[BOOK SPOILERS] Book Catelyn vs. Show Catelyn

[Lady Blackfish]

I told myself to wait until the season ends to start this topic, but since I'm going to be unable to get here for a few days after the finale and have nowhere to go tonight I'm being a tiny bit premature.

Going into the first season there was talk on the boards about some writing changes to Catelyn Stark's character. She begs Ned not to accept Robert's offer out of personal emotional reasons instead of wanting to politically advance her family, she seems to resent duty and honor for taking Ned away, her main issue with Jon seems to be Ned's infidelity instead of the dynastic threat to her children, and she isn't fired up about addressing Jon Arryn's murder. I was really unenthused about all that.

Over the course of the season there've been little touches that I think were good: her added on-screen time with Bran and Sansa, the extra effort put in to making sure viewers don't think she's a Bad Mother^TM, showing her in a lady-of-the-manor capacity while at home, etc. But looking ahead to where the story is going in future seasons, I find myself still really unsure about a number of HBO's choices.

Since Catelyn's big role after AGOT becomes a political advisor to Robb. the biggest thing that sticks out at me is the lack of political-mindedness associated with the character in season one. If HBO thought that Catelyn urging Ned to go south would make people like her, why couldn't they just have her advise him to stay home for political reasons? Also, when they did bring up her issue with Jon, they make it seem like she resents Ned's marital infidelity more than anything else, but in the book we see that she's really preoccupied with Jon being raised in Winterfell and the dynastic threat he poses to her children. There is no attention called toward Ned leaving her as regent of Winterfell, there is no Blackfish around to call her the right kind of woman to rule, and at least through episodes 8 & 9, Robb doesn't seek her approval for his battle plans as he does in the books.

A few other things caught my notice. They may seem like quibbles, but I suppose I think they reflect the writers' grasp of the character:

In episode three, Ned makes an "Oh you're so cute when you're angry" crack about Catelyn's temper. Earlier, she threw something at Petyr Baelish for bringing her to a brothel. As I recall, in the book her anger was pretty icy, I could never imagine her being so demonstrative at this point before all her losses have frayed her control.

I also don't think Catelyn was ever the type to be prudish about prostitutes, going off the way she is totally unphased about her own nudity in front of Maester Luwin (which was cut). I think she was just angry that Petyr ordered her around. This may seem trivial, but I think it is part of Martin's attempt to show that the person inside the lady's role didn't always meet the popular conceptions of ladies (frilly and frail of sensibilities). Relatedly, there were points in the book where Martin called attention to the fact that men tend to tiptoe around Catelyn, but Catelyn herself doesn't really find frank talk offensive, she'd rather people just get on with it and call a spade a spade. Those points are lost, and not really replaced in a way that would fit HBO's understandably streamlined structure.

And I couldn't help but cringe as Catelyn spent the entirety of the mountain clan attack whimpering audibly by a rock, instead of stepping right up to the guy coming for Tyrion and slitting his throat.

I know a lot of people have said that the changes helped them like Catelyn more than in the books, but I have to ask, were they all necessary? Did they necessarily have to be the way they were, or could they have been changed in a way that struck a better compromise between likability and integrity to the character? Personally I think the change to the visual medium would've been enough, but maybe people disagree. I think HBO obviously gets some parts of the character, but to be honest there were only two episodes where I felt she was really herself: episode four, where she only appears in the scene where she arrests Tyrion, and episode eight, written by Martin (who also did a better job with Sansa IMO).

To my knowledge the only time Benioff and Weiss have talked about the character is when Benioff said in an interview a few weeks ago that he's drawn to the hard edges of the character that make her not the stereotypical mom character. While I frankly think that statement is pretty much just placation, to be fair I wonder what it means for where they'll take the character in season two. I can think of a few ways they can make up a little for what was missed in season one, but I don't know if it's really a priority.

*inhales* Thoughts?

