Fanfic / The Kings of Winter

“The Kings of Winter. Gods, what a stupid name … None of them were ever kings of winter. No man can be king of a season. If we were kings of winter, then winter would be our subject. We could order it to our whims. We could force it back north over the wall, to leave our people be, or we could send it south to fight our enemies for us. We would not let it freeze us, would not let it starve us, would not let it kill us. Winter would be our most loyal vassal. And yet here we are. Father is dead, Robb is dead, and winter is still coming. Winter is always coming, because we cannot stop it.”

Bran Stark, something black in the crypts beneath Winterfell

The Kings of Winter is a Thematic Series of three A Song of Ice and Fire/Game of Thrones fanfictions, all inspired by a different critically acclaimed film, all revolving around men of the Stark family as they struggle against The Chains of Commanding and the responsibilities their position at birth has given them, versus their own personal human foibles. The three stories consist of:

• they say he turns into a wolf at night: Inspired by Luis Buñuel’s Belle de Jour. Set partway through A Game of Thrones (or season 1 of the television series), Robb Stark struggles to live up to the responsibilities saddled upon him as acting Lord of Winterfell, and is haunted by fantasies of sexual humiliation and degradation, mostly revolving around his friend and father’s ward Theon. A chance encounter with Theon’s favourite prostitute Ros encourages him to live out those fantasies by joining her in the Winter Town brothel, but once he does so things quickly go From Bad to Worse.
• Who Passes the Sentence: Inspired by Thomas Vinterberg’s The Celebration. Prior to the beginning of A Game of Thrones, Ned Stark receives the invitation to the wedding of a bannerman’s daughter, and takes three of his children – Robb, Sansa and Bran – with him. At the wedding however, said daughter makes a horrific accusation against her lord father, leaving it to Ned to deduce the truth of the matter.
• something black in the crypts beneath Winterfell: Inspired by Ingmar Bergman’s Persona. (Seemingly) awhile before A Game of Thrones, Bran Stark gets Jon Snow to take him out riding in the woods. When it’s time to go home though, they soon realise they are lost. Then things get weird.

The series as a whole can be seen here on an Archive of Our Own.

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trope examples:

Tropes appearing throughout the series

• all lowercase letters: the titles of they say he turns into a wolf at night and something black in the crypts beneath Winterfell are stylised as such. In the former case, it’s used to lend the title the vibe of a whispered rumour, and in the latter, to draw attention to the importance of Winterfell by capitalising only that. Averted for Who Passes the Sentence.
• Book Ends: all three stories:
  • they say he turns into a wolf at night begins and ends with Robb (or a metaphorical representation of him) travelling through the woods and drinking something that tastes “rancid, bitter and tangy, and cheap.”
  • Who Passes the Sentence begins and ends at Winterfell, showing the perspectives of the Starks who did not attend the wedding – Catelyn, Arya and Jon – as well as Ned and Bran’s.
  • something black in the crypts beneath Winterfell features Jon and Bran comparing hands in its first and last chapter.
• Broad Strokes: picks and chooses between book and show continuity, particularly in they say he turns into a wolf at night, where both Ros and Jeyne Westerling play important roles. something black in the crypts beneath Winterfell goes back and forth between show and book details for added Mind Screw.
• The Chains of Commanding: the central theme. In each story, the men of the Stark family struggle to balance the responsibilities and duties of their positions – be it as Lord of Winterfell, King in the North or The Three Eyed Raven – against their own personal wants, fears and weaknesses, leading to a lot of pain for all of them.
• Daddy's Girl: the close father/daughter relationship of two Original Characters - Frederik, one of Ned’s guards who was killed during his arrest, and his bastard daughter Maricella who is a prostitute - comes up in all three stories.
• Deconstruction Fic: each installment deconstructs a different genre of Wish-Fulfillment fanfiction:
  • they say he turns into a wolf at night deconstructs Porn with Plot.
  • Who Passes the Sentence deconstructs Mary Sue fic.
  • something black in the crypts beneath Winterfell deconstructs W.A.F.F. fic.
• Downer Ending: they say he turns into a wolf at night and Who Passes the Sentence. something black in the crypts beneath Winterfell has more of a Bittersweet Ambiguous Ending.
• Elemental Motifs: Water plays an important role in all three stories, be it the dichotomy between drinking water and wine that symbolises Robb’s dilemma in tshiawan, the sea-swept island of Longsister that is the location for most of WPtS, or the rains that follow Jon and Bran throughout something black.
• Mind Screw: All three stories, to a greater or lesser extent:
  • they say he turns into a wolf at night is shown Through the Eyes of Madness, and it’s never made clear just how much was and was not a hallucination.
  • Who Passes the Sentence is relatively straightforward in terms of what actually happens, but the backstory is a mess of competing and contradictory claims, and it’s never fully confirmed which are and are not true.
  • something black in the crypts beneath Winterfell meanwhile gives up all traditional plot and functions purely on Rule of Symbolism.
• Thematic Series: they say he turns into a wolf at night and Who Passes the Sentence are both mostly self contained stories, with only their themes and a few implicitly shared minor characters tying them together. something black in the crypts beneath Winterfell however is a lot more continuity heavy.

Tropes appearing in they say he turns into a wolf at night

• Aggressive Submissive: Deconstructed. Robb's extreme sexual submissiveness is a direct reaction to being forced into a role of power and authority he feels utterly unprepared for, but also feels he must maintain at all times. However the shame of his actions only makes him feel more incapable of living up to his responsibilities, leading to a vicious circle. Later, it turns out Theon is one as well, and because of this their sexual encounter is a disaster.

