Why the Sympathy?

[Kolantero]

I don't see how Catelyn is portrayed negatively. She is only "cruel" to Jon in one scene and her anger and emotional stress is fully justified to the eyes of the reader because of Bran's state.

Sansa might have been portrayed negatively at the start of the series but this was greatly mitigated by her age and naivety and her whole "i want a prince on a white horse and a shining armor" thing earned her a lot of sympathy in many readers. There's a reason that "Rethinking Sansa" is at the 16th(?) thread. And after the first 1-2 books Sansa is written as a much more sympathetic character

Tyrion might be portrayed somewhat sympathetically but the whole notion loses its meaning if you think that everything in the books is fictional and that if Martin really wanted to "protect" Tyrion from being seen as bad then he could change pretty much anything he wanted. For example Martin could just have Tyrion not rape the sex slave in Pentos. It's not like it serves any major cause in the plot, other than showing a much uglier side of Tyrion, the very thing Martin is supposed to "protect" him from.

[KhaleesiDany]

I think Tyrion is written to be a likeable character but I don't like him. Something about him is too transparent (i tend not to like central characters so hearing that he is the author's avatar, which is something I suspected but wouldn't go so far as to purport, might explain it). I feel that while many characters give perspectives on an issue or work with another character to tell two sides of a story Tyrion is more of a vehicle for us to get into the world. He is written sympathetically despite his deformity and we can relate to him from a modern perspective because of his confrontations with prejudice, plus he is witty, funny, and lucky. But as the books go on I find myself liking Tyrion less and less. In a Dance with Dragons my impression of him was a man who has lost everything and is pining for "what could have been" with a former lover (and never will). He is really quite selfish and narcissistic. And by the end of ASOS and during ADWD I would add, pathetic.

[voodooqueen126]

Sansa fits into a very defined (and very real) character type. The slightly spoiled, rich girl, tweeny still very much at the air head stage.

Ever been to a girls private school - Sansa and Jeyne are just the typical girls of the era - giggling in the corner and discussing boys, while also impressing the teachers. They are concius snob, discussing clothes others have and using terms like "povvo" For Austalians (and others) she is a little like Jaim'e in Chris Little's Summer heits high - or at leastlike one of her friends.

Arya is the girl in the top maths class who joins the greens and spends her weekends handing out leaflets to save the whales. Her friends are the nerdy loners while Sansa mixes it with the good looking jocks. These characters exist today.

I suspect that Martin had some run ins with the "cool" girls in his youth and Sansa is the outcome. Life and hardship mellow these "cool" girls so at 30 he may meet them again and no longer hate them

Myrcella is in between the two with I suspect a slight leaning to Arya is she was braver.

Cat is brilliantly written. I actually liked her the GoT. It was not until later (as Lady SH) I realised what a nasty bit of work she was.

Now I know why I find Arya so annoying...She reminds me of so many self righteous little bullies... I might humourously suggest that perhaps you have hit on something very true about the Greens: they pretend to be so righteous, but like Arya, they are murderous (didn't someone mention the Stasi earlier...).

Although Actually I like Arya's idea of eliminating with extreme prejudice people like Gregor. No doubt the world will be a better place if people like that died. Though ordering Jaqen to assassinate the cook was pointless evil. (and puts Arya back into the-hating-people for what they are rather than what they do).

Yes but Jaim'e is a bogan with money... Not a comparison to Sansa, who has genuine class. Having been to a private all girls school in Australia.I would say Sansa reminds me of very few girls, as we are alas, a crass and vulgar people, even in the best of circles.

Perhaps there was a Singapore Chinese girl who was a bit like Sansa (she wanted to a be a teacher despite her great talent at languages), and maybe a Saudi girl (a pretty feminine profession given the Saudi need for female doctors), although the Saudi girl had too much sex appeal even in a hijab and a sack variation of our uniform to be like Sansa...

Actually there was one Australian Girl who was a bit like Sansa (but actually I think her maternal family were Polish* or some other variety of Contintental European that isn't German) so not completely Aussie: GC was polite and kind, genuinely fond of chapel, she had a soft voice and played a musical instrument, she was civic spirited and participated in causes. GC had one strange trait: she seemed incapable of hating, certainly GC, like most good people could look down at people who she perceived as wicked, but she didn't really seem to hate people that wronged her. In this GC was most like Sansa: for whilst it makes sense for Sansa to be dishonestly polite and kind to Cersei, Joffrey, Tyrion and Lancel. It certainly makes no sense for Sansa not to fantasize about harming them and wish them ill: or to feeling pity when Joffrey died, which was utterly bizarre, or not fantasizing about scratching Tyrion's eyes out.... Perhaps GRRM doesn't understand that, just because someone is not an idiot like Arya, who loudly proclaimed her hatreds at the top her lungs, that therefore someone is a milksop incapable of hating even the evil that is done directly to ones own person... I don't know if GC was like that though, as after all I could not read her mind, though I should say that saints who 'resist not evil' and 'turn the other cheek' are mercifully rare...

Perhaps GRRM does not understand that one can be well mannered and compassionate, whilst passionately hating evil and wish to see evil wiped out. Think of Miss Marple (who was significantly, created by a female author), hopefully Sansa will progress towards a Marpleian approach to evil in the next book.

I also like Dany, she is rather like George W Bush with the looks of Paris Hilton though...

Personally I think young George Bush was far sexier than Paris Hilton but that's just me...

*and I think it's Poland due to a story she told about her grandmother...

Some thoughts about Jon growing up in Winterfell with Cat as the closest thing he had to a mother...

The Cat/Jon relationship of Cat ostracizing and distrusting and saying cruel things to Jon (admittedly when short on sleep and desperately worried for her comatose child) never made much sense to me in light of Jon's attitude towards women. If the only mother-figure in Jon's early life, the female authority figure of his childhood and early youth, hated him and at the very least constantly turned a cold shoulder to him, why is Jon not more angry at and distrustful of women? Jon seems to get along well with females. He has a healthy, loving relationship with his younger sister, he has good memories of Sansa despite her catching Catelyn's anti-Jon vibes and qualifying him as a 'half-brother'; he later has a loving sexual relationship with Ygritte (brief as is), he helps Alys Karstark, and speaks with the very assertive Wildling 'princess' Val as an equal (not at all threatened by her).

