30 DAY CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT MEME;;
DAY THIRTEEN (x)
Where (and when) did they grow up? How did they view it as a child, and did that change as they matured? How do they feel about the place now?
Bran could perch for hours among the shapeless, rain-worn gargoyles that brooded over the First Keep, watching it all: the men drilling with wood and steel in the yard, the cooks tending their vegetables in the glass garden, restless dogs running back and forth in the kennels, the silence of the godswood, the girls gossiping beside the washing well. It made him feel like he was lord of the castle, in a way even Robb would never know. It taught him Winterfell’s secrets too. The builders had not even leveled the earth; there were hills and valleys behind the walls of Winterfell. There was a covered bridge that went from the fourth floor of the bell tower across to the second floor of the rookery. Bran knew about that. And he knew you could get inside the inner wall by the south gate, climb three floors and run all the way around Winterfell through a narrow tunnel in the stone, and then come out on ground level at the north gate, with a hundred feet of wall looming over you. Even Maester Luwin didn’t know that, Bran was convinced. (AGOT)
Lyanna grew up in Winterfell, the seat of House Stark and the capital of the North. As a child, she believed Winterfell to be the most magical place in Westeros. Dorne’s water gardens, the ocean, the sunsets, and the food certainly give Winterfell a run for its money, but before Lyanna left, she couldn’t imagine living anywhere else. She knew every tree in the weirwood, in the surrounding woods she knew every rock and ledge, she knew Winterfell like she knew her own heart. It did not seem like something oppressive until she started her cycles and her parents decided it was time to put an end to her childishness. The more pressure she faced to become a lady and to be someone she wasn’t, the more Winterfell began to feel like a trap, like something she had been destined to fail from the onset. When she was betrothed to Robert Baratheon, Winterfell became her prison. She came to resent every stone in every wall, and often wished that she might somehow sprout wings and fly away.
Returning to Winterfell is one of the most difficult things Lyanna has ever done (much like leaving it in the first place). There is an intense cognitive dissonance for her in that Winterfell is the home she’s missed and longed for over fifteen years, but it is also a symbol of all of this heartache for her– not just the disappointment she caused to her family that made her leave in the first place, but far more importantly, everything that happened following that decision. Winterfell is her father and Brandon, and they are now dead because of what she did, as a direct result of her actions. In this way, Winterfell is both an embodiment of home, familiarity, childhood, love, and family, but also the symbol of Lyanna’s immense guilt, the blood that will forever be on her hands, the ways in which she has eternally fallen short, the son she was forced to abandon who likely now hates her, and everyone in the North who rightfully resents her and holds her accountable for the rebellion. Coming home to Winterfell is deeply emotional for Lyanna, and not in a good way. Winterfell hurts her heart, and walking its halls always makes her feel as though it was some other grey-eyed girlw ho grew up there, not her. She doesn’t feel as though she deserves Winterfell, but she would also defend it (and its occupants) with her life.