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

[mormont]

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.

So... yes, there is a 'link', in that her husband is the boy's father and her children are his half-siblings.

No, this is not anything like the same as saying that she is his stepmother.

No, this can't be wished away.

And no, it does not make Jon part of her 'family unit'. A family is not the same as a secondary blood relation. 'Family' is an affectionate bond of love and duty, not a genetic link. Cat has no such bonds to Jon. It's perfectly possible for Jon to be part of Ned's family, Arya's family, Sansa's family and Robb's family, but not be part of Cat's. That is, actually, the situation. Cat understands this. Ned understands this. Jon understands this. Robb, Bran, Luwin, Ser Rodrik, everyone in Winterfell does.

[SeanF]

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?

That sounds like the sort of thing that Jaime Lannister would say if he lived in our world.

[butterbumps!]

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

But why would Robb have believed that she'd been "very kind" if this were the case?

From Game:

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).

Look, everything you are saying here is projection. We have no indication that Cat actually hated Jon. The comment she made was malicious and unthinking, and I don't believe it can be "justified," but there is no reason to project the notion that she hated him and wanted him hurt here, or that it was anything other than extreme grief that caused her to say it. Your reading is decidedly not textually supported given the multitude of other quotes many of us have provided from Cat's own POV that show she has nothing against Jon personally.

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

Prove it.

From Dance:

As has been discussed at some length here, Cat would be "glad" to hear him say he only had brothers (of the NW) because she was duly concerned with her children's inheritance rights. This still does not show hatred toward him.

From Game, Cat 2 ["he cannot stay here"]

Way to pull this line out of the context in which Cat tells us directly she doesn't hate Jon. And why should Cat let Jon stay? With Ned gone, she's the head of the household; the dynamic changes such that it would put her in a position to be in charge of him rather than simply coexisting there. Better question: if Cat is so unduly harsh and hateful of him, why isn't Ned jumping at the chance to take him to KL? Why are you overlooking that?

and [He's only a boy--]

Again, Cat is "damnably cruel" for not wanting to be put in a position where she is in charge of Ned's bastard, but Ned is not being called out by you for refusing to bring him to KL with him.

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.

This is pure nonsense. There is absolutely no support for the idea that Cat wanted to terminate Jon's relationships to his siblings outside of muddying the legal possibility that Jon could interfere with their inheritance. Nor is there support for the idea that Jon felt this from servants and siblings as well. Also, show me where this has affected Jon negatively.

From Storm: [this is not your place]

Because Winterfell is technically not his place, and Cat fairly did want to know who he was and why he was there. I understand that this may come as a shock, but Jon is, for all intents and purposes, a bastard, and as such, "should" not have been raised at Winterfell the way Ned had. Cat reminded him that as a bastard, Winterfell belonged to Robb rather than him, but she is technically right in this; not only is she right in this, Ned agrees with her, given that Ned refuses to take Jon to KL and decides to send him to the NW as a solution.

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

This is more projection. Jon's self esteem is hurt because Ned refuses to tell him who his mother is, which is the foundation of an identity crisis for him. We have no indications that Cat's treatment cause him damage, but we do have ample good indication that his ignorance over his parentage is what causes grief.

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.

I still fail to see how Cat hurt Jon so deeply, given that he doesn't reflect on being hurt by her. I think there's also an issue getting lost here, which is that Cat's role to Jon doesn't have a modern translation as a step parent or the like, so I fail to see why her behavior could be classified as abusive by even a "more loose definition of the word."

[mormont]

Wrt to the 'it should have been you' line, I agree it wasn't a sudden, momentary loss of control. But that's missing the wood for the trees, quite honestly. The issue is Cat's entire state of mind for a prolonged period of time: days, not moments. It's often forgotten that she also behaves badly to Maester Luwin after Ned leaves: again, she's taking out her frustrations on an innocent person who happens to be there. Not admirable, not at all - but there's no reason to think that her remark to Jon was any more indicative of her 'true' feelings about him than there is to suppose she secretly had a grudge against Luwin. As the author says, that incident was a 'very special case': she was half out of her mind. It was wrong, and nobody's ever denied that, but to make a case that it was 'deliberate' and how Cat had wanted to act 'for a long time' is just not possible.

[Stannis ftw]

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.

I really find the silence quite deafening after comments like this. Since anything Cat-critical has solicited rebuttal in max 15 minutes so far, I guess the term "tacit approval" really fits wrt this and Lord Stonehearts original post.

[mormont]

Making surmises about what people on a message board think based on what they don't say is a fool's game.

[Wanderer]

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...

But that is in no way related to the context. Those kids a sociopaths! Nobody EVER said she should love him. Jon was NEVER a guilty party/serial killer! How con you use this as an argument for Cat against Jon? It makes no sense!

[Direwolfsigil]

Making surmises about what people on a message board think based on what they don't say is a fool's game.

Youre right, its not right of me to translate someone else's comments, I apologize. I will consider it next time I post, this topic is pretty controversial and it was in poor taste.

