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How do some people honestly think Ramsay wrote the pink letter?


The Truth

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1 hour ago, Chaircat Meow said:

I sometimes wonder that anyone honestly thinks Ramsay didn't write the letter ... The board has chewed over this for a while now, and the only theory that fits the facts is the one postulating that Ramsay wrote the letter, hoping to recover farya and in the false belief that most of what he wrote was actually true.

I do think the purpose goes a step further to neutralizing Jon (they believe Jon is becoming active in politics thanks to the Arya mission, and is therefore a threat).  But yea, I think "recovering Arya" is part of that, and very much the stated purpose of the letter as it's directly articulated.-- not trying to rouse Jon to anger or drawing him south or the like.

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On April 23, 2016 at 3:49 PM, The Truth said:

the term "black crows' is also never used in any book other then wildlings. like 30 times. only wildlings refer to nights watchmen as that. so its possible it was mance, only thing for sure is its on ramsay. I still lead to stannis theon and tybald, unless mance stole pink ink somehow, only ink that a dreadfort maester would have.

Find white wax (any candles available? Oh hundreds? Great) now add a little blood and stir. Ta daa, pink wax from scratch.

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On ‎4‎/‎25‎/‎2016 at 1:14 AM, Free Northman Reborn said:

I am very interested in Mance's fate after Theon's escape. I have assumed, given the grim nature of this series, that the rather likeable rogue had no hope of escaping, and that he is a prisoner. But if he indeed managed to disappear, well, that makes things very interesting.

I think it is obvious what happened to Mance. I think the only person in Mance's party that was taken prisoner was poor Frenya, who is now probably flayed and dead.

Frenya, Holly, Jeyne and Theon were to go over the south wall. The reason they are going over the south wall is because it as far away from the crypts as it could be. We know how this more or less played out because Theon was a witness.

Squirrel was left in Jeyne's room. She was supposed to climb out the window and pass over the bridge to bring her out in the Godswood. Interestingly, this is sort of the path that Bran took when he went to climb the broken tower, only in reverse. This path would bring her close to the crypts.

Rowan, Myrtle and Willow broke off from Frenya, Holly, Jeyne and Theon to go rejoin Mance (Able). While the escape was drawing attention to the southern end of Winterfell, Mance, Rowan, Myrtle, and Willow headed to the crypts where they were rejoined by Squirrel. All of these people headed into the crypts. I don't know if Mance had a way out or if they are still hiding there, but I'm 99% certain that is where they went. The reason I'm certain is because of Mance taking the name Able. Yes, Mance took it because he was entering Winterfell disguised as a bard, but we are also supposed to realize that it is a clue as to where Mance went.

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@Greg B

Well, Jon doesn't buy the complete Pink Letter, that much is clearly established during his conversation with Tormund about it. But unlike Tormund he is very aware that the part about Mance and 'Arya' is true so cannot really rule out that Ramsay is lying.

In the Shieldhall he reads out the whole Pink Letter giving the impression that it is true and in the spur of the moment he seems to believe it, too, and we can assume that he and Tormund were operating under the impression that it was true and presented it as such to the men in the hall.

The vibe you get is that he only realizes in the very moment when he thinks about Selyse that it was a mistake to not tell her first and to use the news about her husband's alleged death as means to incite the wildlings. That was improper and actually insulting to Selyse as well as the memory of the late Stannis, if you assume he is dead.

And I'm not so sure whether the it is the part about Stannis that Jon cares so much. He certainly realizes that if Stannis is gone then he and his guys are in really big trouble, potentially, but it is actually more likely that Ramsay really got to him in the letter - after all, he used a lot of insults in there. And as it happens the letter just reached Jon in a moment in which he actually had the strength to do something about it - which, if we are honest, he wanted to do throughout the entire book.

@Free Northman Reborn

I don't know much about the planned five year gap. I remember reading that George realized he had great difficulties with the story at the Wall and that Cersei would have been through a couple of Hands during that time. I'm pretty sure a lot of details and story lines changed when the gap was scrapped and without any good evidence (i.e. outlines or unfinished/scrapped chapters by George) we can't really guess how things changed.

I can say though that I can't see how Stannis and Roose would have just kept the peace for five years. That makes no sense whatsoever. In no possible scenario.

As to Jon:

I could easily see his resurrection as a complete turning point - him setting out alone to meet with Bran beyond the Wall or investigate the Others in the Land of Always Winter. Somebody seems to be destined to do this and if Stannis/Davos/Rickon are going to consolidate the North in the post-Bolton era nobody is going to need Jon Snow for any of that - for the time being. Hell, it could even be that his return from the dead is concealed/not known to/witnessed by many people.

And if we are really honest then nothing in ADwD suggested that the Others would make their move soon. They did not even show their faces in that entire book if you exclude the few wights we saw the Prologue and Bran's second chapter. There was Mel's vision about their attack on the place with the towers but we don't know when that's going to happen and neither do we know what the damage will be.

One should expect there to be a little bit more buildup then 'there are mysterious ice demons with zombie warriors' jumping directly to 'an all out attack on the Wall with the Horn of Joramun being involved'. An interesting way to build up tension could be to find out that the Others have that Horn, for example, and the heroes are trying to destroy it or stop them before they can use it to bring down the Wall.

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8 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

I could easily see his resurrection as a complete turning point - him setting out alone to meet with Bran beyond the Wall or investigate the Others in the Land of Always Winter. Somebody seems to be destined to do this and if Stannis/Davos/Rickon are going to consolidate the North in the post-Bolton era nobody is going to need Jon Snow for any of that - for the time being. Hell, it could even be that his return from the death is concealed/not known to/witnessed by many people.

This is an interesting point. Old Nan and the Wildlings say the Others and wights are drawn toward warmth, toward life. So far in the story, everyone who has been resurrected has been more of a reanimated corpse rather than actually alive. If Jon is indeed dead and then resurrected, he will be uniquely well suited to traveling in the Land of Always Winter, since he won't actually be living.

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7 minutes ago, bent branch said:

This is an interesting point. Old Nan and the Wildlings say the Others and wights are drawn toward warmth, toward life. So far in the story, everyone who has been resurrected has been more of a reanimated corpse rather than actually alive. If Jon is indeed dead and then resurrected, he will be uniquely well suited to traveling in the Land of Always Winter, since he won't actually be living.

Also, he might not need food and sleep and shit. That's all very useful for a ranger.

 

On Mance I tend to think he has indeed been captured because it is strange the Boltons would take the word of a captured spearwife that a man they thought was dead was still alive.

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39 minutes ago, Chaircat Meow said:

Also, he might not need food and sleep and shit. That's all very useful for a ranger.

 

On Mance I tend to think he has indeed been captured because it is strange the Boltons would take the word of a captured spearwife that a man they thought was dead was still alive.

I don't see why they wouldn't believe Freyna when she tells them about the scene where Stannis let them through the wall and that some guy SHE believes is Mance recruited her to "rescue" Arya. Especially when they are flaying her at the time. I think it is why the letter writer asked for Val and Mance's son, so they would have them as a hostage against Mance. There is no reason to ask for them if they already have Mance. But I have argued this before and only time will tell what is really going on. I hope that time is soon. :D

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The Pink Letter is the starting point.

First off - George is a deliberate writer. He does not do off-page characterization, not for any character main, POV, secondary, tertiary or nthiary. Not every character might be fleshed out much, but he does not do characterization off-page. When a character avoids certain phrases or vocabulary on-page or engages in a particular type of conversation, then assuming a character would use a different language off-page can be counted as bad writing by George. Stuff happens off-page, but not characteriation. And when stuff happens off-page we are explicitly told that something went down behind closed doors or something is up in a different location where we don't have eyes. More, he gives the readers clues that something is happening off-page, so that when the event is revealed those clues are actually understood to have been hints. George simply doesn't write in a way that the reader must fill in the gaps afterwards. When the author avoids the verb "said" in a conversation about "seeing something" for a whole page, and then uses the same verb "said" 7 times in a row in the continued conversation that moved on to "saying/telling something", even in the characters' speech (even though 'writes' would be more apt and would promote vocabulary variation), then George writes deliberately*. When the author alters the tone and focus of chapters fitting that particular POV, then George writes deliberately.

