Arryn connections

[Lord Joker Of FunLand]

There is nothing to indicate that it was real also and the fact that he is extremely awful to her points to it being false, simply one doesn't destroy the life and family of someone they love because they are angry they didn't get together because the other followed the authority of their family.

It's literally a classic villain story. Evil guy in love, evil guy gets rejected, evil guy swears revenge on her and everything she loves.

Of course, nothing to prove or disprove it, but until we do, i'd rather stick with what we are told.

[Queen Sansa Stark]

If you actually think about it Littlefinger is nothing but a "nice guy" who got way ahead of himself and never got over his issues.

[thelittledragonthatcould]

In this case, I think that there are only two possibilities for Sansa to get the Vale in her own right :

1) I read somewhere here I think that somehow, Jon Arryn could have decided to make Ned Stark his heir before the War, when Sweetrobin was obviously not even conceived and Brandon not yet dead. It's really unlikely but well, still a possibility, especially considering how old Jon Arryn was already at the time.

It would still be a very hard claim to press on, would require hard to find proof and real desire from the bannermen of the Vale to follow Sansa.

Before the War Jon Arryn still had heirs. Denys Arryn died during the rebellion and his son some time after.

[Hippocras]

Well I am not ready to treat it as fact, anyway, that LF's move on Catelyn was about either love or lust, and not ambition. It may be real, it may not be. All we have is the word of a known liar, so I am open to either possibility.

But for the sake of this thread, the version that says his Tully moves were all about ambition wins. It opens up the speculation on the full scope of his ambitions.

It certainly would not be past this character now to marry someone third in line to inherit a major title, then bump off the two people before her in line.

I say it is a bigger assumption to believe he is a different person now than he was then, than it is to say that he would have operated the same way back then as he does now. Descriptions of his aggressive kissing practices say to me he was ALWAYS about raw ambition, and this is not something he became.

[The Weirwoods Eyes]

Well the way Catelyn described their kissing experiments seems like it was not love at all to me. That description sounded to me like sexual aggression. There is not a single memory Catelyn has of him doing something that was ever in any way loving. He kissed both sisters indiscriminately. He took more than Catelyn ever offered. I look for evidence of love in the text and find none at all except his words. The words of a known liar.

There is nothing to indicate that it was real also and the fact that he is extremely awful to her points to it being false, simply one doesn't destroy the life and family of someone they love because they are angry they didn't get together because the other followed the authority of their family.

Seriously have you two got no life experience?

When they started the kissing they were all very young, Petyr the youngest of all and the only boy. When you start with that kind of game its not about love at all its about exploration, playing at being grown ups etc..Its like playing mummy's and daddy's or Dr's & Nurses.. Petyr obviously liked Cat even then as he preferred kissing her but he kissed them both, the story is to set up the fact that he liked cat and Lysa liked him. Cat didn't take the game seriously at all and it is indicated that as the years went on Petyr & Lysa took it more and more seriously and real feelings developed.

The fact he eventually went on to fight a duel with a 20 year old man over Cat tells us he loved her for real.. it would be insane to offer out a grown man for a fight to the death. And no we don't know that he knew Cat would not let Brandon kill him at all. There is nothing in text to indicate that either had pre planned that bit. It seems that when he was badly injured Cat felt overwhelmed by her own love (yes you know that platonic we grew up together kind of love) for him and couldn't bare to see him slaughtered. Which is what was happening as Brandon was seriously good with his sword.

As for him being awful later on in life to her and her family, Have you never had bad break up? Are you really so cool and well balanced that you have no grasp on how much hatred sometimes comes from love when things don't work out so well? I swear I had this one boyfriend at 15 who I STILL feel really angry towards I swear its a good job he emigrated to Canada because if I were to bump into him I think that even now almost two decades later I'd want to physically hurt him. There is nothing quite like being completely humiliated and publicly shamed to help you nurse resentment. Oh and another one who's mum made him finish with me as I was too Common in her view. I Hate that woman with a passion and whenever I see a photo of her crop up on FB I seethe with anger. Yes I'm a grown up and perfectly happily married but the wounds we take in our youth can really fester. If you have no experience to draw on to understand why people behave the way they do I guess Its harder to understand what the author is getting at.

So yes I do believe the text,when the author describes a young boy who fell for a girl way out of his league, who is spurned, humiliated, almost killed, sexually assaulted by another girl, and run out of his home with his tail between his legs when she gets pregnant, all the while it seems everyone who you have known since you moved there is laughing at you, and you are told in no uncertain terms that you were over reaching and you ought to know your station in life who ends up angry, resentful and revengeful.

So while you may argue there is no textural evidence that LF actually loved Cat, well there is non to say he didn't but we are given this whole understandable back story to go on. And if you understand the human condition in all its ugly failing then you get it.

