208 replies to this topic

[Tsoert]

Happy Ent, on Nov 23 2007, 17.58, said:

Would you think that in general (for example in this world) women should be as accepting of their husbands' infedility as Catelyn is? Would you accept it if you husband (1) cheated on you and (2) raised the proof of his betrayal at home, in front of your eyes? Moreover, when he then took a year-long business trip, would you think you should raise the child?

(Especially if you're rich, so you could afford a boarding school—the closest real life equivalent I can think of to fostering the child with another lord.)

I'm a guy so.....

This world is a very different one to Westeros. Westeros would be more easily compared with Medieval England. In this world, marrying a complete stranger who you barely know is frowned upon by most people and is considered antiquated. Cat herself says she didn't mind him cheating as they barely knew each other and a man has needs. Also in this day and age we live in a world where every man is considered equal, very unlike Westerosi society, and so could expect a measure of their fathers inheritance and what not. Bastards in Westeros wouldn't

Yes bringing home Jon is a bit of a slap in the face for Catelyn but I do think that Jon had a right to be there if his father so chose. I personally think Ned should have put his foot down and told Catelyn where she should stick it when she told him he wasn't welcome at Winterfell without Ned there.

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Like Theon Greyjoy. Such a good friend. Or like Daemon Blackfyre. Not mentionning Ned never bothered to calm her fears, only confirmed them with his every decision about Jon. Add to that, Jon wanted Winterfell earnestly.

We don't know what Daemon was like or how his relationship with his legitimate bretheren were. Theon Greyjoy wanted to be a son and impress his father. Blood is thicker than water. Jon wanted Winterfell but is honourable and feels guilty for having wanted Winterfell. He obviously loves his brother and I very much doubt he would do anything to try to take his claim or harm him. He was a fast learner and had/has the potential to be an able battle commander and so would have been a lot more useful to Robb in the field than his Lady Mother who I feel is personally responsible for his downfall.

[Errant Bard]

StarkedyStark, on Nov 23 2007, 19.46, said:

This world is a very different one to Westeros. Westeros would be more easily compared with Medieval England.

I find it baffling that you make this argument. Either you consider Westeros to have different moral codes than modern day and Cat's reaction is not only normal but also warranted and milder than expected, or you use modern day moral and you cannot argue anything about how wives should be considered in this setting.

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could expect a measure of their fathers inheritance and what not. Bastards in Westeros wouldn't

Ramsay Bolton disagrees, so do the Blackfyres, or Cersei (with Robert's bastards) for that matters. Among other possibilities, There is always one of the father recognizing him, and considering the way Ned treated Jon, it would not have been unexpected if he had.

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Yes bringing home Jon is a bit of a slap in the face for Catelyn but I do think that Jon had a right to be there if his father so chose. I personally think Ned should have put his foot down and told Catelyn where she should stick it when she told him he wasn't welcome at Winterfell without Ned there.

He certainly had a right to tell her to shut up and go in the kitchen, if he missed to care about his marriage harmony, political harmony with the Riverlands and the Vale and the very well-being of Jon.

All that is irrelevant, though. As you agree here, Cat had a right to ask that Jon be removed from her face.

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We don't know what Daemon was like or how his relationship with his legitimate bretheren were.

Actually, we do. They had a war, the legitimate bethren had them killed and exiled.

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Theon Greyjoy wanted to be a son and impress his father. Blood is thicker than water. Jon wanted Winterfell but is honourable and feels guilty for having wanted Winterfell. He obviously loves his brother and I very much doubt he would do anything to try to take his claim or harm him.

Theon started exactly as Jon started: good loyal friend to Robb, and honourable. You yourself doubt Jon would do anything against his brother, and somehow Cat should feel certain without even having a look in Jon's head like you had? With just the way Ned behaves about Jon?


