Chapter three opens with Catelyn bringing news of the death of Jon Arryn to her husband Ned in the godswood of Winterfell.
Character Deaths: 4
We also get some internal narrative from Catelyn and a bit of a simplified overview of her religion, the Faith, as well as her thoughts on the old gods.
So lets quickly break down the two religions. First lets start with Catelyn’s religion, the Faith of the Seven. This is the most widely practiced in Westeros. The only areas that it’s not the most commonly practiced is The North, the Iron Islands and beyond The Wall.
The main religious text is the Seven Pointed Star and the common practices are full of rituals, prayers, songs with established temples/churches throughout the lands. The seven are actually seven aspects of one deity, each with it’s own aspect and virtues to help guide the faithful in times of need. Often someone will pray to a specific “aspect or face” as it relates to the situation they find themselves needing spiritual guidance in.
The Seven are the Father, Mother, Warrior, Maiden, Smith, Crone and the Stranger.
The Father: Judgment and Justice
The Mother: Motherhood, Nurturing as well as Mercy
The Warrior: Strength, Courage and Victory.
The Maiden: Innocence and Chastity
The Smith: Crafts and Labor:
The Crone: Wisdom that comes with age.
The Stranger: Death and the Unknown.
A lot of these themes are found within the characters through the books. For example Ned often takes the role of The Father as noted in the prior chapter when he executed the deserter from the Nights Watch.
Cat often in the books has themes of the Mother going through her storyline.
King Robert in days prior would have been the personification of The Warrior as is Jamie Lannister and Jon Snow through most of the books. Each at a different stage of their lives.
Sansa and Danerys repeatedly has themes of innocence and chastity throughout their chapters.
The Maesters as well as Davos often seem to represent the Smith being they are more experts of their crafts instead of being the typical heros.
The Crone is personified by several characters throughout but mostly by Old Nan and the Lady Tyrell.
The themes of The Stranger seem to also permeate Arya’s storyline.
The other religion is that of the Old Gods. These are the gods that the Starks of Winterfell worship.. They aren’t deities per say but more akin to spirits of nature. They don’t have temples or churches but rather the godswoods tend to be places for worship.
As revealed in this chapter most all castles have a godswood, but few of them are ever considered sacred grounds. For the most part they are thought of like a park and a good place to relax, read.
In each godswood is a wierwood tree. A large white tree with blood red sap and leaves with a face carved into it. They are considered sacred to the followers of the Old Gods. It is believed that the old gods can see through them.
The death of Jon Arryn is a really significant thing in a lot of ways. First Jon is a relation to the Starks by his marriage to Catelyn’s sister Lysa. This also means his son Robert Arryn will become Lord of the Eyrie when he comes of age.
Catelyn lets Ned know that Lysa and Robert have returned home and Ned encourages his wife to take some of the children and go to her in her hour of grief. Unfortunately this isn’t a possibility as she lets Ned know King Robert Baratheon is on his way with his court to Winterfell.
We also learn in this chapter of the history that Ned, Robert and Jon Arryn had together. Robert and Ned were the wards of Jon Arryn when they were younger. We also learned that Jon had opted to not turnover his charges when the Mad King demanded their heads and instead decided to go to war instead of allow the two of them to be executed on the Mad Kings whims. This was one of the key moments in Roberts Rebellion that lead to the present situation at the start of the books. After the war Jon Arryn was made the Hand of the King and was charged with providing guidance and running the affairs of state for King Robert.
In the end Ned decides to send an honor guard out to meet the king and to prepare for his eventual arrival. 
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