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Big Walder Analysis


Aegon VII

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7 hours ago, Aegon VII said:

You are trying to evaluate whether BW is a pscyopath based on a test that specifically warns against trying to use it with too little information. We see BW like 5-10 times so far in all of asoiaf, most of which I quoted in my analysis. Not nearly enough to apply PCL-R.

Now, does this mean that no one is capable of examining whether BW is a psychopath? Absolutely not!

I wholeheartedly disagree with you on your understanding of the subject, of the aspects, of the evaluation tool.

Furthermore I always clarified that BW is a child and it's impossible to say of a child of 8 to 10 that he or she's personality is already so tansfixed that we can call him or her a psychopath. 

7 hours ago, Aegon VII said:

I argue that BW is the reason Rickon liked the Walders and that he was not being genuine, this is supported by him volunteering to hunt them down when the castle is taken.

You have no evidence on both claims. And the available evidence for the hunting Walder points to LW more than BW. 

7 hours ago, Aegon VII said:

"I am sorry if we offended Prince Bran. We only meant to be amusing." He at least had the grace to look abashed.

Again, BW does what he needs to to please others, knowing in the end it suits him. Not genuine.

I disagree with you determining here that it is not genuine. Compare it with LF's words to Cat in the brothel when she chastices him on bringing her there. That's an example of a not-genuine apology for sure. BW also is not reported to have repeated the same behavior afterwards.

 

7 hours ago, Aegon VII said:

Theon dared not admit defeat. “We’ll return to the brook. Search again. This time we’ll go as far as we must.”

" We won't find them," the Frey boy said suddenly, "not so long as the frogeaters are with them.

BW gets the entire hunting party to call it a day, just when he finds out he's about to have to keep searching for a lot longer. You can say you disagree that this was BW and not LW and we can certainly have that discussion, but when examining whether my phrasing was correct I'm going to draw on all aspects of my analysis for support.

The BW-LW discussion has already happened. The fact that it's ambiguous makes it impossible for you to use these phrases as evidence to claim that an 8-year old is a psychopath.

7 hours ago, Aegon VII said:

It has to do with your definition of what a psychopath is, something no one is interested in but you.

Just by the sheer number of people discussing and googling "what is a psychopath" I doubt nobody but me is interested in it. BTW, who appointed you as the person to decide for everyone what they are interested in?

 

7 hours ago, Aegon VII said:

Thus, in the test-development process, Hare eliminated Cleckley’s (1941, 1988) positive-adjustment features of psychopathy (see Table 2; see also “Unresolved Controversies” below), which tend not to relate highly to the other features of the condition.

 

Probably because the PCL-R was developed with and for criminal samples, and because positive-adjustment indicators were omitted as criteria, this pattern of external correlates appears more in line with McCord and McCord’s (1964) conception of criminal psychopathy, which emphasizes cruelty and impulsive-aggressive behavior, than with Cleckley’s portrayal of psychopathy as a masked disturbance blending behavioral dyscontrol with emotional stability and social efficacy.

In notable contrast with the foregoing, Hare’s PCL-R/SV largely omits positive-adjustment indicators (see Patrick, 2006). Indeed, Hare and Neumann (2010) regarded such items as “of doubtful relevance to the psychopathy construct” (p. 450). Their perspective appears to be that adaptive psychological features—or those described by Cleckley, at least—represent concomitants rather than core features of psychopathy, affiliated in some cases with, but not essential to, the disorder.

So we have a lot of text from your former relation's article supporting my point. If you prefer I say "largely omits" rather than "ignores" I'd be happy to meet you half way.

The author of the article is not a relation of mine, neither former, nor present.

First of all, I don't agree with  the article's assertions that it's eliminated or largely omits or ignores them.

And Hare's words on its relevance to the psychopathic construct is used in a subversive manner. The positive adjustment factor is what enables anyone, whether psychopath or not, to ADAPT and BLEND in to society, regardless whether that is genuine or false. Hare does not claim there is no such thing as a high performance psychopath (the one with most postive adjustment traits). What he says is that it is not essential to the question "what is a psychopath?" Let's say you have a high performance psychopath and you have a low performance psychopath. They have obvious differences. The important question is what do they have in common? What makes them different though is not as essential to the basic construct of psychopathy.

Furthermore, you use this article to assert a position that neither Cleckley or even the author of this article would agree with: that anti-social behavior is not essential to the psychopath. For you someone who shows positive adjustment traits, adaptability is enough to call him a psychopath. "Hey, you're behaving like a model citizen!" Accusing finger, "You are a psychopath!".

You do know that singling out positive adjustment traits and claiming that anti-social facts are not essential makes the majority of people a psychopath right? Because we all at times manipulate someone or a situation, and often for commendable reasons. When an aid-worker or policeman talks a person who wants to jump to step away from the ledge back to safety, that person has just manipulated someone else. The question is how pervasive it is, how harmful to the manipulated person and what the manipulator tried to achieve.

That you are trying to reframe psychopathy in such a manner that basically an average person can be called a psychopath is shown by your questionable example of Walder influencing Theon's hunting crew in going back. Let's not influence each other people, because according to OP that is a sign of psychopathy.

As for the criticism on Hare stressing on aggression and impulsivity. I agree with the criticism up to a point. The majority of people diagnozed as psychopath are male, while the majority of people diagnozed as borderliner are female. So, something's up with that, and it has to do with aggression: in my very personal opinion the interpretation of that aggression. Inflicting self-harm is also a form of aggression, but people who diagnoze are as influenced by cultural bias as anybody else. There is a tendency to classify self-harm as different, even when the self-harming act is used for the same harmful manipulative reasons as someone showing aggressive behavior towards another person. And we know that statistically in our culture women are far more likely to physically harm themselves while men are far more likely to physically harm someone else (note: I'm not saying that there is a biological reason for this). Furthermore, laymen especially, tend to think of aggression in physical terms and what is targeted. But overriding and ignoring another person's "borders" in an emotional and mental manner is also aggressive. When say a woman slashes her wrists to make her ex-partner feel guilty for leaving her (after a whole hystory of drama) that is as aggressive as a man throttling his ex-wife. Stalking someone on the internet is also a form of aggression, and it does not have even have to include threats. Just the knowledge that someone else is digging for information and contacting friends and family about you feels like someone violated your personhood. And even high performing psychopaths will seek thrills somewhere and make seemingly impulsive decisions, as often and wherever he can afford it.

And no, I'm not trying to say that borderliner = psychopathy, but it is at least very possible that women who are psychopaths may end up being diagnozed as borderliner instead, and that the person diagnozing is interpreting the aggression factor of psychopathy in too much of an unintended bias of what constitutes aggression.

Also I think the same mistake happens with regards to the interpretation of impulsivity as a psychopath not having any self-control. Both the article you cite and your own arguments reveal you regard the two as opposites. And since both impulsivity and aggression are often cited together, there is a propensity to interprete the violence as uncontrolled impulsivity. The strangest thing to witness is a psychopath "in the wild" (so to speak) showing impulsive aggressive behavior. It's like you're watching a performance, something staged. It creates a dual mental state in the person this scene is enacted for - on the one hand the target is completely taken by surprise, which puts their lymbic system on alert and threatened mode, and yet on a cognitive level the target will not see it as an actual threat because after processing it comes of as unreal/fake. The dual situation where the body is put on alert against a possible threat and similtaneously feeling cogntively safe around a person showing aggressive behavior is solely to the benefit of the performer - it creates a hormonal situation in the target to bond with them, even when they don't want to. Bottom line, the impulsiveness and the agression (drama-rama) is actually systematically used to control someone and manipulate the environment negatively. Its systematic use actually shows that the impulsiveness and the aggression is pre-meditated. And that is in direct conflict with the idea that a low performing psychopath has no self-control. 

