The Great Northern Conspiracy, Reexamined

[E-Ro]

Well they do have the biggest asshole of the Realm at their doors, freeing their castles and spreading his PR "I saved your ass at the Wall". Go ask him to go back South now...

I don't understand, are you saying stannis is the biggest asshole in the realm?

[Frey Pie]

Everyone knows im a Northman at heart. The restoration of the Starks and their Kingdom is what i hope for. Yet abandoning Stannis after he fights alongside them at their lowest point? The Northern houses are honourable for the most part. This sounds like more of a Southern conspiracy. Perhaps they will pronounce a Stark King and force Stannis into an alliance, proclaiming him King in the South.

Also, we know the Boltons can only count on their own power. Why wait to declare Jon King? So Stannis can bleed him? Is their a need? Roose would have what 4000 men? The other Northmen can get four times that amount

[Quentyn Baratheon]

I don't understand, are you saying stannis is the biggest asshole in the realm?

Yeah pretty much. The iron Asshole is my little nickname for him, especially in ACOK.

[E-Ro]

Yeah pretty much. The iron Asshole is my little nickname for him, especially in ACOK.

You got mad jokes brah.

[Barty]

I really can't see the north just abandoning stannis after he saves them, worst case maybe they just tell him he can stay in the north untill he gets enough support to take the iron throne but all lands north of the neck are stark lands, he won't like it but I really can't see the Northmen killing him.

I think we give Stannis too much credit when we say that he saved the North - As we see the rangers of the Night's watch arrive at the same time as Stannis - who's to say that they alone would not have been enough in scattering the wildlings?? It's actually quite likely that without Stannis they would have just retreated beyond the wall and strengthened Jon's position who would now have 500 seasoned men at Castle Black - more than enough to stop Mance.

Even if the wildlings get through - they would have been defeated in their first battle against Bolton(it's his responsibility now as warden of the North). The North was never in any danger of being overrun by wildlings.

As for the Deepwood Motte - I think everyone knew that Asha had been kicked out of the iron islands and had only a few men - hardly much of a threat.

Now I am not saying that Stannis did not help a great deal and the northmen should not show him any gratitude but I think it's too much to say that Stannis saved the whole North and now the North should follow his every whim(by that I mean follow him into a useless war against the Tyrells).

Plus I don't think the Northmen are going to kill Stannis - they'll just ask him to bend the knee to Jon Stark the King of Winter(in return Jon will help him reclaim his birthright - SE and maybe the Iron throne if Jon himself does not want it) and if he refuses then he would be sent to the wall to become the next LC(where he might or might not become the next Night's King). His knights would get the same deal and I see most of them agreeing to these fair terms.

[Barty]

Everyone knows im a Northman at heart. The restoration of the Starks and their Kingdom is what i hope for. Yet abandoning Stannis after he fights alongside them at their lowest point? The Northern houses are honourable for the most part. This sounds like more of a Southern conspiracy. Perhaps they will pronounce a Stark King and force Stannis into an alliance, proclaiming him King in the South.

Also, we know the Boltons can only count on their own power. Why wait to declare Jon King? So Stannis can bleed him? Is their a need? Roose would have what 4000 men? The other Northmen can get four times that amount

I think we give the Northmen too much credit when we say that they are honorable(by that I think you mean they are like Ned or Robb). Only Ned and Robb have shown any signs of honor or mercy - the other houses have been shown to be merciless and hard men - Look at Rickard Karstark or Roose Bolton or Wyman Manderly all of them commit acts that we know Ned or Robb would never even dream of committing. Even Hellman Tallhart had no problems when he was ordered to kill all his prisoners and burn down Castle Darry.

The North is a hard land and it breeds hard men.

[Runaway Penguin]

The wildlings aren't the problem though. The problem is that if Stannis didn't come, Wildling attempts to get through the Wall would get gradually more and more desperate, Watch numbers would go down and that may result in damaging the Wall and then the Others come...

Plus if Stannis did not come, Jon Snow gets his head chopped off either by Wildlings or by Slynt. No chance of getting the agreement with Wildlings...

[E-Ro]

I think we give Stannis too much credit when we say that he saved the North - As we see the rangers of the Night's watch arrive at the same time as Stannis - who's to say that they alone would not have been enough in scattering the wildlings?? It's actually quite likely that without Stannis they would have just retreated beyond the wall and strengthened Jon's position who would now have 500 seasoned men at Castle Black - more than enough to stop Mance.

