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

[sweetsunray]

2 hours ago, Good Guy Garlan said:

Like I said, if Stannis wanted Jon to march why not write, "Bastard, I have your sister, come and get her, etc"? You know, the thing most likely to piss Jon off? But instead Stannis (if he's the author) omitted the most important piece of information, and instead let Jon know that the Boltons no longer have "Arya" (I want my bride back ), which gives Jon even less reasons to march south. 

Plus, Stannis would have to know that Jon wasn't gonna just ride into the sunset. He'd have to know he'd be putting his family in big danger by sending that letter. 

Stannis just doesn't work as the author, IMO. And neither does Theon. 

I agree that Stannis did not want Jon to march... He wanted his household to come and the wildlings to march. The issue is that normally all letters sent to CB go through LC's hands. He can't send a letter to Mel and expect nobody of the watch to take a peek and not pass it on to Jon.

Also, while Stannis might have secured WF, that doesn't mean he won the Northern campaign yet. Even with infiltrators being sent to WF,  Roose's army would still match that of Stannis (if Stannis assumes Roose's allies are indeed his allies, not knowing they play their own betrayal games). The RW slaughter worked because everybody was drunk and Robb's forces were 3-7 of Roose's and Frey's. Stannis would want to avoid a 1-1 battle inside WF. Makes more sense to overtake WF with just a skeleton crew inside. So, it's possible that Roose is marching to someplace else (like the Dreadfort). That's why the ruse of his own death is in Stannis's interest. It's how Theon becomes useful - he already showed he can take a castle with few men and Theon knows the Dreadfort, including the secret little doors to get inside and outside. In a blizzard Theon looks like Arnolf Karstark. Tybald is a Karstark maester. Even Umber greenboys can hold a castle like the Dreadford for a short while, and the Umbers are supposedly Bolton allies. Nobody at the Dreadfort knows whether that would be greenboys or greybeards. So, Theon can use a ruse at the Dreadfort to seek entrance. Heck, even if he's recognized as Reek he can say Ramsay sent him.

So, imagine Roose first learning of Stannis's death. Then he receives a challenging letter that the Dreadfort was taken by Ironborn or Wildlings, while the same letter writer (Theon) also sends a message to CB. He leaves WF and only a skeleton crew remains. Stannis has a portion of his army infiltrate WF and take the skeleton crew out, while he himself uses Robert's tactic of forced marches to catch Roose at the walls of the Dreadfort. Now Roose is the one caught between the walls of the Dreadford and Stannis's army (a reversal of Roose's intentions with the Karstarks). Roose's greybeards will refuse to fight the greenboys inside the Dreadford and rout the rest. Roose gets smashed.

Between the time that Roose is told that Stannis was defeated by fake allied soldiers and the time he's confronted with an army behind him at the Dreadfort, it's crucial that nobody but the insiders know that Stannis is alive. But he also would want his household to leave CB. Because if CB believe Stannis to be dead and defeated by some other message they might give them up to the wrong people.

You think it's idiotic for a commander like Stannis to use coded messages, like a boy-scout. But one of the most important aspects of war were & are coded messages. The US army hired Native Americans to develop and decipher code during WWII. It's common warcraft to send coded messages so that the crucial information does not fall in the wrong hands. Heck, even Walder Frey sends a coded letter to Tywin about the Red Wedding and Tyrion is clueless, while Tywin is not. 

[The Truth]

Theon is def going to be part of a plan to take the dreadfort, probably with Karstark men who dont want their higher up family members killed. Along with Tybald. Cantuse in the manifesto has like 3 pages on it, it is pretty laid out Stannis is going for the dreadfort

 

Arnolf will be executed but everyone else will think its Theon. So north gets appeased. they are both crippled enough

[The Truth]

To the people who think Stannis is dead. Look up what real life commander grrm based on him. Look at his most known battles.......you will see something identical to the night lamp theory along with the outcome of it. I wont spoil it

[The Truth]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Agincourt

[Ruhail]

1 hour ago, sweetsunray said:

Also, while Stannis might have secured WF, that doesn't mean he won the Northern campaign yet. Even with infiltrators being sent to WF,  Roose's army would still match that of Stannis (if Stannis assumes Roose's allies are indeed his allies, not knowing they play their own betrayal games). The RW slaughter worked because everybody was drunk and Robb's forces were 3-7 of Roose's and Frey's. Stannis would want to avoid a 1-1 battle inside WF. Makes more sense to overtake WF with just a skeleton crew inside. So, it's possible that Roose is marching to someplace else (like the Dreadfort). That's why the ruse of his own death is in Stannis's interest. It's how Theon becomes useful - he already showed he can take a castle with few men and Theon knows the Dreadfort, including the secret little doors to get inside and outside. In a blizzard Theon looks like Arnolf Karstark. Tybald is a Karstark maester. Even Umber greenboys can hold a castle like the Dreadford for a short while, and the Umbers are supposedly Bolton allies. Nobody at the Dreadfort knows whether that would be greenboys or greybeards. So, Theon can use a ruse at the Dreadfort to seek entrance. Heck, even if he's recognized as Reek he can say Ramsay sent him.

