i think your totally wrong. she doesn’t have to love jon at all! in fact she would lose MY RESPECT if would take responsibillity for someone she is not responsible For! just because her husband brought jon to winterfell doesn’t mean that she has to take care of him. i GREATLY DESPISE people like you, who think a woman should be responsible for SOME other woman’s child while you can’t even tell the BABY DADDY to be a parent to his child. it’s not jon’s fault he was born this way but it’s not her job to take care of him either! in fact it is/was neds JOB to do so!

I think you underestimate the importance of face to face meetings in a world like Westros. Partially it’s an aspect of the limited communications. Partially it’s an aspect of personal trust and counsel in a world were a man’s word is often your only evidence. Of course you want to look a a man in the eye and make a judgement on his trustworthiness.

Of the people Catelyn entrusted with the secret only two people were possible messengers. Herself or Sir Rodrick. Theon should not be sent south because he’s too important a hostage- this is regardless of his actual loyalties, which I agree at this time was to the Starks. Robb needed to stay in Winterfall. Luwin too old, and needed in Winterfell.

Sir Rodrick could carry a message south to Ned, but only by seeing Catelyn and judging that she has returned to her senses, (remember that the last Ned saw of Cat she was not the most rational person), could Ned judge the truthfulness of the accusation and Catelyn’s logic.

Additionally, Cat is not some trophy wife who is uninvolved in Ned’s planning or rule. She is the person Ned left in charge. Everything shows that Ned has always made her a part of his council, and used her to carry out his commands. Naturally the discovery of something so important as an attempt to kill Bran would cause Catelyn to want to talk with Ned and plan together with him. It’s not like they can have a conference call you know.

Now is it also driven by some emotional bias? Sure. Cat has been grief stricken and half out of her mind. She feels guilty about this and wants to act and show her bravery. Cat knows she was acting weak and selfishly, and now she wants to prove that this was an aberration. The last Ned saw of her she was insensible. She wants to see Ned and demonstrate that she is now returned to her senses.

All of these are understandable emotional reasons biasing her towards going south herself.

I’m not even sure it was the wrong decision, for reasons I pointed out earlier.

Personally I am always surprised how much people second guess and hate Catelyn. Is she flawed? Yes, but not in any great and evil way. Perhaps that is why people hate her so much? Her flaws hit too close to home. Too much like those of us in our real lives.

Plus, she’s a woman. And a non-villainous women who is neither perfect nor a tomboy is always hated by everyone it seems.

http://www.bscreview.com/2011/02/george-rr-martin-game-of-thrones-reread-sansa-chapter-15/

Why is it so difficult to believe that she would blindly believe Petyr? Not to mention her sister?! For all she knew, they had no reason to lie. And it’s not just in the world GRRM has created. I’m sure most of us have friends and family that we believe we can trust no matter what. I know there are less and less people I trust as I grow older but I know there are still a few people that I would trust if they told me that someone was trying to hurt them (or something like that) even if it wouldn’t make sense to an outside observer. Even if I didn’t have all the facts, the fact that it is the person I trust telling me this, would mean in my mind that the outside observer is the one who doesn’t have all the facts and is wrong.

Sometimes even when you know you can’t really trust someone, you still do what they want you to do…think of Jaime and “the things he does for love”…

–end spoilers–

I can’t wait for the new chapter, this one really took you a while 🙂

…it’s Sansa next right?

Ned and Catelyn are both such such old-school people, describing their marriage as being ‘trapped’ together seems a bit unfair to me. They do seem to love each other, in their fashion, but they’re not really what we would think of in modern terms as a romantic, happy marriage but that’s not really what their expectations for marriage ever were. It’s not a relationship of equals, Catelyn still will refer to Ned as ‘my lord’, and at the end of the day he’s the one who makes the decisions.

Spoilers

If Petyr’s words meant so much she should have listened to his advice, because he actually gave them the best advice.