I would suspect that Jon had had a loving governess or nurse who gave him the maternal affection that Cat would supposedly have died rather than bestow on him; but Jon never mentions a nurse or nanny who was a mother-substitute. I just don't get how a boy whose only maternal figure, the mother of his beloved siblings, shuts him out or snaps at him all the time, grows up without any resentment or fear or even distrust of women. Could Cat have actually given very young Jon some affection, and then grown cold to him? I think that would have messed him up; and there's no indication of that in Jon's memories either.

I think GRRM often goes wrong in child psych:

for instance a lack of affection/mothering is generally linked to psychopathy in humans and monkeys.

So whilst Tyrion's mysoginistic attitude towards women is completely comprehensible given that he was raised by Tywin and wetnurses, rather than Joanna. I am not sure if GRRM intended that though.

The fact that Joffrey and Robert Arryn are such creeps makes less sense given how much affection they received from their mothers (although in Joffrey's case it is explicable by his Lannister genes), perhaps Robert Arryn has crappy Littlefinger genes... Whilst neglected Jon and Tommen are so terribly nice...

This may sound cliched, but it is the absence of love, not spoiling that makes children awful in the real world.

This is not just feminine concerns being ignored, it's lower-class concerns. The things you mention are for the peasant women to do. Noble women probably had other things to do besides being midwives and healers. I mean, we don't see the minutia of common living for either sex. Off the top of my head I'd say that the noblewomen would be more into charity, supporting the arts and other such things, menial labour wasn't on the table.

Well, if the viewpoint characters were peasant women, then the absence of this sort of thing would be absolutely galling...

However being a medieval noblewoman would be the equivalent of running a large corporation. Being a princess would be like being a diplomat/hostage and potential deputy prime minister/vice president if your husband dies and your son is a child. At the same time serving as a broodmare, artistic and charity patron and event organiser..In short there is nothing shallow about being a medieval noblewoman or princess. I think GRRM, but definetly the fandom, didn't really understand this and just thought princess=Diana, who was shallow and represents, to moderns. An idea of Princesses as pretty and glamourous. Where as historical paintings of princess show them to be quite plain (like the Hapsburgs)... and reading the lives of Medieval princesses, noblewomen, and queens show them to have been rather brilliant (and often better monarchs then their male counterparts) and well educated.

For instance one of the things that went wrong in the marriage of Joanna of Naplesto Andrew, Duke of Calabria, was that he lacked education and was a dullard.

So having Sansa having a fairy tale notion of princesses, is frankly unrealistic. Certainly the peasant women who told stories like "Cinderalla" and "The Feather of Finist the Falcon", might have thought (like moderns today-but then most of us moderns are descended from people who were peasants during the Middle Ages) that being a princess was all about luxury and being pretty. But I doubt anyone in Sansa's position would have been so naive. But I tend to think that this reflects naivety on GRRM's part (in that he failed to think about 'what would being a medieval lady really be like at 12" and "what kind of education did medieval ladies have").

As a writer of forbidden literature, I tend to blame Ned (due to that scene with Mordane in AGOT)

We can't avoid reader interpretation as well, in truth it is more difficult for me to understand Catelyn's actions because I'm viewing them through the eyes of a man. For this reason I am always hard pressed to take a hard line stance against her, to put it simpler I have no idea what it means to be a parent or mother. I can't relate to Cat's rational when reading her chapters so I judge her actions by face value disregarding anything else. That is why I love this board though, I can toss out an argument and it can get verified or torn apart. At the end however I have a deeper, better understanding for the text. For me a large part of my sympathetic approach is understanding the motives behind a characters actions. Not necessarily judging the results, because GRRM does not give us the outcome we expect ever, just judging the motives. Which is why I love Dany, her results suck but her motives are pure IMO. Plus I want a female character to come out on top in all this, so sue me. :P

For a man a baby is a 5 minute or less exertion followed by a squirt. A man could theoretically father another baby in less than an hour.

For a woman a baby is a 9 month pregnancy (hazardous), risking death (from post-partum fever to pre-eclampsia to simple blood loss), disability (obstetric fistula), or infertility with each childbirth. Then there is breast-feeding till atleast 6 or 9 months but probably more like 18 months. Then a baby has to be raised and will be with you atleast until the age of 14 (whatever a few creepy cultures do) but probably 16 or 17. Then there is menopause, after which a woman can no longer have children. Of course no mother ever thinks about why she loves her children more than her husband does... in fact, a woman who thought about children in the rational way that I have described would not be very likable (infact women, generally speaking, are encouraged by society to be emotional, rather than rational, even if emotions have their own rationality)

Thus for a woman, for completely rational reasons, losing a child would at the absolute greatest adult fear imaginable. Which is why, even if GRRM doesn't especially like Catelyn, many adult women (Raksha, WoW, and another lady here), can instantly sympathize with her, despite authorial intent. Even if they aren't thinking "gosh it would suck if my kids died, or were forced to marry a whore monger with a genetic disease, because then I would lose my shot at having grandkids/viable grandkids." Rather they are feeling "waaahhh" awful feeling of sadness and fear"

[Raksha the Demon]

Thank you Elba, that's what I meant but you wrote it much better.

I did not mean at all that GRRM wrote Tyrion and Arya to be politically correct, or that readers like them because of PC-ness. What I meant was that we take our modern day notions with us into the story, and it contributes to readers rooting for them. Everyone loves an underdog, an outsider, someone who has to overcome. When we meet Tyrion and Arya, they are outsiders. They both feel they don't fit in to their family (not Arya so much, but she doesn't feel as accepted by her mother), their roles, their stations in life. Sansa and Cat OTOH, are just fine in their roles, so they don't have that immediate root-for-them-to-overcome thing going on.

Getting back to the feminine aspect of this, how many times do we see complaints about the princess movies and how girls shouldn't aspire to that old trope, yada yada? Well, Sansa basically is aspiring to be a princess, it's what's expected of her and she's happy. When it all turns to shit is when her character starts to have some growth and she comes into her own. At least in my opinion.

