Sexism in Catelyn bashing

[DanteGabriel]

That is not the impression that I got from her POVs... I got a theme of her telling herself she loved her kids and was devoted to her family but her actions and the things her thoughts lingered on saying that she loved Cat and was devoted to Cat.

If you have eyes, and can see for yourself... Just pick any copy of the book and read her POV chapters. Any one of them. I saw it all as a reoccuring theme with her. Maybe I was just picking up a vibe that no-one else keyed in on because I have known women who were just like her. Let's try this part (since it's so close at hand):

I've finally got my books at hand. Here are some excerpts from the chapter in ACOK where she prays at the sept right before Renly and Stannis were supposed to come to battle. These are particularly useful because there's lot of her own internal monologue there.

She knelt before the Mother. "My lady, look down on this battle with a mother's eyes. They are all sons, every one. Spare them if you can, and spare my own sons as well. Watch over Robb and Bran and Rickon. Would that I were with them."

Yep. This is one cold, unfeeling woman. Not an ounce of compassion in her.

When she looked up at the Mother again, it was her own mother she saw. ... She wondered what Lady Minisa would make of her eldest daughter, kneeling here before her. I have come so many thousands of leagues, and for what? Who have I served? I have lost my daughters, Robb does not want me, and Bran and Rickon must surely think me a cold and unnatural mother. I was not even with Ned when he died...

I see what you mean here, Blauer Dragon. This is definitely a woman who doesn't care for her family at all, never loved her husband, and never stopped to think about her own actions.

Catelyn had not eaten today. Perhaps that had been unwise. She told herself that there had been no time, but the truth was that food had lost its savor in a world without Ned. When they took his head off, they killed me too.

What a whore. Clearly a selfish bitch who only cared about her husband as an avenue for her own selfish advancement.

She knelt before the Smith, who fixed things that were broken, and asked that he give her sweet Bran his protection. She went to the Maid and beseeched her to lend her courage to Arya and Sansa, to guard them in their innocence. To the Father, she prayed for justice, the strength to seek it and the wisdom to know it, and she asked the Warrior to keep Robb strong and shield him in his battles. Lastly she turned to the Crone, whose statues often showed her with a lamp in one hand. "Guide me, wise lady," she prayed. "Show me the path I must walk, and do not let me stumble in the dark places that lie ahead."

I challenge you to find a negative interpretation of anything she's said or done in any of these citations. It seems much more likely to me that you could open up a random page in any Catelyn chapter and find evidence of her conflict, her conscience, and her concern for her family, but little or nothing that marks her as an evil or selfish person.

[Padraig]

Well said Dante.

Identifying a specific argument as sexist is fine by me - though I prefer the rebuttal on the grounds of the weakness of the argument - it's carries less risk of sidetracking the discussion.

Just on this, while I know where you are coming from, it should be noted that this thread originated from another that was looking at anti-feminism in sci-fi/fantasy (a very valid topic IMO). While it did get sidetracked into focusing on Catelyn, you can't say it was side-tracked into focusing on sexism.

[salinea]

Ah, but if you take a look at the first page of the thread, this is exactly what happened: No "argument xy is sexist for reason z" - it's more like "Cat-bashers have sexist reasons for their bashing/amount of bashing" - which is legitimate under the thread title, I personally just don't like that kind of discussion. Identifying a specific argument as sexist is fine by me - though I prefer the rebuttal on the grounds of the weakness of the argument - it's carries less risk of sidetracking the discussion.

You have to realize that no one claimed any one person was being sexist for hating Catelyn, it's got more to do with the amount of hatred that this one character generates. I'm not weirded that some people don't like Catelyn, or even hate her for biased reasons to do with their loving other characters like Jon or Tyrion. But when you see systematic bashing of one character who is not written to be particulary dislikable, you have to wonder... what is it that provoques such massive hatred? It's unlikely that simple, ordinary dislike amounts for ALL of that hatred. Some? of course! Just not all.