As for Robb's downfall, can you bring up a single thing Cat did, apart from freeing Jaime, or advice she was the only one to give, that is even remotely bad for Robb's cause? Jon better than her at Robb's side? that's funny, Robb would not even have gone past the Twins without her. Her problem is that she has been a goddman Cassandre, Cassandres are cursed.

Edited by Errant Bard, 23 November 2007 - 02:25 PM.

[Elrick]

shadowbinding shoe, on Nov 23 2007, 05.39, said:

Catelyn lacks confidence in her role as a woman. She was raised as her father's son before Edmure was born and she is not a great beauty. This insecurity on the love of her husband when we know how much she loves him is one of the saddest things about her story.

She's always described as being attractive throughout the series. In fact she was always looked upon as such and I never heard of her as being described as plain or ugly so I am sorry to burst your bubble but she was considered very beautiful. Maybe not as good looking as Dany but than again who is? Also she did have a lot of confidence in herself and was far from weak.

Edited by gold dragon, 23 November 2007 - 05:33 PM.

[Maester Cressan]

Ser Garlan the Gallant, on Nov 22 2007, 14.59, said:

I think you can blame Catelyn, for it is really a problem between her and Ned; she's simply channeling the anger towards Jon, and I think this does indicate certain flaws on her part.  Why has she allowed this to go on for so long?  She should have confronted Ned about it long ago, regardless of what he said the first time she broached the subject (that Jon is Ned's blood, and that is the end of it).  But instead Catelyn seems somehow to have been able to push the question aside in her mind.   She then let this coping mechanism (the channeling of the anger towards Jon) go on for so long that by AGoT it had almost developed into a hatred.

edit: switched around a few words to change the meaning

You fail to appreciate that in a medieval setting- a wife doesn't have much recourse to impose her will on her husband.  (And those who do are despised by society).

What is Catelyn suppose to do?

She can't throw Ned out of the house.

Her only recourse would have been to leave Ned- but even that would have been extremely hard- it would have violated her marriage oaths to Ned, broken the alliance between Tully and Stark- her father would never have taken her back, and so she wouldn't be able to keep custody of her children...  Basically her choice was either to deal with Jon Snow living with them- or abandon her own husband and children to go of and live as a peasant in hiding somewhere.

[Maester Cressan]

Tourmaline Dragon, on Nov 22 2007, 16.31, said:

I think Sansa does love Jon and vice versa. I never got the impression that Jon and Sansa didn’t get along. Jon certainly has no bad thoughts about her, he thinks of her fondly a few times. Her mother’s and the Septa’s influence and society in general caused her to remind herself that he was a bastard and a half-brother. I think a little more time spent as Alayne will cause Sansa to realise what life may have been like for Jon at Winterfell.
I think Cat always saw Jon as a very real threat to his legitimate siblings, she mentions the Blackfyre Rebellion to Rob in a ASOS.

Acknowledged male bastards are always a threat to a legitimate son- even more so if the bastard is seen as being raised and loved by his father.

[Maester Cressan]

fionwe1987, on Nov 22 2007, 23.20, said:

In Bran's very first PoV, he continually refers to Jon as his bastard brother. Does that mean Bran isn't close to Jon as well?
As for Sansa, her class consciousness is very different from what that term usually implies. For her, it means that she thinks being a lady implies doing all that things ladies are supposed to do, ie., look pretty, be gentle and courteous, but also be brave and helpful to those below her.

You know... I think this is revealing.

Arya just thinks of Jon as her brother- if anything she thinks of Jon as being closer to her than any of her other siblings.

Robb seems to also think primarily of Jon as a brother- an interesting development as they could be logical rivals- but apparently Robb never seems to doubt that he is the heir and that Jon accepts that.  It's almost as if Robb has the instinct that Jon will guard his back. Maybe this is because the grew up together before anybody else was added to the family.  Meaning that they did everything together.