It did become easier to root for Sansa once she was stripped of her pretty-princess-role and became an underdog, albeit a well-dressed one, as an abused hostage. But I think she would have had some growth and came into her own eventually, if Joffrey had been a decent boy instead of a vicious spoiled brat and his mother hadn't been Cersei - Sansa would have been married at 17 or 18, and after five years of court life would have matured to some degree and lost some of her romantic dreams; if not at that age, then a few years into the marriage, just in the normal course of growing up. Watching her beloved prince kill her father was the catalyst to a forced and quicker maturation process for Sansa.

[Castel]

So whilst Tyrion's mysoginistic attitude towards women is completely comprehensible given that he was raised by Tywin and wetnurses, rather than Joanna. I am not sure if GRRM intended that though.

The fact that Joffrey and Robert Arryn are such creeps makes less sense given how much affection they received from their mothers (although in Joffrey's case it is explicable by his Lannister genes), perhaps Robert Arryn has crappy Littlefinger genes... Whilst neglected Jon and Tommen are so terribly nice...

This may sound cliched, but it is the absence of love, not spoiling that makes children awful in the real world.

Tyrion's misogynistic attitude is a clear result of Tywin's actions that made it clear that he was unlovable. Everyone from that point was in it for the money or power. I imagine that such a thing would make it difficult to believe that people want you as a person,especially when you're a deformed dwarf.

As for Robert Arryn and Joff: what makes no sense? There's no clear nature/nurture line. Some psychopaths come from pretty good homes. And I'd only really term Joff as a stone cold psychopath, Robert...maybe. He's a spoiled little shit and brutal, but his is a brutal culture and he was raised by a somewhat insane mother. Joff is the real asshole and he was spoiled rotten on top of being a prince. And as far as I know, spoiling is bad. Praising kids for being kids and not for anything else creates narcissists. *shrugs* or that's how I've always seen it.

However being a medieval noblewoman would be the equivalent of running a large corporation. Being a princess would be like being a diplomat/hostage and potential deputy prime minister/vice president if your husband dies and your son is a child. At the same time serving as a broodmare, artistic and charity patron and event organiser..In short there is nothing shallow about being a medieval noblewoman or princess. I think GRRM, but definetly the fandom, didn't really understand this and just thought princess=Diana, who was shallow and represents, to moderns. An idea of Princesses as pretty and glamourous. Where as historical paintings of princess show them to be quite plain (like the Hapsburgs)... and reading the lives of Medieval princesses, noblewomen, and queens show them to have been rather brilliant (and often better monarchs then their male counterparts) and well educated.

For instance one of the things that went wrong in the marriage of Joanna of Naplesto Andrew, Duke of Calabria, was that he lacked education and was a dullard.

So having Sansa having a fairy tale notion of princesses, is frankly unrealistic. Certainly the peasant women who told stories like "Cinderalla" and "The Feather of Finist the Falcon", might have thought (like moderns today-but then most of us moderns were peasants during the Middle Ages anyway) that being a princess was all about luxury and being pretty. But I doubt anyone in Sansa's position would have been so naive. But I tend to think that this reflects naivety on GRRM's part (in that he failed to think about 'what would being a medieval lady really be like at 12" and "what kind of education did medieval ladies have").

As a writer of forbidden literature, I tend to blame Ned (due to that scene with Mordane in AGOT)

I never said that it was shallow.

I agree that their interests would skew more to the intellectual and the planning but it depends on the place no? I think a lot of the problem is that the main lords we see don't really have input from their wives, perhaps to simplify the writing. The Starks have Cat but everyone else? Dead, insane or off to Norvos, excepting of course, the Tyrell women, who play a big role. And we're thrust into an unusual situation so we don't see the daily lives of these people nor do we see many of them acting in the conflict, but I assume that if this was a different time, we'd see more women like Cat getting involved depending of course, on their personality and that of their husbands and their power or connections. As Cersei has shown us, being the mother doesn't always mean a lot.

As for Sansa not being raised with a great intellectual background didn't Arya complain about her being better at sums or something? I imagine that the majority of intellectual pursuits are handled by Maesters. We haven't seen any other such group, no church universities, no secular universities, nothing. Nor do we have any reason to believe that monarchs and nobles interfere with the Citadel's business

Also, I'm pretty sure that at least once we hear someone explain what is expected of noblewomen, but iirc it was Arya and she brushed it off. Sansa may have the knowledge but that doesn't mean that she'll have the emotional callouses to keep her from romanticizing everything about her life, especially given how sheltered she is, even for a Westerosi noblewoman.

[voodooqueen126]

I agree with all of this. To address the bolded, that's the biggest reason IMHO why many readers don't warm to Sansa and Catelyn. They are feminine and they are filling their roles in society with no objections, no secret desire to be a warrior or hating embroidery. Tyrion and Arya are sympathetic in large part due to our modern views on how dwarves and girls should be treated. Girls should not have limitations on what they can be, people should not be discriminated against because of their height or how they look. Think of how most of the newer Disney/Pixar movies have a plucky heroine who defies convention. This is what audiences now expect. Cat and Sansa are seen as weak because they conform to their roles.

Now, I actually like Cat and Sansa a lot. Cat especially, I sympathized with her from the beginning and I was surprised by the Cat Hate. Maybe it's because I'm of an age with her, I'm also a mother, and I'm not much of a spunky heroine who defies convention. Sansa I didn't think much about one way or the other, but I came to like her more after thinking about her circumstances and how realistic it would have been for her to try to do something bold, defy the Lannisters... I don't know, whatever it is that people think she should have done. She's young, sheltered, and naive. I think she's doing the best she can, and she will do something bold soon.

I think the show has done much and more to to inflame the Tyrion and Arya = sympathetic, Cat and Sansa = blech feelings. I did like Tyrion in the beginning but he really lost me after killing Shae and Tywin and then going on his poor, poor pitiful me trip. Arya, still like her, just tired of the Faceless Man journey.

