Re-Reading The Game of Thrones...again

I'm currently at the end of ACOK. Skipping some chapters that do not interest me (sorry ACOK Dany, you're kinda dull )

The sheer detail in the books is astounding. The sheer amount of characters. I'm concentrating in Stannis and the North (surprise surprise). I realized that the first few times I read the series, I read it with haste and not with full concentration. I really thought Bran and Rickon died when I first read the series.. GRRM made it painfully obvious. I loved the way the books introduced Ramsay.

I thought showTheon was nicer than his book counterpart, the book one was a colossal twat who 100% deserved what was coming to him.

This!!!

Reading now back in the early chapters it's easy to see how Theon could be so easily swayed by Balon and his talk. He thinks the world revolves around him, and right now, I'm cheering what's to come.

I can't really see Catelyn throwing a baby out of a tower, but if she knew the truth about Jon it's possible she would have told Lysa and that probably wouldn't have gone very well.

I think the only issue would be is people could start to suspect something is off because if Ned's lie was to say Jon was his bastard, not sure people would believe that if Cat started acting more motherly and kind towards Jon. 

I think people would have had two reactions: they would have admired Catelyn for her kindness and strength or they would have called her a doormat for loving Eddard no matter what. But I don't think anyone would have suspected anything.

So glad to have a topic that has garnered interest. Let me explain my post further.

Everything in Catelyn Tully's life changed because Lyanna and Rhaegar fell in love. Without that, she would have married Brandon and Ned most likely would have wed Ashara Dayne or some other highborn daughter. But then the lovers run. Brandon and Lord Rickard are murdered by the Mad King, and Catelyn finds herself married to a stranger, the younger brother thrust suddenly into lordship due to a heinous crime. No sooner are they wed and she's pregnant with Robb as Ned goes off to fight Robert's Rebellion. She's left alone at Winterfell, in the company of more strangers. Even Lysa deserted her for an infatuation with Littlefinger.

After a hard first pregnancy, and going through the changes that accompany post-partum, her gallant stranger returned from the war minus his entire family (save for Benjen who is a brother of the Night's Watch) with a small baby boy he will say nothing more about than he is Ned's son. Even when she asks him, in Chapter 6, Catelyn II, Ned replies,

"Never ask me about John,' he said, cold as ice. 'He is my blood, and that is all you need to know. And now I will learn where you heard <Ashara's> name, my lady.'"

"It was the one thing she could never forgive him. She had come to love her husband with all her heart, but she had never found it in her to love Jon. She might have overlooked a dozen bastard's for Ned's sake, so long as they were out of sight. Jon was never out of sight, and as he grew, he looked more like Ned than any of the trueborn sons she born him. Somehow that made it worse."

There is no love there for Jon, period. Even knowing Ned couldn't take the boy to court, she refuses to allow him to stay at Winterfell with Robb. Remember, in the book Robb and Jon are only 14. That's a hard age to throw a boy to the mercy of the Night's Watch. While I agree she wouldn't have thrown the baby Jon out of a tower window, when she looks at him from beside Bran's bed and says, "I wish it had been you," she isn't kidding.

Much is made of Catelyn and her love for her children, but to me her total lack of love or mercy for Jon says so much more about character than anything.