Don't hate Cat

[Dolorous Nate]

I believe just about 100% of existing anti-Cat sentiment is due to her inability to act in a cold and calculating manner that readers of ASOIAF have begun to relish so much.

I must admit I was understanding of her actions based upon her POV, but that didnt make them anymore infuriating. I also believe she was a bit naive for most of her natural life, placing far too much trust in all of her cold and calculating ENEMIES and their precious supposed honor.

I think Cats warping into a savage instrument of R'hlor only serves to redeem her.

 

[IlliferThePenniless]

I think a great deal of Cat hatred stems from her poor treatment of Jon early in AGoT. When she tells him 'it should have been you,' that's a really brutal, needlessly cruel moment. Even if Jon's a living reminder of Ned's unfaithfulness, that's not Jon's fault... The Cat of that moment isn't so far removed from the Lady Stoneheart she'll become.

 

[the smiling weirwood]

I think people just automatically empathized with Jon and didn't consider Cat's own context.

 

[IlliferThePenniless]

That's because her context doesn't really make her any more sympathetic. Yes, Jon is a constant physical reminder of Ned's transgression, but that's not Jon's fault. If she has an issue, she should take it up with her husband. But instead she takes out her frustration on a young boy. At that point she's simply being a bully. It's understandable, but by no means commendable.

 

[Lofwyr]

That's because her context doesn't really make her any more sympathetic. Yes, Jon is a constant physical reminder of Ned's transgression, but that's not Jon's fault. If she has an issue, she should take it up with her husband. But instead she takes out her frustration on a young boy. At that point she's simply being a bully. It's understandable, but by no means commendable.

Spot on. I've hated Cat since that moment...though it has been compounded by many other elements too. But in that one moment she showed such a lack of character (regardless of what she's going through) it turned my stomach. Not to mention that by all accounts she has spent her entire life with the Starks being similarly petty towards Jon. She is too much the nobleborn airhead Sansa seems to be...only Sansa now has a chance to evolve.

I guess i just don't agree with almost anything Cat does...ever. Which makes me very much not like her. GAWD i can't wait 'til Stoneheart gets her comeuppance.

 

[Clansman]

I don't hate Cat. I don't particularly like her, right from that moment with Jon, but that's what makes her character interesting. If she didn't resent Jon, she'd wouldn't have all those flaws that make her real.

Thank goodness she is not a cardboard cutout.

 

[the smiling weirwood]

Eh, it's like no one here has ever met a distraught mother before.

 

[Koopa]

Posted in wrong thread sorry ....

I'l add that catelyn wasn't much of a mother to Jon.
She seemed to genuinely hate the lad. So it's a bit more then just distraught.

 

[TK-421]

I don't like Cat for some of her character traits but am now that I am rereading AGOT, she gives Robb some very sound advice.

 

[Lofwyr]

I think people just automatically empathized with Jon and didn't consider Cat's own context.

Eh, it's like no one here has ever met a distraught mother before.

ahh, ofc not. Because thinking of that would 100% absolve her of acting like an unrelentingly spoiled 12 year old...

/sarcasm

 

[the smiling weirwood]

Well yes. Most people's judgments of Cat seem to based on that one episode, and yet they don't really consider what just happened. Her little boy just fell and is for all intents and purposes dead (remember it's only through the three-eyed bird that Bran comes back). Then in comes this kid who is her husband's ******* and she's never liked him and yet her husband insists on including him in like everything, and she's grief-stricken and incredibly manic. Really, what did you expect? That she lavish love and attention on Jon because he's the archetypal "boy hero" that everyone seemed to latch onto so early?

