Ramsay Killed LW

[40 Thousand Skeletons]

5 hours ago, Aegon VII said:

Land that's where I disagree. If tensions are super high, roses hand is still forced to send out frees and whomever they're fighting with. When tensions are high Roose will always have an incentive to send out the quarreling houses. No matter if they've been quarreling for 2 minutes or two weeks.

That is true, but as long as they are causing trouble they are a threat to the morale of the entire wf scenario and he has an incentive to send them out. 

 

I wont deny that there is a good reason for Ramsay to try to cause turmoil amongst thefreys but I think this would be a terrible way to go about it and does not really make sense. So Ramsay wants to kill LW and blame the meanderlys and the best way he thinks to do this is to murder the kid in front of his cousin and then have his cousin be the lie teller. This when BW is less close with Ramsay then LW. That's a huge unesecary risk for no reason. BW could just tell on him once he's safe back at the twins. Plus if Ramsay did kill him why are BW's gloves bloody? Did Ramsay make the scrawny 9 yo do the dirty work when moving his overweight cousin. Doesn't make much sense.

instead all the clues point to BW. Bloody gloves, hesitates when telling his story, and the consequences of his actions are going to lead to many of the people ahead of him in the line of succession dying, exactly what needs to happen for him to become lord. Plus I believe we have seen evidence that BW is messed up enough to do it, as I examine in my BW analysis.

I disagree that Roose would have much incentive to send out the Freys at any other moment. As long as he sent out the Manderlys, he would solve the problem of violent tension in the castle. Yes, he obviously would still have some incentive to send the Freys out because of their quarreling, but he has an infinitely bigger incentive to not send them out because of their unique loyalty to him.

You made a bunch of good points here. I definitely think it is possible BW did it. I'm personally leaning toward Ramsay, but I think if that's the case we are missing information on how he coerced BW. Would it be enough just to threaten him off screen? I agree that utilizing BW to start the fight seems unnecessarily risky.

[Nevets]

13 hours ago, 40 Thousand Skeletons said:

I disagree that Roose would have much incentive to send out the Freys at any other moment. As long as he sent out the Manderlys, he would solve the problem of violent tension in the castle. Yes, he obviously would still have some incentive to send the Freys out because of their quarreling, but he has an infinitely bigger incentive to not send them out because of their unique loyalty to him.

You made a bunch of good points here. I definitely think it is possible BW did it. I'm personally leaning toward Ramsay, but I think if that's the case we are missing information on how he coerced BW. Would it be enough just to threaten him off screen? I agree that utilizing BW to start the fight seems unnecessarily risky.

He's going to have to send out at least a few Freys (probably quite a few) to march behind the Manderlys, so to say, and ensure that they actually fight and don't desert or defect en masse to Stannis.  

Given the cousins' relative personalities, if Ramsay were going to have one kill the other, it would make much more sense to have Little Walder kill Big Walder, since Little Walder has been consistently described as the nastier one and one who was following in Ramsay's footsteps.   I still don't think Ramsay had any reason to do it.  

By the way, given the POV structure, if Ramsay has special magic-type abilities, how are we as readers going to find that out.  GRRM has already said there will be no more POVs added, and I doubt Ramsay would be a good one anyway..

[40 Thousand Skeletons]

On 4/11/2017 at 6:14 PM, Nevets said:

He's going to have to send out at least a few Freys (probably quite a few) to march behind the Manderlys, so to say, and ensure that they actually fight and don't desert or defect en masse to Stannis.  

Given the cousins' relative personalities, if Ramsay were going to have one kill the other, it would make much more sense to have Little Walder kill Big Walder, since Little Walder has been consistently described as the nastier one and one who was following in Ramsay's footsteps.   I still don't think Ramsay had any reason to do it.  

By the way, given the POV structure, if Ramsay has special magic-type abilities, how are we as readers going to find that out.  GRRM has already said there will be no more POVs added, and I doubt Ramsay would be a good one anyway..

Roose did end up sending out Freys, but they are not marching "behind" the Manderlys in any fashion. They even left WF via separate gates. And if the Manderlys defect en masse to Stannis, how are the Freys supposed to stop them? In fact, a lot of readers (myself included) believe the Manderlys are in fact about to defect en masse and kill all the Freys. That would be a pretty dumb move on Roose's part if his intent was to keep Manderly men loyal.

