#he's the easiest angle to approach lyarra from given he's the only POV we have who would have met her

[melrosing]

I’ve seen your Joanna headcannons. What about lyarra stark? Part of me thinks she could be really wild but the other part thinks she could be a patriarchy enforcer like Rickard was. Then again my mom was a ceiling glass breaker but started to deter my sisters and I from that sort of behaviour as we became teens which oh course didn’t work we were tough nuts and party girls.

She's another tricky one... I'd love to know more about Lyarra but for whatever reason we know less about her than almost any other notable dead lady. Which is pretty fucking odd, given this is House Stark we're talking about - we know about ten times as much about Joanna and Rhaella (and they're a pretty low bar) - Lannister and Targaryen are the other two of the big three houses in the story, so you'd think we'd know about as much about the Stark matriarch as we do Joanna and Rhaella. but no lol. There are at least some sketchy details to work with with the UPOD (and she doesn't even have a name!!), and we even have more for Cassana Baratheon née Estermont and Minisa Tully née Whent - granted, no more than the fact that Cassana died in a shipwreck, and Minisa is vaguely remembered in Cat's chapters, but at least they're in the books. Lyarra is never even mentioned on the page - her name comes from an appendix, there's nothing else to go on. And this is really annoying to me lol

So I guess anything I imagine about Lyarra has no real basis besides my own tastes, but I do picture her as another parent who had favourites, and that hers were Brandon and Lyanna. I imagine her as having a bit of the wolf's blood in her as well, and she was proud to have children who shared it. We don't know how she died so I just hc her passing away of an illness (surprisingly few dead people in ASOIAF have just 'sickness' as cause of death lol it's like GRRM you don't have to say 'in childbirth' every damn time) in Ned's early-to-mid teenage years.

But yeah I don't imagine her as a perfect benevolent matriarch... this is definitely headcanon territory, but I picture Ned as having been a little bit of an odd one out in his family, where he ends up kind of pushed to the back behind all the big personalities, and with Brandon soaking up all the limelight and their parents' attentions. It's interesting to me that Rickard (and Lyarra?) worked hard on good matches for Brandon and Lyanna but seemingly never made one for Ned, so he was very much a second son.

And yeah the feeling I get about Lyanna is that she was a version of Arya who grew up with more validation and less judgement for the ways she didn't conform (hence why Ned is largely accepting of Arya's non-conformity as well) - so Lyarra was maybe an outdoorsy type as well who wanted to share her hobbies with her daughter.

Ultimately I don't imagine the prev gen Starks chafing much amongst themselves, and that Lyarra, whilst having favourites, wasn't ever unpleasant to Ned - but her preferences were obvious enough that it led to some private hurt on his part, and resentment towards Brandon, that then turns to guilt after Brandon's death (more thoughts on the Ned/Brandon r/ship here). However, I also hc Ned and Lyanna as very close in their youth, so being Lyarra's least favourite son is a little made up for in being Lyanna's fave brother uwu