Bran was dying, Cat was extremely distressed, she wasn’t thinking entirely straight. It was wrong, I won’t argue with you on that. I felt terrible for Jon at that moment. But I don’t think that Cat would have said something like that under normal circumstances.
Though to me, it seemed like when reading the part before Bran got thrown off the tower and that raven came in from her sister, her, Eddard, and the other guy (I can’t remember his name right now) were talking about what they were going to do. Catelyn was telling Eddard how she didn’t want Jon there with her. She had so much contempt for him, which I can understand with the circumstances, but it put me off and also the way he seemed to just keep avoiding her. /shrugs thats what it felt like to me.
It’s true that Cat didn’t like having Jon around Winterfell. In fact in her chapter, she says pretty explicitly that she wasn’t foolish enough to expect her stranger husband to be faithful to her while he was at war. What she objected to was the fact that Jon was raised at Winterfell, among her own children which went completely against societal standards (Robert’s bastards are kept away from court, Roose Bolton’s bastard was raised away from his castle, and even Waldar Frey’s bastards are kept in a separate castle from his trueborn children) and was disrespectful to Catelyn herself.
Cat didn’t generally wish for harmful things to happen to Jon. Sure, she didn’t want him to be left at Winterfell with her because he wasn’t her responsibility. He was NED’S responsibility. But she’s not cruel about it at all. When she hears that Jon expressed an interest in joining the Night’s Watch, she thinks it’s a good solution. Not only will he remove himself (and any potential offspring) for potentially causing trouble for her own children in the future, but she thinks that Jon could be like a son to Benjen. This is the exact quote:
Benjen Stark was a Sworn Brother. Jon would be a son to him, the child he would never have. And in time the boy would take the oath as well. He would father no sons who might someday contest with Catelyn’s own grandchildren for Winterfell.
Cat doesn’t want Jon around Winterfell, but she doesn’t GENERALLY wish harm upon him either. When she was not herself, she said something she wouldn’t have said under normal circumstances (certainly something I can relate to), but there wasn’t a pattern of abusive behavior that we can see anywhere in the book.
ETA: Oh I forgot. I wanted to say that YES, Ned is the person her anger SHOULD be directed at, but it was just easier to project her bitterness onto a child who was a stranger to her than to be angry with the husband whom she came to love. Is it right? No. Is it rational or logical? No. But I still understand why her subconscious would work that way.
(via daydreamingaimlessly-deactivate)
