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A Who Sent the Catspaw Theory


Chrissie

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Plus, Ned is not the only POV who was there. George could have had Cersei say something about this in her chapters in the later books. She does lots of recalling of events that happened in GoT. She seems like a character who would recall it and think, "Why we're they out on their own in any case?" and be mad about it.

If you can find something I would reconsider on this. Otherwise, I think George wants us to think of it in the way it went down in the books: perfectly acceptable for Joff and Sansa to be out and about.

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4 hours ago, the trees have eyes said:

d say Arya had her fair share of luck though of course her experiences are pretty terrible.  Syrio sacrifices himself to allow her escape, she does indded find Needle just as she is being cornered in the stables, Yoren finds her before anyone else does and smuggles her out of KL, Nymeria aids her escape from Harrenhal (despite Arya driving her off earlier in story) and all of Yoren, Jaqen and The Hound act as protectors as much as imprisoners.  I just don't have a problem with any of that, the author knows what he wants to put Arya through and as it's so terrible he needs to give her some "luck" or some asssitance or her escape and survival would not be plausible.

Time constraints don't allow me to read your entire post but I did want to address this. Calling Arya's situations luck implies not only that they were fortuitous for her but also that there was no action taken by Arya to receive the desired outcome. That isn't how I read these situations at all. Like I said before it would be very out of character for Syrio to allow the Lannisters to take her or worse yet for him to flee. It's not luck. It's who he is. It would have been luck if someone she hadn't spent a bunch of time with & who wasn't an accomplished fighter & had no other reason to sacrifice themselves for her did that. Syrio may not have meant to sacrifice himself for her at any rate, he may have thought he would win the fight. Either way it would be very odd for Syrio to do anything other than what he did. 

She finds Needle because she had enough wits about her to go to the stables to look for her things & escape. Needle is where she left it. Not luck. It was a direct result of Arya's actions. 

Yoren find her because she climbs the statue, he finds her first because she doesn't look like Arya of WF any longer therefore only someone who knew Arya & was looking for her would have found her. It's not so surprising her smuggled her out of KL, like I said before, he is doing the same for Gendry. 

Nymeria helping her escape is caused by a direct link between the Starks & their wolves. No surprise there either. 

Yoren & Jaqen were not kidnapping Arya so I'm not sure where you are going with that. The Hound behaves much the same any person would that expects to receive a ransom for a high born captive. 

I feel quite the opposite. That had Arya not had such bad luck she could have made it back to WF long ago. 

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35 minutes ago, Lyanna<3Rhaegar said:

She finds Needle because she had enough wits about her to go to the stables to look for her things & escape. Needle is where she left it. Not luck. It was a direct result of Arya's actions. 

This is incorrect. She was not looking for her things. Needle was not where she left it.

She went to the stables then happened upon a wagon full of crates and chests. Men just happened to be loading them when they were attacked. Then a chest happens to catch her eye. The wood was split and her things were spilled. Then she finds Needle, and not a second too soon because the stableboy was close behind her. 

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Inside were more bodies; a groom she had played with, and three of her father’s household guard. A wagon, laden with crates and chests, stood abandoned near the door of the stable. The dead men must have been loading it for the trip to the docks when they were attacked...

As she crossed in back of the wagon, a fallen chest caught her eye. It must have been knocked down in the fight or dropped as it was being loaded. The wood had split, the lid opening to spill the chest’s contents across the ground. Arya recognized silks and satins and velvets she never wore. She might need warm clothes on the kingsroad, though … and besides …

Arya knelt in the dirt among the scattered clothes. She found a heavy woolen cloak, a velvet skirt and a silk tunic and some smallclothes, a dress her mother had embroidered for her, a silver baby bracelet she might sell. Shoving the broken lid out of the way, she groped inside the chest for Needle. She had hidden it way down at the bottom, under everything, but her stuff had all been jumbled around when the chest was dropped. For a moment Arya was afraid someone had found the sword and stolen it. Then her fingers felt the hardness of metal under a satin gown.

“There she is,” a voice hissed close behind her.

 

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1 hour ago, John Suburbs said:

Sorry, but no. The crown prince is the second most important person in the realm, behind the king. Just because Ned, the only adult POV we have to this incident, doesn't connect these dots doesn't mean others think this was all perfectly normal. Ned is a bit thick.

As @OtherFromAnotherMother said, you missed the point entirely.  If it were important to the story, George would have had somebody say something about it.  And it doesn't have to be a POV.  Robert, Cersei, Barristan, and Jory were all present, and some of them are fairly bright, and would have security on their mind..  If it mattered, one of them would have said something.

It doesn't really matter whether you think it is unusual.  It only matters whether the author thinks it is unusual.  And it is apparent that he doesn't think it is.

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3 hours ago, the trees have eyes said:

Um, yes you were :rolleyes:.  Allowing for the fact that I threw out a dozen or so examples off the top of my head you specifically said Coldhands had served his purpose.  Now you're backtracking on that.  Do you really not see that the dagger has served it's purpose and so has the extent of LF's influence over Joff (who is now as dead and gone as Gerion and Tysha are as unproven to be for that matter).

Sorry if you missed my sarcasm, but I guess it was buried in the subtext, so my bad for not making it absurdly obvious. My point was that just because something has taken place in the past does not mean it cannot become relevant to the future. I don't know why you keep going on about the dagger. LF's involvement can be revealed in all sorts of ways even if the dagger is never seen again.

3 hours ago, the trees have eyes said:

Oh I have an appreciation for the author, very much so.  Your unintentional irony is getting better and better as it's your unwillingness to accept the solutions he provides - as they are somehow inadequate to you - that leads you into constructing your own version of the story that is more pleasing to you and yet you act as if in doing so you are truly appreciating the author while those who actually appreciate his work are doing him a disservice.  I think you have it backwards but those who insist they are always right without anything at all to back up their imagined version of events are forced into this type of torturous and twisted reasoning.

And don't be ridiculous: every author uses plot devices to move the plot forward.  Our characters chase the dagger around for two books before realising it was Joffrey - and none of us realised it was him before this either - so your objection is totally contrived.  Joffrey is 14 and doesn't expect to be caught.  The dagger is to be used in the way GRRM wants it to be, in sowing distrust and confusion but eventually being traceable.  Two separate things going on here, surley you can wrap your head round that!  Oddly, only you seem confused by this.  Now you could be smarter than everyone else, you could be reading into the deeper mystery that GRRM has planted for 20 years despite it being unnecessary and utterly irrelevant now.  Or you could be wrong.  What ya think?

Sorry, but I think you vastly underestimate the author, consistently. He does not contrive his plots by having characters make decisions or take actions that go against their nature. By your reasoning, Littlefinger had nothing to do with the Arryn murder because he gave us the "solution" time and time again. If he used simple contrivances to move the plot forward, Dany and Drogo would have been in Westeros by the middle of Storm with three full-grown dragons. Dany's arc progressed the way it did because she made decisions that were consistent with her character, not to drive the plot forward.

I know that many authors use plot devices. Martin does not, and your insistence that he does reveals your failure to appreciate the true genius of his work. You say you've already figured out the mind of this great author, but did you ever stop to consider that you could be wrong, just the way this line of thinking would have been wrong about the Arryn murder? What ya think?

4 hours ago, the trees have eyes said:

A Myrish lens is rare and valuable though.  Not as rare as a dragon egg or as valuable as a Valyrian steel blade but rare and valuable all the same.  And it is left mysteriously, no?  No note, no messenger, no one even saw the person who delivered it.  So your objections look totally contrived again.

Of course this is done so that Luwin will be curious, even suspicious!  Because he needs to be curious and suspicious in order to find the hidden note....  Otherwise the note isn't found and the plot doesn't move forward... Duh, it's like you want to argue that water isn't wet out of sheer stubbornness.

 

Again, you are failing to appreciate how Luwin's jump to that conclusion runs counter to his characterization as a rational, logical thinker. Yes, it's mysterious, yes he would be curious. But before he concludes that the whole thing is a plot, he would take steps to find out where the box came from. Did Poole send it? Did Ned? He does none of this, immediately tearing open the box to find a hidden message. That is a huge rational leap for a many who is later revealed to be anything but irrational.

