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Patchface Prediction of Battle of Ice


Kevoncox

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Spoilers ahead.
Let me know what you think of theory. 

“We will march into the sea and out again." 

Not sea but Lake. Frey's going in Fake Frey's "coming out" 

"Under the waves we will ride seahorses"
Foreshadowing the heavy horses of the Bolton's and Freys going into the waters  

"and mermaids will blow seashells to announce our coming, oh, oh, oh.”
Manderleys (who have gotten to Stannis first) blowing horns to announce Freys/Boltons coming arriving
or

Manderleys blowing a horn at the gates of Winterfell to signal the "successful" return of the war party after the battle of Ice. 

 

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Ramsay has no chance if he comes alone. He is no commander, and no fighter: his strength is in treachery.

The only good he can do for Roose outside WInterfell, is to act as a spy or saboteur somehow. Therefore he must be planning to get into Stannis's camp as a friend rather than as a foe.

He needs to infiltrate with a surrendering or defecting force. The Freys and Manderlys are coming for Stannis, and Stannis knows that even if they combine against him, he and his army are good enough to beat both - and in any case they're not going to combine against him because they are going to come to blows themselves, Wylis Manderly at least will make sure of that.

I'm fairly sure that Roose knows perfectly well the Manderly and Frey armies will fight each other before either meets Stannis - and that the winners will be in no shape to beat Stannis, who is a good enough commander to have beaten both regiments even if they were cooperating and at full strength. The Freys have no hope of survival by defecting - they have effectively been sent out as cannon-fodder, to die and hopefully do at least some damage to Stannis's forces first (they won't succeed in this), or failing that, to the Manderly forces who have themselves become a liability. Not a single man in a Frey uniform will survive.

BUT, he thinks that the Manderly family themselves - Wylis specifically - cannot actually defect, or won't be allowed to, because of the execution of Davos and the fact that old Wyman is still hostage. If Roose were correct, Wylis would have to *desert*, take neither side after fighting the Freys - because Winterfell would not let him back in: and try and make it back to White Harbor knowing that Stannis dare not pursue him and turn his back on Winterfell, and thus Stannis must content himself with defeating the common men of the Manderly army, who would most likely surrender - and they at least have hope of survival by doing so, having not been party to the execution of Davos.

However... Wylis knows that Davos is still alive: and Wyman, old and already ailing, not expecting to survive the winter, is of no use as a hostage because if he dies, Wylis will be the new lord, free and clear (Wyman may already be preparing to commit suicide, towards that end.) And, with the news that Davos lives, Wylis *can* defect with the Manderly force intact.

Either way... Ramsay must, in my guess at least, be wearing a Manderly uniform to try and infiltrate the Stannis army, expecting either a surrender or a defection: because if he were wearing a Frey uniform he would be killed on sight, on principle.

The question is - With Stannis forewarned that Ramsay is coming, but not knowing how, nor what he looks like - how will he prepare against it?

"No more than he knows me" - he points out to Theon that Ramsay does not know him either. In other words, two can play at the "hidden identity" game and he's planning for Ramsay to unmask himself by being decoyed into hitting the wrong target - an impostor disguised as Stannis, whether with a conventional disguise or a glamour if Stannis has pre-prepared for that eventuality (he can't set it up right now since he is so far away from Melisandre.) This may, or may not, work.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Now, what's Stannis's motive and position? He wants to get inside Winterfell - and he needs it *intact*, preferably capturing the Boltons' food stores as well as the buildings that Roose has so thoughtfully had repaired after Ramsay had them burned. He is outnumbered by its remaining defenders (although many detest Bolton), and out-positioned in a situation favouring the defender: he has not the supplies or time to take the castle by siege, nor the strength to take it by storm, therefore he must get in there by guile - he must himself manage to smuggle men into Winterfell who will open the gates for him, from the inside.

So Ramsay has to *succeed*, or at least think he has succeeded, with his mission, which - coming out of the castle rather than sitting tight in it - can only be "contrive the death of Stannis". If Stannis does indeed employ an impostor as subterfuge, that impostor has to die (and may not know what is required of him), AND Ramsay has to escape - which means he needs an army of his own to get out of Stannis's camp with. No doubt he was expecting help from the Boltons' own traitors in Stannis's army, namely the Karstarks who have been communicating with Roose in Winterfell. They would have proved their loyalty to Bolton, and can safely be let in.

