Game of Thrones *Spoiler* Thread

[keg in kc]

There's been some recent confusion with the old spoiler thread, so I'm kicking off a new one for tonight's premiere. This is going to be the one for folks who've read all the books. So anything anybody might want to talk about is in bounds. Suffice to say, if you haven't read the books, you'll probably want to stay out of here until you do...

I'll bump the old spoiler-free thread shortly in case anybody's interested. For future reference the link to that one is here

[MagicHef]

Originally Posted by Amnorix

Wow. Just wow. You're grasping at straws, and drowning because you can't reach any.

Can you even name one innocent person that Catelyn murdered?

Pod

[Amnorix]

Originally Posted by MagicHef

Pod

I said Catelyn, not Lady Stoneheart.

Seriously, your "arguments" are just sad. We have a huge laundry list of terrible things that Cercei did (posted by Hawk), and you come up with Pod being hanged by UnDeadCatelyn.

And frankly, I think it's fair to say that most of us (me certainly) were very surprised at Lady Stoneheart's actions precisely BECAUSE they were so uncharacteristic of Catelyn Stark.

Some women seemingly love Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, ignoring that he is a murdering scumbag, and I guess you have a similar blind spot for Cercei. At least Cercei isn't a real life POS.

[Swanman]

Originally Posted by MagicHef

Pod

He is still alive. Confirmed by the fat man himself.

[MagicHef]

Originally Posted by Amnorix

I said Catelyn, not Lady Stoneheart.

Seriously, your "arguments" are just sad. We have a huge laundry list of terrible things that Cercei did (posted by Hawk), and you come up with Pod being hanged by UnDeadCatelyn.

And frankly, I think it's fair to say that most of us (me certainly) were very surprised at Lady Stoneheart's actions precisely BECAUSE they were so uncharacteristic of Catelyn Stark.

Some women seemingly love Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, ignoring that he is a murdering scumbag, and I guess you have a similar blind spot for Cercei. At least Cercei isn't a real life POS.

Again, I don't love Cersei. She's done a lot of terrible things. I just think it's funny how Catelyn has her own large share of political screw ups, and does some brutally cruel things in the name of protecting her family, yet gets none of the flack that Cersei does.

It's what GRRM loves to do, set up well-known tropes but turn them on their heads. He's given you the evil, cruel queen vs the mother of the heroes, and a lot of people will always view them through the typical narratives we're used to. However, look into the details, and they're not too different.

Catelyn is Stoneheart. To believe differently, you have to ignore:

-The only similar resurrection only created incremental changes.
-Stoneheart convinces the BWB to follow her (we know she's good at convincing people to do unwise things)
-Stoneheart is not just the physical body of Catelyn that only remembers revenge, as you tried to claim earlier.
-Stoneheart remembers Brienne, and remembers what she swore, and remembers that she is not a Frey, Lannister, or a Bolton.
-Stoneheart READS A LETTER.
-Stoneheart mistrusts Brienne based on the contents of the letter and the sword she is carrying.
-Stoneheart creates a plan to allow Brienne to show she's not loyal to the Lannisters.

Knowing those things, to not allow Stoneheart's actions to color the character of Catelyn is absurd.

[MagicHef]

Originally Posted by Swanman

He is still alive. Confirmed by the fat man himself.

Huh, I hadn't seen that. Anyway, she's hung entire parties of people that contained anyone she suspected. I'm certain not every squire or freerider associated with a Frey was guilty in the Red Wedding.

[Hawk]

Originally Posted by MagicHef

Huh, I hadn't seen that. Anyway, she's hung entire parties of people that contained anyone she suspected. I'm certain not every squire or freerider associated with a Frey was guilty in the Red Wedding.

I think that's not something you can be certain of, I mean they did slaughter Robb's army as well which took a whole lot of Frey people to accomplish. Your argument that Catelyn killing Frey's in vengeance is equal to all that Cersei has done is just weak and unconvincing. Frey's violated guest rights which the gods hate (see the Rat Cook story), and they killed Catelyn, her son and her family and friends after inviting them in and eating with them. They are doomed and Lady Stoneheart is justified in killing them all.

Cersei on the other hand will use or kill anyone to get whatever she wants with no other justification. Like when she tricks that poor lady and husband into turning on Bronn, and when Bronn kills the husband and the lady comes back to Cersei for help, she turns her over to Qyburn to silence her. Cersei is one of the most purely bad people in the whole series, Catelyn...not so much. Not saying Catelyn is without faults or bad traits, but it is not even close to Cersei, and you saying it over and over again doesn't make it a good argument.

If you are trying to say Catelyn is not so wonderful, then fine, we agree on that point, but when you act like she is equal to Cersei, you just lose all credibility.

[MagicHef]

Originally Posted by Hawk

I think that's not something you can be certain of, I mean they did slaughter Robb's army as well which took a whole lot of Frey people to accomplish. Your argument that Catelyn killing Frey's in vengeance is equal to all that Cersei has done is just weak and unconvincing. Frey's violated guest rights which the gods hate (see the Rat Cook story), and they killed Catelyn, her son and her family and friends after inviting them in and eating with them. They are doomed and Lady Stoneheart is justified in killing them all.

Cersei on the other hand will use or kill anyone to get whatever she wants with no other justification. Like when she tricks that poor lady and husband into turning on Bronn, and when Bronn kills the husband and the lady comes back to Cersei for help, she turns her over to Qyburn to silence her. Cersei is one of the most purely bad people in the whole series, Catelyn...not so much. Not saying Catelyn is without faults or bad traits, but it is not even close to Cersei, and you saying it over and over again doesn't make it a good argument.