[The Storm Queen]

Well, I love book Catelyn so I never saw the need to make her character more "likeable" for the show. I liked the fact that she was on the one hand more political savy and pragmatic than Ned but on the other hand also a compassionate human being and loving mother and wife. She was a good person with many virtues but not without flaws. Why they felt the need to change such a multilayered character that is able to go beyond the loving mother/evil bitch dichotomy, is still mot understandable to me.

I dislike that she is shown in the show to display only more tradionally "female" traits, like being more emotional and less pragmatic, more Damsell in Distress and less courageous woman, more devoted mother and less politican....

However her capture of Tyrion was impressive and I also liked the portrayal of her relationship with Ned and the children so kudos for that.

[Lady Blackfish]

I dislike that she is shown in the show to display only more tradionally "female" traits, like being more emotional and less pragmatic, more Damsell in Distress and less courageous woman, more devoted mother and less politican....

I also feel like Cersei, Sansa and Ned were pretty different, but in each of those cases I can understand why. The alpha warrior take on Ned is maybe more commercially appealing, softening Cersei helps people like her more, and their version of Sansa is ostensibly a response to the actress' age. With Catelyn, though, I can't figure the reason out.

I also liked the portrayal of her relationship with Ned and the children so kudos for that.

Agreed about the children thus far, though with Ned, I think even that relationship lost a lot of depth. The insecurities felt by being each other's second not-even-a-choice aren't really there. I can at least understand why that's not a priority though (although I still feel it's symptomatic of seeing nuances as things to be avoided instead of embraced).

[The Storm Queen]

I also feel like Cersei, Sansa and Ned were pretty different, but in each of those cases I can understand why. The alpha warrior take on Ned is maybe more commercially appealing, softening Cersei helps people like her more, and their version of Sansa is ostensibly a response to the actress' age. With Catelyn, though, I can't figure the reason out.

Agreed about the children thus far, though with Ned, I think even that relationship lost a lot of depth. The insecurities felt by being each other's second not-even-a-choice aren't really there. I can at least understand why that's not a priority though (although I still feel it's symptomatic of seeing nuances as things to be avoided instead of embraced).

I think a lot of these changes can be explained by the different structure of the books (POV) and the show. On the one hand you might get in the show a more balanced picture of some people who don´t have an own POV in the first books on the other hand you miss details of other characters who have their own POV like Ned. Take Cersei as example: I always have thought that Ned´s POV was extremly biased towards her, because he desperatly wanted to preserve his ideal of Robert which might have really suffered if he tried to judge Cersei objectivly. In the show we don´t see Robert through Ned´s lens thus we are confronted wih his vices directly and without apologies and Cersei benefits from this. Concerning Sansa: I have always thought that she was subconsciously aware of the fact that Joff was am evil person and I considered her whole behavior as an act of repression. Because honestly, how many other options did she have? Ned never talked with her about the possbility to break the engagement, not even after Lady´s death. To me Show!Sansa embodies this repressed fear and self-deception really beautifully and I like the changes they made with her. I agree with you about Ned but I also understand the writers because Ned is a very shuttered person and due to the POV structure loss they had to find another outlet for his emotions and vulnerabilities which is really difficult for the KL scenes where he trusts very few persons. In a nutshell, the changes with Catelyn are the only ones I really don´t understand. I think they wanted to turn her into a more conventional mother character and feared that viewers might be deterred by her pragmatism, pride and assertiveness. Ironically these are the things I love about her :-(

As noted above to me this is manly due to the loss of the POV structure. But I also regret it because I loved their relationship in the books. It was flawed but it also was real and they made it somehow work. It was completly different from the conventional love story you often get.

I dislike that they did not show the Jon Snow discussion and the post-coital moments between ned and cat, especially the latter seems to be a sympton of HBO´s "only-sexy-young-women-like-Roz-and Dany-naked" policy.

[Maginor]

Concerning Sansa: I have always thought that she was subconsciously aware of the fact that Joff was am evil person and I considered her whole behavior as an act of repression. Because honestly, how many other options did she have? Ned never talked with her about the possbility to break the engagement, not even after Lady´s death. To me Show!Sansa embodies this repressed fear and self-deception really beautifully and I like the changes they made with her ....