Bran thinks alot about Jon being a bastard- but more in a regretful sense.  As if he realizes that this divides them despite a wish that that divide wasn't there.  He is also quite aware that his mother resents Jon- something that most of the other Stark children seem to be able to easily forget or overlook.

Sansa recognizes, acknowledges, and accepts that Jon is a bastard and thus divided from her.  She doesn't ever think to question it, and won't let others forget it- but she doesn't have the hurt or resentment that her mother does.

Jon interestingly enough seems to adapt his thinking and behavior to each of his siblings depending on who he is interacting with or thinking of.

[Maester Cressan]

Happy Ent, on Nov 23 2007, 00.21, said:

So, is there anybody on this thread who will come out and say "Yes, Cat is wrong: Jon should stay at Winterfell!" If so, please explain if you are using the social standards of Westeros (according to which you'd be wrong, IMO) or Real Life (according to which you'd be even wronger, IMO) as a basis for your argument.

Although I agree with your defense of Catelyn, I must disagree with the idea that she was correct.  (As opposed to having justification for her feelings).

Jon's place is at Winterfell.

Why?  Because Lord Eddard Stark said so- he is the Lord of Winterfell and has the sole authority to decide who belongs there and who doesn't.

[Maester Cressan]

mormont, on Nov 23 2007, 08.48, said:

Walder certainly raised his bastards in his home, yes. But we don't know that he raised them alongside his legitimate children. Given that he several times (IIRC) draws a sharp distinction between his bastard children and the rest, both when speaking to them and of them, I think it's not necessarily a safe assumption that he did.

A common method of raising acknowledged bastards was to foster them out early.

There would probably have been visits- including the legitimate sons/heir so that the bastard sons learn who their future master will be.

A Bastard Son might also be more easily recalled after a wife has died.......

Without knowing the specifics of the Frey homelife- we can at least say that raising a bastard alongside legitimate children is viewed by other people as... odd.

[Lady Blackfish]

Maester Cressan, on Nov 23 2007, 18.57, said:

He is also quite aware that his mother resents Jon- something that most of the other Stark children seem to be able to easily forget or overlook.

I think Robb is quite aware of it too, he asks Jon how things went after he goes to see Bran, and he anticipates Catelyn's objections when he brings up the succession and legitimizing Jon.

[Elrick]

I think it's interesting to note that Robb chose Jon as taking his place as Lord Of Winterfell if he was to untimely die. It does seem that Robb cared deeply about Jon much to Catelyn's frusteration. I couldn't help but applaud Robb for this unselfish action.

[Dacey]

I phrased that badly – I don’t mean to suggest that the others ignore Jon’s status, of course they don’t. But Sansa goes out of her way to make the point that Jon is not her full sibling, and she does it very early on, when we’re just forming our views of the characters and their relationships. So it makes sense that it sticks in people’s minds.

This is what I’m thinking of. AGoT, Arya I. This is the first we really see of Sansa; remember we haven’t had a Sansa PoV yet and we’re seeing her through Arya’s eyes, so she is not coming across sympathetically.

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Sansa sighed as she stitched. “Poor Jon,” she said. “He gets jealous because he’s a bastard.”

Now this is basically true, of course – but, especially since this comes right after we’re introduced to just how much Jon’s bastard status pains him, it can seem a little snotty of Sansa to bring it up out of nowhere. And Arya does seem to take offense on Jon’s behalf:

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”He’s our brother,” Arya said, much too loudly.

[…]”Our half brother,” Sansa corrected, soft and precise.

It’s not just that Sansa calls Jon half-brother, it’s important enough to her that she has to correct “brother” to “half-brother,” and that’s a significant difference. Plus, in this particular context, as an answer to Arya’s protest, it can come across as meaning “it’s okay for me to talk that way about Jon, because we don’t owe him the kind of loyalty we owe full siblings.” I don’t think that’s really what she meant – actually I don’t think she meant much of anything, she’s just contradicting Arya for the sake of doing so – but I think it’s a pretty understandable interpretation, especially since we don’t know much about Sansa yet.