But the Karstark treachery is uncovered thanks to the cooperation between Stannis and Jon: their leaders arrested, and their men confused. This provides the perfect opportunity for Stannis to dress his own northern allies (southerners would be given away by their accent) in Karstark colours, and have *them* be the people to escort Ramsay back to Winterfell... (just in time for Ramsay, having interrogated the captive Mance for what *he* knows, to write the Pink Letter and send it to Jon, believing that he has succeeded in killing Stannis, taking the red sword and fighting off the remnants of his army)... ready to open the gates when the real Stannis comes calling. Unless they plan all along to betray him, that is: but I actually think the north will prove honourable, even if they insist on retaining independence afterwards, they'll back him for King's Landing even if they insist the North no longer answers to KL.

After that it's a matter of working out the details by cooperation with Mors Umber - who I think has his brother helping him, from inside the walls, so Bolton already has more traitors in there than he thinks.

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This is an extremely interesting idea. Good catch!

It certainly opens up a lot of possibilities for how the battle will go; Will the Frey zombies be controlled by Bran and Bloodraven? Or will Stannis's army now have to fight an army twice as dangerous? Will Bran's control of the ravens be instrumental?

And of what Nymeria's pack, apparently going north in a "dark pine forest?" (forests in the Riverlands are more commonly broadleaf or mixed because of the warmer climate and greater soil fertility.

There's also this passage, if you remember, from an ADWD Davos chapter:

When old King Edrick Stark had grown too feeble to defend his realm, the Wolf’s Den was captured by slavers from the Stepstones.

Then a long cruel winter fell,” said Ser Bartimus. “The White Knife froze hard, and even the firth was icing up. The winds came howling from the north and drove them slavers inside to huddle round their fires, and whilst they warmed themselves the new king come down on them. Brandon Stark this was, Edrick Snowbeard’s great-grandson, him that men called Ice Eyes. He took the Wolf’s Den back, stripped the slavers naked, and gave them to the slaves he’d found chained up in the dungeons.” -Davos, ADWD.

And remember what everyone says about this storm, whose winds blow from the south against the Wall?

The snow was falling heavily outside. “Wind’s from the south,” Yarwyck observed. “It’s blowing the snow right up against the Wall. See?”
He was right. The switchback stair was buried almost to the first landing, Jon saw, and the wooden doors of the ice cells and storerooms had vanished behind a wall of white.-
Jon, ADWD.

“The gods have turned against us,” old Lord Locke was heard to say in the Great Hall. “This is their wroth. A wind as cold as hell itself and snows that never end. We are cursed.”-Theon, ADWD

That was the night that Asha first heard the queen’s men muttering about a sacrifice—an offering to their red god, so he might end the storm. “The gods of the north have unleashed this storm on us,” Ser Corliss Penny said.-Asha, ADWD

What has your southron god to do with snow?” demanded Artos Flint. His black beard was crusted with ice. “This is the wroth of the old gods come upon us. It is them we should appease.”-Asha, ADWD

And just like the winds that heralded the Ice Eyes, this storm blinds the defenders:

“He could be camped five feet from our walls with a hundred thousand men,” said an archer wearing Cerwyn colors. “We’d never see a one o’ them through this storm.”-Theon, ADWD.

“To fight Lord Stannis we would first need to find him,” Roose Ryswell pointed out. “Our scouts go out the Hunter’s Gate, but of late, none of them return.”-Theon, ADWD

“Twenty green boys, with spades,” Theon told him. “The snow fell heavily for days. So heavily that you could not see the castle walls ten yards away, no more than the men up on the battlements could see what was happening beyond those walls. So Crowfood set his boys to digging pits outside the castle gates, then blew his horn to lure Lord Bolton out. Instead he got the Freys. The snow had covered up the pits, so they rode right into them. Aenys broke his neck, I heard, but Ser Hosteen only lost a horse, more’s the pity.”-Theon, TWOW

GRRM's setting up a real-dropper of a battle that's for sure.

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I interpret the vision in other way 

“We will march into the sea and out again." 

 In his prophecies the expression "under the sea" is related with death. Saying they will march into the sea and out again may be seem as Stannis will "die" and so will return. Or more precisely: he will fake his death at some point.

"Under the waves we will ride seahorses"

"and mermaids will blow seashells to announce our coming, oh, oh, oh.”
 

