Can Cat be happy?

[Dorian Martell's son]

9 hours ago, Hugorfonics said:

Was Lady Stoneheart happy when she found out Arya is alive? Would she be happy seeing Edmure or Brynden, or would it take seeing Bran to smile?

She has no reason to believe Arya is alive 

[White Ravens]

Cat will never know happiness again.  She's dead.

I don't think Lady Stoneheart is capable of happiness.   Also, when did she find out that Arya is alive?

[Platypus Rex]

28 minutes ago, Clegane'sPup said:

Weeeeeel, all I can say is I be old. Not into zombies. I became tired of Walking Dead season three.

LOLOLOL!  You be YOUNG!!!!  Just admit it.  I don't think I've even seen a full episode of "The Walking Dead."

I was thinking more in terms or Le Fanu's "Carmilla"; or Bierce's "The Death of Halpin Frayser"; or RL Stevenson's "Thrawn Janet", or Stoker's Dracula, or W.W. Jacob's "The Monkey's Paw" or Lovecraft's "Herbert West -- Reanimator", or the revenants in Steven King's 'Salem's Lot and Pet Sematary. Of course, most of these don't use the term "zombie" because that word's use in English only dates back to the 1930s.  But the general idea is the same -- that the dead returning is generally not a good thing!  

But even if you are not into classic horror lit, surely you would have heard of Romero's 1960s movie Night of the Living Dead.  That's a main progenitor of the "mindless zombie horde" concept.  But obviously LSH is not the virtually-mindless type.

But whether you like zombies or not, this is one of the loose ends in GRRM's fiction, and I think it is probably going somewhere.

[Clegane'sPup]

14 minutes ago, Platypus Rex said:

LOLOLOL!  You be YOUNG!!!!  Just admit it.  I don't think I've even seen a full episode of "The Walking Dead."

I was thinking more in terms or Le Fanu's "Carmilla"; or Bierce's "The Death of Halpin Frayser"; or RL Stevenson's "Thrawn Janet", or Stoker's Dracula, or W.W. Jacob's "The Monkey's Paw" or Lovecraft's "Herbert West -- Reanimator", or the revenants in Steven King's 'Salem's Lot and Pet Sematary. Of course, most of these don't use the term "zombie" because that word's use in English only dates back to the 1930s.  But the general idea is the same -- that the dead returning is generally not a good thing!  

But even if you are not into classic horror lit, surely you would have heard of Romero's 1960s movie Night of the Living Dead.  That's a main progenitor of the "mindless zombie horde" concept.  But obviously LSH is not the virtually-mindless type.

But whether you like zombies or not, this is one of the loose ends in GRRM's fiction, and I think it is probably going somewhere.

Goodness gracious great balls of fire., kiss me baby. 

Seriously though, there are only two books that you mentioned that I have read. Shame, shame, shame on me.

 

[Springwatch]

Cat may not be dead and gone forever - things repeat themselves: Cat has already been lost in a very dark mental state before, when Bran fell. She recovered, and what happens before can happen again. You could even go right back to her childhood, when she and Lysa were lost in a deep fog, but they got out again (helped by Petyr!)

She's possessed, I think. Fire consumes, and she is driven by fire.

[kissdbyfire]

8 minutes ago, Springwatch said:

Cat may not be dead and gone forever - things repeat themselves: Cat has already been lost in a very dark mental state before, when Bran fell. She recovered, and what happens before can happen again. You could even go right back to her childhood, when she and Lysa were lost in a deep fog, but they got out again (helped by Petyr!)

She's possessed, I think. Fire consumes, and she is driven by fire.

What happened to her is very different from being in a dark place emotionally and mentally IMO. Her throat was slashed open and her body dumped in the river, where it remained for days. There’s  no coming back from that, again, IMO. Not in a true sense anyway... 

[Springwatch]

52 minutes ago, kissdbyfire said:

What happened to her is very different from being in a dark place emotionally and mentally IMO. Her throat was slashed open and her body dumped in the river, where it remained for days. There’s  no coming back from that, again, IMO. Not in a true sense anyway... 

Wholesome good looks are not essential. Ser Robert Strong is probably a hideous monster with no head, but he's just starting a completely new arc. LSH still has her head, and her bones ('the bones remember'') - there's a real possibility her true mind and memories are still there. Even Mel remembers scenes from her childhood, and she has been a wight for a long, long time.

And the river is not a problem at all. Time is a river. When you've got a river, you're right in the thick of destiny. So three days in the Red Fork just makes it more likely that LSH/Cat has an arc to follow.

[Hugorfonics]

11 hours ago, Dorian Martell's son said:

She has no reason to believe Arya is alive 

Quote

Merrett would tell them anything if it meant his life. "What do you want to know? I'll tell you true, I swear it."

