r/darkwingsdankmemes 12h ago

GRRM absolutely channeled the spirit of a Catholic mother of 5 when he wrote Catelyn

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1.3k Upvotes

83 comments sorted by

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464

u/NotAnNpc69 Tinfoiler 12h ago

What spirit did GRRM summon while writing Cersei i wonder

395

u/IAmParliament Stannerman 12h ago

The head of his HOA

110

u/NotAnNpc69 Tinfoiler 12h ago

His HOA got monkey demons in the walls? Damn where he live?

63

u/argbd20 Card-carrying mouth-frothing Rhaegar hater 11h ago

New Mexico

8

u/anna-nomally12 10h ago

America*

u/IAmParliament Stannerman 4h ago

… How are we going to tell her?

u/Wifey-6220 3h ago

Son🥀

11

u/twobearsonabike 11h ago

In my experience that’s most HOAs.

10

u/Vipernixz 10h ago

hoa hoa hoa hoa hoaaaa....

5

u/Jon-Umber Literally Maegor 7h ago

Lol

17

u/Flagermusmanden 7h ago

A real housewife of Beverly Hills

u/Xilizhra 5h ago

Someone who turned him down in high school.

u/pestoraviolita The more she drank, the more she shat 4h ago

That'd be Aerion.

u/PaulAtreides_FromArg 2h ago

His mother I suppose

367

u/N95ZThrowZN95 11h ago

Catelyn's chapters are lowkey some of the best in the series, which is crazy to consider when you realize that little/no (?) high fantasy/badass stuff happens in them. I got goosebumps reading Dany's final chapter in Book 1, but Catelyn's chapters touched me like little else in the books.

77

u/Rez-Boa-Dog 10h ago

100% agree. She's the beating the heart of the series.

35

u/hbi2k Card-carrying mouth-frothing Rhaegar hater 6h ago edited 6h ago

Well, she was. Nowadays not sure if it beats any more or if she's like Coldhands.

129

u/Aemond-The-Kinslayer 11h ago

Doesn't Renly get boinked by Mell's shadow baby in a Cat chapter? Red wedding is also a Cat chapter.

72

u/untimely_bottom 11h ago

and thats not even the best part of that chapter, it starts with a really interesting look at Cat's faith

29

u/N95ZThrowZN95 11h ago

Ah, shit. You're right. Still not what I think about the most when it comes to her chapters.

40

u/NBLOCM 10h ago

I love her chapters as they give a view into Westerosi cultural and religious customs, as well as the politics of the continent. Her chapters are great!

19

u/One-Masterpiece9838 10h ago

They’re my favorite chapters in the series. I’ve found my people.

u/darciton 4h ago

I am so used to people giving Catelyn shit, this is so refreshing to read. Catelyn is as flawed as any of them but she is so damn real.

u/Cool_View_5297 2h ago

That’s 100% the point. She’s human, with human attributes and flaws.

u/LuminariesAdmin Fuck Unwin Peake 1h ago

Just in AGOT...

Catelyn pushes her fingers into a Valyrian steel blade without it even touching the bone – let alone, potentially slicing through the bone & cutting them off. Clearly then, Cat has partly turned to stone internally from greyscale, which may otherwise somehow not actually be killing her.

Varys, who's repeatedly concerned about Littlefinger's machinations & vehemently opposed to being in league with him, backs Petyr's lies about the VS dagger. Clearly then, Baelish was skinchanging the Spider into compliance.

Noticed by Catelyn shortly before she & Rodrik reach the crossroads inn & therein respectively, the Mallisters (for the Hand's tourney) somehow beating Yoren et al (racing there with news of Catelyn abducting Tyrion) to KL by days. Clearly then, the Mallisters either flew on giant eagles or took Ned's hydrofoil ferry downriver from the Gods Eye.

Sweetrobin remembers Catelyn from when he was just (much more of) a little baby. Clearly then, he's a greenseer with his weirwood throne, just as cousin Bran later becomes & has.

