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LF screwed up? (What if Cat never captured Tyrion)


Oveloel

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My brother is partway through reading the books. Having decided to use the Boiled Leather reading order for AFFC/ADWD, he’s currently part way through but, having lost our copy of ADWD today he reread a bit of AGOT and asked me this: what if Marillion had never forced Catelyn’s hand at the Inn at the Crossroads, and she therefore had never accosted Tyrion, going their separate ways?

Our discussion led us to the impact on the goings-on in King’s Landing - here’s our line of reasoning:

Ned falls out with Robert and resigns as Hand due to an argument over the planned assassination of Daenerys - independent of events at the Inn.

As a result he decides to leave King’s Landing for Winterfell.

Littlefinger is faced with losing the clumsy politician he can use to sow chaos.

In an attempt to keep Ned in KL he takes him to the brothel to reveal the twincest.

Here’s the major divergence: in our story, LF lets Jaime know where Ned is. However now Jaime has no incentive to attack Ned.

Ned, in this new timeline, returns unharmed to the Red Keep.

 

 

Now, does Ned reveal to Robert?

He certainly wants to when he wakes from unconsciousness seven days later; unfortunately Robert shuts him down:

Quote

 

Eddard X, AGOT:

“Your Grace”, Ned Stark said, “we must talk…”

Robert pressed his fingertips against his temples. “I am sick to death of talk. On the morrow I’m going to the kingswood to hunt. Whatever you have to say can wait until I return.

 

The likelihood is that Ned ultimately would not have left, given that Robert immediately tells him:

Quote

 

Eddard X AGOT:

“Like it or not, you are my Hand, damn you. I forbid you to leave."

 

In the first quote, Robert’s excuse for shutting Ned down was that he was “sick of talk” - presumably referring to the preceding heated argument between Ned, Robert and Cersei. Cersei however is only concerned with the incidents at the brothel and if, as is the case in our new timeline, said incidents never happened, she and Ned would never have bickered so much (their mutual dislike would of course caused tension but nothing to the extent that we see:)

Quote

 

Eddard X AGOT:

“Is that your notion of justice?” Ned flared. “If so, I am pleased that I am no longer your Hand.”

The queen looked to her husband. “If any man had dared speak to a Targaryen as he has spoken to you-”

“Do you take me for Aerys?” Robert interrupted.

“I took you for a king. Jaime and Tyrion are your own brothers, by all the laws of marriage and the bonds we share. The Starks have driven off the one and seized the other. This man dishonours you with every breath he takes, and yet you stand there meekly, asking if his leg pains him and would he like some wine.”

 

 

 

I believe that without the fight at the brothel, Ned would have gained an audience of Robert and told him of his discoveries. So what happens next? This is what Ned thinks:

Quote

 

Eddard XII, AGOT:

So long as a man was brave and honest, Robert would treat him with all the honour and respect due a valiant enemy.

This was something else: poison in the dark, a knife thrust to the soul. This he could never forgive, no more than he had forgotten Rhaegar. He will kill them all, Ned realised.

As I explained this to my brother, he asked who “them all” refers to. At first I said “Well, whichever Lannisters he can get his hands on. Cersei, Joffrey, Myrcella, Tommen…”

 

Using the ‘Journeys’ feature of the World of Ice and Fire app (which shows you the locations of key characters at the time of each chapter) we determined that Jaime was in King’s Landing at this time. In fact, when finding quotes for this post in Eddard X, I noticed that it is explicitly stated that Jaime has left the city following the fight at the brothel - this seems to be an inaccuracy in the app, which says Jaime leaves between Bran VI and Daenerys VI. In the former, the letter Cersei manipulates Sansa into sending after Ned’s arrest and Joffrey’s ascension arrives at Winterfell, so this must be much, much later!

Getting back on topic, my brother then asked me, “what about Tyrion?” My initial thought had been that Tyrion, like Tywin, was nowhere near the capital and so would likely be subject to an arrest warrant. As another side note, this scenario with Jaime, Cersei and their children dead, and Tyrion and Tywin both branded traitors would lead to very interesting dynamics between the two… But in reality, the whole premise of this scenario was that Tyrion was never captured by Catelyn and thus continued on to King’s Landing.

 

 

So our new question was, when would Tyrion arrive at King’s Landing? 

There followed lengthy calculations, outlined in the spoiler box so they can be skipped.

