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Fill in the Gaping Plot Hole


Riptide

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Have you ever been pissed that the Iron Islands appears to have 40,000 fighting men?

Concerned that horses in Westeros can be sequential hermaphrodites?

Worry no more! With this thread, you can find the ultra-contrived explanations for minor mistakes made by GRRM. I'll put the first one:

Q: How on earth did the wildlings fire arrows 200 meters into the air at the Battle of Castle Black?

A: Simple; there was a strong updraft at the time!

Edit: The way this thread was supposed to work was that people who posted here would in the same post place a plot hole and the solution.It's okay to ask questions about plot holes too though.

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I've always been kind of bothered about how Littlefinger's "puppets" always act exactly like he expects them to. This when the whole theme of his existence is that you can never trust anyone.

Examples here are the Kettleblacks, Dontos, everyone involved in the Joffrey poisoning scheme, Lyn Corbray and the various other people he has bribed and manipulated to serve his plots.

The reality is that he operates in such a high risk game, against players with a degree of absolute power that he lacks due to him not being the Lord of a Great House, that all it would take is for one of these puppets to turn cloak on him for any one of the Lannisters, Tyrells, Royces or whoever else he has schemed with or against to just decide to end him.

And they could do it without any consequences whatsoever. A Great Lord could walk up to Littlefinger in front of the entire royal court and slit his throat and likely face no consequences whatsoever.

This is one area where I felt that the show demonstrated more realism than the books. That scene where Cersei has Littlefinger grabbed by her guards in broad daylight and have them at the point of cutting his throat at a whim. That demonstrated the massive gulf in power between the Great Nobles and a schemer like Littlefinger.

And considering that he has hundreds of threads in his plots, with scores of puppets that could at any time decide to ditch him for a more powerful benefactor, or get caught out due to being a drunkard (Dontos), or a self serving asshole (the Kettleblacks).

All it takes is a whispered word from one of them, and Littlefinger is toast.

So in short, I find Littlefinger unrealistic, and his skill and intelligence is vastly inflated by Martin's liberal doses of "schemer's plot armor".

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Have you ever been pissed that the Iron Islands appears to have 40,000 fighting men?

Concerned that horses in Westeros can be sequential hermaphrodites?

Worry no more! With this thread, you can find the ultra-contrived explanations for minor mistakes made by GRRM. I'll put the first one:

Q: How on earth did the wildlings fire arrows 200 meters into the air at the Battle of Castle Black?

A: Simple; there was a strong updraft at the time!

Scarcely any of the arrows reach the top of the Wall, and those that do lack all force.

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There's something missing in the whole Tyrion/Littlefinger plotline.

I haven't read all the books for a while now, but I'm convinced that Tyrion figures out that Littlefinger is the one that lied to Catelyn about the dagger, thus framing Tyrion. And I'm pretty sure that he figures this out fairly early on, likely during his conversations with Catelyn in the Vale.

Yet he seems to forget all about this little bit of crucial information once he gets to King's Landing.

Question: What would happen to Tyrion - the son of a Great Lord - if he walked up to Littlefinger - a low birth Treasurer - and just stabbed him in the chest?

I reckon pretty much nothing. Maybe a scolding from his father. That's it.

And yet, Tyrion does NOTHING with the knowledge that Littlefinger tried to have him falsely imprisoned and potentially killed?

It always struck me as a fact conveniently ignored because the plot needed it to go away.

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I've come up with this before, but it's such an egregious one that I'm surprised Martin never noticed it. The Hound loses an ear in the bar-brawl after having lost an ear, according to Tyrion, in the battle for King's Landing. But he already had his ear burned off on the right hand side by Gregor. Was he born with three ears? The only explanation for this is that he has long hair, so Tyrion notices the stump has been cut off on the right hand side (suspending disbelief for a moment that Tyrion was unaware due to this his ear on that side was already mangled) and thinks the ear has been newly severed. Then he loses the ear on the left hand side in the fight before he's left by Arya. If this is the case, as I've described, it was not deliberate. It was a baffling mistake by Martin, but my interpretation somewise lets him off the hook.

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Q: How does Tyrion not catch greyscale?

A; He's a Targaryen, obviously and is therefore immune to disease, fire and common sense. :leaving:

Secret Targaryen. It is the secrecy of his Targaryen-ness that makes him immune.

Him being a secret Targayen is also why he is still alive eventhough he has been in 3 battles and a million other life threatening situations.

The gymnastic prowess he displays at Winterfell however is not because of him being a secret Targaryen. The reason is still unknown.

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I was bothered about how only cca 30 of Dagmer's men manage to create such panic that Tallharts had to call upon Ser Rodrik to defeat them. Once Rodrik beat them and returned to WF, these less-than-30 men managed to capture Torrhen's Square.

