30 DAY CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT MEME;;

DAY TEN (x)

Relationships and history:
What is their family history like? How does it affect them? How do they feel about their family? How does their family feel about them?   This is such a tragic question, and spoiler alert: it’s gonna be another essay. 

          In a sentence, for those of you new to this blog, Lyanna agreed to surrogate a child for Elia and Rhaegar in return for safe passage to Dorne as a ward of Doran Martell. While a large part of this motivation was to escape her unwanted engagement to Robert Baratheon, another aspect of the decision was based in her relationship to her family, more particularly her, father. From source text, it’s pretty clear that Rickard Stark was a man who had a very specific set of expectations for his daughter about what it meant to be a lady, and Lyanna found these expectations to be extremely overprotective and restrictive. It did contribute to her feeling of being “caged,” which really comes to a head when her father betroths her to Robert, but mostly it gave her a consistent feeling of failure. As soon as she was old enough to develop a personality, Lyanna was a very unhappy girl who felt like she was constantly letting down and disappointing everyone around her, everyone who loved her or was important to her. She felt as though there was something wrong with her, and that she was wrong or bad for being who she naturally was: a girl with a sense of wildness and adventure who wanted to ride horses, climb trees, and learn to wield a sword. She just wanted to be her own person, to do something that was right for once. 

           I’ve probably discussed Lyanna’s deeply seated guilt ad nauseum on this blog, but in case you’re new, Lyanna is plagued by an intense regret for her actions. She strongly feels that so many people died because of her, and because of Robert Baratheon (she does blame Aerys for his part, and the Lannisters, for sure, but the heat of her rage is pretty focused on Robert for starting a rebellion in her name). She thoroughly believes she got her father and brother killed, as well as the first two people she ever loved (Elia & Rhaegar), and later she learns her son grew up with a mother, really (because Catelyn hated him), and feels that this is her fault as well. So her love for her family after the rebellion is essentially eclipsed by her feelings of responsibility, and she is convinced that even if she hadn’t faked her death, her family wouldn’t have wanted her back. She was also convinced that they still would have given her to Robert (who she became increasingly more terrified of as the rebellion progressed). 

           I cannot write an essay about Lyanna’s relationship with her family and not talk about her brothers because they’re so hugely important to Lyanna and she misses them terribly. Brandon, the ladies man who believed in Lyanna even when their father didn’t and who secretly encouraged her, who demanded the king return Lyanna to him and died for her. Ned, who traveled Westeros to rescue her, promised to take care of her son and keep him safe, promised to tell Robert that she was dead. Lyanna feels that she owes Ned everything. Benjen was so young when Lyanna left that he probably barely remembers her, but he was a sweet boy. 

          As for how they feel about her, you’d have to ask them, but Lyanna is prepared for them to resent her.