Why does everyone love lady stoneheart?

[ravenous reader]

On 6/10/2017 at 3:45 PM, Springwatch said:

Stoneheart isn't Cat - she's just that frozen moment in time when Cat was fighting to the death with her family's enemies. That's not enough humanity to be interesting.

Very wise.  A while ago I had an argument with someone about the word 'glimmering' used in conjunction with Lady Stoneheart.  The poster in question contended the adjective revealed hidden emotional depths to Lady Stoneheart, as reflected by the supposedly glimmering tears in her eyes; whereas I, more cynically, saw only the pure smoldering fire of revenge in the depths of those pits.  GRRM is walking a tightrope bringing back all these people from the dead.  It does get tedious.  At this point, Brienne is capable of more emotional depth and sophisticated moral reasoning than this corruption. At some point, I expect her to 'pull a Jaime' and put her former mistress out of her misery.

[Ser Kinslayer]

On 2017/6/16 at 5:26 PM, Jaime4Brienne said:

I absolutely hate her and this is why: Because she hung Podrick. He was only around 12 at the time. I have a 13 year old son so I have a pretty good idea what a 12 year old would look/be like.I read upthread that Catelyn really loved her kids. Ho Ho is all I've got to say to that. I don't think leaving a four yr old and someone that is near death to run after your oldest child is a great mother, but I digress.

Anybody that murders a child/attempts to murder a child (one she knew had nothing to do with it, not to mention Hyle who also had nothing to do with it) Is just pure evil and I hope Brienne chops her head off ASAP.

Also...has anybody actually thought about what a body would be like after 3 days in the water? I don't even think it would be recognizable so when people say they want Sansa/Arya/Bran or any of her kids to meet up with her...I'm like "Seriously?"

That is a good point. Catelyn often expresses love towards her children and then hangs an innocent kid who she likely knows nothing about. I think this action shows that her existence is motivated by nothing more than sheer hatred. Jaime's meeting or dare I say "trial" will likely show her unwillingness to reason with others. I will be very surprised if she gives him any sort of "quest," which many people foresee happening.

 

Also, does anybody else wonder if Lady Stoneheart might refuse a trial by combat? She saw what happened when Tyrion got his way... Something tells me Jaime won't be acquitted in the same fashion.

[BalerionTheCat]

I don't know if that many people love LSH. She is after the Freys, of the most despised in ASoIaF. And after those who murdered her family. And whatever her misjudgments before, she had a horrible end herself. So I understand those who wish her revenge. Even if I fear for those she may hurt unjustly. I believe she is like the Others, here to punish the wicked men. The handmaiden of the Stranger as though Brienne. And at some point I hope she will connect with the Others.

[WSmith84]

There's no real appeal to me in terms of LSH's character. I do see potential for her though. For one, I think she'll be a good demonstration of revenge taken too far; initially we'll take great pleasure and satisfaction in her vengeance against the Freys, only for that satisfaction to turn to unease and eventual horror as LSH takes it too far. Secondly, I have this faint hope that enough people will witness LSH and recognise her as Catelyn Stark that she becomes a tale akin to the story of the Rat Cook; the story of the King's mother rising from the dead to avenge herself and her son, dealing out the justice of the gods. There's something chilling (in a good way) about the idea of Catelyn Stark being remembered like this.

[BricksAndSparrows]

On 6/16/2017 at 11:15 PM, Castellan said:

Hmmm although I am a second generation atheist I think one good thing about Christianity is the rejection of that notion (revenge). Do you really think hanging every Lannister soldier you see is just?

I suppose some people and their acts are monstrous and require a response (I wish every character in the book would just stop whatever they are doing, unite to kill Ramsay, then go back to warfare) but LS is over the top.

The questions is why people like Lady Stoneheart. The question itself assumes that these individuals like her, and endeavors to find out why. It's not a question on whether I think vengeance is a good thing.

Why do people like this person who is "hanging every Lannister soldier" she sees? I can tell you, it's probably not for her wit...

[Castellan]

8 hours ago, BricksAndSparrows said:

The questions is why people like Lady Stoneheart. The question itself assumes that these individuals like her, and endeavors to find out why. It's not a question on whether I think vengeance is a good thing.

Why do people like this person who is "hanging every Lannister soldier" she sees? I can tell you, it's probably not for her wit...

No, indeed!

But I wasn't responding to your OP, but to others who have responded to it.

[Castellan]

 

6 minutes ago, Castellan said:

No, indeed!

But I wasn't responding to your OP, but to others who have responded to it.

PS I must admit that the character of LS is good for raising these issues and I am curious to know if there is any of Catelyn's more humane outlook left lurking inside her.

 

[Springwatch]

I've been trawling AGOT in search of foreshadowing that might uncover Lady Stoneheart's state of mind. There is definitely foreshadowing! but as ever, not a clear picture.