I think the Frey force will be defeated by Stannis in the ice lake and Lord Manderly will change sides and slaughter the Freys. So he will ally himself with Stannis (tell what really happened with Davos and his mission to get Rickon), and they will make a plan to take Winterfell: Manderly will comeback with Stannis men disguised as Frey men-at-arms, delivering Stannis'sword and his 'head' to Roose and Ramsay; later they will open the gate and let the rest of Stannis'army enter. This would explain the Pink Letter (Jon's last POV happened after the Battle of the Ice, the battle was cut from Dance of Dagons and the timeline became a little messed.

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I interpret the vision in other way 

 In his prophecies the expression "under the sea" is related with death. Saying they will march into the sea and out again may be seem as Stannis will "die" and so will return. Or more precisely: he will fake his death at some point.

I think the Frey force will be defeated by Stannis in the ice lake and Lord Manderly will change sides and slaughter the Freys. So he will ally himself with Stannis (tell what really happened with Davos and his mission to get Rickon), and they will make a plan to take Winterfell: Manderly will comeback with Stannis men disguised as Frey men-at-arms, delivering Stannis'sword and his 'head' to Roose and Ramsay; later they will open the gate and let the rest of Stannis'army enter. This would explain the Pink Letter (Jon's last POV happened after the Battle of the Ice, the battle was cut from Dance of Dagons and the timeline became a little messed.

So you are saying that in the end of Dance, the battle between Stannis and the Boltons has happened, the re-siege has occurred with Stannis and Manderly taken over Winterfell and one of them (the good guys)? I like it so far. It does help answer who actually may have written the pink letter.

Why would they do that to Jon? What is their end game?

http://awoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/Theon_I_(The_Winds_of_Winter)

Ok, I found my clarity.

MARTIN SAID :The chronology, as usual, is tricky. This chapter will be found eventually at the beginning of WINDS, but as you will be able to tell from context, it actually takes place before some of the chapters at the end of DANCE [...] There will be a different sample chapter from WINDS OF WINTER included at the end of the paperback edition of A DANCE WITH DRAGONS when that is published next July.

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So you are saying that in the end of Dance, the battle between Stannis and the Boltons has happened, the re-siege has occurred with Stannis and Manderly taken over Winterfell and one of them (the good guys)? I like it so far. It does help answer who actually may have written the pink letter.

Why would they do that to Jon? What is their end game?

http://awoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/Theon_I_(The_Winds_of_Winter)

Ok, I found my clarity.

MARTIN SAID :The chronology, as usual, is tricky. This chapter will be found eventually at the beginning of WINDS, but as you will be able to tell from context, it actually takes place before some of the chapters at the end of DANCE [...] There will be a different sample chapter from WINDS OF WINTER included at the end of the paperback edition of A DANCE WITH DRAGONS when that is published next July.

I think he is suggesting that Ramsay wrote the letter after Manderly returned, but before the trap was sprung.

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while the book and show have diverged quite a bit, I think it's telling that Stannis died in the show in the battle at Winterfell.  Would D&D really change his fate that drastically to have him surviving and winning the battle on the ice, whereas the show has him losing and then dying at Brienne's hand?

 

 

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I have the feeling that Roose would feel good if Ramsay were to die. Rid of him etc. He must know Ramsay will doom himself when he is not around. Ramsay is wreckless and will doom his house just as fast as a small child lord. Roose must also realize Ramsay would be rid of him if he could get away with it or if he feels threatened and with Walda pregnant, he must.

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Of course Roose wants Ramsay to die - he needs to use his skin and life-force for his weird-Other-skinchanging-status, duh!

 

He just doesn't want to off him himself, kinslaying and all that.  An Other-turned-Lord-Warden-of-Winterfell-turncoat-baddie has got to have a code!

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Hmm.. I like the whole thing, except the Frey Zombies. Why would they? They didn't fall in battle with the "others," so why would they rise again?(unless the infection spread through Stannis' army? we have no proof of that either) And we have no idea if Bran and BR can the warg the dead. Coldhands? There is no proof that BR was controlling him. He could be an independent dead for all we know who somehow broke off from the others' control...or not. I just don't see proof that either of our greenseers, the young and the old, can warg the dead. The only time we hear the CoF's view on the issue is when they tell Bran not to seek to recall back his dad after his vision in Winterfell.

But excellent catch with patchface. I wonder what you make of Mells vision of Patchface with bloody mouth and all. It's in the Jon chapter when the Magnar weds Karstark.

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