I think you've really hit upon something here about how the modern reader always wants to side with the under dog.

http://feministfiction.com/2012/08/03/the-misogyny-of-tyrion-lannister/

"But Tyrion’s plotline is not only a subversion of “the handsome man is the hero, the twisted man is the villain.” It’s also a subversion of the entire concept that the underdog is the true hero. Although Tyrion is an interesting character, he is not always an admirable one, whatever he might believe. He’s also twisted and bitter on the inside. He deals with his own feelings of powerlessness by asserting his power and his superiority over others who are even more powerless, aka women. He is, despite his own feelings of benevolence, deeply misogynistic."

and this on

http://feministfiction.com/2012/05/22/do-most-women-suck-in-game-of-thrones-the-prince-of-winterfell/

"

In last week’s Game of Thrones, Arya told Tywin Lannister that “most girls are stupid.” When we heard that line, were we supposed to think, “This is why Arya is awesome”? After watching The Prince of Winterfell, I can’t help but think that the answer is “yes.” While the books series presents a huge range of dynamic and well-developed female characters, the show writers seem determined to edit the story so that all stereotypically feminine women seem weak and worthy of disdain. Girls, like Arya, who fight to throw off femininity and become “one of the boys,” are the only ones who are really strong or worthy of respect.

Although some of the show’s changes to the story have been positive and potentially even improve on the novel, many edits in the last few episodes have reduced the series’ selection of varied, challenging female characters into cliches and walking confirmation of the idea that “most women suck.”

[Woman of War]

Sansa fits into a very defined (and very real) character type. The slightly spoiled, rich girl, tweeny still very much at the air head stage.

Ever been to a girls private school - Sansa and Jeyne are just the typical girls of the era - giggling in the corner and discussing boys, while also impressing the teachers. They are concius snob, discussing clothes others have and using terms like "povvo" For Austalians (and others) she is a little like Jaim'e in Chris Little's Summer heits high - or at leastlike one of her friends.

Arya is the girl in the top maths class who joins the greens and spends her weekends handing out leaflets to save the whales. Her friends are the nerdy loners while Sansa mixes it with the good looking jocks. These characters exist today.

I suspect that Martin had some run ins with the "cool" girls in his youth and Sansa is the outcome. Life and hardship mellow these "cool" girls so at 30 he may meet them again and no longer hate them

Myrcella is in between the two with I suspect a slight leaning to Arya is she was braver.

Cat is brilliantly written. I actually liked her the GoT. It was not until later (as Lady SH) I realised what a nasty bit of work she was.

LOL ! Have you been at my school? :) though mine was a state grammar school. And I was the girl handing out leaflets to save the world and boys who could not quote Marcuse, Sartre or Simone de Beauvoir weren't even allowed to admire my of course braless nipples under the Che Guevara shirt and the strategically placed holes in my so very revolutionary second hand jeans. Needless to say that I and the giggling girls in fancy clothes and makeup lived in different orbits. We had friendly exchanges at school (feminist solidarity on the surface) but never any further contact. They regretted the girl who did not know how to dress and I regretted the little decorative imbeciles who had no idea how the world works. Needless to say that my peer group fought with the teachers since that was the only cool thing to do. Some teachers even liked our wiseass attitude.

Recognize that? But no, we are all so very objective and our opinion is only based on textual evidence. Who does not agree is not a different person with different opinions but plainly a dyslexic troll.

And now the punchline of the story: when we meet now, at reunions of our school year, we find out how very unimportant our former world shattering categories now are. There are clever, successful and hugely interesting women among the former giggling girls and the hardcore feminists, they may even dress alike, alike meaning here according to what is perfect for them. By now I love to wear dresses and fancy shoes though my job allows me to be still a bit on the crazy side and to wear sneakers whenever I want. I still love second hand boyfriend jeans though those sexy holes would be stupid now.

And the Sansa girls? They may be successful managers or some even live their childhood dream and work as stay-at-home mum, one girlygirl is a mining engineer now, another has the same profession I have, coming from the opposite side of life, and we are both good at it, great colleagues. And many dreams broke, the woman who gave up her job is unemployed and quite poor now or the career woman never had kids for the sake of her career, only the career never happened. But all of them are wise, adult, hugely interesting women.

So, enough wartime stories.

[mormont]

The Turtle has incredibly strong telekinetic powers that he cannot use unless he is inside the 'shell' of one of his favorite old cars, hence the nickname 'Turtle'. He is personally quiet and not socially assertive. There's another character in Wild Cards, who I think is also created by GRRM, a terrorist dwarf whose pseudonym is 'Gimli'; who is angry at everyone, bitter and sharp-tongued.

Being a bit of a WC geek, I have to point out that Gimli was actually a Stephen Leigh creation. :)

Some thoughts about Jon growing up in Winterfell with Cat as the closest thing he had to a mother...

The Cat/Jon relationship of Cat ostracizing and distrusting and saying cruel things to Jon (admittedly when short on sleep and desperately worried for her comatose child) never made much sense to me in light of Jon's attitude towards women. If the only mother-figure in Jon's early life, the female authority figure of his childhood and early youth, hated him and at the very least constantly turned a cold shoulder to him, why is Jon not more angry at and distrustful of women?

The logical conclusion would surely be that she didn't actually treat him as badly as some people think?

It's also worth bearing in mind that Cat isn't a mother figure in Jon's life. We tend to assume that she must have been, but socially, there is no expectation at all in Westeros that a woman in Cat's position would be in any respect a 'mother figure' to a boy in Jon's position. He has no expectations of affection from her, so no anger results from the lack of it.

I would suspect that Jon had had a loving governess or nurse who gave him the maternal affection that Cat would supposedly have died rather than bestow on him

We know that he did. (Old Nan.)

Out of curiousity, has Martin ever stated why he finds Cat and Sansa his least favorite?

I'm not even sure that he has stated this at all. I've seen people in this thread saying that they think they remember him saying something to that effect, but experience shows me that the best thing when it comes to the author's words is to go find a direct quote, rather than discuss why he thinks something we're not even sure that he specifically thinks.

[Scipio Africanus]

I don't see how Catelyn is portrayed negatively. She is only "cruel" to Jon in one scene and her anger and emotional stress is fully justified to the eyes of the reader because of Bran's state.

The problem isn't that she made one hate comment. The problem is we know she's been moaning about Jon for years, if we can believe mr. Blackfish amongst others.

That's pretty cold considering Cat was de facto his stepmother.

Cat projected her fears onto Jon and made him into a walking timebomb of a threat, which we later see is completely unfunded.