[Poker and Ice]

The only reason I can think of as to why people might hate Catelyn is because they might relate her to people they don't know. This theory of mine is made slightly stronger by the constant 'I know people like her' quotes popping up in every one of these threads.

[A wilding]

...at least Cersei is honest with herself about most of her evils and schemes

I don't like to pile in, but this is simply not true. Cersei is a master of doublethink. A couple of random examples:

In ACoK Cersei gets angry at Stannis' accusations of incest. Tyrion is amazed at her ability to do so when she knows perfectly well they are true.

In AFfC Cersei watches Qyburn torture the Blue Bard in order to get him to tell a false story about Margaery. Cersei feels squeamish about it - and blames Margaery for forcing her to order the torture, while at the same time fine tuning the story she wants the Blue Bard to tell!

[Mentat]

Following the "Immortalized" link in "The Latest News" I stumbled on this page:

http://books.thehathorlegacy.info/whats-wi...rr-martin-fans/

It's a feminist page criticizing us (westeros.org) for all the Brienne hate (which they also consider fruit of the rampant sexism which thrives in the male-dominated world of fantasy/sci-fi/comics/gaming/whatever).

Though I'm not a great Catelyn fan myself, I really like Brienne (even in Feast!), but many of the comments on this page seemed unjust and feminism-prejudiced to me (especially judging the whole board by a couple of jerks who wish certain characters were raped...).

[DanteGabriel]

Following the "Immortalized" link in "The Latest News" I stumbled on this page:

http://books.thehathorlegacy.info/whats-wi...rr-martin-fans/

It's a feminist page criticizing us (westeros.org) for all the Brienne hate (which they also consider fruit of the rampant sexism which thrives in the male-dominated world of fantasy/sci-fi/comics/gaming/whatever).

Though I'm not a great Catelyn fan myself, I really like Brienne (even in Feast!), but many of the comments on this page seemed unjust and feminism-prejudiced to me (especially judging the whole board by a couple of jerks who wish certain characters were raped...).

So I followed that link, read the article and read the comments. There's a lot of valid criticism of some of the stuff that goes on here. There's too much rape-language thrown around, too much "Catelyn is a bitch" and "Dany is a whore" sort of language from some of the less-well-adjusted members of this community. But I think they go too far in characterizing the rest of the community and the moderators as complicit in the misogyny. Ran and Linda popped in there to give what I thought were reasonable, balanced, and above all realistic responses to the critiques of how this message board is run. Somewhat predictably, the people on that site were not sympathetic, and seemed to think that just because their feminist website is easily policed for phallodestructive presences, this site should be too.

I think Brienne gets too much shit here, as do Catelyn and Sansa. But Sweet Lord and Butter, I'd rather hang out here and read the "lol rape Sansa biyatch" posts of a thousand mouth-breathing prepubescents than hang out on a site where I'm made to feel guilty for being insufficiently offended by every misogynistic remark.

[Nightflyer]

Theres no great mystery here. Humans are irrational creatures. They make snap judgements based on first impressions. If they form an initial bad impression, say based on Catelyn's treatment of Jon, they then seek to validate that impression by looking for supporting negatives.

GRRM has a very difficult task with his strong female characters, in a feudal, male-dominated world. For the most part I think he has carried it off well. The women just cant solve everything with a few whacks of the sword like the men can. And a feudal world puts a premium on sheer physical strength and fighting skill.

GRRM doesnt do cardboard cutouts. He doesn't do pure evil or pure good characters, even the nicest person does occassional bad things. And even his most evil character, Melisandre, still looked down on Cressen with pity as he died.

So you shouldn't view any of the characters in a single dimension. And its even less appropropriate to tack labels on real live human beings.

[Lord Mord]

Nightflyer,

Theres no great mystery here. Humans are irrational creatures. They make snap judgements based on first impressions. If they form an initial bad impression, say based on Catelyn's treatment of Jon, they then seek to validate that impression by looking for supporting negatives.

Bingo. Also, one negative impression early on will lead them to retroactively reassess everything that came before, and will prejudice re-reads of those same early bits, until it all fits "neatly," into this bizarre woman-that-never-was.

