Devouring their children: Portrayal of mothers in ASOIAF

[voodooqueen126]

this is unfair, GRRM does not need to justify his life, nor will I ever ask Mr. da Vinci if I ever meet him in fornicator's hell. If you ever saw my paintings .........

Why shouldn't Da Vinci have painted men whom he found attractive? When I write original fiction (of fanfiction that deviates so far from canon that it may as well be original), they tend to be populated by dark guys on the hairy side. Although those men are outnumbered by women obviously based on everyone I know, causing me to make up male filler characters to even out the gender imbalance (so that excess women can get paired up)...it would probably have ugly stupid bullies (because in my experience most nasty people are also stupid and most bullies are ugly) and probably a bunch of other details or incidental themes that I was not consciously aware of, but could probably be traced back to biographical details by someone who knew me well.

And besides, GRRM actually married in 1975, (age 27, I believe) but divorced a few years later. His relationship with Parris began in the 80s, although he'd known her for longer.

So the point is moot.

ah... well that does change things. From what biographical details I knew of him, it seemed like he was a Samwell Tarly in a world where celibate orders have ceased to be fashionable*, who married only after he had become a famous novelist. Whose novels have an unattractive hero (Tyrion) constantly rejected by pretty girls (Sansa and eventually Shae)... so yeah...

I suppose the weight gain could've been later in life.

*fun fact the big supporters of the Romance of the Rose seemed to have been clerks, where as the men who portrayed the act of loving a woman as a source of redemption tended to be troubadours and the like who earned their living impressing female patrons)

[Woman of War]

...... (because in my experience most nasty people are also stupid and most bullies are ugly)......

Ts,ts, Littlefinger and Joffrey....?? I'm not starting a debate about it no need to answer, I was just having my fun.

[The Frosted King]

Catelyns dislike of Jon was reasonable.

Bastards were a harsh reality of their world, but most weren't brought home with their noble fathers, and raised alongside their trueborn brothers and sisters.

You know who were, besides Jon in the north?

The blackfyres in the south. And they contended with their royal kin for years, going so far as to found a mercenary company in Essos, bound to ending the targareyen line.

Hence Catelyns fear when Robb decided to name Jon his heir. If Robb won the war against the odds they were facing, and established his mud and ice hewn kingdom, he couldn't turn Jon bastard again.

Even if Jon kept his head bowed as we know Jon likely would, his children might not maintain their fathers stance.

And the only precedent to draw from was the Blackfyre Rebellion.

Catelyn was a good mother, and a good wife.

[Maester Sarella]

" Mother’s and motherhood is sort of a sacred cow; no one really dares to decry it..."

I actually think this is not a bit true and hasn't been true for at least a century. The (s)mother as a trope in narratives has been done practically to death. Bad Mommy as well. Buttloads of examples:

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MyBelovedSmother

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/EvilMatriarch

Which isn't to say that GRRM's employment of the trope is hackneyed. His mamas aren't his most well-developed characters, IMHO, but they could be worse.

(Though I do find the whole Lysa extended-breastfeeding-as-symbol-of-overmothering thing to be reeeeally heavyhanded.)

[voodooqueen126]

Ts,ts, Littlefinger and Joffrey....?? I'm not starting a debate about it no need to answer, I was just having my fun.

Generally the boy who steals your lunch money and gives a you black eye looks like a pig and has the intelligence of one.

The girl who spreads rumours about you and makes your highschool experience hell is pretty, but not really beautiful.

Not denying the presence of truly wicked and beautiful people... real life Joffrey's and Cersei's.

and Littlefinger has short man syndrome.

but my personal experience there.

On the topic of the medieval view of literature (hopes littlespider comes here soon):

http://academic.broo...ni/cs6/ren.html

Anyone else noticed what the introduction of this book (the one on medieval literature)

http://www.amazon.co...y/dp/B000SJXSKW

is talking about

(from pages XXII-XXIV)

/begin quote/

Apart from any linguistic difficulties, the modern reader, particularly if his previous knowledge of poetry begins with the Romantic poets, may be puzzled by the content of medieval poetry. We are so accustomed to a culture in which poetry is the highbrow medium, to be employed only for communicating the most intense and subtle experiences, while the natural medium for every day use is prose, that it is difficult for us to imagine a society in which the relative positions were the other way round, a time when verse was the popular medium for instruction and entertainment, and prose, mostly in Latin, the specialized medium for the intercourse of scholars.

