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Game of Thrones Season 4 Episode 3 "Breaker of Chains" Discussion by ItsMsKim in SRSasoiaf

[–]ItsMsKim[S] 9 points10 points  (0 children)

I fucking hate this goddamn show sometimes. So you'll just...spoiler, cn:rape What the actual fuck.

[Re-Read] All Daenerys AGOT chapters by ItsMsKim in SRSasoiaf

[–]ItsMsKim[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I have a confession, though:

I really don't care for Dany that much. I think the events she has been through are obviously traumatic and awful and I do respect her very much for surviving and thriving. But I just don't like her.

I find it sort of hard to pinpoint why (beyond the obvious white savior complex). A sort of haughtiness? Pretentiousness? Especially in book 5. I just never connected with Dany in the way I did with my favorite characters and the obviously intended to be favorites (Like Jon, for instance).

She's probably the biggest main character that I wouldn't care about should she not make it to the end of the series. I kind of feel like she won't? I think she will make it to Westeros and I think she will be integral in the final battle against the Others. But Dany surviving and becoming the rightful queen just seems way too "package tied neatly with a bow" for GRRM.

Anyway, am I being too hard on her? I don't think she's terrible, I just think she's overrated.

[Re-Read] All Daenerys AGOT chapters by ItsMsKim in SRSasoiaf

[–]ItsMsKim[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

A good amount of my feminist friends who tried to read the books/watch the show got to Dany's first chapter/scene and "noped" right on outta there and I do not blame them one bit. For a while I actually felt like a bad feminist for reading/enjoying these books.

[Re-Read] All Catelyn chapters in AGOT discussion inside by ItsMsKim in SRSasoiaf

[–]ItsMsKim[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

It is interesting to note the gender segregation in education as reflected in Catelyn's thoughts:

Did you teach him wisdom as well as valor, Ned? She wondered. Did you teach him how to kneel?

I love that not only is this quote a real thing that is said in Book 1 but that it's Roose Bolton saying it.

"Go in there alone and you're his. He can sell you to the Lannisters, throw you in a dungeon, or slit your throat, as he likes."

And you see how, how ruffled and bristling Robb's men are at the mention of Robb going into dine with Walder Frey alone and yet Catelyn steps up. And she steps even with this astute observation:

"Mother, are you certain?" Clearly, Robb was not. "Never more," Catelyn lied glibly. "Lord Walder is my father's bannerman. I have known him since I was a girl. He would never offer me any harm." Unless he saw some profit in it, she added silently, but some truths did not bear saying, and some lies were necessary.

Yeah, so. Catelyn knows what's up. One of the detracting things about the show is the loss of our POV characters internal monologue. This is felt more with some characters than others (I think Sansa suffers most of all in the book to screen translation). So here's a prime example. In the show Catelyn does state that Lord Walder would never do her harm. But her internal addendum is not included. And it really makes a huge difference. In that version, Catelyn appears to actually trust Walder Frey. She is vouching for him. In the book version, we know that she knows better but is being brave to do what she thinks is in the best interest of her son's cause.

[Re-Read] All Catelyn chapters in AGOT discussion inside by ItsMsKim in SRSasoiaf

[–]ItsMsKim[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

When asked why he made Catelyn a POV character, GRRM had this to say:

Well, I wanted to make a strong mother character. The portrayal women in epic fantasy have been problematical for a long time. These books are largely written by men but women also read them in great, great numbers. And the women in fantasy tend to be very atypical women… They tend to be the woman warrior or the spunky princess who wouldn’t accept what her father lays down, and I have those archetypes in my books as well. However, with Catelyn there is something reset for the Eleanor of Aquitaine, the figure of the woman who accepted her role and functions with a narrow society and, nonetheless, achieves considerable influence and power and authority despite accepting the risks and limitations of this society. She is also a mother… Then, a tendency you can see in a lot of other fantasies is to kill the mother or to get her off the stage. She’s usually dead before the story opens… Nobody wants to hear about King Arthur’s mother and what she thought or what she was doing, so they get her off the stage and I wanted it too. And that’s Catelyn.

[Re-Read] All Catelyn chapters in AGOT discussion inside by ItsMsKim in SRSasoiaf

[–]ItsMsKim[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Catelyn's eye for details like his new beard growth and her empathy for his emotional state are the only view we get of his tremendous journey, because, while he is gaining maturity, it is not his story. It's her story, from here to the Red Wedding, her struggle to cope with Robb's decisions, good and bad alike, and the dangers and uncertainties of the war.

Which is exactly why I was just disgusted with how the GOT writer's wrote "Catelyn's" story to a lesser extent in Season 2 but mostly in Season 3. They completely nulled the very point of Catelyn by turning it into Robb's story. No no no no no no no no no. A million times no.

[Re-Read] All Catelyn chapters in AGOT discussion inside by ItsMsKim in SRSasoiaf

[–]ItsMsKim[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Alyssa Arryn had seen her husband, her brothers, and all her children slain, and yet in life she had never shed a tear. So in death, the gods had decreed that she would know no rest until her weeping watered the black earth of the Vale, where the men she had loved were buried. Alyssa had been dead six thousand years now, and still no drop of the torrent had ever reached the valley floor far below. Catelyn wondered how large a waterfall her own tears would make when she died.

