Why Was Winterfell Library Burned?

[sweetsunray]

Sir, clearly you did not read what I wrote. I am not asking for you to agree with me, but if you wish to argue a point with me, please accurately describe what I wrote.

1) I'm a woman

2) I read what you wrote and it made little or no sense at all. You mix Joffrey and Hullen in one sentence and same paragraph, jumping from one to the other, making it absolutely unclear which scenario you're trying to suggest. Hence, I listed several scenario's you might have implied or meant, and therefore explicitly saying "If you meant ..... ? then ...."

3) Again, out of courtesy and respect to the OP create your own thread about your hypothesis.

[beerenee90]

I tried to read most of the comments but I'm exhausted today and gave up about halfway through so I apologize if my comments have already been discussed.

This theory is very interesting. I tend to agree with the idea that the library fire was not just a distraction from Bran's assassination attempt; I've thought from first read that it was a specific target.

To clarify, though, this theory works only if we are operating on the belief that Bran's assassination had nothing to do with Bran seeing Cersei and Jaime together, right? So I'm just curious why Bran would be targeted specifically by anybody but Lannisters, or someone that didn't want Bran to wake up and tell people what he saw. Is Bran just the easiest target because he's laying in bed, crippled and in a coma?

I actually like the Bolton connection and think The Ramsay/Reek element is compelling but I'm not sure if it fits, into the timeline of current events. If the fire and assassination attempt happened 8 days after everyone left for KL, was that enough time for someone to go tell Bolton about Bran's fall and inform him of Ned's departure with the King and Co.? To be fair I'm not 100% on the timeline of these events either but if someone else could provide a clearer picture for this aspect of the theory, I would appreciate it.

[Modesty Lannister]

I tried to read most of the comments but I'm exhausted today and gave up about halfway through so I apologize if my comments have already been discussed.

This theory is very interesting. I tend to agree with the idea that the library fire was not just a distraction from Bran's assassination attempt; I've thought from first read that it was a specific target.

To clarify, though, this theory works only if we are operating on the belief that Bran's assassination had nothing to do with Bran seeing Cersei and Jaime together, right? So I'm just curious why Bran would be targeted specifically by anybody but Lannisters, or someone that didn't want Bran to wake up and tell people what he saw. Is Bran just the easiest target because he's laying in bed, crippled and in a coma?

I actually like the Bolton connection and think The Ramsay/Reek element is compelling but I'm not sure if it fits, into the timeline of current events. If the fire and assassination attempt happened 8 days after everyone left for KL, was that enough time for someone to go tell Bolton about Bran's fall and inform him of Ned's departure with the King and Co.? To be fair I'm not 100% on the timeline of these events either but if someone else could provide a clearer picture for this aspect of the theory, I would appreciate it.

Hello and thanks for your interest. I know reading threads can be totally exhausting. I suggest you look at my posts 53 and 97. In the latter, I provided a detailed timeline. I used Earth names for months to make it easier to follow. GRRM said that the length of Planetos days and months is the same as ours while the length of seasons vary a great deal. So, I went with that. If you have any questions after that or any ideas to contribute or dispute anything, I'd appreciate it.

[beerenee90]

Okay so I've gone over the timeline pretty extensively and I've come to a few conclusions in relation to this theory. If we are to rely on the timeline, then:

--Whomever attempted to kill Bran had to either already be in WF around the time of his fall OR very close to WF (Roose/Ramsay/Reek are possibilities as the Dreadfort is not an unreasonable distance to cover in the roughly 3 weeks between Bran's fall and the attempt on his life.)

--If we accept my first point above, then we have 3 options on the assassin; a member of the King's party that chose to stay behind in WF, someone who is in WF already (someone from King's caravan could have paid the person or persons prior to leaving), or someone that arrives in WF separately for the purpose of burning the library and killing Bran.

--If the plan was to kill Bran, I don't think LF was involved solely based on the timing of things. LF could have heard news about Bran's fall back in KL, had a raven brought the news, and it's possible that LF had time to send word to Bolton, but that leaves very little time for Bolton to move from the Dreadfort to WF unless Ramsay/Reek were already either in WF or on their way.

--LF could have acted alone or not in cohorts with Bolton on it. Perhaps he sent word to a connect in WF and arranged for Bran's attack. It is reasonable to assume LF would expect action from Cat immediately if her son's life was in danger from a would-be assassin, so maybe LF did plan it this way to lure Cat to KL (knowing Ned was on his way and knowing Cat would not risk sending a raven)

--If we leave LF out of the discussion, and work on the Bolton angle, time-wise it could work, and I could see a much stronger reason for the library being burnt. I do think Roose would do anything to gain an advantage on Starks. Perhaps he sent Ramsay to take books from WF library and instructed him to cover his tracks after (explains the fire) Ramsay then could have ordered Reek to kill Bran, instructing him to wait until the fire was set and the alarm raised. Carefully thought out plan or a a crime of opportunity? I tend to think the latter when dealing with Ramsay.