 

1 hour ago, The Truth said:

Theon is def going to be part of a plan to take the dreadfort, probably with Karstark men who dont want their higher up family members killed. Along with Tybald. Cantuse in the manifesto has like 3 pages on it, it is pretty laid out Stannis is going for the dreadfort

 

Arnolf will be executed but everyone else will think its Theon. So north gets appeased. they are both crippled enough

Holy crap. I never even thought of the Arnolf Karstark connection! It would make total sense and be the ultimate irony and culmination of the whole original Reek switchero and traitiorous acts by KSs and Boltons.

Theon even remarks on AK's condition and how he isnt fit to wear that upper class rich clothing!

[Lord Varys]

The idea that Roose doesn't have ravens that fly to the Wall with him at Winterfell makes no sense at all. The man has multiple maesters with him, and could even have access to ravens who can fly to multiple castles.

In addition, Cerwyn isn't that far away, so if he had realized that he had no Castle Black ravens at hand while on the march to Winterfell he could just have take those.

A march against the Dreadfort makes also little sense under the present weather conditions. Stannis doesn't seem to have all that much food, and those 5,000-6,000 men in Winterfell seem to have taken care of a good portion of Roose's provisions.

I could see Roose trying to retreat to his castle, but Stannis would have little reason to pursue him immediately if he has lost the war. The man would want to return to the Wall to continue the real fight.

[The Drunkard]

Stannis didn't write it. It took him more than a month to march from Deepwood to the crofters village, which is a shorter distance than Castle Black -> Winterfell, and he started in better conditions. Any reinforcements from the Wall are going to take far too long to arrive (he's anticipating an imminent battle in the sample chapter), but more importantly there aren't any reinforcements at the Wall that he'd want. As far as he knows there are only 300 wildlings in fighting condition, and they certainly aren't going to change the tide of battle. Also, manipulating his allies like this is completely out of character, and putting his family and the Wall (i.e. the main defense he has for the real war) in jeopardy is just stupid. 

No, I think it was Ramsay. Stannis destroys the Freys with the ice lakes, and then sends one of the captured Karstark ravens to Winterfell telling them of his defeat. This lulls the Boltons into a false sense of security, making them think they have a free hand to deal with their other enemies now that there isn't a Stannis-led army of thousands at the gates. An obvious enemy is Jon, who they believe has thrown in with Stannis according to an earlier Theon chapter. 

So they send the Pink Letter, attempting to intimidate Jon into surrendering and exposing all of his dirty laundry (e.g. that he was complicit in sparing Mance) to weaken his standing in case he doesn't.

Why isn't there any skin? There's no real victim for them to skin.

Why isn't there a seal? There was, but Clydas opened it, read the letter, and resealed it before handing it to Jon, as many maesters do for their lords. Remember in an earlier chapter Jon notes that Stannis is fairly unique for insisting on breaking all the seals himself.

Why did Ramsay send it instead of Roose? Roose has a history of using scapegoats to do his dirty work so that his hands stay clean.

[The Truth]

Mance also has a glamour. Ramsay wouldnt know who he is. Nor the specific info about his child and people in specific.

Mel is also the only person who uses the term "your false king" I still think the tybald/theon. but 0% ramsay. its how grrm writes with clues, to end a book like that and diverge the truth so he can surprise people next book

Another thing, all the boltons do is flay people. ramsay talks about it all the time. flay them and leave them on their sigil type cross. he wouldnt "put their heads on the wall of WF"

Ramsay if wanted to go attack the watch wouldnt send terms nor a warning letter, he would attack and ask questions when they are dead. no reasoning

[Forlong the Fat]

6 hours ago, Neolaina said:

Why would Mance be so shrouded in his message that Jon would think - privately, in his own thoughts - that the letter's genuine? That seems like a pretty foolish maneuver if Mance is trying to rally help.

White wax melted down and mixed with red wax would make pink wax. Why this seems to be a stretch is beyond me.

To the last part, I never said Ramsay wrote anything. All I'm claiming is that if Mance did write the letter in order to get help from Jon, he fucked that up royally.

