(Spoilers through ASOS) Joffrey did not order Bran's assassination.

[dotheknifefight]

It is commonly believed Joffrey sent the assassin to kill Bran, but I have a different idea:

It was Mance Raydar.

The idea Joffrey sent the catspaw is circumstantial.

It deduced from Tyrion's POV chapter at the Purple Wedding, and Jaime's POV chapter talking to Cersei at the end of Storm of Swords. They figure all figure it must have been Joffrey, so we do, too. It came more from a lack of any other suspect to consider.

My friend and I once had a long debate about it, where he still refused to believe Joffrey had done it, but he was admittedly at a loss as to who else it could have been. One of his points were: why would Joffrey have talked to a dirty wretch of a catspaw like that at Winterfell, where many people would surely have seen? Joffrey is pretty heartless, but is he smart enough to plan out a hit like this? He has never struck me as intelligent.

It is a near impossibility for Littlefinger to have arranged it

...or want to, as he surely would have taken steps to keep Catelyn out of danger. Nor could I imagine him wanting to kill one of her children.

Also consider: How would Littlefinger communicate with a petty catspaw? Raven? (Impossible: How could a raven be trained to fly to a catspaw pussyfooting around and living in the stables, and moreover how could the catspaw read the message?)

With Bran as the target for the catspaw, this means the catspaw must have received the mission pretty quickly after Bran's fall (before Robert's caravan even left for King's Landing).

Now let's get to the actual text...

After the attempt on Bran's life

“He’d been hiding in your stables,” Greyjoy said. “You could smell it on him.”

“And how could he go unnoticed?” she said sharply.

Hallis Mollen looked abashed. “Between the horses Lord Eddard took south and them we sent north to the Night’s Watch, the stalls were half-empty. It were no great trick to hide from the stableboys. Could be Hodor saw him, the talk is that boy’s been acting queer, but simple as he is…” Hal shook his head.

“We found where he’d been sleeping,” Robb put in. “He had ninety silver stags in a leather bag buried beneath the straw.”

“It’s good to know my son’s life was not sold cheaply,” Catelyn said bitterly.

^{- A Game of Thrones, Catelyn III}

90 silver stags is cheap for a King's son or the Master of Coin.

Why would Joffrey, Prince, son of King Robert who loved expensive gold everything, pay the catspaw in silver? Why would the Master of Coin, who can make gold appear from thin air, pay the catspaw in silver (Baelish, however, its much more shrewd and would obviously have done it to throw himself off the trail).

Lannisters are all about gold. Why, then, would Joffrey pay in a bag of silver? And where would he have gotten a bag of silver without someone thinking it odd? Do we expect him to be smart enough to think to himself "If they find gold, they will know a Lannister did it"?

Catelyn to a captive Jaime

And when he did not, you knew your danger was worse than ever, so you gave your catspaw a bag of silver to make certain Bran would never wake.

^{- A Clash of Kings, Catelyn VII}

Mance to Jon about coming to Winterfell in ASOS

“When your father learned the king was coming, he sent word to his brother Benjen on the Wall, so he might come down for the feast. There is more commerce between the black brothers and the free folk than you know, and soon enough word came to my ears as well. It was too choice a chance to resist. Your uncle did not know me by sight, so I had no fear from that quarter, and I did not think your father was like to remember a young crow he’d met briefly years before. I wanted to see this Robert with my own eyes, king to king, and get the measure of your uncle Benjen as well. He was First Ranger by then, and the bane of all my people. So I saddled my fleetest horse, and rode.”

“But,” Jon objected, “the Wall …”

“The Wall can stop an army, but not a man alone. I took a lute and a bag of silver, scaled the ice near Long Barrow, walked a few leagues south of the New Gift, and bought a horse. All in all I made much better time than Robert, who was traveling with a ponderous great wheelhouse to keep his queen in comfort. A day south of Winterfell I came up on him and fell in with his company. Freeriders and hedge knights are always attaching themselves to royal processions, in hopes of finding service with the king, and my lute gained me easy acceptance.