Yes, based on personalities, Ramsay would have had LW kill BW, but that's irrelevant. First off, the theory is that Ramsay, not BW, killed LW. But more importantly, the alleged purpose of killing LW was to provoke Hosteen. Hosteen was LW's uncle and likely cared for him (especially since Merrett just died) but probably cared nothing for BW.

I'm guessing we would probably find out about Ramsay's visions through Bran. There are plenty of non-POV characters who receive visions. Lancel, GoHH, Aemon, Malora Hightower, etc. There are plenty of ways this can potentially be revealed.

[Wolves of Winter]

On 4/11/2017 at 5:14 PM, Nevets said:

He's going to have to send out at least a few Freys (probably quite a few) to march behind the Manderlys, so to say, and ensure that they actually fight and don't desert or defect en masse to Stannis.  

Given the cousins' relative personalities, if Ramsay were going to have one kill the other, it would make much more sense to have Little Walder kill Big Walder, since Little Walder has been consistently described as the nastier one and one who was following in Ramsay's footsteps.   I still don't think Ramsay had any reason to do it.  

If we really think about who benefits the most from the Freys and Manderly's marching out into snowstorm and the waiting swords of Crowfood Umber et al, it's Stannis. Sure, it gets the Manderlys out of Winterfell, which is good for the Boltons, but they're about to slaughter the Freys, we assume, if the Freys aren't captured, something that happens quite often. I agree, Ramsey doesn't have much reason to do this, since being rid of the Freys does not improve his position. Dustin, Stout, Ryswell, Cerwyn, Umber - does anybody like the guy (other than certain readers)? No. Even his own men are Lord Bolton's men, or so Roose says at Barrowton. If Ramsey's plotting against his father, he has a lot of work to do, but he's not fit to rule the North, anyway, no matter how often GRRM has the worst of the worst succeed.The other houses wouldn't accept it. (Karstarks first and foremost).

If the idea is to clear the castle to ease tensions of northerners vs. Freys, Manderly plotting against Boltons, stretch limited food stores, Roose Bolton has more reason to do the murder. If Ramsey (who "swings that sword like a butcher hacking meat" ADWD p. 450) did the deed, he'd have to have Roose's backing. (EDIT: The part about LW being Roose's wife's brother doesn't help "the Boltons did it theory"). But sending two thousand Freys out into a snowstorm, ostensibly to kill Manderlys and root out Stannis' frozen army? It could work, if the Karstark-Bolton scheme comes together, and we don't know at the end of ADWD that it fails, and neither do the Boltons.

Is Hosteen Frey really stupid enough to march into a snowstorm with no support from the other northern houses? Stannis does refer to him as Ser Stupid, but GRRM made too much snow for the outcome not be ridiculous. There is too much snow for anybody to do anything, and it's snowing again when the Freys and Boltons head out. GRRM's mismanagement of snow buries whatever staging he had in mind for the battle of Winterfell. 

Plus, as you point out, killing BW would make more sense (LW being the "good nephew" of Roose) and because LW would likely follow through with the lie without much resistance, being Ramsey's new boy. BW could just rat him out to any Frey or to Roose, or outsmart him in some other way, not that Ramsey has noticed that BW is on the clever side. So the risks of killing Ramsey's new boy instead of the other squire are kinda high. Murdering a Blackwood-Frey boy would still be extremely upsetting to many, Frey or no. OK, let's say GRRM wants Hosteen enraged, so it has it to be Hosteen's brother's young son, and not some other Crakehall. And Manderly has to step totally out of character and say "maybe this was a blessing, otherwise he'd have grown up to be a Frey."

Hosteen has to completely lose it for any of this to work, and Manderly's insult does the trick. Now he has to stay out in the snow long enough to find Stannis. He could (and should) just turn back after half a day and leave the Manderlys out in snow, but he won't.  Crank up the John Deere's! An enraged Hosteen can't be what Roose wants - or Ramsey - they want to defeat Stannis, not send a blind raging bull out to get lost in a snowstorm. I just don't think the Boltons did the deed or schemed this out. [Edit: The lie implicating the Manderlys, yes, but not the deed itself]. And I don't think BW did it alone, not without help.