We are not discussing real world fragments where by chance a person engages in one type of language and another when you are not in their company. And if a character is two-faced, even in language, then George would also make sure to provide precluding evidence for it. We are discussing literature. George may use but common English and common grammar, but it is the sole tool he has to characterize both POV characters as well as non-POV characters. Therefore imo any argumentation of, well character x may engage in that type of talk off-page is just hand-waving issues away and a non-argument. (Now, if we were discussing the show on the other hand...)

RAMSAY

1 - One starts by checking whether the details of the Pink Letter fit with that of other confirmed Ramsay letters. Once you do, you run into several style issues. Those issues are:

  • No mentioning of Ramsay's spikey handwriting while mentioning it twice before (see wedding invitation sent to Jon Snow, and letter sent to Asha)
  • No mention of flaking and no brown colored ink (blood), despite the fact that Jon flattens the parchment of the Pink Letter before him. And it has been mentioned twice before (see wedding invitation sent to Jon Snow and Asha). Note also that Ramsay's red stallion is called Blood. Ramsay has a morbid fascination for blood.
  • No mentioning of signatures at the bottom of the letter by any of the allies such as Dustin, Umber, Cerwyn, Ryswells, while mentioned twice before (see letter to Asha, and wedding invitiation to Jon)
  • No skin attached to this taunt letter, despite the claim of having the hides of the spearwives (see letter to Asha)
  • The use of "whore" or "whores, while Ramsay never uses this word on-page (see start-off comment). Not only that, Ramsay takes particular care to name women by their name, and even honors his female victims' by naming his hunting dogs after them. People have to "know and remember their name". People are known and remembered by their name.
  • In continuation of the previous of all the characters mentioned in the letter only 2 are actually named - Mance Rayder and Reek. Everybody else simply is referred to with epithets.
  • Pink wax blob without a seal's stamp

These are just seven style issues alone, and then we're not even talking about the content issues.

2- The content issues:

  • The claim of a 7 day battle
  • Heads mounted on the wall, instead of bodies flayed on a cross
  • Mance with a cloak of skin of the washerwomen: while it is part of legends about the Boltons, we never actually see Ramsay do this - that is he does flay people and peel skin off, but having cloaks made out of skin, not really - and Roose tells Ramsay that human skin is of lower quality. It is an expression: "What man?" Ramsay demanded. "Give me his name. Point him out to me, boy, and I will make you a cloak of his skin."
  • Knowing who is at Castle Black: the queen, the daughter, the red priestess, the "wildling princess", the "little prince"/wildling babe
  • And despite the above not knowing Theon is not there and calling him Reek.

At the very least George included enough elements in the letter to provide fundamental doubt that Ramsay is the writer and author of the letter.

3 - Tangential issues:

  • Mel expects a letter to come and urges Jon to come ot her with it as soon as he gets it first. And yet she does not seem to despair about the words, nor has she seen anything in the flames regarding Stannis. Therefore she expected a letter not because of visions, but because someone told her they would send news around so and so moon.
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“All your questions shall be answered. Look to the skies, Lord Snow. And when you have your answers, send to me. Winter is almost upon us now. I am your only hope.” (aDwD, Jon XIII)

What are the possible arguments to defend the style issues in Ramsay's favor

absence of evidence is not evidence of absence: simply because Jon's POV does not make particular note of the handwriting, the ink, the signatures is not evidence that they were not written in his hand, with blood for ink and left unsigned. Some argue that exactly because Jon notes no difference, therefore it must have been recognizably similar to the previous letters (and thus have spiky writing and brown flaking ink and signatures at the bottom of other lords and ladies).

<=>

  • It cannot be denied that George took particular care to provide us these details twice with two different characters who each received a letter from Ramsay before, and that at least George describes the third letter in such a manner so that in tWoW he can reveal it was not written by Ramsay himself.
  • It can be argued that Jon is so struck by the content of the letter that he was not in an objective state to make note of the differences, simply overlooked it.
  • Jon is also not of a suspicious nature and therefore will more readily believe that the letter was authored by Ramsay, despite notable differences to the previous letter.
  • Finally, George provides us with the detail of Jon flattening the parchment. If it had been wirtten with blood for ink, there would have been flaking, and that was something Jon could never miss, no matter which state he was in. Here the absence of flaking is indeed evidence of absence of blood ink => We can therefore at least accept that the letter was not written with blood, and thus was written with maester's ink.
  • The last leads to a huge contradiction regarding the claims in the letter if it was written by Ramsay: remember that he sent self written letters to all the leal lords with blood for ink, Ironborn blood, and Theon skin with each letter (not just Asha's). If Ramsay had skinned the 6 spearwives, mounted the heads of Stannis's friends on the wall, and/or defeated Stannis after 7 days of battle, he would have used blood to write, period. There is no reason at all why Ramsay would not use the blood of wildlings and men-at-arms of the "false king" to write to Jon, heck to every leal lord if he was at Winterfell, believing himself to be either a victor of a battle, or the captor and torturer of spearwives and Mance. At the very least one must conclude that it is all a boast and a lie - Ramsay has not skinned spaerwives, did not mount any heads on the wall, did not defeat Staniss's army in a 7 day battle.

So, others may argue that Ramsay is in some situation where he has to rely on a maester to write the letter with maester's ink for him in secret and is simply boasting. The boast idea easily explains why - if Ramsay is the author - he included no skin, no finger, no recognizable body part or skinned tattoo to prove his claim about Mance Rayder, etc... Indeed many Ramsay-poponents believe that Ramsay is lying and boasting, while he has nothing, in order to provoke Jon into making a mistake.

<=>

But still we are left with a massive paradox - if Ramsay does not have Mance and the spearwives in posession, then how in the hell does he even know that Abel is Mance? There are only a very few people who know about Abel = Mance. He has no Reek, he has no Stannis per the above, he has no Mance, he has no spearwives. How in the hell can Ramsay find out that Abel = Mance without torturing it out of any of those?

We run into the same paradoxes with other of the above issues. For example if you believe Ramsay had a maester write it, then how come there are no signatures underneath it. DId he kill all the supposed allied lords and ladies? Well fat chance that their armies will support Ramsay any further, espeically without a bride... Not a realistic answer.

Did all the allied lors and ladies switch camp? Well, if they did then the Boltons inside WF are already toast.

What if Ramsay is outside, because he left for the Battle of Ice Lakes and he sent this letter to get himself some hostages and get rid of Jon? I think that in such a case, Ramsay has other stuff to worry about than Jon. Besides if Ramsay left for the Battle of Ice, again he can't know about Mance. Not to mention that Ramsay would have a raven issue for sure.

The Pink Letter only marginally works with Ramsay as author, if he did not fight at the Battle of Ice so he could capture Mance and/or spearwives and tortured some answers out of them. But then there would be signatures of Lady Dustin, Ryswells and Cerwyn. It would be written in blood. He would use the names of the wildling princess and mance's son. Ramsay has never heard of Val's existence or that of Mance's son before. He can only reliably get that information by torturing it out of the spearwives or Mance, and they would never call Val "the wildling princess" and Mance's son "the wildling babe". The letter would not contain the word "whore". Nor is Ramsay stupid enough to refer to Theon as Reek (nor mention him), when he knows nobody at the Wall would even know who that is. At the very least he would refer to Theon as "the Turncloak". And since Ramsay knows the bride is not Arya, and that Jon would recognize her as being not-Arya the whole scenario of demanding his bride back would suddenly make Ramsay a dillusional personality.

In fact, there is no reason to assume that Ramsay rode out for the crofter's village at all. From Theon we know that the Freys and Manderlys left Winterfell, but not Ramsay and his 600 heavy cavalry who were supposed to be the rear-attack. One crucial event occurred to interrupt Ramsay from going out to battle - Jeyne Poole and Theon's escape. His priority would be either hunting his bride or searching the grounds and flaying anyone who was so careless to let them escape. So, then we return to Ramsay at Winterfell boasting about Mance and spearwives, but not having any allies anymore to sign his letter, not using blood for ink and not sending any skin, and have other issues at hand than provoking Jon.

Conclusion: Ramsay did not author nor write the letter. We can scrap him from the candidate author list. The Pink Letter is completely OOC for Ramsay (stupid, dillusional, dirty talker) and was written in a situation where Ramsay could never have access to a lot of the information in the letter (Mance, 6 spearwives, wildling princess, wildling babe),because if he did there simply would not be any such issues with the letter.

