31 Things We Learned from the Game of Thrones Women

Image Via HBO

14. Channel your anger to where it belongs.

Catelyn Stark

To play off the last point, Catelyn’s insecurity did get the best of her when it mattered most. She never knew who Jon Snow’s mother was, but she assumed Ned was his father because Ned never suggested otherwise. Consequently, Catelyn was so jealous of the woman that she took it out on Jon, thereby ostracizing him further from her family.

Jon did nothing wrong, he just was born under circumstances that Catelyn did not agree with and it, in turn, turned something in her dark. She hated him just because of what he represented despite the fact that he was still a brother to her children and they saw him as such to them.

While this affected Jon negatively, it came to haunt Catelyn as well. In Season 3, she admits to Talisa Maegyr that she feels cursed by her hatred of the boy. If only she could have loved him as a son, as she’d promised the gods she would do, perhaps her family wouldn’t be punished as they were now. Whether or not there’s any real truth to that is unknown. But Catelyn could never reconcile her guilt, because she couldn’t find it within herself to take the necessary steps.