Love is not always pretty, its not always respectful or understanding. People are not all mature well balanced & reasonable. And even when they are in almost every other area of their existence when it comes to love that can and often does all go out the window.

Unrequited love especially is very often one of the strongest emotions we feel, & as an adolescent especially. We very commonly carry a torch for that person throughout our lives. But as already pointed out if that emotion & person then gets tied up in all these other feelings of shame, humiliation, resentment, anger,a sense of injustice and a desire for revenge it is very understandable that that love can turn to something else.

Besides which I don't think He did hate Cat in the end at all. I think he always held onto the idea that Cat prevented his death out of romantic love, that she came to him and offered up her maidenhead and that if not for social constraints and Hoster's stubborn ambition & pride then she would have been his.

I think in his head he believes he truly loved her and in his way he did sure its not the healthy mutual love we hold in such high regard, but love isn't a one size fits all thing its very varied and sometimes its very dangerous and quite ugly.

[Leonardo]

We have Cat's word as well, not just Petyr's

When she recalls the scene that day in her mind, it's pretty poignant; it was the death of Littlefinger as she knew him, and just before the birth of this new creature full of hate and dispossessed rage

Lol aggressive kissing?

Sansa may have some claim to the Vale, but it's nowhere near third in line. The Starks are isolationist by nature and mostly marry into other Northern houses. There's a reason Rickard Stark is remarked as having 'southern ambitions'

Littlefinger doesn't play the 'long game' like Doran does, or this crazy plot Varys has going, he just plays the game like pick up basketball.

I'm all about exploring theories, but you are assuming waaaaaay too much about possible Arryn connections and then not telling us to assume anything about LF's actions when he was a boy and without any reason or motivation to want something bad to happen to the Tullys.

Catelyn never visited him, Hoster's comments cut him to the bone has much as Brandon's sword, and then gets shipped back to his tiny holdings on the fingers while Cat goes on to be the Lady of Winterfell, Lysa the lady of the Vale, Hoster at the forefront of the most powerful marriage alliance in the realm, and people laugh about his attempt for Catelyn and their total disregard for him being maimed and definite murder at the hands of Brandon had Cat not pleaded for his life. That pleading may have even been the worst for him

You are trying to take away his motivation for no other reason than to fit a theory that Sansa is 3rd, 4th or 5th in line from the Vale when she is as far from it as could be, or LF would be working to that end instead.

Everyone in the Vale is either one of his pawns or views him as some upjumped minor minor lord who quite possibly had a hand in the death of their, albeit unloved, liege lady and mother of their liege lord and wife of the former one.

Why not look like the good guy and marry Sansa off, creating a marriage alliance that could equal the Tyrell-Lannister alliance which is rapidly fraying? It would be the unexpected move for him to make and force everyone to reconsider his true motives; I reckon it would win over anyone but Yohn, who will already have his hands full with the oncoming war that he's wanted for over a year now.

It's far more unexpected that he goes through with the marriage of two young and (one of whom at least) very tractable heirs who already owe him.

Once again, Sansa is at best 15th or so in line, AT BEST, and everything suggests that she is closer to 80th or not in line at all.

[Hippocras]

What an obnoxious thing to say! I have vast amounts of life experience, yes. Including of love and being loved. Also of being sexually harassed. I know the difference, do you?

Yes, they were kids experimenting. Cat wanted to try out brushing lips. He shoved his tongue in her mouth. He took more than she offered. Same with Lysa. Lysa liked the boldness of it, Cat was uncomfortable.

[The Weirwoods Eyes]

Well I am not ready to treat it as fact, anyway, that LF's move on Catelyn was about either love or lust, and not ambition. It may be real, it may not be. All we have is the word of a known liar, so I am open to either possibility.

But for the sake of this thread, the version that says his Tully moves were all about ambition wins. It opens up the speculation on the full scope of his ambitions.

It certainly would not be past this character now to marry someone third in line to inherit a major title, then bump off the two people before her in line.

I say it is a bigger assumption to believe he is a different person now than he was then, than it is to say that he would have operated the same way back then as he does now. Descriptions of his aggressive kissing practices say to me he was ALWAYS about raw ambition, and this is not something he became.

Yea sure, because as we all know people are completely one dimensional and never change or evolve through their life experiences.... Sure...sure.

[The Weirwoods Eyes]

What an obnoxious thing to say! I have vast amounts of life experience, yes. Including of love and being loved. Also of being sexually harassed. I know the difference, do you?

Yes, they were kids experimenting. Cat wanted to try out brushing lips. He shoved his tongue in her mouth. He took more than she offered. Same with Lysa. Lysa liked the boldness of it, Cat was uncomfortable.