If this anthology were being compiled by a contemporary of the poets themselves, the selection would certainly be very different and the impression we should get would be that they were very "impure" poets, always forsaking the poetry for moralizing or teaching. It is easier for us to understand the practical reasons why this should have been so-how, for instance, among a people without books and dependent on the oral transmission of culture, rhyme is a useful mnemonic device-than to appreciate it aesthetically.

Curiously enoguh, the lowbrow often has a much less inhibited attitude to verse than, shall we say, the middle brow, as is evidenced by the popularity of limericks and those little moral and consolatory verse which are syndicated in newspapers. The highbrow may be right in purifying the poetry he himself writes from every "prosy" element, but one should, I think, have serious doubts of his poetic gift if he gets no personal pleasure from such poems as

And Masculine is found to be

Hadria the Adriatic Sea

or

Minus times minus equals plus:

the reason for this we need not discuss.

.It must be admitted that, to our taste, the medieval poets are frequently prolix and formless, but this is rather because they were too ambitious for their talents than because of any fault in their goal itself-too many average poets set out to write as all-embracing a masterpiece as The Devine Comedy. After the Middle Ages no one, not even Shakespeare or Milton, really attempts such a thing.

/end quote/

So the observation is that medieval people believed that literature (especially poetry) should be moral, but can anyone think of a church father or philosopher who actually said 'literature must be moral"?

[Scaeva]

Regarding Joffrey, I don't view Cersei so much as the root cause of his evil so much as an enabler. The fact that he behaved cruelly from such a young age (like with the cat) suggests an inherent psychological disorder, i.e. antisocial personality disorder. If Cersei "ruined" him, it's because she was in denial over how evil he truly was and did nothing to curb or punish his proclivities.

Even if Joffrey's cruelty was a case of nature rather than nurture, Cersei may still be to blame. Any psychological disorders he was born with may have come as the result of being the product of brother-sister incest.

[voodooqueen126]

Even if Joffrey's cruelty was a case of nature rather than nurture, Cersei may still be to blame. Any psychological disorders he was born with may have come as the result of being the product of brother-sister incest.

didn't someone else say that incest tends to 'sharpen' features rather than result in horrifying one eyed monsters?

for instance a brother and sister both have a mild hapsburg jaw and their child together has a super hapsburg jaw (so bad he can't eat properly)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_II_of_Spain

or in the case of Jaime and Cersei, both of them are low on empathy, as is their younger brother, their father lacks empathy too and he was married to his cousin.

So Joffrey is that lack of empathy turned up to 40.

[RevengeOfTheStarks]

didn't someone else say that incest tends to 'sharpen' features rather than result in horrifying one eyed monsters?

for instance a brother and sister both have a mild hapsburg jaw and their child together has a super hapsburg jaw (so bad he can't eat properly)

http://en.wikipedia....les_II_of_Spain

or in the case of Jaime and Cersei, both of them are low on empathy, as is their younger brother, their father lacks empathy too and he was married to his cousin.

So Joffrey is that lack of empathy turned up to 40.

That is the general effect of selective inbreeding, as you see with certain breeds of dogs. You take individuals with mild forms of features you like, and breed them, with results being features equal or greater in severity. It seems like the results should be similar when you get non selective inbreeding in humans, especially in the Lannister clan, where so many members already share a lot of traits, like blondeness, green-eyes, certain dispositions, etc.

[Raksha the Demon]

That is the general effect of selective inbreeding, as you see with certain breeds of dogs. You take individuals with mild forms of features you like, and breed them, with results being features equal or greater in severity. It seems like the results should be similar when you get non selective inbreeding in humans, especially in the Lannister clan, where so many members already share a lot of traits, like blondeness, green-eyes, certain dispositions, etc.

A responsible dog breeder inbreeds very selectively and rarely, to set the type; the practice helps fix certain genes. Inbreeding is the mating of two closely related dogs; such as dam and pup, sire and daughter, littermates, half-siblings. One should only inbreed if one knows the pedigree of the potential litter extremely well back at least three or four generations, in terms of hereditary illnesses, temperaments, size, etc. Lack of knowledge or willful ignorance can fix some unhealthy qualities in the line.

In a narrow breed gene pool, such as the show dogs in a rare breed, responsible breeders linebreed more (i.e. the breeding of less closely related individuals, such as cousins, second cousins, half-uncle to niece, etc.) and often outcross.

In canine terms, the union of Tywin x Joanna was a linebreeding; and their offspring should definitely not have bred together!

My dog was linebred, though not tightly; two out of his four great-grandsires are the same dog. He is healthy and has an excellent temperament and structure. His double-great-grandsire is alive and fairly well at nearly 16.

