My Dear Lady Disdain

I think this is the ultimate weak spot in Catelyn’s arc: a lot of pressure is put on her time as a non-POV, non-speaking, arguably primarily symbolic zombie to lend significant pieces of meaning to her arc.  From a certain brass tacks perspective, that is not exactly ideal.

I honestly don’t fault people for finding the experience of Cat’s POVs/arc disappointing because her time as a full human capable of being a POV ended with Robb’s story.  She’s my favorite character, but that doesn’t mean I can’t understand people’s issues with how she is written.  I can.

IDK, I think it’s ultimately subjective.  But satisfying or not, I think Martin meant well, so I will credit him with that (if not necessarily more).

But I think there are other women who have survived.  Cat is really the only major female casualty, so this alone isn’t enough to say that women as a whole are treated poorly.

I think … ASOIAF’s narrative structure mirrors the misogyny of the setting, instead of combating as a sort of narrative affirmative action.  My own perspective on this is that both tacks are valid methods of storytelling, if for no other reason than that feminist heroism and feminist tragedies are both valid story modes (this is my stance).  But I think that is where a lot of the hullaballoo about Martin’s handling of women stems from.  Martin is more committed, for lack of a better word, than many pulp fantasies to the realism of misogyny.  But it’s funny that to some he is not committed enough, and also that he kind of fixates on gender more than other identity politics issues.  And I would argue that he is not as diligent about examining masculinity-related pitfalls.  Etc etc.  Sorry this ask is threatening to blow out into something huge.

Back to Cat.  In short I can understand that people find her arc lacking.  Sometimes I find it lacking.  I feel a little, no pun intended, robbed.  It really isn’t the same dealing with a symbolic non POV zombie as it is a POV character.

But I can’t say that Martin didn’t care about Cat at all either, and I can’t say that she is totally worthless as a character simply because her arc isn’t perfect.  I think she is actually one of Martin’s most ambitious characters, so when she falls short of her potential, well I’m sad but I still love her a lot because I can see what he was going for and it ends up meaning more to me than a well done, less ambitious arc.

But this is different strokes for different folks.  Sorry I’m rambling, personally all I really ask though is that people not use Cat’s potential slips into plot device mode to excuse sexist attitudes or make remarks about her that make no actual sense.  Because “She doesn’t work for me” isn’t the same thing as, for example, “She’s way more privileged than anyone else” or “She doesn’t treat other women well” or, to borrow from the less imaginative “dudebro” section of fandom, “She is a cold unfeeling bitch with no brains” etc etc.

I feel I could say smarter things but wow look how long this is.