That’s all true but it still amounts to the same thing: zero evidence. I get and agree with what Ran says above the worth of family and words, but equally she should KNOW the same applies to the Lannisters and what she was starting.

Look, it’s about degrees. Sure these elements that you’d look strongly into and be extremely suspicious of and get to the bottom of, but we aren’t talking about accusing (and this case arresting and risking someone;s life–nearly getting them killed) somebody for stealing, cheating, or destruction of property. This isn’t mail fraud. You’re arresting the son of the most powerful lord in the realm, who you think ALREADY doesn’t like you (not sure I believe that or not, but Ned certainly seems to consider the Starks ‘stark” opposites to them). Not to mention, hisotrically Tywin doesn’t take slights to well. That’s not peanuts. While I openly admit worthy dialogue can be had that Catelyn isn’t completely out of depth, I can’t even for a minute buy anybody arguing this being her best/only option or remotely tact in that given moment. Take one second and view this from Tywin’s perspective and tell me why – in this case – he isn’t completely justified to make the realm bleed if he chooses to do so.

My question is this, and I don’t hold him to be the lightest bulb either (though I do like him). Would Ned have done the same thing?

Also, let’s take this further (and this is the last on this I have another post to put up). Why exactly did she go to KL again? Essentially she did nothing a message on a rock could have done. If she went their for the reasons people are describing, you march your ass to the King and make it official (no way in hell they could not the level of control exerted on Robert YET). You put it out there, thus, I’d agree with EVERYONE that Catelyn made the right move. Tywin would never (unless he wanted to lose) attack the Throne directly. By not doing this, they basically made the decision that it had to be war.

‘Robert, look at my wife’s scars. She’s the daughter of Hoster Tully, she swears on what happened, and you know what happened to my son. My sister-in law, the wife of your fucking father figure sent us this message – let’s look into this. Fuck it, I’m the hand of the King, I will look into it. What do you have? The Vale, Riverrun and the North with stakes in this. She’s Catelyn Stark/Tully – the Wife of the Hand of the king – somebody attacked her. That’s an issue.

Who – if not the King – could they possibly have on their side to win such a confrontation? Guess what? Petyr told them the truth: drop it. Sure that’s easy for me to say but then again I wouldn’t go and nearly get an innocent man arrested/killed.

I offer this like I did before. Do you think Catelyn does the same to the Kingslayer if it was him in the Inn and not Tyrion? I doubt it. She’d let him go like she does later.

End Spoilers

*Spoilers*

Zero evidence? That she was led to believe the cutthroat had used Tyrion’s knife – circumstantial evidence, but easily convincing. She had no reason to believe that either her sister or Petyr had anything to gain by lying to her.

“most of the individual judgments about her character are ludicrous and no basis for them can be found in the novels if one cares to look for them.”

This sounds suspiciously like an opinion being passed off as fact. I am female, and I find many of Cat’s actions ludicrous and stupid, and I promise I’m not sexist. I disagree with your opinion that seeing and defining the woman’s actions negatively is a blatant wrong that must be driven away. Last I checked, every character could evoke different feelings to different readers, and this was considered a good thing. And no one has destroyed anyone’s arguments here. I see it more as different but fascinating views of a single character.

You KNOW the writing’s good when it can evoke such a plethora of views!

Trying to fix the threaded comments so we go below 5 levels (sorry it can be confusing I know with the limit). Just have to tweak the theme a bit to allow for it.

Thanks for all of the discussion!

Huh, another Anon who isn’t me? Interesting.

I guess spoilers…

Don’t the Lannisetrs know what she’s doing regardless of her taking Tyrion hostage? I think she made them run faster to Tywin by abducting him.

What Lannister misdeed are we talking about (at this point)?

I don’t question the trust of family, but we are talking degrees. Am I willing to believe family? Sure. Am I willing to put myself, my region, my family, in a position where I might go to war against a formidable opponent (and possibly the Throne) on just the word of two people? Off the cuff? Not so much.