 

[Lofwyr]

Well yes. Most people's judgments of Cat seem to based on that one episode, and yet they don't really consider what just happened. Her little boy just fell and is for all intents and purposes dead (remember it's only through the three-eyed bird that Bran comes back). Then in comes this kid who is her husband's ******* and she's never liked him and yet her husband insists on including him in like everything, and she's grief-stricken and incredibly manic. Really, what did you expect? That she lavish love and attention on Jon because he's the archetypal "boy hero" that everyone seemed to latch onto so early?

well...no. The full 180 would have been pretty silly too. I would have expected her to be somewhat more compassionate and empathetic. The kinds of things we expect of adults. Unstable emotions be damned, she lashes out in an attempt to make others as miserable as herself and doesn't really feel remorse about it later (at a time when she's not overwhelmed with grief). The actions of a teenager, not an adult. For all that she expects to be treated as an adult, not only expects it but somewhat demands it, she consistently acts as if she were still 12 and princess of all she beheld.

Maybe a re-read of the series will soften my view of Cat...but i doubt it. I do need to do a re-read though, probably jump in early next year.

 

[Boaz]

In the last couple of years (during my wait for ADWD), I've read the first two Malazan books, the first Sword of Truth book, the first two Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn books, the entire Harry Potter series, the first of the Mistwraith books, Fevre Dream, the first of the Hyperion/Endymion series, Elantris, and the first of the Wheel of Time series. I've also reread Burroughs, Tolkien, Howard and others. And I need to share something with you that I've discovered... I love to read about characters that I hate... and I hate Catelyn.

I love to hate Catelyn.

When a book does not offer up an atagonist that really makes my skin crawl or stirs up righteous indignation in my heart, then that book is quickly discarded and forgotten. Who were the villains in Elantris? I just read it a month ago, yet I don't have a clue. Who were the antagonists in The Eye of the World? I don't remember the supposed antagonists, but Rand and company definitely irritated me.

I have two words for why I enjoyed Harry Potter... Severus Snape. Snape was petty. Snape was jealous. Snape was mean spirited. And yet he somehow stayed in Dumbledore's good graces. Snape was insidious. Snape was a traitor. Snape was brilliant... twisted, but brilliant. In the Wizarding World, there were three unforgivable curses... the curse to usurp a person's free will, the curse to inflict physical pain, and the killing curse. As a teenager, Snape invented a curse to cut open a living body. If the Ministry had known about Snape's curse, Sectumsempra, they'd have added it to their list. Snape was enigmatic.

GRRM has characters that I love to hate. I hate Catelyn because she does what I would probably do in her situation... and it often turns out to hurt her loved ones.

She's selfish, though she thinks she's selfless. Her problem is that she's given almost impossible choices. Everyone needs her... from a dying father, foolish brother, imprisoned husband, kidnapped daughters, crippled son, and infant son to her eldest son who's decisions will affect all of their very lives. My heart screams out for her to stay with her youngest children in Winterfell.... ah, Catelyn you deserted them.

I also love to hate Cersei and I think the reasons are obvious. She's literally a Queen &*#$@.

Included in this list are Tywin, Roose, Oberyn, Euron, Asha, Balon, Lysa (Catelyn's sister, no less), the Hound, and Littlefinger.

Jaime used to be number two on this list, yet somehow he's number one on my favorites list.... hmmmmm. You can see how the final Catelyn chapter in ACOK, where Catelyn interrogates Jaime in the Riverrun dungeons, is mayhaps my favorite chapter in the series. The two characters I reviled the most met for a heart to heart and to strike a deal... I thought it was brilliant storytelling.

 

[C Of K]

My dislike for Cat began when she convinced Ned that there was no other choice at all but for him to go to King's Landing, and become Hand of the King. What a foolish notion, and yet, so many great moments would be lost without it.

 

[IlliferThePenniless]

Geez Boaz-

did you finish any of those series (HP aside)?

 

[Boaz]

Uh... no. You must have missed my point. You see... well, the point was... err, what I was saying was that.... What was I saying?

The point is that tiggers tend to bounce around... a lot.