 

 

Spoiler

 

For this, I turned to this timeline  https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ZsY3lcDDtTdBWp1Gx6mfkdtZT6-Gk0kdTGeSC_Dj7WM/edit#gid=2 which helpfully also has travel time and distance calculations! Less helpfully, the document specifically said this about travel time assumptions: 

Quote

 

Assumptions, 'ASOIAF Timeline'

There are several severely unlikely travel syncs, like Tyrion meeting an awake Bran in Winterfell and somehow managing to make it down to the Crossroads Inn to be captured by Catelyn, when Catelyn had just left King's Landing before news of Bran's awakening arrived.

 

Originally we had intended to simply extrapolate the travel times using the time and distance of this leg in the journey. Tyrion arrives at Winterfell on 22/8/298 and plans to leave the next day, 23/8/298. He arrives at the Inn on 13/9/298, a journey of 22 days. The distance calculations don’t include the Inn but do include Lord Harroway’s Town, which seems to be so close as to make very little difference. The journey from WF to LHT by road is 1560 miles so Tyrion’s party travelled at a speed of 71 miles per day (this is the document’s unit of speed, which I’ve used to enable comparison).

At this speed, Tyrion would complete the 450 miles from LHT to KL in 6 days, having stayed at the inn for the night and thus leaving on 14/9/298. He would arrive on 20/9/298 - the day Ned meets Gendry, two days before the Hand’s Tourney. In this case, the ‘screw-up’ to which I refer in my post would almost certainly have happened around the tourney, before Ned discovers the twincest given the whole dagger intrigue centres around another tourney at King’s Landing. However 71 mpd sounds ridiculous, so let’s have a look.

 

 

Tyrion’s party is a small group, all ahorse. For a small group riding, the document gives four options:

Slow pace = 18 mpd

Average pace = 24 mpd

Fast unconditioned = 30 mpd

Fast conditioned = 50 mpd

There is also this note:

Quote

 

Road travel speed rates, 'ASOIAF Timeline'

Very fit and well conditioned people and horses can manage the fast unconditioned pace for 5 days maximum.

 

Tyrion is neither fit nor well-conditioned and rides for 22 days so his party’s speed must either be ‘slow pace’ or ‘average pace’. Regardless, even the ‘fast conditioned’ speed (which I presume to refer to, for example, Renly riding to meet Stannis at Storm’s End) of 50 mpd doesn’t even compare to the calculated speed of 71 mpd.

 

 

Let’s take the calculated speed as canon for the journey it describes, given that it’s a direct extrapolation from the books itself and an authoritative, fan-edited (including from this forum) source - but recalculate for ourselves the new journey between the Inn and King’s Landing.

Our lower bound for the time is at ‘average pace’, which would take 19 days. The upper bound, at ‘slow pace’ is 25 days. Therefore Tyrion arrives in King’s Landing between 3/10/298 and 9/10/298. Incredibly, this means that Tyrion could conceivably have arrived in King’s Landing the very day Robert, in the actual timeline, left hunting (3/10/298) - possibly missing him by a matter of hours. Regarding the titular screw-up, this is a crazy coincidence! 9/10/298 has no significance as far as I can discern. Ned sends Beric against Gregor Clegane on 5/10/298 and Beric leaves the next day, 6/10/298. However, Gregor is raiding the Riverlands on Tywin’s order and this order was given in retaliation for Tyrion’s arrest so in our timeline this does not occur.

 

 

 

To sum up those calculations, Tyrion’s journey gives two options. If he continues the journey from the Inn at his present unrealistic (3x faster than is logically possible) speed he arrives before the Hand’s Tourney. If he takes a realistic speed from the Inn, he arrives around the time when Ned sends Beric after Gregor in the actual timeline.

In general, the timings of anything in King’s Landing following the fight at the brothel are uncertain in our new timeline, all dependent on when Ned tells Robert, how Robert reacts, and the responses of other political players such as Littlefinger and Cersei, but this all may affect Robert’s decision when he comes to judge Tyrion, which I will discuss below.

 

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HOW LITTLEFINGER SCREWED UP:

 

When Tyrion arrives in King’s Landing, regardless of the actual date, Ned will be there, thinking he was behind the assassination attempt on Bran. Whether or not he brings this matter to Robert as well as the twincest is a question I will not attempt to answer, as there is a much more important matter at hand.

 

 

Quote

 

Catelyn IV, AGOT

“It’s [the dagger] mine.”

