About the person who sent the hired hand to kill Bran

[TheNiggardlyBastard]

Do we ever find out who was stupid enough to send a guy with Littlefingers knife to kill Bran? I assume either Jaime or Cersei sent the guy. But I didn't think they would be that careless.

[Bahlrokhin]

I'm not sure if we ever find out with solid proof, but pretty much yes, we find out.

[Bahlrokhin]

Be patient.

[Russellstiltskin]

Very patient. Well worth the pay-off, though. Keep Reading, It Only Gets Better

[MegaTechPC]

Not for a long time but yes.

[The Bastard Son]

When i found out i was like That stupid bastard!!xD

[Ser Cold Fingers]

Yes, we do find out, although the reasoning behind it is just strongly implied, never written...IIRC.

[John Suburbs]

I'm not convinced we know the whole truth, though. I think there is more to be revealed.

[SnowHeart]

We do get an answer, a couple if different people come to the same conclusion, but people are still arguing about whether that's really the truth - I guess we will never agree on anything as a board

[Wavey Sauce]

Yea I wish the show would have implied it the way the book did at a certain wedding ceremony

[ftheking]

You guys mean Tyrion's and Jamie's ridiculous theory from book 3 as the answer? Because that makes no sense. There is zero motive. It's actually straining credibility that a character as smart as Tyrion could come to this conclusion, but he was emotional and all.

My answer: It was obviously Littlefinger himself, duh. Not a spoiler, a theory, but who on earth else?

[-TheBastard]

I for one hope we get a nice in-depth explanation for this scene.

[Annara Snow]

You guys mean Tyrion's and Jamie's ridiculous theory from book 3 as the answer? Because that makes no sense. There is zero motive. It's actually straining credibility that a character as smart as Tyrion could come to this conclusion, but he was emotional and all.

My answer: It was obviously Littlefinger himself, duh. Not a spoiler, a theory, but who on earth else?

How would Littlefinger do that? He was a thousand miles away when Bran fell. He's not psychic, he couldn't have predicted that.

Jaime and Tyrion realized what the motive was. You just wanted it to be a different motive. So what if the motive was stupid? So was the method (who arms a catspaw with their super expensive rare blade?). It makes sense when the perpetrator is stupid.

Not everything is a grand conspiracy.

[ftheking]

How would Littlefinger do that? He was a thousand miles away when Bran fell. He's not psychic, he couldn't have predicted that.

Jaime and Tyrion realized what the motive was. You just wanted it to be a different motive. So what if the motive was stupid? So was the method (who arms a catspaw with their super expensive rare blade?). It makes sense when the perpetrator is stupid.

Not everything is a grand conspiracy.

I don't want it to be anything. I suspected Jamie and/or Cersei, because duh, but I guess that spoiler cat is out of the bag, it wasn't them.

No one else really has a reason to shut Bran up, so it can't be the originally suspected motive.

Tyrion and Jaime determine completely different mutually exclusive motives. While Tyrion thinks the attempted killer had a personal fight with Bran that left him incredibly angry, Jamie thinks he was inspired by another character saying a mercy killing would be more humane, as you do with horses or dogs. Jaime's theory especially makes no sense whatsoever for the suspect, Tyrion's is wrong as well.

It could be a total coincedence that Jaime pushed Bran before for all I know. Maybe LF just wanted to take out one of Catelyn's sons and blame the Lannisters regardless and the assassin used the situation as it was. Maybe it was a spontanious plan and he was in contact with a spy he had sent with the royal party. I don't know.

Usually if a character gets murdered and we don't know who did it, it's a conspiracy, and usually LF is behind it. Especially when Lannisters get suspected. As you know, if you read at least 3 books, being thousand miles away when he takes people out is very much LF's thing. Also remeber that when Cat showed him the dagger he immideately told her that it's Tyrion's. Cui bono? Who profits from the crime? Always LF. It was exactly nothing to Joff.

[SevasTra82]

I was under the impression that....

Joffrey stole a knife from his fathers war vault and hired the assassin, in an effort to win his fathers affection. He remembered Robert saying that cripples have no right to live (or something like that).

I don't know if there is anything else that needs to be said about the scene. It seems pretty straight forward on who did it and why. I don't think there is any underlining "grand conspiracy" behind it.

[Kikajon]

I am under the impression that

Jofrrey never cared a fig about winning his father affection. He never craved for anyone affection. He spitted on his mother affection and believed everything was owed to him and never cared for anyone but himself.

Moreover it would have been exceedingly stupid even for him to rob a Valyrian steel knife to give it to killer. The most probable outcome would have been the assassin running away with that precious knife and the money.

I believe this board will never agree on this point and that GRRM probably changed his mind on this plot turn and now he doesn't want to be bored with it again.

