they took the little ones 💔

Catelyn Stark

In a universe full of men who are rapists, murderers, and sadists, the ASOIAF fandom treats Catelyn — a woman who wishes to protect her children and sometimes makes poor decisions when they’re in danger — as if she is the root of all evil. She is blamed for all of the bad decisions of the male characters around her, even if she disagrees with those decisions.

First I feel that people are really unfair to her about the Jon situation. People judge her through a modern lens. She couldn’t just not blame Jon divorce her husband and ride off into the sunset. Her choosing not to love Jon is the only agency she had. I say this as someone who LOVES Jon, the fact that Jon was motherless wasn’t her problem. Ned created the situation it was his job to make sure both Jon and Cat felt at home within Winterfell.

Cat’s arc explores motherhood in an interesting way. She has to balance loving Robb with Robb not saving Sansa…and the rest of his mistakes. She left Winterfell and Theon sacked it, she believes her younger children are dead. She freed Jamie to get her girls back. She also is only a mother to her children she didn’t fall into the warm everyone’s mother trope. She has such a grounded arc and I truly hate it when people compare her to Rhaenys from House of the Dragon. No woman would want her husband’s bastards inheriting over her granddaughters.

She's mean to Jon so she's a monster without empathy and a bad mother to all her kids; instead of a nuanced woman who lives in a patriarchal society and lashes out against her bastard husband's child because he is the only acceptable target in the situation. I am not saying that it was fair for Jon who was innocent, but, even if I understand why Ned lied about it, it was fucked up from Catelyn's husband in a feudal society to except Catelyn to raise a boy she believed to be the prove of his unfaithfulness without having complex feelings (that sometimes became imperfect actions) about it. Got made her a secondary character in Robb's story when actually in asoiaf she's the only pov through which we know Robb at all.

Despite being in many ways the embodiement of a typical high-born perfect feudal lady, Cat is way less passive than the average reader except her to be. She is highly competent, was raised as the firstborn and presumptive heir by her father until her much younger brother was born, so she received a political education that for example Cersei didn't, and this allow her to manage Winterfell for long period of time when Ned isn't here or being her son Robb most important advisor. Despite teaching Robb how to be cautious for the realm's sake, she is very bold and isn't scared to go against each member of House Lannister and personally challenge them. She is also a fairly typical gender-comforming high born lady, raised in a feudal society so she has some ideas and conceptions of the world that are not 100% aligned with a contemporary feminist woman, but through her story she learns to not let prejuduce blinds her- for example, we know she was critical of Arya's gender-not-comforming (which mother wouldn't be in asoiaf, being indoctrinate into femininity since she was a child and comvinced that her daughters woukd need to comform too in order to thrive?) but she learns to feel admiration and full respect for Brienne who is a woman who callenges gender norms in a similaw ways to Arya. Even while comforming mostly to how a lady should acts and speaks, Catelyn has often challenged the male characters ideas that women are meeks or politically incompetent or even more naturally forgiving, by being a full blown political player able to use tacticians but often motivated by rage and a desire for revenge. (Lady Stoneheart!) She is often accused of loving Bran more than her others children, and it is true that he is maybe her favourite because she thinks of him more often and more fondly, but every time she had to choose between Bran and another child of hers she picked the choice that made more sense for the survival of her family as a whole, or the North: like when she chose to follow Robb in battle to help him win and temporarily left Bran and Rickon at Winterfell, or when she choose to free the Kingslayer Jaime despite his admission of being responsable of Bran's fall, in exchange of the hope of having Arya and Sansa back. Her arc is the prove that exploring a female character's feeling around motherhood and her various relationship to multiple children can be genuinely interesting, but also that an adult female character who is a mother and a wife and a widow can perfectly be not ONLY that, but also and especially her own complex person. Go Cat!

Cat makes pretty much the same amount of bad decisions as every man in the series, has realistic flaws and understandable motivations behind this flaws, yet I’m constantly seeing people call her stupid, grating, and annoying for making wrong, emotionally driven moves while everyone she ever loved is torn from her. Criticism of her treatment of Jon is valid, but plenty other characters who’ve done worse get off with way less hate

Cat is a very nuanced take on the mother archetype, and a good view into how Westerosi society informs the views of its characters, especially its women. She’s also kind of an impetuous badass. Just because she isn’t as messy as Cersei she’s still cool. You also got to love a character who comes back as a hate zombie

Carol Sturka