towards the sea. And there was only one tower: the sea drum tower. And it looked like an upthrust fist punching towards the gods above.

But then Hal Mollen points out that two riders were a-approachin’, and the wind off Shipbreaker Bay began to howllll:

“That will be King Stannis.” Catelyn watched them come. Stannis it must be, yet that is not the Baratheon banner. It was a bright yellow, not the rich gold of Renly’s standards, and the device it bore was red, though she could not make out its shape. 

Renly, little terrorist shit that he is, has already decided to be the last one to arrive. It was a game that kings played. Or Renly. Just Renly. But Catelyn ain’t playing games here. She knew how to be patient and wait.

Stannis wears a crown of red gold fashioned into points of fire at the top, and he wears some jewelry, but the rest of his clothing was somber, plain. But as Stannis approaches, Catelyn sees his banner and finds it to be a red heart surrounded by a blaze of orange fire with the stag small in the middle. And he had a companion with him: a red priestess, and Catelyn finds that bizarre given how few followers of R’hllor were in Westeros.

“Lady Stark.”

“Lord Stannis.” 

Wait! Whose voice is that!? Oh. Hi Chloe. I mean, HIIII. So, we wanted to do something a little special today and next week. So, sit back and enjoy this production of the Storm’s End parlay featuring Chloe playing Catelyn and Melisandre and next week Emmett playing Renly and me, playing synopsizer, narrator and of course, Stannis Baratheon (I wore the shirt. I get to play him!) 

Beneath the tight-trimmed beard his heavy jaw clenched hard, yet he did not hector her about titles. For that she was duly grateful. 

"I had not thought to find you at Storm's End."

"I had not thought to be here."

His deep set eyes regarded her uncomfortably. This was not a man made for easy courtesies. 

"I am sorry for your lord's death, though Eddard Stark was no friend to me."

"He was never your enemy, my lord. When the Lords Tyrell and Redwyne held you prisoner in that castle, starving, it was Eddard Stark who broke the siege."

"At my brother's command, not for love of me. Lord Eddard did his duty, I will not deny it. Did I ever do less? I should have been Robert's Hand."

"That was your brother's will. Ned never wanted it."

"Yet he took it. That which should have been mine. Still, I give you my word, you shall have justice for his murder."

Catelyn muses that the men who would be kings love to promise heads, and she says as much to Stannis, commenting that Renly said the same. The Lannisters still hold Sansa, and there was no word about Arya since Ned’s death. So, Stannis promises to return Cat’s daughters to her … alive or dead, his tone implied.

Still, Catelyn is a little surprised to find Stannis here at Storm’s End instead of back at Dragonstone or attacking King’s Landing. So, why is he here?

"You are frank, Lady Stark. Very well, I'll answer you frankly. To take the city, I need the power of these southron lords I see across the field. My brother has them. I must needs take them from him."

"Men give their allegiance where they will, my lord. These lords swore fealty to Robert and House Baratheon. If you and your brother were to put aside your quarrel-"

"I have no quarrel with Renly, should he prove dutiful. I am his elder, and his king. I want only what is mine by rights. Renly owes me loyalty and obedience. I mean to have it. From him, and from these other lords." Stannis studied her face. "And what cause brings you to this field, my lady? Has House Stark cast its lot with my brother, is that the way of it?"

This one will never bend, she thought, yet she must try nonetheless. Too much was at stake. "My son reigns as King in the North, by the will of our lords and people. He bends the knee to no man, but holds out the hand of friendship to all."

"Kings have no friends, only subjects and enemies."

And that is the non-Renly half of ACOK, Catelyn III! Thank you so much to Chloe for jumping in and being our Catelyn this week and next week too! But what a start to one of the best chapters in ASOIAF! And we didn’t even get into the Stannis/Renly parlay! What did you think of this chapter, Emmett?

Depth

I kinda feel like the entire podcast has been a prologue up to this point! So what makes this chapter so special? I was thinking on reread about what we as readers bring to the table, and how ASOIAF has attracted readers willing to give it radically different levels of attention. These are bestsellers, so plenty of people read them in passing and put them down without a thought. Other people come to them from the show. Other people come to them from the intense book fandom. Now, we might wanna say that you should write what you feel and try to gather an audience around that, rather than having a specific audience motivate your writing. But realistically, a working writer writes with an audience in mind; George has worked in television, he knows the deal. The Holy Grail is appealing equally to casual and rabid readers, and that’s what George achieves with ACOK Catelyn III. 

You can look at this chapter as a trenchant, philosophical examination of political systems in moments of crisis, captured in the standoff between rivals who represent different schools of thought on what it means to be a king. Or you can look at this chapter as a total farce: two crowned manchildren squabbling over their toys while the kingdom burns in the background and our maternal POV resists the urge to send them both to bed without supper. It’s a masterpiece either way! What an accomplishment that is, to succeed on such different levels of storytelling and so deliver a rewarding experience to both people taking all this seriously and people not taking it seriously at all. ACOK Catelyn III is like a perfect diamond, glowing from every facet.