Edit: I didn't address the use of the word "crow", but I'd wager it's a known epithet towards members of the Night's Watch south of the wall, despite the fact we've seen no one use it.

I'm very confused by your point here. If Mance wrote the letter to rally Jon to bring the wildlings to Winterfell, it worked to absolute perfection. That's exactly what Jon was going to do if he hadn't been stabbed. 

[Winter Blues]

Didn't read the thread, but I'm 87% sure it was Barbrey Dustin, in cahoots with Mance, who wrote the letter.

[Winter Rose Crown]

The southerners DO call the NW crows.  

Quote

"It's sweet corn, better'n a stinking old black bird like you deserves," one of them answered roughly. "You get out of our field now, and take these sneaks and stabbers with you, or we'll stake you up in the corn to scare the other crows away."

That's from ACOK chapter 9 (Arya).

Quote

The knight in the spiked helm laughed. "The crow gives us his word."

ACOK, chapter 14 (Arya)

[kimim]

2 hours ago, The Truth said:

Ramsay makes the least sense. Thankfully majority see that after how many obvious points have been made. Unless grrm just puts random words to random people and does not have specific characters with repeating traits

I have yet to hear a convincing argument in favor of anyone but Ramsay. It think the key is not the wording of the letter, but what it's actually saying.

This letter is not designed to get Jon or anyone to Winterfell. Jon is not going to attack the supposedly victorious Boltons in Winterfell using a couple of hundred wildlings. The letter conveniently lets him know that Arya has escaped, and is probably heading to Castle Black, making it even less likely that he would attack Winterfell. 

I think the letter was not written to get Jon to attack Winterfell. The letter was written to make it possible for Ramsay to attack Castle Black. The letter is, imo, a list of Jon's sins.

• Jon lied about killing Mance. He (supposedly) saved the king of the wildlings.
• Jon, the lord commander, has broken his vows by sending the wildling king to steal a northern lord's wife.
• Jon is now allied with wildlings, the traditional enemies of northerners.
• Jon's allowed the barbarians past the Wall, into the Gift. 

These are excellent reasons for Ramsay to move against Castle Black; they're so good that he might even be able to bring some allies with him.

[The Drunkard]

4 hours ago, The Truth said:

Mance also has a glamour. Ramsay wouldnt know who he is. Nor the specific info about his child and people in specific.

Another thing, all the boltons do is flay people. ramsay talks about it all the time. flay them and leave them on their sigil type cross. he wouldnt "put their heads on the wall of WF"

Theon's escape ends with the spearwives being killed or captured, and Abel was stuck in the hall performing for Roose at the time. It's not unlikely that this part of the letter is completely true: in the aftermath the Boltons captured the remaining spearwives along with Abel, tortured them, and found out everything in the letter.

As to flaying people, Roose has had people hanged, Ramsay has had people impaled and one person starved. There's no reason to think they're opposed to beheading (hell, they may have flayed the people and then put the heads upon the walls).

[Ferocious Veldt Roarer]

6 hours ago, Winter Rose Crown said:

The southerners DO call the NW crows. 

 But, in the letter, it isn't just "crows", it's "black crows". And that is exclusively wildling lingo. Osha, Craster, Ygritte, Rattleshirt, Harma the Dogshead, Tormund Giantsbane. Lord Snow, when parlaying with the wildlings.

Ah, yes. And Mance Rayder.

Doesn't it look a little bit intriguing?

[chrisdaw]

Because we can read.

[sweetsunray]

7 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

The idea that Roose doesn't have ravens that fly to the Wall with him at Winterfell makes no sense at all. The man has multiple maesters with him, and could even have access to ravens who can fly to multiple castles.

In addition, Cerwyn isn't that far away, so if he had realized that he had no Castle Black ravens at hand while on the march to Winterfell he could just have take those.

A march against the Dreadfort makes also little sense under the present weather conditions. Stannis doesn't seem to have all that much food, and those 5,000-6,000 men in Winterfell seem to have taken care of a good portion of Roose's provisions.

I could see Roose trying to retreat to his castle, but Stannis would have little reason to pursue him immediately if he has lost the war. The man would want to return to the Wall to continue the real fight.

Yes, Roose has multiple Dreadfort maesters with him, but we do not know how they arrived at WF. Did they come along to the Neck with Ramsay, before Roose traveled back North from teh Twins? Did they travel by themselves to Barrowton from the Dreadfort after the news that Roose was back North and that Ramsay would marry fArya there? Or did they travel directly to Winterfell by order of Roose who sent them a message from Barrowhall? Only in the latter case does it become difficult to maintain that Roose didn't think of everything. 