And yet, Tyrion does NOTHING with the knowledge that Littlefinger tried to have him falsely imprisoned and potentially killed?

In one of his ACOK chapters. Tyrion is bitter about LF's deceptions and muses what would it take to have him killed or removed. He believes that although LF is "only" a master of coins and of relatively humble birth, he doesn't (yet) want to openly go on against LF.

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Snip

In one of his ACOK chapters. Tyrion is bitter about LF's deceptions and muses what would it take to have him killed or removed. He believes that although LF is "only" a master of coins and of relatively humble birth, he doesn't (yet) want to openly go on against LF.

Which is anothet inconsistency. Tyrion isn't scared to put King Joffrey in place and kills Tywin but is scared to act against LF?

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Secret Targaryen. It is the secrecy of his Targaryen-ness that makes him immune.

Him being a secret Targayen is also why he is still alive eventhough he has been in 3 battles and a million other life threatening situations.

The gymnastic prowess he displays at Winterfell however is not because of him being a secret Targaryen. The reason is still unknown.

Someone explained in one of the other threads that secret Targs were also gravity proof.

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Q: how does a half starved illiterate mute (Wex Pyke) walk into White Harbor and not only gets audience with Wyman Manderly but explains and convinces him that he's Theon's squire and knows the truth about what happened in Winterfell?

A: because people are generally loving and trusting of the iron born especially sea folk

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Which is anothet inconsistency. Tyrion isn't scared to put King Joffrey in place and kills Tywin but is scared to act against LF?

Tyrion has his own Jaqen H'gar. He just has to whisper a Little Man's name in the ear of Ser Bronn of the Blackwater - who would kill even a child if the price was right - and the next time Petyr Baelish walks home from one of his brothels a hooded figure will move like a panther out of a dark side alley and gut him like a fish before disappearing into the night again.

Littlefinger dead, and zero consequences to Tyrion. It is easily done.

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Which is anothet inconsistency. Tyrion isn't scared to put King Joffrey in place and kills Tywin but is scared to act against LF?

Joffrey is his nephew as well as an evil brat. He kills Tywin in a fit of rage. He's not scared to act against Littlefinger, he just knows better than to act against him, since it would hardly help him (to his knowledge, at least, we readers know better though) and would probably cause him more harm than good.

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Joffrey is his nephew as well as an evil brat. He kills Tywin in a fit of rage. He's not scared to act against Littlefinger, he just knows better than to act against him, since it would hardly help him (to his knowledge, at least, we readers know better though) and would probably cause him more harm than good.

Bronn slicing Littlefingers throat in a dark alley hurts Tyrion how exactly?

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There's something missing in the whole Tyrion/Littlefinger plotline.

I haven't read all the books for a while now, but I'm convinced that Tyrion figures out that Littlefinger is the one that lied to Catelyn about the dagger, thus framing Tyrion. And I'm pretty sure that he figures this out fairly early on, likely during his conversations with Catelyn in the Vale.

Yea, he does. He also knows when Tywin mentions executing advisors who play the lannisters false. Tyrion doesn't say anything about LF.

Yet he seems to forget all about this little bit of crucial information once he gets to King's Landing.

He thinks LF is untouchable owing to his financial skills, despite Tywin apparently being ok with him being put to death. In SoS, despite resenting LF, and coming to suspect he was behind Ned's death, Tyrion does not spill the dirt on him.

Question: What would happen to Tyrion - the son of a Great Lord - if he walked up to Littlefinger - a low birth Treasurer - and just stabbed him in the chest?

People would probably start considering Tyrion a nutcase, but yea, nothing in the short-medium term.

I reckon pretty much nothing. Maybe a scolding from his father. That's it.

Tywin was ok with Tyrion executing councilors.

And yet, Tyrion does NOTHING with the knowledge that Littlefinger tried to have him falsely imprisoned and potentially killed?

Even when varys suggests he was behind Ned's death (the blunder Tyrion was sent to KL to prevent reoccurring) and when Tyrion is angry he didn't get enough credit for Blackwater, and lF was getting credit and got a new job and position lined up. LF came up loads of times, like when Tywin said he was getting HH. Tyrion never said anything. When he did protest he picked a weak argument, about LF being venal, when he could have shopped him in for the dagger/Ned business.

It always struck me as a fact conveniently ignored because the plot needed it to go away.

I agree. I have never seen satisfactory explanations for this. The dagger lie should have ruined him. He is found out setting two of the most powerful houses in the realm against each other and he saunters away with no repercussions. I think the whole dagger plot is just a bit weak though, so this kind of feeds into that.

edit: also SoS made it clear they could do without LF's financial skills anyway. Also, the army in the riverlands was living off forage, and wasn't been paid by loans LF arranged, afaik, so I don't get why Tyrion ever thought his financial skills were indispensable.

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