[LordStoneheart]

But that is in no way related to the context. Those kids a sociopaths! Nobody EVER said she should love him. Jon was NEVER a guilty party/serial killer! How con you use this as an argument for Cat against Jon? It makes no sense!

Well that latter part was clearly a ceiling joke and went over your head.

And yes, I've seen many posts about how Catelyn should've loved him like her own son or at least something close to that because he was just a child. My point is a very nihilistic view of children as not things that inherently deserve to be loved or taken care of by whatever mother they're dropped in front of.

[LordStoneheart]

That sounds like the sort of thing that Jaime Lannister would say if he lived in our world.

I really can't tell if this is an insult or compliment. Jaime hate/love varies too much on here.

[Wanderer]

Well that latter part was clearly a ceiling joke and went over your head.

And yes, I've seen many posts about how Catelyn should've loved him like her own son or at least something close to that because he was just a child. My point is a very nihilistic view of children as not things that inherently deserve to be loved or taken care of by whatever mother they're dropped in front of.

Clearly it went over my head. I shall now retire to my simple hovel where my tiny brain won't be subjected to such highbrow humor.

And no, I have yet to see one post where somebody said she should love him. I certainly never said it. I'm afraid that is your own creation because you either feel that is the argument, or you are building a strawman.

[Kittykatknits]

Well that latter part was clearly a ceiling joke and went over your head.

And yes, I've seen many posts about how Catelyn should've loved him like her own son or at least something close to that because he was just a child. My point is a very nihilistic view of children as not things that inherently deserve to be loved or taken care of by whatever mother they're dropped in front of.

I took your comment as an exageration for effect.

Clearly it went over my head. I shall now retire to my simple hovel where my tiny brain won't be subjected to such highbrow humor.

And no, I have yet to see one post where somebody said she should love him. I certainly never said it. I'm afraid that is your own creation because you either feel that is the argument, or you are building a strawman.

In this thread and the previous version of it, more than one person has mentioned her motherly instincts and how they should have kicked in to make her want to nurture Jon, because that's what happens with women. As to posts with statements like this, I have particiapted in many, many Catelyn threads in my time on this board. Phrases such as "she should have learned to love him", "I would have loved him as my own in that situation", posts calling her an unnatural woman for not loving him, and many similar comments have been made in almost every single one of them. It's not anything new.

[LordStoneheart]

Clearly it went over my head. I shall now retire to my simple hovel where my tiny brain won't be subjected to such highbrow humor.

And no, I have yet to see one post where somebody said she should love him. I certainly never said it. I'm afraid that is your own creation because you either feel that is the argument, or you are building a strawman.

As Kittykatknits (lovely name btw :laugh: ) pointed out, there are many people who do argue that Cat should've been motherly to them. If you haven't seen them, just find any forum with the title Catelyn in it, I'm sure it turned into a debate about this same subject even if the post wasn't about that.

[the trees have eyes]

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.

No. I'm sorry but however you try and phrase it to show that Jon was part of the family and Cat was at fault for not accepting him, bearing this "grudge" or neglecting him, the simple fact is he is not part of the family unit. He is a bastard and he has no place being raised with his siblings and no place being raised with her children. He really has no place at Winterfell at all and it is Ned, because of his promise to Lyanna we can safely assume, who is acting unnaturally and is the sole person in Westeros to bring his bastard home and treat him like this. It is absurd to project the function of a step mother on to Catelyn in the context of Westerosi society. Jon is lucky he isn't mucking out the stables or made to do a servant's work and you think she should treat him as an equal to high nobility? It is quite understandable that she would ignore and avoid him. I have no idea why we are still debating this as a failing in Catelyn.

[The Wolves]

No. I'm sorry but however you try and phrase it to show that Jon was part of the family and Cat was at fault for not accepting him, bearing this "grudge" or neglecting him, the simple fact is he is not part of the family unit. He is a bastard and he has no place being raised with his siblings and no place being raised with her children. He really has no place at Winterfell at all and it is Ned, because of his promise to Lyanna we can safely assume, who is acting unnaturally and is the sole person in Westeros to bring his bastard home and treat him like this. It is absurd to project the function of a step mother on to Catelyn in the context of Westerosi society. Jon is lucky he isn't mucking out the stables or made to do a servant's work and you think she should treat him as an equal to high nobility? It is quite understandable that she would ignore and avoid him. I have no idea why we are still debating this as a failing in Catelyn.

Jon is part of the Starks' family and he does have a right to be at Winterfell, Catelyn is the only one who thinks he doesn't belong at Winterfell. Jon is still Ned's son and be bastard born or anything else Jon had a right to be in Winterfell to learn right along with his siblings and to eat and sleep there. Ned took care of his son there is nothing unnatural about him bringing HIS son into HIS home and providing care for him.

Catelyn decided that Jon did not belong and she was the only one who thought this so no just cause she deemed it doesn't mean she's right. And Catelyn did not just ignore and avoid him she directed undeserved hostility his way when by right it should be Ned who was at the receiving end.