No, Cerwyn isn't that far away, and yes he could have taken ravens from there while marching to Winterfell. But it depends on Roose realizing that WF wouldn't have ravens to send anymore. Since he made other tactical and strategic mistakes I actually doubt it. He knew there wouldn't be any maester, but he didn't know beforehand that there wouldn't be any sending ravens. But since he's been at WF he's been locked off from the outside world: he can't send ravens to House Cerwyn, his scouts and riders and messengers are being killed by Umber greenboys, and he too suffers from the blizzard to communicate. Only communication that did occur so far was the one raven from Karstark betraying Stannis's location. And why would Roose even prioritize ravens for CB, for Jon Snow, the Stark bastard?

Stannis let the horses die imo, for food. He was slow on purpose. He wanted to set up camp outside WF and have Roose's army come out to confront him in sections. He did NOT want to be trapped inside WF himself with no stock at all with Roose outside. The horses only serve in battle, not in a march. Because you need slow carts and huge amounts of food to feed those horses. A march with war horses is no faster than one on foot. Stannis needed to preserve food and thus ditch the war horses and make the food. The Freys are marching to the ice lakes with war horses (a large amount of them). It woudl take them 3 days, so they need to take horse food with them, or they might just as well go on foot. Not so incidentally we learn in Asha's chapter who much behind the baggage train lags after 3 days marching. In a blizzard without knowing the specific terrain, only by crude map, the Freys can easily be misled and thus trapped and killed in an ice lake, while mountain clans on their light cavalry can attack and secure the baggage train - hundreds and hundreds of horses in the ice lake nicely preserved to be eaten + Frey baggage train for hundreds of dead horses and 2000 men for at least 3 more days.

The Dreadfort is the best provisioned castle in the North. That's the castle to winter in. That was the reason why Stannis was tempted by the Karstark proposal to begin with. Stannis cannot wiinter in WF. It just does not have the food. Not even Roose can. Roose's allies took food with them, sure, but they would not have taken all of their winter stock. Roose cannot even demand his allies to have their women and children starve in their home areas. The reason why Roose sends those Freys and Manderlys out is partly to get rid of over 2000 mouths to feed. But he can't send them out with no food either.  At least he can make them fight for the food and be useful, instead of sitting on their asses all day and fight amongst themselves. Roose is under pressure at WF. He looks in a more comfortable position than Stannis: but so far he has been feeding an army and close to two thousand horses to do nothing, locked in by a blizzard and therefore cut off himself from supply lines. The priviosionary WF food storage everybody brought along is dminishing fast.

Stannis left the Wall, because the Wall does not have the provisions for his army to winter there. That's why he opted to start a campaign in the North in the first place. So, no, he's not going to allow Roose to winter safely in the Dreadfort with massive food stock, while his own have to starve at the Wall or WF. Stannis wants and needs the Dreadfort for food supplies AND to be rid of Roose. 

 

[Quarinius]

What I don't understand is, how could Stannis have written the letter if he doesn't know Mance is alive? Neither does Theon.

[sweetsunray]

8 hours ago, Ruhail said:

 

Holy crap. I never even thought of the Arnolf Karstark connection! It would make total sense and be the ultimate irony and culmination of the whole original Reek switchero and traitiorous acts by KSs and Boltons.

Theon even remarks on AK's condition and how he isnt fit to wear that upper class rich clothing!

Exactly! Stannis can sacrifice Arnolf saying he's Theon, while he sends Theon away with the maester and his personal maester keeper who knows how to make people talk and other men back 'home'. Stannis can say 'Poor Anrolf is sick and he should be treated and taken care of in Karhold. Lookie here, I'm sending him safely home with a personal escort of mine'. And all those Karstark soldiers who don't even know that Arnolf intended to betray and turn on Stannis see their beloved Arnolf leave, and isn't Stannis a great man, and you betcha they'll fight for Stannis. Meanwhile he keeps the other men of Karstark family as a hostage to ensure Tybald remains cooperative, since his vows cannot make him betray the Karstarks.

[sweetsunray]

7 hours ago, The Drunkard said:

Stannis didn't write it. It took him more than a month to march from Deepwood to the crofters village, which is a shorter distance than Castle Black -> Winterfell, and he started in better conditions. Any reinforcements from the Wall are going to take far too long to arrive (he's anticipating an imminent battle in the sample chapter), but more importantly there aren't any reinforcements at the Wall that he'd want. As far as he knows there are only 300 wildlings in fighting condition, and they certainly aren't going to change the tide of battle. Also, manipulating his allies like this is completely out of character, and putting his family and the Wall (i.e. the main defense he has for the real war) in jeopardy is just stupid.