=> So, we are then left with impersonating candidates such as Roose, Mance, Stannis and the left-field Theon, Lady Dustin or perhaps even a missing conspiritor of the NW such as Allister Thorne.

ROOSE

Can it be Roose? Now why in the hell would Roose impersonate his own son? He is the Warden of the North, who killed Jon's half-brother Robb, who said it was time to hunt wolves. He can make claims and threats and accusations of treason without resorting to namecalling and impersonating his own son. And if Roose wrote it, you can be damn sure that there would have been signatures of his remaining allies beneath that letter. And it just isn't his style. He doesn't use hyperbole. Roose is also an abservant man and he knows his Bastard. At the very least Roose would know how to impersonate his own bastard son if for some crazy reason he felt any need for that. So, scrap Roose from the candidate list too

Conclusion: no Bolton was the author of the Pink Letter.

There is one content paradox that automatically rules out either Bolton: the paradox of the heads on the walls while the spearwives are flayed and Mance is wearing their skins for a cloak. It is a paradox issue that remains unresolved, no matter which candidate you believe the author to be. Any author who knows that Ramsay flays people would not mention heads on walls if they wanted to make their claim to being Ramsay believable. Since the author does mention the flaying of certain people, the author is aware of this in Ramsay's character (and yes that includes Ramsay knowing this of himself too). This implies that the "heads on walls" comment was inserted on purpose to serve as a paradox. The author used a paradox to hint that the letter contains a lie. And neither Ramsay nor Roose would wish to make their claims in the letter appear a lie, or contradiction. This intrinsic paradox is not solely evidence that a non-Bolton was the author of the Pink Letter, but also evidence that the author wanted to alert the receiver or someone in his retinue that the Pink Letter contains lies and was not written by Ramsay.

MANCE

I see this as an exercise to check wether Mance can solve all the issues. And to start this exercise, let us temporarily assume that Mance tries to impersonate Ramsay, and leave the why he would do that next.

Style issues:

  • No spikey handwriting: SOLVED. Mance would have different handwriting
  • No blood for ink: SOLVED. Mance does not even know Ramsay writes with blood despite the fact that Jon flattens the parchment of the Pink Letter before him. In fact, by using his own handwriting it would be smarter to just use maester's ink and make it appear as if one of Ramsay's maesters physically wrote the letter.
  • No signatures at the bottom of the letter by any of the allies such as Dustin, Umber, Cerwyn, Ryswells: SOLVED. Mance isn't Ramsay so he would have difficulty getting Bolton allies to sign it.
  • No skin attached to this taunt letter: SOLVED. Mance would not know this.
  • The use of "whore" or "whores, while Ramsay never uses this word: someone impersonating someone else is more likely to do stuff that is OOC of the original. Unfortunately, Mance does not use that term either in the books, certainly not loosely applied to any woman. One could argue that Mance assumes that Ramsay would use the term 'whore' loosely and therefore puts it in on purpose as part of his impersonation. But then Mance also is a keen observer with a good memory. He would have noticed that Ramsay does not use the word. UNSOLVED
  • In continuation of the previous of all the characters mentioned in the letter only 2 are actually named - Mance Rayder and Reek. Everybody else simply is referred to with epithets: Mance would know his own name, knows perfectly how Melisandre, (Stannis,) and Jon used the lie and while he knows Reek = Theon he would be aware that is what Ramsay and his personal fanclub tend to call Theon. The question here is whether Mance would recognize that Reek is a useless term to be used under the cicumstances, as Jon would only know Reek as Theon. And more importantly would he recognize that Ramsay is smart enough to realize it too. I think Mance would recognize both facts. And like Ramsay, I think Mance would use the term "the turncloak" here. That is what the spearwives use as a term and it would fit the pattern of not naming most of the people in the letter, not even the bride. PARTIALLY UNSOLVED
  • Pink wax blob without a seal's stamp: Mance could acquire or steal pink wax at Winterfell. The likelihood that he could filch the actual Bolton stamp can be problematic. SOLVABLE.

Content issues:

  • The claim of a 7 day battle: SOLVABLE. If Stannis used a ruse to make the Boltons believe he died in battle and sent disguised soldiers to infiltrate Winterfell with his sword, then Mance might believe it. He might actually have stolen it. The sword Lightbringer even has a particular personal tie to him, as Stannis used it during the burning of fake-Mance, and Melisandre propagandized Stannis with it to make the wildlings kneel to Stannis.
  • Heads mounted on the wall, instead of bodies flayed on a cross: UNSOLVABLE. If Mance knows and emphasizes Ramsay flays people, then why the hell suddenly insert heads being mounted on the wall. It should therefore be regarded as a purposefully inserted paradox to hint that part of the message is a lie and known to be a lie by the author, and understood to be a lie by someone in the receiver's retinue. (see above)
  • Knowing who is at Castle Black: the queen, the daughter, the red priestess, the "wildling princess", the "little prince"/wildling babe. PARTIALLY UNSOLVABLE. Mance knows perfectly well who is at Castle Black, but would he refer to the last two with those epithets? Sure, Mance was around enough of the Queen's Men to know how they refer to Val and his son, but Mance impersonating Ramsay would also know that Ramsay isn't one of the Queen's Men to refer to them in such a manner. It's OOF for Mance to refer to them as such and it's OOC for Ramsay to refer to them as such.
  • Not knowing Theon is not at CB: SOLVABLE Mance (hiding) at WF would only be aware of Jeyne Poole and Theon escaping together, and without having contact with Stannis would not be aware they have been separated by Stannis.

Tangential issues:

  • Mel expecting the arrival of a message at a particular time: SOLVED Mel cooked up the glamor switcheroo of Mance-Rattleshirt. She basically saved Mance and saw purpose in him. She also had meetings with him in which she made plans into which she involved Jon, which eventually led to Mance being sent off to rescue the escaping bride (when all still thought the wedding would take place at Barrowton). It is not unreasonable for Mel to expect a word back from Mance when he succeeded in his mission to rescue fArya, and give an update on Stannis's progress.

Additional style and content support for Mance

  • the phrase of the "false king": After fMance is burned and Jon shot him to put him out of his misery, Mel gives a speech to motivate the wildlings into bending the knee to the only true king, Stannis, and his magical sword Lightbringer.
 
 
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The red woman's robes of deep-dyed scarlet swirled about her, and her coppery hair made a halo round her face. Tall yellow flames danced from her fingertips like claws. "FREE FOLK! Your false gods cannot help you. Your false horn did not save you. Your false king brought you only death, despair, defeat … but here stands the true king. BEHOLD HIS GLORY!"
Stannis Baratheon drew Lightbringer. (aDwD, Jon III)

 

 
The first two paragrahps of the letter seem almost a direct answer to this speech and event.
 
Quote

 

Your false king is dead, bastard. He and all his host were smashed in seven days of battle. I have his magic sword. Tell his red whore.
Your false king's friends are dead. Their heads upon the walls of Winterfell. Come see them, bastard. Your false king lied, and so did you. You told the world you burned the King-Beyond-the-Wall. Instead you sent him to Winterfell to steal my bride from me. (aDwD, Jon X)

 

 

And let's not forget the possible pun of the signature, "Trueborn Lord of Winterfell". And then there is the style fact that the only true name mentioned in all of the letter is "Mance Rayder" aside from the lie "Ramsay Bolton".

