#cat stark

[befooremoonrisee]

the way in which jon and robb's futures are foreshadowed by the mother of the other: robb dying too young and becoming a ghost that haunts their siblings, a reminder of innocence and happier days, and jon dying and being brought back to life, a shadow of what he once was, a dark mirror to himself

[tell-them-the-north-remembers]

If there is one line I like to over-analyze in the ASoIAF books it is a rather famous thought that goes inside Cat's head before her death. As the steel is close to her throat Cat thinks "No, don’t, don’t cut my hair, Ned loves my hair." And this line and her entire inner monologue is absolutely heart-breaking but one thing I fixate on is the actual sentence itself.

"Ned loves my hair."

Anyone who has read the books knows that Cat holds contempt for the fact that except for Arya, she has failed to give Ned children who look like him. It is also one of the reasons she dislikes Jon so much, because the mother of Jon (who she assumes to be Ned's bastard son) has managed to give Ned a child that looks just like him while she, his lawfully wedded wife gave birth to five of his children only for four of them to come out looking exactly like her. Red hair, blue eyes. Unlike Jon (and Arya) who share Ned's dark hair and dark eyes.

And knowing that it is so interesting to me that Cat's last thought about Ned (and her last thought ever) was that Ned loves her hair.

Because Ned loved her, he loved her hair, he loved her the way she was. And every time he looked at Robb, Sansa, Bran and Rickon he saw the reflection of the woman he loved, while Cat was so upset that they weren't all reflections of the man she loved.

Every time Ned ran his fingers through their hair, he ran his fingers through the hair of the woman he loved. He never resented Cat for the fact that four of his children didn't look like him, he loved that they looked like their mother, again, the woman he loved so much. He loved that they had the same hair he loved on Cat, and judging by it being her last thought Cat also knew that Ned loved her hair (and the way she looked), whether she ever came to the realization that Ned was perfectly happy with the way their children looked at all, or if she realized after he was dead and it was too late, it is unclear. But all those years she beat herself up over nothing.

Ned loved her the way she was, Ned loved his children the way they were, when they looked like him and when they didn't. Because when they didn't look like him, they looked like the love of his life, his darling wife.

And if the books decide to go with R+L=J it also adds another layer to Cat and Ned's relationship. Because Jon's mother was always a woman she didn't know but was still competing with in her mind for Ned's love for all these years. Turns out she didn't even exist. Turns out she didn't need to feel inferior to the woman Ned loved enough to not even talk about with her, no need to feel bad about the fact that she was able to give Ned a child that looked like him while Cat "failed".

At the end of the day, all the voices in her head making her feel insecure in her marriage never needed to be there, because everything she thought of as a problem with her were not problems at all for Ned. He was perfectly happy with her and their children.

[yeniayofnymeria]

Jon Snow and Catelyn Stark: Psychological Abuse? ( + (English and German subtitles are available.)

It's a topic that's been debated for years. Jon and Cat's relationship is, at best, coldness, and at worst, psychologically abusive. I don't know which claim you think is justified, but from a psychologist's perspective, there's a level of abuse.

One of my friends is a psychologist; a fan of Asoiaf, and she analyzed Jon and Cat's relationship in the first book for me through her own lens and offered her own interpretations. I'm merely a conduit for her thoughts.

Of course, the important part for me about this relationship is that it becomes a Chekhov gun in the later books, but that will be the subject of a separate video.

Please listen and share your thoughts.

[mothers-mercy]

She knelt before the Mother. “My lady, look down on this battle with a mother’s eyes. They are all sons, every one. Spare them if you can, and spare my own sons as well. Watch over Robb and Bran and Rickon. Would that I were with them.”

Catelyn IV, ACOK

[estrangedandwayward]

Nedcat wip

[thehauntingofharrenhouse]

LIKE both alicent and jace could have said what they said more thoughtfully and effectively. undermining rhaenyra's authority in front of the Smallest Council that Ever Lived is going to contribute to problems down the road more than jace or rhaenyra even realize!!! but they were not wrong, and that's the point. the point is it's healthier for everyone when the parent is the one with authority and the child can be the one questioning it. you see this reflected with cat and robb, when everything starts to go wrong as soon as he's elevated above her. and again with joffrey and cersei, although it's not like he really listened to her that much in the first place lol.

[bruceawaynefrfr]

When I'm in a "interpret a character horribly" competition but my opponent is a Catelyn Stark hater

[sansaissteel]

If he doesn't mourn me as hard as cat did Ned I don't want him.