The outlaw gave him an encouraging smile. "Well, as it happens, we're looking for a dog that ran away."

"A dog?" Merrett was lost. "What kind of dog?"

"He answers to the name Sandor Clegane. Thoros says he was making for the Twins. We found the ferrymen who took him across the Trident, and the poor sod he robbed on the kingsroad. Did you see him at the wedding, perchance?"

"The Red Wedding?" Merrett's skull felt as if it were about to split, but he did his best to recall. There had been so much confusion, but surely someone would have mentioned Joffrey's dog sniffing round the Twins. "He wasn't in the castle. Not at the main feast . . . he might have been at the bastard feast, or in the camps, but . . . no, someone would have said . . . "

"He would have had a child with him," said the singer. "A skinny girl, about ten. Or perhaps a boy the same age."

"I don't think so," said Merrett. "Not that I knew."

"No? Ah, that's a pity. Well, up you go."

 

[Cas Stark]

I think "Cat" is still in there to some degree, and so I believe she could at least feel a sense of relief to see any of her children again.

[zandru]

2 hours ago, Cas Stark said:

I think "Cat" is still in there to some degree, and so I believe she could at least feel a sense of relief to see any of her children again. 

I sure hope so. There's a persistent theory that Arya will at some point meet Lady Stoneheart face to face, see what an obsession with vengeance can do to a person, and ultimately put her to rest. However, Arya should have realized this in her fairly long association with the Hound, so I'm not sure how much the icy Lady could add to the lesson.

[The Mother of The Others]

Cat insisted upon a word from Brienne.   There are words that can work upon Stoneheart.   She is obviously capable of adopting strategy, and given the right argument can be moved to change her approach.  Her drive for vengeance can expand into the drive to see resurgence from her loved ones, as the most satisfying cap to her vengeance campaign.  She may not be able to take part in the warmth of Spring, but she can move to plant the seeds, maybe fertilizing them with her dissolution and transferring her spark to someone with a warmer quest locked in.  That's the wordy exercise that awaits Jaime&Bree at their meeting.   

[kissdbyfire]

9 hours ago, Springwatch said:

Wholesome good looks are not essential.

Nothing further from my mind than good looks...

Quote

Ser Robert Strong is probably a hideous monster with no head, but he's just starting a completely new arc.

Maybe. And even if he is, he won’t be long for this (that) world. 

Quote

LSH still has her head, and her bones ('the bones remember'') - there's a real possibility her true mind and memories are still there.

I very much agree irt to Cat’s memories. Her true mind though? Not so much. Cat would never have done/do some of the things LSH is more than willing to do, like hanging children. 

Quote

Even Mel remembers scenes from her childhood, and she has been a wight for a long, long time.

 

Has she? That’s news to me. 

Quote

And the river is not a problem at all. Time is a river. When you've got a river, you're right in the thick of destiny. So three days in the Red Fork just makes it more likely that LSH/Cat has an arc to follow.

I have no doubts LSH has an arc coming. And I think there’s a good chance it will be an epic fist-pumping scary arc. After all, Martin didn’t create LSH “for hoots and giggles”. That said, I’m talking about LSH’s arc, and that has nothing to do w/ Catelyn IMO. 

And three days floating in the river after being killed makes for a nice rotting corpse in my book. 

ETA: and a walking, talking (sorta) vengeful rotting corpse is so very unnatural. Like Summers and winters that last for long years. 

[kissdbyfire]

32 minutes ago, The Mother of The Others said:

Cat insisted upon a word from Brienne.   There are words that can work upon Stoneheart.   

She did insist, and she got her word, “sword”. 

Quote

She is obviously capable of adopting strategy, and given the right argument can be moved to change her approach.  Her drive for vengeance can expand into the drive to see resurgence from her loved ones, as the most satisfying cap to her vengeance campaign.

Yeah, something along these lines would probably be my favourite way of dealing w/ LSH...

Quote

  She may not be able to take part in the warmth of Spring, but she can move to plant the seeds, maybe fertilizing them with her dissolution

Like it...

Quote

and transferring her spark to someone with a warmer quest locked in.  That's the wordy exercise that awaits Jaime&Bree at their meeting.   

but here we disagree. I don’t want to see LSH pass on “the gift” of coming back to life to anyone. Things like coming back from death are against the natural world, for lack of a better phrasing. And anyone who thinks Martin will [ultimately] go against that is just... plain wrong. 

That’s why  I see a Faceless Men/CotF alliance forming at some point. 

Valar Morghulis.

 

 

[Platypus Rex]

4 hours ago, Cas Stark said:

I think "Cat" is still in there to some degree, and so I believe she could at least feel a sense of relief to see any of her children again.

