Jon Snow ReRead Project! Part 6! (DwD--Pink Letter!)

[bemused]

Little and Less ...

Sure, Ramsay is a valid candidate.. none of us will be able to know for certain until the big reveal , and a lot of us are bound to discover we've figured it wrong.

But I have a few problems with some of your reasons, specifically-

1. Both Mance and Stannis have seen Theon, know (pretty well) what's been done to him , if not all the details. Everyone knows Ramsay is sadistic , and they know that Theon is the one being used to vouch for the bride's identity. They also know that Ramsay calls him Reek.

2. .. maybe.. but we have seen him use the word in a very common way..“Just see to Blood. I rode the bastard hard.” .. while the person who has used the word in the same way it's used in the letter,on many occasions, is Alliser Thorne.

3. Roose could not have directed Ramsay in the snatching of Lady Hornwood. She might not have gone to the Harvest gathering ( people would have understood ,as they did for Lady Glover and Lady Flint). ...He could not have directed him to switch clothes with Reek1 , or how to get the better of Theon, and escape..it's iffy as to whether Ramsay could have had time to communicate both ways with Roose ( I'm free ,tell me what to do next) before attacking Rodrik Cassel using deception ( but, maybe). I'm sure Roose ordered him to take Moat Caillin, but the plan using Theon, could easily have been Ramsay's.. only he would know Theon was broken enough to be trusted to co-operate.

It wasn't stupid to hunt for Bran and Rickon. He more or less had to , in case someone turned up with them later ( which worries Roose and in fact, is happening with Rickon).

Yes, Jon would always have been in both of their sights.

ETA: I'm not sure Roose doesn't think Ramsay would be a good heir.. ( that is , if there's not any magical attempt at extending his own life going on ;) ) I think Ramsay has grown into exactly what Roose intended.

From Roose's wedding speech..

“In her children our two ancient houses will become as one,” he said, “and the long enmity between Stark and Bolton will be ended.”

I think the bolded section is what he's truly been working toward all through the books .. but by killing off the Starks, not marrying them.

[Little and Less]

Hi Bemused

Yes but using the phrase "I want my Reek" would only be used by Ramsay (or maybe Roose), because Reek to Ramsay is his special toy. And he has lost his special toy that he's manipulated into vouching for fArya. This letter smacks of desparation.

Why would Mance or Stannis or Mel or any variation of letter writers use the phrase "I want my Reek" to Jon? Jon would have no clue what that would mean. If the idea was to emotionally stir up Jon to action, wouldn't Mance or Stannis use a phase like...."and give me back the turncoat" or "Stark slayer" or some other variation? Make sure Jon knew it was Theon that they were talking about - wouldn't that have more emotional impact?

Plus why "my bride"? Wouldn't Stannis or Mel or NW used "your sister" if they wrote the letter (since they don't know what she looks like)? Whoever wrote the letter obviously knows that Jon will recognize "his sister" is a fraud; if Ramsay is the letterwriter than he knows that the jig is up - he effectively can't use fArya or Theon's testimony in this marriage plan anymore (but he still wants his playthings back). It's now Plan B time for the Boltons - get Jon to act by threatening him and the NW directly.

I'm not so sure on argument 3 - yes some of Ramsay's acts seem intelligent at first, but maybe more from past events (like meeting the original Reek) then really great planning skills on Ramsay's end. And remember Roose made sure that his men were always with Ramsay during most of the events you mentioned, although they let Ramsay do what he wanted when it came to torturing people. We don't know if they were the ones giving Ramsay ideas (via Roose's orginal orders).

If you think about it, Ramsay's acts all benefited Roose

1. Hornwood's lands were largely contested by the Boltons (among others); my guess is that this was a long game plan of Roose's to acquire the land when he could (via marriage or some other way); sort of like taking the Starks land and status when the opportunity arose. What Ramsay did to Lady Hornwood was no consequence to Roose; but it did piss off a lot of Northmen, which was not smart.

2. Winterfell was always Roose's target - if Ramsay killed off servents, ahh, less Stark loyalists to deal with. Again, you piss off A LOT of Northmen.