If you are trying to say Catelyn is not so wonderful, then fine, we agree on that point, but when you act like she is equal to Cersei, you just lose all credibility.

Wow, so now that it's clear that Stoneheart is Catelyn, we're going to justify everything that Stoneheart does? Incredible. Even Thoros admits that what they're doing is not justice.

Also, we see absolutely everything that Cersei does. We only see Catelyn twice in two and a half books, and she's hanging people of questionable guilt 100% of the time.

[Hawk]

I never claimed Lady Stoneheart was not Catelyn, that was others. And I don't think it is incredible (or even hard) to justify her killing Freys. Um, they kind of deserve it! Hello?

The second part of your post makes no sense, Are you trying to say that if we saw more of Catelyn she'd be doing a bunch of stuff just as bad as Cersei? There is no basis for that conclusion. She appears to be hunting and killing Freys. Again, they deserve it. Arguably she is an instrument of the gods in this regard as she was brought back to life for some purpose. The Rat cook story shows the importance of guest right in Westeros. The gods turned the cook into a rat not because he killed and served the king's own son to him in a meat pie, but because he violated guest right.

Prior to Catelyn becoming Lady Stoneheart, your argument would be as dumb as can be. Once she becomes Lady Stoneheart bent on revenge, she enters more questionable moral grounds granted, but she is still nowhere close to Cersei in terms of purely bad things done. Nowhere close.

[MagicHef]

So you disagree with Thoros' assessment of their activities?

I'm saying that we have no idea how many people Catelyn has murdered, but we'd know of more if she appeared in the books more.

Cersei certainly has a wider range of bad things on her resume. However, incest, false accusations and hating her brother are not on the same level as murder.

[Hawk]

Originally Posted by MagicHef

So you disagree with Thoros' assessment of their activities?

I'm saying that we have no idea how many people Catelyn has murdered, but we'd know of more if she appeared in the books more.

Cersei certainly has a wider range of bad things on her resume. However, incest, false accusations and hating her brother are not on the same level as murder.

Haha, you really do grasp at straws to make a point don't you. Cersei murdered a ton of people with no real justification at all other than her own preservation and twisted desires, and had many of them painfully tortured without a second thought, but you try to pull out three examples from her huge list of murders and bad deeds and say they aren't as bad as murder. But even that is a fail.

The false accusations would lead to Margery's death, so it's at least attempted murder. Plus her own incompetence is what mostly keeps it from working when all the people she made participate in it start turning on her (shocking), but Cersei certainly wanted Margery put to death.

Hating her brother is not the same as murder? Really? It would be murder if she had her way. She tried to have the KG kill Tyrion in the Blackwater, but Pod saved him. She bribed witnesses and generally railroaded Tyrion in his trial because it would mean his death. When he gets away, she puts a huge bounty on his head in hoped of having him captured and killed. Tyrion is alive despite Cersei, not because she is not bad or didn;t try her best to kill him.

You clearly don't care about logic in this discussion, so I'm moving on.

[Hawk]

Originally Posted by MagicHef

So you disagree with Thoros' assessment of their activities?

Yes I do disagree. Freys should die, period.

Justice is not the same as vengeance, but either way, Catelyn has FAR FAR better justification for her killings than Cersei has for all of hers.

[MagicHef]

What was Cersei's motivation for trying to kill Tyrion? Seems to me it was vengeance for the death of her son.

Obviously I have no proof because GRRM does not give numbers, but the way it's written leads me to believe that Catelyn has murdered more people than Cersei has.

[NewChief]

Originally Posted by MagicHef

What was Cersei's motivation for trying to kill Tyrion? Seems to me it was vengeance for the death of her son.

Obviously I have no proof because GRRM does not give numbers, but the way it's written leads me to believe that Catelyn has murdered more people than Cersei has.

The way he writes it should also lead you to the conclusion that Cersei is intended to be much less sympathetic than Catelyn.

[MagicHef]

Originally Posted by NewChief

The way he writes it should also lead you to the conclusion that Cersei is intended to be much less sympathetic than Catelyn.

Yep. But, why?

Is it because he believes Catelyn deserves more sympathy, or is he making a point? I liked Catelyn much more than Cersei the first time I read the books. Then, after looking into them more, I'm not so sure. I came to the conclusion that they both have their kids as their top priority, but Cersei is willing to go to more extreme measures than Catelyn. However, seeing what Catelyn does when she comes across a band of outlaws she can control makes me wonder if that's true. Now I'm wondering if Cersei is just more "creative" in her schemes.

Obviously none of the characters are black or white, except maybe Ned and Gregor. Cersei is probably a darker grey than Catelyn, but I'm not sure by how much. I'm also not sure how much of the difference between them is due to themselves vs those around them. I'd expect someone raised by Tywin and married to Robert to be of looser morals than someone raised by Hoster Tully and married to Ned.

[NewChief]

I'm of the Lady Stoneheart is fundamentally different than Catelyn as far as a character. While her actions post resurrection might be more "evil" than those when she was alive, I think they're also supposed to be justified as she's like a cold avenging angel doling out recompense for the wrongdoings heaped upon her family. If there's collateral damage, so be it. Now that doesn't mean that GRRn isn't makin her trend less sympathetic and trying to make Cersie trend more sympathetic, but there's still a rather wide gulf between the two.