In which case you'll understand that kids play daft kissing games, and yes sometimes one goes a bit further than the other. That is not sexual harassment.

Jesus. Hell even on a date often at the end one person may go in for a kiss and the other goes in for a snog. Not sexual harassment just misaligned intentions. It would be sexual harassment if he had coerced or forced her to kiss him like he does with Sansa.

Are you seriously saying that a what 8 9 year old boy who takes a kiss a bit further than the recipient intended is sexually harassing them?

Cos in that case I ought to be getting my 7 year old charged because the other night when I kissed him goodnight he tried to tongue me. He'd seen it on TV heard about it in the playground or whatever and thought that he'd try it, because he loves his mummy so very muh. I did just sit down and talk over different kinds of love...But I guess according to your standards I should have been calling the cops?

[Hippocras]

Do you know what love is?

It is wanting someone ELSE to be happy. It is doing things to make THEM happy.

LF never did any such thing. He TOOK more than was offered. He never did it for her. It was not love, it was aggressive sexuality.

This has nothing to do with criminal charges, or calling the cops. It has to do with the basics of what love is, which you clearly do not understand. I pity you if you have never felt love.

[HexMachina]

Do you know what love is?

It is wanting someone ELSE to be happy. It is doing things to make THEM happy.

LF never did any such thing. He TOOK more than was offered. He never did it for her. It was not love, it was aggressive sexuality.

This has nothing to do with criminal charges, or calling the cops. It has to do with the basics of what love is, which you clearly do not understand. I pity you if you have never felt love.

I disagree. Love can be felt by one person and not be reciprocated. In which case it certainly isnt about making the other person happy too. Many paedophiles claim to love their victims, vut that certainly isnt about making the child happy. I have to agree with Weirwood Eyes, there is nothing aggressive about the kissing games Littlefinger, Lysa and Catelyn played as children. LF was clearly in love with Catelyn and Lysa clearly loved LF.

However, contradicting myself somewhat, everyone has a different perception of what love truly is, and so there isnt really a concrete definition per se. (I am studying relationships in psychology so I recognise that love is defined differently by mqny) So maybe this is an argument that cant be resolved because everyone has differe.t ideas that are neither right nor wrong :dunno:

[Hippocras]

Even if it is not reciprocated, there is a clear difference between sexual desire, and actual love. Desire is when you don't really care how the other person feels about you or about their well being, you just want them. That's all I see re: LF. At most it was innocent teenage desire, aggressively expressed. Equally likely, in my opinion, it was about possession, of which Catelyn was just a means to an end.

In the books the issue is fairly ambiguous, and can be interpreted many ways. For this thread, the ambition angle is frankly far more interesting and I wish we were discussing that.

In the TV show, there is a scene where LF is discussing Catelyn indirectly with Ros, and she says she must have been very beautiful. He says "not particularly, no. Impeccable bloodlines though." That seems like a pretty huge deviation on the part of the writers of the show if we are in the end going to learn LF's motivation really was love.

[The Weirwoods Eyes]

Do you know what love is?

It is wanting someone ELSE to be happy. It is doing things to make THEM happy.

LF never did any such thing. He TOOK more than was offered. He never did it for her. It was not love, it was aggressive sexuality.

This has nothing to do with criminal charges, or calling the cops. It has to do with the basics of what love is, which you clearly do not understand. I pity you if you have never felt love.

I don't feel that I have any need to qualify my experiences of love to you or anyone else. I do completely disagree and find the idea that love is only ever the way you describe it to be laughable at best and extremely offensive at worst. So you would disregard the feelings and emotions of anyone who does not experience "love" within the confines of your personal guidelines? You honestly think you are so wise and so important that you can define for the rest of the world what love is? I feel that that is extremely arrogant and patronising.

No dear its not love because you don't feel or behave in exactly the way I define as love.

Do you see how patronising that sounds. Love is not easily defined and it comes in many forms, just because you have a very narrow definition of what love can be does not mean that others who feel it is not so easily pinned down are wrong, it does not grant you licence to go around telling other people that whilst they may think they are in love, or have loved that unless they tick your boxes they were in fact not in love at all..

Petyr and Catlyn grew up together, he knew her intimately. In that way that only those who have been so close through childhood can know you. I am happy to accept the story that he loved her. It feels to me very understandable. Now you can come along and say oh well I know better than that I know that love can only be love if it fits into my little box. But frankly I disagree, I suspect I am not the only person who would do so too.

I don't need your definition of love to validate or invalidate what I am reading and how I understand and interpret it. Because guess what you don't get to decide what love is. Obviously you feel there is only one type of romantic love and that anything which doesn't fit neatly into your interpretation is invalid and I completely disagree.