It's strange. GRRM deliberately sets about to shape characters who are not easily judged, beyond that they all have serious flaws, and yet one of the moments which is specifically designed around setting Catelyn apart from the ultra-good-mother-Earth stereotype, her scene with Jon, ends up the catalyst for poisoning all the rest of his work regarding her in the minds of some, until they are blinded with their impotent rage for her. And of course, once that has happened, once the book's been finished once, it's impossible to say to such newly-blinded persons, "Okay, now go back and reread the books, and skip that bit. It didn't happen. Do you come to the same conclusion?" because the poison has already seeped in to every pore.

Let me come at this problem another way. We claim that Catelyn is neither an unredeemable bitch, nor is she the very milk of human kindness. I suppose, to be fair, there is a very short range of emotional response to Catelyn overall, which goes from slight like at one end, to neutrality, to slight dislike at the other end, any one point on which could be achieved by a fair-minded, patient reader.

And this is all that the "Catelyn-defenders" have been claiming this whole time. Contrast this to the virulent rants which employ about a dozen synonyms for the word "evil," and almost no source text to back up any single point, let alone the overall description, and I have to wonder what could possibly have so spun up the anti-Cat hysteria. Such a wonderment would not be fair to lay on the rest of us -- "I wonder how you can possibly be so uncontrollably level-headed and balanced in your assessment of Catelyn?" is more than a little ridiculous.

[salinea]

And even his most evil character, Gregor Clegane, is still a cardboard cut evil character

I've corrected it for you!

[Lord Mord]

Stranger,

I've corrected it for you!

Bullshit.

But Gregor is for another thread.

[Bronn Stone]

I just wanted to pop back in and apologize for my tone with CelticBrennis yesterday. I consider Catelyn's impassioned defense of her own children's rights to be one of her key scenes and consider it among the most important things she did - especially in light of the fact that we know her children are actually all still alive and that Robb's wording may have led to a future interpretation that Jon's rights supersede those of Bran and Rickon.

I don't agree with much that he says on this topic, but I know CB is sincere in his belief and it bothered me all afternoon that for some reason my frustration led me to speak in a way that I generally try to avoid. I am sincerely sorry.

CelticBrennis is neither uninformed nor sexist nor stupid. Just wrong.

And I hope to meet him some day. First round on me.

[Bronn Stone]

But Gregor is for another thread.

Game on, soldier!

[CelticBrennus]

I just wanted to pop back in and apologize for my tone with CelticBrennis yesterday.

Not a problem.

And I hope to meet him some day. First round on me.

I will have to remember this part...

I was thinking about some of the situations where I see Catelyn making horrible decisions, and it seems that it is not as much her making a poor choice, but that so many of her choices, while they might seem to be right at the time, just turn to complete sh*t.

Advising Ned to go South - sure, it was Neds choice, but since when do we let people giving bad advice get off scot free? All Dick Cheney can do is give advice to Bush too…

Taking Tyrion captive, while it may have seemed like a good idea at the time (much like taking those 10 tequila shots seemed like a good idea at the time), set off a chain reaction of events that led to enormous trouble, and warfare erupting everwhere (much like what happened 20 minutes after taking those 10 tequila shots).

Free Jaime may have seemed like a good idea to her, but it was directly responsible for Robb's assassination and the destruction of the Northern Army - after all, Tywin couldn’t move like that if Jaime was a hostage.

She means well, and tries to do what is best for her children, but it always seemed like whenever she was about to make a decision or to do something, I had to hold my head in my hands and say to myself "what is she going to screw up this time?"

[Lord Mord]

CB,

She means well, and tries to do what is best for her children, but it always seemed like whenever she was about to make a decision or to do something, I had to hold my head in my hands and say to myself "what is she going to screw up this time?"

To me, this is blaming the victim.

She advises Ned to go South sure; but the actual causes of Ned's death are a combination of his naivete and the Lannisters' unrepentant cruelty and corruption. Could she have forseen this? To some limited extent, but surely the people actually responsible are the ones who set the trap, and the fool who couldn't see it being laid. Catelyn trusted Ned would do better, because he's a full-grown, competent, thinking man, and a lord besides -- he's supposed to look out for this stuff.