• Arc Number: Six, which Robb lampshades: “Why is it always six?”. ^note It's one short of seven, which Robb associates with the Faith of the Seven, hence his mother, House Tully, and their values: family, duty, honour. Therefore six represents his failure to live up to those values.
• Arc Words: Many. Given the nature of the story, a lot of them border on Madness Mantras as well.
  • The Tully house words: “Family, duty, honour.”
  • "I'm just a whore, I'd let anyone do it."
  • “What would my mother think?” and, relatedly: “She should be back by now.”
  • “Like a bitch in heat.”
  • “It's like a bubble bursting, or perhaps being crashed over by an ocean wave.”
  • “Mayhaps it runs in the family.”
• Be Careful What You Wish For: Theon (allegedly) killing Bran and Rickon and sacking Winterfell gets Robb a lot of what he wanted at the beginning – freedom from the responsibility of his brothers and his castle, as well as his mother's undivided love and attention and the promise of Jon's return. However, this just leaves Robb swamped with even more responsibilities, as well as guilt.
• Blonde, Brunette, Redhead: the three prostitutes Robb meets over the course of the story: Ros (redhead), Cass (brunette), and Maricella (blonde).
• Bondage Is Bad: played with. Robb's desires don't indicate he's a bad person, but they do indicate he's a deeply dysfunctional one (essentially, the degrading sex he enjoys is a form of Self-Harm). He also does not do any of it in a Safe, Sane, and Consensual way.
• Break the Cutie/Corrupt the Cutie: An example of Break the Cutie and Corrupt the Cutie intersecting, as most of the Cutie's breakage stems from his shame and self-loathing over how corrupted he's become.
• Broken Ace: Robb, the perfect Stark heir and acting Lord of Winterfell, later King in the North... also a teenage boy crumbling under incredible pressure, consumed by fears of disappointing his family and failing to protect his younger brothers, plagued by abandonment issues and secretly prostituting himself to cope with the stress of it all.
• The Bus Came Back: Ros leaves Winterfell in chapter 8, but reappears in chapter 13. It’s heavily implied Robb is hallucinating her though.
• Call-Forward: Tons. Many are in the Fever Dream Chapter; see Dreaming of Things to Come. As for the others...
  • While taking place in the dream sequence in chapter 6, Robb musing on how he wishes Jon becomes Lord Commander of the Night's Watch one day falls under this rather than Dreaming of Things to Come.
  • In chapter 7, Lya compares Robb to “that one King of the Rock”, referencing Lorean V Lannister, better known as Queen Lorea, who used to wander the docks of Lannisport dressed in his wife clothes in the guise of a whore. This alludes to the fact that Robb is also going to become a king.
  • In chapter 9, Robb panics over the possibility Theon might have accidentally hit Bran while saving him from the wildling holding him hostage, and asks “how would he have told his mother he spent the months she was away sucking cock for the man who killed his little brother?” Of course, the readers know Theon is going to allegedly ‘kill’ Bran.
• Camp Follower: abundant, once the war begins. Theon sleeps with them. Later, Robb attempts to disguise himself as one, is recognised and ends up sleeping with one himself instead.
• Cerebus Syndrome: The first five chapters have a bit of angst, but it mostly comes across as part of an Excuse Plot for a Porn Without Plot. It's not until chapter 6 that the focus really shifts from the porn to the psychological drama.
• Daydream Surprise: After Robb and Theon have sex beneath the kitchen table during dinner, while Bran and Rickon are sitting above them, oblivious. Then Robb snaps out of it. In a written format it’s clear that Robb had no idea the fantasy wasn't real, suggesting he's going mad.
• Death by Irony: Robb's canon death is transformed into this, and lampshaded: “After all this time, he died for fucking his wife.”
• Defiled Forever:
  • As Robb puts it after his first visit to the brothel, “It doesn't matter if he never does it again, he'll always be what he is now and he'll never be anything more – a whore.”
  • And comes up again when he marries Jeyne Westerling: “he wishes he could offer her a better man, but other men won't want her now, they'll think she's a whore.”
• Deliberate Values Dissonance: Homosexual sex, particularly being the recipient/submissive partner in it, is considered inherently shameful and degrading.
• Despair Event Horizon: After having spent the whole story becoming increasingly depressed, self-loathing and unstable, Robb finally crosses it when he gets word of Bran and Rickon's 'deaths'.
• Don't Tell Mama:
  • Almost word for word. When Robb thinks Theon knows he's a prostitute, his first sentence is “please don't tell my mother.”
  • “What would my mother think?” is also one of the sets of Arc Words.
• Doomed by Canon: Robb himself, along with Catelyn and a good proportion of his army and bannermen.
• Downer Ending: Bran and Rickon 'die' and Robb never finds out otherwise, he then dies at the Red Wedding, and just when it looks like he might be Peaceful in Death it's subverted.
• Dreaming of Things to Come/Erotic Dream: In chapter 6, Robb has a series of dreams, all sexual in nature, foreshadowing a lot of future ASOIAF/GOT events. Including:
  • The war with the Lannisters, and the fact he will eventually lose.
  • Sansa's abuse and Ros' death at the hands of Joffrey.
  • His own death at the Red Wedding, and Catelyn watching and going mad.
  • Theon's capture and abuse by Ramsay Bolton.
  • Theon and Roose Bolton's respective betrayals, Theon's “murder” of Bran and Rickon, and Roose's murdering Robb.
  • His marriage to Jeyne Westerling.
• The Dutiful Son: Deconstructed. Robb views it as his duty to take responsibility for the family while his parents are away, while being barely more than a child and lacking any sort of decent support network. This drives him to a breakdown.
• Extreme Libido: Leaning far more toward the Sex Addiction side of the trope, and like most addictions, it's a way of coping with deeper issues, in this case The Chains of Commanding. And it turns out having one when you're living in a world without Eternal Sexual Freedom and have been raised to value Honor Before Reason will really do a ringer on your mental health.
• Fan Disservice:
  • Chapter 6, where Robb’s erotic dreams become nightmarish and violent and foreshadow a lot of later suffering for himself and his loved ones.
  • The sex scenes in chapters 10 and 11 are also more sad than arousing.
  • Arguably the whole thing once it becomes clear the sheer level of psychological dysfunction that is driving Robb to this behaviour.
• Fever Dream Episode: chapter 6, combining Anxiety Dreams, Erotic Dreams and Dreaming of Things to Come.
• Foe Romance Subtext: Robb's attraction to Jaime Lannister, which is a sign of just how broken he is. It’s also firmly one-sided.
• Foregone Conclusion: Ultimately, Robb sends Theon to Pyke, Theon betrays Robb and ‘kills’ Bran and Rickon, Robb sleeps with Jeyne Westerling in his grief and then marries her to preserve her honour, and is then killed at the Red Wedding for it. It's the ‘how’ and ‘why’ that change.
• Foreshadowing: Robb hyperbolically says that he's going mad (or some variant of that) quite a few times before we learn that he literally is.
• Freak Out: The whole story is really a long, slow one for Robb.
• Freudian Trio: The three fellow whores Robb meets over the course of the story. Ros, who encourages and enables him to act on his desires in the first place, is the id. Cass, who harshly judges him for his desires, is the superego. And Maricella, who sympathises with his desires but nonetheless encourages him to put them aside and focus on his duties for the greater good, is the ego.
• Gainax Ending: the final scene is entirely symbolic.
• Genre Deconstruction: of Lemon, essentially. The sex is all a deeply unhealthy coping mechanism to deal with the trauma of canon events, it basically destroys Robb's identity and self-worth, and it plays a role in causing Robb's canon death.

