possibly incomplete list of asoiaf characters described as having red or even "ginger" hair (or red-gold as opposed to red-brown or ghiscari red-black), never auburn:
mycah, the butcher's boy*
beric dondarrion (red-gold hair)*
lharys, member of the three stooges men-at-arms (wild rust-colored hair)**
unnamed and unfortunate mother of robert baratheon's doomed youngest child, barra (light red-haired mother of black-haired baby)*
tomard aka "fat tom", stark guardsman (with his ginger whiskers)*
horas "horror" redwyne (orange hair)*
hobber "slobber" redwyne (orange hair)*
unnamed red-haired whore leaning out a window the day of ned's execution (presumably not the same as above since she was joking about the king's death)*
melisandre of asshai (deep burnished copper. red and terrible and red.)*
a man called jaqen h'ghar (red on one side, white on the other)*
pug-nosed dancy from chataya's brothel (described as red-haired by tyrion in acok but honey-blonde in asos, so presumably hair dye must have been involved between those book mentions.)**
addam marbrand (hair the same copper color as his horse's mane)*
"ginger-headed" maester frenken*
unnamed beardless ginger youth among theon's crew at winterfell*
ygritte, a spearwife "kissed-by-fire" (bright red)*
arryk aka "left" or "right", lady olenna's red-mustached guardsman*
erryk aka "left" or "right", lady olenna's other, identical, red-mustached guardsman*
lord paxter redwyne (tufts of orange hair)**
anguy the archer of the bwb*
a red-bearded karstark rapist dead in a crow cage at stoney sept*
tansy, innkeeper of the peach in stoney sept*
meryn trant (rust-red hair)*
"red" ronnet connington
mero, "the titan's bastard", former commander of the second sons (bushy red-gold beard)
a red-headed soldier who came with stannis to the wall
shadrich "the mad mouse" (bristly orange hair)*
lord rykker's red-mustached maester
marwyn belmore, lysa's former guard captain (ginger-headed)*
lord benedar belmore with a beard that was "a ginger-grey horror"*
lord orton merryweather (reddish-orange hair)
"the red oarsman", one of euron greyoy's followers (fiery red hair)
unnamed red-haired sailor arriving at port in braavos*
lord clement piper
and his son lewys "little lew" piper, who served as squire to jaime lannister in the riverlands
unnamed red-haired youth who first escaped northward with varamyr from the battle at the wall
one of illyrio's washerwomen (dull red hair)**
jon connington (once red hair gone to grey, still red at the roots and eyebrows even when the rest was dyed blue. also had a bright red beard as a younger man.)**
rolly "duck" duckfield (a shock of orange hair)**
a young man among the wildling refugees at mole's town whose red hair reminded jon of ygritte*
the "sunset kingdoms" girl raped by tyrion in the brothel where he was captured by jorah**
hagen's daughter, only other woman among asha greyjoy's crew
roggon rustbeard, one of asha's men
mully of the nw (greasy orange hair)*
bloodbeard, commander of the company of the cat (fiery red whiskers)
"ginger" jack, a toungeless sellsword of the windblown sent to dany, face nearly covered by his bristly, orange beard
gerrick kingsblood*
and his son*
and gerrick's daughter #1*
and gerrick's daughter #2*
and gerrick's daughter #3*
ronald storm, son of ronnet connington
one of the 7 "choicest" enslaved girls from the yunkish ship who were sacrificed by victarion (red-gold hair)
an enslaved redhead boy in line for a well, asking tyrion about dany**
nail, apprentice to hammer, the armorer for the second sons**
maester tybald, redhaired maester from the dreadfort serving arnolf karstark
valena toland, heiress to the tor (bright red hair)
teora toland, valena's younger sister with the same hair
uther shett, knight arriving for sweetrobin's tourney (ginger-haired and whiskered)*
*characters whose hair is described in the povs of starks (or jon snow) who only use the terms auburn or red-brown for catelyn, robb, sansa etc. and do not compare said characters to said tully-haired relations
**characters whose hair is described by tyrion lannister, who spent significant time with sansa and exclusively referred to her hair as auburn (without anyone else telling him her hair color as catelyn told brienne)
the only asoiaf characters ever described as having auburn hair:
catelyn tully stark
robb stark (red-brown/auburn tully hair "so like" his mother's, with a beard redder than his hair)
sansa stark (auburn hair lighter than her mother's, most reddish glowing in candlelight)
brandon "bran" stark (hair not bright red enough for him to distinguish himself from young benjen at first glance in a weirwood flashback)
rickon stark
brynden "the blackfish" tully (once auburn hair gone to grey)
edmure tully (auburn hair with a fiery beard, likely brighter than his hair like robb's)
lysa tully arryn baelish
known tully descendants never described as having auburn hair
arya stark (darker brown stark-colored hair)
hoster tully (hair and beard gone from brown to brown streaked with grey to white as snow)
robert "sweetrobin" arryn (fine brown hair, thought by sansa to be his best feature)
fun fact: the only other character that i can find to ever even be descibed as having red-brown hair in the main series is rowan, one of the spearwives who accompanied mance on his mission to winterfell. (described by theon, who had psychological reasons not to think of any hair-resemblance to robb and co.)
