A different discussion about Catelyn

[Ludd]

Seaf

For various reasons the option of sending Jon away was not available. Firstly unlike many bastards he had no mother so no where else to live. There seems to be a bit of a Northern thing about bastards and acknowledging them also.

Jon could Not go to court because he was a bastard. Why were neither Robb NOR Jon sent off to page and squire elsewhere? Brandon and Ned had been sent away while young. Admittedly they were still young but it is perhaps a weakness in the story that Ned had not sent both boys away - Perhaps still together.

[Dire-Lion]

There are some disturbing aspects to her motherhood - Arya is mishandled, Rickon is neglected, Sansa allowed to grow up vain and silly. She was not a bad mother but I am not so sure she was especially good either.

You're points on Arya are accurate, although I don't know how someone could "handle" someone as stubborn as Arya in this world. However, Sansa was raised to be the perfect lady in her world and she was, you can't blame Cat for the sexism in her universe. Rickon isn't neglected, he is three, you simply can't teach him to not be wild all the time at that age, and Catelyn never left him without enough people to take care of/ and raise him.

[Minsc]

Jon could Not go to court because he was a bastard.

So bastards can become members of the small council yet cannot come to court? Oh wait, Ned was just being a little bitch who was attempting to pass the responsibility for Jon over onto Catelyn when he could easily bring him to court if he wished.

What I find odd is that Catelyn is to all intents and purposes the "Cruel" Stepmother who like Cinderella's step mother and Mrs Reed in Jane Eyre, blatantly favours her own kids at the expense of those whom she is obliged to protect.

Catelyn isn't a stepmother nor is she obligated to protect Jon at all.

There are some disturbing aspects to her motherhood - Arya is mishandled, Rickon is neglected, Sansa allowed to grow up vain and silly. She was not a bad mother but I am not so sure she was especially good either.

Arya's main problem seems that her father allows her to get away with everything, she really only neglects Rickon during a time of extreme grief and when she is needed elsewhere, Sansa is no more vain and silly then her siblings additionally Ned seems more responsible for her naive nature as demonstrated by his distress when she visits court when he was acting as the hand.

[SeanF]

Seaf

For various reasons the option of sending Jon away was not available. Firstly unlike many bastards he had no mother so no where else to live. There seems to be a bit of a Northern thing about bastards and acknowledging them also.

Jon could Not go to court because he was a bastard. Why were neither Robb NOR Jon sent off to page and squire elsewhere? Brandon and Ned had been sent away while young. Admittedly they were still young but it is perhaps a weakness in the story that Ned had not sent both boys away - Perhaps still together.

There's nothing to stop the acknowledged bastard son of a Lord Paramount and Hand going to Court. After all, Prince Doran can nominate his brother's natural daughter to sit on the Small Council.

Most Northern lords would be happy to take Jon as a squire.

[Toxspecific]

I'm just starting to realize how debatable Ned's handling of the Jon situation was. Wow.

[Fish Swim]

You're points on Arya are accurate, although I don't know how someone could "handle" someone as stubborn as Arya in this world. However, Sansa was raised to be the perfect lady in her world and she was, you can't blame Cat for the sexism in her universe. Rickon isn't neglected, he is three, you simply can't teach him to not be wild all the time at that age, and Catelyn never left him without enough people to take care of/ and raise him.

I agree. She did neglect Rickon when she was at Bran's bedside, even Robb notices that, but AFAIK that was the one and only time. (I completely understand why she doesn't take a rumbustious three-year-old with her when she's trying to get to to KL covertly, so I don't consider leaving him behind "neglect".) As for Sansa, not only is she raised to be the perfect lady, at the time of AGoT she's thirteen eleven years old. IMO "vain and silly" is a good description of many thirteeneleven-year-old girls even in this day and age. :P

Why were neither Robb NOR Jon sent off to page and squire elsewhere? Brandon and Ned had been sent away while young. Admittedly they were still young but it is perhaps a weakness in the story that Ned had not sent both boys away - Perhaps still together.

I agree, it is a bit strange that Robb in particular wasn't sent off to foster with or at least to squire for someone. I wonder why that was.

Edited because I can't count.

[Minsc]

I agree, it is a bit strange that Robb in particular wasn't sent off to foster with or at least to squire for someone. I wonder why that was.

Jon Snow

Simply, Ned couldn't send Catelyn's eldest babe and his heir away from Winterfell and keep Jon there without causing conflict and his promise to Lyanna meant he was determined to keep Jon with him at Winterfell.

[SeanF]

I'm just starting to realize how debatable Ned's handling of the Jon situation was. Wow.

I sympathise with Ned, too. If Jon is who we think he is, I could see why Ned wouldn't want to let him out of his sight. At the same time, had he told Catelyn the full story, he'd have endangered both her and Jon.

[Fish Swim]

Jon Snow

Simply, Ned could send Catelyn's eldest babe and his heir away from Winterfell and keep Jon there without causing conflict and his promise to Lyanna meant he was determined to keep Jon with him at Winterfell.