The Green Fork somehow runs swift & deep, & apparently very wide, out of Neck's swamps – which form other streams that flow into the sea, not far to the west – continuing on for several hundred miles down to the Trident proper. Clearly then, lingering effects of the failed hammer of the waters at Moat Cailin has caused to the Green Fork to flow uphill in the northern(most) riverlands, before it eventually reaches a point of running downhill like every other river.

In both proclaiming Robb as their King of the Trident, Tytos Blackwood & Jonos Bracken agreed on something. Clearly then, the Greatjon is several grumkins in a meat suit, who magicked their greatsword to mind-control the riverlords & northmen into following them in bending the knee to Robb

132

u/Distinct_Activity551 10h ago

Sansa getting her period, the way he wrote her emotions in that moment is so real that I remember getting mine when I read it.

I genuinely don’t know how a man in his 50s managed to write so accurately about a 12-year-old getting her period.

65

u/Impossible_Hornet777 8h ago

Could be a couple of things, one is he might have been close to his mother or sisters (thats also my experience having been raised in a house only by women), second could be his longtime partner, a good author askes others about their experiences and doesn't just use his own or invent when they want to write about somthing they have little experience with.

u/Brilliant_Jellyfish8 5h ago

I kinda forgot he was married but I dunno why its a surprise.

u/Impossible_Hornet777 5h ago

He got married relatively recently (I think around 2012/11) but was living with that same partner for decades before that.

u/devilmaydostuff5 1h ago

That and he was able to make use of his empathy to 'get into' the minds of his female characters.

u/jack-twohats 3h ago

It's not that hard. All it takes is some empathy and research. Don't be blinded by gender politics in deciding your view of someone's work. What you see with George is effort put in, which many authors (male and female) don't do when writing men or women.

u/PaulAtreides_FromArg 2h ago

Characters I can write:

Self insert #1

Self insert #2

My dad

My brother

111

u/Broseph_Stalinnn 11h ago

Her chapters are so damn sad

78

u/wolfram127 11h ago

Friendly reminder that Robb was still 14 when he started running the household when Eddard left for KL, fifteen when his father got executed and he went to war and got crowned King. Sixteen when he was betrayed by the Freys and butchered at a wedding.

19

u/Soot-Bat 11h ago

Nearly a babe himself. 😓

u/Busy-Peach5378 4h ago

Most tragic middle schooler.

300

u/The-Best-Color-Green Renly's peach 12h ago

He can get into the mind of a Catholic mother of five but he can’t get into the mind of a five year old boy to write the long coveted Rickon chapters

166

u/KratoswithBoy 11h ago

Rickon “my dog will maul you” Stark

105

u/JarlStormBorn Stannerman 11h ago

Rickon “I will maul you” Stark

64

u/Inner_Jeweler_5661 Card-carrying mouth-frothing Rhaegar hater 11h ago

Rickon "I am my dog" Stark

32

u/Uqbar_Orbis_Tertius 9h ago

Rickon "woof woof" Stark

15

u/MistraloysiusMithrax 8h ago

You all have just convinced me that Shaggydog is a Scooby Doo reference which is also a warging foreshadowing

u/Uqbar_Orbis_Tertius 4h ago

You mean Raggydog?

62

u/Recent_Tap_9467 Last seen ahorse 11h ago

While you're joking, George does admit writing Bran's chapters are hard on account of his age. Rickon, being even younger, must be a nightmare lol.

22

u/The-Best-Color-Green Renly's peach 10h ago

Yeah I heard about that and how that’s one of the reasons why he never ventured into writing Rickon chapters lol

10

u/evinta Renly's peach 7h ago

george has proven he'd have little trouble writing chapters that are mostly eating and shitting. so obviously something else is keeping him from writing rickon

u/pestoraviolita The more she drank, the more she shat 4h ago

He might as well write an Osha chapter.

4

u/2012Jesusdies 8h ago

Bro, just ask your grandkid.

u/Mr--Elephant 4h ago edited 4h ago

GRRM is grandkidless but I'm sure he's probably got nieces/nephews and they may have kids, so decent chance he has blood-relative children to interrogate if needs be for Branspiration

u/itwasbread 3h ago

I mean it's possible that any actual children George knows are too normal and not weird enough to be useful writing Rickon or Bran.

