#*especially* when the female characters are abuse victims being vilified for reacting to abuse

[aliferousdreamer]

"max is a horrible person"

[moonlitgleek]

Thank god someone finally said it! Catelyn was a HORRIBLE wife, a worse mother, and an even worse person. The most tragic and overlooked aspect of Ned's story is that he got saddled with her. It made his life miserable, and brought ruin to his house and seven kingdoms as a whole. Getting his head cut off might even be a mercy compared to coming back home and living the rest of his life with THAT. Then again, if it weren't for her, his head wouldn't have been cut in the first place.

Sometimes I really hate this damn site.

You know, it’s people like you that cripple discussion of nuanced or complicated characters through the tendency to take every bit of criticism as a confirmation of your hate and an invitation to spew it all over everyone. I shouldn’t be wary of openly criticizing a character for fear that those who hate them would misconstrue my words and use it to fuel their nonsense arguments, which happens near every time I think to criticize someone, especially when it’s a female character. Even when I specifically say that that I don’t think this character a bad person like in this case. Did you miss the last paragraph of my post? Did you miss the entirety of @secretlyatargaryen‘s post? Because it has been reiterated that Cat is not a bad person or a bad mother. The point is not to bash Catelyn as you seem interested in doing but to point out that her actions with Jon are wrong and that they affected more than just Jon. But I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that someone who calls a woman “that” as if she is some thing and who seems invested in blaming her for everything she does is only interested in using our criticism to disparage and vilify Cat.

By the way, your message is as factually inaccurate as it is disgusting, anon. Let’s break it down.

Fallacy #1: Ned was saddled with Catelyn.

In a society that cares not a whit about women’s consent or feelings, it’s almost amusing that you think that it’s the man who gets saddled with the woman. Between Ned and Catelyn, guess which one had any kind of power in the situation? Ned. Hoster Tully might have demanded that Ned honor the betrothal to Catelyn as a price for his support in the war but it was still Ned’s choice to accept or refuse. But the rebels needed the Riverlands if they wanted to win the war, you say. Sure, and Ned made a choice for strategic reasons, but he still had the space to make the choice. Do you think that Catelyn did? Do you think Hoster bothered to ask her if she minded marrying the brother of the guy that she has been betrothed to for years and grew up expecting to marry? Do you think he bothered to consider that it’s callous to marry his daughter off so soon after her betrothed died and to his own brother? And even if he did, a woman who was raised with Family, Duty, Honor so hammered into her psyche and who, like every other woman in Westeros, was raised on how her place was to marry someone of her father’s choosing stands no chance. The system is broken and Catelyn Tully is as much its victim as any other woman in Westeros.

Fallacy #2: Catelyn made Ned miserable and his death was a mercy compared to being with her.

What an egregious (and delusional) thing to say that Ned is better off dead than being with the woman he loves and the children he adores. What an awful thing to say that anything pertaining to Ned’s death is a mercy. The man’s death was a knife to the hearts of his wife and children, but you think it’s better for him than the company of the wife he literally spends a book yearning for. That’s messed up.

I don’t know what book you’ve read or what you’re basing your claims on, but in my copy, Ned Stark is a man who clearly loves and values his wife as a person. He builds a sept for her because he respects her and wants her to have the comfort of her gods. There is a great deal of affection and comfort that shines through their interactions, and clear evidence in Catelyn’s second chapter in AGoT that Ned seeks and enjoys her company. In my copy, I see a guy who shows tremendous political trust in his wife that he leaves Winterfell and the North in her hands when he leaves with the expectation that she would continue Robb’s education and who trusts her to start mobilizing the Northern banners. I see a guy who reacts in wonderment to seeing Catelyn in King’s Landing, and constantly reflects on how he wishes he is with her during his tenure as Hand. I see Catelyn occupying Ned’s thoughts in his imprisonment that one of his regrets is that he’ll never see her again. If that’s being miserable, sign me up. For more of Ned’s so-called misery in his marriage, please refer to this post.

