I am a numbers geek, and I just went off on a tangent (yuk yuk) when I was trying to find out how old Cat was supposed to be, because she looked about 80 in the second episode on HBO.
I guess it’s not that important, and I seem to recall GRRM actively discouraging stuff like this, because it’s kind of impossible to not have inconsistencies in a story this complex, with so many POVs. See, for example, the Holy Bible.
But the discrepancies I perceive are all contained within about 20 pages, and very early in the story, so I found that surprising.
Re-reading this, it’s clear that this isn’t the whole story, so Cat might have been playing a bit loose with the ages as well. Here it says that her betrothal was only announced right before the duel. Brandon wounded Petyr badly enough that he got an infection and was very ill (maybe even close to death) at Riverrun for some time. Petyr was sent away by Lord Tully because of what happened with Lysa, not because of the duel… Cat would never have seen the scar, unless she was around for long enough after that to know Petyr got Lysa pregnant (and I assume Lysa would have hidden that as long as she could). Argh, I can’t remember how much Cat knows in the beginning about that situation! I don’t have time to reread all these books!
If all inaccuracies hinge on this statement of Cat’s, I think we can fairly dismiss it as a misspeaking or deliberate witholding of information from whoever she is speaking to.
Maybe it’s an underscoring of just how little she has always cared about Littlefinger, in contrast to his stalkerish obession with her.
The guy FOUGHT A DUEL for her. He MUST have asked her to marry him many times, and she MUST have very carefully considered his age, in evaluating his prospects.
And as pampered kids growing up in a rich castle, I would think birthdays would be very big deals. Even if not, people were certainly aware of them. A few pages after the Littlefinger scene, Jon is trying to talk his uncle into letting him go on a scouting trip, and says, “I’ll be fifteen on my name day.”
It’s important to remember that Cat had no choice about who she would marry, as the daughter of a major Lord with alliances to make. If she had no feelings for Littlefinger and he had told her he intended to marry her, she would have told him to talk to her father. It’s most likely that Littlefinger always had (somewhat concealed) feelings for this girl, who was several echelons of nobility above him, but completely lost his head and let his youthful hormones get the best of him when it became clear that this Stark asshole was going to take his Cat away from him, and soon.
This raises the question of how objective the narration is.
Obviously we get each character’s POV in the correspondingly titled chapters, but does that mean that everything in those chapters is tainted?
Just looking at Jon’s first chapter on the Wall, because that’s where I had the book open last to look up something else, his attitudes are variously described as “stupid” and “stubborn.” There is no indication that those are HIS evaluations. There seems to be an objective narrator, who can get inside Jon’s head when he wants to, but can also deliver objective, i.e. true, statements.
That’s actually what I was wondering - does anyone really pay much attention to birthdays in Westeros? Apart from that, I have relatives who can’t remember my only daughter’s age, much less her birthday. I’ve got no problem believing she wouldn’t remember.
Hell, let’s all think back to our very best high school teenage friends. Who can remember their birthday?
Outside of those I’m obligated to remember (Mom, wife, daughter) I remember one friend’s, and that’s because we were friends from first grade through our twenty-fifth birthdays.
And I agree that Cat looks too old. She may be a fantastic actress, but she absolutely does not look the part. Ehle would have been so much better, looks-wise.
At the risk of sounding like a broken record, let’s take an analogy that’s a bit closer. Suppose your high school girlfriend had offered you her virginity; that the age of consent in your state was 18; and that she was still just 17 at the time.
How many years would have to pass before you forgot that incident, or the fact that she was under 18 at the time?
Well, any number of male friends I spent plenty of time with but had no sexual interest would have been willing partners of mine in high school. Some even explicitly offered. I don’t remember any of their ages, birthdays, or even last names in most cases. Cat was a pretty girl, we’re numb to all the young guys we don’t care about wanting to have sex with us, and she was at least infatuated if not in love with Brandon before they were betrothed.
Plus we have no idea how open Littlefinger was with Cat about his feelings before the ‘mad’ duel happened.
That’s because sex is much more special and meaningful to guys than it is to girls.
But seriously, even if she had no attraction to LF, Cat loved him like a brother. When she found out about the duel, she would have pleaded with him not to do it, and his age would have been a strong pleading point. I can’t believe she would forget an incident like that.
Well I don’t know about that, but I know that most teenage boys and most teenage girls are mostly going to have very different reactions to and memories of the (approximate) situation that Cat and Littlefinger were in. It’s understandable that Cat would have glossed over that whole situation to the degree where she didn’t even remember Petyr’s age at the time. He was less than an annoying kid brother to her.
Also, they were raised as closely as siblings, but she does not mention loving him at any time. Petyr is not a kind or likeable person as an adult, it’s certainly possible he was not a very likeable child (especially if he was always staring at and stalking Cat and trying to get in her pants when they were teens, eew).
If my memory is correct the duel is described as happening in the spur of the moment away from adults, and Cat supports Brandon fully and in front of Littlefinger (gives him some kind of token of her love even), but in the end begs him not to injure Littlefinger worse than he already has.
The whole thing was probably mostly embarrassing to Cat. She’s just been happily betrothed to a handsome, charasmatic, older lord-to-be and capable swordsman who she has a big crush on - and stupid, weirdo kid-foster-brother Petyr declares that he’s going to fight him to the death for her hand in ‘marriage’ (not that them being together could ever happen in any reality she knew)? I’d want to kill Petyr myself, and then sink through the floor.
No, his age would not have been. The fact that he was much younger would have been an arguing point, but whether he was 14 or 15 or 11 would have made absolutely no difference.
Due to her lackluster reaction when she runs into him at King’s Landing (and his creepy one), it’s clear there isn’t any sibling-like affection on either side. Contrast it with Cat’s obvious caring for Lysa (even though she’s a wack-job) and her close relationship with Edmure.