I recently rewatched one of the most beloved movies of all time, The Rules of the Game. It’s a perfectly executed farce, people of all social stations chasing each other around a beautiful countryside chateau. But it gets emotionally heavier as it goes along, concluding in a murder, and it carries so much more weight when you know the backstory behind it. The director wanted to show a society on the brink of destruction in World War II, which was on the horizon as the film was being made. He described the movie as people dancing around the edge of an active volcano; a critic described it as a music box in a mass grave. I think ACOK Catelyn III achieves that exact same balance between satire and tragedy. It puts me in mind of the most famous quote from Rules of the Game: “The awful thing about life is that everyone has their reasons.”

Catelyn III is George at his political best: doing politics and character work that gets at the heart of the story he’s trying to tell. And then Catelyn IV is George at his magical best: showing us that our clashing kings cannot stand against a partially-operational magic force. And then we get the debates, and I’m not referring to Stannis and Renly bickering. I’m talkin’ about the fans. Boy, do we get the debates on these chapters: political and magical. And you know that George struck literary gold, because of how it animates the passions of readers in 2020: a full 22 years after it was published in ACOK.

And that leads me to talk about my disappointment with the show. Look, I already know. Beating a dead horse. But let’s just get this out of the way now!

So, briefly: have you ever watched a movie based on a beloved written franchise, and it tries really hard to get the atmospherics correct, does amazing work with the costuming and casting, and hell even borrows most of its dialogue from the source text and yet still completely misses the point? Well, that’s what I feel about Zack Snyder’s 2009 film Watchmen … (beat) I mean, the adaptation of this scene in Game of Thrones, Season Two. Boy, this scene. So much is spot-on. The dialogue is 95% from Catelyn III. And yet … there are some significant edits that shade Stannis entirely as a villain and Renly as the noble hero. And we get a possible answer why this is the case in the “Inside the Episode” featurette which has showrunner Dan Weiss declaring that “Stannis would make a terrible king” and “Renly has a somewhat more practical, enlightened view of what it means to rule, and that he would be an unquestionably better ruler than Stannis.”

We’ll talk about this more about Book!Renly vs Show!Renly in our patreon episode later in the month of April (which we’ll be live streaming!), but consider this my opening salvo on the topic. 

On a more understandable level, Game of Thrones ended up excising most of the worldbuilding and lore surrounding Storm’s End to save on time for S02E04. But that ain’t the tact George takes as he opens ACOK, Catelyn III!

