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Chapter 30: Eddard
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in A Game of Thrones, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Politics and Power
Climate Change and Collective Action
Gender and Power
Honor and Integrity
Identity
Summary
Analysis
After Catelyn arrests Tyrion at the inn, they set out along the road. In the inn, Catelyn repeatedly said they would go to Winterfell, but on the road, they turn east instead of north. Catelyn said they were headed to Winterfell to throw anyone who might follow them off their trail. Tyrion thinks they must be going to see Catelyn’s sister, Lysa. At first, Tyrion is handcuffed and forced to wear a hood over his head, but after a few days, they stop making him wear the hood.
Catelyn displays her own capacity for cunning by loudly proclaiming that she would head to Winterfell with Tyrion when she planned to bring Tyrion to meet her sister all along. That kind of cunning, the novel argues, is essential when one enters, on any level, into the arena of politics and power.
Themes
As they pass the mountains, a mountain clan attacks them. They battle, and Catelyn agrees to let Tyrion have a weapon to defend himself. Eventually, they defeat the mountain clan and continue riding. As they ride, Tyrion begins to poke holes in the story that Littlefinger told. In Littlefinger’s story, Littlefinger had once owned the dagger used in the attempt on Bran’s life. But Littlefinger lost the dagger to Tyrion, he said, in a bet. According to Littlefinger, Tyrion bet against his brother Jaime in a tournament while Littlefinger bet in favor of Jaime. When Jaime lost, Tyrion won the dagger. Tyrion tells Catelyn the issue with that story, though, is that he would never bet against his family.
Tyrion points out that Catelyn has based her conviction that he is guilty of conspiring to kill Bran almost solely on Littlefinger’s word. That makes Tyrion’s case a question of his word against Littlefinger’s. The novel has implicitly asked, at various times, who seems more trustworthy: Littlefinger or Tyrion? Because of the Lannisters’ well-documented attempts to gain power, Tyrion seems like he may be guilty by association, but at this point, no one in the novel has presented definitive proof that he's guilty of plotting Bran’s death.
Themes