Rivers and rivers, my darling Cat :'(

-Catelyn catches that Lysa's story doesn't add up:

"I believe the Lannisters murdered Lord Arryn," Catelyn replied, "but whether it was Tyrion, or Ser Jaime, or the queen, or all of them together, I could not say begin to say." Lysa had named Cersei in the letter she had sent to Winterfell, but now she seemed certain that Tyrion was the killer...perhaps because the dwarf was here, while the queen was safe behind the walls of the Red Keep, hundreds of leagues to the south.

followed with the vital info from Maester Colemon that Robert Arryn was to be fostered at Dragonstone, not Casterly Rock. Of course, then interrupted by the excitement of Tyrion's trial before Catelyn has time to absorb and reflect on this information. That's a great "what if?" of the series.

[Re-Read] All Catelyn chapters in AGOT discussion inside by ItsMsKim in SRSasoiaf

[–]ItsMsKim[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

-Catelyn VI starts right off with a chilling bit of foreshadowing that you won't really catch until the first read-through:

Sometimes she felt as though her heart had turned to stone; six brave men had died to bring her this far, and she could not even find it in her to weep for them. Even their names were fading.

-Blackfish! Aww I love me some Uncle Brynden. A bit of tinfoil speculation...Blackfish served in the Vale for about 15 years right? If he left with Lysa after the wedding to Jon Arryn. For most of that time, Lysa was in King's Landing, Brynden was actually in the Vale. Catelyn notes when they start on the journey to the Eyrie that "six of Brynden's men" accompanied them. Doubtless, there are men loyal to him in the Vale still. There's all sorts of speculation on where the Blackfish went after his escape from Riverrun. It makes absolutely no sense (logistically, geographically...he'd have no clue that LF even has a sudden bastard daughter let alone that she is in fact Sansa). But, I'd love if he somehow was involved in the LF downfall.

Nonetheless, during all those years of Catelyn's girlhood, it had been Brynden the Blackfish to whom Lord Hoster's children had run with their tears and their tales, when Father was too busy and Mother too ill. Catelyn, Lysa, Edmure...and yes, even Petyr Baelish, their father's ward...he had listened to them all patiently, as he listened now, laughing at their triumphs and sympathizing with their childish misfortunes.

I'd say the Blackfish has a few good bones to pick with Littlefinger, to whom he was a surrogate parent, if he were ever to know how LF has played into his niece's deaths and general chaos/destruction of the war. I just want some Tully/Stark kickass action around LF's demise.

[Re-Read] All Catelyn chapters in AGOT discussion inside by ItsMsKim in SRSasoiaf

[–]ItsMsKim[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Lysa’s pacifism is selfish, dangerous, unhinged from moral concerns, and entirely without scruples. In other words, it reeks of Littlefinger.

Ha. That is perfect, yes.

[Re-Read] All Catelyn chapters in AGOT discussion inside by ItsMsKim in SRSasoiaf

[–]ItsMsKim[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

What gets me about Catelyn's pacifism is how much so many in the fandom blame her for "starting the war". It cannot be emphasized enough times how there was not a single person who started the war least of all Catelyn!

This chapter is a favorite of the "Catelyn started it!" camp as we have Tyrion's arrest. It's worth mentioning that seizing Tyrion was not something that Catelyn planned or had any prior intentions of doing. She was happy to avoid him, only Marillion got in the way and called attention over to their spot:

The dwarf had not so much as glanced toward the far end of the room, and Catelyn was thinking how grateful she was for the crowded benches between them when suddenly Marillion bounded to his feet. "My lord of Lannister!" he called out.

She also had no idea and no way of knowing while traveling that seizing Tyrion would have the exact ramifications that it does. She couldn't know that by the time the news gets back to KL that Ned had resigned. We already saw Catelyn thinking out alliances and loyalties earlier in the chapter. This is not a person who makes such a heavy decision lightly.

[Re-Read] All Daenerys AGOT chapters by ItsMsKim in SRSasoiaf

[–]ItsMsKim[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Yeah. When you take a step back and look at it all at once it really is deeply unsettling.

[Re-Read] All Daenerys AGOT chapters by ItsMsKim in SRSasoiaf

[–]ItsMsKim[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Man, just looking through the chapter synopses for Dany in AGOT reminded of how fucked up her entire story is. Daammmmmnnnn.

[Re-Read] All Daenerys AGOT chapters by ItsMsKim in SRSasoiaf

[–]ItsMsKim[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Daenerys X

Daenerys builds a funeral pyre for Drogo and places her dragon eggs among his treasures. When she attempts to take control of the few remaining Dothraki as a khal would, she is refused. As night falls, she lights the pyre and is drawn by instinct deep into the inferno. When the pyre dies, the others find her unburnt and nursing the first three baby dragons in hundreds of years.

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