tl;dr i suppose my point here is that auburn hair in the real world may be a term thrown around wildly as a fancier way of saying red hair, but grrm and his westerosi creations seem to keep to a much more specific (true) definition. not just specific, almost entirely unique to a certain family, a weird mutation passing down their line somewhat inexplicably, like the magic platinum hair of the targaryens. (ned stark's 4 tully-haired kids being sorta like alicent hightower's 4 targ-haired kids where nobody can really explain why it was so dominant.) except it's actually more unique to the tullys than either black hair to the baratheons or silver hair to the targaryens, with the velaryons also having valyrian hair as well as some people in the essosi free cities too. which i guess makes rowan the wildling the equalivent of an unknown dragonseed or a lysene woman who could pass as a targ, and regular brown-haired hoster and sweetrobin the equivalent of regular blonde-haired alysanne and alyssa targaryen. so the next time someone calls the tullys lame or whatever, just remember that in-universe they're actually more special than the dragonriders, at least hairwise.
208 notes
·
View notes
@sunflowersansa, #catelyn was raised to be hosters successor for almost a decade wasnt she?
the annoying thing is we don't have an approximate age for edmure, nor any age for cat when minisa died (in childbirth with a last, stillborn son, not edmure). i've seen fanart depicting him as anywhere from a toddler to a younger teen/tween when catelyn and lysa were teenagers. but i feel pretty confident in my estimation of ~7/8yrs age difference between eldest sister and baby brother, and not just bc of symmetry with the next generation. my reasoning is thus:
we all assume catelyn had some grooming as an heiress, rather than it just being a nominal status in early childhood. how much training can one really give a 3 or 4yo, y'know? we know rickon never had any manly lord lessons from ned since he was still so young when they parted. if she was closer to 7 or 8 when edmure came along, that leaves more realistic time for education, and a sizable number of years with only daughters for hoster to try to accustom himself to lack of a son and make do accordingly. even only 1 or 2 years of rulership lessons would still matter when minisa's death left hoster more dependent on her as not just hostess but later a trusted confidant of a sort until she got married.
ned thinks of edmure as "the boy" in his pov when hearing of the mountain's first attacks in the riverlands. we know ned's not great with keeping up with ageing from his earlier comments about tommen, and he surely hasn't seen edmure in many years, but this tells me that when they did meet at riverrun, edmure was not that close in age to himself, catelyn, and lysa. (i think it's less likely to see someone as frozen in childhood if they're anywhere near your age cohort.) ned could still be wrong about edmure's age thinking he couldn't possibly be at least 25 and any green knight younger than that was still a boy or youth, but that miscalculation makes more sense to me if he was around ~26 rather than a fellow thirtysomething or a guy pushing thirty.
we also know that edmure acted as brandon's squire in his duel with littlefinger, which i read as more someone playacting at some squirely practice when not yet consideed old enough to be anyone's assigned squire, with the informal nature of the duel which meant lightly-armored littlefinger having no squire of his own, and brandon having an actual squire who likely could have been present. so that lines up with a ~10yo edmure to 15yo littlefinger, 16yo lysa, 18yo catelyn, and 20yo brandon. (this is admittedly the most subjective point and i wouldn't consider it strong evidence if not consistent with the rest.)
catelyn doubted her memories of her mother, including her appearence, which in this world strangely devoid of portraits, still makes me think she was quite young when they lost her. so, yeah, not a large gap between edmure's birth and minisa's death in her next childbirth. if catelyn was 8/9 or even 10 when her mother died and she became de facto lady of riverrun, that could line up with the lannister twins losing their mother at 7 and not having strong memories of joanna.
idt catelyn really did think of riverrun as her birthright when her brief time as conscious heiress was a small fraction of her life, with at least 6yrs knowing she'd move away to be lady (consort) of winterfell instead and the rest of her life living out that responsibility as northern wife and mother. but it must still sting to be used to such a position of importance in her earlier time in riverrun and have no real authority when she returned to live there again as an adult, especially when edmure still seemed to act (to her) like the baby of the family not entirely matured into the authority he held all for himself. there's a part in her time in renly's camp when she thought robb was years younger but still knew what he was doing more than the southern king and his knights of summer playing at war. i'd imagine a simaliar feeling whenever edmure annoyed her. that's another difference between robb and edmure, that robb was a dutiful eldest sibling like his mother, formerly catelyn's baby but never anyone's baby brother. while edmure, even if he was (my by headcanon) a few years older than renly and unlike renly was meant to be a male heir from birth, was still a youngest child of 3 like renly.
84 notes
·
View notes