But Jon Snow, right? Yes, but Jon Snow. Jon’s presence has always been a point of conflict between Ned and Cat but that does not change the nature of their relationship. No one says that a loving happy marriage doesn’t have its problems or that it has to be perpetually conflict-free. Also, don’t forget that Jon’s presence in Winterfell was by Ned’s own decision. I’m not saying that Ned was wrong to bring Jon to Winterfell and I’m very sympathetic to his reasons and respectful of his desire to do right by an innocent child, I have a lot of respect for the man precisely because he acted as a father to Jon and gave him a family. But I’m under no illusion that this didn’t come at Catelyn’s expense, which is something that Ned himself was aware of. I am critical of how Cat treated Jon Snow, but it’s important to see that she wasn’t in the best situation either, because this is just another sign of how little control or say she had, even in her own home. The entire situation was inherently imperfect but while I do fault Cat for taking out her lack of control on the one person who had less control that she did and who also happens to be an innocent child, I’m not unsympathetic to her pain and anger over Ned’s indiscretions or to her fear for her children. The patriarchy says that Catelyn should accept that her husband would cheat on her, that this is a situation that she has to accept and has no right to change because her husband has the power, that she can’t be angry and resentful of Ned for the situation. For the sake of her marriage, for the sake of her children, Catelyn had to let go of her anger towards Ned but that anger does not disappear just because she pushed it down, so she redirected it onto the living reminder of her husband’s nominal infidelity who also happens to be a reminder of her lack of control. That is not an excuse for her actions with Jon that are objectively wrong but it is an explanation that shows that Catelyn is not inherently a bad person. She is a victim of her society and its social construct, which is one reason that makes her abuse of Jon gutting to me, since Jon is also a victim of their society and its social construct. Cat took her own disadvantage on the one person who was more disadvantaged than her. I can’t fault anyone for having negative feelings towards her over that particular situation since she was essentially kicking down at Jon and taking her problems out on a child, but this is far more complicated than “Catelyn is an evil person”.

Fallacy #3: Catelyn was a bad mother and person.

People are more complicated than the binary of “infallible” and “monster” that you seem to be operating on. Good people can make grievous mistakes regardless of their good intentions, and it’s not like those mistakes suck out their morality with them. Catelyn’s parenting wasn’t perfect. She pressures Arya to conform out of a conventional viewpoint and a desire to see her daughter lead a good life (as does Ned, btw), but ends up harming Arya. Her grief over Bran’s fall and coma and her exhaustion in keeping a vigil by his bedside puts pressure on Robb and hurts Rickon. Her abuse of Jon echoes through the family and inadvertently hurts her own children. Even the well-intentioned fail sometimes. Would you care to hear about the times Ned did too?

However, it remains that Catelyn’s entire character is build around her love for her family and her dedication to her children. She throws herself between an armed man and her comatose child with no thought to her life. She is constantly tormented by her distance from Bran and Rickon and blames herself for not being there for them. She is literally the only one who thinks that Sansa and Arya’s lives are worth trading against Jaime Lannister’s. She wants nothing but to send Robb to safety when she meets up with his army but recognizes that this would be extremely bad for his position. She bargains for Robb’s life while injured and spares no thought to her own life in the process. She refuses to accept that Arya is dead and holds out hope for her return. She champions Robb’s cause and does her level best to guide him, but also affords him space to grown on his own and is greatly proud of his leadership. No, I don’t consider Cat a bad parent at all, even with her mistakes. Those errors were a result of parental frailty and misguided protectiveness.

Questioning Cat’s personality in general doesn’t hold up either. She defends and befriends Brienne. She tries to reassure Edmure that their father loves and is proud of him. She feels guilty after Rickard Karstark kills the Lannister prisoners and feels his accusations acutely. She empathizes with Jeyne and reassures her of her place despite her displeasure with the marriage. She feels sadness for Mya Stone’s innocence over her doomed love with Mychel Redfort. There are places where Cat’s empathy fail her but if I denounce everyone who has a moment of failed empathy or who ever does a morally questionable thing, I’d be dismissing every single character in this entire series as a bad person. There are no perfect people in GRRM’s narrative, so what makes Cat’s imperfections specifically worthy of condemnation?

Fallacy #4: Catelyn should be blamed for Ned’s death, the ruin of House Stark and the Seven Kingdoms.

Right. Tyrion’s arrest. That did not start the war because the war was already in the works before the royal family even arrives in Winterfell.

I’m growing increasingly irritated with the tendency to blame any random Stark for the war which builds on deliberate dismissal of what everyone else was doing that led to the war. Sorry to say but the war was inevitable even if Catelyn never seizes Tyrion. It was inevitable because Stannis knew that the royal children were illegitimate and was preparing for war. It was inevitable because Renly knew that the royal children were illegitimate and was preparing for his own takeover. That guarantees a showdown with Tywin and the rest of the Lannisters no matter what, and puts Stannis and Renly on opposite sides. Don’t forget that Littlefinger and Varys were invested in pitting the Starks and the Lannisters against each other for their own gain as well. The entire situation was a powder keg waiting to blow long before any Stark stepped a foot in King’s Landing.