• Hooker with a Heart of Gold: Ros, as per canon. Also Maricella, who gives Robb thoughtful, unjudgmental advice so he can avenge her beloved father for her.
• Hope Spot: At the end of chapter 10, Robb almost confides in Maester Luwin and gets the professional (or as close to it as you get in a pseudo-Medieval setting) help he needs. Then Luwin informs him of Ned's arrest, and Robb immediately abandons the idea.
• Hormone-Addled Teenager: Robb's youth is crucial to the plot, and much of the sex is meant to resemble adolescent fantasy more than real sex (since it may well be just that).
• Hypocrite:
  • Inverted, more often than not. Robb has a habit of holding himself to harsher standards than he holds other people (eg. talking about how important it is he not become known as a sword-swallower, right before contemplating an alliance with Renly Baratheon).
  • Played straight when Robb calls Theon a slut while they have sex, which would probably fall under Hypocritical Humour if it weren't just sad.
• Imaginary Enemy: Cass, possibly. She probably exists, but whether she's the bastion of resentment Robb imagines her as is less sure.
• Inspiration Nod: quite a few references to Belle de Jour:
  • Bookends featuring something travelling through woods.
  • Robb giving his name as “Petyr” to Lya – in Belle de Jour, the main character's husband's name is Pierre.
  • A scene where the main character is masturbated over in a coffin.
  • A scene where two characters have sex under a table, while two others sit at the table, unphased or oblivious.
  • Maricella's name comes from Marcel, one of the main character's clients in Belle de Jour.
• Interplay of Sex and Violence: lots of unclear boundaries between sex, violence, violent sex and sexual violence.
• In the Blood: Robb suspects madness might run in the Tully line, hence the Arc Words “mayhaps it runs in the family.” He later connects this to their house words being “family, duty, honour,” suggesting there's a reason they keep being driven mad.
• I Take Offense to That Last One: when Cass calls Robb a “highborn slut with nothing better to do”, he thinks that “'highborn slut' is fair.”
• It's All My Fault: Robb blames himself for Bran and Rickon's ‘deaths’ because of his sexual relationship with Theon, also sending him away and ignoring his mother's advice. Also...
• I Wished You Were Dead: Robb blames himself for Bran's death in particular, given he did wish him dead briefly, and the burning of Winterfell, which he also wished for so he wouldn't have to be responsible for it anymore.
• Loving a Shadow: or possibly lusting after a shadow. Robb's fixation on Theon seemingly stems from a conception of him as duty-free and irresponsible, and hence a route for Robb to escape the responsibilities he feels swamped by. When it becomes clear Theon does feel some sense of duty to Robb's family, also that like everyone else he is looking to Robb as someone to depend on, Robb lashes out at him.
• Mask of Sanity: Robb's is very thorough, to the extent barely anyone notices anything's wrong. Although depending on your interpretation, this might be closer to your traditional Stepford Smiler.
• Naughty by Night: Deconstructed, as Robb's behaviour 'by night' is all a coping mechanism to deal with how overwhelmed he feels by the role he has to perform 'by day', but then the cognitive dissonance starts to drive him mad. See Aggressive Submissive.
• Naughty Under the Table: Subverted. The sheer implausibility of getting away with this is one of the first overt hints that Robb might not be all there mentally.
• Original Character: Apart from the ones who reappear in later installments, the most promiment is Lya, Robb's amicable but amoral madam.
• Parental Abandonment:
  • One of Robb's biggest problems. Notably, it's not either of his parents' physical abandonment he's most traumatised by, but his mother's psychological abandonment during her Angst Coma.
  • Later, after being Promoted to Parent, he has to leave Bran and Rickon behind while he goes to war. He feels very guilty about this, especially after they ‘die.’
• Parental Favouritism: Robb is deeply traumatised by how Catelyn completely emotionally abandoned him to look after Bran while he was in a coma. He struggles not to resent Bran for it. Subverted later on, as after Bran's apparent death Robb expects Catelyn to go into the same Heroic BSoD, but instead she keeps it together purely for his sake.
• Parental Substitute: Robb, Theon, Bran and Rickon form something of a makeshift family unit. Robb is not really comfortable with this however, for a lot of reasons, including: his fear of Theon becoming tethered to his responsibilities, his jealousy that irresponsible Theon Greyjoy is better at parenting than him, and his premonitions of Theon's role in Bran and Rickon's ‘deaths’.
• Poor Communication Kills: Literally. If Robb and Theon could have been honest with one another, Robb wouldn't have sent him away, Theon wouldn't have seized Winterfell, Robb wouldn't have slept with Jeyne Westerling and been killed.
• Porn with Plot
• Promotion to Parent: Robb is suddenly forced to take responsibility for his little brothers with little warning and no preparation, while one of them has undergone an extreme trauma and has almost been murdered repeatedly. Robb has no idea how to handle the role and feels completely overwhelmed by the responsibility, and even briefly wishes Bran dead so he won't be burdened by taking care of him anymore.
• Questionable Consent: Robb deliberately seeks out all the abusive sex he has, but given he's very mentally unstable and seventeen at the oldest, whether he's actually capable of consenting to it isn't really clear. That's if it really happened at all.
• Really Gets Around: “I'm just a whore, I'd let anyone do it.”
• Reluctant Psycho: Robb gains an awareness that something is very wrong with him mentally, and is terrified of it, although it's not clear how deep his mental illness runs.
• Romanticised Abuse: played with – the romanticisation mainly occurs in Robb's own head, as he deliberately seeks out men he neither knows nor trusts who will treat him badly. He does know how dangerous this is, however, and feels guilty about it when he realises his fellow whores don't view it as romantic at all.

