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I cringe to think of what the hyper misogynistic Reddit people might think of Cat.
This requires explaination. I have very rarely saw a post that came even close to something that could be considered hyper misogynistic, or even slightly misogynistic. Maybe if you go to r/beatingwomen or some bulltrout reddit like that, but that is a relatively small population of Reddit and you have to expect misogyny from people like that. But whatever, small potatoes.
The problem with Catelyn's decisions are that they are personal and inclusive, not necessarily that they are dumb. She is one of the few major characters, and there are others, that make choices and decisions that directly or indirectly effect a large portion of the characters. Letting Jaime go in hopes of getting her children back (when she has no reason to believe this will actually work because the "Lannister's always pay their debts" line is bulltrout: Lannister's always pay their debts when it behooves them to pay their debts). Capturing Tyrion with as little information as she did, while not necessarily a problem in and of itself, is another one of these. The biggest problem with her capture of Tyrion is that she refused to listen to him when he provided logical information to her that disputed what she already believed. Her mind was so made up that Tyrion tried to kill Bran that she refused to listen to anyone saying otherwise. Her decisions, while they did not directly cause the war, had more influence over the dominoes that fell than most other characters did.
Robb's decision to send Theon back to his family was made out of trust and familial love for the boy he considered his best friend and someone he had known since he was a little boy. He grew up with this guy and did not think he would have betrayed him. In hindsight, yeah he probably regrets the decision but he did not know that Theon would betray him at the time because he had no information to the contrary. A stupid decision? Completely, but he didn't have the information that the audience had so you can't really blame him for trusting someone he loved.
Sansa is a stupid girl but eventually grows into a semi-intelligent woman who understands what her actions have done and regrets them. If you dispute this, you are clearly not reading the same books as everyone else. She even states herself that she does not care at all about politics, she just wants to live in a fairy tale world with her lovely prince. Even though that prince has proven, time in again, to be a sadistic little :bou::bou::bou::bou:. She grows out of this after Ned is put to death and starts to realize that fairy tales aren't exactly real and that Joffrey is very much not Prince Charming. I go to several forums that are dedicated to the series and everyone's opinions on Sansa are about the same: an idiot to begin with, but she eventually gets wise to the world.
Dany, like Cat, refuses to listen to reasonable suggestions around her. She also does not understand how politics work. This is mostly a reflection on how she grew up. She was, esssentially, raised on the run by an idiot who thought his name meant everything. She grew up thinking that her Targaryen blood meant she was above everyone else and that people would love her simply because of who she was. Other, much wiser people, understand that this may not be the case and so suggest she do things differently. She rebukes them because she believes with all her being that she only needs to show up and say "Sup, Aegon was my daddy." and people will line up in droves to be members of her ever-increasing army of dragony goodness. She eventually grows out of this and starts to see the logic behind her actions, although she is still a stubborn little girl from time to time. Her current story, in the show and in the books, is necessararily boring because it impacts her eventual growth that much more.
Ned was not stupid. He was honorable. There is a difference and it is pretty significant. He made stupid decisions because he made the mistake of everyone being just as honorable as he was. He thought that everyone wanted what was good for the kingdom, even if it wasn't necessarily good for specific people. He died because he refused to play the game of politics that everyone else was playing. Yea, he was a bit dumb, but only so far as he refused to see reason.
Catelyn's actions are, from a motherly point of view, very understandable and completley reasonable. However, that does not mean they are smart. The biggest problem with Catelyn isn't that she is making stupid decisions, it's that she refuses to see why the decisions are stupid. LIke I said, she has absolutely NO reason to believe that the Lannister's would free Sansa and Arya (since she doesn't know Arya isn't in King's Landing). As long as Robb has Jaime as his captive, his sisters are completely safe. The Lannister's would absolutely not harm Sansa and Arya if they knew that harm would come to their favored son. Catelyn not only ruins this by letting him go, but she refuses to understand why letting him go was such a bad decision. She isn't dumb because she makes stupid decisions because, yes, all of the characters make stupid decisions. What sets her apart from most of the cast is that she refuses to acknowledge why her decisions might be stupid.
Also calling everything sexist or misogynistic is dumb. Just because dudes don't get naked on the screen does not mean the creators of the show are blatantly sexist. It just means that dudes aren't getting naked on the screen as much.

