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Finished ASOS! What was Littlefinger thinking?


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Long time furtive lurker, first time poster. Spoilers ahead if you haven't finished the book.



So, the question that I had when I finished was: what is Littlefinger thinking? No doubt, he wants the Iron Throne, but my question is how precisely does he think that he is going to get it? I have a theory, but first there are a few key facts that led me to this theory.



Fact 1 - He won't be able to trick his way to the Throne. Cersei kind of tricked Joffrey onto the throne (and he was kind of tricked off of it), but without a heriditary claim Littlefinger can't trick his way into anything more than the Hand's position.



Fact 2 - He won't be able to win the Throne by conquest. I know that he seems to be gathering considerable power by the end of ASoS, but the dude is no leader of men. There is no way he is going to be able to convince his bannermen to come to him and take King's Landing. The only men who have been willing to fight for him have done so for gold, and as good as he is with money he doesn't have that kind of scratch. Unless he has a secret stash of dragons or charisma, he is never going to have the military force to take the Throne the way Aegon or Robert did.



Fact 3 - He is brilliantly intelligent, so he knows both of the above facts.



Fact 4 - He still seems to think that he is in the Game.



Now, for my theory: Littlefinger thinks that he has a force that will win him the throne. There are powerful forces that other contenders for the throne are using, from Stannis with R'hllor to Danny with dragons, but so far all Littlefinger has used is his wits, and he knows that his wits alone are not sufficient.



I think that he is allied with the Others.



This brings me to Fact 5 - the chief beneficiary of the chaos that Littlefinger has created in Westeros looks to be the Others. I know that Littlefinger has stayed far from the Wall and could (theoretically) be ingorant or unconvinced of the trouble in the North, but he is not the kind of guy to be unaware of what is happening up there.



Whether he actually has cut a deal with the Others or thinks that he has some way of defeating them after they have done his fighting for him, I don't know. I suspect that it will go poorly for him and for the realm, regardless.



Anyhow, food for thought.



Now, off to a Feast (for Crows)!


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Welcome to the Forums :)



Personally I doubt LF wants the IT for himself. Rather he wants to gain as much power as possible and put some puppet of his on the Throne so he can manipulate everything behind the scenes.


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Thanks for the replies, everyone! I guess that the only way for me to figure out what Littlefinger is up to is to keep reading . . .



Fortunately/unfortunately, the real world and family visits and hours and hours of driving over the last few days have left me only a few chapters into AFfC, but slow and steady will finish the book.


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Awesome, I just finished the book last night myself!

I thought that at least in the short term, he did what he did so he could be in charge of the Vale. No more of the sheep farms in the Fingers.

Dude clearly doesn't want anymore of the sheep and the rocks. The Vale is a lot nicer than his family's holding in the Fingers, to be sure, but Littlefinger certainly doesn't lack in ambition. I am not sure what his plan is, but it involves being in change of more than the Vale and/or Harrenhal. Sounds like my Littlefinger/Others alliance may not be the actual strategy he pursues, but I am confident that he has something nefarious in mind.

That said, I suppose GRRM may give us the twist where Littlefinger turns out to be "good" - whatever that means in these books - but I really hope that he stays a dispicable villain.

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Dude clearly doesn't want anymore of the sheep and the rocks. The Vale is a lot nicer than his family's holding in the Fingers, to be sure, but Littlefinger certainly doesn't lack in ambition. I am not sure what his plan is, but it involves being in change of more than the Vale and/or Harrenhal. Sounds like my Littlefinger/Others alliance may not be the actual strategy he pursues, but I am confident that he has something nefarious in mind.

That said, I suppose GRRM may give us the twist where Littlefinger turns out to be "good" - whatever that means in these books - but I really hope that he stays a dispicable villain.

Littlefinger will never be "good", he did not swing the sword but he killed Ned Stark!

I just finished ASOS tonight and while reading that last chapter I was in disgust. I mean Sansa has been through a lot already, I know she is not particularly liked by some, but I am always intrigued by her situations.(if that makes any sense). When Lysa was doing that to her I was thinking "please push this b!tch out the moon door!", Well I got my wish!

I wanted to go ahead just for this next season to see if I like being ahead of the show, but i'm not sure if I want to stop reading!

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LF shure seems confident. But what would the Others gain from allying with LF and put him in a place of power, would be my question?

My theory is more that the Others are using LF to create chaos to make their invasion easier. LF may think they are allied with him or (more likely) think that he can trick them later.

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the Others would gain from a chaotic Westeros i must agree. But i wonder how "strategic" the Others are, and it seems like a dangerous, risky move by LF, as he is well calculated and got much to lose if he gets a bad deal. The theory is interesting, considering that maybe LF is supporting the Others (Ice) and Varys Daenerys (Fire).


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  • 2 weeks later...

I personally don't think the Others would ally with any human ever. As to the rest, keep reading :cool4:

I don't think so, either. And LF wouldn't ally with the Others because they would make him a wight just like everyone else. Besides, where would he even get a chance to negotiate with them, and how?

Welcome to the Forums :)

Personally I doubt LF wants the IT for himself. Rather he wants to gain as much power as possible and put some puppet of his on the Throne so he can manipulate everything behind the scenes.

Yes, that's most likely. And it happens to be

exactly what Varys is trying to do!

What I'm not sure is, who could that puppet be, under the assumption that the person must have some claim to the Throne - and presumably one that's stronger than that of the Martells, at least?

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