Breeding dogs is not an exact science; though responsible breeders try to practice common sense as well as time-honored techniques as well as newer trends and usually do whatever genetic testing is appropriate for the breed. I don't even want to think about actually breeding humans towards any particular goal - though I did enjoy reading Dune...

[RevengeOfTheStarks]

A responsible dog breeder inbreeds very selectively and rarely, to set the type; the practice helps fix certain genes. Inbreeding is the mating of two closely related dogs; such as dam and pup, sire and daughter, littermates, half-siblings. One should only inbreed if one knows the pedigree of the potential litter extremely well back at least three or four generations, in terms of hereditary illnesses, temperaments, size, etc. Lack of knowledge or willful ignorance can fix some unhealthy qualities in the line.

In a narrow breed gene pool, such as the show dogs in a rare breed, responsible breeders linebreed more (i.e. the breeding of less closely related individuals, such as cousins, second cousins, half-uncle to niece, etc.) and often outcross.

In canine terms, the union of Tywin x Joanna was a linebreeding; and their offspring should definitely not have bred together!

My dog was linebred, though not tightly; two out of his four great-grandsires are the same dog. He is healthy and has an excellent temperament and structure. His double-great-grandsire is alive and fairly well at nearly 16.

Breeding dogs is not an exact science; though responsible breeders try to practice common sense as well as time-honored techniques as well as newer trends and usually do whatever genetic testing is appropriate for the breed. I don't even want to think about actually breeding humans towards any particular goal - though I did enjoy reading Dune...

Lol, yeah I completely agree with you on all of those points. I think there was a very heated Daenerys the Mad Queen thread where people, including myself, were talking about inbreeding and its possible effects in depth. Genetics is much more complicated than the simplified discussions we're having here of course, especially when you're talking about traits controlled by countless genes, like personalities and mentality. But I think if you want to try to make the argument that Joff's particular brand of crazy may be partly attributable to his incestual conception, it's totally plausible.

[Raksha the Demon]

Cersei was playing with fire when she deliberately had Jaime sire all three of her children. I really doubt that even if she had understood genetics or thought of the emotional instability of the Targaryen dynasty as a cautionary tale, she would have picked someone else to father her kids; she was furious with Robert and wanted her beloved Jaime, no other, to be the father. Also, for Cersei, it was all about her; and she wouldn't have considered the potential damage, genetic or political, to those children.

Cersei might also have been thinking of Rhaegar, the beautiful and beloved dragon prince, who was a product of a brother/sister union; there's no evidence that he suffered any emotional or physical problems from being born to siblings. And I still don't think Viserys was insane or that Daenerys is going insane. Cersei had at least met Rhaegar and was infatuated with him; it could be that she visualized making children as handsome, apparently healthy, and charismatic, when she produced three Baratheon heirs secretly sired by her twin.

I wish we knew whether Joanna and Tywin were first or second cousins. And sadly, what with ASoIaF being a pre-tech society; no one can diagnose Joffrey's particular brand of personality disorder to help figure out whether it is genetic as well as nurtured. It seems pretty obvious that Myrcella and Tommen aren't sociopaths; though I wonder about plump Tommen's thyroid (or it could just be that he eats a lot out of stress, and is over-pampered so he doesn't go running around and getting much exercise)...

There are also, in dogs at least, fertility problems, both in the size and health of litters, when there is successive inbreeding. Of course, Queen Victoria and Prince Albert had what, eight kids; and they were first cousins. But one of their sons was a hemophiliac and at least one of the daughters carried the gene; though I've read that the hemophilia was thought to be a mutation.

[LuisDantas]

didn't someone else say that incest tends to 'sharpen' features rather than result in horrifying one eyed monsters?

(...)

or in the case of Jaime and Cersei, both of them are low on empathy, as is their younger brother, their father lacks empathy too and he was married to his cousin.

So Joffrey is that lack of empathy turned up to 40.

The key word is "tends". Brother-sister inbreeding is a very risky business in real life, because the odds of at least one of the nastier recessive genes ends up expressing itself rises to dramatically. It is somewhat implausible that the three brothers are so healthy, all things considered. So implausible that I wouldn't be all that surprised if it turned out that they are Robert's after all.

Genetics aren't all that previsible, even today. But it is already known that most everyone has at least one defective gene (not just recessive with unpleasant effects, but all-out defective), and crossbreeding is very useful indeed in avoiding the worst genetic mishappens.

[RevengeOfTheStarks]

Cersei was playing with fire when she deliberately had Jaime sire all three of her children. I really doubt that even if she had understood genetics or thought of the emotional instability of the Targaryen dynasty as a cautionary tale, she would have picked someone else to father her kids; she was furious with Robert and wanted her beloved Jaime, no other, to be the father. Also, for Cersei, it was all about her; and she wouldn't have considered the potential damage, genetic or political, to those children.