Blaming Catelyn, or any Stark really, for the War of the Five Kings and all it brought only serves to exonerate those who are responsible for it. Jaime and Cersei have an affair, pass their children as royal heirs and kill to maintain that fallacy. Jaime pushes Bran out of a window and Joffrey tries to have him killed. Cersei plots to have Robert killed and puts her plan into motion before Ned even finds out about the twincest. Baelish encourages Lysa to poison Jon Arryn and frame the Lannisters, then lies about the owner of the dagger used in the attempt of Bran’s life. He betrays Ned to Cersei and conspires till he gets Joffrey to kill Ned. Tywin Lannister sends men to burn and pillage the Riverlands, then plans with the Freys and the Boltons to murder Robb and his army at a wedding. Balon Greyjoy decides that avenging himself on a dead man is the height of power and embarks on an idiotic campaign in the North. Theon betrays the Starks and seizes Winterfell. Imagine having all that awfulness and all these contributing players to the war, but somehow finding the war Catelyn’s fault. Yes, I know the reasoning is that her arrest of Tyrion put the Starks and the Lannisters in open conflict and “made” Tywin attack the Riverlands. Except that Catelyn is not responsible for the fact that the Lannister go-to method is to commit war crimes and go stabby. A normal person could have protested Tyrion’s arrest to the king and painted the Starks as the aggressors but no, Tywin Lannister makes his own laws and he chooses to take it out on the Tullys’ smallfolk. That’s on him. Also, are we going to pretend that the Starks and the Lannisters weren’t already poised for a conflict after two attacks on Bran’s life? Or that Ned’s discovery of the twincest and his execution on Joffrey’s orders wasn’t going to drag the Starks into the war anyway?

Fun fact: of all the fighting factions in the War of the Five Kings, it’s Catelyn Stark who tries repeatedly to put a stop to the war. She pleads for peace in Robb’s council. She tries to broker an alliance between Robb and Renly, and points out that no one but Robb is doing a thing to protect the people against the Lannisters. She tries to get the Baratheon brothers to unify and reach an accord because common sense says that they all of them have the same enemy, and their conflict benefits no one but the Lannisters. Catelyn does not start the war, but she sure tries to end it. Sadly, no one listens to her.

Now please don’t come to me again with your victim-blaming, character bashing arguments.

[hufflepuffhummingbird]

Some Thoughts On OITNB Season 5

So there will be a lot of spoilers so be warned.

In general this season felt pretty disorganized and I felt like it took on way too many characters and plots than they could handle. I think the tone has been pretty off too. When I watched the trailer I was so excited because it looked like the show had taken the step to get darker and more focused. But the show didn’t, they tried to fit in just as much comedy as last season which didn't fit the tone given how dire of a situation a prison riot is.  I think a lot of issues also came from trying to dig themselves out of the hole of season 4. First of all, I think they handled Poussey’s death badly. (I mean I’m upset she died in the first place) I felt a lot of the way it was handled was more of an insult to the Black Lives Matter movement instead of a tribute, mostly because of the way the world of OITNB’s media reacted to it. In the show the media was going to try to make Bailey look dangerous and the villain in the story, which NEVER happens to the police officers who kill innocent people. The media never portrays these murders as monsters, the victim is almost always vilified. I find it not a reflection of our realty for them to make a statement about Bailey being unjustly vilified. What also makes this harder is the fact that Bailey actually didn't try to kill her and spends all of season 5 moping around about it. These scenes are repetitive and uncomfortable, and don't seem to find any reasonable conclusion. It makes it doubly frustrating when Taystee risks so much of the entire prisons future on this one request. I don’t blame Taystee as a character for this and I personally feel that her character and her arc was the most compelling of the entire season, I understand why she feels this way and fights for it. It’s just hard as an audience member to root for her cause with the show constantly trying to guilt us about how Bailey feels all the time. This makes the final negotiation loss because of her one request as much more unnecessarily frustrating than tragic. This was the major plot line I had issues with but here are some others.

- ALL OF THE RAPE JOKES

As a progressive show OITNB should NOT constantly allude to rape being funny if it’s to a man. Look at a situation OITNB supposedly finds funny if the gender roles are switched.