- A Storm of Swords, Jon I

"I will tell you that ASOS will resolve the question of Bran and the dagger, and also that of Jon Arryn's killer. Some other questions will =not= be resolved... and hopefully I will give you a few new puzzles to worry at." - GRRM

Attached to the king's caravan a day south of Winterfell, Mance would have plenty of opportunity to take the knife from Robert's caravan.

Robert's often drunk, and Mance had "gained easy acceptance" into his caravan, meaning people probably liked him enough not to suspect he would steal a knife.

This how Tyrion links the dagger to Joffrey:

“I remember.” Joffrey brought Widow’s Wail down in a savage twohanded slice, onto the book that Tyrion had given him. The heavy leather cover parted at a stroke. “Sharp! I told you, I am no stranger to Valyrian steel.” It took him half a dozen further cuts to hack the thick tome apart, and the boy was breathless by the time he was done.

... Tyrion was staring at his nephew with his mismatched eyes. “Perhaps a knife, sire. To match your sword. A dagger of the same fine Valyrian steel… with a dragonbone hilt, say?”

Joff gave him a sharp look. “You… yes, a dagger to match my sword, good.” He nodded. “A… a gold hilt with rubies in it. Dragonbone is too plain.”

“As you wish, Your Grace.”

(- A Storm of Swords, *Sansa IV)

“Tyrion shifted his weight uncomfortably from one foot to the other. He could not stand still. Too much wine.

... He ought to have seen it long ago. Jaime would never send another man to do his killing, and Cersei was too cunning to use a knife that could be traced back to her, but Joff, arrogant vicious stupid little wretch that he was…

... Robert Baratheon was a man of careless generosity, and would have given his son any dagger he wanted… but Tyrion guessed that the boy had just taken it. Robert had come to Winterfell with a long tail of knights and retainers, a huge wheelhouse, and a baggage train. No doubt some diligent servant had made certain that the king’s weapons went with him, in case he should desire any of them.

... The why of it still eluded him. Simple cruelty, perhaps? His nephew had that in abundance.

- A Storm of Swords, Tyrion VIII

Keep in mind that through all of this Tyrion is really drunk. I don't understand how he is being relied upon as a narrator.

& notice phrases like "he should have seen it", "Tyrion guessed", "no doubt", "it still eluded him"

Tyrion even goes as far to say that Robert would have forgotten about the knife. So its not like there would be a lot of security on it, and if its taken by a diligent servant in the baggage train it wouldn't have been so difficult for a musician everyone loves and accepts to get near.

Why did Joffrey never mention it to Robert?

According to Jaime's POV chapter at the end of A Storm of Swords:

“Yes, I hoped the boy would die. So did you. Even Robert thought that would have been for the best. ‘We kill our horses when they break a leg, and our dogs when they go blind, but we are too weak to give the same mercy to crippled children,’ he told me. He was blind himself at the time, from drink.”

Robert? Jaime had guarded the king long enough to know that Robert Baratheon said things in his cups that he would have denied angrily the next day. “Were you alone when Robert said this?”

“You don’t think he said it to Ned Stark, I hope? Of course we were alone. Us and the children.” Cersei removed her hairnet and draped it over a bedpost, then shook out her golden curls. “Perhaps Myrcella sent this man with the dagger, do you think so?”

“Not Myrcella. Joffrey.”

Cersei frowned. “Joffrey had no love for Robb Stark, but the younger boy was nothing to him. He was only a child himself.”

“A child hungry for a pat on the head from that sot you let him believe was his father.”

- A Storm of Swords, Jaime IX

If Joffrey was so hungry for a pat on the head from his father, and that's why he did it:

1. Why not have it done while Robert is there to see it done? Two weeks passed between Bran's fall and everyone leaving for the Wall and King's Landing, and another eight days until the assassination attempt.