Yeah, in fact this ties back in with the opinion I'd been expressing in most of my posts on this thread, that overbearing mothers in this series are like that because their children are their primary means of leaving an impression on the world. Because their own agency is so restricted, some mothers inadvertently make their children chess pieces in their own game. Cersei, imo is the epitome of that. She chose her childrens' father based on her hate for Robert, and because she clearly thinks Lannister traits are superior to anything else. Then when Robert died, she thought she could rule through Joffrey, and make a significant impression on his ruling style when he came of age. That obviously didn't work out. Cersei was taking this very active role in "forming" her progeny that indicated a certain self-absorption, and blindness to risk and the fact that they would inevitably become their own people. I don't think it's a coincidence that Cersei is both the most controlling mother (after the insane Lysa Arryn), and the character who is the focus of so many of our gender issues discussions. She's the most poignantly aware of the disadvantages she has as a woman, is one of the most ambitious women, and one of the most controlling mothers, from conception of her children onwards.

On a different note, I definitely think the controlling mother trope is over-represented in asoiaf. This may be GRRM's life and personal insight coloring the story. I actually don't find anything disconcerting about this in the story because the overbearing mother is my personal experience as well, so the story speaks true. However, I can objectively recognize that there are just as many "normal" loving and supporting, but not smothering, mothers, and this type is sorely missing from the main female cast of asoiaf.

@voodooqueen and woman of war, with regards to your Harry Potter comparison:

I got really excited when you brought that into the discussion and I was totally going to write this huge essay comparing HP mom representation with asoiaf, and speculate about the influence of author background on these depictions, but I was at work, and then the moment passed.

I will say though, I think the fact that Rowling was a struggling single mom of an infant when she started HP had a huge impact on her portrayal of Lily and her role in the story. Also, in the story itself, Lily dies while Harry is still in his infancy. This is important for several reasons. First, if there is ever a time when mother love is completely and utterly selfless, unconditional, and sacrificing, it's when the child is very young. When kids get older and start to become their own people, the dynamic changes. It can remain a supportive relationship, as I believe it does for the majority, or mothers can have issues with letting go, and desires to influence their children in ways that they really don't have a right. Because the Lily-Harry relationship never progressed beyond that first stage, it just remained frozen in unconditional selflessness. Not that I think Lily would have been a (s)mother, just saying, we never have any chance to see a more complex interaction. Lily died for her baby and invoked some powerful love magic, and remained frozen in that state for Harry and readers.

[voodooqueen126]

Cersei was playing with fire when she deliberately had Jaime sire all three of her children. I really doubt that even if she had understood genetics or thought of the emotional instability of the Targaryen dynasty as a cautionary tale, she would have picked someone else to father her kids; she was furious with Robert and wanted her beloved Jaime, no other, to be the father. Also, for Cersei, it was all about her; and she wouldn't have considered the potential damage, genetic or political, to those children.

Cersei might also have been thinking of Rhaegar, the beautiful and beloved dragon prince, who was a product of a brother/sister union; there's no evidence that he suffered any emotional or physical problems from being born to siblings. And I still don't think Viserys was insane or that Daenerys is going insane. Cersei had at least met Rhaegar and was infatuated with him; it could be that she visualized making children as handsome, apparently healthy, and charismatic, when she produced three Baratheon heirs secretly sired by her twin.

I wish we knew whether Joanna and Tywin were first or second cousins. And sadly, what with ASoIaF being a pre-tech society; no one can diagnose Joffrey's particular brand of personality disorder to help figure out whether it is genetic as well as nurtured. It seems pretty obvious that Myrcella and Tommen aren't sociopaths; though I wonder about plump Tommen's thyroid (or it could just be that he eats a lot out of stress, and is over-pampered so he doesn't go running around and getting much exercise)...

There are also, in dogs at least, fertility problems, both in the size and health of litters, when there is successive inbreeding. Of course, Queen Victoria and Prince Albert had what, eight kids; and they were first cousins. But one of their sons was a hemophiliac and at least one of the daughters carried the gene; though I've read that the hemophilia was thought to be a mutation.

Princess Ena and another of Victoria's daughters, it's thought to be a mutation since Victoria's father was old.

the Hapsburgs had fertility problems though, as I think did the Targaryens (there is only the main branch at the time of ASOIAF).

but I think Rhaegar was mildly bipolar and Daenerys can be a bit too.

Mind you that Winston Churchill also had bipolar disorder, so it's not all bad.