I'll give a movie character example. Edward Norton has played a psychopath several times. One of the lesser mentioned psychopathic roles he plays is that of Worm in Rounders. He's a low performer, just came out of jail, huge debt and his life threatened by gangster, gambling, cheats all the time while he sucks at cheating, going against advize, changing his mind abruptly, breaking promises, provoking fights, taunting men you don't want to taunt. On the surface he literally is a worm-loser of a character. And yet when you watch carefully Worm systematically uses this impression of impulsivity to mess with his "friend" (Matt Damon). He uses the threat to his life to get Matt Damon back into gambling, in order to pay off his debt and save his life. It has all the adrenaline rush of needing to be done in 5 days. When mostly Matt Damon manages to acquire the money playing poker, just then Worm ignores Matt completely and does what he always does - ruin it, so that the both of them are attacked with baseball bats, and now Matt Damon ends up on the hit list too. At which point Worm runs and leaves Matt Damon being the target of the gangsters alone. A small personal conversation between both of them reveals that Worm was always envoius of Matt Damon and hints that he wants Matt Damon to fall. In other words, Worm is being delibreately "impulsive", deliberately "stupid", deliberately "getting into trouble" to basically get Matt Damon killed by gangsters. In our eyes Worm is a "loser". In his eyes though he manages to mess with the gangsters and his "friend" and leaves the fall-out between them. In hs own eyes he's a "winner" because he actually manages to get away with it all, as neither the gangsters nor Matt Damon actually realize how he used them, that it's all a game, a spiel by him. Worm gets into trouble on purpose to drag other people into the trouble with him and have them deal with the consequences.

Hare recognizes the above behavior as a strategy. The article you cite does not seem to.

Since you seem so interested in the topic, I suggest you not only quote and read the same article over and over, but read survivor stories so you have some very concrete anecdotes to link with the factors that define psychopathy, before making up your own definition where you basically claim anti-social factors are not essential to psychopathy to suit your purpose of assessing Big Walder, because he does not show anti-social behavior. You're basically making stuff up and make assertions on highly ambiguous and highly contested text of the series to "prove" your claim. It's called putting the cart before the horse. 

As for BW and psychopathic tendencies: I already gave my opinion - for the moment we do not have enough conclusive evidence to conclude that he has psychopathic tendencies. We do not know the circumstances he killed LW. He's not less empathic than any other Frey about some old Frey uncle who died, and no I don't think all the Freys are psychopathic. He seems more empathic for the moment towards people even though it may be to to his personal disadvantage to be so. For the moment the little evidence we have on BW can be explained as "nurture" rather than "nature" or falls within the limits of normal behavior in non-normal circumstances. Lying to cover up your misdeed as a child is not in itself abnormal. Kids insulting each other is not in itself abnormal. Kids apologizing for it is not in itself abnormal. In order for it to be abnormal it has to be repeated like a pattern with harmful intent. Only then we can start talking about a potential pathology. And any psychologist and psychiatrist would agree with that.

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  • 4 weeks later...
On 1/26/2017 at 5:36 AM, sweetsunray said:

I wholeheartedly disagree with you on your understanding of the subject, of the aspects, of the evaluation tool.

I completely agree. I feel you view the term psychopath, or more accurately "psychopathic tendencies" (the phrasing I was using) through a very limited scope that in no way helps us evaluate BW. I've established that the traits I was aiming to prove BW displayed do align with the multiple variant traits of Psychopaths. You now say the evidence I've shown supporting such claims is insufficient. This is another matter entirely and one I'd be happy to discuss further.

 

On 1/26/2017 at 5:36 AM, sweetsunray said:

Furthermore I always clarified that BW is a child and it's impossible to say of a child of 8 to 10 that he or she's personality is already so tansfixed that we can call him or her a psychopath. 

We can judge a fictional character as displaying psychopathic tendencies at any age. You cannot apply your test at this age, but that does not limit the average readers ability to evaluate a character in a work of fiction.

On 1/26/2017 at 5:36 AM, sweetsunray said:

You have no evidence on both claims. And the available evidence for the hunting Walder points to LW more than BW. 

Excellent, let's discuss whether BW is the reason rickon liked the walders and whether BW was the one whom went on the hunt. They both support BW's psychopathic tendencies and I believe there is evidence supporting both.

On 1/26/2017 at 5:36 AM, sweetsunray said:

I disagree with you determining here that it is not genuine. Compare it with LF's words to Cat in the brothel when she chastices him on bringing her there. That's an example of a not-genuine apology for sure. BW also is not reported to have repeated the same behavior afterwards.

Let's not compare it let's evaluate it for what it is. BW makes a joke following LW's cruelty, a maester scolds him and he apologizes. He may be genuine he may not. We have a lot of other evidence suggesting he is a manipulative little shit, why should this be any different. And if he was the one for the hunt, we know it was fake because of how willing he was to hunt his "friend". Same reason why I believe BW was the reason rickon liked the walders. LW was a brute, there's nothing to suggest rickon would like him. BW however has shown that he's able to adapt to get people to like him and make life easier for himself, the same drive that would have him act so nice to the maester. LW may be bad, but it's pretty serious to go from being good friends to offering to hunt your friend down and wear his pet. Way too extreme for a normal child, right up the ally of a psychopath :)

On 1/26/2017 at 5:36 AM, sweetsunray said:

 

The BW-LW discussion has already happened. The fact that it's ambiguous makes it impossible for you to use these phrases as evidence to claim that an 8-year old is a psychopath.

Uhh, no it doesn't. My theory represents one cohesive picture of BW as a child with psychopathic tendencies. You may disagree with my evidence in parts of it, but that doesn't make the terminology I'm using wrong.

On 1/26/2017 at 5:36 AM, sweetsunray said:

Just by the sheer number of people discussing and googling "what is a psychopath" I doubt nobody but me is interested in it. BTW, who appointed you as the person to decide for everyone what they are interested in?

I didn't say no one was interested in the definition of psychopath, I said no one was interested in your definition of psychopath and I stand by that statement. My argument ( a small part of it) was that BW had psychopathic tendencies and you've argued extensively why that word choice is inappropriate. I argue it's only inappropriate when you adapt your limited definition of pschopathy.

On 1/26/2017 at 5:36 AM, sweetsunray said:

 

The author of the article is not a relation of mine, neither former, nor present.

I apologize, when I recommended you read the thesis I was referencing when you said "I had a relationshit of 2 years with one". I thought you were saying you had a relationship with one of the authors, thus lending credence to your argument, I did not interpret it as, "I had a relationship with a psychopath". While my heart goes out to you, I think this might make you overconfident in your understanding of the term.

On 1/26/2017 at 5:36 AM, sweetsunray said:

First of all, I don't agree with  the article's assertions that it's eliminated or largely omits or ignores them.

And Hare's words on its relevance to the psychopathic construct is used in a subversive manner. The positive adjustment factor is what enables anyone, whether psychopath or not, to ADAPT and BLEND in to society, regardless whether that is genuine or false. Hare does not claim there is no such thing as a high performance psychopath (the one with most postive adjustment traits). What he says is that it is not essential to the question "what is a psychopath?" Let's say you have a high performance psychopath and you have a low performance psychopath. They have obvious differences. The important question is what do they have in common? What makes them different though is not as essential to the basic construct of psychopathy.

You may disagree with them, but I'll go back to my statement of, no one cares what your definition of a pscyopath is. I reference thier article  to show that aspects of my viewpoint are supported in the medical community, though I don't put much stock in said community when it comes to this matter. I'm not trying to say that your viewpoint is wrong and mine is right, I'm merely showing that there is a wide range of understanding that can be applied to what constitutes psychopathic tendencies and your fixation on me using the terms incorrectly is not only false, but also a distraction from the analysis at hand.

