Arryn connections

[The Weirwoods Eyes]

Yes well I am right in regard to what love can be defined as, its really not up to you. and disregarding what anyone else feels is patronising in the extreme.

I am right, unless you want to actually admit you think you do have some sort of superiority in regards to defining human emotions, that the rest of us lack?

But to do that would be to admit you were being unreasonable. Wouldn't it.

And yes I agree with HelenaAndTheMachine, Sometimes it is was it looks like and when it all fits in nicely without any puzzling inconsistencies I am inclined to believe it. It adds up and it is plausible to believe he loved her. There are many things worth questioning in these books, they have little missing bits, puzzles, clues. etc but not every line written is an intrigue.

Also a special mention for Lord Joker of Funland. Brilliant.. just spot on. I can make shit up for speculation but no one else can....

woops your arrogance is showing again...

[Hippocras]

I still cant honestly say it sounds reasonable to distrust anything weare told about LF though. Sometimes a melon is just a melon, I dont see why we cant take his word (especially when what else we know appears to align with that) that he loves, or at least loved Catelyn.

Because it does NOT appear that way to me at all.

He had a long-term flirtation and played kissing games with both sisters, not just Cat, and took more than he was offered with both. Lysa tricked him the first time they had sex, sure, but he was a willing participant subsequently, and this immediately following his supposed heartbreak. He then led Lysa on for years to win favours and advancement. She obviously genuinely believed he cared about her as did Catelyn.

As for the duel, it is extremely obvious that the Tully girls valued his friendship very much, whatever else they felt, and would never have let Brandon kill him. His life was never at risk and the insanity of going through with it gave the appearance of legitimacy to his feelings, absolving him of the accusation of ambition.

His feelings may have been real, or may not have been. We will see. I think it is FAR more consistent with his character to see him as having ALWAYS been extremely ambitious.

[Hippocras]

This thread was set up to speculate on the interesting story possibilities that open if we consider that Sansa may, after Harry, have a claim to the Vale in her own right.

So far, all that has happened is a bunch of uptight turds taking punches at me for daring to speculate on a thread that never pretended to be about anything OTHER than an interesting speculation.

It you want to be an uptight turd, please go away and do not come back to this thread.

If you want to engage in some interesting speculation, please stay and share your ideas.

[The Weirwoods Eyes]

Hey I'm not being rude! I'm pointing out that telling someone that only you can define what love is is arrogant. I'm not the one saying my view on things is absolute and no one else's opinion counts. Standing up and saying that no one gets to dictate to anyone else the validity or invalidity of their emotions is not being rude.

Saying that anyone but your own personal definition of what is a very personal emotion is wrong, is Rude.

[Hippocras]

Shall I repeat your series of posts from the beginning to show you that clearly it WAS you who started this pointless pissing contest?

[Lord Joker Of FunLand]

This thread was set up to speculate on the interesting story possibilities that open if we consider that Sansa may, after Harry, have a claim to the Vale in her own right.

So far, all that has happened is a bunch of uptight turds taking punches at me for daring to speculate on a thread that never pretended to be about anything OTHER than an interesting speculation.

It you want to be an uptight turd, please go away and do not come back to this thread.

If you want to engage in some interesting speculation, please stay and share your ideas.

Need to insult people who don't follow your view, which is PURE speculation to begin with?

If you want a forum where everybody agree's with you, go somewhere else. If you have no proof, expect people to disagree and stop with the petty little insults. lol

Hilarious.

[Leonardo]

As for the duel, it is extremely obvious that the Tully girls valued his friendship very much, whatever else they felt, and would never have let Brandon kill him. His life was never at risk and the insanity of going through with it gave the appearance of legitimacy to his feelings, absolving him of the accusation of ambition.

His feelings may have been real, or may not have been. We will see. I think it is FAR more consistent with his character to see him as having ALWAYS been extremely ambitious.

Then he also has to have a lot of knowledge about Brandon, because Brandon was the one making this decision. He had every right to kill him going by the laws of the seven kingdoms, and was going to as Brandon seems to be a bit of a bro.

Then there is the fact that he nearly could have died from his wounds, which was a cut that went from naval to collarbone. Then Hoster gives him the boot

The real question is what this would have gained? He now has the enmity of one of the most powerful lords in the realm, and has sabotaged any chance he had of Hoster arranging him a suitable marriage above his station or any chance of holding office/lands in the Riverlands. It gained him nothing, nearly got him killed, and estranges him from his only friends.