• Introduction to Storm’s End
  • Catelyn III is not set in the castle of Storm’s End itself, of course. It’s set a little ways outside, in what the opening words of the chapter call “the meeting place” 
  • It’s a perfect stage with Storm’s End conveniently in the background, an isolated flat plot of land created for the kings to strut upon with their shadows on the wall 
  • Of course, it didn’t always look like this. Only days prior, they would’ve been in the middle of the woods, the castle would barely be visible; not nearly as striking!
  • But now Stannis has cut down the trees to make war on his own brother, his own family home, and that sets the tone for this chapter perfectly
  • While the showdown between Renly and Stannis is rooted, word for word, in their established characterizations and backstories, it also stands in for so much more
  • As is often the case in the standout scenes of ASOIAF, we are seeing the most intimate articulation of a pattern we can find all over the story and backstory
  • Like Theon in Winterfell or Jon Connington elsewhere in the Stormlands, Stannis is both homecomer and invader. He’s both rightful heir and foreign conqueror
  • He officially belongs here, but it doesn’t feel like he does...which is a precise inverse of Renly, who shouldn’t be in charge here, but is and feels like it
  • Stannis cutting down the trees for his war machines in part speaks to his specific story, how he converts the life within him into fury; everything is fuel for the fire
  • But it also makes me think about the Andals’ war on the weirwoods, chopping them down and burning them, as Stannis will burn the Storm’s End godswood
  • Stannis’ campaign also echoes that of Aegon the Conqueror. He, too, was Lord of Dragonstone, sent out a bunch of letters declaring himself the king of all Westeros, squared off first against the Lord of Storm’s End, and relied not on a large army but on a magical black shadow--in Aegon’s case, it was his dragon
  • So on one hand, Stannis is presenting himself as the rightful heir to Westeros, and to Storm’s End for that matter. On the other, with Melisandre at his side and their new banner flying overhead, he represents the latest in a series of waves from the east crashing over mainland Westeros
  • You capture the foreignness of Stannis and connection to Aegon the Conqueror so well! 
  • To add a few more aspects to it:
    • On the personal side, Aegon landed with his two sister-wife queens. Stannis, also, has two wives in the form of Selyse and Melisandre
    • Selyse is Stannis’ legal wife and mother to his daughter Shireen, but Stannis’ relationship to her is frosty at best (Aegon-Visenya parallels, people)
    • But it’s different between Stannis and Melisandre.
    • As Jon will later note: Lady Melisandre wore no crown, but every man there knew that she was Stannis Baratheon's real queen, not the homely woman he had left to shiver at Eastwatch-by-the-Sea.  (Aegon and Rhaenys, people)
    • Then we have similarities to the size of the armies that Aegon and Stannis have.
    • TWOIAF notes that Aegon may have had 3000 when he landed at the mouth of the Blackwater, and Renly will later claim that Stannis has maybe 5000 if he’s being generous.
    • And Stannis’ army is of similar composition to Aegon’s: sellswords, sellsails, the sweepings of the Narrow Sea.
  • The contrast, as we talked about in the Prologue and Davos I, is that while Stannis justified legally, perhaps even morally, he’s being fueled creatively as an artist by his anger against a lifetime of real and perceived slights committed against him by his family. Aegon continues to be, and will likely remain, an emotional cipher.
  • But Stannis is willing to burn the land around his ancestral home to the ground, because he’s hurting on the inside. 
  • Yes, yes. As we’ll talk about in the second part of our analysis of ACOK, Catelyn III, there are tactical reasons for Stannis to be cutting down the trees, but that is likely not what is driving him at an emotional level.
  • To paraphrase Tacitus, Stannis will make a desert and call it his kingdom, because he’s prioritized the crown as a bandaid to cover up his emotional wounds.
  • And this is why it’s so important that come ASOS, Stannis will have a change of priorities and put the defense of the realm ahead of his crown -- though as we’ll talk about in a few years when we get to ADWD: so much of that remains wrapped up in trying to be better than Robert as his men constantly compare him to Robert behind his back.
  • But for now, Stannis will have to make do with the spitting image of Robert arrived at Storm’s End, and similar to what GRRM is doing with Stannis, George has embedded a ton of archetypal worldbuilding framework in Renly.
  • Same deal with Renly. In personal terms, he’s the young upstart usurper. But in this larger framework, he represents the First Men vis a vis the Andals, and then the Andals vis a vis the Targaryens. He’s the old being swept away by the new
  • Renly is repeatedly associated with flowers, forests, the color green...you could even say he’s the Children of the Forest being swept away by the First Men
  • These associations lend gravitas to this showdown; they enhance the sense that so much of the story is orbiting around this scene. Time is a wheel, as they say…
  • But everything I’m talking about here is also relevant to the introduction of Storm’s End, which gets a chunk of Catelyn III to itself before the kings show up
  • The story of Storm’s End is the story of ACOK: the damage done when mortal men, thinking their crowns make them immortal, climb the fiery ladder
  • The forbidden love of Durran and Elenei echoes everything from Greek myths to the Silmarillion; it’s all about how power inflates emotions to disastrous levels
  • Because Elenei is divine, her parents have the power to express their grief by sending a series of storms that kill, maim, and impoverish Durran’s people
  • And because Durran is a king, he has the power to keep rebuilding in the same damn place anyway (here, the reference point feels more like Monty Python)
  • These two forms of power, the political and the magical forces we’ve been talking about in ACOK, batter each other again and again while the people suffer for it
  • There is nominally a happy ending here, as Durran reaches the lucky number seven and Bran the Builder shows up to help him build a castle that will last
  • That links Storm’s End to the Wall...but just as the Wall will fall to the winds of winter as blown by Euron, who declares himself to be the storm, Storm’s End will very shortly prove vulnerable to penetration by Davos and Melisandre
  • Having the largest army, the strongest castle and still losing is one of those literary tropes that George uses to lull readers into a false sense of security