On 1/26/2017 at 5:36 AM, sweetsunray said:

Furthermore, you use this article to assert a position that neither Cleckley or even the author of this article would agree with: that anti-social behavior is not essential to the psychopath. For you someone who shows positive adjustment traits, adaptability is enough to call him a psychopath. "Hey, you're behaving like a model citizen!" Accusing finger, "You are a psychopath!".

No, I'm saying positive adjustment is one of the traits of psychopathy that needs to be taken into consideration. This statement of yours shows how much you don't understand my position.

On 1/26/2017 at 5:36 AM, sweetsunray said:

You do know that singling out positive adjustment traits and claiming that anti-social facts are not essential makes the majority of people a psychopath right? Because we all at times manipulate someone or a situation, and often for commendable reasons. When an aid-worker or policeman talks a person who wants to jump to step away from the ledge back to safety, that person has just manipulated someone else. The question is how pervasive it is, how harmful to the manipulated person and what the manipulator tried to achieve.

It would if I was claiming that positive adjustment and a lack of anti social behavior was the definition of a psychopath. I am not making this claim by any means, so your statement is false and a misunderstanding of my position. You ignore the other psychopathic tendencies BW exhibits such as lack of emotion when it comes to his family members deaths, killing his cousin and framing the manderlys, and his ability to be liked by whomever happens to be in charge, even though this means he necesarily changed his personality to do so (By this I mean, I find it difficult to believe that Rickon and Ramsay would have similar tastes in friends. You can say that LW was Ramsays friend and not BW, but BW did well enough to still be in BW's favor and be his squire. I argue that BW volunteered for the hunt, which would support BW making purposeful steps to become liked by Ramsay. You say it fits more with LW's character but that is simply not true. The only thing that points to it being LW whom volunteers is the words used (wolfskin cloak) and the hate of crannogmen. These are terrible identifiers of a person, when the two possible candidates are both from the same place. Of course they both hate crannogmen. The difference is, LW talks about crannogmen at a feast when it is awkward for the starks and inappropriate. The person on this hunt brings it up to stop the hunt after theon says they will go all night if they have to. Furthermore, the crannogmen and freys have bad blood. it makes sense any frey would use similar derrogatory language. They also use wolfskin cloak as a term to gain the person in power's favor (ramsay) whereas LW uses it to piss of their hosts.

On 1/26/2017 at 5:36 AM, sweetsunray said:

That you are trying to reframe psychopathy in such a manner that basically an average person can be called a psychopath is shown by your questionable example of Walder influencing Theon's hunting crew in going back. Let's not influence each other people, because according to OP that is a sign of psychopathy.

Good one, again it shows your limited understanding of what we're talking about. This is an example of BW manipulating people to serve his own ends, i.e. not having to search anymore. Again, I'm not saying any one of these traits defines a pschopath (as you have suggested repeatedly now) instead I am suggesting that the sum of these traits is enough to allow us to say, "BW has psychopathic tendencies"

On 1/26/2017 at 5:36 AM, sweetsunray said:

Since you seem so interested in the topic, I suggest you not only quote and read the same article over and over, but read survivor stories so you have some very concrete anecdotes to link with the factors that define psychopathy, before making up your own definition where you basically claim anti-social factors are not essential to psychopathy to suit your purpose of assessing Big Walder, because he does not show anti-social behavior. You're basically making stuff up and make assertions on highly ambiguous and highly contested text of the series to "prove" your claim. It's called putting the cart before the horse. 

I am not interested in the subject whatsoever. I have had to go out of my way to cite material from the field to refute your claims that I was using my terminology incorrectly. I stand by my statement that antisocial behavior is not essential. I do not do so to suit my purpose of assessing BW as a psychopath. Me saying he has shown pscyopathic tendencies was a mirror aspect of my argument and not one of the things I was out to prove. To be honest, I thought him killing LW was enough for most people to agree he shoes pscyopathic tendencies. With or without antisocial tendencies BW still shows many of the traits of a pscyopath. I am only arguing that antisocial behavior is not essential because you are arguing it is, if not directly, through your assertion that the current tests are the end all be all in determining what constitutes psychopathy.

On 1/26/2017 at 5:36 AM, sweetsunray said:

As for BW and psychopathic tendencies: I already gave my opinion - for the moment we do not have enough conclusive evidence to conclude that he has psychopathic tendencies. We do not know the circumstances he killed LW. He's not less empathic than any other Frey about some old Frey uncle who died, and no I don't think all the Freys are psychopathic. He seems more empathic for the moment towards people even though it may be to to his personal disadvantage to be so. For the moment the little evidence we have on BW can be explained as "nurture" rather than "nature" or falls within the limits of normal behavior in non-normal circumstances. Lying to cover up your misdeed as a child is not in itself abnormal. Kids insulting each other is not in itself abnormal. Kids apologizing for it is not in itself abnormal. In order for it to be abnormal it has to be repeated like a pattern with harmful intent. Only then we can start talking about a potential pathology. And any psychologist and psychiatrist would agree with that.


Here's the real crux of your and my argument, let's pretend you believe my analysis. That BW didn't feel sorry about making fun of hodor and lied to Maester Luwin to suit his purposes, that he acted nice to Bran and rickon to gain their favor, that he volunteered for the hunt with Ramsay to gain his favor, that he killed BW and then framed the manderly's in order to faciliate more Frey deaths and bring him closer to being Lord of the crossing. If all this is true, do you agree that BW shows psychopathic tendencies? Because if you do, then the terminology I used was not incorrect and we could have side stepped the whole back and forth entirely and instead actually talked about whether these things were true, instead of focusing on whether I was using the correct phrasing.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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  • 2 months later...

I don't see why BW would need to kill everyone ahead of him in the line of succession. If he can convince Lord Walder to betroth him to Walda (daughter of Edwyn), then arrange for Edwyn to have an accident before he impregnates his wife again, he's set. Even before Stevron and Ryman die. He'd be Lord of the Crossing by virtue of being married to the Lady of the Crossing, effectively jumping 50 steps ahead in the succession order, and only killing three people (actually four, because "Black" Walder is way too much of a threat, regardless) before the "late Walder Frey" becomes the "late" Walder Frey.
That's how BW should do it, if he's as cunning as is suggested here. As for LW, I think Ramsay offed him because LW's sister is married to Roose Bolton and Ramsay doesn't want any rivals. He can't get at Fat Walda directly, so he goes with someone close to her. [That's my theory anyway.]

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  • 2 months later...
On 5/11/2017 at 0:18 PM, Piggy_saBinring said:

I don't see why BW would need to kill everyone ahead of him in the line of succession. If he can convince Lord Walder to betroth him to Walda (daughter of Edwyn), then arrange for Edwyn to have an accident before he impregnates his wife again, he's set. Even before Stevron and Ryman die. He'd be Lord of the Crossing by virtue of being married to the Lady of the Crossing, effectively jumping 50 steps ahead in the succession order, and only killing three people (actually four, because "Black" Walder is way too much of a threat, regardless) before the "late Walder Frey" becomes the "late" Walder Frey.
That's how BW should do it, if he's as cunning as is suggested here. As for LW, I think Ramsay offed him because LW's sister is married to Roose Bolton and Ramsay doesn't want any rivals. He can't get at Fat Walda directly, so he goes with someone close to her. [That's my theory anyway.]

