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| Robb Stark, Played by Richard Madden |
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Reading the Song of Ice and Fire books again, it is so glaring that Robb Stark is going to die, George R. R Martin seems to go out of his way to tell us this, and yet its still so heartbreaking, so shocking when it finally happens.
I've found four signs that tell of Robb's impending demise, there may be more, if there are I'd be glad for someone to point me to them.
The first three times come up in
A Clash Of Kings, when Stannis, Renly and Catelyn meet, just before Renly is killed. Stannis tells Catelyn that Robb is a traitor and his time will come as well.
Stannis frowned at her. “You presume too much, Lady Stark. I am the rightful king, and your son no less a traitor than my brother here. His day will come as well.”
Afterwards, when Catelyn has witnessed Renly's horrific death, she shivers when she remembers this threat.
The second time is the vision or revelation that Daenerys Targaryen has in The House of the Undying...
Farther on she came upon a feast of corpses. Savagely slaughtered, the feasters lay strewn across overturned chairs and hacked trestle tables, asprawl in pools of congealing blood. Some had lost limbs, even heads. Severed hands clutched bloody cups, wooden spoons, roast fowl, heels of bread. In a throne above them sat a dead man with the head of a wolf. He wore an iron crown and held a leg of lamb in one hand as a king might hold a scepter, and his eyes followed Dany with mute appeal.
Because we do not yet know that Robb will die in a feast, the connection does not come automatically, but it should, who else could be a King with the head of a wolf, only Robb Stark.
The third time is when a desperate Theon Greyjoy, after taking Winterfell, dreams of the feast that had been given for King Robert Baratheon when he comes to Winterfell in the beginning of A game of thrones, except in his dream, the King is dead, and so is Ned Stark, in fact everyone in the feast is someone who has died prior to that moment. then the door opens and Robb bursts in, with his direwolf Grey Wind, both of them with wounds all over their bodies.
That night he dreamed of the feast Ned Stark had thrown when King Robert came to Winterfell. The hall rang with music and laughter, though the cold winds were rising outside. At first it was all wine and roast meat, and Theon was making japes and eyeing the serving girls and having himself a fine time… until he noticed that the room was growing darker. The music did not seem so jolly then; he heard discords and strange silences, and notes that hung in the air bleeding. Suddenly the wine turned bitter in his mouth, and when he looked up from his cup he saw that he was dining with the dead.
King Robert sat with his guts spilling out on the table from the great gash in his belly, and Lord Eddard was headless beside him. Corpses lined the benches below, grey-brown flesh sloughing off their bones as they raised their cups to toast, worms crawling in and out of the holes that were their eyes. He knew them, every one; Jory Cassel and Fat Tom, Porther and Cayn and Hullen the master of horse, and all the others who had ridden south to King’s Landing never to return. Mikken and Chayle sat together, one dripping blood and the other water. Benfred Tallhart and his Wild Hares filled most of a table. The miller’s wife was there as well, and Farlen, even the wildling Theon had killed in the wolfswood the day he had saved Bran’s life.
But there were others with faces he had never known in life, faces he had seen only in stone. The slim, sad girl who wore a crown of pale blue roses and a white gown spattered with gore could only be Lyanna. Her brother Brandon stood beside her, and their father Lord Rickard just behind. Along the walls figures half-seen moved through the shadows, pale shades with long grim faces. The sight of them sent fear shivering through Theon sharp as a knife. And then the tall doors opened with a crash, and a freezing gale blew down the hall, and Robb came walking out of the night. Grey Wind stalked beside, eyes burning, and man and wolf alike bled from half a hundred savage wounds.
This was the scene that finally convinced me that Robb would die, and soon.
There was one more thing though that came up in
A Storm Of Swords, and that was the worst of all.
Melisandre bowed her head stiffly, and said, “As my king commands.” Reaching up her left sleeve with her right hand, she flung a handful of powder into the brazier. The coals roared. As pale flames writhed atop them, the red woman retrieved the silver dish and brought it to the king. Davos watched her lift the lid. Beneath were three large black leeches, fat with blood.
The boy’s blood, Davos knew. A king’s blood.
Stannis stretched forth a hand, and his fingers closed around one of the leeches.
“Say the name,” Melisandre commanded.
The leech was twisting in the king’s grip, trying to attach itself to one of his fingers. “The usurper,” he said. “Joffrey Baratheon.” When he tossed the leech into the fire, it curled up like an autumn leaf amidst the coals, and burned.
Stannis grasped the second. “The usurper,” he declared, louder this time. “Balon Greyjoy.” He flipped it lightly onto the brazier, and its flesh split and cracked. The blood burst from it, hissing and smoking.
The last was in the king’s hand. This one he studied a moment as it writhed between his fingers. “The usurper,” he said at last. “Robb Stark.” And he threw it on the flames.
I don't know much about rituals but haven seen what the priestess had done before, when she did this in A Storm of Swords, I felt it was a sure thing, Robb Stark was going to die.