2. Albeit he has no way to know the outcome, no one finds out until the caravan arrives in King's Landing almost two month after it happened. In that time, why wouldn't Joffrey have bragged to his father about ordering the hit on Bran? Especially if he's "hungry for a pat on the head" and is already known to be kinda psycho vis-a-vis him cutting open a pregnant cat, along with him hearing his father say Bran should be put down like a sick dog. Joffrey would have been showing Robert his strength, according to his fathers own words.

But why would Mance do it?

Mance must have come south of the Wall with some sort of plan. With almost all the main players in the Game of Thrones in one place, and the inevitability of sellswords, free riders, and other cretin attaching themselves to the retinue, a bag of silver is all he would have needed to ensure he could make some sort of hit on someone at Winterfell.

Chances are he hung around for quite a while before heading back north of the Wall.

• Almost three weeks elapsed between Robert's arrival and Bran's fall. Even though they were set to leave the next day, Bran's fall forces King Robert and his caravan to stay another two weeks. This gives Mance a month or more to plan and execute some foulery.

Any which way, he's no friend to Westeros. His motive is simple: destabilize the kingdom. Sow discord between the families. Distract everyone from the Wall. I haven't done enough rereading of Mance's part in the novel to see if there are any other clues - perhaps there are some.

However, these passages above had me pretty convinced.

Why should we assume Mance's intentions in Winterfell were innocent and pure?

He's planning a fucking ASSAULT on the Wall and the Seven Kingdoms. All the turmoil caused by the attempt on Bran's life set in motion a chain of events that led to everyone ignoring the Black Brother's alarm of an impending wildling attack. War between the families in Westeros was a perfect distraction. If it wasn't for Davos learning to read, finding that scrap of paper, and reading it to Stannis, is plan would have worked perfectly. Don't think he would have tried to kill the son of the Lord of Winterfell? Well, would the boy have been spared if the wildlings crossed the Wall?

Westerosi citizens are the enemies of the wildlings, especially a Lord and his family; most especially a Winterfell lord, given the Stark support for the Wall.

Of course he's not going to tell Jon anything about what he did or his intentions.

Imagine how Jon would have reacted.

Mance strikes me as the Jaime type. He leads his forces in battle and if he wants something done right he does it himself.

I'd say going all the way to Winterfell by himself is, in fact, doing it himself.

"But Guest Right!"

From the woiaf.westeros.org entry on Guest Right

"The guest right is a sacred law of hospitality. When a guest, be he common born or noble, eats the food and drinks the drink off a host's table beneath the host's roof, the guest right is invoked. Bread and salt are the traditional provisions.

When invoked, neither the guest can harm his host nor the host harm his guest for the length of the guest's stay."

• If Mance left long before the assassination attempt, it would have released him from the responsibility to uphold guest right and the probability of the curse that comes with breaking it.
  

Another bit about Guest Right from the wiki

"It is sometimes customary for a host to give "guest gifts" to the departing guests when they leave the host's dwellings; this usually represents the end of the sacred guest right."

• If anything happened like this over the course of the three weeks between the feast and Bran's assassination, then he would have been released from guest right.

Mance could have waited until everyone left Winterfell to further ensure he would not break the sacred vows of Guest Right.

TL;DR : You only like Mance because he wants Jon to like him. Mance mentions all he took to Winterfell was a lute and a bag of silver. The lute earned him trust, the silver bought the catspaw - the assassin was found to have a back of silver in his possession.

The only reasons why you think Joffrey did it is because he's a violent psychopath and Tyrion, Jaime, and Cersei deduced it for lack of a better suspect. They never met Mance or knew anything of his intentions.

[Kasporio]

I cant see Mance ordering a child death.

Wildlings could killed crippled children, as said by Val regarding children plagued by the greyscale, but children are also sacred to them.