What was she supposed to say? "Oh, sweetheart, don't go. You may piss off the king, and you can't really afford to do that. It wrecks any opportunity we have to ever advance House Stark, by shaming the King's house. It removes us from any opportunity to know the truth of Jon Arryn's death, or to punish those responsible if he's been killed. But, Ned -- oh, Ned! They will lay such traps for you, and you are such the fool that you will walk right into them!"

It's true, and if he listened, her advice would have panned out to save Ned from that particular nest of vipers at that particular time -- but the long-term consequences are still potentially lethal, and in any case, she's second-guessing her lord. If you would have had her try to sugar-coat that particular plea, then you want her to lie to him, as well as to undermine him and weaken his house.

You can argue she was already second-guessing him, because each time she advised him on the subject, she was trying to change his mind, but there's no need to compound the offense by having her not only assume her husband is stupid, but to tell him she thinks so.

All Dick Cheney can do is give advice to Bush too…

I don't think anyone here believes that Cheney should be railed simply because he has given the President advice that has turned out poorly. That would indicate an irrational expectation that the VP's advice should more often than not pan out, when the world is too complex for that.

Catelyn takes Tyrion prisoner, but once again, the ball was in the Lannister court, and they needn't have set the rest of the War of the Five Kings into motion -- they didn't need to kill Robert, and they didn't need to savage the Riverlands. As I've said before, this response is in gross disproportion to the slight done their house; if I slap my brother and he cuts me open with a dirk and sets fire to me while I'm bleeding out, is it my fault I've been brutally killed?

Now, freeing Jaime was a considerable risk, and one that didn't need to be taken, but here she has only negative alternatives. Let the Lannisters keep her girls, when they have little bargaining value and gods know what is being done to them there, and keep Jaime Lannister ... or set Jaime Lannister free and let him potentially betray her, but at least enjoy a sliver of hope he will see the girls are returned to her.

I have compassion for people stuck in impossible places, and I don't like to think I should ever have to be in a position anything like hers in that moment. Certainly, afterwards, I would denounce anyone championing or deriding my decision, because it wasn't theirs to make and they couldn't possibly understand. Because I can see that would be my position, and because the consequences were not predestined, and nor were they reasonably forseeable, despite all that they were awful, then I cannot find it in me to cast blame on her.

Insofar as Jaime himself killed people immediately subsequent to his release, that I can blame squarely on Cat, because it was reasonably forseeable that he would kill people, even Starks. And I can see an argument that her girls' lives aren't, in a broader context, necessarily worth saving over the lives of Stark soldiers. But the ultimate penalty eventually reaped from releasing Jaime -- the murders of Robb and Catelyn Stark and most of their loyal vassals and a host of their soldiers -- once again, is so disproportionate to her actual act, as to make nonsense of any accusation she is responsible.

[mormont]

I was thinking about some of the situations where I see Catelyn making horrible decisions, and it seems that it is not as much her making a poor choice, but that so many of her choices, while they might seem to be right at the time, just turn to complete sh*t.

I think I would say, rather, that most of these choices were between bad and worse. In that situation, it's a bit harsh to criticise choosing 'bad'.

[CelticBrennus]

To me, this is blaming the victim.

Did you read the rest of my post or not?

Do most of her major decisions blow up in her face or not?

Quite clearly they do, and most of her plans fail so completely and miserably it is almost funny.

At the very least you can have the common courtesy to recognize that your personal opinions are not the end all, be all of this discussion.

But the ultimate penalty eventually reaped from releasing Jaime -- the murders of Robb and Catelyn Stark and most of their loyal vassals and a host of their soldiers -- once again, is so disproportionate to her actual act, as to make nonsense of any accusation she is responsible.

Jesus F-ing Christ. Can you read what I actually wrote? You wrote this nice and long post but it has nothing to do with what I said.