But should this inspire negative feeling for Cat based on the above? Her comment made me root for Jon even though he didn't make on me a great first impression. But it didn't inspire negative feelings either, because we saw her pretty much get a nervous breakdown over Bran's "accident", so I think we can forgive her saying something she shouldn't have.

She's wrong about Jon but other then that, I don't find much to fault her later on during the Wot5K.

If Martin intended me to be negative on Cat because of the above I guess it didn't work on me.

[Lyanna Stark]

First off I would agree that individual readers do respond to the story and characters differently - clearly this is so looking around the forum and judgements do change over rereads or through conversation - but all the same the author does make definite efforts to push or prompt the reader to respond in certain ways. The text isn't neutral.

Highlighted the latter part since I think it's both important and interesting. The text is as we have seen throughout the reread threads not at all neutral. In fact, it's often the opposite of neutral and it's certainly by design.

It's always fascinating to see readers claim that it's all individual without acknowleding that the text is not neutral and that it's been written specifically to manipulate reader expectation, for various reasons of plot or character development. It's not random or aimed at 100% objective individuals perceiving it without bias, it promotes bias as a narrative tool.

It's really informative to compare how the various characters were introduced, especially Tyrion, Arya and Jon vs say Sansa, Cat and Jaime. It was great to uncover the lengths GRRM went to associate Tyrion with the Starks in the beginning, and to present him as likable, while Jaime was presented as a 100% blackhearted villain who could not be worse if he tried.

A lot of readers also seem to put Cat and Sansa in the "popular girl, bad feminist" box, without appreciating the nuances and without noticing that even though Cat and Sansa are more traditional female characters, they both struggle against society in their own way, just not by picking up a weapon. (I mean Cat's most hated act: releasing Jaime, she did because Robb refused to trade Jaime for her daughters. Hence a woman trying to save her female offspring in opposition to a man and the views of other men. And as her assistant, she has another woman in Brienne. )

What makes Cat unsympathetic to me is her treatment of Arya. She so clearly favors Sansa, her beautiful and accomplished daughter.

Actually, there is little to no evidence for this in the actual text. In the novels, it's Septa Mordane who is negative towards Arya. Both Ned and Cat mentions that she is difficult, but none of them ever indicate that she is worth less to them, or that they do not love and appreciate her. Both Ned and Cat expect her to be a good student and learn what Septa Mordane has to teach.

Ergo: this is a common misconception about Cat, and not one that is actually supported in the text. Cat does not think that Arya's hands are like blacksmit hands. When Arya thinks she is a bastard like Jon, Cat laughs at it since she finds it ridiculous that Arya would not be her daughter. Cat releases Jaime to get Arya and Sansa out. Even after death, she continues to search for her daughters. Not for Sansa, but for her daughters. Cat never gives up in finding Arya.

Interestingly, in the Arya reread, we have also found far more Tully references in Arya's chapters than in Sansa's.

In other words: this is an interesting example of what we are talking about here. People assume objectivity, but when the text is examined closely and the characters' actions are looked at carefully while trying to disconnect from their feelings, a different picture emerges. Because Cat was mean to Jon that one time, it brings with it a whole plethora of judgements against Cat, which are simply not supported by textual evidence. Like the fact that Sansa must hate Jon because Cat did (she doesn't), that Cat actively maltreated Jon (no evidence of this in Jon's chapters), that Arya never called Jon half-brother, only Sansa does (Arya does in her chapters, so that can be directly debunked as a myth), that Sansa must be more of a Tully because she has Cat's looks (Littlefinger's and Cersei's view, not backed up by the actual text at all, and not by foreshadowing or thematic references), that Cat is dumb and totally ruled by emotions (contradicted by her advice to Robb and by the Blackfish) etc.

A lot of this seems based on the fact that Cat is introduced as not really feeling comfortable in the north and how she is cold to Jon (and cruel at Barn's bedside). After these incidents, her character seems to have become "fixed" in a lot of readers' minds, and whatever she says or does is read through a lense of how Cat was introduced in opposition of the "correct Stark way", i.e. Jon, Arya and Ned. Then she also arrests Tyrion, who is set up as a "nice Lannister" and Jon's friend, to make it even worse. (Interestingly, even though Tyrion is not guilty of pushing Bran, he suspects immidiately that Cersei and Jaime are behind it, yet does nothing and does not reflect on it further, but decides to not pursue it or tell anyone. So Tyrion is concealing his siblings' guilt on purpose.)

[DrunkSister]

I think a lot of the problem is that the main lords we see don't really have input from their wives, perhaps to simplify the writing. The Starks have Cat but everyone else? Dead, insane or off to Norvos, excepting of course, the Tyrell women, who play a big role. And we're thrust into an unusual situation so we don't see the daily lives of these people nor do we see many of them acting in the conflict, but I assume that if this was a different time, we'd see more women like Cat getting involved depending of course, on their personality and that of their husbands and their power or connections. As Cersei has shown us, being the mother doesn't always mean a lot.

As for Sansa not being raised with a great intellectual background didn't Arya complain about her being better at sums or something? I imagine that the majority of intellectual pursuits are handled by Maesters. We haven't seen any other such group, no church universities, no secular universities, nothing. Nor do we have any reason to believe that monarchs and nobles interfere with the Citadel's business

That first, GRRM chose to write it this way. He could have populated his world with more women. He didn't.

~~

Many women got comprehensive education without going to university. It's not like there were no teachers for hire.

Again, GRRM chose to write it this way.

To those who said that feminine pursuits I recounted belong to lower classes and have no reason to appear in Cat's pov,

You are of course right.

However, there are different places where they might have appeared without disturbing the narrative flow:

spinning wheels as background decoration; when Bran is in bed he could be looking at embroidered curtains; when people gather food for winter (in Bran's chapter) in Winterfell they could remark on cloth production; when Arya or Brienne travel through war ravaged lands they could enter a house and see a whole room taken over by a weaving loom...

It would explain why every woman we see who is just a woman is not doing something more cool - they can't be, there is work to be done.

If GRRM has replaced every 'nipples on the breastplate' reference with a reference to something useful done by a woman, that is no longer done today, his feminine characters would be much better understood. IMO

[Lummel]

I don't see how Catelyn is portrayed negatively. She is only "cruel" to Jon in one scene and her anger and emotional stress is fully justified to the eyes of the reader because of Bran's state...

