“It should have been you.”

[White Ravens]

On 10/7/2018 at 11:35 AM, BRANDON GREYSTARK said:

Even though I believe that Jon's parentage will probably be resolved in this subplot . A reconciliation ? NEVER ! When Catelyn thought that Jon Snow's mother was Ashara Dayne , who was dead , Catelyn still wanted Ned to send the boy away .She is getting what she deserved !

Catelyn didn't want to raise her husband's bastard and that equates to her getting what she deserved?  Not wanting to raise a bastard equates to her deserving to watch her son killed before her eyes, her throat slit and being revived a few days after her corpse was dumped in a river to live a zombie life?  That doesn't fit with the morals described in the books or our own society. 

[Quoth the raven,]

So getting back to the op.  It was a cruel thing to say.  This is why Jon has an inferiority complex.  He formed an unnatural bond with the one person who didn't see him as the outsider.  Arya.  Rejection after rejection from Catelyn, Sansa, and Robb.  Yes.  I include Robb and Sansa.  They were quick to remind him of his inferior social status.  Jon is an emotional wreck.  You know what is sad.  The Watch accepted and gave him more opportunities than the Starks ever did.  That didn't prevent him from betraying the Watch for the Starks.  Tragic.  Jon and Theon are comparable characters.  

[White Ravens]

3 hours ago, Quoth the raven, said:

So getting back to the op.  It was a cruel thing to say.  This is why Jon has an inferiority complex.  He formed an unnatural bond with the one person who didn't see him as the outsider.  Arya.  Rejection after rejection from Catelyn, Sansa, and Robb.  Yes.  I include Robb and Sansa.  They were quick to remind him of his inferior social status.  Jon is an emotional wreck.  You know what is sad.  The Watch accepted and gave him more opportunities than the Starks ever did.  That didn't prevent him from betraying the Watch for the Starks.  Tragic.  Jon and Theon are comparable characters.  

The Watch gave Jon opportunities because his castle upbringing as a member of the Stark household gave him many advantages over the other recruits he trained with:  literacy, horse riding skills, sword/combat/archery training, administration, knowledge of history, heraldry, etc., etc.  He was treated very well at Winterfell but he wasn't treated as an equal to the rest of the Stark children because he is a bastard.  Bastards are not equal to the legitimate children in Westeros.  Look it up, it's true. 

[Quoth the raven,]

On 10/8/2018 at 10:14 PM, White Ravens said:

The Watch gave Jon opportunities because his castle upbringing as a member of the Stark household gave him many advantages over the other recruits he trained with:  literacy, horse riding skills, sword/combat/archery training, administration, knowledge of history, heraldry, etc., etc.  He was treated very well at Winterfell but he wasn't treated as an equal to the rest of the Stark children because he is a bastard.  Bastards are not equal to the legitimate children in Westeros.  Look it up, it's true. 

Bastards do not enjoy the same rights.  The human heart doesn't understand that.  

[BRANDON GREYSTARK]

On ‎10‎/‎8‎/‎2018 at 1:38 PM, White Ravens said:

Catelyn didn't want to raise her husband's bastard and that equates to her getting what she deserved?  Not wanting to raise a bastard equates to her deserving to watch her son killed before her eyes, her throat slit and being revived a few days after her corpse was dumped in a river to live a zombie life?  That doesn't fit with the morals described in the books or our own society. 

Catelyn did not raise Jon nor did she breastfeed him . Her problem with Jon was he was  there . But forget about her actions past . present and a would be future about treatment of Jon . What about Rickon ? Unlike Jon , Rickon is her child . She abandoned him . When Bran was pushed , she stayed glued to Bran side forgetting her three year old son .   then after the appearance of the catspaw ,she abandons him again , going to King's Landing . Catelyn then abandons him again to help Robb in his war . Her fate was to get her comeuppance   Technically she is not a zombie ,both magical and biological zombies lack free will . Since her story line is not a redemption walk , it fits perfectly with the moral described in the books hatred and revenge . 

[Ygrain]

8 hours ago, BRANDON GREYSTARK said:

Catelyn did not raise Jon nor did she breastfeed him . Her problem with Jon was he was  there . But forget about her actions past . present and a would be future about treatment of Jon . What about Rickon ? Unlike Jon , Rickon is her child . She abandoned him . When Bran was pushed , she stayed glued to Bran side forgetting her three year old son .  

She had a breakdown. It's not like she didn't care, her head wasn't functioning right. 

8 hours ago, BRANDON GREYSTARK said:

then after the appearance of the catspaw ,she abandons him again , going to King's Landing .

One child versus two children and a husband, and by extention, the safety of House Stark. A nasty choice but one that had to be done.

8 hours ago, BRANDON GREYSTARK said:

Catelyn then abandons him again to help Robb in his war .

One child versus the survival of House Stark. Again: it had to be done. It's very sad when people have to prioritize like that but I really don't see how she might have stayed at home with a toddler while other members of her family, whose fate would affect the said toddler's future, were in mortal danger.

 

On a side note: has GRRM ever stated if "it should have been you" was inspired by the very same scene between Denethor and Faramir? (now that was one hell of family abuse, if you ask me). - Come to think of that, Denethor even later has exactly the same breakdown when Faramir is injured.

 

[shizett]

I personally understood (and still understand) it to mean that had wished it happened to him because he had no mother to care about his death. Not just wishing him to die (or become comatose or paralyzed), but to signify how worthless his life was as a bastard. It was after I joined the forum that I realized others do not read it that way.

On 10/6/2018 at 9:20 AM, bemused said:

"It should have been you" may have been blurted out in heartbreak and grief, when normally it would have been tempered by reserve, but there is some real animosity behind it.

