My Dear Lady Disdain

See, speaking for myself, I’m not trying to win sympathy for Cat.  I’m not her publicist.  Sympathy is something that is really subjective, I’m not going to bother arguing subjective things as much as I can help it.  I wouldn’t care if Cat was the last person on everyone’s sympathy list (barring obvious monsters like Ramsay and Gregor and whatever because they’re obviously not even given a chance by the author as far as sympathy goes), so long as nobody makes a faulty argument.

I’m being perfectly straight and honest here.  I don’t think sympathy means a thing if you don’t mean it sincerely, so why am I going to ply it out of people with tonally nicer arguments?  I’m not here to make anyone like Cat, and I mean that in thoroughly every way.

Re. the “emo” thing, that’s really the worst Jon ever gets called.  Try being called a slut or a bitch or an idiot or blamed for everything bad that ever goes wrong ever.  That’s what happens to, like, half the major female characters at a given time, and Cat is not least among those ranks.  But Jon’s emoness has to do with a lot more than just Cat, anyway, it has to do with society’s entire stigma against bastardy, and his not knowing his mother, as a whole.

I don’t know if Jon should be grateful.  I don’t see that as a matter of should or shouldn’t, it’s pretty morally value-neutral to me.  But the fact is that Cat tolerated more than most women in Westeros are ever called upon to do.  That is just a point established for perspective.  It doesn’t mean that Jon’s feelings are wrong, but it does mitigate the argument that Cat was excessively harsh.  You use the words “acting like he should just be grateful”, which is not very specific; that could entail a few different arguments and I’m not ready based on that to say that people are actually saying that Jon ought to have felt gratitude.

One more comment about your response to me, and then I’ll leave you alone, I swear: No, I’ve seen Cat fans say she was RIGHT to treat Jon that way. I’ve seen them say he was taking attention away from her children & trying to usurp their place & that she would’ve been stupid not to dislike him. I wish ask boxes allowed me to send links, because I can think of several specific posts from Cat fans that say exactly this. I know YOU don’t say these things, but it’s untrue that NO Cat fans say them

I did not say that no Cat fans ever say that Jon took attention away from her children or that Cat wouldn’t been stupid to not dislike him.  So, I mean, yes it’s untrue but I did not claim otherwise. 

As for that, well, Jon does pose a legitimate and believable threat to her children.  If she were to not be cognizant of that she would be ignoring certain patterns that we see play out in Westerosi politics surrounding bastards and lineage.  In other words I think her suspicion of Jon is justified enough.  That doesn’t justify her abusing him or saying “It should have been you”, but … I mean, are you saying that Jon didn’t pose a believable threat to her children?  As the situation stands, he is awfully close right now to being Robb’s (relatively) legal heir despite the existence of Sansa, Arya, and perhaps even Bran and Rickon.  So.  I mean, her fears are not totally that far off from coming true.  It only takes one little dynastic catastrophe, and if you look at Westerosi history those aren’t as rare as one might like.

As for taking attention away … I think that’s an argument used in modern equivalents of the Stark household situation.  For example in my own family my mother was concerned that my father’s stepchildren would take resources away from her own children with him, and she wasn’t incorrect.  It does happen, it can.  But in the Westerosi society I’m not sure that it’s as huge a thing since parents were not the primary caregivers they are now.

I don’t disbelieve you that those comments exist, I never claimed they didn’t.  But I don’t think that those things dismiss Jon, and all in all I think Jon has it pretty good in the court of public opinion, where the worst that is regularly said about him is that he’s a bit of a Gary Stu &c.  You can certainly debate that of course, as anyone can debate the integrity of any character arc, but there are characters in fandom who have it a lot worse.  So if it’s retaliation against Cat hate … it’s still not as bad as Cat hate.  At all.

You can come back to discuss if you want, or not, up to you.