Please don't talk show, what happens in show is not Book Cannon. Its not considered good form in this forum to bring the show into book discussion just an FYI.

[Leonardo]

Alright enough of this babbling of love and real life experiences, I already cut down Hippocras with my previous post anyways.

Sansa is 15th in line at best, around 80th in line is far more likely.

[Hippocras]

Alright enough of this babbling of love and real life experiences, I already cut down Hippocras with my previous post anyways.

Sansa is 15th in line at best, around 80th in line is far more likely.

Where do you get this?

We don't actually have a clue how distant the Gulltown Arryns are - they just have the same name, which only means a continuous male line.

We actually have not the slightest clue who is in line after Harry the Heir, so what you say here is pure fabrication.

And as for LF's love - you are making as many assumptions as I am if not more. The issue is far from resolved and your contemptuous arrogance in the post above is

laughable.

In the TV show, there is a scene where LF is discussing Catelyn indirectly with Ros, and she says she must have been very beautiful. He says "not particularly, no. Impeccable bloodlines though." That seems like a pretty huge deviation on the part of the writers of the show if we are in the end going to learn LF's motivation really was love.

[The Weirwoods Eyes]

I really do think my stance is much more reasonable I acknowledge that many people experience love in a variety of ways, as opposed to insisting that Love is only in existence in the way you define it.

Its supremely arrogant to insist that only your personal idea of what constitutes Love can be considered correct. And no amount of trying to make out I am somehow wrong will ever change that.

Go ahead call me whatever you like. But you know I'm right.

And I just realised you were not responding to me. Whoopsy

[Hippocras]

"I know I am right"

ok...so...yeah. I rest my case. Go to a different thread if you don't want to imagine alternative possibilities.

[HexMachina]

I still cant honestly say it sounds reasonable to distrust anything weare told about LF though. Sometimes a melon is just a melon, I dont see why we cant take his word (especially when what else we know appears to align with that) that he loves, or at least loved Catelyn.

ETA: and show scenes (particularly ones they use to shoehorn in more sex) shouldnt really be counted as evidence. It already appears as if the show and book will differ greatly on many things.

Also, you said earlier the difference between desire and love. So what about Tris Botley? By the standards you laid out, he simply desires Asha, but i think most would agree he is in love with her.

[Lord Joker Of FunLand]

We actually have not the slightest clue who is in line after Harry the Heir, so what you say here is pure fabrication.

So you're allowed to fabricate shit "for discussion and speculation" but others aren't? Hypocrite much.

[Leonardo]

Where do you get this?

We don't actually have a clue how distant the Gulltown Arryns are - they just have the same name, which only means a continuous male line.

We actually have not the slightest clue who is in line after Harry the Heir, so what you say here is pure fabrication.

And as for LF's love - you are making as many assumptions as I am if not more. The issue is far from resolved and your contemptuous arrogance in the post above is

laughable.

It's not fabrication, it's basic logic. The Starks are isolationist, they tend to marry into the families of one of their own lords. Rickard had Southron Ambitions, which that alone tells us what he was doing was out of the ordinary. Also he was building up ties to the Vale through sending Ned there to foster

And a continuous male line also puts them way ahead of Sansa in succession. We have some clues as to who is next actually, because we have the Gulltown arryns, and we know that the arryns married into their vassals families like the Waynwoods. It was common practice in order to bind your vassals to you through blood and marriage ties, strengthening the hold on a region by doing so. The idea that Sansa is anywhere relevant in this succession of the Vale is preposterous when she already is a pretender to the North and the Riverlands, which LF already is technically in charge of.

It wasn't contemptuous arrogance... You called the kissing game aggressive, which was so ridiculous it deserved a guffaw, now that was laughable.

I'm not the one being rude to you alright, so you can cut the crap just because your theory that Sansa has any chance to inherit the Vale is ridiculous and you are pretty much just sticking your fingers in your ears and humming very loudly anytime I use facts and logic to try and point to the truth, and then are rude to me just because other people are being rude to you.

And that quote is directly contradicted by the source text, because we know that Catelyn was considered quite beautiful and was Hoster's prized daughter.

It's not 'in the end', it already happened. His motivation is more likely a hatred for the nobility and feudal system in general, and also drawing from his spurned love. He was also mocked a lot for even trying to win Cat's hand, and if he had been murdered everyone would have been pretty much fine with it.

He also calls Ned a more impressive specimen than Brandon in the show, when we know from Ned's own mouth this isn't true. Ned was a better commander, but all other martial skills Brandon had him beat.

Like I said, if Sansa was anywhere close to inheriting, marrying her to Harrold would be completely counter productive to LF's plans and get him nothing.