Did Catelyn abuse Jon for his whole life? - Part 2

[Lady Blue Rose]

This was Ned's responsibility, though. That pep talk he gave Jon was less than informative of the NW's functions, and what it meant for a 14 year old. This particular situation is Ned's cross to bear.

You will provide juicy quotes to back up your 'gleeful' statement, yes?

eta: I feel that I should reiterate that Ned is Jon's parent, in function if not biologically. Not Cat.

We actually never read Ned's conversation with Jon over the NW life...

[Direwolfsigil]

We actually never read Ned's conversation with Jon over the NW life...

Nope, the "When I return, We'll talk about your mother" line from Ned only took place in the show.

I looked over the parts a few times to make sure, and I dont believe Ned even said goodbye to him, we should have a discussion about how that was abusive and scarred Jon forever.

[Lady Blue Rose]

Nope, the "When I return, We'll talk about your mother" line from Ned only took place in the show.

I looked over the parts a few times to make sure, and I dont believe Ned even said goodbye to him, we should have a discussion about how that was abusive and scarred Jon forever.

Yes!!! In one of my previous comments I suggested that it would be a great topic to talk about Ned's responsibility in all this.

[Minsc]

Just a FYI:

Catelyn is in fact Jon's stepmother. According to the American Herritage Dictionary, stepmother is defined as t

he wife of one's father and not one's natural mother.

And in the merriam-webster dictionary it is the wife of one's father when distinct from one's natural or legal mother

Both of those come from a strictly modern sense of generally where a woman marries a man who has had children previously, not a medieval sense where the child is the husband's bastard born during the couple's marriage.

[Wanderer]

I disagree. Some kids are pieces of shit and not worth the fluids that made them.

Wow. Overlooking the moral problems I have with this statement, you have either overlooked or purposefully ignored the word innocent in my post. Are you honestly insinuating that Jon is a piece of shit and not worth the fluids that made him?

[Wanderer]

Yes!!! In one of my previous comments I suggested that it would be a great topic to talk about Ned's responsibility in all this.

I agree that Ned bears a huge responsibility in this. That is precisely where Cat should have focused her anger and resentment. I actually think that in many ways Ned would have preferred this.

[Winter's Knight]

Re: Cat's anxiety over Jon being a threat

It is worth noting that Robb and Jon are almost the same age. This, coupled with his obvious Stark looks makes the whole situation ripe for a repeat of the Blackfyre rebellion. Consider for example the fact that people who've read all five books have no trouble claiming that Robb is not Ned's for instance. Imagine how much easier it'd be to claim the same in-universe, what with Ned only having spent two weeks with her before riding off to war and Robb being born In his absence.

[PrinceHenryris]

Don't feel like reading 17 pages, so I'll go with the short answer:

YES!

[Crystal Grower]

It's no secret that Cat is chilly to Jon; when Robb sees that Jon looks sullen and has just come from an interaction with Cat, he asks whether she said something that's disturbing him. When Jon tells him that she was "very kind," Robb immediately buys it, smiles, and jokes around. Now, if Cat was verbally abusing Jon with frequency, would Robb so easily believe that Cat was "very kind" to him here?

Alternatively, Robb was relieved to hear that his mother was kind to Jon because past interactions weren't always neutral.

[Lady Blue Rose]

I agree that Ned bears a huge responsibility in this. That is precisely where Cat should have focused her anger and resentment. I actually think that in many ways Ned would have preferred this.

I think so too, we are given an insight into how Ned feels about this in Bran's vision into the past through the weirwood tree. This family could've done so much better had they had better communication....

[Stannis ftw]

I disagree. Some kids are pieces of shit and not worth the fluids that made them.

It is well reflecting today's culture that comments like this receive tacit approval (save for one contarian vote) while "sexism detectors" are scanning the boards 24/7 and punching red alert for anything remotely suspicious.

[LordStoneheart]

Just a FYI:

Catelyn is in fact Jon's stepmother. According to the American Herritage Dictionary, stepmother is defined as t

he wife of one's father and not one's natural mother.

And in the merriam-webster dictionary it is the wife of one's father when distinct from one's natural or legal mother

By technical definition, but that's not the whole case. She did not accept the role of parent (why should she?) so she is not a step-parent to him. It's not something you thrust upon people.

[mormont]

Of course she was gleeful.

No. She was pleased. 'Gleeful' is a gross exaggeration, without any real basis in the text.

She saw her chance to solve the problem with Jon immediately and jumped at it.

No. She didn't 'jump at it': she did and said nothing. Read the text.

Ned jumped at it, if anyone did.

He was 14. 14. He couldn't have known what life in the Night Watch meant. Catelyn should have had a better idea that it was only half a life and that he couldn't know it yet. She just didn't care.

I think you meant to say 'Ned', there. This is no business of Cat's. It's for his father to worry about these things.

Just a FYI:

Catelyn is in fact Jon's stepmother. According to the American Herritage Dictionary, stepmother is defined as t

he wife of one's father and not one's natural mother.

And in the merriam-webster dictionary it is the wife of one's father when distinct from one's natural or legal mother

The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines words as they are used today. Its relevance to Cat and Jon's situation is nil. Cat is not Jon's stepmother, as has been pointed out ad nauseam: the only source that could possibly alter that is GRRM, not M-W.

[LordStoneheart]

Wow. Overlooking the moral problems I have with this statement, you have either overlooked or purposefully ignored the word innocent in my post. Are you honestly insinuating that Jon is a piece of shit and not worth the fluids that made him?

No, I'm saying being a kid doesn't immune one of being hated or grudged against.

[StarkDragon]

No, I'm saying being a kid doesn't immune one of being hated or grudged against.

Certainly, but I wonder what sort of person would hate a child, who does not suffer from mental and emotional lack of development like Jofferey.

