What, exactly, is wrong with Lysa?

[The Fallen]

No. Robb was asked whether he accepts the deal and he said yes.

You are correct. But the larger point still stands. Had there been peace, Ned and Cat would've chosen his bride-to-be.

Lysa was timid or shy according to Jamie but I don't think Cat was mentally stronger just because she took longer to go insane.Her life was good. Lysa's was not. Lysa had years of constantly dealing with the type of turmoil Cat only had to deal with towards the end of her life.

I don't get this whole "Cat went insane" argument. Cat was never insane.

Anyway, Lysa was a great match up until she ruined herself. Hoster made the beat out of a bad situation.

[mambru]

Anyway, Lysa was a great match up until she ruined herself. Hoster made the beat out of a bad situation.

That depends what you mean by "the best." If you mean "the best" purely in terms of the prestige of his dynasty, certainly he did....a marriage to an Arryn, even if he's three times Lysa's age and looks down on her as damaged goods, is certainly more prestigious than a marriage to a Baelish.

But if he were thinking of what would be "best" from the point of view of the actual well-being of his daughter, he certainly did not. Lysa was fourteen, the age one often does reckless things wholeheartedly. However misguidedly, she wanted that pregnancy, thought of it as her baby already. Hoster poisoned her baby. And IMO, it wasn't something he had to do. I remember, Cersei mentioned a marriage in which a noblewoman married a nobleman of far lesser rank and mockingly said that it must be because she "had a big belly." So, yeah, these things happen even in the best families, and sometimes the families just put up with it and make the best of things. Hoster could have agreed to marry off Petyr to Lysa, even grudgingly given him a boost to some administrator job of more prestige. But purely for his dynastic pretensions, he terminated the pregnancy Lysa had her heart set on. IMO, that's exceptionally harsh even by Westerosi standards...which is why he was begging forgiveness for it on his deathbed.

As for why she went mad...besides the trauma that happened when she was fourteen, there were those 5 subsequent miscarriages. Her entire worth according to her world was in providing an heir for Arryn, and each loss represented a failure and loss of worth. Worse than that, every single miscarriage would have been a reliving of the first and worst loss of that wanted pregnancy at age 14. And it happened five times. No wonder she never really got over it.

[Lord Damian]

The real Margaret Beaufort was not "batshit crazy." She was a very pious woman who was protective of her son who was the heir to the Lancastrian claim to the English throne and thus in very real peril for his life right up until he fought Richard III at Bosworth. And seeing as Beaufort was the political rival of the Yorkist Edward IV and Elizabeth Woodville (the eponymous White Queen), I'd expect anything from their point of view to paint her in a bad light. I've actually read both The White Queen (about Woodville) and The Red Queen (about Beaufort), and shockingly each party looks pretty bad from the other's point of view. The novels (and the series) are historical fiction and a fuck ton of it is incorrect and speculative.

Sorry to get off-topic, but seriously.

I should have specified the tv character. Also, I am aware of Ms. Gregory's talent at fiction.

[LordStoneheart]

I don't get this whole "Cat went insane" argument. Cat was never insane.

I believe her very last moments are generally seen as insane but the moments before that, the bartering for Robb's life was some pretty clever talking (Do you take me for a fool? I take you for a father.)

So discounting her very last moment, Cat did not go mentally the way Lysa did.

[TepidHands]

Something that's always bugged me:

LF is always yapping on and on about how he took BOTH sisters' maindenheads. He thought Lysa was Cat when some girl crawled into his bed after Brandon had kicked his skinny butt. So did he get with Lysa once he sobered up, and think it was her first time? A strange thing to boast of, and he really did seem in the books to believe that really was Cat in the sack with him, and in later years, after she'd married Arryn, Lysa wasn't a virgin.

Whatever was wrong with Lysa I suspect was rooted in her lifelong perceived rivalry with her sister.

[Winter's Knight]

Something that's always bugged me:

LF is always yapping on and on about how he took BOTH sisters' maindenheads. He thought Lysa was Cat when some girl crawled into his bed after Brandon had kicked his skinny butt. So did he get with Lysa once he sobered up, and think it was her first time? A strange thing to boast of, and he really did seem in the books to believe that really was Cat in the sack with him, and in later years, after she'd married Arryn, Lysa wasn't a virgin.

Whatever was wrong with Lysa I suspect was rooted in her lifelong perceived rivalry with her sister.

He slept with Lysa twice: once when he thought she was Cat and once when she was nursing him. She fell pregnant the second time.

[Sansa_Stark]

I think there is something inherently wrong with Lysa as a human being though.