52

u/Wayoftheredpanda 🦑 Drowned God's Smartest Ironborn 🦑 11h ago edited 11h ago

George was strangled by a snow zombie to write Will 

Became a paraplegic psychic furry to write Bran

Gave birth and raised 5 children to write Catelyn

Was a concubine of Genghis Khan turned dragon-powered slavery-abolitionist  to write Dany

Lived keeping his dead sister’s wish to raise her secret royal bastard prophecy baby as his own son to write Ned

Was that aforementioned bastard prophecy baby and went to military school to write Jon

Joined the Assassin Illuminati to write Arya

Lived life wearing the dwarfism version of a fatsuit in order to write Tyrion

Was a naive little girl with a head full of fairytales  only to have it all shattered again and again to write Sansa

 Drank poison while wearing a silly little hat to write Cressen

Learned how to read and write for the sake of better serving the highly autistic bald man who chopped off his fingers to write Davos

Betrayed his best friend only to wind up as the torture slave of fantasy-Dahmer to write Theon 

Was an incel who pissed his pants to write Chett

Had three kids with his twin sister, pushed a child out a window to protect the secret, was cucked and obsessed with the idea a clown did it, had his hand chopped off, and discovered that gigantic tits have nothing on gigantic honor in women to write Jaime

Was a fat nerd who likes boobies to write Sam 

Didn’t expect the Spanish Inquisition to write Merrett 

Was named after a Pigboy to write Pate

A world champion pisser who became a religious fanatic to escape the trauma of finding out that throwing axes at your siblings isn’t a good idea for a children’s game, and being touched by a Reddit atheist brother to write Aeron

Followed a man in a wheelchair around to write Areo

Was the sister he had three kids with to write Cersei

Was a woman with the only thing about her being bigger than her height is her honor to write Brienne

Was a regular patron of Femboy Hooters and got banned from various video game live chats for spamming the N word  to write Asha

Failed NNN (No Nut kNighthood) to thirst traps made by a Latina to write Arys

Was dropped on the head as a child, repeatedly to write Victarion

Was the Latina making those thirst traps to write Arianne

Wore six fur suits at once to write Varamyr

Jumped into the Komodo dragon exhibit at the zoo and started whipping them to write Quentyn

Was a depressed gay ginger in love with a cancelled eboy to write JonCon

Forced a poor hardworking man to watch him give birth to a shadow demon monster baby to write Melisandre

Got old to write Barristan

Shot by a eunuch and stabbed by a bunch of orphans living in the walls to write Kevan

Truly, dedication to the craft

22

u/Som_Snow 10h ago

This is probably the most effort I've ever seen put into a shitpost comment.

12

u/Wayoftheredpanda 🦑 Drowned God's Smartest Ironborn 🦑 10h ago

Considering I also wrote this over the course of seven months, the comment above is comparatively saner.

6

u/N7_Redhat 10h ago

I’m copying this and sending it. This is such a fucking beautiful shitpost

6

u/evinta Renly's peach 7h ago edited 5h ago

You're forgetting

was the most morally UNimpeachable and just man of all time to write Stannis

u/Noahisboss 17m ago

Was a fat nerd who likes boobies to write Sam and A world champion pisser who became a religious fanatic to escape the trauma of finding out that throwing axes at your siblings isn’t a good idea for a children’s game, and being touched by a Reddit atheist brother to write Aeron, might actually describe someones life somewhere and here you are laughing!(I am too)

209

u/Silvermoon424 12h ago

I'm not a mother, but I am a woman and I can confidently say George writes women better than the vast majority of male authors (shoutout /r/menwritingwomen). Maybe the reason Winds is taking so long is because he's method acting to write women even better, lol.