Apparently as long as she believe she’s right, Catelyn can arrest and nearly kill an innocent man and commit treason and it’s awesome? I don’t get it. Since you brought it up, let’s flip this the other way…if we were talking about a man, I wonder to what degree this understanding would stand/extend.

I hope I see the same defense of Theon (who I like) later.

End Spoilers

End spoilers

Jay,

**** SPOILER ****

She wasn’t concerned about her personal welfare. An escort back to Winterfell does nothing to protect her family.

The danger is in her having been spotted on the way back from King’s Landing by Tyrion, and what this would tell (the supposed murderer) Tyrion and (the traitorous, murderous) siblings of his about what the Starks “know”.

Yes, it all lies in a failure on their part: they trust Littlefinger. He’s very good at being convincing. Showing and saying that the dagger belonged to him to begin with was pretty brilliant — it made him more trustworthy to them. He then proceeded to be helpful in Ned’s investigations and so on. He kept the secret of Catelyn’s presence.

They had her sister’ss own message as well. I do wonder … if Benjen or Jon Arryn had contacted Ned with a secret message about the perfidy of the Lannisters, would we be as shocked that the Starks believed it? Family matters. Friendship matters. Your word matters. It’s not a modern time, the way George depicts this. Why are we shocked with these people do things that we wouldn’t do in a more cynical age? Why are they “dumb”, rather than constrained by cultural standards and mores? I don’t consider anyone dumb for thinking that a person is being selfish as opposed to depressed because of culturally-inculcate preconceptions (re: southern culture — and, BTW, born in and spent a few formative years in Georgia).

The culture of the Seven Kingdoms is one where blood matters and friendship matters and you can believe some quite amazing things if your blood or your friends whom you trust tell you. Then, when someone shows up who has shed these conceptions (as Littlefinger has), they are disruptive, they’re able to do things (and make others do things) that would normally not be at issue.

I would think that, yes, Catelyn knew a war was coming. The Lannisters were not going to sit down and accept having their misdeeds brought to light. It was war either way.

For my part, again, I think Catelyn pretty clearly explains why she went to the Vale rather than King’s Landing — she believed that Lysa could have the final proof they needed. It also put her and Tyrion out of immediate harm’s way (no Lannister agents in the Vale), with an escort strong enough to get them through the high road (so they thought).

The fault in Catelyn here, really, is that she was too trusting — but it’s hard to blame her for trusting (after initial mistrust, after having to be convince) the youth who nearly died for love of her, and the sister that was always loving and confiding to her. Looking aside from that, her actions within the context of what she believed were on the whole correct.

As to Catelyn expecting some privilege from being Robb’s mother and being safe … well, so what? The point is that Robb’s policies regarding Jaime and his sisters are objectively wrong — we can see, from the very first of Tyrion’ chapters in ASoS, that Tywin is busily prosecuting the war and conniving with the likes of Roose Bolton, Walder Frey, and Sybelle Spicer — and Catelyn had no other means of changing them than to do as she did.

Should she sit down and “just follow orders”? She knew Robb’s decision to hold onto Jaime wasn’t ruled by clear, cold reason — it was emotional, and he was sacrificing the value of his sisters and their place as his heirs out of, essentially, pride and pique. It was wrong. Something had to be done, and there was no one else to do it.

That’s my view, in any case.

**** END SPOILER ****

Ned started the mobilization after Catelyn departed. Robb greatly expanded it when word of Eddard’s capture or flight (rumors were unclear) reached them, and it looks like basically they decided that without the ability to hear from Ned they needed to get moving — before then, it was them waiting for word from him.