[ftheking]

I'm with you Kikajon until you said GRRM probably changed his mind. Why on earth would he change his mind on something so easy? I'm sure it will be revealed in the last book. First book mysteries revealed in the last - that's a completely normal way of telling a story. Unless the last book will never be written, okay.

Robert saying that cripples have no right to live (or something like that).

He said a mercy killing would be more humane. VERY different statement. You're misremembering so the fake explanation can make any sort of sense. It still doesn't.

[Modesty Lannister]

There may be another motive for this attempt and that is to get rid of a magically powerful human being. Valyrian dagger also has magical properties. If only death was the aim, the dagger could have been remarkable and memorable and rich with ornaments, but this was Valyrian steel. And maester Luwin did his utmost to unroot Bran's interest in all things magical at every turn. It is just too easy to think Cersei or Joff were behind it. LF had no real motive to kill Bran. He achieved his goal with Lysa's letter. A Faceless man is in the Citadel now. He is after a book. And in Winterfell, the library was burned. So, something is going on there. Someone wants a book, a specific book. Many people think that arson in WF library was a decoy for the attempt on Bran's life. But, it may have been the other way around.

[ftheking]

Your arguments are good, Modesty, except "LF had no real motive to kill Bran".

Spoiler

He said he prefers not to have a real motive.

From the actual short term effects: Cat only went to King's Landing, because of that attack. She arrested and almost killed Tyrion, only because of this attack (LF really wants Tyrion dead), which led to Jamie attacking Ned and almost to the latte'rs death (because of his leg). It's not as if it didn't matter in general and for LF. It created all kind of chaos and could have been expected to.

[Modesty Lannister]

Your arguments are good, Modesty, except "LF had no real motive to kill Bran".

Spoiler

He said he prefers not to have a real motive.

From the actual short term effects: Cat only went to King's Landing, because of that attack. She arrested and almost killed Tyrion, only because of this attack (LF really wants Tyrion dead), which led to Jamie attacking Ned and almost to the latte'rs death (because of his leg). It's not as if it didn't matter in general and for LF. It created all kind of chaos and could have been expected to.

The causal link you described was achieved with Bran not even been touched by the assassin. Had Bran actually been killed, Catelyn would have most probably stayed in WF to bury him and Ned would have joined her for the funeral. So, Bran's death would have had the opposite effect from the one you described. LF had no way of knowing how Catelyn would react to Bran's assassination. Yes, he knew her when they were children, but people change. He did what he wanted to do (plant the seed of discord) by sending Lysa's letter. Catelyn's reaction to attack on Bran played into LF's hands, but no one could have predicted that reaction. And, although I know some people would throw stones at me now, LF did love Catelyn and it is a stretch to imagine that he would order one of her children to be murdered. It goes against the psychology of the character.

I'd remind you that great majority of the readers took it for granted that Lannisters killed Jon Arryn until it was explicitly spelled out by Lysa what really happened. However, clues that Lysa and LF murdered Jon Arryn were there long before. Yet, everyone overlooked them, because the character whose POV should have shed some light in that direction - Catelyn, overlooked it.

Going back to Bran, we learn about what happened from Catelyn's POV yet again. So, it is definitely a GRRM attempt to hide what was really going on from us. And what was going on is that the library went up in flames at the time of attack on Bran. The man who attacked him was unknown to WF, looked like a beggar or a sellsword and had that dagger on him. He was killed by Summer, Catelyn was injured and the focus of the whole household was on them while the library burned and burned. One of the oldest libraries in Westeros.

Much later we see Roose Bolton burning a book in Harrenhal. In Oldtown, a FM is after a book. Maester Aemon takes selected books with him to Oldtown. Tyrion gives a rare book to Joff as his wedding present. We get a glimpse of the Kingsguard book. Books, books, books … And there are not many libraries in Westeros. One of the most important was destroyed. If Mance Rayder easily infiltrated Robert's host and entered WF from the south with the king, who else might have done it? A lot of people, a FM included.

ETA: And oddly enough we never hear maester Luwin complain about the loss of books. Now that is really odd. He is supposed to teach Stark children all sorts of things. I'd guess that being proud about possessing one of the greatest libraries in the land would be one of the things a teacher would have insisted upon. Yet, no lament, no mention, nothing. It was not a stable that was burned. It was a library. How many castles had libraries of that size? Not many, I'd guess judging by GRRM's descriptions. And, apart from books, there are many documents in the library as well. The whole history of the North is in the Stark chronicles we learn from TWOIAF. We also learn that there was a pact between Starks and Targaryens called the Pact of Ice and Fire. That is also highly interesting. So, no one in WF gives a rat's arse that the whole history of the north went up in flames. Strange and stranger. So, there is definitely something there.