Yours?” It made no sense. Petyr had not been at Winterfell.

“Until the tourney on Prince Joffrey’s name day,” he [Littlefinger] said, crossing the room to wrench the dagger from the wood. “I backed Ser Jaime in the jousting, along with half the court.” Petyr’s sheepish grin made him look half a boy again. “When Loras Tyrell unhorsed him, many of us became a trifle poorer. Ser Jaime lost a hundred golden dragons, the queen lost an emerald pendant, and I lost my knife. Her Grace got the emerald back, but the winner kept the rest.”

Who?” Catelyn demanded, her mouth dry with fear. Her fingers ached with remembered pain.

“The Imp,” said Littlefinger as Lord Varys watched her face. “Tyrion Lannister.”

 

Varys’ presence - and silence, when he knows this to be a lie - are interesting but I am fully aware that the dagger and the plot have been discussed to death on this forum over the years so I will focus on my specific addition to the debate.

Catelyn gets this account (fragmented, due to the clansmen’s attack) from Tyrion several chapters later:

Quote

 

Tyrion IV, AGOT

“The Starks do not murder men in their beds.” [Catelyn said]

“Nor do I,” he [Tyrion] said. “I tell you again, I had no part in the attempt to kill your son.”

“The assassin was armed with your dagger.”

Tyrion felt the heat rise in him. “It was not my dagger,” he insisted. “How many times must I swear to that? Lady Stark, whatever you may believe of me, I am not a stupid man. Only a fool would arm a common footpad with his own blade.”

Just for a moment, he thought he saw a flicker of doubt in her eyes, but what she said was, “Why would Petyr lie to me?”

“Why does a bear shit in the woods?” he demanded. “Because it is his nature. Lying comes as easily as breathing to a man like Littlefinger.

[bickering about Littlefinger and Catelyn’s relationship as children]

Tyrion took a deep breath. “How did Littlefinger tell you I came by this dagger of his? Answer me that.”

“You won it from him in a wager, during the tourney on Prince Joffrey’s name day.”

“When my brother Jaime was unhorsed by the Knight of Flowers, that was his story, no?”

“It was,” she admitted.

[clansmen attack]

“As I was saying before we were so rudely interrupted,” Tyrion began. ‘There is a serious flaw in Littlefinger’s fable. Whatever you may believe of me, Lady Stark, I promise you this - I never bet against my family.”

 

In fact, the winner of the bet was King Robert. The Wiki says evidence for this is in ACOK, access to which I do not have at the time of writing - sorry! :(

 

 

So, in our new timeline, Tyrion arrives in King’s Landing while Ned is still there. Even if Ned does not take the assassination to Robert, he almost certainly would at least discuss it with Tyrion himself at some point. Either way, it eventually is brought to Robert’s attention that Littlefinger lied about the dagger’s ownership, intentionally framing Tyrion, and Varys is potentially implicated.

Now, WHETHER YOU BELIEVE LITTLEFINGER WAS BEHIND THE ASSASSINATION ATTEMPT ITSELF OR NOT (please, please, please can we not restart that argument again!) this is a devastating turn of events for him. Perhaps doubly so, as once the Lannister twins and/or Tywin find out about this, they will be furious and, both houses being victims of the same deception, Stark-Lannister relations may actually improve in the short term! That’s definitely not a good thing for Littlefinger, whose whole game at this point is playing the houses off against each other.

Littlefinger had no way of knowing that Catelyn would encounter Tyrion at the Inn of the Crossroads. I remember a discussion about Marillion being Littlefinger’s agent, which in my opinion is certainly a possibility, but any intervention on the singer’s part cannot have been on direct orders from Littlefinger. Logically, the in-universe assumption is that Tyrion travels uneventfully from Winterfell to King’s Landing - at which point Littlefinger is screwed!

 

 

Thus, Littlefinger screwed up atrociously by lying to Catelyn and Ned about Tyrion owning the dagger because it was only thanks to events out of his control that he was not outed for this heinous action with such serious implications.

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Maybe not such a big screw-up - after all the argy-bargy between Ned and Rob about killing children (ie Dany), what will Robert say when Ned tells him about 'Littlefinger's Knife'?

"No, Ned. Littlefinger's lying - that's really MY knife, I really can't imagine how it got into Bran's sickroom..."

It would still serve  LF by muddying the waters, because Ned will still suspect a Lannister even if he didn't make the leap to suspecting Robert.

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