• Secret-Keeper: Robb thinks Theon is this. However with the knowledge that a number of their sexual encounters could have been Robb’s hallucinations, and reading Theon’s dialogue carefully, it’s likely he actually has no idea that Robb has been doing anything other than using prostitutes the same way he himself does, contributing to all the miscommunication between them.
• Sex Is Evil, and I Am Horny: hoo boy.
• Shout-Out: The 'bawdy farce' Robb compares his current situation to in chapter 14 is basically the plot of The Prince and the Pauper, but with a whore in the place of the pauper.
• Sibling Incest: Sort of. One of the stranger scenes in the fic occurs when Robb has sex with a man of the Night's Watch, who bears a passing resemblance to Jon, and who Robb imagines to be him. This seems to stem more from a platonic than sexual desire, however.
• Slash Fic
• Slut-Shaming: Robb's is mostly internal, although his clients also do it a lot. Later, he calls Theon a slut while having sex with him, who's clearly hurt – Robb feels terribly guilty about it, but Theon refuses to admit he's been wounded. Cass also has an interesting take on it – she and Robb are both prostitutes, but she shames him because he does it for pleasure, rather than for money.
• Stepford Smiler: Robb, with shades of both the sad and unstable variants. And by the end, the empty variant as well.
• Stress Vomit: Robb does this after having sex with a man he imagines to be Jon.
• Strong Family Resemblance: Robb's resemblance to Cat (and by extension, the rest of the Tullys) comes up a lot, as does Jon's to Ned a couple of times.
• Through the Eyes of Madness: How much of the story is hallucinated is never made clear, but Robb is painfully aware of his own deteriorating mental state.
• Unproblematic Prostitution: Zig-zagged, but ultimately averted. Robb is terrified the first time he goes to the brothel, but enjoys the experience and is deeply relieved afterwards. It's not until he goes home again that he's overwhelmed by shame. Later on, his work becomes more dangerous and degrading – and Robb only enjoys this more. This only worsens the guilt however, and it's made clear that his co-workers do not all share his opinions. The stress of it also leads to a lot of Sanity Slippage.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: In hindsight, Ros really should have just kept her mouth shut.
• Vague Age: Everyone, due to the uncertainty over whether we're using book or show ages. The exception is Maricella, an original character, who is explicitly stated to be fifteen.
• "Well Done, Son" Guy: Robb is terrified of disappointing his family, and hates himself for being unable to live up to his father's example.
• Wise Beyond Their Years: Played with. Bran is wise enough to realise something's wrong and ask Robb about it, but still too young for Robb to actually confide in. Therefore it just makes Robb's psychological state worse.
• With Great Power Comes Great Insanity/With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility: In this case, it's the responsibility that causes the insanity, being suddenly forced upon someone who is not at all ready for it without an adequate support network, who descends into addiction as a coping mechanism and then drives himself mad with self-loathing.
• The Wrongful Heir to the Throne: Robb views himself as this by the end, although no-one else does, comparing himself unfavourably to his bastard brother Jon.