  • When we encounter the castle in ACOK, Catelyn III, Storm’s End feels impregnable.
  • A hundred-foot high and forty to eight thick wall is monstrously large and major overkill if the intent is defense against any attack by land, sea or wind.
  • Having those Arya Harrenhal chapters fresh in mind, I got a real Harrenhal-esque vibe from the legendary founding of Storm’s End and how the castle stands now.
  • We don’t get those same awful details of Harren the Black enslaving the Riverlands to build his castle, but, like, who were the laborers again who did seven versions of this castle? You think they were there, because they were patriotic volunteers or a contracted workforce?
  • Probably not! But like many legends and songs in Westeros and the real-world, the darker aspects of the story were airbrushed out.
    • Singers have to eat, man. You think any singers want to write songs that indict the legendary progenitors of the most powerful houses in Westeros in enslaving the smallfolk? Again, probably not!
  • But Harrenhal exists in the more recent past, and maesters wrote histories of the castle, its construction and its destruction.
  • And Harren the Black was a vanquished lord of a hated line of Ironborn kings.
  • So, singers and maesters can take the piss out of Harren the Black, but they’re not going to be writing an Irish ballad about Pate the Builder who fell to his death while sanding down the sea-facing wall of Storm’s End.
  • So is this really a happy ending? Was it worth all that defiance? You can ask the same questions about Stannis...but also Cortnay Penrose on Team Renly
  • Is Stannis the stubborn man under siege, or is he the storm sweeping off the sea like the Andals and Targaryens before him? He’s both, which fits his duality
  • As I’ve been saying throughout ACOK, the book presents Renly and Stannis as perfectly matched opposites destined to come into fatal conflict
  • Renly starts in the Reach, the land of fairytales and flowers, with his Disney princess bride laughing and charming everyone
  • Stannis starts on Dragonstone, a volcano covered in gargoyles, with the wife he transparently hates urging him on to sorcery and kinslaying
  • The Stormlands are where they meet, and that’s reflected in the environment: it feels like a combination of the two
  • On the one hand, the Stormlands are frequently associated and allied with the Reach, from their Marcher wars against the Dornish to Renly’s campaign to their likely mutual support for Young Grift, aka Renly 2.0
  • On the other, they’re not nearly as wealthy or powerful; the geography is meaner and more weathered in a way that seems linked to the storms, as if a curse. Storm’s End is also linked to the Targaryens through the Baratheon bloodline
  • This connects our setting for this chapter to Dragonstone as much as the Reach. It’s as if Stannis and Renly brought their aesthetics with them, and they blurred 
  • That’s fitting because this is a homecoming for both of them. Storm’s End is the cradle of their birth, the source of their original grievance; it ought to reflect both
  • This is where the Baratheon brothers ought to be together, but the backstory of Storm’s End ultimately communicates why they won’t be
  • The defining trait of the Storm Kings established here is stubbornness, and both Renly and Stannis inherited it via Orys and Argella
  • Durran wouldn’t give into the gods, and Renly and Stannis won’t give in to each other, no matter what
  • And this is where GRRM shines as a writer in creating the mythos of ASOIAF.
  • There are some aspects of this legend that piqued my interest on this read.
    • First, this legend definitely predates the Faith of the Seven’s arrival, but it also maybe predates the First Men. 
    • The “sea god” and “goddess of the wind” may be an allusion to the Drowned God, and the wind and waves the godly pair send against Durran may be an allusion to the constant war fought between the storm god and the sea as Aeron Damphair talks about in AFFC.
  • But while all those mythos are cool and help give the world flavor, they’re not merely spicing this meatball. They are the vital sausage you mix in to get a complete meatball. 
    • What is this metaphor? I don’t know, but it makes sense.
  • What I’m saying is that Durran and Elenei and their war against the gods being just “cool backstory” that flavors the world to make it seem lived in, the backstory is vital to the present story
  • The gods retaliating against Durran for stealing Elenei’s immortality by knocking down Storm’s End and then Durran’s rage against the gods for taking his castle is capturing pieces of Renly and Stannis
  • Renly is Durran, waging war against the laws of gods and men which set him backwards in the line of succession. ‘Tis a fool’s law Renly will later say in challenge to Catelyn’s assertions of Stannis’ place ahead of him.
  • Stannis is also Durran: raging against the gods, burning them on the shore of Dragonstone, raising his fist to the sky at the gods.
  • And yet … he’s also the gods too, preparing to … storm Storm’s End and tear it down over the grief he feels over something or someone stolen from him/them.
  • But he’s also Elenei too — giving up his mortal life (or life force) to achieve his heart’s desire: Renly’s death.
  • There’s been an effort in recent years to get at the dark heart of fairy tales, tell it like it is, don’t Disney-fi it for us adults. 
  • And there’s plenty of value in exploring the dark horror behind fairy tales, but I like what George is doing here in ACOK, Catelyn III: he’s writing against that literary grain.
  • The fairy tales are rather lighter version of what’s occurring in this present age: an age of wonder and terror.
  • And into that age steps a woman steeped in past and future grief.
• Catelyn v. Stannis
  • Into this mess of fraternal and historical grievances walks our POV; Catelyn’s role in the proceedings here is often reduced to that of camerawoman
  • There’s some truth to that; as Steven Attewell noted in his essay on this chapter (one of his best btw), Catelyn proclaiming that only Robb is lifting a sword to defend the realm doesn’t quite square with Robb’s story, or hers for that matter
  • Their stories are far more about how their desire for family and home comes into conflict with the ideology of Northern independence. Of the Five Kings, Stannis’ story is the one that deals with the concept of duty to the whole realm
  • So maybe George just needed someone in the scene to point out that Stannis and Renly are shirking their duties, and Catelyn fills that role even if it’s OOC
  • For the most part, though, I think Catelyn’s presence in this scene is distinct and vital. It builds on the themes and moods of her previous chapters in the book, and adds important context to the intra-Baratheon feud we’re seeing unfold