She never punished Marillion despite all the rapings he did to her household maids.

Plus she DID take advantage of LF when he was drunk.

[So NOT a Maiden Fair]

Maybe, maybe not. As ache said, she chose to go to LF after he had just fought a duel to win her sister's hand, knowing he was obsessed with Cat. And she had to know the potential consequences of her actions. This seems like pretty unbalanced behavior.

And I don't fault her for being kinda nuts and paranoid, but destabilizing a country and actively participating in the destruction of your family seems a bit extreme.

Yeah, I'm not excusing her. She became a bitter person for some reasons, but abandoning her family like she did has not excuses. If she didn't feel like doing anything for her father, then at least for her sister. But yes, she went crazy and paranoid, and it had its price. As someone said, if the Stark-Tully alliance had the Vale army join them, the balance would be in their favor.

[Annara Snow]

I agree with all these ideas. More than a half of nobility have to marry out by their parents' orders, men and women alike, so it's not a sexist approach. All of them have to live "away from anyone they'd ever known or cared about", and are "forced to have sex to have heirs". That's a custom in that world. Of a dozen families shown to us, only Lysa reached the point when we all have doubts in her sanity.

I forgot to comment on this before. This kind of argument is absolute bullshit. "Oh, so who cares if you have no sexual agency and no freedom at all to decide how you're going to live or who you will marry and what happens to your own body, and who cares if you are getting raped every night by someone who's been legally given the right over your body, or if your baby gets aborted against your will - at least you aren't starving!" :bang: Seriously?!

You could use the same kind of logic to keep anyone in line and argue that nobody has any right to rebel against any kind of injustice or want any kind of a right. Hey, so what if the armies are burning and pillaging and raping and killing your families, at least you aren't starving! Hey, so what if you are starving, at least there's no war within the walls of the city! Hey, so what if you are almost starving and the armies are raping and killing your families, at least you have the freedom to marry who you like, unlike those highborn people, so don't complain! etc.

"It's a custom of their world" is one of the most absurd and most annoying and offensive arguments out there. It's like when people say it's OK when women are getting abused by their husbands and families and stoned for 'adultery', but it's OK because "it's their custom/culture". Or when 8-year old girls are being forced to marry adult me - one such girl recently died of internal bleeding as a result of 'first wedding night' - but it's OK because "it's their custom"?!

You want the freedom of choosing your spouse, become a peasant.

And this is ridiculous. A highborn person in Westeros cannot "become a peasant" even if they want to. How are they going to do it? Change their identity? The actual peasants would easily recognize that they are highborn from they talk, their learned manners, etc. and wouldn't see them as one of their own. Rumors would quickly spread, and as soon as they learned or guessed who you are, you'd become a valuable hostage, or someone to be killed, because, as long as you're alive, you would be a potential heir to something. Even if you weren't an heir to anything and your family disinherited you, you would be always perceived as an other, a nobleperson. Arya came the closest to successfully impersonating a commoner, because she was never very ladylike, but people still realized who she was, which meant that Gendry saw a barrier between them, while many others saw her as hostage to be sold.

[Cruella]

Absolutely, Annara. There are not enough likes (well, there are no likes at all nowadays, but the point still stands).

There are also customs of female circumcision, of sewing together vaginal lips without proper hygiene and re-sewing them if there is infection and inflammation. It is a custom in Westeros to kill a baby like Tyrion and it is a custom in Slaver Bay (just like say in ancient Rome) to use children for sex.

To think that a woman who has to sleep with a man who disgusts her and lost all her children but one has it easy and should be grateful is mind boggling. I've talked online to women who were still battling depression after one miscarriage many years later, and Lysa had miscarriages and stillbirths, which is absolutely devastating to anyone. And all this time with knowledge that she might had have healthy baby sired by man she loves, if only her father did not betray her.

You do realize that nowadays we here on forum quite possible all or almost all live better than Lysa? She might have a castle, but we have modern medicine, comfortable furniture, proper hygiene, all the entertainment in the world, cars, we can travel the world in airplanes, etc... Does it really comfort anyone when they grieve? Yes, all my dreams are broken but i have a watercloset!

and yeah, you can't become a peasant. Peasants have skills learnt from childhood, they are not much easier to acquire than some high brow speciality. Life of a peasant would kill many nobles who grew up pampered like Lysa.

Lysa had many many faults but nothing about her says that she wouldn't rather live modest life with man she loved her whole life and children than have expensive dresses. She had pretty simple desires and wasn't dreaming about princes - all her life she wanted LF who was poor and of humble birth. Nobody asked her to choose between two options.

