Mother's Madness: Catelyn's Motive for Freeing Jaime

While it is obvious and repeatedly stated that Catelyn freed Jaime "for her girls" and as a reaction to the news of Bran & Rickon's deaths, a subtle construction reveals that Catelyn was willing to risk her girls' lives to be comforted by their return to her. It was not motherly of Catelyn to try to rescue her girls by trading Jaime for them, it was childlike. She wanted them to be comforted by them, not to protect them.

The pretext for her release of Jaime is that Catelyn fears Lord Rickard will kill Jaime as vengeance for his sons and that Cersei will then kill Arya & Sansa in retaliation. News Bran and Rickon are dead when she thought their wolves protected them has made her worry for her girls who have no wolves. Catelyn's motive for sending Jaime to King's Landing is meant to keep him safe from Lord Rickard and ensure her daughters' safety as well.

However, Catelyn knew Riverrun would send men after them and with orders to bring back Jaime or his head.

"It was a grave thing you did, my lady, but for naught. Ser Desmond has sent Ser Robin Ryger after them, to bring back the Kingslayer . . . or failing that, his head."

Catelyn had expected no less. May the Warrior give strength to your sword arm, Brienne, she prayed. She had done all she could; nothing remained but to hope.

One irony is that, in her effort to spare her girls the same fate as her boys, Catelyn has recreated the situation that supposedly got her boys killed: a hostage escape. That she endangers Jaime means Catelyn knowingly endangers her girls. There are a suspiciously many mentions of the idea that Cersei will retaliate against hostages generally and Catelyn's girls specifically.

"And your sisters?" Catelyn asked sharply. "Will they deserve their deaths as well? I promise you, if any harm comes to her brother, Cersei will pay us back blood for blood—" 81 ACOK 8 Catelyn I:

She's dead, Catelyn thought at once. Brienne failed, Jaime is dead, and Cersei has killed my sweet girl in retribution. 179 ASOS 36 Catelyn IV

Jaime thinks Cersei might cut off the Stark girls' hands before returning them to Catelyn

I doubt Lady Catelyn will thank him when Cersei returns her whelps in like condition. The thought made him grimace. I will get the blame for that as well, I'll wager. 513

Meanwhile, another theme developing around Catelyn is her grief related to Hoster. Even the aging of the castle servants--men she remembers from childhood--makes Catelyn feel lost.

"She did not know this septon, an earnest young man close to Edmure's age. He performed his office well enough, and his voice was rich and pleasant when he sang the praises to the Seven, but Catelyn found herself yearning for the thin quavering tones of Septon Osmynd, long dead. Osmynd would have listened patiently to the tale of what she had seen and felt in Renly's pavilion, and he might have known what it meant as well, and what she must do to lay to rest the shadows that stalked her dreams. Osmynd, my father, Uncle Brynden, old Maester Kym, they always seemed to know everything, but now there is only me, and it seems I know nothing, not even my duty. How can I do my duty if I do not know where it lies?

Catelyn's knees were stiff by the time she rose, though she felt no wiser. Perhaps she would go to the godswood tonight, and pray to Ned's gods as well. They were older than the Seven.

Catelyn prefers older gods to younger men. She craves guidance but will not go to the septon because , it seems she does not believe a septon younger than herself could guide her. Or perhaps it's that she feels the loss of Hoster in the absence of the elders of her childhood. It even seem that so much new grief has brouhgt up, for Catelyn, the misprocessed grief for her mother.

"What shall we do now, my lady?"

"Our duty." Catelyn's face was drawn as she started across the yard. I have always done my duty, she thought. Perhaps that was why her lord father had always cherised her best of all his children. Her two older brothers had both died in infancy, so she had been son as well as daughter to Lord Hoster until Edmure was born. Then her mother had died and her father had told her that she must be the Lady of Riverrun now, and she had done that too.

By the way Cateyn goes on to thinkof her engagement to Brandon and marriage to Ned, it's clear that by "duty," Catelyn means obedience. She was tasked to wait for Hoster, and knew it was good to pray, but what does Catelyn mean by thinking she did the duty of being the child Lady of Riverrun? It seems that she took this largely the way Hoster meant it: she held her head high and showed strength instead of honestly grieving.