I agree with this. Grief does not make us monsters, it just unleashes the demons we already carried inside.

On 10/6/2018 at 4:12 PM, Wall Flower said:

Honestly I think things would have been a lot better if Ned could have come up with some comforting lie about Jon's mother but that wasn't his style.

I think Ned was not a good liar, so he probably just avoided the whole situation by not talking about it. I agree that it did not help the situation at all.

On 10/8/2018 at 6:07 AM, Lollygag said:

I don't see letting go reluctantly of Arya and Sansa in her heart as being "happy to be rid of Arya". Not at all.

I do agree that she deeply cared about all her kids, but I also agree that she did not treat Arya very well. There was something about how Arya was treated that led both girls to believe Arya was bastard just like Jon. And I think it is telling that Arya takes that suspicion to Jon (the one treated differently) and Sansa takes it to Cat (the one treating one of the kids differently based on his baseborn status). Since we know Ned did not treat the boys differently and actually saw her dear sister in Arya, it must have been Cat. but that is just a suspicion.

On 10/6/2018 at 2:27 PM, Arkady Renko said:

I'm just asking because too many posts are expecting Catelyn to act like a saintly mother figure when it was Eddard and Jon who put her in an awkward condition.  She said what she did in a time of grief.  Jon was the intruder in that room.  It would have been courteous if he had asked her permission first before going in.  He might have asked one of the girls to ask Catelyn if he might visit with Bran awhile.

He had stayed away specifically for this reason:

Quote

“Not once did she leave the room. So Jon had stayed away.
But now there was no more time.

...

“I came to see Bran,” Jon said. “To say good-bye.”
Her face did not change. Her long auburn hair was dull and tangled. She looked as though she had aged twenty years. “You’ve said it. Now go away.”
Part of him wanted only to flee, but he knew that if he did he might never see Bran again. He took a nervous step into the room. “Please,” he said.
Something cold moved in her eyes. “I told you to leave,” she said. “We don’t want you here.”

But this was NOT about Cat. This was about Jon saying goodbye to a dear brother, why should everything be about Cat?!

On 10/6/2018 at 8:07 PM, Springwatch said:

But both Jon and Arya seem to expect the worst from Sansa, which must say something. But we don't really see that 'something' in the text

Really?! Sansa is the girl that says this after Joffrey has already cut Mycah and is attacking Arya (Sansa's younger sister) with naked steal while she has only a piece of stick to defend herself:

Quote

“Sansa was shrieking, “No, no, stop it, stop it, both of you, you’re spoiling it,”

It is VERY clear to me why would Arya expect the worst from Sansa!

On 10/8/2018 at 6:07 AM, Lollygag said:

As to the bolded,  this somehow comes up a lot in Sansa and Cat threads. Explanations don't equal excuses and understanding others' choices doesn't necessarily mean agreeing with them.

A very good point. Somebody upthread used the words "understandable and forgivable" as if one leads to the other, which looking at the discussion here is definitely not true.

On 10/6/2018 at 8:05 PM, bemused said:

Yes, understandable in a new wife. ,,, Where it becomes a real flaw is that her attitude continues unabated over 14 yrs. In those years, Ned shows absolutely no sign of infidelity and they come to love and trust each other. She sees how close Jon and Robb are, and if the reader can see Jon's love for and kindness to the younger children in a few sentences, she must have seen instances of his caring daily. To never have addressed him by name until the events of AGOT is quite extreme.

I agree with this and also wanted to point out that while everyone is very fixated on the context relating to Cat's behavior towards Jon and blaming Ned about his decisions, there is a context surrounding Ned's frame of mind too.

So, while the only thing that happened to Cat was that her pride was severed, Ned had come back from a war, having lost all (but one) of his family members in a span of a year, was forced (strategically by his mentor) to marry the fiance of his older brother (who hasn't let go of her crush on him after many years of happy marriage to Ned), and had witnessed the death of her sister and was carrying her body. He had brought a family member (his own bastard son) with him. That is so much trauma to have gone through but he actually never got any solace from his wife (not in these issues). Cat was not the biggest victim, only the pettiest.

[White Ravens]

5 hours ago, BRANDON GREYSTARK said:

Catelyn did not raise Jon nor did she breastfeed him . Her problem with Jon was he was  there . But forget about her actions past . present and a would be future about treatment of Jon . What about Rickon ? Unlike Jon , Rickon is her child . She abandoned him . When Bran was pushed , she stayed glued to Bran side forgetting her three year old son .   then after the appearance of the catspaw ,she abandons him again , going to King's Landing . Catelyn then abandons him again to help Robb in his war . Her fate was to get her comeuppance   Technically she is not a zombie ,both magical and biological zombies lack free will . Since her story line is not a redemption walk , it fits perfectly with the moral described in the books hatred and revenge . 

Maybe Catelyn didn't personally raise Jon but house Stark did, and why on GRRth would she breastfeed him?  Jon wasn't raised by a loving mother because his mother was dead.  Catelyn didn't want to raise Jon and obviously resented his presence at Winterfell because in the context of the story set in imaginary Medieval Land any wife of a high lord would have felt the same way towards him.  In your previous post you said that she is getting what she deserves (her family all being killed off, her oldest son getting killed right in front of her, being killed herself and then dumped in a river) because she didn't want to raise Jon.  But now it is because of the way she treated Rickon once everything in her life was turned upside down.  You sure are committed to this notion that she is getting what she deserves.  Me?  I read the same pages as you and I thought that she was dealt far too many unfair hands and made some mistakes in dealing with some of them.