Again, I don’t think Sansa and Jon didn’t get along – I think the very most you can say, based on the evidence, is that Sansa might have been a little more distant with Jon than the others were, and even that’s quite debatable. But I think it’s very understandable why someone who’s not reading closely for little character details might get the idea that Sansa has a real problem with Jon, since this scene comes so early, and the direct hints that they do get along okay are sparse.

[Lady Blackfish]

But I also think as the series goes on you have to reconsider that impression.  A lot of people say that Sansa is changing, but in this regard she didn't change, the reader's understanding of her changed.  That's where I feel the need to pipe up, it's not like Sansa's affections for Jon, such as they are, just started in AFFC.  It's just that the reader now knows about them, and had a faulty impression before (though I perfectly agree the faultiness was "intended" by the author).  There are surely some changes, but in other ways she is more in keeping with how she always was, the reader was just seeing it from a different POV with different considerations.  I grant her being an effective bastard now gives her attitude toward Jon a different resonance, but saying she is now starting to realize the error of her awful ways in her treatment of Jon is exaggerated, IMO.  That's where I was coming from, just to clear it up, we were coming at it from different angles I think.

[bacchys]

Dacey, on Nov 23 2007, 22.56, said:

Again, I don’t think Sansa and Jon didn’t get along – I think the very most you can say, based on the evidence, is that Sansa might have been a little more distant with Jon than the others were, and even that’s quite debatable. But I think it’s very understandable why someone who’s not reading closely for little character details might get the idea that Sansa has a real problem with Jon, since this scene comes so early, and the direct hints that they do get along okay are sparse.

Sansa seems a bit distant with all of her siblings.  They're either boys she's not interested in because they can't be romantic interests or they are Arya- who might as well be a boy in her eyes.  Sansa is a naive girl who wants to be a woman, and her vision of being a woman is to be a princess in a fairy tale.

[Dacey]

Lady Blackfish, on Nov 24 2007, 01.11, said:

But I also think as the series goes on you have to reconsider that impression.  A lot of people say that Sansa is changing, but in this regard she didn't change, the reader's understanding of her changed.  That's where I feel the need to pipe up, it's not like Sansa's affections for Jon, such as they are, just started in AFFC.  It's just that the reader now knows about them, and had a faulty impression before (though I perfectly agree the faultiness was "intended" by the author).  There are surely some changes, but in other ways she is more in keeping with how she always was, the reader was just seeing it from a different POV with different considerations.  I grant her being an effective bastard now gives her attitude toward Jon a different resonance, but saying she is now starting to realize the error of her awful ways in her treatment of Jon is exaggerated, IMO.  That's where I was coming from, just to clear it up, we were coming at it from different angles I think.

Oh, I totally agree the idea gets blown out of proportion, especially since a lot of people just don't find Sansa very sympathetic. I wasn't disagreeing on the essential point (I do think Sansa's feelings toward Jon have changed some, but not all that much). I just wanted to point out that - unlike a lot of the irrational character hate that gets thrown around here sometimes, especially toward female characters - this mistake doesn't come out of nowhere and in fact it's pretty easy to make.

[fionwe1987]

Maester Cressan, on Nov 23 2007, 18.57, said:

You know... I think this is revealing.

Arya just thinks of Jon as her brother- if anything she thinks of Jon as being closer to her than any of her other siblings.

True. And some of this is because she doesn't look anything like her other siblings. She resembles Jon, physically and mentally. But this is tinged with a slight fear that she is bastard born herself.

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Robb seems to also think primarily of Jon as a brother- an interesting development as they could be logical rivals- but apparently Robb never seems to doubt that he is the heir and that Jon accepts that.  It's almost as if Robb has the instinct that Jon will guard his back. Maybe this is because the grew up together before anybody else was added to the family.  Meaning that they did everything together.