And Mance somewhat respects the guest right, he would attempts something on his host's child.

Joff was stupid, and this whole poorly prepared attempt on Bran's life shows it. But he couldnt be stupid enough to boast about that around Robert. His "dad" beat him once for killing a cat after all.

For the silver coins. Lannisters maybe rich, but not generous, they will try to achieve their goal at the lower cost.

And for the valyrian dagger... only someone close to Robert could had stolen it. Joff was oblivious of its true value (i would some dragons at least) and he was clearly upset when Tyrion mentionned the dagger and implied he knew.

[Usrnmhsnomning]

No

[danm_999]

I like Mance. I really do. He's clever, charming, cultured and good in a scrap. But you're giving him waaay too much credit.

I'm willing to bet when he saw all the blond haired Lannister children, the way Robert and Cersei acted, and the way Cersei and Jaime acted, he pieced together, quicker than most, the truth of their parenthood.

I'm not willing to bet that. It takes Ned, Stannis and Jon Arryn years. And they have Maester Malleon's "The Lineages and Histories of the Great House of the Seven Kingdoms" and access to Robert's bastards. Expecting Mance to figure everything out immediatly is prepostorous; Mance doesn't have half the data he'd need to get there.

For all we know, he could have also seen Bran flung out the window, or have seen or heard something between Jaime and Cersei to know what had happened to Bran. Chances are he hung around for quite a while before heading back north of the Wall.

Ok, so let's say Mance saw something. Let's then reconcile it with this statement you make regarding Mance's goals;

His motive is simple: destabilize the kingdom. Sow discord between the families. Distract everyone from the Wall

So Mance either witnesses the most egregious violation of guest right and child murder probably in the last hundred years involving two of the most powerful families in the realm, or has suspicion the King's powerful wife is cuckolding him with her brother leading to a succession crisis. Either violation, which if made public, would explode into a political crisis that would force the Starks, Lannisters and Baratheons into open conflict immediatly.

And you're contending Mance did nothing with this information?

He just sat on his hands and sauntered back North of the Wall? He didn't even attempt to pay a proxy to say he saw the Kingslayer throw Bran from the tower? He only paid a proxy to later murder Bran when it couldn't possibly spring the same sort of explosion political crisis as it could when everybody was present at Winterfell.

Huh?

[Jory Cassel]

So Mance either witnesses the most egregious violation of guest right and child murder probably in the last hundred years involving two of the most powerful families in the realm, or has suspicion the King's powerful wife is cuckolding him with her brother leading to a succession crisis. Either violation, which if made public, would explode into a political crisis that would force the Starks, Lannisters and Baratheons into open conflict immediatly.

And you're contending Mance did nothing with this information?

He just sat on his hands and sauntered back North of the Wall? He didn't even attempt to pay a proxy to say he saw the Kingslayer throw Bran from the tower? He only paid a proxy to later murder Bran when it couldn't possibly spring the same sort of explosion political crisis as it could when everybody was present at Winterfell.

Huh?

Not only does the op suppose he did nothing, but furthermore it is assumed that he had the only other witness besides himself killed.

[Ahura Mazda]

No.

...

Mance, seriously?

...

wtf.

Littlefinger is at KL, he may have raised Joffrey wicked interests in the past but surely wasn't directly involved in the assassination attempt.. unless you suggest that Joffrey believed him his true friend and felt the need for sending him ravens with messages with info and demand for counsel.

Certainly Joffrey doesn't shit gold like his parents, and even if he did, he is enough egoistic to not wish to share so much gold for an assassination attempt.. besides the dagger was made of valiryan steel which value is of several gold stags.. it might well be that was part of the deal too.

But Mance?! It isn't worth answering, my greatest apologies.

[dotheknifefight]

I cant see Mance ordering a child death.

Wildlings could killed crippled children, as said by Val regarding children plagued by the greyscale, but children are also sacred to them.

