Catelyn Stark: Horrible Parent
So I just go to Feast for Crows, which seems like a good time to discuss Catelyn since...well...she's dead. Yes, yes, undead zombie Cate...but seriously let's go the tape.
So we are going to skip the playing with swords traditional bad parenting of the medieval times and jump to where Catelyn, specifically is a bad parent. Some of this also applies to Eddard of course, the inability to stop Bran from climbing all over the castle despite literally having a castle full of people who should be able to...eight year olds...
Seriously. You can't stop your 8 year old from climbing alone all over the castle? Really? You can't assign someone to watch the boy? You are lord and lady of a freaking castle and you can't get the 8 year old to stop climbing? Really?
So Bran falls, and now Eddard leaves with the girls and Catelyn...well...more or less abandons the 3 year old to wander around with a dire wolf for months and has her 14 year old run the castle...
Which brings me to the wolves. You really have to pick a side here. Either they are omens of your gods and so you should let Bran's stay in the room OR they are dangerous beasts and you shouldn't let your 3 year old hang out with one unattended. Too dangerous to have the wolf with Bran, but safe enough for 3 year old Rickon while you are camped out with Bran...
Obviously she gets points for the assassin stopping, but really the wolf would have done that if he wasn't locked out...but then what does she do next.
She abandons her children to personally deliver a message to her husband that anyone could have delivered.
Seriously, all she is basically saying is "See this knife? It's fancy, and someone tried to kill Bran with it. I'm going to stay here and watch our children and be a parent, so I had to send this guy with the knife. Let me know if you can find out who it belongs to. Hugs and Kisses, Cate."
But no. She goes to Kings Landing, abandoning a toddler, the one she couldn't leave the room for, and a 14 year old boy in a place where they were just almost assassinated? Really Cate? Really?
So we get to Kings Landing with the Knife and she convinces Eddard to trust Littlefinger.
Littlefinger.
This is like telling your kids that the Free Candy is totally legit. Fail Cate.
So Cate starts heading back to, you know, raise her kids when she sees the Dwarf who she thinks killed her son because she believes a completely stupid story that makes no sense unless Tyrion is an idiot. So what does she do?
Basically start the War of the Five Kings.
Her kidnapping Tyrion gives the Lannisters pretense to invade the Riverlands and for Eddard to be attacked by Jamie...All while Rickon, Bran and Robb are raising themselves I guess...and because Eddard trusts Littlefinger, he ends up getting killed.
Good job!
So Cate heads to the Eyrie, because why not bring her whole family into this...and along the way even she realizes the whole "Dwarf gives a really obvious dagger to some guy" plan is silly...but you know, once you start a way...Robb is now calling his banners because they captured his Dad (because he trusted Littlefinger, who he trusted because his wife vouched...seriously, for Littlefinger? She grew up with him, he knocked up her sister...c'mon Cate...
So now she gets to the Eyrie and realizes her sister is crazy and maybe Tyrion didn't do it and she kinda started a war and got her husband captured and now her son is going to war. But she has Tyrion to leverage so they won't kill Ned right? Yeah...not so much. But it isn't like he used someone she brought with her from the Inn as his Champion...oh wait.
So maybe she isn't so good at this "Game of Thrones" things...so she of course will return to winterfell to take care of the toddler and the cripple...
Wrong. I'll follow Robb and advise him. Which is great, as she convinced him that Roose Bolton is a better choice than Greatjon Umber....and she is the one who negotiated the deal with the Freys...the only good advice she gave, to not send Theon, was what she couldn't convince Robb to follow.
FAIL!
So they kill Eddard (Why not, it isn't like they had Tyrion...) and Robb is King in the North so he sends Mom to treat with Stannis and Renly...who is then killed when she is in his tent...not her fault but C'mon!
She flees with Briene, looking oh so suspicious and goes back to River Run...where she goes Two for Two at releasing Lannister Brothers that could have been leverage...losing the Karstarks in the balance...Oh and did I mention that while she was away, her youngest are kidnapped in Winterfell...where she should have been...
Robb, being a teenage boy who has been unparented for most of the last two years, knocks up his nurse while he his grieving because he thought his brothers were dead (since, you know, no one was at Winterfell to watch them...) and remember that deal Cate worked out with the Freys...yeah...how did that work out.
And this isn't even touching on how shitty she was to Jon.
Seriously...one of the most fail characters in the history of writing. I don't know what Petyr saw in her...