3. Theon was an easier target to manipulate given all the guilt he felt for all the things he did to the Starks and being rejected by his own father. Rams caught him at a low point. I didn't say Rams wasn't a good manipulator, so are most sociopaths and psycopaths.

[Little and Less]

I actually like the idea of Allister Thorne being behind the assination attempt and maybe writing BASTARD on the front of the PL, but I don't think the PL was altered that much.

And I totally agree that the letter was read by the NW before Jon opened it.

[Little and Less]

I truly believe that Roose probably thought he could "reign in" Rams, by making him an heir and legitimate.

But even Roose could sense closer to the end of ADWD that the Northmen would revolt. I believe its noted that Roose was growing paler and even Theon, could sense fear in Roose. Rams so called "marriage" to fAyra was not having a settling effect on the Northmen, and Rams continues to act as a psycopath. I think the PL is a reflection of this charged atmosphere at Winterfell.

I remember watching a GRRM interview where he mentioned the whole LOTR Aryagon and Leadership issue - just because you are the hero/great battle leader doesn't mean you are an excellent ruler (think King Bob). There are many posts on this topic already.

I think that's where we leave Roose's camp at the end of ADWD; Roose thought that he and Rams would be accepted (at least grudgingly) as the Wardens of the North simply through their cunning, backstabbing, and torturing. I mean the Old Kings of Winter were a brutal bunch. But they are finding out that its going to take more than this.

[Tzalaran]

Why would Mance or Stannis or Mel or any variation of letter writers use the phrase "I want my Reek" to Jon? Jon would have no clue what that would mean. If the idea was to emotionally stir up Jon to action, wouldn't Mance or Stannis use a phase like...."and give me back the turncoat" or "Stark slayer" or some other variation? Make sure Jon knew it was Theon that they were talking about - wouldn't that have more emotional impact?

Plus why "my bride"? Wouldn't Stannis or Mel or NW used "your sister" if they wrote the letter (since they don't know what she looks like)? Whoever wrote the letter obviously knows that Jon will recognize "his sister" is a fraud; if Ramsay is the letterwriter than he knows that the jig is up - he effectively can't use fArya or Theon's testimony in this marriage plan anymore (but he still wants his playthings back). It's now Plan B time for the Boltons - get Jon to act by threatening him and the NW directly.

i'll take a stab at this... check the Theon preview chapter from WoW. Theon uses these exact phrases when saying something along the lines of, "Ramsey is coming, he wants his bride back, he wants his Reek." to Stannis after the Nestoris delivers Theon to Stannis as a gift.

This is generally used as evidence for why Stannis would write that if forging the PL as Ramsey, and Mance would certainly be in a position to see the same. Both Stannis and Mance are fairly crafty and more clever than given credit for, and i think they would use phrases like this to try and convince not only Jon, but anyone who might happen to get this letter, that it comes from Ramsey.

At this point, there are more valid candidates for the author than i can stomach (Stannis, Mance, Roose, Ramsey, Thorne, Mel, Asha had a thread that was fairly convincing or plausible at the very least...). i give up in trying to deduce the correct answer and just hope that a conclusion comes more quickly than the break between feast and dance...

[Maia]

Wanted to answer this for some time, but better late, than never!

What do their numbers have to do with whether they'd be on board with actually going on the mission?

Number of rangers is pertinent, because if there are as few of them left at Castle Black as I think - i.e. a score or so, then they can't be sufficient for expedition to Hardhome, even if they are on-board with it, which is not known. Not only that, but Jon would risk losing the last NW rangers and become wholly reliant on wildlings for scouting beyond the Wall. Which is somewhat problematic, IMHO.

And yes, we have no indication what the rangers thought about the revised Hardhome mission by and large.

We don't know what they thought about the overland mission to Hardhome as it was originally envisioned either, because Jon didn't bother to consult them. Even though they would have had better advice to offer than Marsh and Yarwick who had no experience of ranging beyond the Wall or of the terrain the mission needed to cross. A big hole in Jon's planning, that.

