They serve for life, so he can’t retire. But you are correct, Tyrion is heir. Well, I guess Tommen is probably heir now.
This is the open spoiler thread; you don’t have to bother.
Since Tyrion has now inherited? 
Am I misrembering, or has who is running Casterly Rock been completely glossed over since Tywin’s death? Maybe that’ll come up in Dragons.
They do seen to be downplaying the Kingsguard so far in the show. (Admittedly, the Kingsguard was fairly minor to this point in the book as well.) It’ll be interesting to see how that plays out.
I think Kevan.
For lack of any better option, probably so.
I don’t have cites - might skim my books later to see if I can provide them.
Cat has definately been married for about 15 years in the first book, because Robb was concieved within weeks after the wedding (might have been the wedding night). This is how I remember the sequence of events (told mostly in flashbacks and various confessions by characters throughout all the books):
This all happens in fairly quick succession, like 6 months time.
*15-year-old Petyr challanges a visiting 20-year-old Brandon to a duel over Cat’s hand in marriage
*Brandon wins the duel and injures Petyr fairly badly
*During Petyr’s convalesence from that injury (while he’s delerious with fever IIRC), Lysa has sex with him cause she’s always had a thing for him, and gets pregnant
*Lyanna is “abducted” by Rhaegar and Brandon hears the news on his way to marry Cat- he instead goes to King’s Landing to rescue his sister, where he’s killed by the Mad King and the Rebellion gets into full swing
*Catelyn marries Ned instead and departs for the other side of the country where Ned impregnates her with Robb and then goes off to war for another year. She never even knew Lysa was pregnant.
*Lord Tully finds out what happened and Petyr is sent back to his father’s forever. Lysa is not allowed to marry Petyr, her baby is forcibly aborted to her lasting emotional and possibly physical trauma; this may be the reason she has such trouble with miscarriages - and her father’s deathbed regrets, expressed to Cat. She is married in haste and disgrace to Jon Arryn (who both wants Tully support because of the Rebellion, and wants a last-minute heir, and is willing to take an unvirgin girl proved fertile), at the age of 15.
Cat is the eldest Tully child (then Edmure, Lysa is youngest). According to this timeline Petyr and Lysa are of an age and Cat would therefore be a few years older than Petyr, so early to mid-30s in Game of Thrones. Cat would have married Ned when she was around 18 years old, 15 years before The Game of Thrones.
Tywin was always determined to keep Tyrion from inheriting Casterly Rock. I think he always held out hope that he could eventually give it to Jaime, until Jaime turned it down point blank in ASoS.
As for the wolves, Robb’s downfall was foreshadowed in the way he started doubting his wolf’s instincts. Grey Wolf correctly smells out the traitors, and Catelyn instinctively knew this. She begged Robb to take heed, but he was rather dismissive about the whole thing.
I’ve heard some speculation that because Lady had to die for something Nymeria had done, this in some way foreshadows the way Sansa will die. I thought it was an interesting theory.
And a few pages later, Jon is reflecting that Robb was a better fighter at 14 than the older boys he’s training with at the Wall. So Robb is well over 14, and the math doesn’t work.
Even if Littlefinger was just one week over 15 at the time of the duel, for there to be time for Brandon to return to Winterfell, then go on his mission to retrieve his sister, then have Ned take his place in the marriage bed with Cat, you have to think at least a couple of months had passed. And to say Littlefinger was “still shy of 30” implies at least a couple of months less than 30, so it’s been, at most, 14 years and 7 months since Cat married Ned. Robb must be at least 14 years and two months old for Jon to reflect back on his skills at age 14, and it’s very unlikely that a baby born four months premature could survive even today.
So, either Robb is not Ned’s, or GRRM wasn’t very careful with his chronology.
That fits my recollection as well, although the westeros wiki lists Catelyn as 12 when she was betrothed to Brandon.
Ned was ~21 when they married and Robb was conceived. So either there was a long delay between Cat’s engagement and the proposed wedding, or westeros has her age wrong.
DO you guys think there still would have been a war if Brandon wasn’t such a hot head? It’s only because of him that the Stark’s and Arryn’s go to war. I don’t recall who else was burned by Aerys. A Tully? Without Brandon it’s just a scorned Robert pissed at Rhaegar.