In fact it serves here how almost everybody else is a false reference or implies a falsehood about that character (something only the reader can be aware of):

  • false king = Stannis, but he is according to feudal inheritance of the IT the true king => the epiteth is a lie
  • magic sword = Lightbringer, which is a glamored sword, a fake Lightbringer => a lie
  • bastard = Jon Snow, Ned Stark's bastard, but he isn't Ned Stark's bastard. He's either Dragonstone's bastard or trueborn if an actual wedding took place => a lie
  • false king's friends = Mountain Clans, (half of the) Umbers, survivors of Cassel's army, possibly Mormonts. They're allies, but they're not really his friends => a lie
  • red whore = Melisandre, the red priestess, not a whore => a lie
  • the bride = Jeyne Poole, claiming to be Arya, but isn't Arya => a lie
  • six whores = six spearwives that are warrior women, not whores, but they pretend to be "washerwomen" (aka whores) => a lie
  • false king's queen = Selyse, she is indeed a queen, but not of a false king => a lie
  • his daughter = Shyreen, claimed by Cersei to not be Stannis's daughter in retaliation for Stannis's claims about Cersei's children => a lie
  • wildling princess = Val. It's a misnomer given to Val by the Queen's Men => a lie
  • wildling prince = Mance's son who is to be called Aemon Steelsong, but the referenced wildling prince is not actually Mance's son, but Monster, Gilly's son by Craster => a lie
  • Reek = Theon, a false identity forced onto Theon. There was an actual Reek once, but he's long dead => a lie
  • Ramsay Bolton, Lord of Winterfell = as Arya's husband he could claim lordship over Winterfell, if Sansa and her brothers weren't alive and if there was not such as a pesky will that might resurface at some point in the story in which Robb named his heir. Unfortunately, Bran and Rickon are alive. Sansa is alive. Robb named an heir. And his bride isn't Arya. Ramsay being a trueborn Lord of Winterfell is a quintiple lie => a lie

Since George loaded this letter with misnomers, lies, and fake identities that alone is a general literary hammer of a hint clubbing us in the head that almost everything about the Pink Letter is fake and a lie. I say general hint, that simply informs us "no Bolton wrote this letter". And in that literary sense it is indeed strange that the sole name and reference in the letter that isn't a lie is that of Mance Rayder.

  • "bastard" reference: like many other characters (and Jon himself), Mance often refers to Jon as "bastard", in almost any conversation he has with Jon he references Jon in this way. In fact, Jon uses the bastard identity as a ruse to fake why he turns his cloak on the NW and wants to join the wildlings, and Mance is aware that Jon's issue is being a bastard.
Quote
The singer rose to his feet. "I'm Mance Rayder," he said as he put aside the lute. "And you are Ned Stark's bastard, the Snow of Winterfell."
Stunned, Jon stood speechless for a moment, before he recovered enough to say, "How . . . how could you know . . ."
...[snip]...
"And did you see where I was seated, Mance?" He leaned forward. "Did you see where they put the bastard?"
Mance Rayder looked at Jon's face for a long moment. "I think we had best find you a new cloak," the king said, holding out his hand. (aSoS, Jon I)
 
"Would you like to keep your eye, Jon?" asked the King-beyond-the-Wall. "If so, tell me how many they were. And try and speak the truth this time, Bastard of Winterfell."
...[snip]...
"Reach up for that bastard sword and I'll have your bastard head off before it clears the scabbard," said Mance. "I am fast losing patience with you, crow." (aSoS, Jon II)
 
"Did you think only crows could lie? I liked you well enough, for a bastard . . . but I never trusted you. A man needs to earn my trust." (aSoS, Jon X)
  • "red witch" reference: There's a reference to Jon as plain "bastard" in combination with "red witch"
 
Quote

 

Jon was aghast. "Your Grace, this man cannot be trusted. If I keep him here, someone will slit his throat for him. If I send him ranging, he'll just go back over to the wildlings."
"Not me. I'm done with those bloody fools." Rattleshirt tapped the ruby on his wrist. "Ask your red witch, bastard." (aDwD, Jon IV)

 

  • "cloak" references: There are several references made by Mance to Jon regarding cloaks, and then there's the fact that Mance is a turncloak (a NW brother who deserted to join the wildlings and eventually become King-Beyond-the-Wall), and that this was all prompted because a wood's witch nursed his wounds and sowed red cloth in his black cloak. He was ordered to get rid of the cloak and he refused. Mance pretends to be singer Abel at Winterfell, which is an anagram to Bael the Bard, King-Beyond-the-Wall who once infiltrated WFto steal a Stark daughter. Bael's son, the Lord of WF, mounted Bael's head on a spear to return with it to WF in victory, while obviously a Lord Bolton skinned Bael's son and wore him for a cloak.

 

Quote

 

"I'll range for you, bastard," Rattleshirt declared. "I'll give you sage counsel or sing you pretty songs, as you prefer. I'll even fight for you. Just don't ask me to wear your cloak." (aDwD, Jon IV)

"Aye," she said, "but the gods hate kinslayers, even when they kill unknowing. When Lord Stark returned from the battle and his mother saw Bael's head upon his spear, she threw herself from a tower in her grief. Her son did not long outlive her. One o' his lords peeled the skin off him and wore him for a cloak." (aCoK, Jon VI)

So tell me truly, Jon Snow. Are you a craven who turned your cloak from fear, or is there another reason that brings you to my tent?"
Guest right or no, Jon Snow knew he walked on rotten ice here. One false step and he might plunge through, into water cold enough to stop his heart. Weigh every word before you speak it, he told himself. He took a long draught of mead to buy time for his answer. When he set the horn aside he said, "Tell me why you turned your cloak, and I'll tell you why I turned mine."
...[snip]...
Mance Rayder rose, unfastened the clasp that held his cloak, and swept it over the bench. "It was for this."
"A cloak?"
"The black wool cloak of a Sworn Brother of the Night's Watch," said the King-beyond-the-Wall. "One day on a ranging we brought down a fine big elk. We were skinning it when the smell of blood drew a shadow-cat out of its lair. I drove it off, but not before it shredded my cloak to ribbons. Do you see? Here, here, and here?" He chuckled. "It shredded my arm and back as well, and I bled worse than the elk. My brothers feared I might die before they got me back to Maester Mullin at the Shadow Tower, so they carried me to a wildling village where we knew an old wisewoman did some healing. She was dead, as it happened, but her daughter saw to me. Cleaned my wounds, sewed me up, and fed me porridge and potions until I was strong enough to ride again. And she sewed up the rents in my cloak as well, with some scarlet silk from Asshai that her grandmother had pulled from the wreck of a cog washed up on the Frozen Shore. It was the greatest treasure she had, and her gift to me." He swept the cloak back over his shoulders. "But at the Shadow Tower, I was given a new wool cloak from stores, black and black, and trimmed with black, to go with my black breeches and black boots, my black doublet and black mail. The new cloak had no frays nor rips nor tears . . . and most of all, no red. The men of the Night's Watch dressed in black, Ser Denys Mallister reminded me sternly, as if I had forgotten. My old cloak was fit for burning now, he said.
"I left the next morning . . . for a place where a kiss was not a crime, and a man could wear any cloak he chose." (aSoS, Jon I)

 

 

Addititional tangential support:

  • Mel and Mance cooked up this rescue plan, and Mel has had her eye on Jon for a long time to make him join Stannis's cause. Mance knows perfectly how conservative a lot of the men at the NW think and might have personal satisfaction in provoking Jon to break his vows.

So, the case for Mance Rayder as the author is very strong. For the most part, the Pink Letter reads as being very much Mance in character, certainly if you start to regard it as a message that plays with words, uses words, and it solves a majority of the issues and paradoxes of the letter. Mance knows of the Rattleshirt-switcheroo, he knows who is at the Wall (and how they are referred to), he calls Jon bastard as often as he can, he has a thing for wearing cloaks sown by wildling women, he was called the "false king" by Melisandre while she calls Stannis the "true king", several of the phrases seem as they could have come directly out of his mouth, and the guy has a thing for wordplay and pretending to be someone he isn't.

So, now we have to see whether Mance still holds up in a survival scenario

SCENARIO 1: Mance manages to hide, glamor, survive at Winterfell undetected, but cannot escape Winterfell, and learns from (disguised) soldiers that Stannis supposedly died and was defeated in battle. His message is truly a cry for help or a lure to make the wildlings come for him to save him from his situation.

Let's think this scenario through:

  • Mance cannot send a letter to CB without the help of a maester who knows which raven flies for CB (assuming for a moment there are sending ravens at WF, which I very much doubt), and which Bolton grey rat would help a nobody?
  • Wouldn't a Bolton maester realize that the letter at least contains one lie: like Mance in a cage for all the world to see with a cloak of spearwives' skin?
  • Does Mance not give a lot of crucial information in the hands of a Bolton maester about possible hostages at CB that way?
  • If Mance believes Stannis's army and allies to be actually defeated then how in the hell could Mance even hope that the wildlings + Queen's Men can save him?
  • If Mance believes Stannis's army and allies to be actually defeated and is in dire need of help, then WF would be the last place he would want Val and his son to be
  • How does this explain Mance wanting Melisandre, Selyse, Shireen to come to WF?
  • How does Mance hope that either Mel or Jon will understand it's him writing the letter?

