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Why did Martin choose to portray Uncat as evil and monstrous?


total1402

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Pretty much every reader wants the Freys to come to a grisly end. Indeed all of the other living starks express this desire at one point or another. Sansa suggests giving Harrenhal to Walder Frey. Arya wishes she knew their names to add all of them to her list. We even have Manderly making Frey pies. So, I just don't get why Martin would want to portray this instance of vengeance as a horrible thing. In other chapters he really plays on the reader wanting vengence on the Freys; but with her plays the exact opposite tune.

Stranger still is that Martin says that he doesn't like how other writers make evil just about external appearances, yet this is what he absolutely does with uncat. Our once kind motherly figure has become this hideous and deformed creature that only wants to butcher all those who did her wrong. She has corrupted the brotherhood and now wants Jamie n Brienne dead.

Especially odd though is that, the other person we have seen resurrected, Berric Dondarrion, did not seem anywhere near as bad as Uncat was. He still remembered enough of himself after death and even after several deaths. You could argue that Cat is like this because she went insane at the end of the Red Wedding and its not a magical reason why she is like this; but her mental trauma from the RW. Howeve it comes across as Martin arbitrarily saying that one resurrection is completely different to another which is a little too much magic as well.

Lastly. Do you think it is possible that Martin is being misleading and that Uncat; if she learns she can rescue Sansa might change? Or is Martin just going to have her burned because she represents brutal vengeance and wants our heroes (J+B to confront and destroy this.

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I don't see LS has evil or monstrous, instead she just seems a more grey character then the lighter Catelyn but she is still no worse then Stannis or Tyrion for example.

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It's a subversion of expectations. We start the series viewing Cat as the hero and Jaime as the villain. We now sympathise greatly with Jaime, while viewing Cat as the nasty character we hope he'll be saved from.

It's moral ambiguity and complications like that which make this series so good.

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I am pretty sure he is showing her as evil when she does the whole Darth Nihilus thing with her throat and voice...

Jamie pushed a child out of a window and is STILL unapologetic about the most evil thing he has ever done. It is not "always about Aerys". That man wallows in self pity and uses it to justify trying to murder a child? Indeed I find Martins fixation on Jamies Kingslaying as the key thing he needs to redeem incredibly inappropriate. I can get why people in the verse judged him. But no reader would ever have thought Jamie as a bad man for killing the mad king in the first book; indeed I felt this reflected badly on Ned. Its just that Martin reveals it as this grand heroic act in ASOS.

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Well, I think that the whole point of UnCat is that fire consumes. And with that quantity of rage in her, and PTSD she must claerly suffers from, with R'hllor fire that isn't the whitest magic in the world, and fact she was dead 2,3 days, there is no wonder she is that different from Cat.

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I don't see LS has evil or monstrous, instead she just seems a more grey character then the lighter Catelyn but she is still no worse then Stannis or Tyrion for example.

her entire reason for being is killing freys. that is grey?

grrm has said all that made cat, cat, is gone. lady stone heart exists purely for vengeance. i don't think grrm can be any clearer. vengeance is evil and consumes all that makes one human.

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her entire reason for being is killing freys. that is grey?

So far if IIRC she has only hung Freys that have actively betrayed her, now if she hangs Roslin or whatnot then that would be a more solid point.

It's a subversion of expectations. We start the series viewing Cat as the hero and Jaime as the villain. We now sympathise greatly with Jaime, while viewing Cat as the nasty character we hope he'll be saved from.

Speak for yourself. :P

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her entire reason for being is killing freys. that is grey?

grrm has said all that made cat, cat, is gone. lady stone heart exists purely for vengeance. i don't think grrm can be any clearer. vengeance is evil and consumes all that makes one human.

So all the Starks should turn the other cheek then? Putting men in pies and wanting to crush a mans throat is nastier than hanging them like thieves.

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It's a subversion of expectations. We start the series viewing Cat as the hero and Jaime as the villain. We now sympathise greatly with Jaime, while viewing Cat as the nasty character we hope he'll be saved from.

It's moral ambiguity and complications like that which make this series so good.

"We" do not all sympathize with Jamie Lannister. Some of "us" still think he is an arrogant, unrepentant brat who has only changed his mode of narcicism from "I don't care what anyone thinks and I kill who I want" to 'I wanna be remembered as a nice guy, sniffle, sniffle".

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I'm not a big fan of the whole ressurection arc in the story, it kind of cheapens the story and now everyone questions every 'death' in the series. It's kinda meh.

Stoneheart does seem kind of brutal, but look at what she witnessed at the Twins, and the events leading up to that. She's completely driven by revenge now and she's definitely not what she once was.

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"We" do not all sympathize with Jamie Lannister. Some of "us" still think he is an arrogant, unrepentant brat who has only changed his mode of narcicism from "I don't care what anyone thinks and I kill who I want" to 'I wanna be remembered as a nice guy, sniffle, sniffle".

Well, then I'd suggest you re-read the series.

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It's made to make people like you reflect on what vengeance is and maybe see the other characters who have the same ideas in another light.

Also to make people remember that the bloody "vengeance" and genocide some readers desire implies killing people. Obviously to most killing a whole family including kids and women is peachy but not even executing someone who betrays you is "evil".

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Well, then I'd suggest you re-read the series.

Funny, I just did, and my opinion of him hasn't changed a bit since my first reading. Him being less of a worthless POS than he was before does not a redemption make in my opinion.

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When did UnCat ever did anything evil or morally wrong? She's more just and cares more for the orphans than Beric Dondarrion ever did, way above anybody else not named "Stark", "Jon Snow" or "Doran Martell".

The sole negative about her is the "rotting zombie". And maybe that we see her through the PoVs of people she intends to hang - which is very much justified!

But yes, impressions do count. She is the curse of the Red Wedding made flesh. She is just. And justice isn't pretty. She is nemesis.

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Funny, I just did, and my opinion of him hasn't changed a bit since my first reading. Him being less of a worthless POS than he was before does not a redemption make in my opinion.

If you think Jaime is unrepentant, you've missed a ton of important stuff. Re-read the chapter in A Storm of Swords with him going through the White Book.

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