And you also seem to be under the misapprehension that I am trying to argue that this is not what happened. Clearly it did, but it was an extraordinary stroke of luck for LF. So if we are to believe this story about the box, and that Joffrey happens to try to kill on his own, that LF just happened to hear about Cat landing in KL, that Cat just happened to run into Tyrion on the Kings Road.. you're not just talking about devices to move the plot along, the entire plot has not become one long device as LF get's one imaginable lucky break after another. How can you honestly say you appreciate an author who is this lazy of a writer?

4 hours ago, the trees have eyes said:

It's only fortunate for LF if you fail to accept that leaving this particular gift in this particular way for this particular man will make him look further into this.  This is necessary for the plot to move forward and GRRM is at pains to make us realise this is not an unusual reaction by having Catelyn immediately suspect something too.  The fact that you refuse to accept this is beautiful irony as you are indeed faulting the author's skill while attempting to lambast those who have not bought into your arbitrary assertion that is was "lucky" for LF.  And that is everyone else..... 

You realise that this happens in one of the first chapters in the first novel right?  We have not had the characters built up yet (or even been introduced to LF) so unless you want hundreds of pages before anything happens you'll have to accept the mysterious gift is intended to get the ball rolling.  Every author does this, it is absolutley absurd to pretend that this minor and early scene is somehow a failing on GRRM's part as compared to "professional authors"!!  It seems you would rather shoot from the hip and the lip rather than reach a more reasonable conclusion.

Again, the only reason Cat is suspicious is because Luwin is in her bedroom in the middle of the night talking about lenses and messages. You can't possibly think that if Cat saw a box on a table she would immediately think it contained a secret message. If you get a letter without a return address label on it, do you automatically assume it contains anthrax, or did the label just fall off?

This is not a minor scene. This is the event that kicks off the entire Stark storyline in GoT. And just because we have not gotten to know Luwin yet does not mean the man would behave one way up until this moment and then suddenly convert into the font or rationality going forwards. Talk about absurd.

And I do not consider any of this a failing on GRRM's part. The failure is yours.

4 hours ago, the trees have eyes said:

I'm not accusing GRRM of being a lazy writer though you are......  As to lazy reading?  Lol.  I don't think you are a lazy reader, you clearly think about things a lot (like any conspiracy theorist too much imo) but you have clearly constructed this scenario where LF was involved in ways that he does not need to be and we have no reason to believe he was and having taken that vulnerable position you have to find methods to back it up.  We're lazy reader, we don't appreciate the author.  We're not, we do, we like his story better than your version....

Contriving plots around unrealistic actions and motivations, that's pretty much the definition of lazy writing. Believing that a writer who takes such considerable time and demonstrates such considerable skill in weaving plot, character, theme, setting and a host of other literary elements, including subtext and backstory, into an intricate tapestry, would then simply invent things just to move the plot along, yeah, that's lazy reading. Rather than delve into the text, you'd rather just skim along the surface and cherry-pick whatever answer requires the least amount of effort on your part. Jaime and Tyrion say Joffrey did it? OK, there are other possibilities, but who am I to question? That he did it out of kindness or need for affection? Goes directly against character, but whatever, it's needed to move the plot along.

5 hours ago, the trees have eyes said:

And why was Sansa allowed to go off unaccompanied by any of Ned's household guards?  If even grown men have a tail when they leave camp how is Sansa able to ride off without so much as a single guard or Arya able to sneak off and play at swords with Mycah?  Come on man, you are fabricating things.... 

My question exactly. This would not have happened unless it was meant to happen. Sansa does not need a guard in camp because, well, it's the camp and there is protection all around her, and she has her direwolf. But the moment she and Joffrey leave, alone, they are at the mercy of the wide, wide world, with no one to protect them, from anything.

Arya dresses like a small folk and sneaks off all the time, against orders: "You're not supposed to leave the column," Sansa reminder her. "Father said so."

5 hours ago, the trees have eyes said:

This has nothing to do with LF having convinced Joffrey to try and do Sansa some harm and everything to do with the author getting Joffrey, Sansa, Aryah and Mycah into a setting without adult supervision so we can have the trouble on the Trident.  No doubt you will refuse to accept this, no doubt you will assert there are hidden undercurrents here as (LF's manipulation of Agent 00Joff) otherwise it would be "bad wirting" and that "professional authors" would have found a better way to construct this scene but the lack of guards is to allow the scene to play out the way the author wants.  I'm happy enough, I like the dramatic scene and the later follow up at Castle Darry.  How about you?  Still wedded to your conspiracy theory I imagine.

Again, how you manage to square Martin simply creating these situations to advanced the plot with the author that you claim to hold in such high admiration is beyond me. Don't you realize that if you were to tell Martin, or any author, that this is what he is doing they would take it as an insult?

5 hours ago, the trees have eyes said:

This lacks all plausibility.  If Joff is to be manipulated by LF to try and murder a Stark he needs a solid reason.  If the reason is solid he will wonder why none of Robert, Cersei or "Uncle Jaime" see it and one word, one query from him alerts them and they realise LF is meddling and it's curtains for poor Petyr.  LF is not going to risk putting his head on the block. Why do you think the letter from Lysa to Catelyn is so elaborately concealed?  Answer: so it can't be tied back to him at all.  And yet you think he personally manipulated the crown prince into attempted murder and risked his life on a headstrong and careless 14 year old?  I'll have what you're smoking please.  Actually, no, I won't!!

Cersie and Jaime are heard discussing this very thing in the Burned Tower, so how can you be so sure Joffrey did not overhear a similar conversation at any time prior to this? How do you know he did not voice these concerns to anyone and they just patted him on the head and told him not to worry? Do you honestly think that his next words would be, "well I'm going to have one of the Starks killed when we get there." Please.

I'm starting to see why you think Martin lacks imagination in his writing, because you lack it yourself. As I've already explained to you, we can see plainly from the text that LF is a master manipulator who can put ideas into people's heads and make them think they are his own. No reason at all why he could not do this to Joffrey, especially since we have a first-hand account of him doing this very same thing to Joffrey later in the story. If it every did get back to Littlefinger, we have also seen how he can admit guilt but avoid the responsibility. "I'm sorry, your grace, it is all my fault, but I never imagined that the prince would take it upon himself to commit such a horrible act." It's not rocket science, dude. It's all perfectly logical if you'd just stop settling for the easy answers.

5 hours ago, the trees have eyes said:

I'd say Arya had her fair share of luck though of course her experiences are pretty terrible.  Syrio sacrifices himself to allow her escape, she does indded find Needle just as she is being cornered in the stables, Yoren finds her before anyone else does and smuggles her out of KL, Nymeria aids her escape from Harrenhal (despite Arya driving her off earlier in story) and all of Yoren, Jaqen and The Hound act as protectors as much as imprisoners.  I just don't have a problem with any of that, the author knows what he wants to put Arya through and as it's so terrible he needs to give her some "luck" or some asssitance or her escape and survival would not be plausible.

Syrio's sacrifice was not luck, it was honor. It was extremely unlucky that they chose to attack during her dancing lesson, otherwise they would have had no idea where to find her. She was unlucky that she was discovered in the stables at all. Yoren spotted her above the crowd on the statue of Baelor, nothing lucky about that, unless you're now going to argue that it was lucky Yoren wasn't blind. You think Nymeria was in the area just by accident? Are you sure you're reading carefully enough... oh, wait, sorry, no need to even ask that question. Jaqen befriended her for the kindness that Arya did and the lives taken from the Red God, nothing lucky about it. And if you want to call being taken by the Hound lucky, well I hope I never experience that kind of luck.

As I mentioned in another post, this is completely different from the kind of luck that LF enjoys. LF has a specific plan intended to bring about conflict between carefully defined targets. Time and time again he is the beneficiary of utterly improbably, seemingly random and highly uncharacteristic actions by other people, and it always fits his plans to a T. You call it plot devices. I call it cleverly hiding the truth in the subtext.