The “clichés of Catelyn-hate” are a number of wrong judgements (“wrong” as in factually unfounded and logically unsound), often accompanied by very telling emotions, coming from many of ASOIAF’s first-time readers. They can be found in respective threads at westeros.org or towerofthehand.com.
Amongst them is the belief that Catelyn tends to act particularly unreasonable or illogical at pivotal points of the narrative. This is then often ‘explained’ by appealing to some crude notion of “mother’s instinct” which seemingly overrides even an educated, powerful and politically savvy woman’s common sense (I’m not implying that this is your point, Elena, but your assessment is wrong, too). Aside from the fact that such a notion is blatantly sexist (as if all mothers were hysterical morons), most of the individual judgments about her character are ludicrous and no basis for them can be found in the novels if one cares to look for them.
For example, her decision to bring the news to King’s Landing by herself is, as Elio pointed out, very reasonable.

SPOILER
So is her decision to capture someone met by chance on the way back…
/SPOLIER

The list goes on and on. Sure, Catelyn is a flawed character, as is every character in these novels. But people tend to project a lot of contempt or even hate on her without being able to justify their assessemt once you call them out. I will not repeat Elio’s comments, but he simply destroyed Elena’s and Jay’s arguments as to why Catelyn is a stupid, selfish, impetuous and generally despicable character who can be blamed for numerous catastrophic events in the narrative.
I don’t know why many people (not all of them first-time readers) react to Catelyn in such a way, and from what Mr Martin has said in interviews and at conventions, he doesn’t either.

You’re right, I lack the ability to determine what I feel about characters, you should do it for me.

Who was baffled? I think I pointed out the exact fact that she had characteristics of both (or vice versa).

This is done.

This part about having it both ways is really odd. A human being can act out of fear in one instance and out of boldness in another, it’s only baffling if you can only think of characters as rigid tropes. Perhaps that’s true though, as Catelyn having similarities with both Arya and Sansa is supposedly surprising for some unfathomable reason.

I don’t understand what you’re referring to when you say “Cliches of common Catelyn hate”. Has a list been made, or something?

Also, I don’t think anyone here didn’t spot Cat’s depression, they just didn’t agree with it, or didn’t get it, myself included. Her breakdown was so complete she forgets that she has a complete family. Some people don’t identify with that, and I’m one of them. as for this statement:

“The chapter is as clear and vivid a depiction of that particular mental calamity as one gets from any fantasy novel”

I’m actually puzzled as to what you mean by this. Are you saying that Cat’s breakdown is a trope that I should recognize? If so, what am I supposed to get out of that?

I’ve already send we’ve discussed this before so repeating it is a bit of a waste IMHO, so from now on please wait until we get to that chapter or go back to where we discussed it previously

Why would the Lannisters have to ask Catelyn anything on behalf of Tyrion? He had not done anything. Is it lost on us that Tyrion was COMPLETELY INNOCENT. Catelyn arrested and embarrassed a High Lord’s son who was INNOCENT and took him in her custody. He’s the Queen’s brother and Tywin’s- what did she think was going to happen?

You can’t have it both ways. First, people say she fears the Lannisters finding out she’s going South. THEN she kidnaps said family’s son and now she’s a righteous badass? Which is it? I thought she feared them?

Who cares if Tywin cared about anyone? It’s not relevant, Tywin would act because of the blatant smack in the face to his house. Remember, Tywin blames Tyrion for making him have to mobilze (something about being kidnapped by a woman.

Again, let’s tackle this again when we are there.

Has Catelyn ever had a thought about starting a war by arresting Tyrion? I don’t remember that.

When Tyrion came back from the mountains and met his father again, what did Tywin do? He sent him to attack Bolton and was surprised when Tyrion came back alive. I get it that Jaime was mad at the Starks and the world, but Tywin, the important man, didn’t give a damn about Tyrions life.

It was the Lion’s pride that started the war. How hard was it ask : “Release Tyrion or we will start a war on you”. Would Catelyn consciously rather take the war than release Tyrion? And couldn’t the attacks be stopped once Tyrion was back?

I don’t remember the exact timeline, but wasn’t it Ned’s death that started the Stark’s mobilization? And Ned didn’t die because of Tyrion or the events around him. He died because of his own investigation of Cersei and her children. THAT was the real threat to Lannister power. Nobody gave a shit about Tyrion, beside Jaime.