Quote

Catelyn II: Maester Luwin brings Lysa's secret message to Cat's bedchamber.

... She threw back the furs and climbed from the bed. The night air was as cold as the grave on her bare skin as she padded across the room.

Maester Luwin averted his eyes. Even Ned looked shocked. "What are you doing?" he asked.

"Lighting a fire," Catelyn told him.

...

Ned released his hold on her arm. There were deep red marks on her skin.

The words of foreshadowing  - the cold, the grave, the shocking appearance, the red marks - are very clear. Cat is completely bare skinned - she has lost her fur, suggesting she is less of a wolf than before. She walks like a wolf though - so perhaps she is still a wolf, but has forgotten it. Trying to light a fire seems to be part of it too - after all, there's no point in burning a message in a secret language. (Strange, lighting fires should be Dany's job - what does this mean?)

=======

Quote

Jon I: A confrontation with Cat at Bran's sickbed

• ... a voice strangely flat and emotionless.
• Something cold moved in her eyes.
•  Her eyes found him. They were full of poison.

Sounds like Lady Stoneheart all right, but no additional information.

======

Quote

Catelyn III: Bran's sickbed again

[before the assassin] Catelyn was shaking. It was the grief, the cold, the howling of the direwolves. Night after night, the howling and the cold wind and the grey empty castle, on and on they went, never changing, and her boy lying there broken ... Sobbing, she pulled her hand free of his [Robb's], and covered her ears against those terrible howls. "Make them stop," she cried. "I can't stand it, make them stop, make them stop, kill them all if you must, just make them stop!"

Bingo. This is Lady Stoneheart endlessly reliving the Red Wedding. She doesn't sound very sane at all.

Quote

[Summer kills the assassin] "Thank you," Catelyn whispered, her voice faint and tiny. She lifted her hand, trembling. The wolf padded closer, sniffed at her fingers, then licked at the blood with a wet, rough tongue. When it had cleaned all the blood off her hand, it turned away silently and jumped up on Bran's bed and lay down beside him.

This is also foreshadowing - it's impossible to take this incident literally because licking a deep knife wound won't stop it bleeding. So... Catelyn/LS finishes up with 'clean hands'. The wolves absolve her. Somehow.

======

There might be more, but I only really noticed the night ascent to the Eyrie (from Stone to Snow to Sky), which could possibly represent Cat's passage through the Long Night. She thinks "I am going to die here" when she reaches the high saddle between Snow and Sky. She does not die - a bastard girl (Mya) gets her safely across the darkest place.

Extra: Cat's spirit fails her, and it is Mya's strength and spirit that gets Cat up the mountain. This is illustrated by Cat riding not her own horse but the bastard girl's mule. I'm really pleased with this, because it lines up with a theory I made around Lord Dustin here (Barbrey's Busted Barrow etc).  

[HoodedCrow]

LSH is a trout.

[Springwatch]

5 hours ago, HoodedCrow said:

LSH is a trout.

Quote

All his life Tyrion had prided himself on his cunning, the only gift the gods had seen fit to give him, and yet this seven-times-damned she-wolf Catelyn Stark had outwitted him at every turn.

 

[HoodedCrow]

Tyrion's opinion when he's a little ticked off is not cannon!:)

[Springwatch]

Tyrion's messed-up head is not canon, and thank the gods for that.

Cat is a wolf by affiliation, not by birth, and I totally agree that's significant - particularly with warging and 'wolf blood' taken into account.

I do think that if you live with wolves, and people say you're a wolf, and you think you're a wolf - then you will end up a bit wolfy (btw Cat and Summer did for that assassin using a very similar biting and tearing technique - ok, the real wolf did it better).

[Springwatch]

I forgot something for the foreshadowing list  - the statue of the weeping woman in the Eyrie, assumed to be of Alyssa Arryn - the link is that both Cat and Alyssa felt unable to weep for their loved ones. Another link is a statue in the House of Black and White, which combines the eyes of poison (see quote above) with the subject of a weeping woman.

Three odd things about the Eyrie statue:

• It was light enough to move, but was left in the middle of the site of Tyrion's trial by combat. (The opening ceremony has the fighters and Tyrion kneeling under the statue.)
• It influenced that combat no less than 5 times - each time to the benefit of Tyrion's champion, Bronn (and the side of justice, as it happens).
• The debris of the statue is abandoned, even though the site is visible from the private balcony of the Lady of the Eyrie. (Sansa notices it in the snow castle scene.)

Odd things are designed to attract the reader's attention, mostly.

No doubt this will form part of a three-fold revelation by the end, but at a guess, Lady Stoneheart will demand another trial by combat - this time, probably, for Jaime.