But I will also add that I think you are misunderstanding me about one thing: I am not arguing that LF was most definitely behind the catspaw and that anyone who does not agree is an idiot. All I'm saying to those who say LF could not have been involved because he had no way of knowing about Bran's fall, he doesn't have to know. This is how it could have gone down, but the possibility for other solutions still exists, even yours.

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5 hours ago, OtherFromAnotherMother said:

Good points. Are there any quotes in the Darry chapter where anyone objects to the kids being out on their own? I don't think there is.

Arya, stubborn girl that she is, does this despite strict orders from Ned:

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"We're not supposed to leave the column," Sansa reminded her. "Father says so."

She also dresses like a small folk, so nobody gives her a second glance.

1 hour ago, OtherFromAnotherMother said:

You say this, yet say I'm stretching things thin? 

George resolves Joff's motivation in SoS, just as he said he would. I believe him.

 

1 hour ago, OtherFromAnotherMother said:

Just because you don't like the motivation George gives us in SoS doesn't mean it isn't there.

Believe what you will. As I've said before, I am not saying LF's involvement is an unimpeachable fact. I'm just pointing out that it is not necessarily true that LF could not have been involved just because he did not know about Bran's fall. He doesn't have to know. Here's how.

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16 minutes ago, Nevets said:

As @OtherFromAnotherMother said, you missed the point entirely.  If it were important to the story, George would have had somebody say something about it.  And it doesn't have to be a POV.  Robert, Cersei, Barristan, and Jory were all present, and some of them are fairly bright, and would have security on their mind..  If it mattered, one of them would have said something.

It doesn't really matter whether you think it is unusual.  It only matters whether the author thinks it is unusual.  And it is apparent that he doesn't think it is.

There are still two books to go, so who knows how it could come back. Maybe Tyrion puzzles it out. Maybe Bran sees it in a vision and that's what dooms Littlefinger. Maybe LF confesses it in an attempt to save his skin.

So now you are here to tell us what the author thinks? Excuse me Mr. Martin.

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49 minutes ago, OtherFromAnotherMother said:

This is incorrect. She was not looking for her things. Needle was not where she left it.

She went to the stables then happened upon a wagon full of crates and chests. Men just happened to be loading them when they were attacked. Then a chest happens to catch her eye. The wood was split and her things were spilled. Then she finds Needle, and not a second too soon because the stableboy was close behind her

Sorry, I stand corrected. She did put Needle in her chest but it was a stroke of luck that she happened upon it. My point still stands though. She definitely doesn't have a string of luck. 

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7 hours ago, John Suburbs said:

Yes, the question of "Bran and the dagger" has been resolved: Joffrey did it. But you're stretching things extremely thin by assuming that this applies to Joffrey's motivation. Your belief that the "other questions" are about a completely different matter is just that, a belief. The other questions could very well refer to this added dimension to the assassination attempt, which would then be directly related to the Arryn murder because they both came from the same source (Littlefinger) and both aimed at a single outcome (conflict between wolf and lion).

How would George saying that it will be resolved in SoS not include Joff's motivation? The motivation he gives us is in SoS. I don't like it, but that's what it is. It is in SoS. Just like he said. Resolved.

To the bold, no. George directly says this question will be resolved in SoS, just like the JA murder. The other questions are other mysteries and questions completely separate from this icincident. If he was going to add another dimension to the assassination attempt he would not have said it would be resolved in SoS. He would have given a "keep reading" or something similar. 

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5 hours ago, Lyanna<3Rhaegar said:

Sorry, I stand corrected. She did put Needle in her chest but it was a stroke of luck that she happened upon it. My point still stands though. She definitely doesn't have a string of luck. 

No reason to apologize. I would not consider her "lucky" either.

I just disagree with the idea that George does not use moments of "luck" in his books (I'm not saying you think this way). All great writers have these moments. I don't understand why it would be considered a negative to have these moments. They are often suspenseful and exciting. 

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5 hours ago, John Suburbs said:

Arya, stubborn girl that she is, does this despite strict orders from Ned:

Quote

"We're not supposed to leave the column," Sansa reminded her. "Father says so."

She also dresses like a small folk, so nobody gives her a second glance.

Good find. I've moved my dial a little bit on the idea that it may not be perfectly normal to allow Joff and Sansa to go on their date alone. I'm not convinced that it is totally crazy yet, but this helps your case for this specific issue.

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8 hours ago, OtherFromAnotherMother said:

No reason to apologize. I would not consider her "lucky" either.

I just disagree with the idea that George does not use moments of "luck" in his books (I'm not saying you think this way). All great writers have these moments. I don't understand why it would be considered a negative to have these moments. They are often suspenseful and exciting. 

Agreed :) everyone gets some luck now & again. 

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On 09/12/2017 at 11:12 PM, John Suburbs said:

Sorry if you missed my sarcasm, but I guess it was buried in the subtext, so my bad for not making it absurdly obvious.

Ah, I see.  Yes, perhaps you should!  The extent to which you aren't happy with the solutions provided in the text and write your own story does create the situation where your "obvious sarcasm" as to what is an open question rather than a resolved one is harder to spot than you might think!  This is what happens when I have to consider not what the books say and what GRRM is telling us but how your mind works and both what you find "plausible" and the extent to which you seem to argue over every point, however anodyne, for the sheer sake of it.

On 09/12/2017 at 11:12 PM, John Suburbs said:

My point was that just because something has taken place in the past does not mean it cannot become relevant to the future.

Right, the flow of time.  We can agree that things like Jon's parentage though not discussed in story for a while may emerge at a later point as a significant issue.  Howland Reed has never appeared in story but we expect that he will.  Developments will occur and so on. On that we can agree.  What we aren't agreeing on is that the attempt by Joffrey to murder Bran will have any future plot relevance.  You would agree with that I think when viewed in isolation.  Which is why you have to presume some additional mystery, the Joffrey-LF conspiracy, to give it any potential future relevance.  I don't agree with that and as Joffrey is dead (at LF's instigation, no less) I don't see any reason in story for GRRM to add anything beyond what he resolved for us in ASOS.

On 09/12/2017 at 11:12 PM, John Suburbs said:

I don't know why you keep going on about the dagger. LF's involvement can be revealed in all sorts of ways even if the dagger is never seen again.

Um, I let the dagger go back in 2001 or whenever I first read ASOS.  You know why we are talking about the dagger: it is the attempted murder weapon that our characters chase around for a lot of AGOT and ACOK.  The author told us in an SSM or whatever that he would resolve the question of Bran and the dagger in ASOS.  He did so.  LF's involvement is not hinted at in story and has not been in either book since.  There is simply nothing to see here.

On 09/12/2017 at 11:12 PM, John Suburbs said:

Sorry, but I think you vastly underestimate the author, consistently. He does not contrive his plots by having characters make decisions or take actions that go against their nature. By your reasoning, Littlefinger had nothing to do with the Arryn murder because he gave us the "solution" time and time again. If he used simple contrivances to move the plot forward, Dany and Drogo would have been in Westeros by the middle of Storm with three full-grown dragons. Dany's arc progressed the way it did because she made decisions that were consistent with her character, not to drive the plot forward.

I know that many authors use plot devices. Martin does not, and your insistence that he does reveals your failure to appreciate the true genius of his work. You say you've already figured out the mind of this great author, but did you ever stop to consider that you could be wrong, just the way this line of thinking would have been wrong about the Arryn murder? What ya think?

This is rich.  I've said it's ironic that you don't accept the story the author has written and are looking for additional dimensions without which you simply aren't satisfied with his skill or characterisation yet you turn that round on me and say that because I am happy with what he has written (very much so) I am failing to appreciate him!  Here's the thing: I'm happy for him to take us where he wants and if there are things I'm not expecting that's a bonus, hell, it's not even a bonus it's part of the ride; you, on the other hand have made it clear there must be more to it than meets the eye otherwise it's poorly written or weakly constructed so when it turns out that there isn't more to it you'll either have to backtrack on your claims about his writing or stick the boot in again.  You could admit you were wrong of course but that doesn't seem something you've ever learned how to do.  I suppose you'll just stick with this position: that you think LF manipulated Joffrey into planning to murder one of the Stark children and long after the story is done and dusted you'll be telling everyone this even if the author never writes that.  That's just plain weird to me.

