![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Hearts of paper, hearts of stone
Oct. 30th, 2014 10:42 amDay Sixteen: Favorite mother character
Catelyn Stark (A Song of Ice and Fire/Game of Thrones)
Sorry to have dropped this meme for a few days. It's just been very hectic recently and I didn't have the time to give blogging my full attention until today.
My Catelyn Stark is a weird amalgam of book!Catelyn, show!Catelyn and idealised-character-I-have-created-in-my-head!Catelyn, so please bear that in mind. She's one of my favourite fictional characters ever, for several reasons.
I think we've established over the past few entries of this meme that I have several qualities that I adore in fictional characters: characters who make compromises, practice diplomacy, and try to give people what they want if it means their survival and the survival of those they love, characters who are fiercely self-sacrificing in the face of threats to their loved ones, characters whose pragmatism is often ignored by others but later shown in the narrative to have been the correct approach.
In other words, Catelyn Stark. She is much more savvy than her detractors - within the text and among the fandom - normally give her credit for. She has a caution and a better ability to read people than most of the men around her - certainly her husband, and her son Robb - so she often comes across as fairly Cassandra-like, dispensing advice that is ignored, offering warnings that should have been heeded, and more willing to make way for allies' or enemies' demands if it means she and hers live to fight another day. All this caution and flexibility is because she is motivated by a single desire: to ensure her children's survival. I've always got the impression that Catelyn would have preferred to stay out of the way in the North, secure in Winterfell and taking no part in the political machinations of Westeros. But once her husband and children pulled her beyond Winterfell's walls, she made the best of a bad situation, and threw everything into first her husband's and then her son's cause.
Catelyn's detractors always hold her treatment of Jon Snow against her, so I will end this post by addressing that. I'm of the belief that Catelyn's attitude towards Jon - who is, at least in her mind, her husband's illegitimate son, and the same age as Ned's first legitimate son with her - is shaped less by his existence and presence in her home and more by Ned's continued refusal to let Catelyn in on the circumstances of his birth and conception. It's the secrecy, rather than the unfaithfulness, that causes her to feel the way she does, and even though some of the things she says and does to Jon are completely inexcusable, this does at least make sense of her actions and feelings.
( The other days )
Catelyn Stark (A Song of Ice and Fire/Game of Thrones)
Sorry to have dropped this meme for a few days. It's just been very hectic recently and I didn't have the time to give blogging my full attention until today.
My Catelyn Stark is a weird amalgam of book!Catelyn, show!Catelyn and idealised-character-I-have-created-in-my-head!Catelyn, so please bear that in mind. She's one of my favourite fictional characters ever, for several reasons.
I think we've established over the past few entries of this meme that I have several qualities that I adore in fictional characters: characters who make compromises, practice diplomacy, and try to give people what they want if it means their survival and the survival of those they love, characters who are fiercely self-sacrificing in the face of threats to their loved ones, characters whose pragmatism is often ignored by others but later shown in the narrative to have been the correct approach.
In other words, Catelyn Stark. She is much more savvy than her detractors - within the text and among the fandom - normally give her credit for. She has a caution and a better ability to read people than most of the men around her - certainly her husband, and her son Robb - so she often comes across as fairly Cassandra-like, dispensing advice that is ignored, offering warnings that should have been heeded, and more willing to make way for allies' or enemies' demands if it means she and hers live to fight another day. All this caution and flexibility is because she is motivated by a single desire: to ensure her children's survival. I've always got the impression that Catelyn would have preferred to stay out of the way in the North, secure in Winterfell and taking no part in the political machinations of Westeros. But once her husband and children pulled her beyond Winterfell's walls, she made the best of a bad situation, and threw everything into first her husband's and then her son's cause.
Catelyn's detractors always hold her treatment of Jon Snow against her, so I will end this post by addressing that. I'm of the belief that Catelyn's attitude towards Jon - who is, at least in her mind, her husband's illegitimate son, and the same age as Ned's first legitimate son with her - is shaped less by his existence and presence in her home and more by Ned's continued refusal to let Catelyn in on the circumstances of his birth and conception. It's the secrecy, rather than the unfaithfulness, that causes her to feel the way she does, and even though some of the things she says and does to Jon are completely inexcusable, this does at least make sense of her actions and feelings.
( The other days )