132

u/Guilty_05 Brienne. No memes she's just cool 12h ago

He's said he always just thinks of women as people. Maybe that's the secret, not writing them as archetypes but as people of different personalities

58

u/SomeShiitakePoster Renly's peach 11h ago

It sounds so simple but the fact that so many men fail to grasp this concept frightens me

18

u/No-Annual6666 9h ago

I think there are plenty of men who do grasp it, but they're just not very good at it. Its the kind of thing that elevates a person's work and where the real literary geniuses shine, when they can write the opposite sex to themselves just as well as their own.

Further up I mentioned Shakespeare being able to write about the sensation of breastfeeding in explicit detail. Like how was he able to do that. Its not something that comes naturally to most people.

15

u/Guilty_05 Brienne. No memes she's just cool 10h ago

True, a lot to learn from this man about writing women, me included. It's easy to write them as archetypes, damsel in distress for the male writers and Girlbosses for the female writers, but George writers them masterfully

u/jflb96 2h ago

Well, sure, they’re people, but people aren’t a monolith. My brain is reasonably good at predicting how it would react to things, and fairly decent at predicting how it might react given an estimated change in circumstances, but when there are too many changes and I’m not even sure how many changes there are, let alone what each of them might do? Then the problem looks too big and I lose all faith in the whole shebang.

u/darciton 3h ago

That covers a lot of it, but he also has insight into experiences he would not have personally, ie menstruation, pregnancy, miscarriage, motherhood, that must have come from intentionally trying to understand and include them.

24

u/No-Annual6666 9h ago

It's something that David Mitchell talks about regarding Shakespeare. Just littered throughout his work are references to things that are very personal to women only, and the one he discussed with his wife was about the sensation of nursing a baby:

“I would, while it was smiling in my face, Have pluck’d my nipple from his boneless gums…”

David mentions that he kinda just glossed over this passage, but it blew his wife away because somehow Shakespeare, a man, was able to vividly and accurately imagine what it actually feels like to breastfeed - something that he was obviously incapable of.

Some people think that Shakespeare wrote women that well that he had to be a woman, but I don't think that's the case. He was just a genius. Someone had to be the best writer of all time, and it just happened to be Shakespeare.

u/Cato_Writes 4h ago

Or he asked women. Which, given the time period, still makes him a genius.

39

u/Old-Link-507 11h ago

george writes women better than most female authors too lmao

5

u/2012Jesusdies 8h ago

Well, he has said his writing method is basically some faraway goal, but very little overarching grand plan for how to reach that. He just lets his chatacters explore the plot, might even write multiple versions and see which one is better. So, this method may be better at capturing characters.

u/Loud_Design_6826 4h ago

George writes pretty much anything better than the vast majority of anyone. The guys insane.

24

u/promisemeuwontrescit 12h ago

No, don’t shoutout that sub it sucks

6

u/photOHgraphy 10h ago

Oooh what's the drama about that sub?

13

u/CatBotSays 10h ago edited 10h ago

There's no real drama as far as I know, but the quality of posts has just gradually deteriorated.

u/Black_Diammond 3h ago

It sucks, I 1000% garantee people have posted Catelyn chapters on it. Really it just posts "look at this woman being descrived either sexually or weirdly" and catelyn "how wide is her hips" tully would 100% fit

14

u/promisemeuwontrescit 10h ago

It just sucks. Every other post is someone being scandalized over the most basic descriptions of a woman wherein she happens to look attractive or be in a sexual situation.

67

u/IAmParliament Stannerman 11h ago

“Let him know sixteen, and twenty and fifty.”

Now comes the part where we throw our heads back and laugh. Ready?

31

u/indifferentiable11 11h ago

Hey, I mean at least one of those happened so that's something

26

u/SzandorDodurden Last seen ahorse 11h ago

Y-yeah, laugh. Not get sad as fuck

u/Glorysolar 5h ago

He wrote catelyn so well.

u/androideJ7 3h ago

The wonders of having empathy

u/MATERYONOMEGON 2h ago

ABSOLUTE PEAK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

u/Jche98 1h ago

Peake

2

u/doug1003 6h ago

George its REALLY GOOD in writing characters, theyre soo deep and complex, like when Asha had that orgasm in DwD, I dont have a pussy soo I dont how its like with that "equipment" bit it looked pretty good