Oh, by my reasoning LF had nothing to do with the Jon Arryn murder, is that so?  How about I make my own arguments and you don't make fake ones for me.  See, that's how it works.  I have argued in this very thread no less that we were presented with false candidates for Jon Arryn's murderer - Hugh, Cersei - just as we were for the attack on Bran - Jaime & Cersei, Tyrion - before the real murderer was revealed.

As to the bolded I've said you would argue water wasn't wet and now you are.  Authors use plot devices, that is a simple part of storytelling and I have no idea why you object to this statement.  Assuming that a plot device is by definition lazy or contrived or forces a character to take decisions "against their nature" seems to be your interpretation but that doesn't make you correct.  To make sure we can consider that water is wet and argue about some marginally less anodyne point I'll give the wikipedia definition:

"A plot device, or plot mechanism,[citation needed] is any technique in a narrative used to move the plot forward.[1] A contrived or arbitrary plot device may annoy or confuse the reader, causing a loss of the suspension of disbelief. However a well-crafted plot device, or one that emerges naturally from the setting or characters of the story, may be entirely accepted, or may even be unnoticed by the audience. "

You'll note that whether a plot device is good or bad; glaringly obvious and objectionable or subtle, skillful and barely noticed, if at all; or leads to actions utterly out of character or totally in character, depends on what it is and how well it's carried off.

On 09/12/2017 at 11:12 PM, John Suburbs said:

Again, you are failing to appreciate how Luwin's jump to that conclusion runs counter to his characterization as a rational, logical thinker. Yes, it's mysterious, yes he would be curious. But before he concludes that the whole thing is a plot, he would take steps to find out where the box came from. Did Poole send it? Did Ned? He does none of this, immediately tearing open the box to find a hidden message. That is a huge rational leap for a many who is later revealed to be anything but irrational.

In order to move the plot forward GRRM has Lysa write a letter to Catelyn implicating the Lannisters in Jon Arryn's death.  In order for such explosive news to be delivered in secret and his hands kept clean he has the message hidden in a box containing a myrish lens and delivered with some mystery to Luwin.  Luwin finds said message and delivers it to Catelyn.  What is the problem you have with this?  The idea that this is running counter to Luwin's characterisation is plainly false.  He questions the servants, he examines the gift, considers it and the potential for the lens itself to be a hint and then starts looking into it.  Neither Ned nor his steward has any reason to give him this in such an odd way.  His reactions may not strike you as "adequately logical" but isn't this the whole point of the plot device and how well it is played out?  He has to find the message so the situation has to be constructed in such a way that he becomes suspicious and looks into it.  And you just lectured me on GRRM not using plot devices and my failing to appreciate his skill right before you went and rubbished how he used this plot device (that he doesn't use :rolleyes:) to get things rolling.  Irony at it's finest!

On 09/12/2017 at 11:12 PM, John Suburbs said:

And you also seem to be under the misapprehension that I am trying to argue that this is not what happened. Clearly it did, but it was an extraordinary stroke of luck for LF. So if we are to believe this story about the box, and that Joffrey happens to try to kill on his own, that LF just happened to hear about Cat landing in KL, that Cat just happened to run into Tyrion on the Kings Road.. you're not just talking about devices to move the plot along, the entire plot has not become one long device as LF get's one imaginable lucky break after another. How can you honestly say you appreciate an author who is this lazy of a writer?

Again, the only reason Cat is suspicious is because Luwin is in her bedroom in the middle of the night talking about lenses and messages. You can't possibly think that if Cat saw a box on a table she would immediately think it contained a secret message. If you get a letter without a return address label on it, do you automatically assume it contains anthrax, or did the label just fall off?

This is not a minor scene. This is the event that kicks off the entire Stark storyline in GoT. And just because we have not gotten to know Luwin yet does not mean the man would behave one way up until this moment and then suddenly convert into the font or rationality going forwards. Talk about absurd.

And I do not consider any of this a failing on GRRM's part. The failure is yours.

 

How about you look at what you wrote in this section?  The problem is of your own making in that you look at everything through this prism of what works for LF.  He is one actor in a very large cast and he seems to have a particular hold over your mind.  Sending a message to Catelyn has very careful planning behind it but for some odd reason you insist on Luwin not being able to find this message without incredible luck despite the author setting the scenario up so that he will (You know with the plot device you say he doesn't use....).  The message was sent to be found with 100% certainty, otherwise why bother?  Luwin is not a software programme he is allowed to make deductions, that is part of what differentiates humans from the programmed logic of computers after all.  In fact he is expected to make this deduction and there is nothing to get worked up over here.

LF's one action to get the Starks and Lannisters at each other's throats is to blame the Lannisters for the murder of Jon Arryn.  That Bran sees Jaime and Cersei screwing and is thrown out the window, that Joffrey overhears a drunken Robert bemoaning people being too weak to give crippled children mercy, that Sansa and Joffrey happened to ride into Mycah and Arya playing at swords, that Cat runs into Tyrion at the Crossroads Inn are all chance encounters aka plot devices to move the story along.  LF is not the story.  The more you try and argue agaisnt my points the wilder the accusations you throw at GRRM get.

As to the bolded: if you are able to consider a broader use of the term plot device and I would recommend you see it as a natural part of storytelling (did Bilbo Baggins find a magic ring that allowed him to become invisible and escape a Goblin cave or what??) then you might consider the storyteling rather good.  And once again: I do not consider him a lazy writer, your insistence on rejecting what he writes puts you in this odd position of accusing those who appreciate what he writes of not valuing him while all along criticsing his writing yet thinking you appreciate him.  George Orwell called this DoubleSpeak and I think you've done a good job of doublethink on yourself.

On 09/12/2017 at 11:12 PM, John Suburbs said:

Contriving plots around unrealistic actions and motivations, that's pretty much the definition of lazy writing. Believing that a writer who takes such considerable time and demonstrates such considerable skill in weaving plot, character, theme, setting and a host of other literary elements, including subtext and backstory, into an intricate tapestry, would then simply invent things just to move the plot along, yeah, that's lazy reading.

More doublethink.  I don't think you understand what you are reading or what you are saying.  The only person with a problem here is you.  You got anything to say?

On 09/12/2017 at 11:12 PM, John Suburbs said:

Rather than delve into the text, you'd rather just skim along the surface and cherry-pick whatever answer requires the least amount of effort on your part.

No, man, no, that's you.  It was LF that did it all.  You don't need to consider anything else, you cherry-picked agent 00Joff working for LF out of thin air and that's all you want to hear or talk about.  Everything else has to be dismissed or argued against ad infinitum.

On 09/12/2017 at 11:12 PM, John Suburbs said:

Jaime and Tyrion say Joffrey did it? OK, there are other possibilities, but who am I to question? That he did it out of kindness or need for affection? Goes directly against character, but whatever, it's needed to move the plot along.

As you are such a careful reader you will no doubt realise that the scene in which Tyrion and Joff slayer of rare books discuss the dagger is in a Sansa pov.  You might want to consider why the author dropped that scene into a chapter from a neutral pov who has no reason to suspect anything is going on in that exchange.  A careful reader might consider the author is carefullly and subtlely giving him important information to assess and reach an opinion on without making it glaringly in your face obvious  That's more for the naysayers about the Joff/dagger connection who insist both Tyrion and Jaime can be wrong and cite the possibility of a pov jumping to a mistaken conclusion..  Well it's there in the text anyway and it's later spelled out by both Tyrion and Jaime.

It has been said so many times that I feel you are deliberately playing dumb on this point but Joff did it for kicks not mercy, because it gave him a thrill to do something Ned and Robert were too weak to do.  That does not go against character but by all means turn a deaf ear again.

