Mance Rayder and Petyr Baelish are allies

[Lord Wraith]

23 hours ago, Prof. Cecily said:

 

That's what I disagree with, @40 Thousand Skeletons. I think Mance would realised that their direwolves were a formidable protection for any of the Stark children. Kill his direwolf first, then the boy.

Anyway. There's yet the library fire to speculate about...

No I think we are missing the point. Mance doesn't care so much about killing Bran, its about causing conflict between the Southron Houses. Which is why he stole King Robert's dagger. The dagger success or fail would cause conflict which is precisely why it was taken for the task.

[Prof. Cecily]

52 minutes ago, Lord Wraith said:

No I think we are missing the point. Mance doesn't care so much about killing Bran, its about causing conflict between the Southron Houses. Which is why he stole King Robert's dagger. The dagger success or fail would cause conflict which is precisely why it was taken for the task.

Ahhh. I see your point.

Would Mance have known it was formerly Baelish's dagger?

And the library fire? Stage dressing or an important point?

[Quoth the raven,]

On 5/23/2017 at 0:30 AM, Good Guy Garlan said:

So Mance would've still tried to kill Bran (or another one of the Stark kids) even if Jaime hadn't pushed him out the window? 

Mance was in Winterfell all this time and would know Bran survived the fall.  The knife dude was taking orders the whole time.

 

[Victor Newman]

The ironborn will need to be dealt with.  Would you say everything is going according to their plan?  Mance may have some hidden trick to rid the north of the Boltons, ironborn, Stannis, and the Freys. 

[40 Thousand Skeletons]

1 hour ago, Take Me 2 Your Leader said:

The ironborn will need to be dealt with.  Would you say everything is going according to their plan?  Mance may have some hidden trick to rid the north of the Boltons, ironborn, Stannis, and the Freys. 

LOL yeah, Mance sure has a trick. It's called an alliance with Stannis, Umber, Manderly, and the Asha/Theon supporters among the ironborn.  

[The Lord of the Crossing]

2 hours ago, Take Me 2 Your Leader said:

The ironborn will need to be dealt with.  Would you say everything is going according to their plan?  Mance may have some hidden trick to rid the north of the Boltons, ironborn, Stannis, and the Freys. 

Mance isn't the kind to hold a grudge.  If the ironborn leave them alone they leave the ironborn alone.  Mance wants his freedom and he is not about to give that away to anyone.  He's playing Stannis and Jon like the gambler play with cards.  He is up to something and he's got them where he wants them.

[Lord Wraith]

1 hour ago, 40 Thousand Skeletons said:

LOL yeah, Mance sure has a trick. It's called an alliance with Stannis, Umber, Manderly, and the Asha/Theon supporters among the ironborn.  

Spot on.

[Bernie Mac]

On 2017-5-23 at 5:17 AM, 300 H&H Magnum said:

Preston's latest show open's a new theory in who might have wanted Bran killed.  In this case, Mance Rayder.  The objective was to cause the Starks to fight the Lannisters.  I finished the show and a thought came to me.  What if Mance and Petyr are working together?  They made an agreement before the start of the story to work together to collapse the government in Westeros.  Mance and his freefolk gets the North and Littlefinger gets everything below the Neck. 

How on earth would they have got together to begin with? Mance would have had no idea that Littlefinger was trying to bring chaos to the realm (may not have even known who Littlefinger was at all) while Littlefinger can't just send messengers thousands of miles away to talk to random warlords on the off chance that they may be of use to him in infiltrating Winterfell and doing his deeds. 

The odds of them even being aware of the others existence and ambitions at the start of the series is incredibly slim. 

[The Commentator]

I would say Mance is very well informed of what goes on in the realm.  He has a "Who's who" of the power brokers in the land.  Petyr would have heard of the King-Beyond-the-Wall.  That they reached out to one another is probably unlikely but they would have known of one another.  

[Aegon VII]

In my opinion it would be out of character for Mance to kill/ plot to kill a child. Mance is a good guy, Peter is a bad guy. They would not be allies, and if they were it would have to be Mance taking advantage of petyr. Obviously I'm a Mance fan

[ravenous reader]

1 hour ago, Aegon VII said:

In my opinion it would be out of character for Mance to kill/ plot to kill a child. Mance is a good guy, Peter is a bad guy. They would not be allies

I agree.  This theory is silly.

[Lord Wraith]

On 6/4/2017 at 8:57 PM, Aegon VII said:

In my opinion it would be out of character for Mance to kill/ plot to kill a child. Mance is a good guy, Peter is a bad guy. They would not be allies, and if they were it would have to be Mance taking advantage of petyr. Obviously I'm a Mance fan

Mance has the lives of thousands of Wildlings and is trying to escape from an army of ice elves and their zombie horde. I doubt the life of the son of Winterfell means much to him. Causing chaos in the South is one less group to fight the Wildlings. I like Mance too but thinking he is simply a good guy is silly.

On 6/4/2017 at 10:45 PM, ravenous reader said:

I agree.  This theory is silly.

Parts of it certainly. This is what we are reduced to because Winds isn't here.

[ravenous reader]

1 minute ago, Lord Wraith said:

Parts of it certainly. This is what we are reduced to because Winds isn't here.

What -- no Baelish apology?  You're growing soft...  Actually, Bran's assassination attempt is one of the few occasions when I don't believe Baelish put his little finger into the pie!

6 minutes ago, Lord Wraith said:

I like Mance too but thinking he is simply a good guy is silly.

That would be like thinking Baelish is 'simply a bad guy' -- impossible!  All people are 'grey', and barring that, 'grey-green.'  It is known.  

[Lord Wraith]

Just now, ravenous reader said:

What -- no Baelish apology?  You're growing soft...  Actually, Bran's assassination attempt is one of the few occasions when I don't believe Baelish put his little finger into the pie!

Hey now I like crackpot as much as the next person but I can see nothing from my reads or this thread to convience me that Baelish and Mance are in cahoots.

I agree Mance makes far more sense than Baelish in that plot.

1 minute ago, ravenous reader said:

That would be like thinking Baelish is 'simply a bad guy' -- impossible!  All people are 'grey', and barring that, 'grey-green.'  It is known.  

Baelish is certainly a bad guy just not as bad as most people think. Its more about the why of some of his actions and what things he actually had a little finger in. Versus some people belief that he is behind every negative event ever.

[Aegon VII]

On June 6, 2017 at 9:47 PM, Lord Wraith said:

I like Mance too but thinking he is simply a good guy is silly.

 I disagree. No one is suggesting Mance is simply a good guy, but at the end of the day even without absolute good and bad, we can still judge men. Everything we know about Mance paints him as a virtuous man. We can rely more on men acting in their nature than most other things in this world. Mance is a trickster with a heart of gold, Ramsay is a shit, Theon's done bad things because of his insecurities but is ultimately good. You may come to different conclusions, but to me I value the conclusions I draw about fictional men as well as IRL. Mance would not conspire to murder a child. The manner in which the wildlings esteem him, it is extremely unlikely that he is anything less than honorable.