  • Catelyn’s guards don’t want to be here (as with Arianne when she journeys to the Stormlands), but despite having misgivings about the mission to the south in the first place, she is determined to see it through now that she’s down here
  • Catelyn sees her mission as forcing these brothers to get along, which is so beautifully rooted in her character as a politically outspoken mother figure
  • Y’know I’m going to argue that this isn’t OOC. This is a version of Catelyn Stark in uncomfortable, unfamiliar terrain.
  • Catelyn is quite blunt with Robb Stark -- though always careful not to wounds his pride in the times that she wants to guide him towards a particular direction.
  • But we’re not in Catelyn’s familiar surroundings anymore. Winterfell is long-gone. Riverrun is a thousand plus leagues to the northwest. 
  • She’s not here to give a beloved son a piece of mom’s mind. She’s here to work as an ostensible neutral party to bring one or both of these brothers into alliance with Robb.
  • So, Catelyn adopts an observation-oriented role. She hardly knows Renly and Stannis, hasn’t seen them in years. So, she tries her best to figure out the player and the game at work.
  • This is why I said all the way back in Catelyn I that Catelyn is just as canny of a political actor as Tyrion is: she can read a fuckin’ room.
  • And Catelyn has some unique political gifts she brings to the table as a diplomat.
  • The opening shot (so to speak) of Catelyn’s story in ACOK was a closeup on her son’s new crown as he nervously adjusted its unfamiliar weight on his head
  • That established right away the central thrust of her chapters in this book: they’re all about symbols of power and the flawed frightened manchildren underneath
  • This extends beyond the kings to Edmure and Jaime upon Catelyn's return to Riverrun
  • This interrogation of shadows on a wall started with Robb in Catelyn I and continued in Catelyn II: all the layers to Renly’s presentation of himself and his army we talked about with Lady Gwyn
  • Cat brings a complex perspective to these power plays: skeptical of every move for reasons both rational and primal, informed by both intelligence and instinct
  • On the one hand, she comes closer to an objective view than the devoted partisans in both Baratheon camps. On the other, everything she sees and takes part in is filtered through her own backstory, her own grief and growing dread
  • George fits Catelyn’s character beats snugly inside the plot points like a Russian nesting doll. The sick feeling in the back of her throat rises throughout the book to match a war that’s growing wider and weirder and more out of her control
  • In her first two chapters, we went one king at a time: Catelyn I focused on Robb, Catelyn II focused on Renly. Catelyn III ramps things up by bringing two kings together for the only time in the book, but first, King Stannis gets the spotlight
  • Catelyn with her political mind at work immediately notes the cultural symbols at play in Stannis’ presentation of himself 
  • She knows that this is not merely a family reunion, though the personal grievances of the Baratheon bros often make it feel that way
  • This is an audition for power in which every detail matters, in which every choice is significant, because the world is a stage. We are not the only audience here
  • So Catelyn knows it matters that Renly, not Stannis, is flying the rich gold standard of the Baratheon crowned stag
  • And just as a reminder: as we were talking about back in Catelyn II, this was not the banner that Renly was flying at Bitterbridge.
  • There, his banner was the Baratheon sigil in Tyrell colors, but here in the Stormlands, he’s back to using the traditional Baratheon banner.
  • Renly is a chameleon, shifting the optics of his campaign to appeal to the broadest number of people. 
  • Wherever Renly goes, he’s engaging in regional tokenism. 
    • Renly’s in the Reach: he becomes the model of chivalry slowly plodding across the pastoral landscape. He relies on his wife’s family, their gold, their flowers and harvests. He merges the Baratheon sigil with his own.
    • But Stanns is at the gates at Storm’s End. So, he unfurls the traditional Baratheon banner and abandons the slow march to King’s Landing.
    • He races his cavalry from Bitterbridge to Storm’s End. He’s Robert Baratheon -- though as Catelyn notes later in the chapter, Renly is Robert without Ned.
  • The contrast to Renly is Stannis: the guy whose standard bearer holds a brand new sigil, but he can’t hide who he is or the anger and pain he feels at his family.
  • Stannis’ banner is yellow: less rich, more rageful. More to the point, the crowned stag is shrunken and on fire
  • Melisandre declares that this signifies a choice on R’hllor’s part, that the Lord of Light has blessed Stannis, and her presence as his standard bearer reflects that
  • But what Catelyn and George care about is the choices Stannis has made, and it’s telling that he has set Robert’s symbol, the symbol of his own crown, ablaze
  • This is the core contradiction of Stannis’ campaign, captured in his heraldry: he’s ostensibly doing all of this for Robert, the legacy of the crowned stag, but he’s full of unresolved rage about his relationship to Robert and the crown he wore
  • He has all but literally set his heart on fire, not because he doesn’t care about love, because it was never returned to him. It’s the essence of great tragedy!
  • That metaphorical fire within, the building head of steam Cressen glimpsed on Dragonstone, turns his victories to ash and leads him step by step to the literal fire that claims Shireen. He’s made a deal with the devil, and those backfire
  • That’s not to say that Stannis and Melisandre are symbols of pure evil so much as they are symbols of temptation, good ideals led astray
  • Stannis grasps his goals so tightly that they turn to steam between his fingers, and his fiery rage toward Robert has allowed Renly--Robert’s ghost, the Robert of his Rebellion glory days reborn--to steal the banner, the army, and the crown
  • Davos will lament this “stranger’s banner” at the Blackwater, and there’s a double meaning there: it not only makes them foreigners to a city that might welcome the return of a true Baratheon, it also evokes the Stranger, the god of death
  • That’s how Sansa describes Stannis at the Blackwater; that’s how Catelyn feels about him after Renly’s death. You can also see that concept with Renly’s Rainbow Guard rooted in Faith symbolism, or the seven castles of Storm’s End
  • Stannis has rejected the faith of his fathers, burned them on the beach where Aegon began his fiery conquest, and so transformed himself into a fearsome figure within that faith: the shadow of the gods as well as the shadow of a crown
  • Some more bullshit about Stannis as the Stranger, because I love this idea of Stannis as the Stranger, and I think you’re spot-on.