And Mance somewhat respects the guest right, he would attempts something on his host's child.

Joff was stupid, and this whole poorly prepared attempt on Bran's life shows it. But he couldnt be stupid enough to boast about that around Robert. His "dad" beat him once for killing a cat after all.

For the silver coins. Lannisters maybe rich, but not generous, they will try to achieve their goal at the lower cost.

And for the valyrian dagger... only someone close to Robert could had stolen it. Joff was oblivious of its true value (i would some dragons at least) and he was clearly upset when Tyrion mentionned the dagger and implied he knew.

Thanks for helping support my theory by reminding me wildlings would kill a crippled child, lol.

Did you miss the whole section on guest right?

His dad beat him for opening a cat up to take the babies out, but in this case Cersei tells Jaime Robert said it would show strength to kill a crippled child.

The Lannisters may be rich, but not generous, but this isn't the Lannisters. This is Joffrey. You think he would worry about the cost of something when he's got shit tons of gold at his disposal?

Not only someone close to Robert could have stolen the dagger. As Tyrion points out: "Robert had come to Winterfell with a long tail of knights and retainers, a huge wheelhouse, and a baggage train. No doubt some diligent servant had made certain that the king’s weapons went with him". He even went so far as to say Robert would have forgotten about the dagger.

[dotheknifefight]

No.

...

Mance, seriously?

...

wtf.

Littlefinger is at KL, he may have raised Joffrey wicked interests in the past but surely wasn't directly involved in the assassination attempt.. unless you suggest that Joffrey believed him his true friend and felt the need for sending him ravens with messages with info and demand for counsel.

Certainly Joffrey doesn't shit gold like his parents, and even if he did, he is enough egoistic to not wish to share so much gold for an assassination attempt.. besides the dagger was made of valiryan steel which value is of several gold stags.. it might well be that was part of the deal too.

But Mance?! It isn't worth answering, my greatest apologies.

The OP clearly states Littlefinger could have had NOTHING to do with it.

Joffrey doesn't shit gold like his parents, but he shits 90 silver stags in a bag?

[dotheknifefight]

Not only does the op suppose he did nothing, but furthermore it is assumed that he had the only other witness besides himself killed.

You're both taking a side comment that, I guess, detracts from the point as a whole without addressing 95% of it. So ill remove it. hah.

[dotheknifefight]

And all of you are supposing Mance is some swell, sweet guy because of how he is appearing to Jon in Jon's POV chapters. Again, as the post says over and over, HE IS THE KING OF THE WILDLINGS, ENEMIES OF WESTEROS, PLANNING AN ATTACK ON THE WALL AND A HUGE SCALE INVASION OF THE SEVEN KINGDOMS.

Yet, for some reason, he'd have a moral dilemma about killing the son of the Lord of Winterfell - a Stark, whose family has supported the Wall against the wildlings, an enemy of the wildlings.

[danm_999]

You're both taking a side comment that, I guess, detracts from the point as a whole without addressing 95% of it. So ill remove it. hah.

It's not a side point though. It completely contradicts your motivation basis for Mance at Winterfell (to cause chaos) if he suppresses an opportunity to chaos a huge amount of chaos.

If Mance had truly known about twincest and Bran's defenestration he could have kicked off a huge shit fit that would have suited his needs perfectly. Even if it was only by spreading rumours and sending catspaws to doomed assassination attempts.

Hell, even if Mance had no knowledge of either of these things, hiring the same slob to try and kill comatose Bran (or god, anyone really) whilst the Lannisters and Robert were at Winterfell would have caused so much chaos and mistrust between the great families that Mance's invasion would have been all the easier.

That's why Mance makes little sense as a suspect. What actually transpired doesn't suit his motives.

[Ahura Mazda]

The OP clearly states Littlefinger could have had NOTHING to do with it.

