Is it fair to suggest that, besides his desperate desire to prove himself to his Father (or at any rate his father’s memory, since Lord Hoster was lost in a fever even before he died), Sir Edmure’s drive for the “Big Win” at the Battle of the Fords was founded on straightforward Feudal Politics? (given his future vassals had all but gone over his head to swear fealty to Robb Stark, Sir Edmure clearly needs a PERSONAL victory to shore up the personal prestige crucial to a Lord Paramount).

I certainly think so. 

Edmure’s reputation before the Fords was not good – the “floppy fish” song that Tom Sevenstrings popularized is the kind of young man’s embarrassment that’s hard to live down but can be plastered over by solid accomplishment, but the combination of the Golden Tooth and the battle under the walls of Riverrun meant that Edmure had nothing to his name but catastrophe. 

But the Fords looked like it could change all that: first, it was a victory against Tywin Lannister, the man who had ravaged the Riverlands so badly; second, it was a battle where Edmure united the Riverlands in one army for the first time since that disaster at Riverrun, making it a test of the loyalty of his lords; third, since it was taking place at the same place as his earlier failure, it was almost physically over-writing the story.