Imagine a male inmate getting the tip of his finger cut off and then threatens a female guard held hostage to cut off her finger tip to replace it. The female guard in hopes of somehow escaping this mutilation offers to give him a hand-job in hopes of distracting him to find an escape. What ensures is a *hilarious* scene where she’s jerking him off and one of the inmates friends mocks him for having his first orgasm. After this, the two men are talking and the one getting the hand job asks the other if the female officer was actually into it or was just trying to escape. The male prisoner responds with, “Nah, I’ve raped woman before and she seemed into it”. This line is played off as a laugh. 

This is one specific example, but there are sooo many more. The entire season many female characters were harassing the male guards and threatening to rape or sexually assault them and these were played as laughs.

- TRYING TO MAKE DOGGETT  BE “CUTE” WITH HER RAPIST

This is so awful to watch and just horrifying that the writers have taken this path. I can’t look at these two being cute without thinking about the brutal scene last season where he rapes her. I don’t know why the writers keep pushing this but it needs to stop.

- PISCATELLA’S PLOT LINE AND BACKROUND

Okay so I felt the writers wanted to make him a psychopath so they can do the torture scene, but it doesn't make any sense. He was an asshole before this season but never this bad, and this insane plan to capture Red’s closest friends and torture them and her seemed out of nowhere. I thought that his flashbacks would make more sense out of this but it actually made it more confusing. I don’t think it makes Piscatella a psychopath to murder his lover’s rapist. I mean yeah that scene was fucked up, but I mean how many times have we seen a flashback to an inmate murdering someone for raping or wronging someone they loved, or for wronging themselves? Just a few examples,

- Miss Claudette murdering a man for sexually assaulting one of her girls who worked for her.

- Norma murdering her abusive husband

- Frieda also presumingly murdering her husband

- Chang straight up murdering a dude for calling her ugly

I mean heres the thing, none of these women are portrayed as psychopaths so I don’t think this is a good enough justification for Piscatella being one. 

(Another sidetone about his death that annoyed me, it’s super small but like, they literally shot him in the head and then one of the guards announced he’s not breathing, like duh)

- MY OPINION ON PIPER

I know it’s a thing that everyone hates Piper or whatever, and she can be annoying but after this season I think I figured out why her presence is so off on the show. I think it’s because we don’t need her anymore. Piper was useful as a character in the beginning of the show because she is in a lot of ways a catalyst for the audience, and this role is outgrown and not necessary anymore for the audience watching the show. I mean I’m gonna assume the majority of OITNB’s audience has not been to prison before and has no idea what it’s actually like to be in one. Piper is in some ways us, a newcomer into Litchfield that has no idea who anyone is or how anything works. She was the gate for the audience to enter Litchfield, and get to know the characters and surroundings. As the seasons go on however, the audience knows every character and the usual dynamics of the prison. Thus Piper’s role is now unnecessary and awkward in dynamics with the other prisoners, she doesn’t really have a place. Her story isn’t really compelling anymore since it already got explored, I think the only thing left to keep going with her is Alex, which I think the creators understood this season, pretty much all of her plot was about her and Alex’s relationship. Although their arguing is pretty petty and repetitive, their ending was cute and it reminded me why I liked them together in the first place. I don’t really know how they’re gonna move forward with her character but we’ll see. 

-LEAVE SUZANNE ALONE

Seriously, can they give her a break??? How much more abuse does she have to go through?? I also am getting annoyed that they’ve been using her condition to conveniently have her freak out to complicate situations for plot purposes. I think it’s getting old, and just give the poor girl a break. 

- SEEING SO MUCH OF THE NAZIS

Okay this season had way too many characters to juggle and the first ones to go should of been the Nazis, it was extremely uncomfortable to see the writers try to make them likable and funny. Especially since it was off of jokes about things like poisoning jews. There are so many better characters to see, my last point being... 

- SOPHIA BEING WRITTEN OUT SO EARLY

Can I say anymore? I really wanted to see more of her this season.

This season did have it’s good moments tho

-The video vlogs, amazing

- Litchfield Idol was hilarious

- Red on speed was great

-The doctor was so refreshingly nice and funny

- The makeovers were fantastic

-TAYSTEE, JUST WOW. Danielle Brooks gave an amazing performance. Everytime she speaks is with so much passion and heart, her moments and speeches always made me cry. I hope the writers do her so much justice. She is so incredibly smart, charismatic, and brave, I will be thoroughly disappointed if she doesn't succeed. I hope these riots weren't for nothing because she deserves so much better than that. I hope her character eventually gets into politics once she gets out of prison, I believe she has a real potential to change the world.