Earlier in the day, Jon had Leathers call the Shieldhall meeting in the first place to discuss it with them.

Not really sure that such a mass meeting is really conducive to in-depth planning. Prior to receiving the Pink Letter Jon intended to consult Tormund in private, before the Shieldhall meeting. Why didn't he bother to do the same with his own rangers? At least one or 2 best among the remaining ones. But no, because he wasn't getting good advice from Marsh and Yarwick - though the latter's idea to send wildlings to Hardhome had merit, Jon decided not to consult any more NW members at all and wholly rely on Tormund's council. As a result, Jon couldn't really know whether the idea to send NW under Tormund's command, while he himself went south was really feasible - personally, I tend to think that it wasn't.

Pyke didn't state that he was coming back in that letter either.

But neither did he say that he intended to abandon ships, or that he and his men needed rescue. They were still all afloat and once the storms finally stopped, the ships were the best bet for the expedition to get back home. After all, there were dead things in the water, yes, but also (and more of them) in the woods.

Let's sort out this loan business. You keep criticizing Jon for not telling his men about the food loan. The implication being that this would be a way to get more men on board with Jon's policies.

Yes, absolutely, because currently it must seem to the men that Jon's policies are going to kill them all by starvation in half a year so.
His refusal to adress this essential issue when it gets brought up again and again makes Jon look dangerously delusional, IMHO. And it isn't like he can't reassure them - he choses no to, for some reason.

But you also keep harping on the idea that a food loan is useless because apparently food can't get to the Wall.

This is the other half of the issue. News of the loan would inform the men that they aren't doomed to starve to death if Jon continues to let in and feed ever more wildlings. However, you can't feed people with a piece of paper. Food needs to be bought outside of the North and transported - and both of these things take time, particularly with navigation being unreliable due to stormy seas, and overland shipping being out of question because of NW's association with Stannis. After all, everything NW gets might also be diverted to the use of Stannis's troops, as has already happened.
It could take many months for food to actually arrive. Which is why Jon should have set Marsh et al. the task of food acquisition immediately after getting his loan. And spared a couple of ships for the purpose. As a side-bonus, this would have gotten Marsh out of his hair and/or kept him too busy to get into mischief.

The "Watch takes no part" so Davos' execution doesn't automatically mean that Manderly won't send the Watch food (and does Jon even know about Davos yet?)

But NW did provision Stannis, so if Davos had been really executed, yea, no way would they have let more food shipments through until Stannis was dead. And yes, the Wall did get news about Davos's "execution", IIRC.

I think Jon's thinking an ambush. Rams' men wouldn't have the advantage in the forests with their horses and swords.

I agree. OTOH the Bolton men aren't Waymar Royce. They are used to fighting in the snow and in the Wolfswood. So, it wouldn't be that easy unless Rams makes mistakes, but yes, the most doable option.

And if Jon plans to bring wildlings south, then it means he's planning to make common cause with the clansmen, since he'd be occupying their territory.

Then Jon should have consulted them and made sure that they were on-board _before_ making his public announcement, shouldn't he? Because just a couple of chapters back, he had promised them that the widlings would stay on the Wall and never go south. He is breaking his word to the clan chiefs here, too.

Basically, this is illustrative of Jon's mistakes, IMHO, - he is so focused on the wildlings - on their desperate plight, on their points of view, on winning them over, on admiring and envying their way of life, that he takes NW and the northeners for granted, while doing things which are bound to alienate them more and more.
That he doesn't understand how viscerally important the question of food is for those who have lived through a real winter only adds to it.

This disconnect culiminates in his publicly breaking his vows and effectively removing himself from being a member of NW and LC, yet still expecting NW brothers to obey his commands to undertake what many see as a suicide mission to Hardhome. Suicide in 2 ways - as even if they were successful and brought thousands of wildlings to the Wall, that would only mean starving to death that much sooner.

Re: the Pink Letter, I agree with the view that if it wasn't just Ramsey losing his temper and doing something stupid, then it was designed by the Boltons to cause division in NW and turn it on Jon / Stannis's family. After all, they can't afford for Jon to actually meet fArya.
All the other interpretations are creative, but not convincing. IMHO, YMMV.