Tropes appearing in Who Passes the Sentence

• Abusive Parents: Tristen Skyer, according to his daughter at least.
• Accomplice by Inaction: Amaeda thinks of her mother Lydia as this, claiming she walked in on Tristen raping Amaeda and chose to do nothing. Ned, however, remembers how young Lydia was when Tristen married her and wonders if she might not have been as much a victim of her husband’s abuse as her daughter.
• Aerith and Bob: The Skyer family, where Lydia and Tristen (a fairly simple variant of Tristan) parent Aleas, Amaeda and Averick.
• Alliterative Family: The three Skyer siblings: Aleas, Amaeda, and Averick.
• Ambiguous Situation: is Amaeda a traumatised victim, or vicious manipulator?
• Arc Words: Or word – the Skyer family motto is simply “Above,” tying into the overall theme of entitlement. See Screw the Rules, I Make Them! below.
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing:
  • Tristen Skyer, who even in the most sympathetic interpretation of events, still had sex with his young daughter and shows zero remorse over it, and considers all the tragedies that result Never My Fault.
  • To a certain degree Averick Skyer also, initially a very sweet boy, but he refuses to even contemplate that Amaeda might be telling the truth, physically assaults her, and says aloud he wants to kill her.
• Bookworm: Comes up a few times that Amaeda loves reading. This turns out to be fairly important foreshadowing.
• Broken Bird: Amaeda Skyer. Seemingly Pia as well.
• Broken Pedestal:
  • Sansa idealised Amaeda thoroughly before they left Winterfell. Actually meeting her proves... traumatic.
  • Ned also goes through this with his brother Brandon, when he realises he most likely raped the cook Pia (although he also notes it could have been Lord Rickard). To a lesser extent, Tristen is this to him as well.
• Call-Forward: to the A Song of Ice and Fire series proper, it’s television adaptation, and to they say he turns into a wolf at night, the previous entry in the trilogy.
  • A Song of Ice and Fire and Game of Thrones:
    • Amaeda’s description of Aleas’ stillborn daughter Rhaenys recalls Mirri Maz Dur’s description of Daenerys’ stillborn son Rhaego.
    • Sansa's line “she was no true lady”, resembling her later line “he was no true knight.”
    • The way Ned chokes and kills Tristen highly resembles the way he chokes Petyr Baelish in Game of Thrones, although Petyr doesn't die.
  • they say he turns into a wolf at night:
    • Ned's reflections on how Theon treats his whores, immediately juxtaposed with Robb's reaction to all the drama unfolding, foreshadows their relationship.
    • Amaeda’s description of the prostitute Aleas sired his bastard on resembles Cass, implying they are the same person. Seemingly confirmed in something black in the crypts beneath Winterfell.
    • Also in the final chapter, Bran promises Robb they can take Theon riding with them, and thinks he doesn't know why Robb likes Theon so much.
    • Ned's worry that Robb might inherit the same attitude towards sex and sexual violence as Tristen, Rhaegar and Brandon serves as a deeply ironic version of this, as readers know he should be worried about the exact opposite thing.
• Calling the Old Man Out:
  • Amaeda to Tristen.
  • Inverted with the Longthorpes, where Rolland chews Ennett out for his attempts to get rid of Amaeda once he learns she wasn't a virgin.
• Child by Rape: implied with Rys, a serving girl who has the distinct Stark look, daughter of the traumatised Pia.
• Common Mary Sue Traits: Amaeda has a lot of these – she borders on being the World's Most Beautiful Woman, people fall in love with her at first sight or idealise her from afar, she (possibly) has Rape as Backstory, etc. Unlike most Mary Sues however, she proves unable to fundamentally change the nature of her surrounding environment, which is her downfall.
• Composite Character: The three Skyer siblings combine the traits of the three Stark siblings who attend the wedding (Robb, Sansa and Bran), as well the Lannisters they will later end up in conflict with. Note that the Skyer family look – strawberry blonde hair and ‘sea-green’ eyes – combines the auburn hair and blue eyes of the Tullys that Robb, Sansa and Bran all inherited from Catelyn with the golden hair and green eyes of the Lannisters.
  • Aleas:
    • Like Robb, he is the oldest son and heir of the family, who dies young but whose legacy leaves an enormous shadow over his family. If we believe Amaeda’s story and take the events of tshtiawan into account, they both struggled to live up to their duties despite shame and self-loathing over being sexually degraded, and wound up dying after believing they could no longer perform the role ascribed to them.
    • Like Jaime, he is the one thing that the rest of his family seem to agree upon, with a twin sister and younger brother who despise each other both adoring him. Also like Jaime he is accused of committing Twincest with his sister, although unlike Jaime it’s never made clear if it is true in his case.
  • Amaeda:
    • Like Sansa, she is a noble Westerosi (and at least offically a) maiden whose sex makes her vulnerable to exploitation and abuse by the men around her. They are both eventually sexually abused either by their own fathers, or by a man posing as their father (Petyr Baelish).
    • Like Cersei, she is a scheming manipulator accused of using her sexuality to get what she wants. She’s also accused of committing Twincest with her twin brother, and resents her younger brother for a physical deformity he cannot control.
  • Averick:
    • Like Bran, he is a sweet young man with a physical disability who nonetheless dreams of great things.
    • Like Tyrion, he was born disabled and suffers the prejudice that this makes him an inadequate heir to his house seat once his older brother is out of the picture. His older sister bitterly resents him, and he despises her. He also slowly reveals a similar vengeful streak to Tyrion.
• The Corrupter: it’s implied Roose Bolton may have served as this to Tristen in his youth, as they were foster brothers.
• Defiled Forever: when Ennett finds out Amaeda wasn't a virgin, he's completely disgusted by her, wants nothing to do with her, and even tries to talk Ned into executing her.
• Deliberate Values Dissonance:
  • Westerosi attitudes to a girl accusing her father of rape are... about as horrible as you'd expect. Special mention must go to Roose Bolton though, who thinks that since Amaeda was Tristen's daughter, he had every right to do what he liked with her and hence no crime has been committed.
  • Amaeda herself espouses the common Westerosi attitude that cripples are better off dead.
• Despair Event Horizon: Amaeda believes Aleas crossed this after his bastard daughter Rhaenys was stillborn, revealing Tristen had given him the pox that would leave him incapable of siring a proper heir. This lead to his suicide.
• Deuteragonist: Amaeda.