I agree. Lets also remember that Sansa and Arya happened before Robb got another brother. So the boys must have gotten even closer.

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Bran thinks alot about Jon being a bastard- but more in a regretful sense.  As if he realizes that this divides them despite a wish that that divide wasn't there.  He is also quite aware that his mother resents Jon- something that most of the other Stark children seem to be able to easily forget or overlook.

Robb knows this too. He specifically askes Jon if Cat caused trouble when he went to say goodbye to Bran.

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Sansa recognizes, acknowledges, and accepts that Jon is a bastard and thus divided from her.  She doesn't ever think to question it, and won't let others forget it- but she doesn't have the hurt or resentment that her mother does.

At the beginning of the books, I think all of Sansa's feelings towards her siblings were based on how she thought a lady would feel towards such siblings. Hence, she despairs of Arya, properly realizes Jon is a bastard (but still behaves kindly towards him), etc. Its only as her romanticized view of a "lady" shatters that she acknowledges the very real emotions she feels for these people.
But we can be certain that she was far closer to Jon than we surmised. For one, Jon remembers Sansa telling him how to behave with women, something that is very typical of brother-sister interactions, and also something that couldn't have happened before Sansa was nine or ten.
Also, remember that when Sansa was born, Jon and Robb were about 3 years old, and very close. I doubt there would have been many instances where Sansa was with Robb and not woth Jon.
I'm pretty sure that till Sansa was about seven or so, the word bastard would have meant nothing to her, and by then her relationship with Jon would have been pretty much set.

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Jon interestingly enough seems to adapt his thinking and behavior to each of his siblings depending on who he is interacting with or thinking of.

True. He really seems to be the true "elder brother" of the family, not Robb. At least, Bran and Arya seem to look up to Jon more than Robb and I don't think Sansa ever really needed an elder brother.

[Jenna]

There's another noble-raised bastard mentioned a few times, though she is yet to appear.  Joy Hill, natural daughter of Gerion Lannister, is evidentally being raised in Casterly Rock.  Granted, Gerion did not marry and had no legitimate children and given his "missing and presumed dead" status, Joy is probably his only offspring.  But Tywin went so far as to try to arrange a marriage for her.  He mentioned wedding her to Walder Frey's youngest bastard son, but then Tywin implied and Jaime outright offered, that Joy be wed to Lord Westerling's son (and heir, I think).  

I really think that a bastard's status and position in a family is largely determined by whether the father chooses to acknowledge the child.  While I don't think it is common for a nobleman to openly acknowledge and embrace his natural children, neither do I think it is completely unheard of.   I also think it depends on the family.  The Lannisters have a certain pride among them that I think would prompt them to look after their own blood, even if it is to the wrong side of the blanket.  Likewise, Starks seem to have a certain honor about them that may prompt them to do the same.  I would also expect that nobles who grew up with a bastard born uncle or aunt in the family would be more inclined to look favorably upon their own bastard born children.  

Now that said, I think a wife is well within her rights to be concerned about her husband's bastards being raised in her household, particularly bastard sons that are older than her own sons.  Royal decrees of legitimization happen and hypotheically, if Jon Snow were to have been legitimized, he would inherit over Robb, being older.  I think Cat's fears of Jon rose more from that than concern over some affair Ned might have had when they barely knew one another.

[Eloisa]

Jenna, on Nov 25 2007, 01.14, said:

Royal decrees of legitimization happen and hypotheically, if Jon Snow were to have been legitimized, he would inherit over Robb, being older.

SPOILER: ADWD

Jon really is older than Robb, as can be deduced by very careful checks on a few references to specific dates in text, and as is confirmed in an ADWD spoiler... but almost everyone in Westeros, Robb, Jon and Cat included, thinks that they were born less than a month apart and that Robb is fractionally the older.  Ned lied re. this little fact.  I doubt he did it to soothe Cat's feelings by making her believe she'd borne his eldest son - speculation as to why he really did it is something best reserved for the R+L=J thread.