[Mithras]

Re: the Pink Letter, I agree with the view that if it wasn't just Ramsey losing his temper and doing something stupid, then it was designed by the Boltons to cause division in NW and turn it on Jon / Stannis's family. After all, they can't afford for Jon to actually meet fArya.

All the other interpretations are creative, but not convincing. IMHO, YMMV.

The letter was not supposed to be read to public. How it was supposed to create divison then?

[Mithras]

“I have seen you in my fires, Jon Snow.”

“I have seen you in the storm, hard-pressed, with enemies on every side. You have so many enemies. Shall I tell you their names?”

“It is not the foes who curse you to your face that you must fear, but those who smile when you are looking and sharpen their knives when you turn your back. You would do well to keep your wolf close beside you. Ice, I see, and daggers in the dark. Blood frozen red and hard, and naked steel. It was very cold.”

These are the complete set of Mel’s supposed visions. She probably took them literally as she always does. However, I think these visions might have double meaning.

He glanced up past the King’s Tower. The Wall was a dull white, the sky above it whiter. A snow sky. “Just pray we do not get another storm.”

Marsh entered snuffling, Yarwyck dour. “Another storm,” the First Builder announced. “How are we to work in this? I need more builders.”

First of all, there is a storm in the last chapter of Jon just like Mel saw in the vision.

“What would the lord commander like us to do with his corpses?” asked Marsh when the living men had been moved.

“Leave them.” If the storm entombed them, well and good. He would need to burn them eventually, no doubt, but for the nonce they were bound with iron chains inside their cells. That, and being dead, should suffice to hold them harmless.

When we see such reasoning given in detail, the character usually turns out to be wrong. There is a nice theory that Jon will be put into the ice cell along with those two dead wildlings after the assassination.

I suggest that the two corpses that did not rise as wights so far are the perfectly placed daggers of the Others. After all, we know a precedent in which they tried to kill the LC with two wight assassins which were burned by Jon. Perhaps the Others saw it in a vision that the LC of the NW will defeat them, so they sent two wights to eliminate him but they got the wrong LC!

That action started the chain of events in which Jon was first spared for saving the Old Bear and eventually rose to the position of the LC. That is a classical way of trying to prevent a vision but in the process making that vision coming true. Mel killed Renly to prevent the defeat of Stannis but that led to the Lannister/Tyrell alliance that defeated Stannis precisely as Mel had foreseen.

Therefore, perhaps the Others were bitten in the prick and now they correctly identified the real LC that will defeat them. Note that the Others did not bother the people with Wun Wun at the weirwood grove, a place the NW is known to visit occasionally. Of course there was no guarantee that Jon would take them with him but it was worth the shot, wasn’t it?

The hard-pressed Jon brings the image of the ice cells. Jon feels the weight of the Wall above him and sees his reflection on the walls of the ice cell. The hinges of the ice cell scream like damned souls. I think resurrection is the main theme related to the ice cells. Given the Jesus-Jon parallels, these two corpses were perhaps inspired from two witnesses that will be resurrected after three and a half day.

Jon has enemies on every side in Mel’s vision. In the ice cell, the ice of the Wall and the two corpses will be on his every side, which makes Jon the enemy of Ice and the wights. Mel specifically mentioned Ice and daggers in the dark as the enemies of Jon.

Mel tells Jon to keep his wolf close. She probably saw something related to Ghost in the vision and she probably heard how Ghost helped Jon in defeating the previous two wights. I think Mel was supposed to understand that Ghost will be a critical part of the “resurrection” of Jon in this case as well.

Blood frozen red and hard might mean that Jon will not bleed to death. But if we take blood as the frequently used metaphor in the series, we can propose that it might refer to Jon’s Targaryen heritage. Jon is actually a red dragon but he is frozen for he is ignorant of his true blood.