YES, let's talk about the succession, but it doesn't appear by the official House Frey family tree here at Westeros.org that marrying cousins is something the Freys do. I do agree that the succession is probably not the direct reason BW killed LW. If we believe the succession is the motive, then ... we get into a discussion about psyochopathy and that's not helpful. By the end of ADWD there are 26 in line ahead of the first Blackwood -- Lame Lothar -- if you assume the outlaw Aegon and the septon Luceon are out. 25 if you figure the Crakehall-Frey apprenticing in Lys has other interests. 25 before Lame Lother even, far too many for BW to be killing his cousin over it. LW was 20th at the time of his murder and BW was 29th (Aenys had just died). There has to be another motive, and BW's up to something in Winterfell - but what? 

Back to the succession - BW is the 3rd Blackwood-Frey, behind Lame Lothor and Jammos, his father and 28th in line at the end of ADWD. That's a long way to go. At the top are Edwyn and Black Walder. Edwyn is paranoid about Walder killing their father but that seems to be the effect Black Walder has on people. GRRM is clearly setting this conflict between brothers up, and given GRRM's habit of having the worst of the worst succeed in the Westerosi caste system, we can expect Black Walder to take the Twins eventually, which probably sets up a conflict down the road with Emmon Frey, husband to Jaime's favorite Aunt Genna, currently Lord of Riverrun. Black Walder has to die, or everybody in the line is SooL. He's hunting Lady Stoneheart in the Riverlands, last we knew, so he's a dangerous guy living a life of danger. He has a lot enemies. If you're looking for a Frey psychopath, Black Walder is your man.

NOTE that I've forgotten Walton Frey (the 3rd son of Ryman, Edwyn and Black Walder's little brother). That's OK for now - GRRM seems to have forgotten him too - we don't know where he is in the books. Riverlands? It seems the first couple of batches of Freys, those near the front of the succession line, stick close to home.

There are 12 total living heirs in the Royce-Frey brood from Lord Walder's first marriage, and none of the 10 of Sevron/Ryman and Emmon's familes are in the north. I think Emmon and wife Genna are the most important: Lannister family ties and backing, they rule Riverrun and the Riverlands (which basically means the Lannisters are running the Riverlands at present) so whoever succeeds the Twins will be their lickspittle. They have power. Black Walder's a dead man, one way or another. If he's out of the way Emmon becomes 5th in line, but it won't matter as he's the lord of Riverrun. For this to work for Big Walder, he has two choices - work within the succession and somehow gain favor of Emmon/Genna or my preferred option -- go the opposite way and align with those who would remove the Lannisters from the Riverlands.

Ousting the Lannisters from power then becomes BW's goal, quite an endgame for a boy not yet 10. What can he do about this in Winterfell? The Lannister's wardens of the north are running the show, so it follows that BW needs to subvert the Boltons in whatever way he can, and align w/ Stannis/the Stark loyalists/everybody looking to avenge the Red Wedding ("They're dead. Lord Wyman had them killed. That's what I would have done" ADWD p. 422). The North remembers and BW remembers that the North remembers - he may figure everybody involved in the Red Wedding is doomed  -- he's probably not wrong and it's good for his long range plans. However it works out, there's no payoff for him aligning with the Lannister-Bolton peace, too many relatives ahead of him on that side. Helping Stannis and the Stark loyalists on the other hand, raises his stakes.

Edited: BW is a Blackwood-Paege after all, and what do we know about Blackwoods? Old gods, blood of the first men, loyal to the Stark rebellion, Lucas Blackwood murdered at the Red Wedding, last Riverrun house to surrender. House Paege were noticeably absent among the banners supporting the Frey seige of Riverrun (AFFC). BW probably isn't aware of all that but his shield is painted w/ Frey, Blackwood and Paege sigils. We might wonder why GRRM pointed this out, also, "the smaller Frey was made of different stuff" line from Reek. And he's not happy about squiring for the sadistic lunatic Lord Bolton lets run amok.

BW is up to something and it probably involves the crypts, the entrance being right where LW's body was found, "'under that ruined keep,' replied Big Walder, 'the one with the old gargoyles.'" (ADWD p.675). The entrance to the crypts are among the rubble left by Ramsey, "strewn all about in great chunks of shattered masonry, burned beams, broken gargoyles." (ADWD p.544)  A possible secret way in and out of Winterfell? Abel's washerwomen seem to think there is one somewhere [edit: don't many strongholds, such as the Red Keep? Why wouldn't Winterfell have one?] and believe Theon used it to take the castle (though he didn't). There are the lower levels, "Older. The lowest level is partly collapsed, I hear. I have never been down there." (The Turncloak, ADWD p. 543).

BW's probably exploring the crypts, maybe finding secret passages in and out of Winterfell that would really come in handy during a siege. Maybe not, but what could be more important? Boyish adventurism may have led him there, and most kids would be down there exploring like Tom Sawyer. But there is probably more to it, and BW may even be communicating with Bloodraven, somehow. Why not? GRRM has a great story brewing in the siege of Winterfell, and BW may hold the key. LW probably followed his cousin to see what he was up to, discovered something Ramsey would want to know and was killed to keep him from talking, if not by BW, by whomever else is working against the Boltons. The murder revolves around those crypts and whatever GRRM has in store for us there.

I know, there's conjecture involved here, and hope on my part that this is what GRRM is spinning in Winterfell. The crypts are an obvious focus in ADWD, and if that lower levels lead nowhere I'll be pretty damn disappointed ... if we ever get to read Winds. 

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On 7/22/2017 at 10:30 PM, Wolves of Winter said:

LW was 20th at the time of his murder and BW was 29th (Aenys had just died)

Oops. He hadn't died yet. So LW was 21 when murdered, BW was 30th. This assumes that Aegon the Outlaw and Septon Luceon are out. Also out should be Zachery, training at the Sept of Oldtown. Zachery is the last male line descendant of the 4th Frey son, Jared, who ends up in Manderlys pies (ADWD) -- so GRRM has removed the Swann-Freys from the picture. Murder of LW, death of Aenys, taking Zach out of the equation puts BW at 27th in the LOS, the third Blackwood-Frey behind Lame Lother and his father.

On 7/22/2017 at 10:30 PM, Wolves of Winter said:

I think Emmon and wife Genna are the most important: Lannister family ties and backing, they rule Riverrun and the Riverlands (which basically means the Lannisters are running the Riverlands) so whoever succeeds the Twins will be their lickspittle.

OK, technically Littlefinger rules Riverrun from his seat at Harrenhal, but LF has no interest in ever being lord of Harrenhal, given the curse. (LF: "Harrenhal has withered every hand that touches it." Alayne/Sansa: "Then give it Lord Frey." LF: laughs "Perhaps I shall." Jaime's men, Ser Bonifer the Good and the Holy Hundred, currently hold Harenhal, amplifying the Lannister's present hold on the Riverlands. 

Another factor is Cersei Lannister's plan to execute a few Freys involved in the Red Wedding after Lord Walder dies to mollify the North (Epilogue, ADWD). These would likely be Black Walder (preventing any attempt against Edwyn), Lame Lothar (who arranged the Red Wedding), Bastard Walder (who was with Lothar at Riverrun). Or maybe Black Walder and some random Crakehall-Freys. Who knows? Whatever way, it would be done to serve Edwyn at the Twins and Emmon and Genna at Riverrun w/ the Lannister army backing them. If Lord Walder dies. He may never die.

Meanwhile Baelish sits in the Vale twirling his mustache waiting to hatch his Hardyng-Frey plot with Lord Walder's 3rd son, Walton, if that's where Walton is. Call it potential Act II of the succession.

 

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 5/11/2017 at 11:18 AM, Piggy_saBinring said:

I don't see why BW would need to kill everyone ahead of him in the line of succession. If he can convince Lord Walder to betroth him to Walda (daughter of Edwyn), then arrange for Edwyn to have an accident before he impregnates his wife again, he's set. Even before Stevron and Ryman die. He'd be Lord of the Crossing by virtue of being married to the Lady of the Crossing, effectively jumping 50 steps ahead in the succession order, and only killing three people (actually four, because "Black" Walder is way too much of a threat, regardless) before the "late Walder Frey" becomes the "late" Walder Frey.
That's how BW should do it, if he's as cunning as is suggested here. As for LW, I think Ramsay offed him because LW's sister is married to Roose Bolton and Ramsay doesn't want any rivals. He can't get at Fat Walda directly, so he goes with someone close to her. [That's my theory anyway.]