He is not manipulating his allies. He's manipulating the possible enemies within the Watch who read messages meant for the LC. But both the Pink Letter and Mel herself urge Jon to take the letter to her. Mel would have explained in detail that it was a coded message and that the letter should i nno way be taken literally. Jon ignored the letter's and Mel's request to take the letter to her, and took it serious. It was not their intention to manipulate Jon or make him leave the Wall, only to fool his possible enemies amongst the brothers. Jon didn't go to Mel, and instead locked hmself up with Thormund for several hours and then read it publically in the Hall of Shields. And he was stabbed before Mel could even explain a thing or two to him.

Indeed, the wildlings can serve as a skeleton crew in the taken WF, or could be extra forces to help hold the Dreadfort with Umber greenboys and Theon when Roose attempts to take it back. 600 men inside the Dreadfort can hold against Roose's army long enough for Stannis to catch up with Roose with forced marches from behind.

Stannis marched slowly onto WF on purpose, so that Roose had the time to reach WF before him and things would get heated up there enough, and to spare any resources and turn the heavy cavalry into food. Only a few of his army actually died (less than ten). It's all the horses that died mostly (16 are left).

[butterbumps!]

7 hours ago, The Drunkard said:

Why isn't there a seal? There was, but Clydas opened it, read the letter, and resealed it before handing it to Jon, as many maesters do for their lords. Remember in an earlier chapter Jon notes that Stannis is fairly unique for insisting on breaking all the seals himself.

I agree with your posts, but was curious about whether not breaking the seals was a habit for Jon.   I know that Jon breaks other seals himself during his LC time, so I'm not sure that it was Clydas' habit to break and read the letters before giving them over (and hence why this letter would be resealed).  

That said, though, I agree with your explanation regarding the "smear" instead of a seal-- regardless of whether it was his habit, I think Clydas opened and resealed this letter.   The way the letter was presented-- clearly from a party the Watch has made itself enemy to at a time the men would be anxiously awaiting news of a battle, addressed aggressively to "Bastard"-- serves to ensure it gets itself opened and read before it gets into Jon's hands (if it gets there at all).   The fact that the mail system customarily gets filtered through the maesters is something Roose is more than keenly aware of (it's why he's holding those 3, and why Lady Dustin gives us that seemingly unnecessary tirade about it a few chapters earlier).  

I'd say the Boltons were banking on the CB maester receiving and reading the letter prior to Jon, and that's exactly what happened as it pertains to the shoddy seal job.

7 hours ago, kimim said:

I have yet to hear a convincing argument in favor of anyone but Ramsay. It think the key is not the wording of the letter, but what it's actually saying.

This letter is not designed to get Jon or anyone to Winterfell. Jon is not going to attack the supposedly victorious Boltons in Winterfell using a couple of hundred wildlings. The letter conveniently lets him know that Arya has escaped, and is probably heading to Castle Black, making it even less likely that he would attack Winterfell. 

I think the letter was not written to get Jon to attack Winterfell. The letter was written to make it possible for Ramsay to attack Castle Black. The letter is, imo, a list of Jon's sins.

• Jon lied about killing Mance. He (supposedly) saved the king of the wildlings.
• Jon, the lord commander, has broken his vows by sending the wildling king to steal a northern lord's wife.
• Jon is now allied with wildlings, the traditional enemies of northerners.
• Jon's allowed the barbarians past the Wall, into the Gift. 

These are excellent reasons for Ramsay to move against Castle Black; they're so good that he might even be able to bring some allies with him.

Agreed, and I think the bold can't be stressed enough-- Arya is clearly not at Winterfell anymore per the letter, so it's probably not the case that Jon is planning to march on Winterfell to rescue Arya.  

I think in addition to being a list of Jon's sins (ostensibly to undermine his authority), it also serves to divide the parties up at the Wall to make it hard to unify and resist Bolton authority, as well as likely to whittle themselves down through in-fighting.   By implicitly threatening to attack the Watch without hostages from the willdlings and Queensmen, as well as undermining Jon's suitability as a leader of the Watchmen, it sets up an incentive structure for the Watchmen to disavow Jon, and turn over the other two interest groups (and potentially Jon) to the Boltons, or even create a kind of "civil war" between the 3 interest groups that would serve the same end goal of taking Jon out of the game.

I think that's really the goal behind the text of this letter-- it's about weakening Jon's authority and even legitimacy in the eyes of the Watchmen to serve the end of removing Jon from the game, either by having the Watchmen turn him over or sowing discord or any combination thereof while still up at the Wall, without the Boltons' having to lift a finger.