  • This note in the wiki of ice and fire: Worshippers rarely seek favor from the Stranger, but outcasts sometimes associate themselves with this aspect of god.
    • Holy shit is that Stannis or what?
  • And later in AFFC, Cersei promises to light a candle to the Stranger for ridding her of Renly. 
    • GRRM-irony is for real.
  • And then in an oft-cited line about how awesome Stannis is, we get this:
    • No sooner had the sound of the warhorn died away than a drum began to beat: BOOM doom BOOM doom BOOM doom. And a name passed from the lips of each man to the next, written in small white puffs of breath. Stannis, they whispered, Stannis is here, Stannis is come, Stannis, Stannis, Stannis.
    • Tell me that boom-doom/boom-doom is not drums in the deep, calling from the great beyond for Lord Bolton to come out and die (it’s also a callback to the Red Wedding too. Yay, just about a year and a half until we’re there.)
  • Ultimately, people in Westeros generally regard the Stranger (and Stannis!) negatively, but this manifestation of the seven natures of god serves a purpose: making living people dead.
  • And boy, can we see that as a major role for Stannis as ADWD closes: killing every last Frey and Bolton in and around Winterfell to clear the way for the Starks to ascend.
  • Westeros may have no interest in the Stranger or being led by his symbolic manifestation on earth, but the Stranger will always take interest in you.
  • For the moment, however, Catelyn is dealing not with mystical revelations but the game of thrones, what she refers to as the sort of games kings play
  • And it’s worth noting, while we’re trying to reset the calcified conversation on Stannis Baratheon, that Renly is if anything being more petty and unreasonable
  • He’s the one who shows up late just to show he can, as Catelyn thinks to herself, clearly annoyed by his immaturity. It’s a microcosm of how Renly dawdled his way up the roseroad, another sign that Renly’s political strategy was crafted in the Reach, where you waste time and resources to show off your wealth
  • And while Stannis is visibly unhappy that Catelyn refers to him as a lord instead of a king, Renly is the one who insists out loud that Stannis call him King
  • This is in spite of the fact that Renly is responsible for the lion’s share (so to speak) of their political division, something he simply refuses to acknowledge
  • That being said, Stannis seems determined to take the most self-pitying and unsympathetic view on everything, and squanders every advantage he has
  • As we as readers realize as this scene goes on, Catelyn’s unexpected presence at Storm’s End is a gigantic opportunity for Stannis
  • As he will say later, most of Renly’s lords are opportunists and bandwagon jumpers with no real cause and only a skin-deep objection to the Lannisters
  • Joffrey’s lords fight for him out of belief he’s the rightful Baratheon king and/or a history of following Tywin, neither of which Stannis can do much about now
  • But Robb’s followers have a lot in common with Stannis politically, while also a lot of important differences; this is a constant throughout Stannis’ story
  • Ned goes down swinging for Stannis, but his vassals don’t know that and choose independence. Stannis marches alongside northmen to liberate Winterfell, but few think they’re going to stick with him long term. Stannis hesitates in ASOS before burning the leech representing Robb...but he does it all the same
  • I think all of that is George laying the groundwork for the rejection Stannis will feel when the northmen choose Jon over him, when Jon (the only Stark Stannis ever got along with) rejects him in favor of his own crown
  • It’ll be one more rejection, one more example of no one loving him despite all his efforts, and I think it might push him over the edge regarding Shireen…
  • But anyway, as it stands in ACOK, Stannis should recognize his good luck and seize the chance to make nice with Catelyn--and therefore her son, the KITN
  • Sure, Robb is technically in rebellion against the Baratheon crown, but everyone knows he’s in this to fight and defeat the Lannisters. They killed his father, they have his sister, they’ve been burning out the Riverlands to draw him into battle
  • While Robb and his lords are all about independence as it stands, that could change depending on the outcome of the fight for the Iron Throne itself, and how the victor treats Robb and his supporters along the way
  • Renly clearly had that in mind in Catelyn II, but Stannis for once has more fertile ground to work with. His claim to power is that the viper pit that swallowed up Catelyn’s husband and daughters also swallowed up his brother and Jon Arryn, and he knows why, and that’s why they want him dead too
  • That’s a compelling narrative for a coalition! Put me in power, Stannis should say to Catelyn, because I’ve been preparing for this fight. Renly and the Tyrells, this is a polo match against the Lannisters for them. My enemies are yours. I will deliver justice. Isn’t that worth your son’s crown, heavy on his young head?
  • Catelyn will almost convince herself of this over the course of her next few chapters, but the point is that she has to do that because Stannis doesn’t do it!
  • I mean, he does in the narrowest and most self-serving of senses: he says Ned didn’t deserve to die, that he as king will avenge him and send home Cat’s girls
  • But nothing about how he says it is convincing or works to foster a bond between himself and Catelyn, a sense of a national community she would want to rejoin
  • He is peevish, hostile, and keeps throwing in completely unnecessary asides that undermine his position and alienate Catelyn instead of winning her over
  • In the same breath that he tells her that Ned’s execution was unjust, he says that Ned was no friend of his. Why? On earth?? Would you bring that up???
  • This is a natural ally, and you’re telling her to her face that she’s not! In spite of this terrible opening move, Catelyn tries to get Stannis on her side
  • By evoking Ned relieving Stannis at Storm’s End, she is trying to get Stannis to think about the old Robert’s Rebellion coalition: Arryn, Tully, Baratheon, Stark
  • The Arryns are out of it for now (more on Jon Arryn later), but the rest of the gang can get back together if Catelyn makes it happen here and now
  • But Stannis doesn’t think about it that way, despite his claim being centered on Robert’s legacy. This isn’t about that coalition to him, it’s about the family and the entire realm that made mock of him, denied him love and legacy of his own
  • I will take the unenviable position of saying that Stannis’ hostility towards Catelyn isn’t unfounded.
  • Though he’s surprised to see Catelyn here, he’s smart enough to make the logical assumption: She came with Renly which Stannis takes to mean that The Starks support Renly. 