=> thus scrap scenario 1

SCENARIO 2: Mance manages to hide, glamor, survive at Winterfell (his true identity undetected), and is still there as part of an infiltration operation, and knows that Stannis is pretending to be dead and was not defeated at all. He is supposed to let Mel know that the ruse is working, that the Boltons believe it, that it is safe to send Val, his son, Selyse, Shyreen and herself to him. and thus writes a letter sent with the help of a maester who can select a raven to CB for him. Mel and Mance agreed to hints or clues within the letter that Mel can use to convince Jon that the letter is fake and an impersonation - not an actual threat. Someone of the Bolton allies helped Mance to a raven to circumvent from a Bolton maester raising his eyebrows. That someone must have calluded with Mance long before reaching Winterfell and thought of bringing a sending raven for CB.

SCENARIO 3: Mance glamored himself into being Ramsay, and has Ramsey (looking like Mance) in some cage (symbolical or literal), and has the letter sent to CB by a Bolton maester. Beyond that scenario 3 is pretty much like scenario 2. If he physically impersonates Ramsay that could explain why he thinks he should reference Theon as Reek.

  • If that is the case though, then there's no reason why the letter isn't signed by the Bolton allies
  • If that's the case though, then why is thre no button stamp in the pink wax
  • Mance is still giving crucical potential hostage information to an enemy's maester.

=> So, while I do not think this disproves that Mance could possibly glamor himself into being Ramsay, such a glamor would actually bar him from being the author sending a letter by raven from WF with the help of a maester.

SCENARIO 4: Mance escaped Winterfell, met up with Stannis and was sent off someplace else, and send a bird and letter from there. Solves any Bolton maester from frowning at the letter being OOC or not fitting with the actual factual circumstances at WF. Mance would be at the most current update of Stannis's plans (including a ruse)

  • Well, isn't Mance more useful as an infiltrator inside WF?
  • Why doesn't Stannis just send Mance back to CB?

So, scenario 2 would be the likeliest one if Mance is the author. But it still jarrs with the "whores", "Reek" and "wildling princess" speak. And how likely is it that Mance would have gotten a raven to send for CB. It's not as if his washerwomen could chat up a maester to ask which raven goes to CB (again for a moment ignoring the lack of evidence of there actually being sending ravens present at WF). And how likely is it that Lady Dustin took a raven for Mance to send along?

STANNIS

Let's just assume for a brief moment that he's the author to check whether that solves the issues with Ramsay being the author, as I did with Mance.

  • No mentioning of Ramsay's spikey handwriting: SOLVED
  • No mention of flaking and no brown colored ink (blood): POSSIBLY UNSOLVED. It's so cold at the crofter's village that Stanis's ink is frozen. He can't sign the contract with the Iron Bank with the normal ink. Instead, Stannis signs it with his own blood. Of course, Stannis can take his time and reheat the ink above a fire to write a letter.
  • No mentioning of signatures at the bottom of the letter by any of the allies such as Dustin, Umber, Cerwyn, Ryswells: SOLVED
  • No skin attached to this taunt letter, despite the claim of having the hides of the spearwives: SOLVED
  • The use of "whore" or "whores": UNSOLVED Stannis and women is a very touchy subject. He has a hard time talking to one or listening to one, and he banned whores from Dragonstone and would probably close brothels in KL if he could. It certainly is OOC for Stannis to use it. One can argue that if he's impersonating Ramsay while not knowing him, but learned enough from Theon what type of stuff Ramsay likes to do with women, Stannis may simply assume that Ramsay uses the word "whore" as commonly as some of his soldiers do.
  • In continuation of the previous of all the characters mentioned in the letter only 2 are actually named - Mance Rayder and Reek. Everybody else simply is referred to with epithets. PARTIALLY UNSOLVED - Stannis may learn/figure the Mance switcheroo out through whatever Theon tells him, or he was always in the know since the start. If the first, then Stannis would be upset about it and cannot keep himself from calling Jon out in using Mance (since it would mean Mel kept it from Stannis). If the second situation then he added it in hoping it would force Jon to join his side and be ousted by the NW. Now Stannis knows Theon as turncloak and Theon, not as Reek. He may find out though, through whatever Asha tells Stannis (after Theon told her everything). Stannis certainly knows that Theon has not been sent to CB along with the bride, but by the way Theon says "Ramsay wants his bride and his Reek", Stannis would not know that Ramsay calls him anything but Reek.
  • Pink wax blob without a seal's stamp: POSSIBLY SOLVED He has maester Tybald with him, a Dreadfort maester who could have some wax on him, or he planned the possibility of impersonating a Bolton at some point and used the pink wax from the letter sent to Asha. Regardless, he certainly would not have a stamp, and thus explaining the missing button.

2- The content issues:

  • The claim of a 7 day battle: UNSOLVED. It seems unlikely that Stannis the man with attention to detail would describe it as a 7 day battle. Even if he was purposefully lying about the outcome of the battle, it's unlikely he would make such a overgeneralizing claim regardign a battle.
  • Heads mounted on the wall, instead of bodies flayed on a cross: SOLVED Even knowing about the Boltons flaying his captives, he might actually assume that the Boltons would put the heads of the slain enemies on spikes on a wall.
  • Knowing who is at Castle Black: the queen, the daughter, the red priestess, the "wildling princess", the "little prince"/wildling babe: POSSIBLY SOLVED Stannis knows who is at the wall, he is certainly familiar with the expressions used to describe these people. Stannis refers to Val as the "wildling princess" himself once. 
  • And despite the above not knowing Theon is not there and calling him Reek: POSSIBLY SOLVED If Stannis sends Theon someplace else he would not want any of his possible enemies to know where he sent or keeps Theon.

3 - Tangential issues:

  • Mel expects a letter to come and urges Jon to come ot her with it as soon as he gets it first: SOLVED Just as much as Mel could have arranged for a certain timing (moon) for Mance to writer, she could have done the same with Stannis.

That said: while Stannis is capable of hiding his plans and even stage a feigned death situation and walk around with a magicked sword he knows to be a fake from what Mel claims it to be, that is still a far cry from actually impersonating another person himself. I simply cannot perceive him as the person who dictates this type of letter word by word to a maester. Especially the use of the words such as "false king" and "false king's queen" would be glaringly OOC for Stannis. Stannis is perfectly able at deception, and will cooperate with it, play his part, but he usually lets someone else proclaim the deception. While Mel proclaims him the true king and hero with Lightbringer. He simply holds it up for all to see. Stannis does not work as the actual author, but he can ask for a letter to be written to CB in which he is declared death and at the same time requesting his retinue and his hostages (Val and Monster) to be sent to WF. In fact there is evidence that Stannis believes the NW and the rest of the world may learn of his death. He says to to Massey before sending him off to fetch sellswords, almost as if it will be a certainty that the world, including Braavos will believe Stannis is dead. The fact that Stannis says, "It might even be true," implies also that it might not be true. And thus that Stannis is at the very least planning to feign his death.

The question would be: why would Stannis would want CB to believe he's dead?

  • First, Stannis cannot know the communication abilities of the Boltons at WF. If he sent part of his army disguised as Freys or Karastarks to Winterfell with his sword to make the Boltons believe that he's dead, Stannis would assume that the Boltons would want to proclaim such a victory to several castles. The letter sent to CB by one of his own pretending to be Ramsay may not contradict any news that may reach CB via other channels.
  • There is ample evidence of there being men at the NW colluding the Lannisters and so, while pretending to be dead to the Boltons, he cannot risk Cersei's allies to learn something else. A deception only works if you keep up the pretense, even to people who are not directly involved. Someone always blabs otherwise.
  • Note: Jon =/= NW. Jon is told by Mel and by the Pink Letter to tell her, go to her with all of his questions and she will explain it all.

With Stannis not as direct author, but as the person who requests a letter to be sent proclaiming him dead and demanding his people to be sent to WF, options open up for the actual author to insert stuff into the letter that would be OOC for Stannis himself, and may actually involve the actual author's personal agenda in a manner that Stannis never intended to.

THEON

Just as I have done with anyone else before, again I start of simply assuming that Theon is the author to check whether he solves the original issues. Then I will add what supportive other details there are for Theon in relation to the letter. And finally tackle the other issues that arrise with Theon as author.

