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Identity of sender of letter and another possible 'glamor'


magusj

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I've seen a lot of regarding the identity of sender of Ramsay's letter to Jon Snow at the end of the book. There's been some speculation (that I agree with) that Mance may have written the letter.

Here's my theory: Mance has KILLED (or captured and put in the crypt) Ramsay and is now pretending to be him as of the end of ADWD. How? He took some of Ramsay's bones (from his hand for instance) and has on his person, thus using Melisander's glamour/magic to make him LOOK like Ramsay.

As such he now has effective command of the Bolton armies and to a certain extent the North. He then sends the letter to Jon pretending to be Ramsay, either A- hoping Jon would comply, or B- knowing Jon would head south with an army of Wildlings at his back.

He could then reveal himself to Jon when they were to meet for a paraly or before battle, or what have you... lots of options open to him.

Remember what the spearwife's said.... "Abel can take care of himself."

Thoughts?

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It's an interesting theory. I do have a few problems with it.

1. this assumes that Mel's glamour is a permanent thing. There is no evidence that the glamour is everlasting or transferable. I presume that for each glamour, Mel would have to personally cast it, making this theory harder to swallow.

2. The tone of the letter, in my opinion, is just to much like the bolton bastard. Presumably, Jon had interactions with Bolton as a child, is aware of his tone of voice.

I'm not sure George would give us two glamours on the same person...it would seem too, ideal? I don't think Bolton is done yet.

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It is aninteresting theory, however, the letter sounds too much like Ramsay. It is also not clear why Mance would want Jon to abandon the Wall. There are lots of other things he could have done with the Bolton's army, if he commanded it, like moved to the Wall himself

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Really, I think in case occams razor best applies. It could be a bunch of people but really the latter sounds like Ramsey, its something he would do because he is a complete douche. Therefore the letter is from him. The oiutcome of the battle is mystery enough without adding further layers by making other people write the letter for convoluted reasons.

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I've seen a lot of regarding the identity of sender of Ramsay's letter to Jon Snow at the end of the book. There's been some speculation (that I agree with) that Mance may have written the letter.

Here's my theory: Mance has KILLED (or captured and put in the crypt) Ramsay and is now pretending to be him as of the end of ADWD. How? He took some of Ramsay's bones (from his hand for instance) and has on his person, thus using Melisander's glamour/magic to make him LOOK like Ramsay.

As such he now has effective command of the Bolton armies and to a certain extent the North. He then sends the letter to Jon pretending to be Ramsay, either A- hoping Jon would comply, or B- knowing Jon would head south with an army of Wildlings at his back.

He could then reveal himself to Jon when they were to meet for a paraly or before battle, or what have you... lots of options open to him.

Remember what the spearwife's said.... "Abel can take care of himself."

Thoughts?

While I am a big fan of the Mance writing the letter theory, I don't think it's possible that he glamoured himself to be Ramsay. As far as the letter is concerned, there's various things that point to it not being Ramsay besides the bastard thing. One thing I find prominent is the use of the term false king. Whenever Ramsay referred to Stannis he called him Pretender. Melisandre calls Mance the false king though so it's language that I can't subscribe to Ramsay but I also can't fall in with the Melisandre authoring the letter theory.

The problem comes with the glamouring. Mance can't glamor; he's not a red priest. And, Mel description of how difficult it is to glamor someone would contradict this as well. Mance doesn't know the words, he doesn't know the spells, he just doesn't have the capability to glamor.

Now it would be absolutely wonderful if he did have Ramsay locked up somewhere, and while I believe he is fine and can take care of himself and possibly wrote the letter, he didn't glamor himself in the process.

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The problem comes with the glamouring. Mance can't glamor; he's not a red priest. And, Mel description of how difficult it is to glamor someone would contradict this as well. Mance doesn't know the words, he doesn't know the spells, he just doesn't have the capability to glamor.

Mel has huge difficulty glamouring someone, but the faceless men don't appear to have the same problem. My point being that, although Mel constantly pats herself on the back for her huge and awesome powers, we've seen other characters accomplish very similar things with far less difficulty (the Faceless Men appear to have far greater glamour powers than Mel, Bloodraven allegedly glamoured himself as "Maynard Plumm" in The Mystery Knight, Mel's fire-visions are very similar to Jojen's green dreams and can't compare at all to the powers of a greenseer, etc.). We don't know very much about how Melisandre's "Rattleshirt" glamour was created, only that she probably used Rattleshirt's bone armor in the crafting. I would be shocked if Mance hadn't investigated Mel's ruby a bit---he doesn't seem the sort to just quietly follow someone else's plan. Maybe he even took it to some magic user (Morna White Mask, the warrior witch?) that he thought could suss out its secrets. It's possible that the glamour is malleable, and Mance realized it could be adapted to other people if he switched out Rattleshirt's bones with other items. (Mel was very nervous when he wasn't wearing the bones, remember.)