I wouldn't say that Catelyn is portrayed negatively its rather that rereading the opening chapters of Tyrion and Arya you can see a lot of details put in to set those characters up as sympathetic. Catelyn is handled much more neutrally until the 'it should have been you' line which divides the impassioned Jon fan from the trueborn Catelynite ;). Catelyn's voice grows increasingly melancholic, she also quite business like too which, I feel, preserves a certain distance between her and the reader. In terms of reader expectation I would say that she is dealt with like that because of the Red Wedding, a bit of everything can and will get worse and also because of her final madness as she keeps her word to Robb.

I don't think that GRRM just sits down and writes. Characters are written to enhance or contrast with their narrative arcs.

[Lion of Judah]

Now I know why I find Arya so annoying...She reminds me of so many self righteous little bullies... I might humourously suggest that perhaps you have hit on something very true about the Greens: they pretend to be so righteous, but like Arya, they are murderous (didn't someone mention the Stasi earlier...).

Although Actually I like Arya's idea of eliminating with extreme prejudice people like Gregor. No doubt the world will be a better place if people like that died. Though ordering Jaqen to assassinate the cook was pointless evil. (and puts Arya back into the-hating-people for what they are rather than what they do).

Yes but Jaim'e is a bogan with money... Not a comparison to Sansa, who has genuine class. Having been to a private all girls school in Australia.I would say Sansa reminds me of very few girls, as we are alas, a crass and vulgar people, even in the best of circles.

Perhaps there was a Singapore Chinese girl who was a bit like Sansa (she wanted to a be a teacher despite her great talent at languages), and maybe a Saudi girl (a pretty feminine profession given the Saudi need for female doctors), although the Saudi girl had too much sex appeal even in a hijab and a sack variation of our uniform to be like Sansa...

Actually there was one Australian Girl who was a bit like Sansa (but actually I think her maternal family were Polish* or some other variety of Contintental European that isn't German) so not completely Aussie: GC was polite and kind, genuinely fond of chapel, she had a soft voice and played a musical instrument, she was civic spirited and participated in causes. GC had one strange trait: she seemed incapable of hating, certainly GC, like most good people could look down at people who she perceived as wicked, but she didn't really seem to hate people that wronged her. In this GC was most like Sansa: for whilst it makes sense for Sansa to be dishonestly polite and kind to Cersei, Joffrey, Tyrion and Lancel. It certainly makes no sense for Sansa not to fantasize about harming them and wish them ill: or to feeling pity when Joffrey died, which was utterly bizarre, or not fantasizing about scratching Tyrion's eyes out.... Perhaps GRRM doesn't understand that, just because someone is not an idiot like Arya, who loudly proclaimed her hatreds at the top her lungs, that therefore someone is a milksop incapable of hating even the evil that is done directly to ones own person... I don't know if GC was like that though, as after all I could not read her mind, though I should say that saints who 'resist not evil' and 'turn the other cheek' are mercifully rare...

Perhaps GRRM does not understand that one can be well mannered and compassionate, whilst passionately hating evil and wish to see evil wiped out. Think of Miss Marple (who was significantly, created by a female author), hopefully Sansa will progress towards a Marpleian approach to evil in the next book.

I also like Dany, she is rather like George W Bush with the looks of Paris Hilton though...

Personally I think young George Bush was far sexier than Paris Hilton but that's just me...

*and I think it's Poland due to a story she told about her grandmother...

I think GRRM often goes wrong in child psych:

for instance a lack of affection/mothering is generally linked to psychopathy in humans and monkeys.

So whilst Tyrion's mysoginistic attitude towards women is completely comprehensible given that he was raised by Tywin and wetnurses, rather than Joanna. I am not sure if GRRM intended that though.

The fact that Joffrey and Robert Arryn are such creeps makes less sense given how much affection they received from their mothers (although in Joffrey's case it is explicable by his Lannister genes), perhaps Robert Arryn has crappy Littlefinger genes... Whilst neglected Jon and Tommen are so terribly nice...

This may sound cliched, but it is the absence of love, not spoiling that makes children awful in the real world.

Well, if the viewpoint characters were peasant women, then the absence of this sort of thing would be absolutely galling...

However being a medieval noblewoman would be the equivalent of running a large corporation. Being a princess would be like being a diplomat/hostage and potential deputy prime minister/vice president if your husband dies and your son is a child. At the same time serving as a broodmare, artistic and charity patron and event organiser..In short there is nothing shallow about being a medieval noblewoman or princess. I think GRRM, but definetly the fandom, didn't really understand this and just thought princess=Diana, who was shallow and represents, to moderns. An idea of Princesses as pretty and glamourous. Where as historical paintings of princess show them to be quite plain (like the Hapsburgs)... and reading the lives of Medieval princesses, noblewomen, and queens show them to have been rather brilliant (and often better monarchs then their male counterparts) and well educated.

For instance one of the things that went wrong in the marriage of Joanna of Naplesto Andrew, Duke of Calabria, was that he lacked education and was a dullard.

So having Sansa having a fairy tale notion of princesses, is frankly unrealistic. Certainly the peasant women who told stories like "Cinderalla" and "The Feather of Finist the Falcon", might have thought (like moderns today-but then most of us moderns are descended from people who were peasants during the Middle Ages) that being a princess was all about luxury and being pretty. But I doubt anyone in Sansa's position would have been so naive. But I tend to think that this reflects naivety on GRRM's part (in that he failed to think about 'what would being a medieval lady really be like at 12" and "what kind of education did medieval ladies have").

As a writer of forbidden literature, I tend to blame Ned (due to that scene with Mordane in AGOT)

For a man a baby is a 5 minute or less exertion followed by a squirt. A man could theoretically father another baby in less than an hour.