[Kissed by Ice and Fire]

I believe her very last moments are generally seen as insane but the moments before that, the bartering for Robb's life was some pretty clever talking (Do you take me for a fool? I take you for a father.)

So discounting her very last moment, Cat did not go mentally the way Lysa did.

[Kissed by Ice and Fire]

I believe her very last moments are generally seen as insane but the moments before that, the bartering for Robb's life was some pretty clever talking (Do you take me for a fool? I take you for a father.)

So discounting her very last moment, Cat did not go mentally the way Lysa did.

Cat was less insane and more bitter. She is crazy bitter. Totally hating Jon Snow, even to the point where she is angry when he wants to say goodbye to Bran? Especially when all of her kids, save perhaps Sansa, love Jon Snow.

Also, about her being stronger and a better mother, I call BS. If I had two very young children, one of whom was in a coma the last time I saw him, neither Hell nor high water could keep me from going back to protect them after my husband was murdered and one of my daughters went missing. Robb is a man grown but Coma Bran & Baby Wildman Rickon needed there Mama!!

[The Fallen]

` Nice venting. I don't condone real-life atrocities like the ones you guys have mentioned. I try not to use real-life examples when discussing ASoIaF. I would use the argument that by the standards of Westeros such and such, what-have-you.

I don't want to come off as insensitive to real-world issues because I'm not. (I assume the other guys feel the same way.) My responses have been about Lysa within Westerosi society. And I stand by what I've written. But I don't want it to be misconstrued as my feelings on real-world issues facing women.

[Winter's Knight]

First off, w00t! Excellent posts Anara and Cruella!

` Nice venting. I don't condone real-life atrocities like the ones you guys have mentioned. I try not to use real-life examples when discussing ASoIaF. I would use the argument that by the standards of Westeros such and such, what-have-you.

I don't want to come off as insensitive to real-world issues because I'm not. (I assume the other guys feel the same way.) My responses have been about Lysa within Westerosi society. And I stand by what I've written. But I don't want it to be misconstrued as my feelings on real-world issues facing women.

Lysa has no bodily agency. She has no legal control over property, her placeof residence, her sexuality or her children. Lysa, like every married woman in Westeros is at the mercy of her husband and short of joining the Faith, has no way out.

Is her life better off materially than a male peasant? In some ways yes-she has food, and a roof over her head and the best possible medical care available. In others she is worse off: she cannot leave for Oldtown like Pate or become a hedge knight, a wandering singer, join the or cross the Narrow Sea.

As another example, objectively speaking Tyrion has had an amazing life: he has all the money he wants and much more than he could need, he's educated as a noble lord, he has uncles and a brother and a nephew and a niece who love him. He has had a better life than literally everyone he interacts with, yet to argue that he is not oppressed by virtue of his disability or has not suffered sever emotional and sexual abuse would be incorrect.

The same can be said of Sam, Lollys, Cersei-their high birth has not protected them from sexual, physical and emotional abuse. In some cases their high birth has kept them trapped thus-Queens cannot flee to Essos without being chased for instance and Tarlys do not wear chains.

And this is where we come across the idea of intersectionability. You can have class priveliges-being born in the upper middle class, I've never had to worry about money, have always had access to the best food, education and other material goods I could require.I've never had to worry about paying for healthcare and medical expenses because I was lucky enough to be born to a family capable of providing for my needs.

I am however a woman and have faced both sexism and misogyny. I am disabled and have been patronised, looked down upon and talked over. I am queer and have been proletysied to, abused and cussed out.

Therefore, my experiencing privilege in some areas has not kept me from suffering in others-and the same applies to everyone in Westeros who is not noble, straight, cis and male.

[The Wolves]

Cat was less insane and more bitter. She is crazy bitter. Totally hating Jon Snow, even to the point where she is angry when he wants to say goodbye to Bran? Especially when all of her kids, save perhaps Sansa, love Jon Snow.

Sansa does love Jon and vice versa

[Sansa_Stark]

First off, w00t! Excellent posts Anara and Cruella!

Lysa has no bodily agency. She has no legal control over property, her placeof residence, her sexuality or her children. Lysa, like every married woman in Westeros is at the mercy of her husband and short of joining the Faith, has no way out.

Is her life better off materially than a male peasant? In some ways yes-she has food, and a roof over her head and the best possible medical care available. In others she is worse off: she cannot leave for Oldtown like Pate or become a hedge knight, a wandering singer, join the or cross the Narrow Sea.

