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Thinky thoughts about Game of Thrones
I think that I have figured out why I dislike people - especially people who have read the books - being all fangirly about Catelyn.
It's because I really, really don't like torture. The moment she kidnapped Tyrion, dragged him off to an unescapable place and locked him in one of those horrible cells - she became a villain in my eyes. I don't like the Jack Baur school of investigative technique. It's that simple.
The problem, though, is that hardly anybody even seems willing to acknowledge that it was torture - and a particularly nasty torture - or they'll say that it was Lysa doing it. Nobody acknowledges that Catelyn Stark is a woman guilty of torturing an innocent man. Yes, she was manipulated, but still - she crossed a line. Nobody acknowledges this - not in the books. She has gone too far, the motherly love motivations leading her there becomes suspect in my eyes, she needs a redemptive arch to stop being unsympathetic.
The fact that up until the moment of her abduction and torture of Tyrion she was drawn as one of the good characters, one who - apart from her needless cruelty towards Jon Snow - seems like she's going to be one the right side (and keeps getting portrayed as a such afterwards!) - actually makes it worse. I have a real squick about supposedly good and pure characters torturing and otherwise mistreating even a bad guy, let alone an innocent. I back away slowly from stories with James Norrington letting certain pirates trade sexual favours for a chance to escape jail and similar, while I'm quite happy to watch the more morally questionable Jack Sparrow play at least a little with his Commodorial captive (but not beyond a certain limit), I'll enjoy fic of Spike abducting Xander and doing unspeakable things to him, but Xander dominating a chipped Spike squicks me.
So maybe it's just me. I mean, one of the things I like about A Song of Ice and Fire is that there isn't any completely good or evil sides - that people who seem evil at first have reasons and explanations (having Tywin Lannister for a father can excuse a whole lot of fucked-up-ness, for instance) and that people on the side that most readers will initially assume is good can be bad. Like Catelyn. Whose motherly love and mama bear tendencies and poor judgment of character leads her to torture an innocent man.
Her fans, though - I've yet to see any of them acknowledge the issue. And so they come across as - not even apologists. Apologists at least get that there's something to apologize for. And that - to conclude this bit of ranty-ness - is what bugs me about the reactions I'm seeing towards Cat.
(Admittedly, I'm not scouring every message board. This is the impression I get from the places I usually frequent. If anyone can point me towards some discussions of this issue, please do.)
It's because I really, really don't like torture. The moment she kidnapped Tyrion, dragged him off to an unescapable place and locked him in one of those horrible cells - she became a villain in my eyes. I don't like the Jack Baur school of investigative technique. It's that simple.
The problem, though, is that hardly anybody even seems willing to acknowledge that it was torture - and a particularly nasty torture - or they'll say that it was Lysa doing it. Nobody acknowledges that Catelyn Stark is a woman guilty of torturing an innocent man. Yes, she was manipulated, but still - she crossed a line. Nobody acknowledges this - not in the books. She has gone too far, the motherly love motivations leading her there becomes suspect in my eyes, she needs a redemptive arch to stop being unsympathetic.
The fact that up until the moment of her abduction and torture of Tyrion she was drawn as one of the good characters, one who - apart from her needless cruelty towards Jon Snow - seems like she's going to be one the right side (and keeps getting portrayed as a such afterwards!) - actually makes it worse. I have a real squick about supposedly good and pure characters torturing and otherwise mistreating even a bad guy, let alone an innocent. I back away slowly from stories with James Norrington letting certain pirates trade sexual favours for a chance to escape jail and similar, while I'm quite happy to watch the more morally questionable Jack Sparrow play at least a little with his Commodorial captive (but not beyond a certain limit), I'll enjoy fic of Spike abducting Xander and doing unspeakable things to him, but Xander dominating a chipped Spike squicks me.
So maybe it's just me. I mean, one of the things I like about A Song of Ice and Fire is that there isn't any completely good or evil sides - that people who seem evil at first have reasons and explanations (having Tywin Lannister for a father can excuse a whole lot of fucked-up-ness, for instance) and that people on the side that most readers will initially assume is good can be bad. Like Catelyn. Whose motherly love and mama bear tendencies and poor judgment of character leads her to torture an innocent man.
Her fans, though - I've yet to see any of them acknowledge the issue. And so they come across as - not even apologists. Apologists at least get that there's something to apologize for. And that - to conclude this bit of ranty-ness - is what bugs me about the reactions I'm seeing towards Cat.
(Admittedly, I'm not scouring every message board. This is the impression I get from the places I usually frequent. If anyone can point me towards some discussions of this issue, please do.)