  • No mentioning of Ramsay's spikey handwriting: SOLVED Even if Theon himself is not capable or writing himself, Stannis has maester Tybald to wrote whatever Theon dictates
  • No mention of flaking and no brown colored ink (blood): SOLVED certainly if a maester is doing the actual writing out, while Theon dictates.
  • No mentioning of signatures at the bottom of the letter by any of the allies such as Dustin, Umber, Cerwyn, Ryswells: SOLVED just as with Stannis, Theon is not at WF and therefore incapable of getting such signatures from them
  • No skin attached to this taunt letter, despite the claim of having the hides of the spearwives: SOLVED
  • The use of "whore" or "whores, while Ramsay never uses this word on-page (see start-off comment): SOLVED Theon uses the word frequently, low rank, high rank. Except for Sansa and Asha (presently 'sweet sister') pretty much every other woman is a whore in Theon's eyes. He's obsessed with the concept and word almost. He even insists to Jeyne that if she does not keep the pretense up of being Arya, she's as good as a whore to everyone else. And remember that Jeyne was a steward's daughter and stewards are noblemen (not land-owning nobility, but of noble birth nonetheless). It might be argued that Theon is aware that Ramsay himself never uses this word, and therefore would avoid to use it when impersonating him. But Theon is not completely of stable and coherent mind. And the thing is that people only use a discrepance in vocabulary (especially insulting one), when they themselves never or hardly ever use it. If a person however frequently uses an insulting term themselves, they are not likely to notice that another does not. So, while people not using the term 'whore' would notice someone else using it frequently (see Jon's chapters especially for this), men like Thorne, Theon and others who use it whenever they can will not notice the lack of it in another person's vocabulary. 
  • In continuation of the previous of all the characters mentioned in the letter only 2 are actually named - Mance Rayder and Reek: POSSIBLY SOLVED Regardless of where Theon is, escaped/hiding/on a mission, he knows his other name to be Reek, and he automatically associates Reek with Ramsay. In fact he literally says the same thing to Stannis: "he wants his bride back. He wants his Reek." Theon is observant and yet unstable and incoherent when communicating about Reek and Ramsay. Imagine him pretending to be Ramsay and fearing the repercussions of it. Theon is the one person who would never think Ramsay wants Theon. But what about Mance, when Theon only knows him as Abel, the singer? Theon will talk and give Stannis whatever information he wants. He already mentioned Abel to Asha. Once Theon tells Stannis there was a singer and washerwomen who were actually wildlings killing men at Winterfell, how long would it take Stannis to ask Theon to describe the singer to him? So, even if Stannis was not yet fully aware of Rattleshirt = Mance (doubtful imho), he will be much aware of it soon. As singer Abel, Mance was not using the glamor. Stannis also keeps Theon chained on the wall in his make-shift office and Theon pretty much learns all: he knows about the letter that Jon sent to Stannis about the Karstark betrayal, he knows about Tybald's betrayal, he witnessed the arrest of Anrolf Karstark, his son and grandsons. He witnessed Stannis dealing with Tycho, what Justin Massay was supposed to do, etc, etc... So, it is completely possible for Stannis to put 2 and 2 together with regards to Abel as well as Theon learning about Abel being Mance Rayder.
  • Pink wax blob without a seal's stamp: POSSIBLY SOLVED see Stannis, or if Theon journeys further with Tybald he might acquire the pink Bolton wax, without the button

2- The content issues:

  • The claim of a 7 day battle: SOLVED with Theon's coherency being unstable he may simply call it a 7 day battle. His time awareness is off and pretty much a blur.
  • Heads mounted on the wall, instead of bodies flayed on a cross: POSSIBLY SOLVED. The conflicting claim of the heads of Stannis's friends on the wall and the flayed spearwives is possibly not much of a conflict to Theon's inconsistent, unstable mind. He also has personal memories and thoughts about heads on walls - he put the heads of the miller's sons on the walls himself, he witnesses the squires making snow sentinels on the battlements of the walls resembling people, he is sure that Jon would put his head on a wall
  • Knowing who is at Castle Black: the queen, the daughter, the red priestess, the "wildling princess", the "little prince"/wildling babe: SOLVED Theon can learn this during his captivity in Stannis's makeshift office, and he would also pick up the appropriate lingo for them.

3 - Tangential issues:

  • Mel expects a letter to come and urges Jon to come ot her with it as soon as he gets it first: POSSIBLY SOLVED. This can only work if Theon isinstructed by Stannis to write a letter.

Additional supportive elements:

  • "bastard": While Theon and Jon were both outsiders, the two never got along; Jon thought of Theon as an ass for his callous behavior, while Theon believed himself to be better than Jon, since Jon was a bastard and Theon was someone's trueborn son.
  • "I want my bride back": not only is it the exact same phrase that Theon used to Stannis about what Ramsay wants. Theon is actually the sole other character so far who has a personal interest in not wanting "the bride" to reach CB. He knows that when Jeyne Poole reaches the Wall, Jon Snow will recognize her as Jeyne Poole and can inform Stannis that Theon fooled him, and then his life would be forfeit.
  • "cloak": Theon's frustration is being called a "turncloak". When Maester Luwin urges Theon to take the black, he thinks "a black cloak can't be turned". When Ramsay as Reek proposes to skin the miller's boys he remembers Old Nan's tales of Boltons flaying people and using the skin for cloaks. When he's sent to deal with the IB at Moat Cailin, broken from torture, he reminisces he has a "warm" fur "cloak". When Theon has to give away the bride he thinks, "They are using me to cloak their deception, putting mine own face on their lie," and with Theon as author he would be used to write a letter to deceive. He may not want to put his own face on the lie, and may therefore even opt to put Ramsay's name on it. Theon overhears Ramsay using the expression to turn a murderer's skin into a cloak to Walder when the boy reports the murder of his cousin. While it actually seems more of an expression, Theon's mind may indeed make it bigger and real.
  • Mance and all the spearwives caught: In Theon's mind Ramsay will defeat anybody and catch anybody. Ramsay is Super-boogeyman to Theon. He is therefore sure that Mance and the four remaining spearwives could not escape or evade Ramsay's vengeance. The fact is that Theon simply is not objective at all. Ramsay's no good with a sword and does not have Mance's condition. Heck, someone managed to kill and off several of Ramsay's men. And if anyone is inclined to the Theon Durden theory, then even a cripple might have managed to murder Ramsay's men at WF. Four of the spearwives disappeared, before things went wrong. It took Theon and the spearwives a certain time to get into Jeyne's room (warming water), to dress her and to get her out. Why anyone supposes that Mance was just waiting in the hall to be captured is relying a wee bit too much on Theon's panick-fevered mind.

Issues with Theon

  • Why would Stannis let Theon live when he says that he has to kill him for he killed Ned's sons? Well, Theon may inform Stannis that he did not kill them OR one of the Flints of the Mountain Clans may say something about meeting Bran, giving him food and shelter, OR news might arrive from Manderly that Rickon is alive. Secondly, Stannis already knowing about Mance switcheroo or realizing of it through Theon may suddenly have the idea to switcheroo Theon with Arnolf. He wouldn't even need to glamor them. Sacrifice Arnolf Karstark to the flames and tree and Wull's happy, the Queen's Men are happy and Stannis has his bonfire to serve as decoy beacon to fool the oncoming Frey army into believing the village is at the middle of the ice lake.
  • Yes, but why would Stannis go through all that effort? Why not kill both Theon and Arnolf? What's in it for Stannis? Theon is the sole man who can undo the kingsmoot that elected Euron. The kingsmoot was unlawful because Theon wasn't present. Asha is willing to bend her knee to Stannis and work with him. She already believed that Euron's or Victarion's way was not the helpful way. This is why Stannis could ultimately be motivated to spare Theon's life. Theon and Asha are his keys to pacify the Ironborn and to get them on his side On top of that Theon is like Gandalf's "burglar". He knows the easy way in and out of the Dreadfort and steal the Dreadfort right from under Roose's nose while Roose sits in WF. Imo, George handed Theon to Stannis who also has Asha for plot reasons, not to kill him off.
  • Why would Stannis allow Theon out of his personal sight? Answer: Well if he sends one broken, crippled Theon with 300-400 men to someplace else who are his allies and his close loyal hulks, while he also has Asha as a hostage, then why should Stannis fear shennanigans from Theon? And even for the North George would have 2 POVs regarding the downfall of the Boltons and Stannis's campaign - Asha with Stannis, Theon on a mission
  • Why would Stannis entrust Theon with writing a letter to Jon Snow? Answer: see above + learning that Theon didn't kill the Stark boys.
  • Why would Stannis trust Theon at all? I don't think he would trust him, hence the answer of 2 issues higher. More, I think trusting Theon would be a mistake. The man's unstable, especially when it comes to Super-boogeyman Ramsay and/or going to a place where he was tortured and Reekified. The biggest mistake people (including readers) can make about Theon imo is "He knows his name again, hallelujah, with a little bit of time, he'll be alright again." There was plenty of petty and superficial self-proving and objectifying people as tools by Theon before he was tortured and Reekified. Reek is actually a far more docile, head-nodding identity, but well only to Ramsay. And not even at the start of aDwD does Theon like people all that much and resentful of people using, forcing, hurting and threatening him. He has a split personality, and I doubt a talking tree and ravens knowing his name will fix that forever. It does not mean that Stannis may suppose he needs to take a chance or gamble while inserting guards and safety precautions, that may or may not work.