I don't necessarily subscribe to the theory that Mance has taken Ramsay's place, but it does have its interesting points. Mance must hate Stannis---Stannis wants the Free Folk on their knees, worshipping some foreign god (Jon, at least, is more palatable on those points). I can't imagine he'd entrust his whole plan to Theon Turncloak, and the fact that his "plan" involved sending Theon Kinslayer and a girl who looked nothing like Jon (and nothing like that girl he saw at the feast for Robert) to Stannis, when Jon never wanted Stannis to have Arya, could just reinforce that point in my mind. Asking for his own loved ones makes sense, and asking for hostages against Stannis makes even more sense, if he's trying to neutralize Stannis.

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2. The tone of the letter, in my opinion, is just to much like the bolton bastard. Presumably, Jon had interactions with Bolton as a child, is aware of his tone of voice.

Agree about the tone itself, but Jon almost certainly never met Ramsay. He wasn't part of Roose's household until after Domeric's death, and Theon didn't recognize Ramsay when Ramsay was disguised as Reek, so it's unlikely he was ever at Winterfell the same time as Jon.

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One thing becomes more apparent to me as we try and think who wrote the letter. Stannis and his southern lords are sooooo out of place in the North. They are dying like flies, to use Thorn's words. I just want the Boltons removed. It Stannis has to die to make that happen, so be it.

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I think to the extent this theory is true, it is most likely that Mance found a way to change the glamor by changing the bones he keeps close to himself... so the glamor is still Mel's spell, just changed by Mance having Ramsay's bones close, thus making him look like Ramsay.

I didn't mean to imply Mance had learned how to glamor or anythign like that... merely that he quickly saw how to use the glamor to his advantage.

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The problem with this theory is the letter itself. If it was written by Mance, what was his purpose? To inform Jon that his sister escaped and lure him off the wall? That seems a little silly being that both know the dangers that are coming to attack the wall. No matter how much I would love for Mance to have messed up the Bastard and his plans it seems like he's getting flayed for info in the Winterfell dungeons, or one of his spearwives is. Hopefully he/she will handle it better than Theon though.

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Mel has huge difficulty glamouring someone, but the faceless men don't appear to have the same problem. My point being that, although Mel constantly pats herself on the back for her huge and awesome powers, we've seen other characters accomplish very similar things with far less difficulty (the Faceless Men appear to have far greater glamour powers than Mel, Bloodraven allegedly glamoured himself as "Maynard Plumm" in The Mystery Knight, Mel's fire-visions are very similar to Jojen's green dreams and can't compare at all to the powers of a greenseer, etc.). We don't know very much about how Melisandre's "Rattleshirt" glamour was created, only that she probably used Rattleshirt's bone armor in the crafting. I would be shocked if Mance hadn't investigated Mel's ruby a bit---he doesn't seem the sort to just quietly follow someone else's plan. Maybe he even took it to some magic user (Morna White Mask, the warrior witch?) that he thought could suss out its secrets. It's possible that the glamour is malleable, and Mance realized it could be adapted to other people if he switched out Rattleshirt's bones with other items. (Mel was very nervous when he wasn't wearing the bones, remember.)

I don't necessarily subscribe to the theory that Mance has taken Ramsay's place, but it does have its interesting points. Mance must hate Stannis---Stannis wants the Free Folk on their knees, worshipping some foreign god (Jon, at least, is more palatable on those points). I can't imagine he'd entrust his whole plan to Theon Turncloak, and the fact that his "plan" involved sending Theon Kinslayer and a girl who looked nothing like Jon (and nothing like that girl he saw at the feast for Robert) to Stannis, when Jon never wanted Stannis to have Arya, could just reinforce that point in my mind. Asking for his own loved ones makes sense, and asking for hostages against Stannis makes even more sense, if he's trying to neutralize Stannis.