Good point. I actually didn't think of that; I haven't had enough morning tea yet. :)

[Toxspecific]

I never doubt The Ned's intentions and that he loved Jon but I just have to ask myself questions like why didn't he send Jon to squire for some Northern lord (Catelyn would not be pissed at this so don't say that), why did he let Jon go to the Wall without filling him in on what sort of life it was there when he could've married him to some Northern girl. Etc etc.

[Pikachu101]

What I find odd is that Catelyn is to all intents and purposes the "Cruel" Stepmother who like Cinderella's step mother and Mrs Reed in Jane Eyre, blatantly favours her own kids at the expense of those whom she is obliged to protect.

Wrong, Cat had no obligation whatsoever to Jon nor was she obliged to show him anything more than civil decency. He wasn't her responsibility, just like Jeyne Poole wasn't Ned's.

There are some disturbing aspects to her motherhood - Arya is mishandled, Rickon is neglected, Sansa allowed to grow up vain and silly. She was not a bad mother but I am not so sure she was especially good either.

I agree with Arya, but that's on both Ned and Cat; so that's not a criticism for Cat as an individual. They completely turned a blind eye to Septa Mordane's blatant favouritism for Sansa, her inability to actually try to help Arya and the constant blows she does to the kid's self esteem.

Rickon wasn't neglected. The last time I heard this argument was when the poster was insisting Ned was just as bad as Rhaegar when it came to parenting <_< . First of all Rickon had an army of servants. Second of all it was normal for noble parents to leave home for various reasons e.g. Robert's parents. Thirdly it was between him and Robb; Cat made the right choice.

As for Sansa all I saw was an 11 year old girl whose the perfect lady; Cat did her duty there and she did a very good job considering Sansa's ability to survive in KL. As for her naivety, that one's on Ned; he gave the pack speech to the wrong daughter, he didn't explain why she couldn't marry Joffrey and he let her live in dream world because he didn't want to hurt her with the truth.

[Stannis ftw]

Cat's treatment of Jon is on her.

Newstar, why are you using common criteria and reasoning to evaluate Immaculate Conception? There can be no blemish in Immaculate Conception. If you have issues, blame it on Ned.

Good that this logical conclusion for this train of though came to fore, though:

Just, no. What she arguably should have done was smother Jon Snow in his crib.

[TheReal_Rebel]

Am also grateful for this thread.

In other threads its as if Catelyn exists merely to serve as a " villian" in the Jaime/Brienne story. But

IMHO, there's no point for GRRM to bring back Cat as LS if she doesn't eventually have interaction with one or more of her surviving children, brother, or Uncle.

She is more than a mere agent of vengance and

still seeks for Sansa.

Am I the only one who believes she's entitled to some vengance?

.

[Dany Girl]

SSM Quote:

[bold mine]

GRRM is stating that little passive-aggressive nastiness like seating on the high table for the king's visit was a typical Cat stunt and an example of one of the ways in which she would sharply draw the line.

And look at that "but." He starts off by saying that "mistreatment" is a loaded word, because Cat was not physically abusing him, verbally abusing him or attacking him. The "but" there suggests that he does consider her "drawing the line sharply" with stunts like the high table bit to be mistreatment, or at least not on.

Again, you're being really weirdly misleading. You were one who characterized Jon and Cat's behaviour towards each other as "mutual avoidance," which is misleading and minimizing, since it suggests a mutual, neutral decision to go one's separate ways, as opposed to one person mistreating the other and the other avoiding them as a result. Big, big difference there. And there might not be an imperative on Cat to "not avoid" Jon, but GRRM indicates that she was doing things other than distancing herself from him (passive-aggressive stunts, making it clear to Jon that he'll never be a Stark, etc. etc.).

But if you had to do it because society required you to obey your husband, surely you'd take it out on the husband and not on the kid, no?

Be that as it may, however Ned wronged Catelyn does not justify or excuse her treatment in the slightest, since it would be equally unacceptable if Jon were Ashara's bastard as she believed.

Because Cat shows herself capable of swallowing her distaste for Mya being a bastard and treating her with kindness and sympathy, even though Jon should have had an equal claim on her sympathy.

So what? That doesn't excuse Cat in the slightest, so it's rather irrelevant as a "defense" of her actions.

Jon thinks in AGOT that he never felt like he belonged with the Starks, and that Cat "made sure of that." The SSM I quoted also points to this type of behaviour occurring with some frequency.

I dunno about any decent mother, but any decent human being would be horrified at the idea of sending a boy off to a life--a life--of danger amid extremely harsh conditions, with no family of his own. But Cat is over the moon, because it means she'll be rid of him. I also think any decent human being would think twice before shipping someone away from the only home he's ever known because she can't stand the sight of him, but that's just me.