Basically, if Stannis does let Theon live, then I don't see George abandoning Theon's identity crisis. Instead I can see him put Theon through conflicts-of-the-heart (and in Theon's case mind) which pretty much is a struggle between fear and being someone's hero. His fear for Ramsay is so great that even if he knows Ramsay is hundred miles away, he might still get him and punish him, and he will have struggle with that fear while trying to be North's hero, while at the same making sure his self-interests are covered and he avoids getting hurt by other people, yet again.

So, Theon as the author solves actually most issues with the letter itself and he would have both personal motivation to hold a grudge to Stannis (for hurting him) and provoke Jon (to avoid Jon from hurting him and Jeyne).

I'll do the other two left-field characters another time. But so far I'd say of the four above I'd say the order of a possible match is

Roose < Ramsay < Stannis << Mance << Theon

Mance has an almost poetic match with the Pink Letter, except for the bride-reek part and cannot solve all issues. Theon mirrors the first half of the letter's imagery not as strongly, but can solve all issues.

Note: *check out aGoT, Catelyn II, scene regarding Lysa's mystery box, the translation of the letter, and the discussion of it.

 

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As to the sources for the Pink Letter:

There has to be some flaying/torturing involved before the letter was written, and finding out who was behind the successful attempt to abduct 'Arya Stark' would have been Roose and Ramsay's top priority after Theon and Jeyne got away. Much more important than the planned attack on Stannis - and we know that this was delayed. After all, Theon had time enough to learn that Aenys Frey had been killed when he left the castle.

Mance is not likely to break under torture easily or quickly. I'd say if Roose/Ramsay tortured 'Abel' they would have needed considerable time and effort, most likely more that they would be willing to spend on the thing.

It is clear Mance showed his own face at Winterfell and nobody there recognized him on sight, so somebody must have told Ramsay who he was.

Mance apparently suggested spear-wives he could trust for the job, so they most likely knew each other and realized early on that Stannis had not, in fact, executed Mance.

I don't think you can decide whether Mance was captured or not - Ramsay claiming it doesn't make it so, after all, and there might be a reason why the hell ADwD established that Mance was such a great swordsman earlier on in the book. In addition, there is a chance that he still had the glamor with him. Sure, he cannot wear the bone helmet but if he can hide the ruby under his clothes he should be able to evade capture if nobody sees him change shapes. He could have killed some people and fled the hall in the confusion. Winterfell is big and all he would have needed is a moment alone and unwatched. Nobody would be looking for a man looking like Rattleshirt, after all.

Come to think of it, a Mance POV could be a great way to shed some light of the events in Winterfell immediately after Theon's escape.

 

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2 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

@Greg B

Well, Jon doesn't buy the complete Pink Letter, that much is clearly established during his conversation with Tormund about it. But unlike Tormund he is very aware that the part about Mance and 'Arya' is true so cannot really rule out that Ramsay is lying.

Certainly he knows some of the letter is true (the charges against him, mostly). Some of it he has no idea what the author is even talking about ("I want my Reek? WTF?"). Certainly he can't rule out the possibility that Stannis is dead.  But he's not thinking about that possibility. He literally thinks Stannis is dead! This is the belief that is unjustified and unwarranted, and it's the piece unsupported in the text. For whatever reason, it's also the piece you keep talking around without addressing. If it doesn't bother you, that's cool. If you just think Martin phrased that particular thought sloppily, that's fine. Maybe he meant to write: "She has a right to know her lord might be dead" or "She has a right to know the Bastard of Bolton claims her lord is dead" or whatever. If that's your take, you can just say so -- I can't prove you wrong!

But please, if you have an interest in discussing it with me, don't keep talking about everything but this, talking about everything else in the letter, everything else Jon is or may be thinking. If you want to discuss it with me, address the point. Jon thinks Stannis is dead. I think that's because the Pink Letter is a plot device that gets us from A -> C that was inserted once B was cut. You think it's because.... What?

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On 28-4-2016 at 1:55 AM, Lord Varys said:

As to the sources for the Pink Letter:

There has to be some flaying/torturing involved before the letter was written, and finding out who was behind the successful attempt to abduct 'Arya Stark' would have been Roose and Ramsay's top priority after Theon and Jeyne got away. Much more important than the planned attack on Stannis - and we know that this was delayed. After all, Theon had time enough to learn that Aenys Frey had been killed when he left the castle.

Mance is not likely to break under torture easily or quickly. I'd say if Roose/Ramsay tortured 'Abel' they would have needed considerable time and effort, most likely more that they would be willing to spend on the thing.

It is clear Mance showed his own face at Winterfell and nobody there recognized him on sight, so somebody must have told Ramsay who he was.

Mance apparently suggested spear-wives he could trust for the job, so they most likely knew each other and realized early on that Stannis had not, in fact, executed Mance.

I don't think you can decide whether Mance was captured or not - Ramsay claiming it doesn't make it so, after all, and there might be a reason why the hell ADwD established that Mance was such a great swordsman earlier on in the book. In addition, there is a chance that he still had the glamor with him. Sure, he cannot wear the bone helmet but if he can hide the ruby under his clothes he should be able to evade capture if nobody sees him change shapes. He could have killed some people and fled the hall in the confusion. Winterfell is big and all he would have needed is a moment alone and unwatched. Nobody would be looking for a man looking like Rattleshirt, after all.

Come to think of it, a Mance POV could be a great way to shed some light of the events in Winterfell immediately after Theon's escape.

 

Must it? With all those issues of the letter?

I agree that if Ramsay and his men caught a shieldmaiden spearwives alive there would be torture/flaying/etc and that shieldmaiden spearwife would talk.One decidd to fight off pursuers below, one was shot on the battlements. The chance that they were caught "alive" before Ramsay could get to them inthe raised alarm is quite nihil.

We don't know where the others left to nor Mance. Theon's POV has time lapss. It's competely unreasonable to expect Mance to remain in the hall the whole time, especially since armies are preparing to leave for battle. Theon's opinion and beliefs mean nothing. No live shieldmaidens spearwives caught, and the others hiding and not findable... there will be nobody to tell Ramsay anything about Mance.

Still he has at least 2 corpses of shieldmaidens spearwives that he can flay - skin usable for letters and blood for ink. But zip.

 

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8 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

@Greg B

Well, Jon doesn't buy the complete Pink Letter, that much is clearly established during his conversation with Tormund about it. But unlike Tormund he is very aware that the part about Mance and 'Arya' is true so cannot really rule out that Ramsay is lying.

In the Shieldhall he reads out the whole Pink Letter giving the impression that it is true and in the spur of the moment he seems to believe it, too, and we can assume that he and Tormund were operating under the impression that it was true and presented it as such to the men in the hall.

The vibe you get is that he only realizes in the very moment when he thinks about Selyse that it was a mistake to not tell her first and to use the news about her husband's alleged death as means to incite the wildlings. That was improper and actually insulting to Selyse as well as the memory of the late Stannis, if you assume he is dead.

And I'm not so sure whether the it is the part about Stannis that Jon cares so much. He certainly realizes that if Stannis is gone then he and his guys are in really big trouble, potentially, but it is actually more likely that Ramsay really got to him in the letter - after all, he used a lot of insults in there. And as it happens the letter just reached Jon in a moment in which he actually had the strength to do something about it - which, if we are honest, he wanted to do throughout the entire book.