.... especially the latter seems to be a sympton of HBO´s "only-sexy-young-women-like-Roz-and Dany-naked" policy.

Hodor!

About Sansa, if she deeply inside wanted not to marry Joffrey, why did she protest (and in the books even warn Cercei) when Ned wanted to send her and Arya north again.

[The Storm Queen]

Hodor!

About Sansa, if she deeply inside wanted not to marry Joffrey, why did she protest (and in the books even warn Cercei) when Ned wanted to send her and Arya north again.

I know that my theory is a bit shacky but I always felt that Sansa had - at least prior to her father´s death - a huge capacity for self-deception which manifests itself also in her love for the ideal world of the songs that has nothing to do with real life in Westeros (and not even with the relativly peaceful life of the North). Her parents don´t seem to be able to prepare her for the harder aspects of life and so she has no real instruments to deal with the Joff situation and thus represses the gravity of the situation and the nature of Joff. We have many statment from other characters that she has to wake up and face the truth about.. well, everything.

I don´t talk about a conscious process here, more about subconscious drives who make her retreat into passivity and repression because it seems to be her only solution for the current problem. To me this seems to be a more plausible explanation for her behaviour than to assume that she is too stupid to realize Joff´s everything but subtle abusivness. I have always guessed that she has internalized this pattern so much that she really felt "love" for Joff and was shocked by Ned´s plan to send her home.

I am aware that there are different approaches to her character and I don´t claim to have found the only real interpretation but in light of her further arc I think that martin deals a lot with her overcoming her self-inflicted immaturity (and not her blatant stupidity as other approaches might suggest).

[Lady Blackfish]

Dornish Sand Snake, I agree that a lot was lost due to the elimination of the POV structure and internal monologues, but I don't think it's impossible to replace that information in other ways in a visual medium without voice-over narration or even dialogue. And I'm not sure the POV structure explains all the changes; even before Cersei's POV I could never imagine her caring so much about Robert loving her, she's way too proud, and Sansa's behavior with Septa Mordane is totally out of character for someone who's armor is courtesy. Ned's melancholy is hard to communicate without his internal monologue, but that also doesn't necessitate building up his warrior prowess, for example. But again, I understand those from at least some angle or other. Cersei's easier to stomach as a more clear victim of Robert's, Sansa is a 21st century mall rat rolling her eyes at all the square adults who just don't, like, get it, and Ned is made conventionally badass. For me none of those reasons are compelling, but I can at least see them. I can understand showing Renly as insecure at the start to create a little arc of growth for him, I can understand making Joffrey a bit smarter to make him less of a cartoon. I just don't get what the angle is with Catelyn. Maybe I'm missing something ...

Hodor!

About Sansa, if she deeply inside wanted not to marry Joffrey, why did she protest (and in the books even warn Cercei) when Ned wanted to send her and Arya north again.

Sansa wanted to marry Joff, but she didn't see or want to see who he really was. I mean, how else could one want to marry Joff but by being blind to his character ;)

Naked Hodor provided to us by GRRM himself, let us note!

[Easy]

Also, when they did bring up her issue with Jon, they make it seem like she resents Ned's marital infidelity more than anything else, but in the book we see that she's really preoccupied with Jon being raised in Winterfell and the dynastic threat he poses to her children.

I don't agree that the books show her as really being preocuppied with that. They changed the "it should have been you" line. The impression I got from that line and the books as a whole is that she resents Jon for being a constant reminder of Ned's infidelity and to a lesser extent sees him as a threat to her children.

I do agree that the books show her as being very politically aware. Something we miss out on in the TV series as well as the way it conflicts with her motherly instincts but on the whole I don't think that the changes are that substantial. However, because of her POVs in the books she was a more prominent figure whereas she's more in the background in the TV series.