Catelyn's decision to ride to Moat Cailin then Riverrun instead of to Winterfell suggest a similar style of thinking. Were she to do her duty as a mother and return to her youngest (Rickon) and favorite (Bran) Catelyn would be the authority figure but powerless and far away from the impirtant goings on. She'd feel isolated and helpless as Bran has. Catelyn goes to Moat Cailin to counsel Robb, but she might have already hoped to ride to Riverrun with Ser Brynden, to whom she's already promised a thousand men to lift the siege. Catelyn wants to go home to see her father because everything is spiraling into chaos and it's even all her fault. She wants to be comforted: a dutiful child, not a dutful mother.

Citations in Book Sequence

81 ACOK 8 Catelyn I: Catelyn wants to return Jaime, concerned Cersei will retaliate if he's harmed by Robb's men. Catelyn says:

" I have lost my Ned, the rock my life was built on, I could not bear to lose the girls as well . . ."

"Cersei Lannister will never consent to trade your sisters for a pair of cousins. It's her brother she'll want, as you know full well."

"And your sisters?" Catelyn asked sharply. "Will they deserve their deaths as well? I promise you, if any harm comes to her brother, Cersei will pay us back blood for blood—"

129 ASOS Catelyn VII: Catelyn tells Brienne the news Bran & Rickon are dead. It seems believing she's lost her sons makes Catelyn fear for her girls.

"I was certain the boys would be safe so long as the direwolves were with them. Like Robb with his Grey Wind. But my daughters have no wolves now." The abrupt shift of topic left Brienne bewildered.

"Your daughters..."

"I want them all dead, Brienne. Theon Greyjoy first, then Jaime Lannister and Cersei and the Imp, every one, every one. But my girls...my girls will..."

While it's ambiguous what Catelyn means, it seems she feels she cannot begin to retaliate against the Lannisters until she has their Stark hostages back. It is not totally clear that she has sent Jaime with Brienne to be traded for Arya & Sansa.

134 ACOK 61 Sansa VI: Cersei menaces Sansa with threat of beheading, saying she'll be killed if Stannis takes the castle, so that the Starks will have no cause to celebrate the downfall of the Lannisters.

"Tell Lady Sansa why I keep you by us," said Cersei.

Ser Ilyn opened his mouth and emitted a choking rattle. His pox-scarred face had no expression.

"He's here for us, he says," the queen said. "Stannis may take the city and he may take the throne, but I will not suffer him to judge me. I do not mean for him to have us alive."

“Us?”

“You heard me. So perhaps you had best pray again, Sansa, and for a different outcome. The Starks will have no joy from the fall of House Lannister, I promise you." She reached out and touched Sansa's hair, brushing it lightly away from her neck. 850-851

146 ASOS Catelyn I: Catelyn knew when she freed Jaime that Riverrun would send men with orders to bring him back alive or dead. She also expects Cersei to retaliate against her girls should Jaime be harmed.

"Your sons," Ser Desmond said at last. "Maester Vyman told us. The poor lads. Terrible. Terrible. But..."

"It was a grave thing you did, my lady, but for naught. Ser Desmond has sent Ser Robin Ryger after them, to bring back the Kingslayer . . . or failing that, his head."

Catelyn had expected no less. May the Warrior give strength to your sword arm, Brienne, she prayed. She had done all she could; nothing remained but to hope.

Catelyn asks to be confined with Hoster "so I might comfort him in his last days." 34 But later confesses to herself that "Catelyn could not say if Lord Hoster knew she was there, or if her presence brought him any comfort, but it gave her solace to be with him." 35

"There was a raven today, I saw. Has Jaime been taken again? Or slain, gods forbid?

158 ASOS Catelyn II:

"They will have told you what I did. Did they tell you my reasons?"

"For the girls."

"I had five children. Now I have three."

The phrasing of her answer suggests Catelyn's motive was not for the girls but out of grief for Bran and Rickon. That's a major, though subtle, difference.

179 ASOS 36 Catelyn IV: Catelyn thinks Cersei will kill Sansa if Jaime dies

She's dead, Catelyn thought at once. Brienne failed, Jaime is dead, and Cersei has killed my sweet girl in retribution. 481

181 ASOS 38 Jaime V: Jaime thinks Cersei might cut off the Stark girls' hands before returning them to Catelyn

I doubt Lady Catelyn will thank him when Cersei returns her whelps in like condition. The thought made him grimace. I will get the blame for that as well, I'll wager. 513