• Downer Ending: Ned gives Amaeda her vengeance, but she's still left in a much worse situation than she began in, and she likely doesn't even know Tristen is dead. And that's if Amaeda was telling the truth, and hasn't completely manipulated him. Ned is left with major guilt over the underhanded way he killed Tristen, and is deeply discomforted by Roose Bolton helping him for mysterious motives. He's also gone through a major Broken Pedestal moment regarding his brother Brandon. Averick is left to become Lord of the Bluebell as a young, crippled boy with no family, and his and Bran's friendship is completely destroyed. Back at Winterfell, Sansa's idealism is majorly shaken, and she can only restore it by becoming even more judgemental of her sister Arya. Catelyn feels isolated from Ned, as she can tell he's keeping yet more secrets from her. The story ends with Ned praying for answers from the Heart Tree, but receiving none.
• Driven to Suicide: Aleas Skyer, and possibly his mother Lydia as well.
• Ephebophile: Tristen, according to Amaeda, as she claims he only started raping her and Aleas after she got her moonblood at eleven. Indeed she blames her bleeding so young for given him the idea. He also married the fourteen year old Lydia Crakehall at twenty.
• Establishing Character Moment: Amaeda's first scene with Sansa immediately sets her up as a major Jerkass.
• False Rape Accusation: most of the plot revolves around determining whether Amaeda is making one of these or not.
• Fille Fatale: After finally admitting to having sex with Amaeda, Tristen claims she was one of these, having seduced him and then her twin brother.
• Foil: The three Skyer siblings: Aleas is one to Robb Stark and Jaime Lannister, Amaeda is one to Sansa Stark and Cersei Lannister, and Averick is one to Bran Stark and Tyrion Lannister. See Composite Character above.
• Foreign Culture Fetish: Tristen Skyer appears to have one of these for the Crannogmen, spending an unusual amount of time in the Neck. Fridge Horror suggests there’s a different reason he spent so much time there: because the Crannogmen look like children.
• Full-Frontal Assault: Amaeda makes her accusation stark naked. There's an element of spite to it, as well as Rape Leads to Insanity, as well as the practical matter of her clothes getting torn in the bedding ceremony.
• Goodbye, Cruel World!: before drowning himself in the family well, Aleas left a very short suicide note scratched in it – the family motto, “Above.”
• In the Blood: Lydia Skyer was a Crakehall by birth, and so their reputation for promiscuity comes back to bite her daughter.
• Judge, Jury, and Executioner: As Lord of Winterfell, Ned has to serve as this. But he's just one man who's extremely conflicted and has his own biases and lingering traumas; he can't ever know the truth of the matter for sure, leading to a lot of self-doubt.
• Mama's Baby, Papa's Maybe: Learning that Brandon probably raped a serving girl leads Ned to worry he might have done the same to Cat (a sort of pre-emptive invocation of the Marital Rape License) and she might have covered it up as to not disturb the Stark-Tully alliance, meaning Robb might not actually be his son. We learn in the epilogue that this is not the case, but he never does.
• Marital Rape License:
  • Invoked by Ennett to Amaeda after learning she's Defiled Forever.
  • A variant is discussed when Ned worries Brandon may have done this pre-emptively to Cat. We learn he didn't in the epilogue, but Ned doesn't.
• Meaningful Name: 'Amaeda' alludes to both "mayday", the traditional signal given by ships in distress, but also the Spanish Armada, an infamous invading army. This indicates the ambiguity as to whether she is the victim or the villain of this story.
• Obliviously Evil: According to Amaeda, the reason Tristen invited Ned to the wedding was that he genuinely didn't understand that he had done anything wrong in raping her.
• O.C. Stand-in: a lot of characters from families that are little more than a line in the appendixes appear. Most notably, the Longthorpes.
• Original Character: conversely, the Skyer family is cut from whole cloth.
• Out of Focus: unlike Ned, Sansa and Bran, the events of the wedding are never shown from Robb’s POV. This follows his being a Supporting Protagonist in the books, but contrasts his being the POV character throughout tshtiawan.
• Parental Incest: Amaeda accuses her father of raping her. He accuses her of being sexually obsessed with him. Who (if anyone) is telling the truth is decidedly unclear.
• Posthumous Character: Aleas and Lydia Skyer.
• Pragmatic Villainy: Roose sees no moral or legal problems with Tristen raping his own daughter, but does think it would be a stupid thing to do since it would ruin her value in marriage.
• Rape as Backstory: Amaeda, according to her at least. And Aleas also. And it's implied, the cook Pia.
• Rape Leads to Insanity: Amaeda, possibly. She's clearly unstable, but how unstable is uncertain (there is also the possibility of Obfuscating Insanity)
• The Rashomon: without the flashbacks that usually characterise this trope, but the plot revolves around two people's very, very different recollections of the past, and the impossibility of knowing whose version is true.
• Revenge Before Reason: Amaeda utterly destroys her own life in her desperate need for revenge on her father.
• Screw the Rules, I Make Them!: A crucial theme of the stort is the tendency of being born to positions of power and ownership leading men to feel entitled to things, and believe the law doesn't apply to them.
• Secret-Keeper: A malevolent version. Roose Bolton is the only person who knows that Ned killed Tristen Skyer, and helps him cover it up. He clearly has shifty motives for this though.
• Strong Family Resemblance:
  • Like many Westerosi families, the Skyers have a distinctive 'look', in this case strawberry blonde hair and blue-green eyes.
  • Rys’ distinct Stark look makes Ned realise she is the bastard daughter of either his brother or his father, and given how frightened of him her mother seems, she probably was not conceived consensually.
• Supporting Protagonist: The plot is driven entirely by Amaeda's actions, and Ned acts in response to her. However the theme of the story revolves around him.
• Too Good for This Sinful Earth: Aleas Skyer, apparently.
• Tragic Keepsake: Amaeda keeps the bones of her stillborn niece, which allow her to ‘prove’ her accusations to Ned.
• Troubled Sympathetic Bigot: Amaeda's disdain for the disabled (particularly her little brother) and the Crannogmen stems from the fact her father caught a pox that caused Averick's disability in the Neck, and passed it on to her. Well, possibly.
• Twincest: Tristen claims this happened between Amaeda and Aleas. She later claims it only ever happened when he made them do it.
• Undying Loyalty: Averick is completely loyal to his father, because Tristen has always stood by his place in the succession despite his disability, and is furious at Amaeda's accusations as a result. However this isn't really portrayed as a good thing.
• Unreliable Expositor: Everybody, but particularly Amaeda and Tristen.
• We Used to Be Friends:
  • Bran and Averick quickly form a friendship, that then immediately gets blown apart by the events of the story.
  • Ned and Tristen's friendship gets blown apart to the extent Ned murders him.
• When She Smiles: Amaeda's first appearance shows Ned going on about how beautiful her smile is, although unlike many examples of this trope, this does not set them up as love interests.
• Written by the Winners: the Rape of the Three Sisters has been mostly airbrushed out of Northern histories. Robb is surprised and unsettled when Pia tells him about it, while Amaeda cruelly throws it in Sansa’s face, shocking her.

