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The Reasonings of Littlefinger


mghg

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I assume most readers agree that Petyr Baelish a.k.a. Littlefinger is a very ambitious and opportunistic man that benefits from chaos.

However, I do not fully understand why he helped Lysa to poison Jon Arryn and thus preventing the exposure of the Cersei and Jaime affair. A rift between king Robert and his queen's family would certainly have caused some chaos to be used by an opportunistic man. As bannerman to Jon Arryn, Littlefinger should have been on the winning side. Why not seize this opportunity?

Or was Littlefinger afraid of Stannis influence on Jon Arryn? Or had he not discovered the Cersei and Jaime affair, and thus only strengthening his grip on Lysa? Or wanted he to first bring house Stark to King's Landing?

Any thoughts?

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Littlefinger may have figured out that Ned Stark would be Robert's go-to guy to replace Arryn. Getting Ned to the capital would get him away from Catelyn and put him nearby so Littlefinger could torment him.

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Littlefinger gets Lysa to poison Jon, and also to write a letter to Cat blaming Cersei. It wasn't a huge leap to expect that Robert would turn to his other trusted friend to take over as Hand - Cat goes after the Lannister's while Ned heads to Kings Landing. Littlefinger continues to manipulate and trick them, setting up the Lannister/Stark conflict, likely convincing Joffrey to have Ned executed, and the sum of all this is the War of the Five Kings. War with the Lannisters would be an ugly affair, even if he is on the winning side, and te result would probably be peace - not something he can work with as well as chaos.

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Littlefinger's plans are generally only one move at a time, he is not the grand long term schemer that Varys is.

I think he believed he could become Hand of teh King after Jon Arryn. Robert wasn't interested in ruling the realm and didn't attend Small Council meetings. LF thought he could just step into the role as Hand and Robert would just let it be.
Jaime even discusses with Cersei why Ned was being given the role of Hand, he thought it would go to someone like Littlefinger.

Quote:

A Game of Thrones - Bran II
"Don't play the fool. Stannis and Renly are one thing, and Eddard Stark is quite another. Robert will listen to Stark. Damn them both. I should have insisted that he name you, but I was certain Stark would refuse him."
"We ought to count ourselves fortunate," the man said. "The king might as easily have named one of his brothers, or even Littlefinger, gods help us. Give me honorable enemies rather than ambitious ones, and I'll sleep more easily by night."
They were talking about Father, Bran realized. He wanted to hear more. A few more feet

Once he was Hand LF could appoint a Master of Coin of his own choosing and thus have the two strongest roles on the Small Council. He would be almost as powerful as the King.

I don't believe that he planned to start a war with this killing, too many other pieces needed to be moved into place before that would happen.

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