Here is my speculation:

Jon will be put into the ice cell and the corpses in the neighboring ice cells will rise as wights. They will try to carve their way to Jon but Jon will be returned to life after a couple of days (three and a half). When he wakes up, he will not be naked steel as Mel saw. I think Jon was the one who unconsciously used his powers to burn Varamyr’s eagle and he will do it again to burn the wights, as he thought.

[Direwolf Blitzer]

i'll take a stab at this... check the Theon preview chapter from WoW. Theon uses these exact phrases when saying something along the lines of, "Ramsey is coming, he wants his bride back, he wants his Reek." to Stannis after the Nestoris delivers Theon to Stannis as a gift.

This is generally used as evidence for why Stannis would write that if forging the PL as Ramsey, and Mance would certainly be in a position to see the same. Both Stannis and Mance are fairly crafty and more clever than given credit for, and i think they would use phrases like this to try and convince not only Jon, but anyone who might happen to get this letter, that it comes from Ramsey.

At this point, there are more valid candidates for the author than i can stomach (Stannis, Mance, Roose, Ramsey, Thorne, Mel, Asha had a thread that was fairly convincing or plausible at the very least...). i give up in trying to deduce the correct answer and just hope that a conclusion comes more quickly than the break between feast and dance...

Sharp observation; I had not noticed that.

In that very same scene, mere words before, Theon repeats, in different words, what Barbrey Dustin told Aenys Frey.

"And Lord Wyman is not the only man who lost kin at your Red Wedding, Frey. Do you imagine Whoresbane loves you any better? If you did not hold the Greatjon, he would pull out your entrails and make you eat them, as Lady Hornwood ate her fingers. Flints, Cerwyns, Tallharts, Slates ... they all had men with the Young Wolf." [...] "Even Dustins out of Barrowton." Lady Dustin parted her lips in a thin, feral smile. "The north remembers, Frey."

"The north remembers. The Red Wedding, Lady Hornwood's fingers, the sack of Winterfell, Deepwood Motte and Torrhen's Square, they remember all of it." Bran and Rickon. They were only miller's boys. "Frey and Manderly will never combine their strengths. They will come for you, but separately. Lord Ramsay will not be far behind them. He wants his bride back. He wants his Reek."

It's fair to say that "the north remembers" isn't something Theon deduced or came to believe on his own. He's parroting Lady Dustin. So what if he already read the letter, perhaps written by "Abel," perhaps with the help of Barbrey, and he's parroting that, too? ETA: Perhaps he himself helped write it; no one knows Ramsay better.

[Julian Rayne]

I don't think Stannis knew about Mance. Simply because I don't see him lying to Jon about it or giving him Rattleshirt with Machiavellian intent. There's nothing Machiavellian about Stannis.

That's also why I can't imagine him writing the Pink Letter.

As for who wrote it, I'm going with my first impressions. When I first read the letter, I could see Ramsay writing every single line. It's absolutely reeking with hate, dripping with misogyny and venom. I doubt Stannis or Mance could write something like that if they tried.

[bemused]

What's Machiavellian about giving him to Jon as a potential resource ?

[Little and Less]

Okay to the PL arguement again - if Stannis or Mance wrote the letter - why would they need to be so indirect and cunning to Jon?

Why would Stannis trick Jon into coming to WF? Stannis grudgingly respects Jon; Jon has helped Stannis more than any other character, helping him gain Northerns to his army by explaining how the North works and housing and feeding his Queen and entourage. Stannis has always been direct with Jon. Why fool Jon now by pretending to be, of all people, Rams? And send a message that Jon would have to "read between the lines" to understand? To me it doesn't make sense, it is too out of character for Stannis.

Mance - yes, he's more crafty, but Mance got the Wildings to follow him, not through cunning and back stabbing, but through true grit and honesty, and well, fighting. Why would Mance write a letter from Rams and not say, Abel or Rattleshirt? Jon would know who Abel really was, none of the NW or Stannis' army would have had a clue who that was. Mance goes out of his way to infiltrate WF as a singer, only to pretend he's Rams?

It would make more sense to me that Mance would use the letter to KEEP JON AT THE WALL - it is not in Mance's best interests to have Jon remove himself from the Wall, only to have utter chaos occur between the Wildlings and the remaining NW.