Of course he was ambitious, but that doesn't mean he also didn't love Cat or thought he did.

Also I already played along with you on the fact that Sansa may have a claim to the Vale some ways back, and we both agreed it was highly unlikely she was within 3rd place of it, and more likely if she did had a claim it comes from a ways back.

[The Weirwoods Eyes]

And now you have resorted to actual name calling. Look if I was a horrible person I'd just report you for that. I shan't though I'll offer yet more advice about how the forum works. Remove it before someone does report you. Thats another heads up as to what people are cool with and not cool with around here.

[Hippocras]

he gained the appearance of sincerity, which helped him later as he continued to use his connection to Lysa for career gain.

[Leonardo]

he gained the appearance of sincerity, which helped him later as he continued to use his connection to Lysa for career gain.

But he was already seemingly sincere, due to his friendship with Edmure and the girls. Cat did love him, she just thought of him as a brother and it was platonic love, which can be just as powerful if not more powerful at times.

Don't get me wrong, I like the idea that LF has been plotting since the womb to take over the world, but it also removes his only real motivation to do so to have him always have been planning it. I think it far more likely he felt a bit entitled because he got to grow up with the next crop of lord and ladies paramount.

[The Weirwoods Eyes]

I think one of the main arguments against this is Brandons personality. He was not guaranteed to listen to the pleas to let him live which in your view LF was banking on her expressing.

Now obviously for the purposes of the story LF lives. But given Brandons personality I really would not bet my life on him acquiescing to Cat's pleas.

GRRM needs to construct a believable back story for LF's interest in Catlyn and there fore Sansa. He decides LF was fostered at Riverrun and fell in love with Cat, it was unrequited love (yes a genuine form of love even if it does not fit your own personal definition of love.) and he grew hugely bitter when he realised that his lowly status would mean he could never hope to wed her.

But being a bit pissed off about that isn't quite enough for LF to be the embittered ambitious callus man he grows into so we add in a rape by Lysa. a grevious injury, social humiliation and years of resentment.

If GRRM wanted to set LF up as just having been a lying schemer all his life with no motivation beyond he's ambitious why have him fostered at Riverrun. He could just be introduced as the master of Coin in KL who rose to that position through his sheer ambition. The whole LF loves Cat back story is there to set up why he is what he is. If there is no explanation and he's just a nasty social climbing amoral liar then he's not as rounded or as fleshed out and believable, no one can empathise with why he is doing this and so he would come across as a empty caricature of the generic bad man.

[Hippocras]

Well let's say Brandon did kill Petyr to "win" Catelyn, his betrothed.

We know that Catelyn did have strong, if platonic feelings for Petyr. How do you think the marriage would go if it started out by Brandon killing him for no good reason?

Winning the duel did not require killing him, and doing so would have cause years of misery in a hateful marriage. So I think it was actually a pretty safe bet.

Of course Brandon had the legal RIGHT to kill him, but then he would have been married to a woman who would never forgive him afterwards.

[Hippocras]

But he was already seemingly sincere, due to his friendship with Edmure and the girls. Cat did love him, she just thought of him as a brother and it was platonic love, which can be just as powerful if not more powerful at times.

Don't get me wrong, I like the idea that LF has been plotting since the womb to take over the world, but it also removes his only real motivation to do so to have him always have been planning it. I think it far more likely he felt a bit entitled because he got to grow up with the next crop of lord and ladies paramount.

The entitlement angle is good, yes. But that would place the beginnings of his path of ruthless ambition far before his flirtation with Catelyn and Lysa also - around puberty.

[Universal Sword Donor]

I think one of the main arguments against this is Brandons personality. He was not guaranteed to listen to the pleas to let him live which in your view LF was banking on her expressing.

Now obviously for the purposes of the story LF lives. But given Brandons personality I really would not bet my life on him acquiescing to Cat's pleas.

GRRM needs to construct a believable back story for LF's interest in Catlyn and there fore Sansa. He decides LF was fostered at Riverrun and fell in love with Cat, it was unrequited love (yes a genuine form of love even if it does not fit your own personal definition of love.) and he grew hugely bitter when he realised that his lowly status would mean he could never hope to wed her.