For a woman a baby is a 9 month pregnancy (hazardous), risking death (from post-partum fever to pre-eclampsia to simple blood loss), disability (obstetric fistula), or infertility with each childbirth. Then there is breast-feeding till atleast 6 or 9 months but probably more like 18 months. Then a baby has to be raised and will be with you atleast until the age of 14 (whatever a few creepy cultures do) but probably 16 or 17. Then there is menopause, after which a woman can no longer have children. Of course no mother ever thinks about why she loves her children more than her husband does... in fact, a woman who thought about children in the rational way that I have described would not be very likable (infact women, generally speaking, are encouraged by society to be emotional, rather than rational, even if emotions have their own rationality)

Thus for a woman, for completely rational reasons, losing a child would at the absolute greatest adult fear imaginable. Which is why, even if GRRM doesn't especially like Catelyn, many adult women (Raksha, WoW, and another lady here), can instantly sympathize with her, despite authorial intent. Even if they aren't thinking "gosh it would suck if my kids died, or were forced to marry a whore monger with a genetic disease, because then I would lose my shot at having grandkids/viable grandkids." Rather they are feeling "waaahhh" awful feeling of sadness and fear"

Well that guy gets a :thumbsdown: .

[straits]

........

Actually there was one Australian Girl who was a bit like Sansa (but actually I think her maternal family were Polish* or some other variety of Contintental European that isn't German) so not completely Aussie: GC was polite and kind, genuinely fond of chapel, she had a soft voice and played a musical instrument, she was civic spirited and participated in causes. GC had one strange trait: she seemed incapable of hating, certainly GC, like most good people could look down at people who she perceived as wicked, but she didn't really seem to hate people that wronged her. In this GC was most like Sansa: for whilst it makes sense for Sansa to be dishonestly polite and kind to Cersei, Joffrey, Tyrion and Lancel. It certainly makes no sense for Sansa not to fantasize about harming them and wish them ill: or to feeling pity when Joffrey died, which was utterly bizarre, or not fantasizing about scratching Tyrion's eyes out.... Perhaps GRRM doesn't understand that, just because someone is not an idiot like Arya, who loudly proclaimed her hatreds at the top her lungs, that therefore someone is a milksop incapable of hating even the evil that is done directly to ones own person... I don't know if GC was like that though, as after all I could not read her mind, though I should say that saints who 'resist not evil' and 'turn the other cheek' are mercifully rare...

Perhaps GRRM does not understand that one can be well mannered and compassionate, whilst passionately hating evil and wish to see evil wiped out. Think of Miss Marple (who was significantly, created by a female author), hopefully Sansa will progress towards a Marpleian approach to evil in the next book.

I also like Dany, she is rather like George W Bush with the looks of Paris Hilton though...

Personally I think young George Bush was far sexier than Paris Hilton but that's just me...

....

However being a medieval noblewoman would be the equivalent of running a large corporation. Being a princess would be like being a diplomat/hostage and potential deputy prime minister/vice president if your husband dies and your son is a child. At the same time serving as a broodmare, artistic and charity patron and event organiser..In short there is nothing shallow about being a medieval noblewoman or princess. I think GRRM, but definetly the fandom, didn't really understand this and just thought princess=Diana, who was shallow and represents, to moderns. An idea of Princesses as pretty and glamourous. Where as historical paintings of princess show them to be quite plain (like the Hapsburgs)... and reading the lives of Medieval princesses, noblewomen, and queens show them to have been rather brilliant (and often better monarchs then their male counterparts) and well educated.

For instance one of the things that went wrong in the marriage of Joanna of Naplesto Andrew, Duke of Calabria, was that he lacked education and was a dullard.

So having Sansa having a fairy tale notion of princesses, is frankly unrealistic. Certainly the peasant women who told stories like "Cinderalla" and "The Feather of Finist the Falcon", might have thought (like moderns today-but then most of us moderns are descended from people who were peasants during the Middle Ages) that being a princess was all about luxury and being pretty. But I doubt anyone in Sansa's position would have been so naive. But I tend to think that this reflects naivety on GRRM's part (in that he failed to think about 'what would being a medieval lady really be like at 12" and "what kind of education did medieval ladies have").

As a writer of forbidden literature, I tend to blame Ned (due to that scene with Mordane in AGOT)

....

You're really conflicted about GRRM, aren't you? I don't sympathize with a desire to 'correct' his writing or suggest how some of his characters might have actually developed in the described circumstances. Sansa is who GRRM intended her to be, as is Arya. As is everyone else.

Seriously.

[jons nissa]

It's always fascinating to see readers claim that it's all individual without acknowleding that the text is not neutral and that it's been written specifically to manipulate reader expectation, for various reasons of plot or character development. It's not random or totally dependant on how 100% objective individuals perceive it.

i think the whole point of this post is to show how the text is not neutral. any author worth their salt attempts to create a character by using many methods. treating each character neutrally would not help an author further their iintent for their characters. that said, it is still an individual interpretation of what one is reading that helps us process the words on a page. it's how we read. we bring our experiences, knowledge and preferences to help us interpret what is written.

(I mean Cat's most hated act: releasing Jaime, she did because Robb refused to trade Jaime for her daughters. Hence a woman trying to save her female offspring in opposition to a man and the views of other men. And as her assistant, she has another woman in Brienne. )

i would argue that cat's most hated act is the scene with jon and as a result, she's behind the 8 ball very early in the story, for many readers. it's the first and most frequent thing i see posted in cat threads. but that is just one poster's informal observations. perhaps it's safe to say jaime is the straw that broke the camel's back?

also insinuating that readers are being unfair to cat regarding the release of jaime is, well, unfair. it is not the reader that is assuming that "the girls" are not important enough to release jaime over, it's the text that says that when robb says no to the trade. whether the reader agrees is another matter but they are not arriving at this conclusion (jaime worth more than the girls) on their own.

A lot of this seems based on the fact that Cat is introduced as not really feeling comfortable in the north and how she is cold to Jon (and cruel at Barn's bedside). After these incidents, her character seems to have become "fixed" in a lot of readers' minds, and whatever she says or does is read through a lense of how Cat was introduced in opposition of the "correct Stark way", i.e. Jon, Arya and Ned.

completely agree with this. and that is why i feel that it is this act that defines cat for many many readers.

[jons nissa]

voodooqueen126, on 13 December 2012 - 01:28 AM, said:

........