@Free Northman Reborn

I don't know much about the planned five year gap. I remember reading that George realized he had great difficulties with the story at the Wall and that Cersei would have been through a couple of Hands during that time. I'm pretty sure a lot of details and story lines changed when the gap was scrapped and without any good evidence (i.e. outlines or unfinished/scrapped chapters by George) we can't really guess how things changed.

I can say though that I can't see how Stannis and Roose would have just kept the peace for five years. That makes no sense whatsoever. In no possible scenario.

As to Jon:

I could easily see his resurrection as a complete turning point - him setting out alone to meet with Bran beyond the Wall or investigate the Others in the Land of Always Winter. Somebody seems to be destined to do this and if Stannis/Davos/Rickon are going to consolidate the North in the post-Bolton era nobody is going to need Jon Snow for any of that - for the time being. Hell, it could even be that his return from the dead is concealed/not known to/witnessed by many people.

And if we are really honest then nothing in ADwD suggested that the Others would make their move soon. They did not even show their faces in that entire book if you exclude the few wights we saw the Prologue and Bran's second chapter. There was Mel's vision about their attack on the place with the towers but we don't know when that's going to happen and neither do we know what the damage will be.

One should expect there to be a little bit more buildup then 'there are mysterious ice demons with zombie warriors' jumping directly to 'an all out attack on the Wall with the Horn of Joramun being involved'. An interesting way to build up tension could be to find out that the Others have that Horn, for example, and the heroes are trying to destroy it or stop them before they can use it to bring down the Wall.

Humanity has migrated south to the Wall. Bran might well be the northenmost remaining human being on the planet at this point. The focus of this war has shifted South. As you have rightly said, the final battle will likely take place around the God's Eye - although I think Winterfell will also be of major significance.

In any case, there is no need to venture to the Lands of Always Winter, which would be a boring plot by the way, with no dramatic human interaction, just a long walk through empty wastes, far away from the real action.

If the aim is to mirror the tale of the Last Hero, well, then again it does not fit. The Last Hero did not journey to the home of the Others. He journeyed to seek out the Children of the Forest. Which Bran has already done. The Children know all there is to know about the Others and Bran will learn all of that lore from 8000 years of weirwood memories.

So Jon journeying North on a lonely quest to the Heart of Winter makes little sense, and would be a waste of his entire path to date, which involved learning how to lead men, negotiate with bankers, strategize, make tough decisions etc. And ultimately, it will waste the significant setup that went into linking him to the contest to rule the North, Robb's potential will, not to mention the truth of his birth, which is the central mystery of the series.

Instead of Jon going North, Bran will eventually be coming South. To Winterfell, where the action is.

My expectation is that Winds will end with the Starks restored and the Wall falling.

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11 hours ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

Hmm.

The whole point is that the Stark restoration was only meant to occur after the 5 year gap. And Stannis was meant to occuppy the Boltons attention during the 5 year gap, which would have bought the time necessary for Arya to complete her training, Sansa to rise to power in the Vale and Bran to complete his greenseer initiation. Jon's resurrection is the major turning point in this story, and was only meant to occur after the 5 year gap as well, starting the Stark return to power. If it happened sooner, and things went the Stark way early on as you suggest, then Sansa and Arya would have been able to return to the safety of Winterfell before completing their arcs in the Vale and Braavos respectively.

The Boltons and Stannis had to keep the North in a state of limbo for long enough that the Stark children could grow up and master their various skills. And the catalyst for everything to move forward from that limbo was likely Jon's death and resurrection.

This isn't consistent with what GRRM says about the five year gap in relation to Jon/Stannis.

He spoke of how in King's Landing so much stuff had happened over the 5 years that he was basically writing non stop flashback scenes. Then, in the North, he had to write about how nothing had been happening... he actually imitated Jon Snow, saying "It's been a slow 5 years here... at the Wall... hanging out with Stannis... but now a bunch of stuff is about to happen!".

It seems as if Stannis at the end of the five year gap was going to be in the same place as Stannis at the start of ADWD. At the Wall, preparing to overthrow Roose.

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4 minutes ago, The Drunkard said:

This isn't consistent with what GRRM says about the five year gap in relation to Jon/Stannis.

He spoke of how in King's Landing so much stuff had happened over the 5 years that he was basically writing non stop flashback scenes. Then, in the North, he had to write about how nothing had been happening... he actually imitated Jon Snow, saying "It's been a slow 5 years here... at the Wall... hanging out with Stannis... but now a bunch of stuff is about to happen!".

It seems as if Stannis at the end of the five year gap was going to be in the same place as Stannis at the start of ADWD. At the Wall, preparing to overthrow Roose.

Well exactly. That is the quote I had in mind. Stannis would have spent that time wooing Northern lords and building an alliance just strong enough to keep the Boltons from overrunning the North. Thus ensuring a kind of stalemate for 5 years before the actual march on Winterfell took place. Of course, this turned out to be unworkable.

What is clear though is that the current events and Jon's death in particular, was only meant to occur after the 5 years, when the plot accelerated forward again. So Stannis's purpose of ensuring the limbo during the 5 year gap has now been fulifilled.

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I doubt it. He says nothing happened, and Stannis building an alliance of northern lords capable of holding off the Boltons and keeping the north in civil war 5 years isn't nothing. More likely, I think: he broadly wanted what was happening now to happen at the end of the gap, but couldn't reconcile the characters doing shit all for years prior to it, which contributed to him scrapping the idea. 

eta: will add/respond more later, need to be somewhere.

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1 hour ago, The Drunkard said:

I doubt it. He says nothing happened, and Stannis building an alliance of northern lords capable of holding off the Boltons and keeping the north in civil war 5 years isn't nothing. More likely, I think: he broadly wanted what was happening now to happen at the end of the gap, but couldn't reconcile the characters doing shit all for years prior to it, which contributed to him scrapping the idea. 

eta: will add/respond more later, need to be somewhere.

Sending out letters to northern lords and building alliances for 5 years pretty much equates to "nothing of note  happening". But we are actually in agreement here. I have stated that the current events are clearly meant to have occurred after the 5 year gap.

The purpose of Stannis going North was for him to bring Mellisandre to meet Jon - thus fulfilling her misinterpreted vision that Stannis would bring her to Azor Ahai, and giving the Boltons pause for a 5 year period while the Stark kids and Dany's dragons all grew up, and while Jon settled the wildlings in the Gift and gradually repopulated and rebuilt the abandoned Night's Watch castles.

Most simply put: The Starks weren't meant to return to power again until after the 5 year gap. But at the same time, something had to stop the Boltons from completely taking over during that interval and stopping Jon's settlement of the wildlings South of the Wall. And Stannis going North and hanging at the Wall while building a kind of Northern counter alliance to Bolton was that plot device.

That is now behind us, as events have now moved beyond that point with the march on Winterfell and Jon's assassination.

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9 hours ago, sweetsunray said:

The use of "whore" or "whores, while Ramsay never uses this word on-page (see start-off comment). Not only that, Ramsay takes particular care to name women by their name, and even honors his female victims' by naming his hunting dogs after them. People have to "know and remember their name". People are known and remembered by their name.

Isn't the way you're explaining this a point in favor of why Rams would choose a disrespectful word in this scenario?   As in, why would he be "honoring" this woman by referring to her by name?  He hasn't hunted her (it's the successful hunt that's the context for Rams' "honor"), and she belongs/ belonged to Stannis, not Rams.'   Why wouldn't a misogynistic sicko like Rams refer to a woman in a scenario where he was being derisive as a "whore?"

I get that we don't see him literally say "whore" on page in front of Theon or Bran (I'm taking your word on this, I haven't checked).  But can you point to a passage where it would have made sense for Rams to use that word, the absence of which becomes highly conspicuous in relation to this letter?   

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22 minutes ago, butterbumps! said:

Isn't the way you're explaining this a point in favor of why Rams would choose a disrespectful word in this scenario?   As in, why would he be "honoring" this woman by referring to her by name?  He hasn't hunted her (it's the successful hunt that's the context for Rams' "honor"), and she belongs/ belonged to Stannis, not Rams.'   Why wouldn't a misogynistic sicko like Rams refer to a woman in a scenario where he was being derisive as a "whore?"

I get that we don't see him literally say "whore" on page in front of Theon or Bran (I'm taking your word on this, I haven't checked).  But can you point to a passage where it would have made sense for Rams to use that word, the absence of which becomes highly conspicuous in relation to this letter?   

Good to see you are still around b! And a forum moderator now?

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