Anyway, I've never disliked book Cat even though I found her constant (but understandable) pining for her losses a bit tiring. I was sad that she never got to reunite with any of her little kids.

ps. My favourite scene with TV Cat was when she shouts "A COURTESY?" at Lysa. I nearly jumped out of my seat..great acting.

[Lady Blackfish]

I don't agree that the books show her as really being preocuppied with that. ... The impression I got from that line and the books as a whole is that she resents Jon for being a constant reminder of Ned's infidelity and to a lesser extent sees him as a threat to her children.

Whichever one bothered her more, I don't think it was so much Ned's sexual infidelity as the idea that Ned still emotionally treasures that other woman more (he had a man's needs, he was welcome to his comforts, etc). It's not about sex, which is actually weird from a modern standpoint. It's not the most relevant detail but I think it's closer to being a more "accurate" mindset for a woman of that time period instead of a stock modern jilted wife attitude. It's that whole thing where you wonder, since it's all there in the book, and since the writers read the book, where did this version come from? (In other words, do they get the characters on their own, in-world terms, or based on how easily they approximate modern analogues?)

ps. My favourite scene with TV Cat was when she shouts "A COURTESY?" at Lysa. I nearly jumped out of my seat..great acting.

Again from Martin's episode!

[Easy]

Whichever one bothered her more, I don't think it was so much Ned's sexual infidelity as the idea that Ned still emotionally treasures that other woman more (he had a man's needs, he was welcome to his comforts, etc). It's not about sex, which is actually weird from a modern standpoint. It's not the most relevant detail but I think it's closer to being a more "accurate" mindset for a woman of that time period instead of a stock modern jilted wife attitude.

That's a good point. Not many modern readers can accept that as being normal maybe the writers can't either.

Anyway, why have the writers changed the way she's portrayed? I know she's unpopular with book readers(something I don't fully understand why) but I actually think that book Catelyn, translated exactly to screen would have been liked. I think book readers are abnormally averse to her.

Apart from her attitude to Jon, she doesn't do anything to make one dislike her while there's plenty to like. She's a good wife to Ned, they genuinely love each other, she's a good mother, she's politically aware and capable of diplomatic manoeuvring and I find her to be very steely. Her children are her weakness but when is that not true of a mother?

[Lady Blackfish]

maybe the writers can't either.

Well. Good thing Matt Weiner was able to not only handle the oppressive sexism of the 1950's, including how it manifested itself in women, but also give credit to Mad Men viewers for being able to handle it too. It's odd, you know? Viewers can handle Dany being raped in the ass on her wedding night, but not that? Weird.

I actually think that book Catelyn, translated exactly to screen would have been liked. I think book readers are abnormally averse to her.

I think a lot of people are responding better to the character simply because they're not reading her thoughts. A lot of people simply don't like her thought process, inner feelings, etc. TV is much faster, you don't need to suffer as long with a person you don't like so there's less opportunity for your dislike to get aggravated. So yeah, I absolutely agree that the mere translation to the screen would've taken care of a lot.

On top of that I can understand things like leaving "It should have been you" out, but that's about all. Nothing else makes any sense, I can't imagine why a marketing exec would bother about it, I don't see how it helps tell a tighter story, I don't see how it adds to rather than detracts from the charcter's personal arc. It seems really sloppy, haphazard and, well, shoddy to me, and I find it hard to understand shoddiness. But perhaps there are other impressions out there.

[Lady Blackfish]

Oh, and now that episode 10 is done -- Catelyn seems to have rushed further into Stoneheart territory after Ned's death than in the books. I thought her plea for peace in the king in the north scene went a long way in showing just how much self restraint this woman has. Here was a room full of men who knew Ned only as their lord, clambering for vengeance and bloodshed, and there was Cat, who loved Ned so much she didn't even feel like living without him, she who more than anyone had any modicum of right to demand the rolling of heads, all alone in her plea for peace and the preservation of life. That was really critical to who Catelyn was, in my opinion. It took more losses than this to wear down her convictions into merciless fury.