Actually there was one Australian Girl who was a bit like Sansa (but actually I think her maternal family were Polish* or some other variety of Contintental European that isn't German) so not completely Aussie: GC was polite and kind, genuinely fond of chapel, she had a soft voice and played a musical instrument, she was civic spirited and participated in causes. GC had one strange trait: she seemed incapable of hating, certainly GC, like most good people could look down at people who she perceived as wicked, but she didn't really seem to hate people that wronged her. In this GC was most like Sansa: for whilst it makes sense for Sansa to be dishonestly polite and kind to Cersei, Joffrey, Tyrion and Lancel. It certainly makes no sense for Sansa not to fantasize about harming them and wish them ill: or to feeling pity when Joffrey died, which was utterly bizarre, or not fantasizing about scratching Tyrion's eyes out.... Perhaps GRRM doesn't understand that, just because someone is not an idiot like Arya, who loudly proclaimed her hatreds at the top her lungs, that therefore someone is a milksop incapable of hating even the evil that is done directly to ones own person... I don't know if GC was like that though, as after all I could not read her mind, though I should say that saints who 'resist not evil' and 'turn the other cheek' are mercifully rare...

Perhaps GRRM does not understand that one can be well mannered and compassionate, whilst passionately hating evil and wish to see evil wiped out. Think of Miss Marple (who was significantly, created by a female author), hopefully Sansa will progress towards a Marpleian approach to evil in the next book.

I also like Dany, she is rather like George W Bush with the looks of Paris Hilton though...

Personally I think was far sexier than Paris Hilton but that's just me...

....

However being a medieval noblewoman would be the equivalent of running a large corporation. Being a princess would be like being a diplomat/hostage and potential deputy prime minister/vice president if your husband dies and your son is a child. At the same time serving as a broodmare, artistic and charity patron and event organiser..In short there is nothing shallow about being a medieval noblewoman or princess. I think GRRM, but definetly the fandom, didn't really understand this and just thought princess=Diana, who was shallow and represents, to moderns. An idea of Princesses as pretty and glamourous. Where as historical paintings of princess show them to be quite plain (like the Hapsburgs)... and reading the lives of Medieval princesses, noblewomen, and queens show them to have been rather brilliant (and often better monarchs then their male counterparts) and well educated.

For instance one of the things that went wrong in the marriage of to , was that he lacked education and was a dullard.

So having Sansa having a fairy tale notion of princesses, is frankly unrealistic. Certainly the peasant women who told stories like "Cinderalla" and "The Feather of Finist the Falcon", might have thought (like moderns today-but then most of us moderns are descended from people who were peasants during the Middle Ages) that being a princess was all about luxury and being pretty. But I doubt anyone in Sansa's position would have been so naive. But I tend to think that this reflects naivety on GRRM's part (in that he failed to think about 'what would being a medieval lady really be like at 12" and "what kind of education did medieval ladies have").

As a writer of forbidden literature, I tend to blame Ned (due to that scene with Mordane in AGOT)

i find it interesting that perhaps grrm doesn't understand when he seems to differ from one's own opinion.

[straits]

also insinuating that readers are being unfair to cat regarding the release of jaime is, well, unfair. it is not the reader that is assuming that "the girls" are not important enough to release jaime over, it's the text that says that when robb says no to the trade. whether the reader agrees is another matter but they are not arriving at this conclusion (jaime worth more than the girls) on their own.

Given that Jamie is a commander and son of Tywin, I don't think that it is through GRRM's manipulation that a reader decides that Cat should not have released him. Or is it possible to have a view that, when looking at the situation in terms of the military conflict, releasing Jamie for a very unlikely chance that the girls will be returned, was worth it? If they met at an agreed location for an exchange of hostages, Cat's decision would have more credibility, even to Robb.

[jons nissa]

Given that Jamie is a commander and son of Tywin, I don't think that it is through GRRM's manipulation that a reader decides that Cat should not have released him. Or is it possible to have a view that, when looking at the situation in terms of the military conflict, releasing Jamie for a very unlikely chance that the girls will be returned, was worth it? If they met at an agreed location for an exchange of hostages, Cat's decision would have more credibility, even to Robb.

this may very well be what would have happened however, robb doesn't entertain the idea of releasing jaime for a second. he is clearly upset by the situation but says it cannot be. i don't think grrm is manipulating us here. it was a crappy situation with no easy answer, especially for the reader who is much more sympathetic to saving ned's girls at this point than freeing the kingslayer.

[Kolantero]

The problem isn't that she made one hate comment. The problem is we know she's been moaning about Jon for years, if we can believe mr. Blackfish amongst others.

That's pretty cold considering Cat was de facto his stepmother.

Cat projected her fears onto Jon and made him into a walking timebomb of a threat, which we later see is completely unfunded.

But should this inspire negative feeling for Cat based on the above? Her comment made me root for Jon even though he didn't make on me a great first impression. But it didn't inspire negative feelings either, because we saw her pretty much get a nervous breakdown over Bran's "accident", so I think we can forgive her saying something she shouldn't have.

She's wrong about Jon but other then that, I don't find much to fault her later on during the Wot5K.

If Martin intended me to be negative on Cat because of the above I guess it didn't work on me.

True I forgot about blackfish's remark.

But yeah, i agree, i didn't really get any negative feelings about Catelyn either from that. I would say her tragic end makes even more sympathetic,

[Scipio Africanus]

this may very well be what would have happened however, robb doesn't entertain the idea of releasing jaime for a second. he is clearly upset by the situation but says it cannot be. i don't think grrm is manipulating us here. it was a crappy situation with no easy answer, especially for the reader who is much more sympathetic to saving ned's girls at this point than freeing the kingslayer.

The only sympathy you could have in Cat's actions is she was desperate and wanted her daughters back, but even she probably realized the odds were against her making the decision even more ludacrous. She was gambling that the Imp, based on heresay from a house not known for their sympathy towards her house, would simply release the girls even though she knew he was every bit Tywin's son and seen how cunning he was. Apart from that he was perfectly willing to play dirty.

She was so desperate she even banked on the honour of knights (Cleos, Jamie) Sansa style, while she should've known better on how much that was worth.

The reader gets to read the consequences of her actions, but even Cat should've realized that they were giving up their only trump card left over the Lannisters, especially considering the low odds of succes and lack of coordination with the dwarf she was banking all her hopes on.