But being a bit pissed off about that isn't quite enough for LF to be the embittered ambitious callus man he grows into so we add in a rape by Lysa. a grevious injury, social humiliation and years of resentment.

If GRRM wanted to set LF up as just having been a lying schemer all his life with no motivation beyond he's ambitious why have him fostered at Riverrun. He could just be introduced as the master of Coin in KL who rose to that position through his sheer ambition. The whole LF loves Cat back story is there to set up why he is what he is. If there is no explanation and he's just a nasty social climbing amoral liar then he's not as rounded or as fleshed out and believable, no one can empathise with why he is doing this and so he would come across as a empty caricature of the generic bad man.

I mean he asked Petyr to yield several times on top of promising to spare him.

[Leonardo]

Well let's say Brandon did kill Petyr to "win" Catelyn, his betrothed.

We know that Catelyn did have strong, if platonic feelings for Petyr. How do you think the marriage would go if it started out by Brandon killing him for no good reason?

Winning the duel did not require killing him, and doing so would have cause years of misery in a hateful marriage. So I think it was actually a pretty safe bet.

Of course Brandon had the legal RIGHT to kill him, but then he would have been married to a woman who would never forgive him afterwards.

Eh I dunno, I think Cat would forgive him lol

She was young when all that happened, and she ended up forgiving Ned for Jon, or at least taking it out on someone else.

[David Selig]

Well let's say Brandon did kill Petyr to "win" Catelyn, his betrothed.

We know that Catelyn did have strong, if platonic feelings for Petyr. How do you think the marriage would go if it started out by Brandon killing him for no good reason?

Winning the duel did not require killing him, and doing so would have cause years of misery in a hateful marriage. So I think it was actually a pretty safe bet.

No good reason? Doesn't self-defence count as an excellent one? I am pretty sure Cat would've understood. Not Brandon's fault LF was acting like a complete idiot at the time.

Even when the difference in class is huge, it's a big risk for anyone to just try to injure his opponent in a duel without killing him. Especially when he's as unwilling to give up as LF was. If Brandon's blade had went a few inches differently, LF would've died even though Brandon tried his best to spare him.

Anyway, really don't see how angering all of his most powerful allies at the time - Hoster, Cat, Edmure and Lysa, by challenging Brandon, was a good idea for LF.

[Hippocras]

Pretty sure self defense was not an issue at all. LF was hopelessly over-matched in size, age, strength and skill. For Brandon that duel was like swatting at flies.

That is why everyone was begging LF not to fight. Which in turn was why he knew they would not kill him, because they did not take him seriously. Which, if this was about an alibi for ambition, would have been exactly what he wanted.

LF never hid from the story of the duel as someone who had been genuinely shamed might do. Instead he helped spread the story himself. So you have to ask why he would do that. And I think it is very clear how useful the duel was for making everyone in the realm see him as harmless and non-threatening, where WITHOUT the duel they would have shunned him as an upstart.

LF's supposed love for Catelyn is the single only thing that currently separates his character from that of a classic sociopath. However sociopaths don't BECOME sociopaths. They are born with different brains. So if he is a sociopath now, then he was always so. His more recent schemes certainly indicate he is clever enough to have also pulled off a simulation of love sickness to give himself a cover story for all future ambitious moves.

[Hippocras]

On high functioning sociopaths:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffbercovici/2011/06/14/why-some-psychopaths-make-great-ceos/2/

[Universal Sword Donor]

On love

http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2012/01/12/john-steinbeck-on-love-1958/

[HexMachina]

On high functioning sociopaths:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffbercovici/2011/06/14/why-some-psychopaths-make-great-ceos/2/

I'll only quote this since the other post is a lot.longer. Its very presumptuous to say people are BORN sociopaths. Psychologists constantly debate the influences of Nature (i.e. biological factors such as genetics, brain structure, hormones etc) and Nurture (environmental influences such as upbringing, life experiences etc). So it is still poissible (and IMO likely) that LF did.love Catelyn, and his sociopathic ways developed as a result of what happened because of that.

Regarding the duel: maybe I am.misremembering, but doesnt LF become.uncomfortable when Ned mentions the duel? I might ne wrong on that count though. AndbI'm unsure what you mean by saying LF helped spread knowledge of the duel. What gave you that impression? Finally, what do you make of his saying "Only Cat" as Lysa died? Surely if he hadnt loved Catelyn, there was no need to say that?