A Game of Thrones: Catelyn V (Chapter 28): Inn Cognito

Last time on Adventures in Awful Parenting, one father sent his oldest son to the die in some frozen hell, and it looked like Jon Arryn was murdered for finding King Robert's bastard son. We now turn to Catelyn Stark, who tops everyone else by kicking off a chain of events that gets all your favorite characters killed.

Ser Rodrik tells her she ought to cover her head. Not because she might be recognized, or anything, but because it's raining out. They're taking the road back north rather than the sea because the plot demands it. They run across Jason Mallister, bannerman to Catelyn's father, and he doesn't recognize her so she assumes they're safe.

They go to an inn. Catelyn notes that she could go north to Winterfell, west to Riverrun, or east to the Eyrie.  She immediately rules out the Eyrie because the road from here to there is full of Sand People hill tribes. She also decides not to go to Riverrun. She notes that a war will affect Riverrun before it hits Winterfell, but her rationale for not going to Riverrun is that her father is sick and she doesn't want to tax him.

I don't mean to gang up on the Starks here, but if you took a drink for every stupid decision they made in these books, you'd be dead. Catelyn's rationale for not going to Riverrun - a decision that could have changed the course of the entire war - is unbelievably flimsy. And yes, going to Riverrun would change the course of the war. Tyrion wouldn't be able to escape nearly so easily, Catelyn might still have been there when the Lannister host descended on it, meaning that Robb would be more concerned with freeing his mother than with capturing Jaime Lannister, meaning that untold scads of character development would probably never happen... or, if Jaime was still captured, then suddenly the Starks would have two hostages, and Tywin would have nobody other than Kevan to send back to King's Landing to be the new Hand...

Where was I?  Catelyn recites the names of all the Riverlands houses, because they're the ones that are going to get utterly hosed in the war she's about to start.

At the inn, a singer bugs her and reminds us all that the Kingslayer lost a tournament to the Knight of Flowers. And Catelyn remarks that a singer once bedded the girl her brother Edmure had fancied. (This is Tom O'Sevens or whatever the frak he calls himself, getting a mention two books before he shows up.)

Then Tyrion shows up. And recognizes Catelyn. And then Catelyn rallies all of her father's bannermen to take him hostage.

This is the first of several scenes meant to make you go "hell yeah" only to later realize what grievous misery awaits because of it (see also: The King in the North, Dracarys).

It must not come to war, Catelyn thought fervently. They must not let it.
-pg. 287, US paperback