  • It’s why he’s going to ask Catelyn if the Starks have thrown in with Renly towards the end of this first conversation.
  • Now, Catelyn doesn’t intend to communicate that she’s on Renly’s side, but let’s take a step back
  • Who did Catelyn suggest negotiating with first back in ACOK, Catelyn I? Renly.
  • From a purely tactical perspective, Catelyn’s suggestion to Brynden back in ACOK, Catelyn I that they go for Renly was still a smart one. Renly is closer to Tywin and has the larger army.
  • And Stannis does not publicly declare his kingship and the bastardy of Cersei’s children until after Catelyn departs Riverrun (it’s why she’s stunned later in the chapter when Stannis talks about this topic)
  • So, Stannis does bear some of the blame for not moving fast enough.
  • Still, regardless of the tactics of treating with Renly, the optics send a signal to Stannis that the Starks have no interest in Stannis’ legal right to the kingship.
  • So, he’s sarcastic, tossing asides at Catelyn, because Robb and Catelyn aren’t just in technical rebellion against his crown, they are demonstrating that they have thrown in with Renly in deed.
  • Stannis is throwing the bullshit card on Catelyn’s “The King in the North supports no one but only desires a free and independent kingdom”, because Catelyn metaphorically stands alongside his younger, usurping brother who has brought an army to kill him.
  • And look, Stannis is #ObjectivelyWrong about Catelyn here. She is a true neutral in this conflict, but I completely understand where he’s coming from.
  • As such, he cuts himself off from Stark support with a line that defines him as a character: “Kings have no friends. Only subjects and enemies.”
  • First of all, this is transparently not the case unless Stannis is claiming to rule the entire world. The Free Cities are neither subjects nor enemies, for example
  • I think readers who come away believing that Stannis is a duty robot are taking lines like this one too literally. It’s a front; it’s not what is really driving Stannis on
  • When he says that kings have no friends, what he’s really saying is that he has no friends, and he believes he has no friends because he is fundamentally unlovable, and he believes that because Robert and now Renly never loved him
  • This personal backstory has irreparably shaped Stannis’ politics and informs his entire campaign. On the one hand, he does offer a more grounded justification of himself to Catelyn:
    • “You are frank, Lady Stark. Very well, I’ll answer you frankly. To take the city, I need the power of these southron lords I see across the field. My brother has them. I must needs take them from him.”
  • You can see Stannis’ appreciation for hard truths, and a glimpse of how he and Catelyn could get along: as people who enjoy the chance to say what they think
  • Stannis is right, as we’ve said before, that while he might have enough men to take King’s Landing from the Lannisters, he doesn’t have enough to hold it. Renly does have enough men. I need them. It’s a simple math problem! Get in line!
  • This bluntness is hilarious and I think it’s relatable, but it’s obscuring the deeper problems with Stannis’ approach and how his emotional grievances rule him
  • If all Stannis is doing here is trying to get enough men before he moves onto the true threat of the Lannisters, why is he not trying to appeal to Catelyn? Robb has those men, too! Why dismiss her with a line like “kings have no friends?”
  • Moreover, once Stannis has (some of) Renly’s men, he lingers to deal with Storm’s End itself rather than move on the capital at once, as Davos urges him to 
  • Why? Because Stannis believes that since he is incapable of being loved, he must rule through fear, and no one will fear him if he lets Cortnay Penrose live
  • So Catelyn telling him he has no real quarrel with Renly because men give their allegiance where they will, as they did with Robert, only makes Stannis angrier. Men giving their allegiance to his brothers and not him is his whole problem!
  • That’s the core of Stannis’ motivation here. Not defeating the Lannisters, not even the crown in itself. What drives him is the hole inside where respect and community and love should be, and he’ll fill it by any means necessary
  • It’s so telling that when we come to ACOK, Davos II, Stannis will go out of his way to say that he loved Renly. He knows this now.
  • That he frames his relationship to Renly that way post-facto evidences what you’re talking about: he wants to be loved and to have friends and was always denied it.
  • And honestly, I think he means it, even if he has an asocial way of demonstrating it in conversation.
  • And now let’s get weird. Years ago, Gary Chapman wrote his seminal The Five Love Languages in which he talked about the … five love languages and how everyone has a love language they give and a love language they want to receive: Words of Affirmation, Acts of Service, Receiving Gifts, Quality Time, and Physical Touch
  • The love language that Stannis gives is “Acts of Service”, but the one he wants to receive is “Words of Affirmation”
  • I mean just look at the way he speaks about his grievances back in the ACOK Prologue:
    • I held Storm's End for him, watching good men starve while Mace Tyrell and Paxter Redwyne feasted within sight of my walls. Did Robert thank me? No. He thanked Stark, for lifting the siege when we were down to rats and radishes. I built a fleet at Robert's command, took Dragonstone in his name. Did he take my hand and say, Well done, brother, whatever should I do without you? No, he blamed me for letting Willem Darry steal away Viserys and the babe, as if I could have stopped it. I sat on his council for fifteen years, helping Jon Arryn rule his realm while Robert drank and whored, but when Jon died, did my brother name me his Hand? No, he went galloping off to his dear friend Ned Stark, and offered him the honor. 
  • I was thinking about this in the context of how Stannis reacts to Davos smuggling onions and fish into Storm’s End. He rewards him with a promotion to knighthood (later lordship) as well as with lands and titles.
  • Stannis is doing to Davos what he wishes he would receive from his brothers. 
  • And there’s something haunting in that: he’s given so much for his brothers: saving toddler Renly’s life from siege at Storm’s End, undertaking dangerous missions on behalf of Robert and assuming thankless small council positions.
  • So, why can't they love him back? Why can’t they say “thank you for doing the shit work” or “You are actually the king after Robert. My bad!”?
  • I think that’s the context we should take when we roll our eyes at Stannis’ claim that kings (he) has no friends.
  • The sad thing for King Stannis is that he does have friends. At least one. Davos.