I think you've pointed out a major oversight of mine in assuming that if BW killed LW, it was only to strain relations between the Boltons and Freys, and get the Freys sent out to battle. While I do believe LW's murder helps BW in the line of succession because it will result in more Freys dying in battle, I failed to consider other plans BW could have been scheming, such as marriages.

On 7/22/2017 at 9:30 PM, Wolves of Winter said:

Ousting the Lannisters from power then becomes BW's goal, quite an endgame for a boy not yet 10.

Another theory I like very much!

On 7/22/2017 at 9:30 PM, Wolves of Winter said:

BW's probably exploring the crypts, maybe finding secret passages in and out of Winterfell that would really come in handy during a siege. Maybe not, but what could be more important? Boyish adventurism may have led him there, and most kids would be down there exploring like Tom Sawyer. But there is probably more to it, and BW may even be communicating with Bloodraven, somehow. Why not? GRRM has a great story brewing in the siege of Winterfell, and BW may hold the key. LW probably followed his cousin to see what he was up to, discovered something Ramsey would want to know and was killed to keep him from talking, if not by BW, by whomever else is working against the Boltons. The murder revolves around those crypts and whatever GRRM has in store for us there.

I know, there's conjecture involved here, and hope on my part that this is what GRRM is spinning in Winterfell. The crypts are an obvious focus in ADWD, and if that lower levels lead nowhere I'll be pretty damn disappointed ... if we ever get to read Winds. 

It is interesting that so much evidence points to some cool shit going down in the crypts, and now one of the very few people who knows the entrance shows up dead outside it. I don't see too much evidence of a BW-BR connection. I feel like GRRM has given us a lot of examples of BR connections, and they usually follow a pattern with clear parallels. Bran, Beric, Sweetrobin, Mormont's raven, Euron, and possibly Aerys and Rhaegar. So if there was BW-BR connection, I feel like we'd have some text to support it. But perhaps it will come, and I think it would be cool if BR did start to help him.

As long as we're conjecturing, perhaps BW and LW were exploring the Crypts, saw something, and the BW killed LW so that he would be the only person with the knowledge and could use it to his advantage. e.g BW draws mance a roadmap to a harp/horn.

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I bet Lady Barbrey has been trying to win over the Walders. I don't know why she's interested in two small boys, but she gave each of them a very fine horse - that's a big gift, and I think she'd want a bit of influence in exchange. Maybe a bit of spying as well.

We're shown that BW cares for his horse personally, and LW does not - which might indicate how well the gift was received.

LW chose to follow Ramsay, and became his 'best boy'. Lady B must absolutely loathe and despise Ramsay because of what he did to Lady Hornwood, the other widow in power. I guess then she'd be helpful and sympathetic if BW wanted to murder LW.

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  • 4 months later...
On 11.5.2017. at 7:18 PM, Piggy_saBinring said:

I don't see why BW would need to kill everyone ahead of him in the line of succession. If he can convince Lord Walder to betroth him to Walda (daughter of Edwyn), then arrange for Edwyn to have an accident before he impregnates his wife again, he's set. Even before Stevron and Ryman die. He'd be Lord of the Crossing by virtue of being married to the Lady of the Crossing, effectively jumping 50 steps ahead in the succession order, and only killing three people (actually four, because "Black" Walder is way too much of a threat, regardless) before the "late Walder Frey" becomes the "late" Walder Frey.
That's how BW should do it, if he's as cunning as is suggested here. As for LW, I think Ramsay offed him because LW's sister is married to Roose Bolton and Ramsay doesn't want any rivals. He can't get at Fat Walda directly, so he goes with someone close to her. [That's my theory anyway.]

Is Walda (daughter of Edwyn) really in line of succession? In Acok BW mentions that after Edwyn Black is next in line and in Affc Edwyn says that he is only one that stand between his brother and Twins. Ps: i disaggre with BW being better match for Arya than Elmar, for reason that he will not be shy of kinslaying and even baby killing (Raymund's twins) and i don't  doubt that, if needs,he will sacrifice his mother and brothers for rulership over Twins. However, he is still better match than LW, who would be serial rapist at age 12. 

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On 12/29/2016 at 10:24 AM, estermonty python said:

Couple things here:

  • The primary contribution of this work, I think, is that it shows that BW is smart and capable.  I like seeing the good judgment he shows in those series of minor moments - good job.
  • I'm not sure that being ambitious and power hungry is a particularly noteworthy trait for a Frey; that's kind of a family trait.  All the Frey's seem pretty obsessed with the succession, I don't know that I agree that BW is unique in that regard.  At any rate, he is so far down the line of succession that I can't imagine it will ever matter.  I just took a look at the Frey family tree; at the time we meet BW and LW, LW is 36th in line to the Twins, and BW is 46th.  After all the Frey deaths that we know of, BW is around 35th in line to the Twins as of TWOW.
  • BW might be cunning, but he's not as learned as he claims.  Note that he cites Aegon Frey "and his sons" as preceding him in the line of succession - Aegon Frey, aka Jinglebell, had no sons, and no one would seriously have allowed him to rule the Twins in the first place, being simple-minded.  This may have just been a mistake by GRRM.
  •  I don't think anyone seriously disputes that BW killed LW - the wet blood vs frozen blood stuff has been analyzed to death.
  • I don't buy the psychopath stuff.  If he were a psychopath, he'd have joined in Ramsey's cruelties, no?

Actually, there are people who seriously dispute that BW killed LW. The hooded man killed LW when LW caught him coming out of the crypts. You're right that the wet vs frozen blood has been done to death. Most people are unable to understand the argument about LW being killed the night before so I won't even try. But just because people stopped trying to argue with people incapable of understanding their argument, doesn't mean they were convinced of the other side's argument.

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18 minutes ago, bent branch said:

Actually, there are people who seriously dispute that BW killed LW. The hooded man killed LW when LW caught him coming out of the crypts. You're right that the wet vs frozen blood has been done to death. Most people are unable to understand the argument about LW being killed the night before so I won't even try. But just because people stopped trying to argue with people incapable of understanding their argument, doesn't mean they were convinced of the other side's argument.

I think there are a lot of good candidates for killing LW. But I think we must agree that whoever killed LW must have planned to scare/convince BW into acusing some manderleys. Otherwise what happens doesn t make sense. Then we must also take into account the BW doesn t really like ramsay so he might be convinced to betray the boltons...

So the easiest candidate for killing LW is ramsay. And he has several reasons. First he has to break the aliance between the freys and roose because they want walda's baby to inherit the dreadfort and in asoiaf world it would be natural for the freys to kill ramsay in order to avoid problems with the inheritance. In adition, ramsay probably wants to kill walda and her baby and he can t do it with 1800 freys in the north...

So using the freys to kill stannis and then the Bolton cavalry to kill the freys is a typical ramsay plan. For that he needs roose to send the freys (roose's best allies) away from winterfell. So using the spree of kilings it makes sense for ramsay to kill a frey, acuse the manderleys and get them both to attack stannis.

Now, why LW? and why use BW?  In order to avoid suspicion into himself and because they are easy targets for him it makes sense for ramsay to kill either LW  or BW. And given ramsay is psicopath he probably would make BW and LW play some kind of game in order to decide whom to kill. As BW is smart he understood what was happening and won. Otherwise as ramsay likes LW more so he should have killed BW.