There are others infiltrating the castle. Galbart Glover? Crowfood's men? Unknown "ghosts of Winterfell." Stark loyalists, northern patriots no doubt. There's a reason GRRM gives us the hooded man who is entirely too jumpy with his dagger to just have been anybody out for a piss. Little Walder was found near the entrance to the crypts, by the old ruined keep. The crypts were open in the "The Turncloak" chapter. The murders began in the very next Winterfell Chapter, "the Ghost of Winterfell." Why wouldn't Winterfell have ancient, secret ways out of the castle, very useful in case of a siege? Of course there are tunnels under the crypts. Infiltrators would want to seed fear, paranoia, and they have every reason to enrage Freys and maybe kill one who was nosing around their entranceway. LW stumbles into the wrong place at wrong time, sees something he shouldn't, is murdered.

BW's probably involved but that's a longer post I don't have time for now. I don't think he would murder his cousin if there weren't extenuating circumstances related to the crypts, his loyalties, etc. In the end we all know who killed LW --  It was GRRM, hoping to unbury his snowbound stage.

[40 Thousand Skeletons]

@Wolves of Winter

I think you missed the point about Ramsay's motivation. Killing off the Freys is a potentially game winning move. As you said, the other houses don't like Ramsay. If he kills his father, he can only count on Dreadfort men. Luckily for him, Roose did a fantastic job killing off tons of soldiers from the other houses during the war. If the Freys are taken out of the equation, Ramsay's men would ostensibly outnumber all of his enemies combined, and then he can kill Roose.

Yes, Stannis benefits the most from this chaos and allowed the map to be sent giving away his position, but Ramsay benefits the most from the Freys being killed if he is planning on killing his father.

And yes there are probably tunnels connected to the crypts, but those may be currently blocked off by the collapsed lowest level.

[Shouldve Taken The Black]

Remember that when people receive prophetic visions in this world, it’s very rare that these visions are clear, and that the character receiving them can interpret them correctly. Most of the time, the person receiving the vision doesn’t know what it means until after the event prophesised actually happened. Other times they woefully misinterpret them and it leads to trouble.

It is very rare (I actually can’t think of an occasion) that a character simply has a vision, that vision is correctly interpreted, and acts accordingly. Visions are not a simple plot device in the way the OP suggests, where they give characters information they otherwise would not have in order to push the plot forward.

[40 Thousand Skeletons]

On 7/28/2017 at 5:26 AM, Shouldve Taken The Black said:

Remember that when people receive prophetic visions in this world, it’s very rare that these visions are clear, and that the character receiving them can interpret them correctly. Most of the time, the person receiving the vision doesn’t know what it means until after the event prophesised actually happened. Other times they woefully misinterpret them and it leads to trouble.

It is very rare (I actually can’t think of an occasion) that a character simply has a vision, that vision is correctly interpreted, and acts accordingly. Visions are not a simple plot device in the way the OP suggests, where they give characters information they otherwise would not have in order to push the plot forward.

Not true at all  

See: Jojen Reed

It's not about "interpreting visions correctly". Most (probably all) visions are sent by nefarious actors trying to get people to behave a certain way. Jojen was sent visions to get him to seek out Bran and bring Bran north on an absolutely insane suicide mission, and Jojen did exactly that. And Jojen predicted both Theon coming to WF, and Ramsay skinning the faces off the miller's boys (even if he didn't have a 100% "accurate" interpretation). It seems incredibly likely (like 99% chance) that Ramsay also received these 2 visions and acted exactly how Bloodraven wanted him to, first getting captured and becoming a prisoner at WF, and then killing the miller's boys. And it would make a whole lot of sense if Ramsay is still receiving such visions guiding his actions in ADWD. Killing LW seems like a potentially stupid, nonsense move. But so was getting captured and made a prisoner at WF.

[Shouldve Taken The Black]

Jojen is a case in point. He has visions, and acts upon them, but the visions are not simply a device for him to know things he otherwise wouldn’t. Certainly, at no point in the series has a mystery been solved in such a simplistic way.

[40 Thousand Skeletons]

On 7/31/2017 at 6:47 AM, Shouldve Taken The Black said:

Jojen is a case in point. He has visions, and acts upon them, but the visions are not simply a device for him to know things he otherwise wouldn’t. Certainly, at no point in the series has a mystery been solved in such a simplistic way.

You are totally missing my point, no offense. It is not about characters knowing things or solving mysteries. It is about nefarious actors, like Bloodraven, sending people visions for the specific purpose of getting them to act a certain way.

Bloodraven wanted Jojen to bring Bran north, so Bloodraven sent Jojen visions, and lo and behold, Jojen brought Bran north, which is exactly what Bloodraven wanted Jojen to do!

In this case, I think Bloodraven wanted Ramsay to kill LW, so he sent him a vision, and Ramsay killed LW.