Tropes appearing in something black in the crypts beneath Winterfell

• All Just a Dream: Bran and Jon come to the conclusion their experience has probably been this in the final chapter. Although they're not sure whose dream it is.
• Ambiguous Ending: The final line is “Jon, I have to tell you something–” We don't find out what happens after Bran finishes that sentence, or if he even does.
• Ambiguously Bi: Jon doesn't think anything of having sex with Aegon alongside Rhaenys and Daenerys, although given the scene is more about the connection between the Targaryens than anything, this might be a case of If It's You, It's Okay.
• Being God Is Hard: Invoked by Bran in regards to his powers: “And I thought being a lord was hard, he thinks. What about being a god?”
• Berserk Button: Bran's behaviour suggests he has one, but it takes awhile to piece together what exactly it is. Turns out to be a combination of a few things: Jon's newly revealed heritage, his mother's death, and Theon Greyjoy. They're all connected in various ways.
• Bittersweet Ending: in contrast to the previous two installments, Jon and Bran manage to resolve a lot of their issues and admit that they still love and miss each other. However it’s never clear if Bran actually manages to trust Jon enough to tell him the truth about his parentage.
• Call-Back: A number to A Song of Ice and Fire and Game of Thrones, as well as tshtiawan and Who Passes the Sentence:
  • A Song of Ice and Fire and Game of Thrones:
    • Bran quotes what his mother once said to Jon over his body, to Jon over Robb’s body: “It should have been you.”
    • Bran also ironically echoes Theon’s thoughts on Robb’s death in regards to Catelyn’s: “I should have been with her. Where was I? I should have died with her.”
  • they say he turns into a wolf at night and Who Passes the Sentence:
    • Jon references the Skyers in the second chapter, and Bran points out the Skyers hate them.
    • The six doors in the corridor in chapter 5, alluding to the Arc Number from tshtiawan. Also the six men Jon sees coming out of one room having seemingly had sex with one prostitute, who are implied to be the same six men Robb had sex with in chapter 7 of tshtiawan.
    • Fredrik appears both in the brothel and later in Winterfell. Jon identifies him as one of their guards and that his daughter was a prostitute, and Bran knows that he's dead. Said daughter, Maricella, made a brief but crucial appearance in tshtiawan urging Robb to get vengeance for her murdered father, and they were both referred to in Who Passes the Sentence.
    • Cass also makes a cameo, clutching bones that resemble those of the stillborn baby Rhaenys from Who Passes the Sentence (implying she was the baby's mother), though of course Jon has no reason to recognise her.
    • Sansa/'Alayne' also repeats what she told herself in WPtS that she could never become a victim of sexual violence like Amaeda, because she was pure and unflowered, and Ned wouldn't let it happen, while presenting herself to Jon. Doubles as an Ironic Echo.
    • Jon's fear that he'd hurt 'Alayne' even if he had her tie him up by insulting her and humiliating her, alluding to the encounter between Robb and the man who looked like Jon in chapter 10 of tshtiawan.
    • Bran kneeling before Jon in the forest after catching him in flagrante with the Targaryens, alluding to Robb doing the same before Theon in chapter 5 of tshtiawan. Jon is understandably freaked out.
• Decoy Protagonist: the first chapter and most of the story is told from Jon's POV, but ultimately, it's Bran who's the real emotional crux of it.
• Double Entendre: Rhaenys makes a particularly shameless one: while seducing Jon, she invites him to “pet her pussy” – meaning her kitten, Balerion.
• Idiosyncratic Episode Naming: Each chapter is named after a past King in the North.
• Incest Subtext: Chapter 7 features Bran kneeling in front of Jon in the middle of the forest, and refusing to get up. Jon to a certain degree reads sexual connotations into the gesture, and gets appropriately freaked out, but it's unclear if Bran intended that. It helps that this scene comes right after the Targ orgy, and doubles as a Call-Back to a scene in they say he turns into a wolf at night that was explicitly sexual.
• Inspiration Nod:
  • Jon and Bran comparing hands comes directly from Persona.
  • The scene where Bran gives an accusative monologue to Jon twice, once from Jon's POV, once from Bran's, also comes straight from Persona (although unlike in Persona, Bran's monologue changes significantly on the second telling).
  • Jon's orgy with the Targaryens heavily resembles the orgy Alma describes in Persona.
• Interrupted by the End: “Jon, I have to tell you something–”
• Iron Lady:
  • Catelyn, as described by Jon: “He remembers he used to admire her, in a way, despite everything. He admired her strength. He admired that she would never show weakness to anyone she thought might be an enemy, and that was a skill he much envied.” Seeing her cry deeply unsettles him.
  • Sansa appears to have transformed into this by her final appearance. Indeed Jon initially mistakes her for Catelyn.
• It's All My Fault: Bran over Catelyn's death, see My Greatest Failure below.
• Keeping Secrets Sucks: Bran, thanks to lingering trust issues, is desperately trying to conceal the truth of Jon's parentage. However, his subconscious makes that incredibly painful for the both of them.
• Lampshade Hanging: In chapter 7, Jon acknowledges how he and Bran keep running away from and then chasing after each other.
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall: Bran hints at being aware he's fictional, see Medium Awareness below.
• Making Love in All the Wrong Places: Jon has sex with Rhaenys, Aegon and Daenerys by the banks of a river. And immediately gets caught by Bran.
• Medium Awareness: It's implied that thanks to his powers, Bran is at least subconsciously aware of being fictional, hence the reference to “worlds their world could be inside.”
• Mind Screw: oh yes.