I understand that "We will kill them all" and the stone clobbering of Jaime Lannister's pretty pretty face makes for great television, and that they are pressed for time in the episodes although they always do manage to squeeze Ros in, but that doesn't mean that something isn't lost. I might be missing something, but in the long run it seems like an inelegant way of going about the arc.

[Brewmaster]

I think Show Cat is superior to Book Cat. Or as someone that didn't like her much in the book, she's at least more sympathetic in the show.

I think she's "harder" and a tougher woman right off the bat on the show. In the book she seems still like she's held onto a bit too much of that Sansa little girl in her when he first meet her in GoT. She's still not really comfortable in the North after more than 15 years. She wants the girls to be a part of court life in the South and urges Ned to go.

The first change we see in her character for the show is that part of her. She wants Ned to stay. She feels like a tougher woman, somebody more deserving of Ned. Their relationship seems warmer...They get that goodbye kiss in King's Landing. I think her interactions with Robb seem somehow better.

I don't know that I can detail it completely, but I prefer show Cat.

[Ran]

I'm not a fan of the changes. Catelyn is, more than anything, the thing I wish they had stuck to the book more with... but then, she's my favorite character. I know they had their reasons, and I'm hopeful that they're going to go an interesting direction with thee tweaks, because I very much like Fairley and just wish they'd give her more to do. It's easy to forget that despite the show, Catelyn in the first three novels is among the top 4-5 characters by chapter count.

But, we'll see. They have some interesting ways they can go with things, I suppose.

[Lady Blackfish]

I don't know that I can detail it completely, but I prefer show Cat.

I'm curious, is that because of the hard changes they made, or because you're simply seeing her with two eyes as a human being instead of as written words on the page, a medium where you have to work much harder to understand who a person is?

One thing you mention is the "Catelyn is too southern and doesn't deserve Ned" argument. Maybe you can explain this one a bit more to me, because it's an argument I've never understood. It's clear that some part of Catelyn remains unadjusted to the North after a decade and change, but why does that 1) make her unsympathetic and 2) undeserving of Ned? If Ned had moved to the Riverlands and still preferred the north, would he be undeserving of Cat? If Sansa never adjusts to her husband's home entirely, and still is northern at heart, would that make her unsympathetic and undeserving? I'm also trying to think of where her more notable southernness kept her from being tough enough in the books. Were you thinking of something in particular? And I'm curious, you say that Catelyn is tougher in the show; is not urging Ned to go south and advance their family politically part of that assessment as tougher? It seems to me that in the book she was asserting her own opinion that differed from her husband's, that seems pretty independent, strong, and self possessed to me.

And after all that, I'm not sure I understand how show!Cat is so different in this regard. The first thing she says in the show, IIRC, is that she still feels like an outsider in the godswood. Cersei notes that Sansa has little of the north in her, comparing her to her mother. Sansa points out a few times that Mother is southern, that she came from far away.

You also mentioned that her interactions with Robb are somehow better in the show. Usually when people dislike her interactions with Robb, they say she emasculates him, infantilizes him, bullies him, controls him, nags him, etc. Is that true of you as well? I'm not trying to make assumptions but I am pressed for time and I just want to speed the conversation along. If that is true of you, would you feel that way if she was Ned telling Robb what to do? Did you feel that way when, for example, Donal Noye or Jeor Mormont scolded Jon? If not, can you see why I might think that the problem is with people who have these seeming double standards instead of the show? What I'm trying to get at is, is a female character's authority and self-definition really something that they should tone down to get people to like her? If they do that, does it really say good things about those who find it necessary?

[Easy]

What I'm trying to get at is, is a female character's authority and self-definition really something that they should tone down to get people to like her?

I don't think her authority and self-definition are what people dislike about her.

I would say it's her seemingly smothering, motherly instincts appearing to warp her decision making and thought process which readers find off putting. Her (apparently) irrational need to protect Robb, to protect her children from Jon's threat to their inheritance, pining for her losses all the time, releasing Jaime for her daughters...