--I am definitely subscribing to the theory of two people working together on the fire and attacking Bran. Somebody had to set the library on fire and stay around to make sure it grew enough to cause the amount of chaos and panic that would be necessary for the other person to gain access to Bran.

--The only thing I don't like about this theory is why Bran was a target. If it was just simply a case of wrong place, wrong time, that sucks. It makes way more sense if someone targeted Bran because they were worried about him spilling the beans about Jaime and Cersei. Otherwise, trying to kill Bran seems very odd to me.

Overall, though, I'm very intrigued by this. Thanks, OP!!!

**Edited because I'm an idiot and can't spell.

[Modesty Lannister]

Okay so I've gone over the timeline pretty extensively and I've come to a few conclusions in relation to this theory. If we are to rely on the timeline, then:

--Whomever attempted to kill Bran had to either already be in WF around the time of his fall OR very close to WF (Roose/Ramsay/Reek are possibilities as the Dreadfort is not an unreasonable distance to cover in the roughly 3 weeks between Bran's fall and the attempt on his life.)

--If we accept my first point above, then we have 3 options on the assassin; a member of the King's party that chose to stay behind in WF, someone who is in WF already (someone from King's caravan could have paid the person or persons prior to leaving), or someone that arrives in WF separately for the purpose of burning the library and killing Bran.

--If the plan was to kill Bran, I don't think LF was involved solely based on the timing of things. LF could have heard news about Bran's fall back in KL, had a raven brought the news, and it's possible that LF had time to send word to Bolton, but that leaves very little time for Bolton to move from the Dreadfort to WF unless Ramsay/Reek were already either in WF or on their way.

--LF could have acted alone or not in cohorts with Bolton on it. Perhaps he sent word to a connect in WF and arranged for Bran's attack. It is reasonable to assume LF would expect action from Cat immediately if her son's life was in danger from a would-be assassin, so maybe LF did plan it this way to lure Cat to KL (knowing Ned was on his way and knowing Cat would not risk sending a raven)

--If we leave LF out of the discussion, and work on the Bolton angle, time-wise it could work, and I could see a much stronger reason for the library being burnt. I do think Roose would do anything to gain an advantage on Starks. Perhaps he sent Ramsay to take books from WF library and instructed him to cover his tracks after (explains the fire) Ramsay then could have ordered Reek to kill Bran, instructing him to wait until the fire was set and the alarm raised. Carefully thought out plan or a a crime of opportunity? I tend to think the latter when dealing with Ramsay.

--I am definitely subscribing to the theory of two people working together on the fire and attacking Bran. Somebody had to set the library on fire and stay around to make sure it grew enough to cause the amount of chaos and panic that would be necessary for the other person to gain access to Bran.

--The only thing I don't like about this theory is why Bran was a target. If it was just simply a case of wrong place, wrong time, that sucks. It makes way more sense if someone targeted Bran because they were worried about him spilling the beans about Jaime and Cersei. Otherwise, trying to kill Bran seems very odd to me.

Overall, though, I'm very intrigued by this. Thanks, OP!!!

**Edited because I'm an idiot and can't spell.

Thank you for this analysis. I covered similar track in post 97. Opportunistic crime (why not kill a Stark when I can) spells Ramsey. It is one Stark heir less. No one outside north would care about that angle at all. Boltons would. Ramsey as Reek was keen for Theon to kill Bran and Rickon, do not forget that. What was his motive? Well, the same - kill all possible heirs. And since we have strong indication he killed Domeric who was the Bolton heir, why wouldn't he attempt to trim the Stark family tree? It would prove advantageous for the Bolton self-promotion to the position no 1 in the north. My theory restricts LF's involvement to the dagger itself. I firmly believe the rest was conceived and realised by Boltons. If Mance could have joined Robert's party and entered WF as a bard, why wouldn't Ramsey and Reek?

[beerenee90]

Fair enough. Like I said, I tend to agree with you in the majority of your theory points. I would not put it past Roose to come up with something like this, and I definitely think Ramsay could and would go in and try to kill Bran just because the opportunity presented itself.

Makes me wonder what would have happened had Bran not fallen that day, or If he had been killed during the fall, though. Doesn't matter in hindsight I suppose but it is interesting nonetheless.

[Modesty Lannister]

Fair enough. Like I said, I tend to agree with you in the majority of your theory points. I would not put it past Roose to come up with something like this, and I definitely think Ramsay could and would go in and try to kill Bran just because the opportunity presented itself.

Makes me wonder what would have happened had Bran not fallen that day, or If he had been killed during the fall, though. Doesn't matter in hindsight I suppose but it is interesting nonetheless.

We will never know, but Ramsey snooping around and trying to get hold of something from the library would still be an issue. It is just too convenient for Roose not to keep his bastard at Dreadfort. That way he can pretend to be ignorant of his whereabouts. But, from the perspective of ASOS, it is clear that Roose's eyes were closely following events in WF. And who would these eyes be? Also, Roose came to WF feast from lady Dustin. That is also an interesting piece of information after we have learned her relationship with the Starks. My goal with this post was to show that if we go back with the knowledge we have after five books, our perspective changes and we can see what was always there, but we just had no data to perceive.