[jennjenn]

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So, is there anybody on this thread who will come out and say "Yes, Cat is wrong: Jon should stay at Winterfell!" If so, please explain if you are using the social standards of Westeros (according to which you'd be wrong, IMO) or Real Life (according to which you'd be even wronger, IMO) as a basis for your argument.

I don't see Jon being raised at Winterfell as some sort of outrageous option or as something that is out of the ordinary in this society.  

Walder Frey keeps his bastards around.  

The best excuse that Petyr can think of for keeping Sansa around is to say that she is his bastard.  

Robert even discusses bringing one of his bastards (presumably Mya) to court and probably would have if not for Cersei.  

Sam assumes that his father will raise a bastard of his even though they do not get along.  

The only character who seems to think it even remotely out of the ordinary that Eddard Stark would raise his bastard at Winterfell is Catelyn.  Everyone else seems to accept it as normal.  

The thing about bastards in this society is that there seems to be no set way to deal with them.  Catelyn says that Bolton talks about his bastard like a dog, but that Ned was always fiercely protective of Jon.  That's the problem.  Bastards may be viewed (even by their own fathers) as threats to trueborn children who must be eliminated or as beloved sons or as anything in between.  Some lords keep their bastards near and treat them with varying degrees of kindness, some send them away to be fostered elsewhere, some provide for them financially, and some ignore them.  The way that Eddard deals with Jon is probably not the way that Catelyn had been raised to think that bastards should be dealt with, but that doesn't mean that it is completely unreasonable by the standards of Westeros.  So I think you could argue that by the standards of Westeros that, yes, Jon's place was as much at Winterfell as anywhere.    

As for real life ... I'm not sure exactly what you mean.  If it's the "would you accept your husband's bastard" thing then I think that I would or I would get a divorce.  Children are deserving of their parents' affection, no matter if their parents were married to someone else when they were concieved.  Especially as Jon's mother does not appear to be in the picture, the most obvious place for him is with his father from any modern point of view.  Of course, Catelyn couldn't get a divorce and I do understand her feelings to a certain extent but that doesn't mean that I still don't think that Jon belongs at Winterfell.  


On the Rickon thing that was being discussed earlier, when Bran remembers the feast that the Starks gave for Robert, he remembers that Rickon kept asking him over and over again why Jon wasn't eating with them.  This could indicate some real affection ... or simply a three year old's curiosity.  Personally, I think that Sansa loves Jon and Jon loves Sansa -- just not as much as they love their other siblings.

[Maester Cressan]

fionwe1987, on Nov 24 2007, 11.04, said:

True. He really seems to be the true "elder brother" of the family, not Robb. At least, Bran and Arya seem to look up to Jon more than Robb and I don't think Sansa ever really needed an elder brother.

I agree with what you said about the other Stark children.  But on this I disagree.

If anything Jon is the behaving like a true "beta".  Robb is the elder bother who sometimes has to  "put on his Lord Stark face" while Jon is his loyal second in command.  The one who listens and comforts all the others while Robb takes care of his duties, and is also always there supporting his elder brother.   On the surface they demonstrate the perfect relationship between a first and second brother.

Funny.... I just realized that Jon's relationship with his younger siblings is much the same as the Blackfish had with his nieces and nephew that Catylen remembers from her youth...

Of course, Jon seems not to have the same conflict with Robb as between Hoster and the Blackfish.

[Lady Blackfish]

Maester Cressan, on Nov 24 2007, 21.28, said:

Funny.... I just realized that Jon's relationship with his younger siblings is much the same as the Blackfish had with his nieces and nephew that Catylen remembers from her youth...

Damn you beat me to it.  Yes, I'd agree, Robb was groomed from day one to fulfill his duties as the heir, I think his siblings seem invested in his performance as such as well.  Jon on the other hand was probably more accessible for "minor" matters.