It's like you mentioned earlier, we're not inside her mind so that's why she's more popular. being inside her mind in the books can be quite grating whereas on TV we simply see her decisions without the thought process that goes before them.

[Lady Blackfish]

Well, Brewmaster mentioned that he thought she had too much of the south in her, not enough of the north, not deserving of Ned, etc. In that particular post he didn't mention much of what you listed.

Re. said smothering instincts, I think if people saw it play out exactly as in the books they'd see she didn't smother Robb at all. There's basically a simple point I want to make: there are many reasons that people don't like Catelyn. But quite frankly, some of them are unintelligent and, yes, sexist reasons. If the show is catering to that, then that's something that reasonable, intelligent critics of the show ought to criticize and lambast. That's something I feel the show definitely needs to not cater to.

If, however, the reasons people have for not liking her are due to other things, perhaps structural or something, then I can see the rationale. I think it was great that they added scenes with her children in the pilot episode, that is a justifiable criticism of Martin's version IMO and the change made sense. I think "It should have been you" was brave of Martin to write, but again I understand why they might've wanted to leave it out and I don't nitpick on that.

But not all possible ways of catering to the unpopularity speak well of the show or of the audience. If it's noble for Ned to want to protect his daughters, but annoying for Cat to want to protect Robb, if it's tragic and beautiful when Robb marries Jeyne, but irrational and galling when Cat frees Jaime, etc, then I'm sorry, but I'm going to be quite frank with my argument: then there is something wrong with the audience.

I don't know why the show did what they did, personally I don't think their changes, taken together, bespeak any coherent plan whatsoever. But if it was in the name of popularity, then there really does need to be a more thoughtful measurement of the character's popularity vs the character's integrity. One is ultimately more important than the other, after all, so there's a thing as too much compromise here, IMO.

[Sixshells]

It's been some time since I re-read AGoT, so I didn't notice most of the changes initially, except the fact that she is adamant about Ned remaining at Winterfell while in the book she insists he goes even after Lysa's letter. The combat scene en route to the Eyrie was another moment that fell backwards from the book, especially since they bothered to show Tyrion fighting they could also have shown she was not that helpless. It struck me as if I remember correctly their reactions are completely inversed between the book and the show in that episode. I also noticed TV-Catelyn's attitude and determination since the assassination attempt on Bran seemed closer to Lady Stoneheart than to Book-Catelyn.

So I agree on your point, they could have tried to show more her political saviness and her courage and not make her "just" a typical mother. Particularly since they took the time to make up a scene showing Cercei's "political education" of Joffrey, the contrast would have been interesting.

In regard to her opinion of Jon I think they were a mix of diverse hostile feelings : his presence was a sign of Ned's infidelity (in that he seemed to have cared enough for the mother to raise Jon as his son, rather than in a more modern "sorned woman" vision, as it has been pointed out), dynastic preoccupations of course but also common prejudice against bastards, that are by definition commoners and considered not to be very reliable or loyal in general.

[Timbits]

Catelyn is more likable in the show, I'd say, but still a boring character. I didn't care for her much in the books because for such a logical woman she was (in a way) quite immature and covered her follies up with pride. I did start to like her at one point when she was kind to Brienne. The character seems more sweet and less judgmental in the show. To be honest, I don't feel much for Cat's character either way. But I would have preferred they stuck to book Cat.

I have to say though, that I don't understand why people think Catelyn is such a strong female role when she copped out of situation of confronting her husband about producing a bastard and instead loathed a boy who had nothing to do with where his father potentially stuck his goods. Eh, just saying.

[Lady Blackfish]

Possibly because she didn't cop out of confronting Ned, she did that exact thing and then he ordered her not to speak of the matter again. And if the argument is that "one weakness negates the possibility of a character being strong", then nobody in the books is strong. Strong Female Characters^TM tends to be a term bandied about in some totally artificial way and runs on "logic" that is never applied to male characters. Does anyone call Jaime weak for trying to murder a 7 year old child? Ridiculous.