I don't think that person was Catelyn, truly I believe she hated her circumstances.

Seriously, that argument is not going to earn any support for Catelyn... I personally sympathize with Cat about Jon, she didn't choose to have the bastard, he was forced on her, but also Jon as he didn't choose to be born, and even now he doesn't want to take her children's rights.

People always want to find someone to blame for the wrong of it all, but this issue goes all the way back to Rhaegar taking Lyanna (if we take R+L=J for granted) or Ned committing adultery, neither Cat nor Jon are the root cause and are both not superhumans who are incapable of lashing out when in suffering.

I understand it takes empathy to feel for another when they're being hurt emotionally or physically, but it also takes it to understand why someone lashes out physically or emotionally.

Did Jon deserve the verbal lashing? No.

Did Catelyn deserve the indignity of raising her husband's adultery baby, and being made to do it against her own will? No.

Do either seek out vengeance on the other for this misfortunes? No.

People lash out when they're hurt. It's a typical reaction to physical and mental pain.

[Wanderer]

No, I'm saying being a kid doesn't immune one of being hated or grudged against.

Congratulations? You think some kids are worth less that there fluids! Disgusting if you ask me but this is the Internet after all.

Again, why are you saying this? What has this to do with the context?

[LordStoneheart]

Congratulations? You think some kids are worth less that there fluids! Disgusting if you ask me but this is the Internet after all.

Again, why are you saying this? What has this to do with the context?

It's part of my criticism of the whole "Why did she not like him? He was just a baby, a child!" argument. It's too generalized into being that because Jon was a child Catelyn should not have been mad and just cared for him.

I don't think she should have cared for him or been civil just because he was a child. And my point there is that children are capable of being quite bad people.

Like here. Such faces of innocence. If only they had their father's wife he married before they were conceived to look after them...

[Crystal Grower]

From Game:

He was at the door when she called out to him. "Jon," she said. He should have kept going, but she had never called him by his name before. He turned to find her looking at his face, as if she were seeing it for the first time.

"Yes?" he said.

"It should have been you," she told him.

This is not a case of Catelyn snapping at Jon because of grief (we already had that in "I need none of your absolution, bastard."). This is a deliberate act of malice. Jon was leaving and presumably out of her life forever, and she stopped him for the sole purpose of hurting him. Cat probably wanted to hurt him like this for a long time, but didn't because she is a morally upright person for the most part. The perceived threat of physical abuse from Ned likely played a deterrent as well. Her extreme grief here made her ignore those deterrents (mostly to be civil).

Whatever she did to Jon before this scene, it did negatively affect Jon.

From Dance:

"I have no sister. Only brothers. Only you." Lady Catelyn would have rejoiced to hear those words, he knew.

From Game, Cat 2

Ned: "He and Robb are close. I had hoped..."

Cat: "He cannot stay here."

and

Ned: "How can you be so damnably cruel, Catelyn? He is only a boy. He--"

Cat didn't want Jon to have any relationship with his siblings. She wanted to terminate Jon's relationships even though he was close to his siblings. Jon knew how she felt. While Cat likely did not make this known to Jon directly (more probably, Jon got this indirectly from servants and maybe his siblings), the end result is that it affected Jon negatively.

From Storm:

It was not Lord Eddard’s face he saw floating before him, though; it was Lady Catelyn’s. With her deep blue eyes and hard cold mouth, she looked a bit like Stannis. Iron, he thought, but brittle. She was looking at him the way she used to look at him at Winterfell, whenever he had bested Robb at swords or sums or most anything. Who are you? that look had always seemed to say. This is not your place. Why are you here?

These type of looks have hurt Jon's self-esteem regardless of Cat's conscious decisions or intent when she made them.

Now, the kind of things she did to Jon as he was growing don't count as abuse by modern day Child Protection Services and certainly not in Westeros. However, they did hurt Jon emotionally. They can be considered abusive by a more loose definition of the word.

[Direwolfsigil]

Congratulations? You think some kids are worth less that there fluids! Disgusting if you ask me but this is the Internet after all.

Again, why are you saying this? What has this to do with the context?

Although in a harsh context, He's just saying that the idea that every child should be loved, treated with unconditional kindness, and celebrated just because it's a child is ridiculous, and he's right.

[Lady Blue Rose]

Both of those come from a strictly modern sense of generally where a woman marries a man who has had children previously, not a medieval sense where the child is the husband's bastard born during the couple's marriage.

By technical definition, but that's not the whole case. She did not accept the role of parent (why should she?) so she is not a step-parent to him. It's not something you thrust upon people.

The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines words as they are used today. Its relevance to Cat and Jon's situation is nil. Cat is not Jon's stepmother, as has been pointed out ad nauseam: the only source that could possibly alter that is GRRM, not M-W.

What I mean to point out is:

I am well aware it has been said multiple times that she is not her "step-mother" and that she did not chose to have him in her life. My point is not that she should be his surrogate mother, I do not feel she should be inclined to assume a motherly role towards him, as I have said before plenty of times. If you do not want to use the term step-mother, that is fine.

Nonetheless- however you want to call it- a rose by any other name is still a rose- and whether Cat likes it or not there is still a familial LINK (notice how I am not saying relationship) between her and Jon. He is still her husband's child and he is still her children's sibling/half-sibling/ blood relative. Ignoring him, wishing him away, and repeating how much he is not HER relative won't make this any less real.

I just bring it up as a way to point out that no matter how much she dislikes it, call her step-mother,something else or nothing at all, Jon is a part of her family unit because her husband and children have made him so the moment Ned brought him home and their children grew to love him.

I actually believe that this is the reasoning behind people who don't understand why she could not accept it as part of the family (perception that my family's family is my family) and this has nothing to do with her being a man, woman or blue fairy.