Jonsatin For Day 3!

Jonsatin for day 3!

The funniest thing about fandom wank over whether Sansa or Arya is most like Lyanna is that you’re looking past the most obvious candidate aka Robb. Someone who only exists through other people’s memories, a shrine for people to flagellate themselves at, the beautiful dead girl whose absence defines the narrative more than her presence ever could?? That’s literally Robb’s whole point as a character.

Terrible Fic Ideas #42: Game of Thrones, but make it Catelyn Tully

Let's be honest: there are a lot of terrible people in Game of Thrones. As someone once said, it's less pick your favorite character than pick your favorite war criminal. Yet the one character I can usually find few redeeming qualities for is, by comparison, one whose wickedness is most tame - Catelyn Tully. I just can't forgive her cruelty to Jon for the "crime" of being born someone else's son.

So I thought: what would it take for me to like Catelyn Tully as a person? Or: What would a Jon Snow raised by a loving stepmother look like?

Aka: The Rhaegar the Righteous Fic

Just imagine it:

Everything through Robert's Rebellion happens just as in canon, but with one exception: when Lysa Tully became pregnant by Petyr Baelish, her father did not force her to drink moon tea. As lowly as Hoster Tully thought Baelish is, he believes there is more shame in forcing his daughter to end her pregnancy than in allowing her to marry the father of her child.

But Baelish, still licking his wounds from Brandon Stark, refuses to marry Lysa - he still wants Catelyn's hand. So Catelyn is forced to watch her younger sister rage and then despair over Petyr's betrayal while still very much desiring her bastard child. This causes Catelyn's position on baseborn children to soften.

Lysa dies in childbed. Her child follows soon after. Catelyn is distraught.

When Ned returns from war with his own bastard, Catelyn resolves to treat Jon with all the love she would have given Lysa's son - though she still feels rather put out towards Ned about it.

Jon grows up loved by his stepmother - and this changes everything, for Catelyn is a Southron, Andal influence. Like Bran, Jon grows up wanting to be a Southron knight, and, like Sansa, is more faithful to the Seven than the Old Gods.

Ned, though leery of anything Southron - particularly where Jon is concerned - eventually consents to Jon earning his knighthood. Jon is sent to squire for Baelor Hightower, heir of Oldtown and eldest brother of Jorah Mormont's wife, Lynesse.

Jon's Southron knighthood should collide with his Northern ethics and morality in all the best ways - he should be the most honorable and chivalrous knight since Arthur Dayne, whom many assume to be his uncle.

The events of canon proceed apace. Robert dies, Ned is beheaded, and war breaks out.

Rather than rejoin his family, Jon stays with the Hightowers - Jon's position is that while it makes sense to rise against Joffrey for his actions, breaking away from the Seven Kingdoms makes them oathbreakers. He distinguishes himself in skirmishes with Lannister forces on the Westerlands borders for which he is knighted.

After Renly's death, Jon comes to the attention of Olenna Tyrell when, during discussions regarding which of the remaining factions to back, Jon argues for finding the nearest person of Targaryen blood and installing them on the throne rather than dealing with a heretic like Stannis or a madman like Joffrey.

Olenna has always had the vague suspicion that there was more to Ned Stark's bastard than meets the eye and something about this interaction causes her to look at Jon and go Targaryen - or at least plausibly Targaryen - and all of a sudden the Reach and half of the Stormlands is rising in the name of Rhaegar's posthumous son.

Eventually proof comes from the Citadel and the Neck that Jon is Rhaegar's son - also named Rhaegar - but at the time Jon is highly uncomfortable with what he sees as deception. He only agrees to go along with it because 1) Olenna manages to convince him it's the truth and 2) it's the only way he gets to marry Baelor's oldest daughter, Elinor Hightower, with whom he is in love.

Without the Tyrells backing the Lannisters, nearly all the Seven Kingdoms - minus Dorne and King's Landing - fall to Reacher forces. The Red Wedding happens before Jon is forced to deal with Robb's own kingship and Jon retakes the North before turning his forces against Joffrey and his Essosi mercenaries.

Jon is crowned King Rhaegar the Righteous and marries his beloved, Elinor Hightower, in a brilliant dual ceremony in the Sept of Baelor. His reign is always known as a period of prosperity in Westeros during which the Seven come to dominate the Seven Kingdoms. There's a decidedly Camelot bent to later histories of this period.

Daenerys never tries to retake Westeros, but instead builds a - slave free - Valyrian empire in Essos. This eventually comes to be Westeros' great rival and many wars are fought between them over control of the Stepstones and the Narrow Sea, but in its early years both branches of House Targaryen intermarry frequently.

Bonuses include: 1) Jon and Elinor falling in love while he squires for her father, but realizing nothing can ever come from it and having a very UST-filled courtly romance until they're finally given leave to marry after he's named king; 2) Jon and Elinor's first daughter being named Catelyn, after his beloved stepmother; 3) Heavy overtones of Arthurian myth, with the faith of the Seven taking the place of Christianity, up to and including the King in the Mountain following Jon's death; and 4) no one being more surprised than Olenna Tyrell when it turns out Jon really is a Targaryen.

And that's all I have. As always, feel free to adopt, just link back if you ever do anything with this bun.

Other Jon Snow Headcanons: Aegon the Undying | Aegon the Unyielding | Aemon the Adventurous | Baelor the Brave | Daeron the Desired | Dyanna the Defiant | King of the Ashes | Lady Arryn | Lady Baratheon | Lady Lannister | Lady Stark | Lord of the Dance | Prince Consort | Prince of Summerhall | Queen Mother | Rhaegar the Righteous

More Terrible Fic Ideas

‘’"I don’t even know your name.“

“Gilly, he called me. For the gillyflower.”

“That’s pretty.” He remembered Sansa telling him once that he should say that whenever a lady told him her name. He could not help the girl, but perhaps the courtesy would please her. ‘’ 

–

ok this might be a little ooc for jon since he usually knows how to talk to whom but there are moments where he just doesn’t… care…lol

 Also Sansa giving him courtesy 101 is the cutest thing.

he's the GOAT!

jon snow 🤝🏻 bran stark

missing and remembering their favourite sister: arya stark of winterfell through the books