The next part is easy. He threatned BW  into acusing the manderleys in order to start the conflict.

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6 minutes ago, divica said:

I think there are a lot of good candidates for killing LW. But I think we must agree that whoever killed LW must have planned to scare/convince BW into acusing some manderleys. Otherwise what happens doesn t make sense. Then we must also take into account the BW doesn t really like ramsay so he might be convinced to betray the boltons...

So the easiest candidate for killing LW is ramsay. And he has several reasons. First he has to break the aliance between the freys and roose because they want walda's baby to inherit the dreadfort and in asoiaf world it would be natural for the freys to kill ramsay in order to avoid problems with the inheritance. In adition, ramsay probably wants to kill walda and her baby and he can t do it with 1800 freys in the north...

So using the freys to kill stannis and then the Bolton cavalry to kill the freys is a typical ramsay plan. For that he needs roose to send the freys (roose's best allies) away from winterfell. So using the spree of kilings it makes sense for ramsay to kill a frey, acuse the manderleys and get them both to attack stannis.

Now, why LW? and why use BW?  In order to avoid suspicion into himself and because they are easy targets for him it makes sense for ramsay to kill either LW  or BW. And given ramsay is psicopath he probably would make BW and LW play some kind of game in order to decide whom to kill. As BW is smart he understood what was happening and won. Otherwise as ramsay likes LW more so he should have killed BW.

The next part is easy. He threatned BW  into acusing the manderleys in order to start the conflict.

Actually, no. The killing of LW didn't have to be planned at all. LW could have gone to collect the gambling debt and just been at the wrong place at the wrong time. LW saw the HM coming out of the crypts and the HM killed him to keep him from telling anyone. It is just that simple.

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7 hours ago, bent branch said:

Actually, no. The killing of LW didn't have to be planned at all. LW could have gone to collect the gambling debt and just been at the wrong place at the wrong time. LW saw the HM coming out of the crypts and the HM killed him to keep him from telling anyone. It is just that simple.

And why would BW acuse some manderleys? And you think the frozen blood is just from carrying the body?

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5 hours ago, divica said:

And why would BW acuse some manderleys? And you think the frozen blood is just from carrying the body?

BW said LW went to collect a gambling debt from some Manderly soldiers. That may have been true and LW's murder had nothing to do with meeting the Manderly soldiers. Here are the possible scenarios as given so far:

1.  LW went to meet Manderly soldiers in order to collect a gambling debt and was killed by them (kind of the assumption being made in the book.

2.  LW went to meet Manderly soldiers in order to collect a gambling debt and was killed by the spearwives (Theon's theory).

3.  LW went to meet Manderly soldiers and was killed by someone sent by Ramsay in order to frame Manderly's soldiers (your theory).

4.  BW killed LW that morning, just before running to get his uncle (the main theory on the board, BW's motives vary).

5.  LW went to meet Manderly soldiers at a location that gave him a clear view of the crypts. When LW saw HM emerge from the crypts he started and turned to run and tell someone. HM killed LW to keep him from telling anyone that he saw someone come out of the crypts. (My theory, which assumes the crypts are a secret way in and out of Winterfell.)

So, you see, in my theory everything BW says is true, including the fact that BW says he doesn't know what happened to LW. BW has no need to lie and isn't accusing the Manderly soldiers. He is just truthfully telling what he knows.

I believe that the condition of LW's body proves he was killed the night before and not that morning. If LW died the night before, then BW obviously didn't kill him. To explain why would be to go into the fresh vs frozen blood debate that has been done to death. I know that would be a lot of work on my part without a lot of success.

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30 minutes ago, bent branch said:

BW said LW went to collect a gambling debt from some Manderly soldiers. That may have been true and LW's murder had nothing to do with meeting the Manderly soldiers. Here are the possible scenarios as given so far:

1.  LW went to meet Manderly soldiers in order to collect a gambling debt and was killed by them (kind of the assumption being made in the book.

2.  LW went to meet Manderly soldiers in order to collect a gambling debt and was killed by the spearwives (Theon's theory).

3.  LW went to meet Manderly soldiers and was killed by someone sent by Ramsay in order to frame Manderly's soldiers (your theory).

4.  BW killed LW that morning, just before running to get his uncle (the main theory on the board, BW's motives vary).

5.  LW went to meet Manderly soldiers at a location that gave him a clear view of the crypts. When LW saw HM emerge from the crypts he started and turned to run and tell someone. HM killed LW to keep him from telling anyone that he saw someone come out of the crypts. (My theory, which assumes the crypts are a secret way in and out of Winterfell.)

So, you see, in my theory everything BW says is true, including the fact that BW says he doesn't know what happened to LW. BW has no need to lie and isn't accusing the Manderly soldiers. He is just truthfully telling what he knows.

I believe that the condition of LW's body proves he was killed the night before and not that morning. If LW died the night before, then BW obviously didn't kill him. To explain why would be to go into the fresh vs frozen blood debate that has been done to death. I know that would be a lot of work on my part without a lot of success.

I don t know about that debate. However I think it is important to note what I put in bold. Even though hosteen is carryin LW the only person with blood on his clothes his BW.

Even more. His clothes (chest, arms and cloak) were spatered with blood. It seems it was the result of him being present when LW whas sliced and drops of blood landed on him. 

Then his hands were caked with blood. I think it his difficult or close to impossible for him to be the only one with gloves covered in blood if LW body was frozen and it was hosteen that carried him. It seems that he toutched LW shortly after he was sliced/stabed and blood flowed into his hands.

ps And it is just so conveniente that he acuses some manderleys which he can t identify...

Quote

Through it strode Ser Hosteen Frey, caked with snow to the waist, a body in his arms. All along the benches men put down their cups and spoons to turn and gape at the grisly spectacle. The hall grew quiet.

Another murder.

Snow slid from Ser Hosteen's cloaks as he stalked toward the high table, his steps ringing against the floor. A dozen Frey knights and men-at-arms entered behind him. One was a boy Theon knew—Big Walder, the little one, fox-faced and skinny as a stick. His chest and arms and cloak were spattered with blood.

The scent of it set the horses to screaming. Dogs slid out from under the tables, sniffing. Men rose from the benches. The body in Ser Hosteen's arms sparkled in the torchlight, armored in pink frost. The cold outside had frozen his blood.

"My brother Merrett's son." Hosteen Frey lowered the body to the floor before the dais. "Butchered like a hog and shoved beneath a snowbank. A boy. "

Little Walder, thought Theon. The big one. He glanced at Rowan. There are six of them, he remembered. Any of them could have done this. But the washerwoman felt his eyes. "This was no work of ours," she said.

"Be quiet," Abel warned her.

Lord Ramsay descended from the dais to the dead boy. His father rose more slowly, pale-eyed, still-faced, solemn. "This was foul work." For once Roose Bolton's voice was loud enough to carry. "Where was the body found?"

"Under that ruined keep, my lord," replied Big Walder. "The one with the old gargoyles." The boy's gloves were caked with his cousin's blood. "I told him not to go out alone, but he said he had to find a man who owed him silver."

"What man?" Ramsay demanded. "Give me his name. Point him

out to me, boy, and I will make you a cloak of his skin."

"He never said, my lord. Only that he won the coin at dice." The Frey boy hesitated. "It was some White Harbor men who taught dice. I couldn't say which ones, but it was them."

 

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1 hour ago, divica said:

I don t know about that debate. However I think it is important to note what I put in bold. Even though hosteen is carryin LW the only person with blood on his clothes his BW.

Even more. His clothes (chest, arms and cloak) were spatered with blood. It seems it was the result of him being present when LW whas sliced and drops of blood landed on him. 