I don't think Cat, regardless of whether her soul remains trapped in her restless corpse, would be relieved to have her children meet Lady Stoneheart.  If she still loves her children, she would want her children 1000 miles away from Lady Stoneheart.

[Platypus Rex]

1 hour ago, The Mother of The Others said:

"She is obviously capable of adopting strategy, and given the right argument can be moved to change her approach." 

There is nothing good about Lady Stoneheart.  And as for her being capable of strategy, I think her victims would prefer otherwise. 

A mindless zombie would have been put down by now.  Stoneheart is scarier than that.

"Her drive for vengeance can expand into the drive to see resurgence from her loved ones, as the most satisfying cap to her vengeance campaign." 

That would be a fundamental change, not an "expansion".

I can imagine GRRM writing it that way, but it would not feel particularly fitting to me.

If Stoneheart helps her still-living children towards happiness, it will be only because her horrific example causes her children to reject the spirit of vengeance that still motivates them. 

"She may not be able to take part in the warmth of Spring, but she can move to plant the seeds, maybe fertilizing them with her dissolution and transferring her spark to someone with the warmer quest locked in."

This reminds me of Lovecraft's Herbert West.  He kept doing the same nonsense over and over again, deluding himself that his failures were because the body was not "quite fresh enough".  It won't work.  Zombie Brienne and Zombie Jaime will also be monsters.  However noble the original mission was, it will be darkened and twisted.  Brienne, for instance, would be a hunter of "kingslayers", possibly including Sansa.

[Cas Stark]

Lord Beric wasn't a monster by any means.

 

 

 

 

[Platypus Rex]

14 minutes ago, Cas Stark said:

"Lord Beric wasn't a monster by any means."

Yeah, he was.  He is a killer who has lost his humanity.  He is no longer Beric, and more-or-less explicitly says so to Thoros ("are you my mother?").  His release of Sandor was not mercy -- it was merely the following of a set of rules.  He is just not quite so grim as Stoneheart.  He never, in life, had any dark mission of vengeance.  So he was not particularly useful to the dark spirit that animated him.  So what did that shadow-force inspire him to do?  It inspired him to pass it on to another, more useful to it's dark aims.

Anyhow, there is precedent for these kind of stories following a pattern of escalation.  The original revenants in "Pet Sematary" for instance, were not as obviously monsters.  The dark spirit "slow played" it's game.

[Castellan]

12 minutes ago, Platypus Rex said:

Yeah, he was.  He is a killer who has lost his humanity.  He is no longer Beric, and more-or-less explicitly says to Thoros ("are you my mother?").  He is just not quite so grim as Stoneheart.  He never had any dark mission of vengeance.  So he was not particularly useful to the dark spirit that animated him.  So what did that shadow-force inspire him to do?  It inspired him to pass it on to another, more useful to it's dark aims.

I think it was the human still in him who was sick of his resurrections combined with his sense of mission which was to support the Starks and Robert Baratheon that made him pass it on to Catelyn when Thoros wouldn't revive her. I don't know why you need to see the gift Thoros has somehow been given as an evil force.

PS If Catelyn had immediately killed Jaime I would expect his body to have been found arranged for show like LS's other victims, not to have simply disappeared.

[Cas Stark]

12 minutes ago, Platypus Rex said:

Yeah, he was.  He is a killer who has lost his humanity.  He is no longer Beric, and more-or-less explicitly says so to Thoros ("are you my mother?").  His release of Sandor was not mercy -- it was merely the following of a set of rules.  He is just not quite so grim as Stoneheart.  He never, in life, had any dark mission of vengeance.  So he was not particularly useful to the dark spirit that animated him.  So what did that shadow-force inspire him to do?  It inspired him to pass it on to another, more useful to it's dark aims.

Anyhow, there is precedent for these kind of stories following a pattern of escalation.  The original revenants in "Pet Sematary" for instance, were not as obviously monsters.  The dark spirit "slow played" it's game.

Eh, his entire purpose for staying alive is to protect the smallfolk and stay as true as possible to the mission he was given by Ned Stark, so we will have to disagree that he's a monster just because he has killed people, he's in a war.  

[Platypus Rex]

14 minutes ago, Cas Stark said:

Eh, his entire purpose for staying alive is to protect the smallfolk and stay as true as possible to the mission he was given by Ned Stark, so we will have to disagree that he's a monster just because he has killed people, he's in a war.  

As GRRM has said in an SSM, these kinds of creatures are bound by the missions they had in life.  And, as you say, Beric's mission was not particularly useful to the dark force that animated him.  That's why it abandoned Beric at the first opportunity., and entered Catelyn's corpse.