• Mistaken Identity: Jon sees ‘Arya’ in the penultimate chapter, but given her age – “old enough to be a mother,” how terrified Bran appears of Jon getting close to her, and her identifying herself as Bran’s “blood” – the same way Ned Stark once described his relationship to Jon – it’s implied she is actually Lyanna.
• My God, What Have I Done?: Bran after defeating the sea dragon^note symbolising his heartbreak over Theon’s betrayal and fear Jon’s Targaryen heritage will lead him to make the same decision and realising he has left it alive, but horrifically mutilated^note just like Theon.
• My Greatest Failure: Bran regards Catelyn's death as this, as he believes it only happened because she thought all her children were lost, which happened because he fled Winterfell after it was sacked and let her believe he was dead.
• No Ending: ends in mid-sentence. Doubles as an Ambiguous Ending, since we never find out whether Bran will tell Jon the truth about his parentage or not.
• Patchwork Fic: Of a really weird variation, where mutually exclusive details from the books and the show, most prominently Bran's eye and hair colour, as well as his age, change from one to another without warning or explanation, compounding the overall Mind Screw effect.
• Plot-Relevant Age-Up/Soap Opera Rapid Aging Syndrome: Bran inexplicably ages from a boy to a young man in the second chapter, while he and Jon are in the middle of talking to Sansa. In this case, it's more for symbolism and surrealism's sakes than anything.
• Pretender Diss: when Sweetrobin threatens to have Bran thrown from the moon door, he laughs and thinks “I’ve been thrown from high places by people scarier than you.”
• Psychological Projection: Bran does a lot of this, lashing out at Jon for all his lingering issues with Theon. He also seems to by projecting a lot of his own guilt when he accuses Jon of being glad at Catelyn's death.
• Rage Against the Reflection: sort of. Bran is fine with his reflection, until it starts turning into his mother's reflection, which then turns into Lady Stoneheart. Bran gets frightened and throws a rock at it, but then feels guilty and begs her to come back.
• Random Events Plot: follows a dream-like logic that makes summarising the plot... difficult.
• Red Light District: The brothel Jon enters in chapter 5 glows with a (rather anachronistic) red light.
• Reports of My Death Were Greatly Exaggerated: Bran suffers a lot of guilt over having allowed everyone to believe he was dead for so long, as he believes this caused his mother’s death.
• Rule of Three: Sansa’s three appearances. In the first, she appears as an innocent child playing with dolls, and when Jon and Bran leave, she promises to wait for them. In the second, she appears in the guise of ‘Alayne Stone’, makes sexual advances on Jon, and when he rejects her and leaves she yet again says she will wait. In her final appearance in the penultimate chapter, she appears as the Lady of Winterfell, calls her family out on having abandoned her, and tells them she cannot wait for them anymore.
• Sanity Slippage: Bran grows increasingly unhinged as the world around them grows more bizarre.
• Shout-Out:
  • Bran makes one to Twin Peaks: “That gum he likes might come back in style.” Leading him to get confused over what gum is.
  • Twice, Jon quotes Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead:
    • First is after the stage catches fire, seemingly killing Theon. “No-one gets up after death! There's no applause! Just silence and – second-hand clothes!”
    • Second is in the final chapter, when they're discussing waking up from the dream. “Now you see me, now you–”
• Sibling Incest:
  • Jon is deeply tempted by ‘Alayne Stone’ aka. Sansa in chapter 5, although it’s not clear whether he recognises her, and he ultimately rejects her.
  • He has sex with his half-siblings Rhaenys and Aegon, but he has no idea they’re his half siblings.
  • There’s also the scene between him and Bran in chapter 7 as described under Incest Subtext.
• Stylistic Suck: the play version of Aegon the Conqueror burning Harrenhal that Jon and Bran watch Daenerys and Theon performing in chapter 3 is pretty woeful, what with Theon forgetting his lines and Daenerys appearing on a paper dragon in Incredibly Conspicuous Drag. Until her ‘paper dragon’ starts burning Theon alive, at which point it becomes terrifyingly real.
• Surprise Incest: Jon has an orgy with his Targaryen aunt and half-siblings, not knowing who any of them are really. The scene with 'Alayne Stone' is a complicated example, as its unclear whether Jon recognises her or not – it's possible he's deliberately avoiding recognising her.
• That Man Is Dead: Bran claims “Bran Stark, as he once was, is long gone, dead the moment he entered that cave.” Although whoever he is, he clearly has a lot of leftover emotional baggage from being Bran Stark.
• Thicker Than Water: What Bran fears, after Theon's betrayal, is that Jon's Targaryen heritage would make him chose them over the Starks. However 'Arya' later points out that the Starks are also Jon's blood.
• The Treachery of Images: of a rather tragic variation. When looking at the statue of his father, Bran thinks about how it's nothing like his father, it's just stone.
• W.A.F.F.: Appears to be this in the first chapter, when Bran nags Jon into taking him riding, and then they get lost. There's a bit of lingering angst regarding Jon's relationship to Catelyn, but apart from that, it's cute family times. Then it's rapidly subverted. It's implied to be a deliberate invocation; that Bran tried to recreate the happy family home he remembered, but his subconscious issues caused it to fall apart.
• Wicked Stepmother: discussed, inverted and defied. Bran accuses Jon of loathing Catelyn and regarding her as this, and being glad she died. Jon responds that he didn't hate Catelyn, that he understood her reasons and thought she treated him better than many women would have.
• You Are What You Hate: Bran goes mad with anger at Sweetrobin because of his naïve belief his mother is coming back for him, and almost throws him out of the moon door, because it parallels his own relationship with his mother.
• You Should Have Died Instead: Bran pulls this on Jon when they're looking at Robb's body, quoting his mother.