#I observe that it's always the Sansa stans who downplay the experiences and abuse of other character

[jackoshadows]

It really pisses me off when I see justifications for Catelyn’s treatment of Jon Snow. Like just straight up abuse apologia.

Cat was not Jon’s mother, so it was not abuse.

Cat did not kill Jon like Cersei killed Robert’s bastards and so it was not abuse.

She did not have him beaten so not abuse

Jon was fed and clothed, so it was not abuse

Jon did not fear for his life like Theon, so it’s not abuse

Cat was not obligated to treat a little child with kindness and basic decency, so it’s not abuse.

Jon does not show any visible signs of trauma, so it’s not abuse

Making a child feel like he is should not eat their food, making him feel isolated and unwanted, never calling him by name, treating him different to his siblings - all not abuse, just Jon being oversensitive.

There is a difference between understanding why Catelyn acted that way towards Jon and justifying her actions towards him.

Was Catelyn a victim of Ned’s actions? Yes. Was Ned wrong in how he treated Catelyn? Yes. Does she have reasons to think her children’s right to Winterfell would be endangered by Jon Snow’s presence? Yes. Did Catelyn have reasons to be angry, frustrated, helpless and bitter about Jon? Yes. Was it an insult to Catelyn and house Tully that Ned brought up Jon at WF? Yes. Was it easier for Catelyn to take out her frustrations on Jon rather than Ned? Yes.

Is it okay and right for Catelyn to then take out those frustrations on a child? NO.

I can understand why she treated him that way. Catelyn is flawed and human. She was married to Ned Stark. She can’t divorce him, she can’t fight with him. To have love and stability in her marriage she has to go along with Ned’s decision and bring no animosity to the table.

So what does she do? She takes out her anger about that entire situation on a child. She transfers all that anger and negativity to Jon as a way to deal with this situation. Ned brings up Jon at Winterfell? It’s Jon’s fault. Jon looks like Ned? It’s Jon’s fault.

Was Catelyn particularly cruel to Jon? No. No one expects Catelyn to be a mother to Jon. But Jon was a child. An innocent baby. Of the three of them - Ned, Catelyn, Jon - he was the least responsible and had the least power to do anything. 

Imagine, as a child, one sees the rest of one’s siblings get love and affection and at the same time be ostracized and not even called by one’s name. Imagine being a child and looked at with hate and anger. Being begrudged one’s food.

He reached the landing and stood for a long moment, afraid. Ghost nuzzled at his hand. He took courage from that. He straightened, and entered the room.

He stood in the door for a moment, afraid to speak, afraid to come closer.

Part of him wanted only to flee, but he knew that if he did he might never see Bran again. He took a nervous step into the room. “Please,” he said.

Something cold moved in her eyes. “I told you to leave,” she said. “We don’t want you here.” Once that would have sent him running. Once that might even have made him cry.

He was at the door when she called out to him. “Jon,” she said. He should have kept going, but she had never called him by his name before. He turned to find her looking at his face, as if she were seeing it for the first time. “Yes?” he said. “It should have been you,” she told him.

“You Starks are hard to kill,” Jon agreed. His voice was flat and tired. The visit had taken al the strength from him. Robb knew something was wrong. “My mother... “ “She was... very kind,” Jon told him. Robb looked relieved.

Jon wondered how Lady Catelyn’s sister would feel about feeding Ned Stark’s bastard. As a boy, he often felt as if the lady grudged him every bite.

It was Lady Catelyn’s. With her deep blue eyes and hard cold mouth, she looked a bit like Stannis. Iron, he thought, but brittle. She was looking at him the way she used to look at him at Winterfell, whenever he had bested Robb at swords or sums or most anything. Who are you? that look had always seemed to say. This is not your place. Why are you here?

Imagine reading the above and thinking that Jon is being whiny and oversensitive because of his reaction to emotional abuse. That he should just ‘man up’ and not be bothered, to discount and undermine his narrative and experience because the smallfolk have it worse. Why then consider the experiences of any of the main characters in this series? They ALL have it better than the smallfolk.

What does it matter if Jon never feared for his life unlike Theon? Is that the line at which we define what abuse is? That a child must fear for his life for it to be abuse? What does it matter if Catelyn was not like Cersei and did not murder him? Is that where we draw the line? To have it really bad as a bastard, one must be murdered?

And it’s not like Jon does not blame Ned for his situation or that Ned is entirely exonerated in his eyes. His bastardy and Ned’s actions are what complicates his relationship with Ygritte.

Benjen Stark stood up. “More’s the pity.” He put a hand on Jon’s shoulder. “Come back to me after you’ve fathered a few bastards of your own, and we’ll see how you feel.” Jon trembled. “I will never father a bastard,” he said carefully. “Never!” He spat it out like venom.

And again, I have noticed that it’s only Jon’s pain at being a bastard that’s undermined again and again because he had it better than others.

Sansa had it better than Jeyne Poole because Sansa was a Stark and Jeyne was just a steward’s daughter. Jeyne was send to LF’s brothel, send to Ramsay Bolton, raped and tortured. Does it mean that the abuse Sansa suffered in KL does not count?  But it’s these same folks, who play the oppression olympics of how Sansa suffered the most of all the characters and hence deserves a fairy tale ending, writing essays about how Catelyn was totally justified in her treatment of Jon and it was really Cat who is the victim in that situation because she was ‘rightfully putting her children’s inheritance above the feelings of her husband’s bastard child’.

It’s easy to understand that Catelyn is a flawed and human character, who was as trapped in this situation as Ned and Jon, who had limited options on how to respond and at the same time acknowledge that she was wrong to ostracize, isolate and treat with cruel anger a little child, who was not responsible for the situation they found themselves in.