Then his hands were caked with blood. I think it his difficult or close to impossible for him to be the only one with gloves covered in blood if LW body was frozen and it was hosteen that carried him. It seems that he toutched LW shortly after he was sliced/stabed and blood flowed into his hands.

ps And it is just so conveniente that he acuses some manderleys which he can t identify...

 

You have put your foot into the middle of the frozen blood debate. The biggest problem with the whole BW was spattered with LW blood because he killed him is this:

1)  If BW killed LW the night before and was still wearing the same clothes, the blood should be dried, not wet.

2)  If BW killed LW the night before and was wearing different clothes, then the blood on BW's clothes came from digging LW out of the snow and, therefore, cannot be used as evidence that BW killed LW.

3)  If BW killed LW shortly before running to get his uncle, then LW's body shouldn't be as cold as it is.

A very shorten explanation of how BW came to be covered with LW's blood is that the blood trapped in the snow was transferred to BW when he dug LW out of the snowbank. Here is a description of how the snow around a dying/freshly killed person soaks up their blood (ADWD-Chapter 51) "Jeyne Poole was staring down at Holly as the snowy blanket over her turned from white to red." Whenever there is something in the snow, it gets transferred to anyone who touches. Walder says he found LW in a snowbank. This implies he had to at least partially dig out the snowbank in order to find the body.

You only find it "convenient" that BW said LW was going to meet some Manderly men to collect a gambling debt because you think it is part of a conspiracy, not a coincidence. That my friend is what is called circular reasoning.

If BW had already transferred the majority of the blood in the snow to himself before going to get his uncle, then there wouldn't be much blood left in the snow to get on Hosteen.

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6 minutes ago, bent branch said:

You have put your foot into the middle of the frozen blood debate. The biggest problem with the whole BW was spattered with LW blood because he killed him is this:

1)  If BW killed LW the night before and was still wearing the same clothes, the blood should be dried, not wet.

2)  If BW killed LW the night before and was wearing different clothes, then the blood on BW's clothes came from digging LW out of the snow and, therefore, cannot be used as evidence that BW killed LW.

3)  If BW killed LW shortly before running to get his uncle, then LW's body shouldn't be as cold as it is.

A very shorten explanation of how BW came to be covered with LW's blood is that the blood trapped in the snow was transferred to BW when he dug LW out of the snowbank. Here is a description of how the snow around a dying/freshly killed person soaks up their blood (ADWD-Chapter 51) "Jeyne Poole was staring down at Holly as the snowy blanket over her turned from white to red." Whenever there is something in the snow, it gets transferred to anyone who touches. Walder says he found LW in a snowbank. This implies he had to at least partially dig out the snowbank in order to find the body.

You only find it "convenient" that BW said LW was going to meet some Manderly men to collect a gambling debt because you think it is part of a conspiracy, not a coincidence. That my friend is what is called circular reasoning.

1) Why do you say the blood is wet? To me he has dry drops of blood on his clothes and his gloves are caked with dry blood or is that impossible? I am not a native english speaker but to me caked with blood is a way to say covered with blood. Am I wrong?

 

2) That is a great idea that I could see happening. Hosteen ordering BW to dig LW out ofthe snow. However for this to happen his gloves should be wet. And in my understanding they aren t.

3) either I missed a part of the quote or it never says that BW found the body. BW says the body was found in a place. He doesn t say he found it... So what if some freys came across him burying LW and he told them he found him (instead that he was hiding his corpse)? Or if he simply wasn t involved?

 

While I like you explanation for the gloves I don t think he can have splatered blood in is arms chest and cloak from digging snow. He would need to be digging into ice ?

I find it convenient because he can t name nor describe whom he was going to meet. just that it was a manderley and that him acusing a manderley soldier would lead to a big conflict. And if it is not enough roose just so happens to get a letter about stannis and decides to send the freys after him? If it wasn t for this incident I think roose wouldn t send his biggest suporters away...

 

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55 minutes ago, divica said:

1) Why do you say the blood is wet? To me he has dry drops of blood on his clothes and his gloves are caked with dry blood or is that impossible? I am not a native english speaker but to me caked with blood is a way to say covered with blood. Am I wrong?

The verb caked does not indicate dry. Of course, something caked on something else could be dry, but is not necessarily dry. Here is the definition of caked from Dictionary.com,  to form into a crust or compact mass.  Here is an example from ADWD (Chapter 51) where GRRM uses the verb caked with something that is incapable of being dry, "Through it strode Ser Hosteen Frey, caked with snow to the waist."

Now let's discuss whether the blood on BW was wet, dried or frozen (I will discuss the caked mittens in a minute). We know the blood on BW was probably wet because of how the animals responded to the smell, (ADWD-Chapter 15), "The scent of it set the horses to screaming. Dogs slid out from under the tables. The body in Ser Hosteen's arms sparkled in the torchlight, armored in pink frost. The cold outside had frozen his blood." So the animals are responding to the smell of blood, but the blood is frozen on LW's body. Frozen things don't smell, so the blood smell must be coming off BW. (As proof of this, you can do an experiment when something goes bad in your kitchen. If you have a long time before the trash collector comes, you can wrap the item thoroughly and put it in the freezer so you don't have to smell it until you can get rid of it.) If the blood was dry the animals might still respond; however, from the terror of the horses we should assume the blood is wet. And wet blood smells stronger than dried blood. So, BW's gloves are soaked with blood, but are beginning to crust over as the blood dries, thus "caked with blood".

 

1 hour ago, divica said:

2) That is a great idea that I could see happening. Hosteen ordering BW to dig LW out ofthe snow. However for this to happen his gloves should be wet. And in my understanding they aren t.

It is not my idea that BW dug LW out of the snow. It is what GRRM wrote. Of course, GRRM didn't just say in a straight forward manner that BW dug LW out of the snow. If he had done that then people wouldn't get confused into thinking BW killed LW and what fun would that be?:P No, you have to put together two pieces of information to understand that LW's body had been buried in a snowbank and BW was the one who dug him out.

The first piece of information is this from Chapter 51 - ADWD, '"My brother Merrett's son." Hosteen Frey lowered the body to the floor before the dais. "Butchered like a hog and shoved beneath a snowbank. A boy." So here we are told that LW's body was in a snowbank. This is actually very important information. This means whoever killed LW wanted to hide the body at least temporarily. For people who don't live in a place where there can be large snowbanks, a body hid in this manner would be just as well hidden as one in a dirt pile. Things that have been buried in a snowbank don't usually re-emerge until the snow melts.

But this body was found well before spring. BW found the body and dug it out of the snowbank. How do we know this? Because when Roose asked where the body was found BW answered and his answer was considered authoritative in this instance. Perhaps it's a cultural signal that is lost on some readers, but the only reason BW was allowed to answer this question is because he IS the authority in the matter of finding LW's body. He is the authority because he is the one who found LW's body. We know the body wasn't just lying around in the open because it had been "shoved beneath a snowbank". Therefore, BW explained why he looked for LW where he did. We also need to understand that there was some clue that led BW to look in that particular snowbank, but he didn't go get his uncle until he had at least partially uncovered the body to verify it was indeed his cousin. Then Hosteen waded into the snowbank to finish removing LW from the snowbank. I think the scene with Holly was partially to give a clue about how BW found LW's body.

Now to BW's caked mittens. The way to understand BW's mittens is that they are soaked with blood that has started to dry and form a crust. If the mittens were entirely dry they would be stiff with dried blood, not caked. This blood came from the blood soaked snow that BW had dug LW out of using his hands. The "blood splatter" was snow that got on BW as he was digging. When that snow melted it looked like "splatter".

2 hours ago, divica said:

3) either I missed a part of the quote or it never says that BW found the body. BW says the body was found in a place. He doesn t say he found it... So what if some freys came across him burying LW and he told them he found him (instead that he was hiding his corpse)? Or if he simply wasn t involved?

