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IT’S ALL JUST A LITTLE BIT OF HISTORY REPEATING -> an asoiaf elder/younger gen comparison series.
elia martell and jeyne westerling.
(Okay, hear me out in this one. In some ways Elia and Jeyne are opposites because Elia is defined as a woman who is left behind in the pull of political events, a woman who is not wanted, while Jeyne is defined as a woman who is wanted or at the least taken and therefore has political events spread out around her.
But—
They’re both seen as minor political impediments in the chain of events that is war. They’re both stated by several characters as unworthy of their husbands or in Jeyne’s case unworthy of the trouble the marriage caused. They both for whatever reason have trouble giving their husbands heirs, which is seen as the primary purpose of a woman in Westeros. They’re deprived of their agency and swatted away as inconveniences in the more important game of men. If Jeyne had in fact become pregnant by Robb, she would have undoubtedly suffered a fate similar to Elia’s at the hands of the same family. We know little about either of them but from what we’ve heard, they were both kind people who weren’t, as far as we know, invested in the game of thrones. They were pulled in against their own will and suffered for it.)
“Princess Elia was a good woman, Your Grace. She was kind and clever, with a gentle heart and a sweet wit.”
“Jeyne is bright as well as beautiful. And kind as well. She has a gentle heart.”
“Elia need not have been harmed at all, that was sheer folly. By herself she was nothing.”
“Then why did the Mountain kill her?”
“Because I did not tell him to spare her. I doubt I mentioned her at all. I had more pressing concerns.”
Jeyne Westerling had been Robb Stark’s queen, the girl who cost him everything. With a wolf in her belly, she could have proved more dangerous than the Blackfish.
She did not look dangerous.