[tallTale]

Jon is part of the Starks' family and he does have a right to be at Winterfell, Catelyn is the only one who thinks he doesn't belong at Winterfell. Jon is still Ned's son and be bastard born or anything else Jon had a right to be in Winterfell to learn right along with his siblings and to eat and sleep there. Ned took care of his son there is nothing unnatural about him bringing HIS son into HIS home and providing care for him.

Catelyn decided that Jon did not belong and she was the only one who thought this so no just cause she deemed it doesn't mean she's right. And Catelyn did not just ignore and avoid him she directed undeserved hostility his way when by right it should be Ned who was at the receiving end.

Very true.

It's one thing to believe Jon should be raised as an equal highborn, it's quite another to treat a person with such general disdain. No one deserves that. It's not like Jon had a choice or deserved it by his actions.

Is there any doubt that much of Jon's self doubt/loathing is because of way Cat regarded him?

I can't wait til UnCat/Cat finds out Jon's true lineage. We might even get an apology but I doubt it.

[Lady Lea]

Jon is part of the Starks' family and he does have a right to be at Winterfell, Catelyn is the only one who thinks he doesn't belong at Winterfell. Jon is still Ned's son and be bastard born or anything else Jon had a right to be in Winterfell to learn right along with his siblings and to eat and sleep there. Ned took care of his son there is nothing unnatural about him bringing HIS son into HIS home and providing care for him.

Catelyn decided that Jon did not belong and she was the only one who thought this so no just cause she deemed it doesn't mean she's right. And Catelyn did not just ignore and avoid him she directed undeserved hostility his way when by right it should be Ned who was at the receiving end.

He is NOT a part of the Stark family as has been pointed out multiple times in this thread. His name is SNOW. Even Jon himself knows he is not a Stark. There is no such thing as bastard rights in Westeros, he had no right to anything, let alone live in Winterfell and live as his trueborn sibling. That simply does not exist!!! You didn't see Ramsay go on to the Dreadfort saying "I have a RIGHT to live here and be treated as Domeric", nor that girl from the Reach saying "father you have no right to make me your servant because I am your daughter" or Mya and Edric marching over to the Red Keep saying "King Robert I have a RIGHT to be raised in here along with Joffrey, Myrcella and Tommen and Cersei should learn to accept us and treat us with love and kindness".

Catelyn did not decide Jon's fate, Westerosi society did. How Ned brought Jon up was completely atypical and if you can't understand that, I'm not sure how you even read these books tbh.

[Wanderer]

As Kittykatknits (lovely name btw :laugh: ) pointed out, there are many people who do argue that Cat should've been motherly to them. If you haven't seen them, just find any forum with the title Catelyn in it, I'm sure it turned into a debate about this same subject even if the post wasn't about that.

I've yet to see it but I will take your word for it. And I do agree completely that expecting Cat to love Jon is way too much. In the future, for the sake of civil discourse, I would suggest that unless someone actually takes that position that you don't lump them in with it. It gets very tiresome to deal with strawman arguments if intentional and prejudice if they are not.

[The Wolves]

He is NOT a part of the Stark family as has been pointed out multiple times in this thread. His name is SNOW. Even Jon himself knows he is not a Stark. There is no such thing as bastard rights in Westeros, he had no right to anything, let alone live in Winterfell and live as his trueborn sibling. That simply does not exist!!! You didn't see Ramsay go on to the Dreadfort saying "I have a RIGHT to live here and be treated as Domeric", nor that girl from the Reach saying "father you have no right to make me your servant because I am your daughter" or Mya and Edric marching over to the Red Keep saying "King Robert I have a RIGHT to be raised in here along with Joffrey, Myrcella and Tommen and Cersei should learn to accept us and treat us with love and kindness".

Catelyn did not decide Jon's fate, Westerosi society did. How Ned brought Jon up was completely atypical and if you can't understand that, I'm not sure how you even read these books tbh.

Unless being called son and brother or nephew does not deem you related or family than I don't know what does. Just because Jon did not have the Stark name does not mean he is not family to the Starks they do call him that. And yes Jon does have a right to be at Winterfell because Ned chose to give him that right. And there are other examples of bastards in Westeros being brought up by their father and along side their true born siblings

[Cinder Stark]

I took your comment as an exageration for effect.

In this thread and the previous version of it, more than one person has mentioned her motherly instincts and how they should have kicked in to make her want to nurture Jon, because that's what happens with women. As to posts with statements like this, I have particiapted in many, many Catelyn threads in my time on this board. Phrases such as "she should have learned to love him", "I would have loved him as my own in that situation", posts calling her an unnatural woman for not loving him, and many similar comments have been made in almost every single one of them. It's not anything new.

Ah no, some people ie, ME, feel that Cat as an adult should have taken her ish out on Ned the other adult who caused the whole situation and not a defenseless, blameless child Jon. Wrong is wrong, Cat doesn't get a pass on this, full stop. Like Jamie throwing Bran out a tower window, somethings can't be explained away no matter how "good" or "bad" a character. No one is talikg about "motherly" instinct, it's a matter of common decency, humanity in whatever century, fantasy novel or other.