Even if the wildlings get through - they would have been defeated in their first battle against Bolton(it's his responsibility now as warden of the North). The North was never in any danger of being overrun by wildlings.

As for the Deepwood Motte - I think everyone knew that Asha had been kicked out of the iron islands and had only a few men - hardly much of a threat.

Even if Bolton stops them after they get passed the wall they would have done a lot of damage, killed men raped women burned many farms to the ground. All this going on would have made it rather difficult for a stark resurgence don't you think? Since instead of worrying about getting back a stark they are worried about defending their lands from wildlings. And letting Bolton stop them gives the Northmen second thoughts about opposing him, if you are a stark loyalist you had better give stannis the credit he is due. As for the watch ending the wildlings, I doubt it. Stannises men won the day there not the watch(who were absent during the fighting before stannis arrived)

[Barty]

Even if Bolton stops them after they get passed the wall they would have done a lot of damage, killed men raped women burned many farms to the ground. All this going on would have made it rather difficult for a stark resurgence don't you think? Since instead of worrying about getting back a stark they are worried about defending their lands from wildlings. And letting Bolton stop them gives the Northmen second thoughts about opposing him, if you are a stark loyalist you had better give stannis the credit he is due. As for the watch ending the wildlings, I doubt it. Stannises men won the day there not the watch(who were absent during the fighting before stannis arrived)

I was referring your post in which you state that Stannis saved the North - This is not true. Stannis saved the northmen from a lot of useless fighting and made it easier for the Starks to come back but the North was never in danger of being overrun. And only a couple of the northern houses might feel grateful to Stannis for stopping the wildlings - Umbers, mountain clans and maybe Karstarks(though they are more in debt to Jon), the rest of the northern houses have never had to fight of a wildling raid and don't think the wildlings were ever a threat - why should the Dustins, Manderlys, Cerwyns, Hornwoods, Tallharts, Ryswells etc die for Stannis especially since Stannis is now known to be burning Weirwoods??

I think most Northmen would ask the same question which Wyman Manderly asked Davos - What does Stannis offer the north?? vengeance?? If Jon Stark is pronounced King then he will be more than capable of taking vengeance on his own.

But in the end if Jon is made King then it is up to him to deal with Stannis and he might feel indebted towards Stannis - seeing as Stannis saved his ass. But will he be willing to bend the knee to Stannis and ignore Robb's last wishes?? Will Jon as King in the North feel that he should send more Northmen south to die even though winter is upon them and the others are coming??

[Ironkiller]

If Mance blew the Horn of Joramun the North was doomed. It was Stannis who saved them.

[Fragon]

Damn I would love to see the Northeners to have a nice suprise buttsex prepared for Boltons and Freys..

I really love Jon and I wish I could see him as the King in the North but this bothers me on some levels :

- In the normal line of succession there's Bran, Rickon, Sansa , Arya and then Jon, and I hope the fact that Robb's will was written under false information may correct things up a bit and bring Rickon as the heir and Jon as regent maybe. (I really can't see Bran returning home :'( ) But Jon becoming the King of Winter would make me feel like he stole his cousins' claims... And I don't really see him do that if he'll learn that they're alive, that wouldn't go well at all with his personality and notion of honour.

- There's also Stannis.. I really love this guy and I really liked Robb too, and each time Stannis called him traitor I had to pretend to ignore it (because in a way it's true that he was a rebel but Robb wasn't quite well informed about Joffrey, Tommen and Myrcella unlike his dad. And there's also the northern lords who basically pushed him into kingship...) But now we have to confront this...

Many people bring up Stannis' burning of weirwoods.. This is one the rare things I don't like about Stannis (i'm okay with him assasinating/burning/executing traitors and stuff), eventhough he doesn't believe in any god, he thinks that if Mel's prophecies are true, then that he has to do these as his duty to protect the realm against the darkness, and he thinks can't risk the whole realm for the sake of a few people by not taking her seriously because he's seen her "powers" blabla...(that stupid bitch...)

I really hope Stannis realises that Mel has not have that much of a power and that 'Old Gods' could prove similar or even more power and kill/send away Mel. This would kind of redeem Stannis' unjustness to the other religions for me (and knowing him, he would try to redeem himself for those too), making him the perfect king for Westeros at the moment due to him having the best claim, and him willing to do the best for the realm and meritocracy and stuff...