[Little and Less]

In the extra Theon chapter, Stannis shows so little respect or fear of Rams that it just adds to my theory that Stannis would never pretend to be Rams. Yes Stannis knows about Reek, but again how does this knowledge in any way help Jon? How does that make Jon want to get up and act?

(I think Jon is smart enough to know Theon is the least of his problems at this moment.)

If anything the extra Theon chapter gives us a lot of insight into how strong, forceful and a good judge of character Stannis is. Stannis knows the Starks can be reasoned with and are honourable. So why would he use dishonesty and trickery to deal with Jon?

I think the Reek mention, was written for us the reader, not for the NW or Jon. Not for us to debate who wrote the letter, but more for what in the letter is truth and what is a lie by Rams. And to sow the seeds of doubt that maybe, just maybe Stannis lost.

[Little and Less]

Yes Theon says the same phrases as in the PL.......probably because he's heard those phrases so many times from his captor, Ramsay Snow.

Again, this proof can work the other way too....Theon's letting us know that Rams would use these words/phrases in the PL.

[Dusto]

In the various discussions about the PL going on a new theory occurred to me. The timeline between different POV chapters in the series is known to be inconsistent but everyone seems to assume that Jon receiving the letter takes place before any battle at Winterfell.

What if Stannis has already won a battle at the village and has taken Winterfell, either in battle or by subterfuge, and the Boltons, (at least Rams,) are in retreat at the time the letter is written.

In this case the letter may be a Hail Mary attempt by the Boltons to get leverage over Stannis by obtaining hostages. With control of all the people Rams demands in the letter they could effectively shut Stannis down even after losing Winterfell.

[Noelle Snow]

I believe GRRM has already said the PL arrives after the Battle of Ice is over.

[Maia]

But Stannis has ravens. If he had already won, I am sure he would have sent the news of his victory ASAP. Even if they were lucky enough that their letter arrived first (as it did), Boltons couldn't have counted on actually getting any hostages delivered to them before the true news from Stannis reached the Wall. Though, it would be deeply ironic if Stannis's letter arrived an hour or so after Jon's stabbing.

In any case, the letter did cause chaos and division at the Wall, so Boltons did gain something from it.

[Taenqyrhae]

I was thinking that the "crow" references might have been an inadvertent mistake made by a member of the Watch who has been at the Wall a long time. If he was trying to put himself in the mind of someone who was trying to insult a member of the Night's Watch, and was someone who had years of mostly hostile contact with wildlings, "crow" would probably spring to mind automatically, one might forget that the rest of Westerosi society does not use that epithet if they had been at the Wall long enough.

[horizon]

I still think Mance wrote the letter together with Theon. They're meeting isn't detailed as such.

To above: if the Pink letter is from after the battle of ice, then the Theon preview chapter takes place before Jon's stabbing.

George is being twisted with time...

[butterbumps!]

Hmm... it seems like everyone except Rams is a popular candidate for having written the letter.

I'm quite amenable to questioning the authorship of the letter, but I'm wondering if maybe looking over what the letter is saying-- and predicting what an author would expect Jon to do (independently of how he actually reacted)-- might be a productive.

Rams is honestly the single candidate with the right motive to write what's actually written in this letter. He's not trying to get Jon south. Nothing in that letter would lead Jon to logically choose to go south. The author of the letter is trying to get Jon assassinated/ distracted/ eliminated from the game as a candidate that could challenge the Boltons.

No matter what direction Jon chooses-- to level with the Watchmen (Watchmen will be against him), try to turn over hostages (the wildlings and Queensmen will put up a fight), or have Jon actually turn over all these hostages (the Northmen will never, ever follow Jon as a leader if he's turned over "Arya" to the Boltons)-- Jon is trapped, and taken out of the game.

Those consequences-- Watchmen against him, wildlings/ Queensmen against the Watch, Northmen against Jon-- are the logical consequences of this letter.

That's why I think Rams (more specifically, a joint Bolton enterprise) is the most likely candidate.