Disclaimer: I don't own GoT.
My Illusions
As far back as I could remember, my father had always been a drunken brute. He abused both my mother and I unspeakably and, as a child, he terrified me to no end. It wasn't always physical abuse – though it usually was. But what hurt the most was his verbal abuse. He tormented us with his continuous insults and hurled profanities at us. And they hurt. They hurt so much more than his drunken slaps and punches did. Why did he do it? I don't know. Maybe he couldn't stand the bond my mother and I had because it reminded him of something long gone. Maybe he felt we were too happy.
I considered all of that as a child, and tried to please him. I stopped laughing and smiling. After all there was nothing to laugh at anymore. There was no need for Mother to stop laughing – she had already done so years ago. Which was what I suppose I loved about her. Her solemn expression and her gentle nod – signs of approval and love – the only ones I had. He taunted me when I cried. So to please him, I stopped crying. I refused to let a tear fall when he kicked me. I refused to cry when we peeled onions. Perhaps it was more than a normal person would do for the love of someone. But by then I was no longer a 'normal' person.
He called me ugly and stupid and slow. And I believed him. I believed him because it was impossible to do anything else. I was young and impressionable. And he was my father.
Because I did love him. No matter what it is impossible to hate your father. I was terrified of him; I feared him. But somehow I loved him all the same. Is it possible to hate your only child? I suppose it must have been – because he certainly hated me. And that made me miserable. And misery loves company, right? And Lathenia, for all her powers, was miserable. She sensed my misery and I hers and she took me in. Parents are supposed to protect you from evil. Father didn't even notice.
But maybe there was a time that he loved me … us. After all, Mother certainly loved him. Maybe it wasn't his fault and it was just things that had turned out wrong for him. Maybe he was just bitter that life had gone wrong. Maybe I was part of it going wrong. I wonder if he would have loved us more if I had been a boy? He had definitely loved Mother at some point in time … and I think he still does, under that alcohol sodden haze that he lives under. But me? That's a different story. I see fathers holding their babies with such love in their eyes and I wonder if father ever looked at me that way. I'd like to think that he did. Because for all his faults he stayed with us. He could have run or simply left. But he didn't.
Or maybe he just liked someone to punish. Maybe he was just a sadistic brute who liked having power. Maybe he never loved us, and only married Mother to have someone to push around. Maybe he just hated me from the moment he saw me because I was new life – a fresh start. Because I could be what he couldn't.
Or maybe love is just an illusion. And I've been alone for my entire life but I just couldn't see it. And maybe I should stop … feeling.
And maybe that's what I needed to do to please my father.