On 09/12/2017 at 11:12 PM, John Suburbs said:

My question exactly. This would not have happened unless it was meant to happen. Sansa does not need a guard in camp because, well, it's the camp and there is protection all around her, and she has her direwolf. But the moment she and Joffrey leave, alone, they are at the mercy of the wide, wide world, with no one to protect them, from anything.

Arya dresses like a small folk and sneaks off all the time, against orders: "You're not supposed to leave the column," Sansa reminder her. "Father said so."

Again, how you manage to square Martin simply creating these situations to advanced the plot with the author that you claim to hold in such high admiration is beyond me. Don't you realize that if you were to tell Martin, or any author, that this is what he is doing they would take it as an insult?

 

Doublethink, dude, doublethink.  You will realise at some point.

And of course it's to advance the plot.  If there are guards the fight never happens but according to you either we have to believe that Sansa was only allowed to ride out with Joffrey in order for him to do her harm or we are insulting GRRM.  Are you for real?

On 09/12/2017 at 11:12 PM, John Suburbs said:

Cersie and Jaime are heard discussing this very thing in the Burned Tower, so how can you be so sure Joffrey did not overhear a similar conversation at any time prior to this? How do you know he did not voice these concerns to anyone and they just patted him on the head and told him not to worry? Do you honestly think that his next words would be, "well I'm going to have one of the Starks killed when we get there." Please.

Yeah, man, of course.  They talk about this all the time.  Robert laughs about it with them over dinner every tuesday and the puppet shows in KL find the crowds never get tired of watching the Twincest. P-lease.

On 09/12/2017 at 11:12 PM, John Suburbs said:

I'm starting to see why you think Martin lacks imagination in his writing, because you lack it yourself. As I've already explained to you, we can see plainly from the text that LF is a master manipulator who can put ideas into people's heads and make them think they are his own. No reason at all why he could not do this to Joffrey, especially since we have a first-hand account of him doing this very same thing to Joffrey later in the story. If it every did get back to Littlefinger, we have also seen how he can admit guilt but avoid the responsibility. "I'm sorry, your grace, it is all my fault, but I never imagined that the prince would take it upon himself to commit such a horrible act." It's not rocket science, dude. It's all perfectly logical if you'd just stop settling for the easy answers.

The problem is more with those with the overactive imagination who refuse to accept the text.  If the mystery was still live you could conjecture all you want but it's closed.  We have the answers.  This forum is full of people who say Rhaegar's Mance, Qhorin was Arthur Dayne, Howland Reed is the High Septon and they all sing the same song you are here, that it could be possible, that there is nothing to rule it out, that there are two books to come etc...  The problem is their imagination has run wild and they taken it's product to heart too much.  Easy answers?  I think the problem is more trying to be too clever here.  You keep obstinately stating that LF prompting Joffrey to humiliate Tyrion at his wedding means it's plausible that he persuaded Joffrey to commit murder.  As if these is some sort of equivalence there.  And then you handwave away any objections to the risks LF is taking by saying he is smart enough to avoid taking risks or being implicated.  Well, that's precisely why he wouldn't trust Joffrey! It's not that I want easy answers, I find the answers in the text far better than yours and the questions you pose to be answered already.  You are giving poor answers to questions that don't need answering so you'll just have to live with that.

On 09/12/2017 at 11:12 PM, John Suburbs said:

Syrio's sacrifice was not luck, it was honor. It was extremely unlucky that they chose to attack during her dancing lesson, otherwise they would have had no idea where to find her. She was unlucky that she was discovered in the stables at all. Yoren spotted her above the crowd on the statue of Baelor, nothing lucky about that, unless you're now going to argue that it was lucky Yoren wasn't blind. You think Nymeria was in the area just by accident? Are you sure you're reading carefully enough... oh, wait, sorry, no need to even ask that question. Jaqen befriended her for the kindness that Arya did and the lives taken from the Red God, nothing lucky about it. And if you want to call being taken by the Hound lucky, well I hope I never experience that kind of luck.

Argumentative dude is argumentative, stop the press.

Arya has a protector who gives her a chance to escape.  Yes that's a form of luck alright.  When Meryn told her to come with them she started to move forward until Syrio stopped her.  Sansa and Jeyne didn't have that luck.  Yoren spots her.  There are a large number of people looking for Arya, all of whom would hand her over to Cersei immediately with the one exception being the person who spots her.  KL is a big place and Yoren spotted her and realised who this child dressed rags was and you don't think that was lucky at all? Wow, ok.  She drove Nymeria off in AGOT and you don't think it's reasonable to consider that the connection is broken and she is on her own now?  Nymeria doesn't come to her while she is stumbling around in the woods with Hot Pie, Lommy and Gendry so the fact that she turns up with a pack to kill the mounted men pursuing Arya does seem to involve more luck than Arya has a right to expect. And as for Jaqen....  She throws an axe into a cart where the three most dangerous men are chained up, men so dangerous that Yoren keeps them there.  And the result of that is not that she ends up freeing Rorge, Biter and some other monster, she ends up freeing only two monsters and one magic genie in a bottle who will grant her three wishes deaths.  Right.  No luck there at all dude.  Chained up men in wagons are bound to be trustworthy and reliable personal assassins not rabid monsters like Biter.  Being chained up in a wagon is how all the best people travel around Westeros, good spot champ, real careful reading and stellar logic on your part.  The Hound?  The Hound saved Arya at The Twins, remember.  If the BWB had ransomed Arya to Robb she would be a prisoner at the Twins right now awaiting marriage to her Betrothed Elmar so it worked in her favour in the long run.

Arya has protectors in all of Syrio, Yoren, Jaqen and Sandor.  They may not be the kind of protectors she would have chosen but they keep her safe nonetheless.  I really don't see why anyone would object to consider that luck. 

On 09/12/2017 at 11:12 PM, John Suburbs said:

As I mentioned in another post, this is completely different from the kind of luck that LF enjoys. LF has a specific plan intended to bring about conflict between carefully defined targets. Time and time again he is the beneficiary of utterly improbably, seemingly random and highly uncharacteristic actions by other people, and it always fits his plans to a T. You call it plot devices. I call it cleverly hiding the truth in the subtext.

Oh I see, it's part of your LF obsession.  Of course.  Why am I not surprised....

LF does have a plan.  It's executed by the letter to Lysa.  He then runs rings round Ned in KL and sets Cat off on a wild goose chase by implicating Tyrion in the attack on Bran. The idea that he plans every event is flawed: no one can.  He is sharp and shrewd and he reacts cleverly to events to try an gain advantage from them but when you insist on imagining more re Agent Joff and misrepresenting other events or mischaracterising people's actions to support it and call this spotting what is "hidden in the subtext" you have moved beyond grasping at straws to grasping at thin air.

On 09/12/2017 at 11:12 PM, John Suburbs said:

But I will also add that I think you are misunderstanding me about one thing: I am not arguing that LF was most definitely behind the catspaw and that anyone who does not agree is an idiot. All I'm saying to those who say LF could not have been involved because he had no way of knowing about Bran's fall, he doesn't have to know.

You what?  You are engaging in hypotheticals and playing devil's advocate over something you don't even really believe in?  I don't believe anyone would spend this much time and effort on something they aren't really set on.  This is hardly the first thread you've said this in either

On 09/12/2017 at 11:12 PM, John Suburbs said:

 This is how it could have gone down, but the possibility for other solutions still exists even yours.

How it went down is how the author wrote it. The "possibility for other solutions" may well have existed before he decided to write it the way he did but it doesn't now.  There is something curiously disturbing in you presenting your imaginary version of events as the most probable while faintly admitting there is a possibility for the author to tell his own story.  More doublethink.

And it's not mine, it's GRRMs.  I have to say your final attempt to be clever and condescending comes across as breathtakingly divorced from reality.  You want another solution but as I have said before I think you are fooling yourself.

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On ‎12‎/‎9‎/‎2017 at 11:41 PM, OtherFromAnotherMother said:

How would George saying that it will be resolved in SoS not include Joff's motivation? The motivation he gives us is in SoS. I don't like it, but that's what it is. It is in SoS. Just like he said. Resolved.