I wanted to say my own opinion, is it a problem if I don't happen to contradict the OP? :-/

Joffrey doesn't shit gold like his parents, but he shits 90 silver stags in a bag?

Is there any proof he received THAT money for THAT assassination and not for something else? No.

Is there any proof Joffrey needed to give him both the dagger and the money? No.

It's a matter of assumptions and opinions, so don't make me such questions I can't answer with proofs within the book..

[dotheknifefight]

Hell, even if Mance had no knowledge of either of these things, hiring the same slob to try and kill comatose Bran (or god, anyone really) whilst the Lannisters and Robert were at Winterfell would have caused so much chaos and mistrust between the great families that Mance's invasion would have been all the easier.

1) I deleted that part of the OP.

2) Thanks for supporting my point. Trying to kill Bran (or god, anyone really) even after the Lannisters and Robert left Winterfell was enough to cause so much chaos and mistrust between the great families that no one gave a shit when the realm was warned of a Wildling attack. Why? They had their own wars to fight.

[dotheknifefight]

I wanted to say my own opinion, is it a problem if I don't happen to contradict the OP? :-/

Is there any proof he received THAT money for THAT assassination and not for something else? No.

Is there any proof Joffrey needed to give him both the dagger and the money? No.

It's a matter of assumptions and opinions, so don't make me such questions I can't answer with proofs within the book..

What I was saying was, you talked about Littlefinger not being involved in the assassination attempt as though it was something I alluded to being a possibility. Its actually something people out there believe as an alternative to Joffrey.

I'm pretty sure its generally accepted the silver was to pay for the assassination attempt (given the quotes from the book in the OP)

I have supported everything I said about this theory with passages from the book.

[danm_999]

1) I deleted that part of the OP.

2) Thanks for supporting my point. Trying to kill Bran (or god, anyone really) even after the Lannisters and Robert left Winterfell was enough to cause so much chaos and mistrust between the great families that no one gave a shit when the realm was warned of a Wildling attack. Why? They had their own wars to fight.

1) Doesn't stop it from existing or undermining the case you're making.

2) Except killing them, or attempting to kill them before they leave is more effective in pursuing the goals you've set for Mance. Because then it has to be dealt with then and there. And it might cause a political hostage crisis which necessitates Northern forces moving south to man Moat Cailin against Southron forces. How does waiting until most of the high ranking nobility leave cause chaos that serves Mance's ends? It doesn't.

[WinterKing]

I don't believe so...

[Boxman]

If Mance wanted to sow discord while he was at Winterfel, he could have done that with Ned Stark, Cersei Lannister, or Robert Baratheon, to much greater effect, than killing a little boy. It wouldn't even need to be a successful assassination, just showcasing an attempt on the life of either of those three, and casting suspicion on another, would do much more to destabilize the realm, than killing Bran. Mance is an intelligent, and capable person, so there's no way your theory can be correct

[Ahura Mazda]

I'm pretty sure its generally accepted the silver was to pay for the assassination attempt (given the quotes from the book in the OP)

$ error: does not compute

I am sorry, I can't discuss things on this kind of level.

Some things are certainly supported, but when assumptions and opinions fill the gap necessary to draw conclusions.. that's called crackpot theory.

The fact is I don't like the idea you have on Mance, which is totally anticlimatic with all we have seen of him and his decision making process up until now.

[Sullen]

Mance Raydar.

Hehehe... Goddamnit, I need some sleep...

[dotheknifefight]

$ error: does not compute

I am sorry, I can't discuss things on this kind of level.

Some things are certainly supported, but when assumptions and opinions fill the gap necessary to draw conclusions.. that's called crackpot theory.

The fact is I don't like the idea you have on Mance, which is totally anticlimatic with all we have seen of him and his decision making process up until now.

Did you read the quotes from Catelyn's chapter?

All we have seen of him has been through Jon Snow, who he was trying to convince to support the wildlings in their attempt to get south of the Wall. Guess what? He succeeded.