See answer number two. No one came across him "burying the body". Because the ice crystals encasing the body, it is obvious the body spent the night in the snowbank. Again, no would allow BW to speak about finding the body if he wasn't the one who found the body because he is only 9 years old! If someone else had found the body they would have been the ones to talk about where it was found.

2 hours ago, divica said:

While I like you explanation for the gloves I don t think he can have splatered blood in is arms chest and cloak from digging snow. He would need to be digging into ice ?

He is not digging into ice. He is digging into blood soaked snow with his hands. If you think about it you know the blood soaked snow wouldn't have frozen into a solid block of ice because that block of ice would be still attached to LW's body. Instead LW's body only has a small crust of ice where his cooling body was enough to first melt the snow and then that melted snow refroze on his body (this is why we know the body was there all night). Snow is a crystal, and if the blood was not enough to melt the ice it would seep into the empty spaces within the crystal before freezing into small crystals itself. Depending one the conditions digging through this snow would be like anything from digging through powdered sugar to wet sand. It is really hard to explain all the properties snow can have to people who get none or only a certain type of snow.

2 hours ago, divica said:

I find it convenient because he can t name nor describe whom he was going to meet. just that it was a manderley and that him acusing a manderley soldier would lead to a big conflict. And if it is not enough roose just so happens to get a letter about stannis and decides to send the freys after him? If it wasn t for this incident I think roose wouldn t send his biggest suporters away...

Actually, Roose wanted to send the Freys away. Every other group within Winterfell hated the Freys and Roose could barely keep the various groups from fighting each other. Manderly was the most openly hostile and the Freys were hated by everyone. By sending two of the biggest trouble makers out of Winterfell, Roose thought things would calm down.

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39 minutes ago, bent branch said:

The verb caked does not indicate dry. Of course, something caked on something else could be dry, but is not necessarily dry. Here is the definition of caked from Dictionary.com,  to form into a crust or compact mass.  Here is an example from ADWD (Chapter 51) where GRRM uses the verb caked with something that is incapable of being dry, "Through it strode Ser Hosteen Frey, caked with snow to the waist."

Now let's discuss whether the blood on BW was wet, dried or frozen (I will discuss the caked mittens in a minute). We know the blood on BW was probably wet because of how the animals responded to the smell, (ADWD-Chapter 15), "The scent of it set the horses to screaming. Dogs slid out from under the tables. The body in Ser Hosteen's arms sparkled in the torchlight, armored in pink frost. The cold outside had frozen his blood." So the animals are responding to the smell of blood, but the blood is frozen on LW's body. Frozen things don't smell, so the blood smell must be coming off BW. (As proof of this, you can do an experiment when something goes bad in your kitchen. If you have a long time before the trash collector comes, you can wrap the item thoroughly and put it in the freezer so you don't have to smell it until you can get rid of it.) If the blood was dry the animals might still respond; however, from the terror of the horses we should assume the blood is wet. And wet blood smells stronger than dried blood. So, BW's gloves are soaked with blood, but are beginning to crust over as the blood dries, thus "caked with blood".

 

It is not my idea that BW dug LW out of the snow. It is what GRRM wrote. Of course, GRRM didn't just say in a straight forward manner that BW dug LW out of the snow. If he had done that then people wouldn't get confused into thinking BW killed LW and what fun would that be?:P No, you have to put together two pieces of information to understand that LW's body had been buried in a snowbank and BW was the one who dug him out.

The first piece of information is this from Chapter 51 - ADWD, '"My brother Merrett's son." Hosteen Frey lowered the body to the floor before the dais. "Butchered like a hog and shoved beneath a snowbank. A boy." So here we are told that LW's body was in a snowbank. This is actually very important information. This means whoever killed LW wanted to hide the body at least temporarily. For people who don't live in a place where there can be large snowbanks, a body hid in this manner would be just as well hidden as one in a dirt pile. Things that have been buried in a snowbank don't usually re-emerge until the snow melts.

But this body was found well before spring. BW found the body and dug it out of the snowbank. How do we know this? Because when Roose asked where the body was found BW answered and his answer was considered authoritative in this instance. Perhaps it's a cultural signal that is lost on some readers, but the only reason BW was allowed to answer this question is because he IS the authority in the matter of finding LW's body. He is the authority because he is the one who found LW's body. We know the body wasn't just lying around in the open because it had been "shoved beneath a snowbank". Therefore, BW explained why he looked for LW where he did. We also need to understand that there was some clue that led BW to look in that particular snowbank, but he didn't go get his uncle until he had at least partially uncovered the body to verify it was indeed his cousin. Then Hosteen waded into the snowbank to finish removing LW from the snowbank. I think the scene with Holly was partially to give a clue about how BW found LW's body.

Now to BW's caked mittens. The way to understand BW's mittens is that they are soaked with blood that has started to dry and form a crust. If the mittens were entirely dry they would be stiff with dried blood, not caked. This blood came from the blood soaked snow that BW had dug LW out of using his hands. The "blood splatter" was snow that got on BW as he was digging. When that snow melted it looked like "splatter".

See answer number two. No one came across him "burying the body". Because the ice crystals encasing the body, it is obvious the body spent the night in the snowbank. Again, no would allow BW to speak about finding the body if he wasn't the one who found the body because he is only 9 years old! If someone else had found the body they would have been the ones to talk about where it was found.

He is not digging into ice. He is digging into blood soaked snow with his hands. If you think about it you know the blood soaked snow wouldn't have frozen into a solid block of ice because that block of ice would be still attached to LW's body. Instead LW's body only has a small crust of ice where his cooling body was enough to first melt the snow and then that melted snow refroze on his body (this is why we know the body was there all night). Snow is a crystal, and if the blood was not enough to melt the ice it would seep into the empty spaces within the crystal before freezing into small crystals itself. Depending one the conditions digging through this snow would be like anything from digging through powdered sugar to wet sand. It is really hard to explain all the properties snow can have to people who get none or only a certain type of snow.

Actually, Roose wanted to send the Freys away. Every other group within Winterfell hated the Freys and Roose could barely keep the various groups from fighting each other. Manderly was the most openly hostile and the Freys were hated by everyone. By sending two of the biggest trouble makers out of Winterfell, Roose thought things would calm down.

I agree that your arguments are solid. I think it isn t definite if the blood on BW is dry or not and that can change somethings, but most of what you say makes sense.

However I have an interesting question for you. If LW was buried under a snowbank how did BW find him? If we assume that the killer isn t stupid and left part of the body on the open it is impossible for BW to see his corpse. The only ways I can imagine are using ramsay's dogs (which nobody talks about) or if the killer tells him where he hid the body. What do you think?

And even though the other houses hated the freys the smartest thing for roose to do would be to send out the nortern houses and keep some hostages. By sending the freys roose is starting to be in a dangerous situation. If the other houses join together they would have the same number of men as him or maybe more. Besides, ramsay is now a big danger. Roose probably needs to do something very dangerous to keep his grip in the north. He as to kill a lot of northern lords and put men loyal to him as the new lords of the north.

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20 hours ago, bent branch said:

Frozen things don't smell, so the blood smell must be coming off BW. (As proof of this, you can do an experiment when something goes bad in your kitchen. If you have a long time before the trash collector comes, you can wrap the item thoroughly and put it in the freezer so you don't have to smell it until you can get rid of it.)

Eh? Frozen things do smell, especially for animals. 

Odor molecules move slower in cold, this is true. But this does not mean the molecules do not move at all, especially if someone is moving this frozen, smelly stuff through a warm hall. 

Your experiment does not apply to this scene in the book. Of course a human does not smell something frozen that well, but an animal absolutely can. Remember, it is the dogs and horses reacting to the scent. 

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