To the bold, no. George directly says this question will be resolved in SoS, just like the JA murder. The other questions are other mysteries and questions completely separate from this icincident. If he was going to add another dimension to the assassination attempt he would not have said it would be resolved in SoS. He would have given a "keep reading" or something similar. 

Haven't you noticed? GRRM is very careful with words. It's kind of how he makes his living. So when he says the matter of "Bran and the dagger" have been resolved, then that is what he is referring to, not necessarily Joffrey's motivation behind it -- and this is assuming that he is even referring to Joffrey to begin with. You don't like it the explanation we've been given. I don't like. Nobody in the reading world likes it, which ought to be your biggest clue that GRRM is not finished with this little detail and that "other questions" have yet to be answered.

 

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On ‎12‎/‎9‎/‎2017 at 11:49 PM, OtherFromAnotherMother said:

No reason to apologize. I would not consider her "lucky" either.

I just disagree with the idea that George does not use moments of "luck" in his books (I'm not saying you think this way). All great writers have these moments. I don't understand why it would be considered a negative to have these moments. They are often suspenseful and exciting. 

 

On ‎12‎/‎10‎/‎2017 at 8:22 AM, Lyanna<3Rhaegar said:

Agreed :) everyone gets some luck now & again. 

Of course everyone gets lucky. And nobody has even mentioned the single biggest stroke of luck for Arya: that in all the inns in all the Riverlands, she and the Hound choose this particularly inn at this particular time to encounter Polliver, who is holding Needle.

And Littlefinger has moments of luck too. The quick discovery of the letter is one. More than likely, it would have been found eventually, but Luwin's jump to such an unlikely conclusion without first exploring the more mundane possibilities was extremely lucky. So was the fact that Cat ran into Tyrion and whisked him away to the Eyrie before he could return to KL and put LF on the spot for the lie he told. But to go on and assume that he was lucky because Joff just happened to decide all on his own to kill Bran, that word just happened to reach LF that Cat was in town, that Joff just happened to decide to execute Ned, all the way up to Joff just happening to place the chalice directly in front of Garlan, not a foot to the left or to the right, giving him the only chance in a million to poison it, -- nobody is this lucky. We've already seen, or surmised, how LF can make his own luck by manipulating Joff, having informants everywhere and using countless other tricks, so why draw the line at the catspaw? LF could very easily have put the whole thing in Joff's mind. He does this kind of thing all the time.

 

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On ‎12‎/‎9‎/‎2017 at 11:53 PM, OtherFromAnotherMother said:

Good find. I've moved my dial a little bit on the idea that it may not be perfectly normal to allow Joff and Sansa to go on their date alone. I'm not convinced that it is totally crazy yet, but this helps your case for this specific issue.

Even in the Red Keep, Joffrey is constantly shadowed by the Hound and/or members of the KG. At best, we have him sending the Hound to escort Sansa home after the riverside dinner during the Hand's Tourney, but that was only so he could go immediately to his mother, not wander off into the night. Joffrey is simply too valuable to be without protection, especially in the wide open countryside.

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5 hours ago, the trees have eyes said:

Ah, I see.  Yes, perhaps you should!  The extent to which you aren't happy with the solutions provided in the text and write your own story does create the situation where your "obvious sarcasm" as to what is an open question rather than a resolved one is harder to spot than you might think!  This is what happens when I have to consider not what the books say and what GRRM is telling us but how your mind works and both what you find "plausible" and the extent to which you seem to argue over every point, however anodyne, for the sheer sake of it.

It also comes from joining the thread that's already a week old, commenting on a few select posts, then dropping out again for a weeks, rejoining again, commenting on a few more select quotes. To get a full understanding, you might want to try reading all.

5 hours ago, the trees have eyes said:

Right, the flow of time.  We can agree that things like Jon's parentage though not discussed in story for a while may emerge at a later point as a significant issue.  Howland Reed has never appeared in story but we expect that he will.  Developments will occur and so on. On that we can agree.  What we aren't agreeing on is that the attempt by Joffrey to murder Bran will have any future plot relevance.  You would agree with that I think when viewed in isolation.  Which is why you have to presume some additional mystery, the Joffrey-LF conspiracy, to give it any potential future relevance.  I don't agree with that and as Joffrey is dead (at LF's instigation, no less) I don't see any reason in story for GRRM to add anything beyond what he resolved for us in ASOS.

Joffrey is dead, but Littlefinger and Bran are still alive. Let's just wait until the story is concluded before we claim with unvarnished certainty that we know exactly what will happen going forward. Deal?

5 hours ago, the trees have eyes said:

Um, I let the dagger go back in 2001 or whenever I first read ASOS.  You know why we are talking about the dagger: it is the attempted murder weapon that our characters chase around for a lot of AGOT and ACOK.  The author told us in an SSM or whatever that he would resolve the question of Bran and the dagger in ASOS.  He did so.  LF's involvement is not hinted at in story and has not been in either book since.  There is simply nothing to see here.

Well then why do you keep coming back to the dagger? For that matter, if you're all done with this, why do you waste your time on chat boards arguing about things that you think are concluded? If this is ever to come to light, it can be done without the dagger, so why do you keep obsessing over it?

5 hours ago, the trees have eyes said:

This is rich.  I've said it's ironic that you don't accept the story the author has written and are looking for additional dimensions without which you simply aren't satisfied with his skill or characterisation yet you turn that round on me and say that because I am happy with what he has written (very much so) I am failing to appreciate him!  Here's the thing: I'm happy for him to take us where he wants and if there are things I'm not expecting that's a bonus, hell, it's not even a bonus it's part of the ride; you, on the other hand have made it clear there must be more to it than meets the eye otherwise it's poorly written or weakly constructed so when it turns out that there isn't more to it you'll either have to backtrack on your claims about his writing or stick the boot in again.  You could admit you were wrong of course but that doesn't seem something you've ever learned how to do.  I suppose you'll just stick with this position: that you think LF manipulated Joffrey into planning to murder one of the Stark children and long after the story is done and dusted you'll be telling everyone this even if the author never writes that.  That's just plain weird to me.

Point of correction: I think it is possible that LF manipulated Joffrey into planning to murder a Stark child, and that such a motivation would be more in character for both LF and Joffrey. Whether or not this actually happened remains to be seen.

And yes, I do hold GRRM in higher esteem than you because I think he is far more skillful and intelligent than you give him credit. If you are happy with mediocrity, power to you brother, but don't pin that mediocrity on GRRM and then claim to admire him as an exceptional writer.

5 hours ago, the trees have eyes said:

Oh, by my reasoning LF had nothing to do with the Jon Arryn murder, is that so?  How about I make my own arguments and you don't make fake ones for me.  See, that's how it works.  I have argued in this very thread no less that we were presented with false candidates for Jon Arryn's murderer - Hugh, Cersei - just as we were for the attack on Bran - Jaime & Cersei, Tyrion - before the real murderer was revealed.

Good, so we are agreed that GRRM presents false candidates for things like murder. So why is it so all-fire impossible for him to plant false candidates for Joffrey's motivation for the catspaw? How about you let Martin finish the story before you claim inside knowledge about what he thinks and where the truth lies? You've based your unshakeable conclusion on a long list of assumptions regarding the POVs, what the SSMs mean, what the characters are thinking, all to arrive at a conclusion that you and virtually everyone else thinks is inadequate. Perhaps try waiting until the story is finished before you declare with certainty what is and is not factual -- just like it would have been better to wait until Storm came out before declaring unequivocally that Cersei murdered Jon Arryn. You just might surprise yourself.