Concur with you about Mance being the author. Mance is no dummy, he studies situations and people, carefully. He knows that Stannis is his death, so he does need leverage against him. He dislikes Jon, too, but may not be as wary of him as he needs to be. It seems to me that he underestimates Jon in many ways. Jon is not deliberately deceiving him, but he doesn't let Mance learn about him, while he learns more about Mance at each encounter.

It is possible that the glamor that Melesandre placed on Mance can be modified by using a different artifact. It will be interesting if Mance has displaced Ramsay. The faceless men don't use glamors which can be seen through, at least the time that they placed the mask upon Arya. There probably have been some interesting developments at Stannis' camp and Winterfell. I really am looking forward to finding what the developments are.

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Mance isn't glamored anymore when he is at Winterfell, Theon describes him as we know him, not as Rattleshirt.

Besides, why should there be any need to pose as actual Ramsay if all he needed to do was write his name under the letter and some crazy psychopath talk in it? Although I also don't believe into the Mance-letter-theory, this is even more of a strange way to get Jon down to Winterfell. I still think if he actually wanted him there (which I don't believe), he could just ask. Or, you know, just tell him to come down there, because the Bastard of Bolton wants to eat his heart and rape and torture his little sister.

And somehow I think it might be difficult to play at being Ramsay. Certainly not healthy in the long run :stillsick:

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I think it highly unlikely that Mance can write. He was brought up a Wildling and then a Night's Watchman, then returned to the Wildlings. Wildlings appear to be completely illiterate. Very few of the Night's Watch can write, and those who can appear to have learned it before they joined the watch. The watch does not teach recruits to write.

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I think it highly unlikely that Mance can write. He was brought up a Wildling and then a Night's Watchman, then returned to the Wildlings. Wildlings appear to be completely illiterate. Very few of the Night's Watch can write, and those who can appear to have learned it before they joined the watch. The watch does not teach recruits to write.

Rangers invariably must learn to read and write, to read maps, and write messages for the ravens to carry back.

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The reference to wanting Reek back is the only thing that I can't reconcile, that is what makes me think that it was written by Ramsay. I'm going to go look for the thread discussing the letter because I have a great interest in the theories that Ramsay (or his maester) didn't write it. I don't want it to be true!!

Mance isn't a magician.

It's an illusion, Michael.

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It's an illusion, Michael.

Two points for you!

After reading exhaustively on this website all the possible theories available here is my thought, it seems to make the most sense without adding magic or crazy actions in.

Mance killed Roose then bailed. Ramsey has a couple of living spearwives and that's how he got the information about the burning sword and Mances family. Ramsey is coming unhinged because the army that he sent to fight Stannis' has never come back and now he's staring at a bunch of extremely perturbed Northmen who are wondering why 'Arya' decided to run away into the frozen wasteland instead of stay with her husband.

He knows the only option he has is to get something of value back, whether it be 'Arya', Stannis' daughter, Mance's kid, Melisandre... SOMETHING. He needs something or he's boned.

You have to look at the clues in the letter.

Why do we know Ramsey wrote it? No one, not even Mance would be able to get down the nuance of Ramseys weird obsession with Reek. He asks for Mance's son and Queen. What does Mance care for these people? He knows his 'son' is Crasters inbred bastard and he knows Val is no Queen.

Why do we know Roose is dead? There is no way a smooth operator such as Roose would ever allow that type of letter to exit Winterfell. He is to cunning to do such thing. He is dead and this has left Ramsey in charge, and he is no proper player in the Game. Also, if Roose was alive, the pink wax would have had his seal on it. Roose strikes me as the kind of guy that understands the power of a seal on a letter.

How do we know Mance is alive and free? Ramsey would not request his child be brought otherwise. Ramsey needs that kid as ransom against Mance who is doing all sorts of terrible things. Also, I suspect that Mance knows his son has been spirited away to Oldtown, and if he was captured, his flaying would certainly have revealed that type of information.

How do we know Ramsey did not kill Stannis? It's only been 7 days, so perhaps Stannis has been routed and the Northmen just haven't made it back yet? If so, why the panic move of sending the letter to Jon. No Stannis is still there. Also he wants Stannis' kid and wife, more hostages against a still hostile foe. Why does he ask Jon for 'Arya' and Reek? If he had over run Stannis' forces, it wouldn't have taken a lot of questioning to find out that (even if they'd run away) at one point Jeyne and Theon had been in Stannis camp headed West, not heading North to the wall. Same reason he wants Melisandre, Stannis' can't abide her being captured.

Just some thoughts I had on the subject.

Go Mance!

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