But still, the northern lords clearly announced that they didn't wish southerners to rule over them and this is where this will be problematic : Stannis is stubborn, he won't accept letting go half of his kingdom after putting so much effort to try to save it. So I believe he would go kamikazee on northerners if that was to happen but you never know, Stannis surprised me a lot in aCoK and aSoS with some of his decisions, he might accept that North doesn't want to be involved with South anymore... (I doubt that they ever wanted it)

I really can't see him bending the knee to Jon, yes Jon knows the north better than him, that's normal, he is the son of Eddard Stark, what did you expect? If you would send Jon to a campaign in the south he would be completely lost compared to Stannis. So I don't thing Jon would be a better king of Westeros, especially with those opportunist scheming fools are around, he wouldn't be much different that Ned. And also Targs lost their claim, I don't think Lord Paramounts would simply bend knee to him if he said "hey guys, guess what I'm Rheagar's heir".

I hope northerners won't kill Stannis after getting so much help from him because that would ruin 'honourable northern lords' image that we've mostly had there. I could be okay if they send him off to the south and then declared independence without killing him but this would still be treason...

I personally see only two ways out from this without ruining my view of the northern lords or Jon :

- After Stannis learns about Mel's falsehood and Northerners willing to declare independence or Jon being a Targ, he might want to take to black to redeem himself for some of the things he did because of Mel and maybe for his unresolved conflict between supporting Aerys or Robert.

- Jon after being declared king bends the knee to Stannis reminding the northern lords that they had sworn an oath and blabla.. but this seems a bit hard, Jon could have hard time accepting Stannis after seeing how the wildings were treated.

Anyway this is a great thread thanks to those who put efforts in searching for those details in the app. I just hope that some of that stuff aren't typos. The information about Jeyne being a bait from the start for Robb made everything a lot more sad for me and now I'm really longing for revenge. I think I will be happy as long as a lot of Frey and Boltons die, Davos survives and Stark or Baratheon lines don't end :laugh:

[E-Ro]

If the Northmen kill stannis, the very fabric of my being may collapse into itself like so many black holes.

[Quentyn Baratheon]

If Mance blew the Horn of Joramun the North was doomed. It was Stannis who saved them.

Assuming that horn was what Mance said it was.

Mance didn't need anything than sending waves after waves waiting for the brothers to shoot all their arrows. Then, you just run straight to the door.

[Barty]

If Mance blew the Horn of Joramun the North was doomed. It was Stannis who saved them.

He didn't have the horn of Joramun

[Ironkiller]

He didn't have the horn of Joramun

We don't know that for sure. I really think the horn was the real deal. Not that he was willing to use it, tho.

[Ser Mudd]

Very interesting and plausible theory, but there are two problems as I see it (as others may have stated):

Firstly there is the strong possibility that Jon is dead and moved into his wolf, if that doesn't happen then perhaps Mel' will resurrect Jon like Thoros did Beric , or Moqorro did Victorion (well I think so, or something similar). But if Jon is in Ghost, and Jon is resurrected, do we get zombie Jon? Regardless, it's hard to get behind a dead man, un-dead or not.

Secondly is whether or not Jon is Ned's son or not. I know this is a wee bit contentious, but let us imagine Lyanna Stark is Jon's mother. Would Jon still be able to be called King in the North? Obviously everyone thinks he is Ned's, but I am just wondering if a bastard of an aunt can become king.

[gougef]

Sort skimmed the thread, but it gave me a wild thought. Is it possible that Manderly sent THE letter to the wall to get Jon to Winterfell to crown him? Just a wild thought.

[Quentyn Baratheon]

We don't know that for sure. I really think the horn was the real deal. Not that he was willing to use it, tho.

I think it' s like Stannis sword. It's a magical horn but it's not THE horn.

The storm of swords is between two kings with a fallacious it factor.

[Patrek Stark]

I think that Manderly's good mood is caused, in part, from learning off-screen from Glover that Davos has come back with Rickon. Meaning, Rickon is in northern custody. Obviously this won't be confirmed or disproved until the next book, but that's my hypothesis.

Hold the phone. Did I miss something subtle in the books? Or is this just a guess or thought?

[MarianneSnow]

Just wanted to say that this is awesome! Thank you AM!