Foreshadowing/Groundwork

All this talk of Storm’s End and its impenetrability against even the gods will pay off in Davos II when Melisandre requires the onion knight to row her past the castle’s magical defenses.

Along similar wavelengths, in ADWD, Jon Connington will call Storm’s End “nigh impregnable”. So, similar to Melisandre, he’ll have to use “guile” to infiltrate the castle on Young Griff’s behalf.

Stannis will make a similar “I’ll return your relatives” promise to Jon in ADWD, telling Jon that he’ll save Arya Stark “if he can.” Much as Catelyn thinks that Stannis’ tone implies “alive or dead” in this chapter, Jon will think Stannis’ statement “a surprisingly tender sentiment from Stannis, though undercut by that final, brutal if I can.”

Catelyn will note the square cut ruby at the hilt of Stannis’ sword. This will come up in ADWD as the glamoured-as-Rattleshirt Mance Rayder calls attention to ruby and Melisandre having one herself. Though we don’t know the full extent of the magic at work within the stones, this is likely the mechanism where glamours originate. Here in ACOK, Catelyn III, the square ruby in the hilt of Stannis’ sword was likely how Melisandre was able to glamour Stannis’ sword red, yellow and white when Stannis draws it later in this chapter. 

Theory/Discussion

So, Jeff, I think we all have the same question rereading this chapter and its introduction of Storm’s End: when is the castle going to take off? Because it’s a spaceship, right? 

Conclusion

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