5 hours ago, the trees have eyes said:

As to the bolded I've said you would argue water wasn't wet and now you are.  Authors use plot devices, that is a simple part of storytelling and I have no idea why you object to this statement.  Assuming that a plot device is by definition lazy or contrived or forces a character to take decisions "against their nature" seems to be your interpretation but that doesn't make you correct.  To make sure we can consider that water is wet and argue about some marginally less anodyne point I'll give the wikipedia definition:

Lol, for someone who insists on being allowed to make his own arguments, you sure don't hesitate to make mine. Since you are so fond of SSMs, here are Martin's own words on the subject:

Quote

“I think there are two types of writers, the architects and the gardeners. The architects plan everything ahead of time, like an architect building a house. They know how many rooms are going to be in the house, what kind of roof they're going to have, where the wires are going to run, what kind of plumbing there's going to be. They have the whole thing designed and blueprinted out before they even nail the first board up. The gardeners dig a hole, drop in a seed and water it. They kind of know what seed it is, they know if planted a fantasy seed or mystery seed or whatever. But as the plant comes up and they water it, they don't know how many branches it's going to have, they find out as it grows. And I'm much more a gardener than an architect.”

https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/749309-i-think-there-are-two-types-of-writers-the-architects

In other words, Martin does not fix a rigid plot and the create situations in order to advance the plot. He plants characters as seeds and allows them to grow in whatever direction is most natural. His characters make decisions based on what they are thinking as characters, not on what Martin thinks would be best for the plot. This is why he has Dany camping out in Meereen rather than heading straight to Westeros -- it would have been much better plot-wise if she was already home. It's why Brienne is out chasing false leads looking for Sansa, rather than finding her straight away. It's why we have fAegon instead of just letting him lie dead, not to mention both the Dornish and Ironmen arcs. The whole story would be so much more compact and compelling if Martin would just stop making the logical, character-drive decisions instead of whatever was needed to drive the most exciting plot. Heck, the whole series would probably be over by now.

5 hours ago, the trees have eyes said:

In order to move the plot forward GRRM has Lysa write a letter to Catelyn implicating the Lannisters in Jon Arryn's death.  In order for such explosive news to be delivered in secret and his hands kept clean he has the message hidden in a box containing a myrish lens and delivered with some mystery to Luwin.  Luwin finds said message and delivers it to Catelyn.  What is the problem you have with this?  The idea that this is running counter to Luwin's characterisation is plainly false.  He questions the servants, he examines the gift, considers it and the potential for the lens itself to be a hint and then starts looking into it.  Neither Ned nor his steward has any reason to give him this in such an odd way.  His reactions may not strike you as "adequately logical" but isn't this the whole point of the plot device and how well it is played out?  He has to find the message so the situation has to be constructed in such a way that he becomes suspicious and looks into it.  And you just lectured me on GRRM not using plot devices and my failing to appreciate his skill right before you went and rubbished how he used this plot device (that he doesn't use :rolleyes:) to get things rolling.  Irony at it's finest!

As I've said umpteen times: the problem is Luwin's jump to the conclusion that the lens is telling him to disassemble the box. He has not even looked into the myriad innocent explanations as to how it got there and he is already assuming a plot. This is a highly illogical thought process for a man who turns out to have thought processes that are highly logical -- too logical, in fact. This was an incredibly lucky break for LF -- one in a long list of many. So if we are to give him a pass on this one, it becomes harder to assume mere luck for all the other breaks the LF gets, which indeed, many of them are not breaks at all but carefully contrived outcomes created by LF's ability to manipulate people and events, primarily Joffrey. So all I'm saying is that if he can easily manipulate Joffrey on so many other occasions, it is not out of the realm of possibility to think that he manipulated him in this one as well.

 

5 hours ago, the trees have eyes said:

How about you look at what you wrote in this section?  The problem is of your own making in that you look at everything through this prism of what works for LF.  He is one actor in a very large cast and he seems to have a particular hold over your mind.  Sending a message to Catelyn has very careful planning behind it but for some odd reason you insist on Luwin not being able to find this message without incredible luck despite the author setting the scenario up so that he will (You know with the plot device you say he doesn't use....).  The message was sent to be found with 100% certainty, otherwise why bother?  Luwin is not a software programme he is allowed to make deductions, that is part of what differentiates humans from the programmed logic of computers after all.  In fact he is expected to make this deduction and there is nothing to get worked up over here.

 

Again, who knows what LF had planned? He might not have been counting on Luwin finding the message so quickly, or mayhaps he had some follow-up to help lead him a little better. Or mayhaps Luwin would have grown more suspicious when he had something to actually be suspicious about, such as an attempt on the life of one of the Stark children. All I can say for certain is that the letter is so cleverly hidden that it is iffy at best that anyone ever reads it, let alone take it seriously, while the letter coupled with an actual hostile act directed at the Starks provides exactly the kind of one-two punch needed to get the ball rolling. To argue that LF would in no way be involved with the catspaw because he had laid all the groundwork he needed just with the letter is highly specious reasoning. We have no POVs for Littlefinger, don't claim to know what the man was thinking.

 

5 hours ago, the trees have eyes said:

LF's one action to get the Starks and Lannisters at each other's throats is to blame the Lannisters for the murder of Jon Arryn.  That Bran sees Jaime and Cersei screwing and is thrown out the window, that Joffrey overhears a drunken Robert bemoaning people being too weak to give crippled children mercy, that Sansa and Joffrey happened to ride into Mycah and Arya playing at swords, that Cat runs into Tyrion at the Crossroads Inn are all chance encounters aka plot devices to move the story along.  LF is not the story.  The more you try and argue agaisnt my points the wilder the accusations you throw at GRRM get.

Like I said, you base your absolutely certain conclusion on a long list of assumptions.

5 hours ago, the trees have eyes said:

As to the bolded: if you are able to consider a broader use of the term plot device and I would recommend you see it as a natural part of storytelling (did Bilbo Baggins find a magic ring that allowed him to become invisible and escape a Goblin cave or what??) then you might consider the storyteling rather good.  And once again: I do not consider him a lazy writer, your insistence on rejecting what he writes puts you in this odd position of accusing those who appreciate what he writes of not valuing him while all along criticsing his writing yet thinking you appreciate him.  George Orwell called this DoubleSpeak and I think you've done a good job of doublethink on yourself.

Honestly? Can't you see that Bilbo didn't just happen to find the ring, the ring found Bilbo? You know the ring is intelligent, right? It has mind-control powers. The ring purposely betray Isildur by falling from his finger so he could be slain by orcs. It purposely caused Sméagol to kill Deagol and then led Sméagol into the mountains to become Gollum. Honestly, I don't know whether your inability to see the subtext is a good thing or a bad thing. You seem awfully certain that your opinion and your opinion alone is the correct one and treat other people's ideas with a great deal of hostility, so I guess it's a bad thing.

5 hours ago, the trees have eyes said:

 

As you are such a careful reader you will no doubt realise that the scene in which Tyrion and Joff slayer of rare books discuss the dagger is in a Sansa pov.  You might want to consider why the author dropped that scene into a chapter from a neutral pov who has no reason to suspect anything is going on in that exchange.  A careful reader might consider the author is carefullly and subtlely giving him important information to assess and reach an opinion on without making it glaringly in your face obvious  That's more for the naysayers about the Joff/dagger connection who insist both Tyrion and Jaime can be wrong and cite the possibility of a pov jumping to a mistaken conclusion..  Well it's there in the text anyway and it's later spelled out by both Tyrion and Jaime.

The parts where Tyrion and Jaime try to puzzle out Joff's motivation take place in their POV, and both of them are dissatisfied with the guesses they make.

5 hours ago, the trees have eyes said:

It has been said so many times that I feel you are deliberately playing dumb on this point but Joff did it for kicks not mercy, because it gave him a thrill to do something Ned and Robert were too weak to do.  That does not go against character but by all means turn a deaf ear again.

And your text for this is? Tyrion tries to attribute it to Joff's "simple cruelty", but he puts a big question mark on that idea. Again, for someone who has the inside lane into Martin's mind and the truth of all things Westeros, you sure do lean on a lot of assumptions.

5 hours ago, the trees have eyes said:

Doublethink, dude, doublethink.  You will realise at some point.

And of course it's to advance the plot.  If there are guards the fight never happens but according to you either we have to believe that Sansa was only allowed to ride out with Joffrey in order for him to do her harm or we are insulting GRRM.  Are you for real?