Yeah, something doesn’t check out with the math there. Cat should be mid-30s but Petyr should be early 30s… and he’s going gray for goodness sake.
Cat might have been betrothed to Brandon since she was 12, she does mention the feelings she had for Brandon (crush-like) as a young girl.
Sorry I didn’t see your post before I posted above.
But this thing about Ned marrying Cat before going off to war bothers me. If your father and brother had just been murdered, and you were going to avenge them, would you really stop to take the time to marry someone you didn’t love? Had Ned even met Cat before he married her?
I understand the family obligation, but surely the vengeance came first — UNLESS Cat and Brandon had jumped the gun, and she was already pregnant. Then the only solution would be for Ned to quickly marry her on his way, and pretend that her child was his.
That would explain the time discrepancy I outlined in my previous post.
Can anyone confirm or deny this scenario?
Sure, but that’s got to be 100% speculation. Stuff like that is perfectly obvious in hindsight but predictions are based on WAGs.
Sansa basically lost her Stark-hood when Lady was killed. Arya lost it when she drove Nymeria off, though she’s capable of recovering it, of course. Becoming a (presumably) honorless assassin wouldn’t help with that of course.
Bran has kept it. Rickon, like Shaggydog, will probably be a tiny bit feral.
I really wonder if something will come of the whole ‘stitching Grey Wind’s head onto Robb’s body.’ It was so specific, and Arya has seen it in her wolf dreams.
-Joe
There are no hints that Robb is not Ned’s son. There are many direct references to his conception in fact (between Cat and Ned).
It all goes back to Ned’s duties and honor. All these marriages were arranged as ways to forge alliances between houses. Brandon died trying to save the life of Lord Stark, who was also killed by the Mad King. Ned went from being an introverted second son to Lord Stark in one day. On his way from Winterfell to King’s Landing to go to war to rescue his sister, avenge the death of his father and brother, and support his foster brother Robert, he stopped by Riverrun and did his duty by marrying his brother’s fiancee (who he did not know or love), therefore securing an alliance with the Tullys (and producing an heir as well).
Riverrun is an important part of war strategy due to it’s location I believe, but I can’t remember exact details…
Well, she’s already “dead” in the sense that she’s separated herself from the pack, first in her attempt to become a Baratheon/Lannister through marriage to Joffery (and then Tyrion (they’re technically still married, no?)) and later by masquerading as Littlefinger’s bastard daughter.
On edit: what Merijeek said. She’s given up her “Starkhood”.
Yes, in fact, it’s hinted that the only reason Aerys granted Jaime entry to the Kingsguard was to piss off Tywin by robbing him of his heir.
Ok.
Littlefinger-15, Cat-(lets say 18)
We have the duel, Brandon dying, and Cat getting pregnant, all in a very short time. . After Brandon was killed they had to secure alliances before war. Littlefinger-15.1, Cat-18.1
14 years 10 months later Robb is 14 years and a bit, Littlefinger is going to turn 30 very soon and Cat is in her young 30s.
Seems ok to me.
You’re right; the alliance aspect makes the sudden marriage plausible.
Still not happy with the timing of Robb’s birth, though.
I’m not as numbers-obsessed as the rest of you, but where is everyone coming up with this exact 14 years and 10 months from?
-Joe
It allows Robb to be 14 and Littlefinger to be under 30 and 15 just before the war. I’m not about to go find the exact dates.
It’s still a bit too close. As someone said (partially) upthread, we need to allow time for Brandon to go back home after wounding Littlefinger, for Brandon to be traveling back to Riverrun to marry Cat (it says specifically in the books that he was on his way to Riverrun to marry Cat when he heard the news about Lyanna), for him to go to King’s Landing instead to fight for his sister, for him to be arrested and held there by the Mad King, for Lord Stark to be called to King’s Landing (unless he went with Brandon the first time? that cuts it down a bit), for them both to be gruesomely killed in lieu of a trial for treason, for word of their deaths to reach Ned at Winterfell, and for Ned to leave Winterfell to go to war, and marry Cat and impregnate her with Robb on his way.
Littlefinger should be just over 30 years old. I blame the editor.