 

[IlliferThePenniless]

I don't think I missed your point (wherever it ended up being), I was just intrigued by your aside... There is something to what you say though, there are some great villains... On my last reread in SoS, after the red wedding I was just blown away at how much awful stuff has happened to the characters I liked. But then you reach that stretch where Joff, Gregor, Twyin, and a bunch of the folks who've tormented Arya all bite it in quick succession... Even knowing what was coming I was totally thrilled to be seeing all that again.

I'm just starting to Mazalan now, I'm intrigued/apprehensive at how dense they allegedly are... I'll admit I don't love the idea of getting to some of those later ones and slogging my way through some 1,200 page monstrosity... we'll see. Good on you for quitting the Sword of Truth though... I made it seven or eight of them (however many were out circa 2002) and hated them all... I'm not really sure why I kept going, but I did. That s**t was terrible.

 

[Hilarious Joke]

Another great post Boaz, I wish I could relate to it more.

But I didn't find Catelyn to be a Jaime, or a Kennit, or a Rorschach, or a Raistlin, or a Boromir, or a Thomas Covenant. I could understand to an extent all those characters, who at some point, made breathtaking decisions that redeemed them somewhat for their wrongs they all committed. Catelyn I didn't sympathise with, I felt she continually made bad moves, and she just ticked me off.

On another note, I'm currently reading Memories of Ice, which is the 3rd book in the Malazan series, and I am very much enjoying it. I also really enjoyed Deadhouse Gates. I did however find Gardens of the Moon difficult to follow (although pretty good) and part of me now knowing much more about the characters and the world and the magic system wants to reread it.

That's my three cents. Change please?

 

[Lofwyr]

Another great post Boaz, I wish I could relate to it more.

But I didn't find Catelyn to be a Jaime, or a Kennit, or a Rorschach, or a Raistlin, or a Boromir, or a Thomas Covenant. I could understand to an extent all those characters, who at some point, made breathtaking decisions that redeemed them somewhat for their wrongs they all committed. Catelyn I didn't sympathise with, I felt she continually made bad moves, and she just ticked me off.

On another note, I'm currently reading Memories of Ice, which is the 3rd book in the Malazan series, and I am very much enjoying it. I also really enjoyed Deadhouse Gates. I did however find Gardens of the Moon difficult to follow (although pretty good) and part of me now knowing much more about the characters and the world and the magic system wants to reread it.

That's my three cents. Change please?

I too often love characters i can hate. Many of those you mentioned Boaz are some of my favorite characters in their respective series. I even enjoy Cersei right now, just because she's so inept at being bad and I'm salivating at the thought of her eventual death. I just kind of want Cat to go away...

on Malazan: I finished Memories of Ice maybe 2 weeks ago, quite good. Very dense, as you mention though. Gardens of the Moon is a book i'm sure will be loads better on a re-read, it really comes off as a book 2 or 3 in a series than the first book. The whole Malazan series has a very Glen Cook/Black Company feel to it.

I'm going to read book 12 in WoT sometime in the near future. I know...I know. Who knows why i made it through the first 11...but in my defense i hadn't read any really good fantasy until i was already done with the first 11 WoT books. So they were still around the top of the pile when it came to quality fantasy.

 

[Boaz]

Storm of Swords Spoiler Alert

Another great post Boaz, I wish I could relate to it more.

You mocked me once, never do it again!

Has anyone read Pride and Predjudice and Zombies? Me neither, but just when I thought I was done hating Catelyn, she returned as super zombie #$%&. I thought that was brilliant story telling.

Also, I did not mean to completely dismiss the listed works above. There was some good story telling and there were some good characters. There were some great premises. There was some great promise (unfulfilled mostly, in my opinion), but none of them hit me where I am now. If I was thirteen, I doubt ASOIAF would appeal to me nearly as much as the latest Warhammer straight to paperback serial.

I think there are higher and lower quality works... but again this is art. And thus, as they say, beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

That's my three cents. Change please?

You work hard to live up to your name... and you succeed.