Yes, it's how a sophisticated, intelligent writer would carefully set the stage, by allowing the reader to glean the truth from the subtext. But you obviously think Martin is capable of writing in only one dimension, devising one lame "plot device" after another to the point where crown princes and their virgin brides are allowed to just wander off anywhere they want, do whatever they want, and nobody gives a hoot. Please.

5 hours ago, the trees have eyes said:

Yeah, man, of course.  They talk about this all the time.  Robert laughs about it with them over dinner every tuesday and the puppet shows in KL find the crowds never get tired of watching the Twincest. P-lease.

They talk about it in private, as we've seen. Cersei may even have bad-mouthed the Starks to Joffrey himself. None of this is absolutely necessary, of course. All that's needed is for LF to make a convincing argument to Joffrey. Talk about being argumentative.

5 hours ago, the trees have eyes said:

 

The problem is more with those with the overactive imagination who refuse to accept the text.  If the mystery was still live you could conjecture all you want but it's closed.  We have the answers.  This forum is full of people who say Rhaegar's Mance, Qhorin was Arthur Dayne, Howland Reed is the High Septon and they all sing the same song you are here, that it could be possible, that there is nothing to rule it out, that there are two books to come etc...  The problem is their imagination has run wild and they taken it's product to heart too much.  Easy answers?  I think the problem is more trying to be too clever here.  You keep obstinately stating that LF prompting Joffrey to humiliate Tyrion at his wedding means it's plausible that he persuaded Joffrey to commit murder.  As if these is some sort of equivalence there.  And then you handwave away any objections to the risks LF is taking by saying he is smart enough to avoid taking risks or being implicated.  Well, that's precisely why he wouldn't trust Joffrey! It's not that I want easy answers, I find the answers in the text far better than yours and the questions you pose to be answered already.  You are giving poor answers to questions that don't need answering so you'll just have to live with that.

Glad to here that you are so satisfied with yourself. But you go beyond arrogance when you claim that your answer is the one and only correct one, that your interpretation of text, characterization, statements by the author etc., are correct and there is no room for discussion. Others like myself beg to differ.

If the case is closed in your mind and there is nothing to see here, by all means, please move along and stop wasting all of our time.

7 hours ago, the trees have eyes said:

Arya has a protector who gives her a chance to escape.  Yes that's a form of luck alright.  When Meryn told her to come with them she started to move forward until Syrio stopped her.  Sansa and Jeyne didn't have that luck.  Yoren spots her.  There are a large number of people looking for Arya, all of whom would hand her over to Cersei immediately with the one exception being the person who spots her.  KL is a big place and Yoren spotted her and realised who this child dressed rags was and you don't think that was lucky at all? Wow, ok.  She drove Nymeria off in AGOT and you don't think it's reasonable to consider that the connection is broken and she is on her own now?  Nymeria doesn't come to her while she is stumbling around in the woods with Hot Pie, Lommy and Gendry so the fact that she turns up with a pack to kill the mounted men pursuing Arya does seem to involve more luck than Arya has a right to expect. And as for Jaqen....  She throws an axe into a cart where the three most dangerous men are chained up, men so dangerous that Yoren keeps them there.  And the result of that is not that she ends up freeing Rorge, Biter and some other monster, she ends up freeing only two monsters and one magic genie in a bottle who will grant her three wishes deaths.  Right.  No luck there at all dude.  Chained up men in wagons are bound to be trustworthy and reliable personal assassins not rabid monsters like Biter.  Being chained up in a wagon is how all the best people travel around Westeros, good spot champ, real careful reading and stellar logic on your part.  The Hound?  The Hound saved Arya at The Twins, remember.  If the BWB had ransomed Arya to Robb she would be a prisoner at the Twins right now awaiting marriage to her Betrothed Elmar so it worked in her favour in the long run.

The connection with Nymeria is obviously not broken because Arya still has dreams of doing all kinds of things as Nymeria, including pulling her mother's body out of the river.

As I said, none of this is lucky in the sense that it is furthering Arya's long-held plans. In fact, most of what happens to her continually jams up her desire to reunite with her family. Your argument is that completely random, utterly unpredictable events like Joffrey deciding all on his own to kill Bran, which dovetail perfectly with LF's goals of continental conquest, just happen for no other reason than the author wants them to happen. Sorry, but I contend this is a fundamental misreading of Martin's literary style, which, unfortunately, only further reading will demonstrate.

And you're overlooking entirely the one piece of blind luck that does happen to Arya: that in all the inns in all the riverlands, she and the hound enter the one inn at exactly the right time to encounter Polliver, who is still holding Needle. Now that was truly a lucky stroke for Arya. So yes, characters get lucky sometimes. But no one is lucky to have the most unlikely, unpredictable of events happen in their favor over and over and over again.

7 hours ago, the trees have eyes said:

Oh I see, it's part of your LF obsession.  Of course.  Why am I not surprised....

LF does have a plan.  It's executed by the letter to Lysa.  He then runs rings round Ned in KL and sets Cat off on a wild goose chase by implicating Tyrion in the attack on Bran. The idea that he plans every event is flawed: no one can.  He is sharp and shrewd and he reacts cleverly to events to try an gain advantage from them but when you insist on imagining more re Agent Joff and misrepresenting other events or mischaracterising people's actions to support it and call this spotting what is "hidden in the subtext" you have moved beyond grasping at straws to grasping at thin air.

 Agreed, he has a plan. And it involves manipulating the pieces in order for him to win the game. Maybe he manipulated this particular piece in this particular way and maybe he didn't. But there is nothing you have presented here to say this is an impossibility. Not only is it possible, but it is exactly how these characters behave subsequently in the story. So your certainty is based on nothing but your own opinions, and your conclusion is iffy at best.

7 hours ago, the trees have eyes said:

You what?  You are engaging in hypotheticals and playing devil's advocate over something you don't even really believe in?  I don't believe anyone would spend this much time and effort on something they aren't really set on.  This is hardly the first thread you've said this in either

I'm merely presenting the possibilities. I believe it is possible that LF prompted Joffrey to kill Bran. Your contention that this is an impossibility is not in accordance with the known facts. It's the difference between knowing what you don't know and not fully comprehending what you think you know.

7 hours ago, the trees have eyes said:

How it went down is how the author wrote it. The "possibility for other solutions" may well have existed before he decided to write it the way he did but it doesn't now.  There is something curiously disturbing in you presenting your imaginary version of events as the most probable while faintly admitting there is a possibility for the author to tell his own story.  More doublethink.

And it's not mine, it's GRRMs.  I have to say your final attempt to be clever and condescending comes across as breathtakingly divorced from reality.  You want another solution but as I have said before I think you are fooling yourself.

I think what you meant to say is, "how the author is still writing it." I don't present anything as the most probable, other than the fact that the story is not yet finished and, as per the author's own words, not all questions were resolved in SoS.

Submit your rebuttal, but don't expect a reply. This is getting tedious.

 

 

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So is everyone in agreement that Joffrey was behind it? Tyrion basically puts this together based off of Joffreys statement "I'm no stranger to Valyrian steel" and his conversation with Sandor Clegane about killing wolves when they were in Winterfell. I don't know on this one, this is one of the few instances where I see Tyrion coming to conclusions that may not be true, partly based off his well-deserved hatred of his nephew. If Joffrey really did do it, I just can't understand a reason as to why.

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6 minutes ago, RhaegoTheUnborn said:

So is everyone in agreement that Joffrey was behind it? Tyrion basically puts this together based off of Joffreys statement "I'm no stranger to Valyrian steel" and his conversation with Sandor Clegane about killing wolves when they were in Winterfell. I don't know on this one, this is one of the few instances where I see Tyrion coming to conclusions that may not be true, partly based off his well-deserved hatred of his nephew. If Joffrey really did do it, I just can't understand a reason as to why.

No I don't believe everyone is in agreement that Joffrey is behind it. If you start at the beginning of the thread there are several alternative theories presented. 

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