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Catelyn's Guilt


JonSnow4President

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So, I'm rereading the series as work allows, and noticed this little snippit on read through.





"Mya Stone, if it please you, my lady," the girl said.



It did not please her; it was an effort for Catelyn to keep the smile on her face. Stone was a bastard's name in the vale, as Snow was in the north, and Flowers in Highgarden; in each of the Seven Kingdoms, custom had fashioned a surname for children born with no names of their own. Catelyn had nothing against this girl, but suddenly she could not help but think of Ned's bastard on the Wall, and the thought made her angry and guilty, both at once. She struggled to find words for a reply.





I've seen it mentioned on the forums that we really don't get that much into Catelyn's emotions behind Jon, especially without the show "prayed for him to die" scene. What does Catelyn feel guilty for, if not her treatment of Jon. Is it her refusal to perfectly obey her Lord husband, or is it, as the show suggests, her own knowledge that she's been less than loving to a motherless child. Are there any other reasons she could possibly feel guilty when thinking about Jon?


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I don't think it's absence of anything...I don't think Cat would feel guilty for not loving Jon, as nothing in her society suggests she should...but more likely the presence of something closer to hatred towards a blameless child. The only part being a mother serves is how parenting in general makes someone more sensitive to the needs of a child.

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Yeah, she probably feels guilty about the way she treated him all those years, especially since it wasn't really his fault that he was born or that Ned decided to raise him in Winterfell along with his legitimate children. I think Catelyn is fundamentally a decent person, and although she couldn't help feeling the way she did about Jon, or behaving the way she did around him, she knew deep down that what she was doing was wrong and unfair to him. From tbe wording of the text it also seems to me that she's feeling guilty that she's suddenly prejudiced against Mya Stone just because she's a bastard, but she can't help but feel anger around bastards in general, because they remind her of what she sees as Ned's betrayal. Notice the phrases "it did not please her", "it was an effort... to keep the smile on her face", "Catelyn had nothing against this girl, but..." and "she struggled to find words for a reply".

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I think she's feeling guilty about projecting her feelings for Jon onto Mya, who has no blame at all.

Would that serve reflectively on Jon's 'blame/guilt', though, is the open question. Cat's really hard to predict...she has very inconsistent thought patterns.

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Well, there goes the clearly related to Jon bit.... Damn you and your superior pointing-out-stuff-ed-ness!

:leaving:

:lol:

I think I didn't express myself very well.

I think she feels guilty on the fact that due to Jon Snow, every other bastard she will find, it's going to be Jon Snow for her. While some bastards are living offences to some families, those are not the cases for every person in Westeros. Some of them are taken into their father's households to live. It's impossible for Cat to expect never find a bastard, she even says her own brother might have a few running around, but she will never be able to see them without being reminded of Jon Snow and what his existence means to her.

She feels not guilt about her behaviour to Jon Snow, if that's what you were asking.

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:lol:

I think I didn't express myself very well.

I think she feels guilty on the fact that due to Jon Snow, every other bastard she will find, it's going to be Jon Snow for her. While some bastards are living offences to some families, those are not the cases for every person in Westeros. Some of them are taken into their father's households to live. It's impossible for Cat to expect never find a bastard, she even says her own brother might have a few running around, but she will never be able to see them without being reminded of Jon Snow and what his existence means to her.

She feels not guilt about her behaviour to Jon Snow, if that's what you were asking.

Which is something she never seemed to feel guilty of during her page time when she was a POV character. Despite some bad snap decisions she herself has a good head on her shoulders and can second guess herself in most instances, just not when it comes to Jon it seems.

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:lol:

I think I didn't express myself very well.

I think she feels guilty on the fact that due to Jon Snow, every other bastard she will find, it's going to be Jon Snow for her. While some bastards are living offences to some families, those are not the cases for every person in Westeros. Some of them are taken into their father's households to live. It's impossible for Cat to expect never find a bastard, she even says her own brother might have a few running around, but she will never be able to see them without being reminded of Jon Snow and what his existence means to her.

She feels not guilt about her behaviour to Jon Snow, if that's what you were asking.

Oh, I got that the first time.

I thought (and glad I deleted this) that I had originally said she is clearly feeling guilty about something to do with Jon. However, your explanation takes the clearly right out of the sails, and leaves some room for ambiguity. However, since midnight me (slightly less hallucinogenic than 12:30 me [sadly, this is when I set my fantasy lineup...]) forgot to right that clearly sentence, I guess I never was wrong in the first place*. If that doesn't make sense, just PM me in the morning and I'll hopefully be able to elaborate better.

*I'm a corporate auditor. If it's not documented, it didn't happen.

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Which is something she never seemed to feel guilty of during her page time when she was a POV character. Despite some bad snap decisions she herself has a good head on her shoulders and can second guess herself in most instances, just not when it comes to Jon it seems.

Yes, Cat's (non)treatment of Jon is a personal failing, this and how she might have treated Jon had Ned not insisted that the child be raised among her true born children is triggered by her reflection on Mya's bastard status. In GOT, Cat reflects that,

It was the one thing she could never forgive him. She had come to love her husband with all her heart, but she had never found it in her to love Jon. She might have overlooked a dozen bastards for Ned’s sake, so long as they were out of sight. Jon was never out of sight, and as he grew, he looked more like Ned than any of the trueborn sons she bore him. Somehow that made it worse.

Simultaneously feeling both anger (at Ned and herself) and guilt for being unable to accept Jon (she has no moral obligation to love him as a mother) seems within her character and perfectly human.

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