As another example, objectively speaking Tyrion has had an amazing life: he has all the money he wants and much more than he could need, he's educated as a noble lord, he has uncles and a brother and a nephew and a niece who love him. He has had a better life than literally everyone he interacts with, yet to argue that he is not oppressed by virtue of his disability or has not suffered sever emotional and sexual abuse would be incorrect.

The same can be said of Sam, Lollys, Cersei-their high birth has not protected them from sexual, physical and emotional abuse. In some cases their high birth has kept them trapped thus-Queens cannot flee to Essos without being chased for instance and Tarlys do not wear chains.

And this is where we come across the idea of intersectionability. You can have class priveliges-being born in the upper middle class, I've never had to worry about money, have always had access to the best food, education and other material goods I could require.I've never had to worry about paying for healthcare and medical expenses because I was lucky enough to be born to a family capable of providing for my needs.

I am however a woman and have faced both sexism and misogyny. I am disabled and have been patronised, looked down upon and talked over. I am queer and have been proletysied to, abused and cussed out.

Therefore, my experiencing privilege in some areas has not kept me from suffering in others-and the same applies to everyone in Westeros who is not noble, straight, cis and male.

Oh sure she can do some of these things. She would rather just live her life in Riverrun though with its comforts and wealth. Running away is a dice roll that Lysa could have done.

And not all men can just become hedge knights.

You have to have money/armor and a horse and you know...be knighted.

Male peasants have it 1000x times worse than Lysa ever did.

[Gneisenau]

Meh, Lysa just comes across as the super clingy lover, granted I'm not quite sure what she sees in LF.....

[Winter's Knight]

It's talking to fucking walls around here sometimes.

Yes she could have left, just like Tyrion could have, in the dead of night, without money, nowhere to go, alone and defenceless. It's not like she could join the Watch or go offer her sword somewhere else like her uncle.

Of course there's a choice, but when you say someone accepts and thus deserves their abusebecause the alternative was death/poverty/living as a fugitive, it's victim blaming.

[Sansa_Stark]

It's talking to fucking walls around here sometimes.

Yes she could have left, just like Tyrion could have, in the dead of night, without money, nowhere to go, alone and defenceless. It's not like she could join the Watch or go offer her sword somewhere else like her uncle.

Of course there's a choice, but when you say someone accepts and thus deserves their abusebecause the alternative was death/poverty/living as a fugitive, it's victim blaming.

Then what was the point of writing.

"She cannot leave for Oldtown like Pate, join or cross the narrow sea, a wandering singer."

Do you think these people aren't alone and defenseless, without money and nowhere to go?

No, I believe Shae ran away from her household in these conditions as well.

But of course, as usual you respond with condescending remarks when people challenge your points and completely strawman things up.

My point is, Lysa did have the same choices. I'm not saying she deserves abuse.

[LordStoneheart]

Cat was less insane and more bitter. She is crazy bitter. Totally hating Jon Snow, even to the point where she is angry when he wants to say goodbye to Bran? Especially when all of her kids, save perhaps Sansa, love Jon Snow.

Read this. It's a great look at it though Bumps faults her for a few things I don't. I find nothing wrong with the Catelyn/Jon issue. She didn't totally hate Jon Snow as you poetically put it. She hated his presence because it's literally an insult to her and a threat to Robb no matter how close they are. Also, Bran loved climbing but I don't expect Catelyn to climb everywhere. Arya loved swords but I don't think Catelyn would. Robb loved... you get the point. Her children are children; it doesn't take much for them to love someone and just because they like him doesn't mean she should open her heart to the boy that she has no obligation, lawfully or morally, to love or even treat like a son.

Also, about her being stronger and a better mother, I call BS. If I had two very young children, one of whom was in a coma the last time I saw him, neither Hell nor high water could keep me from going back to protect them after my husband was murdered and one of my daughters went missing. Robb is a man grown but Coma Bran & Baby Wildman Rickon needed there Mama!!

Robb was 14 going on 15, hardly a man grown. Her advice (and that doesn't mean all of her advice) was good for him and if she hadn't been with the northerners might not have crossed the twins or the marriage arrangement never would have been made. Yes, that seems like a ridiculous assertion after the RW, but before it was a good strategy only ruined by Robb's actions when Catelyn wasn't with him. Catelyn helped him during the march south (read the section where they plan certain battles towards the end of Game of Thrones).

Also, as she says her father was dying and her brother facing threat of battle. Can you really fault a woman for having to choose between dying father, endangered brother and first son, or second and third sons who are in a castle protected by many bannermen she trusts? Also, for what its worth, while Catelyn is gone she gives probably the best advice in the series in the stormlands to Renly and Stannis (great council meeting) but it is ignored because each king is too pompous and entitled.