I am stating the fact that when she makes most of her decisions, it sets in motion a chain of events that will cause it all to blow up in her face.

I think I would say, rather, that most of these choices were between bad and worse. In that situation, it's a bit harsh to criticise choosing 'bad'.

Bad or worse? Things turned out pretty damn bad if you recall...

But man, how much worse could things have actually turned out for her and her family then what did happen? I mean, Winterfell burned, husband dead, three kids missing presumed dead, one killed in front of her eyes, and one married to a deformed dwarf who she thinks tried to kill one of her sons.

[mormont]

Bad or worse? Things turned out pretty damn bad if you recall...

But man, how much worse could things have actually turned out for her and her family then what did happen? I mean, Winterfell burned, husband dead, three kids missing presumed dead, one killed in front of her eyes, and one married to a deformed dwarf who she thinks tried to kill one of her sons.

Well, first of all I would say that while Cat's decisions make some contribution to the end result for her family, it's actually pretty minor. One big reason for that is that other people (including Tywin, Walder Frey, Ned, Lysa, Theon, Robb, Renly, Stannis... it's a pretty long list, and that's just a sample of it) make decisions with a far greater impact on that.

But that's about the long run, and that's not what I'm talking about. What I'm talking about is that in each case you mention, Cat faces a decision where the immediate alternative is or appears more dangerous. Refusing Robert produces a rift between Robert and Ned and allows Jon Arryn's killer a free hand in KL. Not acting against Tyrion hands the initiative to a man who she believes is a murderer with good reason to kill her, given her discovery. Not freeing Jaime leaves her daughter at the mercy of the Lannisters.

It's easy to judge these decisions with the twin benefits of reader omniscience and hindsight. On their own terms, though, each is a risky choice but considerably less dire than the alternative. To put it another way, the person to blame for the outcome of Cat's decisions is GRRM: she is almost railroaded into them by the author.

[Lord Mord]

CB,

Did you read the rest of my post or not?

Do most of her major decisions blow up in her face or not?

Quite clearly they do, and most of her plans fail so completely and miserably it is almost funny.

But this thread is about whether or not she's responsible. You never did answer my question about slapping my brother. Let's try a different example. If you write a thousand posts on this thread about how much you dislike Catelyn because she makes decisions that subsequently go awry, and everybody accuses you of being sexist -- did you bring that accusation on yourself? Are you responsible for people calling you sexist?

After all, you set in motion the chain of events which prompted the result. Let's say the consequences are even slightly worse -- to make it closer to a matter of "blowing up in your face." Let's say that people burn you out of your house and get you fired from your job because they believe you are sexist. Is it reasonable that someone should say to you, "Hey, CB -- I don't like you, man. I mean, in some ways you did what you thought was best, but man -- it just all blew up in your face!" ...?

I don't see where this kind of reasoning, if it's wrong in this case, would suddenly become right, either, even if it happened on a dozen different boards.

At the very least you can have the common courtesy to recognize that your personal opinions are not the end all, be all of this discussion.

When did I say it was? When have I been less than courteous? Have I not always given you leave to challenge my opinions?

Jesus F-ing Christ. Can you read what I actually wrote? You wrote this nice and long post but it has nothing to do with what I said.

Do you mind reading what I actually wrote, and then comparing it to what you wrote that caused me to respond? You wrote three different points on which to judge Catelyn's decision-making: telling Ned to go south, arresting Tyrion, and setting Jaime free. I wrote a reponse to each point, where it was unfair to judge the long-term consequences as, even significantly the result of Catelyn's decisions. The consequences were not the result of Catelyn's decision in any meaningful sense, but rather were the results of other people's reactions to her decision.

As I say above, she didn't cause the War of the Five Kings any more than you've caused people to call you sexist.

[dornish prince]

my main reason for disliking her is actually pretty damn petty. i would have MUCH rather read the vast majority of her POV's from robb's POV.

other than that, i don't really care for her because of how she dealt with jon; which has been beaten to death.

edited to remove the last point because i rendered it pointless by editing prior to posting and have now lost all train of thought.