Game of Thrones season has begun and that means all of the teasers, starting with the Stark family in the Crypts of Winterfell. Sansa is looking regal af, Arya is her usual badass self, and Jon … his bun is well oiled. However, as the voiceovers play, as the “Stark” children pass by their parental statues, the voice of Catelyn Stark whispers this nonsense: “All the horror that has come to my family, all because I could not love a motherless child.”
Girl what?
I have already spoken my piece about how I feel Catelyn Stark (née Tully) didn’t properly get her due in the show, and I do understand why people dislike her as a character. I’m not going to fight over that anymore, because at the end of the day, there is nothing wrong with Catelyn being a character people argue over. She is, overall, a good person with a massive flaw (for some) and a POV that is not always the most fulfilling to read.
But this line, an addition done the TV show writers, sums up all the bullshit I hate about the show at times and what makes it such a frustrating adaptation as a book fan. It so grossly oversimplifies the complexities of character to just add some unneeded drama between Jon and Cat. Cat did not love Jon, did not like Jon, and did not want Jon around her or her kids for fear he would one day usurp their place as the heirs of Winterfell, and considering Jon has kind of done that right now and can do so because he was raised by Ned and with Ned’s trueborn children, her fears came from a genuine place.
Disagree with it if you like, but that is the place her logic is coming from.
Regardless, Cat did not die with sorrow in her heart because she didn’t love Jon Snow, nor do I think she agonized over him or prayed for him, and why should she be expected to?
The ultimate kicker is that I could kind of understand them bringing that up if Jon were walking by that statue, but it’s Sansa and then Arya. Why should the line they hear from her mother be something about Jon Snow? The only thing I can imagine is that it foreshadows conflict between Arya and Sansa with Jon over him being their cousin and not half-brother, but again, why does that need to be Cat’s legacy for this show?
Even with the issue that Cat had in the show, she did her best to be sensible, but much like Ned ended up dying because she trusted the old ways and that nobility would win out in the end. Cat didn’t know that Littlefinger had such a mighty thirst that he was willing to cause a civil war to win her, because no one should even think that someone who had a crush on them decades ago is that desperate. Robb should have never married a random noble because they had sex, throwing away his allegiance with Walder Frey. Nedd should have just told his wife, who’s family words are Family, Duty, Honor, the truth of Jon’ ancestry to ensure the boy had a mother-figure who could take care of him.
Cat has her own mistakes to own up to, but the need to treat her mistakes as more important than the ones of the men around her exhausts me.
The horrors that have befallen the Stark family are because of Littlefinger being gross, the Lannisters being amoral, and the fact that no one could have imagined someone as awful as Joffery Baratheon being King of Westeros.
I am looking forward to the Charles Dance/Tywin voiceover for the Lannister kiddies.
(image: HBO)
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