It's hard to know how much of it is genuine concern for her children's inheritance and how much of it is dislike for Jon Snow, honestly. The latter seemed to predominate, since she would have been happy to ship Jon off to King's Landing as well. Leaping at the opportunity to have Jon at the Wall because it solves a personal problem of hers about a remote threat which may never ever come to fruition as far as she's aware, even though others are frank about the kind of life it is, is callous. It's like being happy that your neighbour's being shipped off to a prison camp in Siberia because you were worried their smoking would lead your kids to develop cancer (and even that analogy isn't accurate, because Jon isn't doing anything personally to pose a threat to Cat's children).

you seem to use a lot of real world morality in your assessment of Cat's situation instead of judging her by the morality of the world she lives in. Most noble women would not have shown half tge kindness Cat shows Jon by allowing him to stay in WF. Almost any other noble woman would have treated him with much more cruelty than Cat. I cannot imagine Cersei, Lysa, Seyleese, Lady Tyrell, Lady Tarly, Cat's mother or any other woman standing for their husband's bastard being raised directly with her true born children, allowing them to spend their whole lives in her castle, sit at her table the majority of the time. Cersei has Robert's bastards killed for goodness sake! It's incredibly uncommon for a bastard to be raised with the true born children, especially so closely. Arya thinks of him in the same terms as her full blooded brothers, as do Robb and Bran. Sansa is the only one who sees him as a bastard, most likely because of her need to be a proper lady.

And the "it should have been you" comment always struck me as a cruel thing she says in a moment of extreme emotional distress. Her child, her second youngest baby, is laying broken in bed, with very little chance of survival. I don't think her wishing that it was someone else, especially someone that's mere existence has caused her pain for years, is that "evil". Is it wrong? Of course! But, extreme emotional distress will cause a lot of people to say things they normally wouldn't. We like to think we're so morally superior to these characters, but the fact is that our world and theirs are vastly different. You cannot judge people based on our moral code, just as you can't judge people that lived 200 years ago by our moral codes. People must be judged by the morality of their own world. Cat would not be considered cruel by others in her world. Ned never once thinks of her treatment of Jon as cruel as far as I can remember.

[David Selig]

Some thoughts on Catelyn and religion:

I noticed on rereads that Catelyn is the the PoV through which we learn the most about the Westeros. Her first chapter starts with somewhat of an infodump on the topic, which emphasizes the differences between the Faith (an organised religions with priests, rituals, gatherings of the faithful, etc) and the Old Gods (a religion without any formal organisation). Must've been weird for Catelyn to be the only one in the Winterfell sept after being used to people gathering there at Riverrun. Of all the main characters who are raised to be followers of the Faith, she is the most devout by far. Yet she also accept that the Old Gods exists and have significant power, even before the direwolves showed their unusual abilities.

It's interesting that while both Cat and Ned are strong believers in their respective gods, they seem to have reached a compromise in regards to the raising of their kids and some of them at least were raised in both faiths. Sansa for sure, and there are strong hints that Arya and Bran too.

[SeanF]

you seem to use a lot of real world morality in your assessment of Cat's situation instead of judging her by the morality of the world she lives in. Most noble women would not have shown half tge kindness Cat shows Jon by allowing him to stay in WF. Almost any other noble woman would have treated him with much more cruelty than Cat.

If we do judge Catelyn by modern standards, most modern wives would just walk out on a husband who brought home an illegitimate child, and expected them to bring it up as their own.

Catelyn didn't have that option.

[Dany Girl]

If we do judge Catelyn by modern standards, most modern wives would just walk out on a husband who brought home an illegitimate child, and expected them to bring it up as their own.

Catelyn didn't have that option.

she could have returned to Riverrun, she just would have had to leave Robb behind. Doran's wife left him when he sent Quynten off to be fostered (so the story goes) therefore women can leave their husbands, they just forfeit their children as the children are heirs.

And also this is another argument in why judgment by real world standards is not appropriate. Westeros is a different world with different moral standards.

[Toxspecific]

she could have returned to Riverrun, she just would have had to leave Robb behind. Doran's wife left him when he sent Quynten off to be fostered (so the story goes) therefore women can leave their husbands, they just forfeit their children as the children are heirs.

And also this is another argument in why judgment by real world standards is not appropriate. Westeros is a different world with different moral standards.

True that about Westeros having a different moral standard than IRL. However I'm not sure Cat could leave. Not many Westerosi women in the series have left like this when politically married like she was, plus Dorne is different when it comes to freedom of women.

[Dany Girl]

True that about Westeros having a different moral standard than IRL. However I'm not sure Cat could leave. Not many Westerosi women in the series have left like this when politically married like she was, plus Dorne is different when it comes to freedom of women.

I'm not implying it would be easy, in fact I doubt it was much of an option at all since I highly doubt Hoster would let her stay. He'd send her right back to Ned. So would Jon Arryn if she ran to Lysa. She's pretty much stuck. But if her father would accept her back it's a possibility she could leave. Again, it's a perfect example if why modern standards do not apply in Westeros.

[Toxspecific]

Yeah. Now let's get back to discussing the possibility of her being a psychopathic evil woman (I haven't seen the reasoning behind this argument yet) lol.