The COTF sent Bran's assassin

[40 Thousand Skeletons]

5 hours ago, Maester of Valyria said:

OP, consider me intrigued here. I always appreciate a well-reasoned COTF theory, even if it turns out not to be to my taste. I await your full theory with anticipation!

Just a quick request: if you start a new thread for it could you please post a link up here so it doesn't get buried? Cheers.

I will probably make it a new thread, and I will be sure to post a link here if I do.

[cgrav]

Delete post please! Just needed to get around the saved draft bug.

[cgrav]

5 hours ago, Maxxine said:

I've heard the LF theory before and I just don't think it works from a logistical standpoint and the poor planning. For this to work LF would have had find out about bran's fall, hire an assassasin, & the assassin would have had to then get to WF. I don't know if there's enough time for all of that to happen. Even if there was enough time and LF wanted it to fail, it was still to poorly planned to be LF. What if the assassin doesn't die and he's taken for questioning. There's the chance he implicates LF. LF wouldn't take that chance.

I agree there are many holes in the idea, but I do think that's a risk LF takes with any plot that requires accomplices. He brought in Dontos, after all. I just don't like the Joffrey conclusion very much. It feels out of character and lacking in the sort of details that many other plots include. That said, there could be stuff I'd find on a re-read.

[Light a wight tonight]

22 hours ago, 40 Thousand Skeletons said:

I think this one is pretty obvious, and I don't know why more people don't see it, but here we go.

.Why use a fancy weapon (that implicates someone else, e.g. the Lannisters) instead of a plain one? 

So you can see, we have a few mysterious questions with an obvious answer: 

So there you go folks, the COTF sent the assassin in order to manipulate Cat.

but I want to know people's thoughts on this theory in particular. What do you think?

If this is so obvious why are you the first one to come up with it? The forum's been around for a lot of years.

The knife doesn't implicate the Lannisters until Cat gets to King's Landing and shows it to Littlefinger, who seizes the opportunity to blame the Lannisters. The knife never belonged to them. Do the CoTF influence Littlefinger to make up this lie?

Again, not obvious to anyone but you.

Why would the CoTF want to influence Cat? She's a second-tier player.

You want my opinion? The theory is contrived, overly complicated, and and unconvincing. 

 

[WSmith84]

Perhaps I'm misreading the OP, but are you suggesting that a CotF hired the killer? Like, walked up to him with a bag of silver and said 'kill Bran Stark'?

[YOVMO]

15 hours ago, 40 Thousand Skeletons said:

No, GRRM said we would find out the answer in book 3. I think he lied. Lots of fans claim that GRRM doesn't lie to us, and I think they are adorable. I think he was trying to not make it obvious and reveal the whole big picture by saying "the answer is there in book 1, just read harder". How would LF know the attempt would fail?

Seriously man, you are in my head. "Adorable"  oh I'm loving this

[NOT A TARG I SWEAR]

It was probably Hodor that hired the assassin after realizing he'd be the one stuck lugging Bran around for the rest of his life if he ever awoke from the coma. 

[YOVMO]

9 hours ago, NOT A TARG I SWEAR said:

It was probably Hodor that hired the assassin after realizing he'd be the one stuck lugging Bran around for the rest of his life if he ever awoke from the coma. 

A couple things that come to mind. That the Assasin set the winterfell library on fire for a distraction was not, in my opinion, a coincidence or matter of convienience. Books and scrolls with information regarding the others have been vanishing. The fact that Sam can't find much of anything regarding the others in the library of Castle Black is something so insanely strange and yet very oft over looked.

 

Knowledge about magic, dragons and the others has been disappearing from the word at an alarming rate. For whomever  is behind that (top guesses being bloodraven, the citadel, faceless men) burning down the library at winterfell is a huge score.

 

next: Cat mentions about the assasin that he moves improbably fast. I guess most people figure well he is an assasin so he is probably very agile. However, you can't have it both ways. He is either a camp follower who gets paid off by someone to slit bran's throat or he is a professional assasin. If the former, than the idea of him moving remarkably fast is silly. If the later, than the idea of him allowing himself to be equipted with the VS dagger is silly.

 

one other thing: the use of the word catspaw has always been very odd to me. There is some conjecture out there that Bloodraven wargs cats and there are some cat connections with the faceless men as well. Could the catspaw have been a faceless man? If so, what was the price to kill a stark inside winterfell during king Roberts visit? Who paid it? 

 

For my money, both BR and the FM were involved in the attempt (and intentional failure) to kill Bran

[OtherFromAnotherMother]

2 hours ago, YOVMO said:

A couple things that come to mind. That the Assasin set the winterfell library on fire for a distraction was not, in my opinion, a coincidence or matter of convienience. Books and scrolls with information regarding the others have been vanishing. The fact that Sam can't find much of anything regarding the others in the library of Castle Black is something so insanely strange and yet very oft over looked.

 

Knowledge about magic, dragons and the others has been disappearing from the word at an alarming rate. For whomever  is behind that (top guesses being bloodraven, the citadel, faceless men) burning down the library at winterfell is a huge score.

 

next: Cat mentions about the assasin that he moves improbably fast. I guess most people figure well he is an assasin so he is probably very agile. However, you can't have it both ways. He is either a camp follower who gets paid off by someone to slit bran's throat or he is a professional assasin. If the former, than the idea of him moving remarkably fast is silly. If the later, than the idea of him allowing himself to be equipted with the VS dagger is silly.

 

one other thing: the use of the word catspaw has always been very odd to me. There is some conjecture out there that Bloodraven wargs cats and there are some cat connections with the faceless men as well. Could the catspaw have been a faceless man? If so, what was the price to kill a stark inside winterfell during king Roberts visit? Who paid it? 

 

For my money, both BR and the FM were involved in the attempt (and intentional failure) to kill Bran

Let me get this straight. BR and the FM worked together to purposefully fail to assassinate Bran? Did he also purposefully only want to slice Cat's hand?

Why can't a random person be fast? Only FM are allowed to be fast? My 82 year old grandma would probably seem fast to a middle aged Cat who hasn't been sleeping or eating. I love how Cat saying he was fast also means he is agile to make your point.

And we are just ignoring the SSM telling us we should figure it out in the third book? That third book being when Tyrion and Jaime puzzle it out....

[YOVMO]

22 minutes ago, OtherFromAnotherMother said:

Let me get this straight. BR and the FM worked together to purposefully fail to assassinate Bran? Did he also purposefully only want to slice Cat's hand?

Why can't a random person be fast? Only FM are allowed to be fast? My 82 year old grandma would probably seem fast to a middle aged Cat who hasn't been sleeping or eating. I love how Cat saying he was fast also means he is agile to make your point.

And we are just ignoring the SSM telling us we should figure it out in the third book? That third book being when Tyrion and Jaime puzzle it out....

Just playing with possibilities. I have long suspected that BR and FM are working together for a variety of reasons. Also, that the SSM told us we will figure it out in the third book is true. Did anything else other than two characters in a POV chapter reasoning that it was Joffrey happen in that book over the course of several hundred pages? I mean, anything? Anything at all? I suppose some things happen but grrm has never been cheeky, coy or otherwise cagey in his quotes right? Oh wait, none of that is true.

 

ill grant you that sometimes the obvious reading is in fact true and a lot of theories, mine own included, are pretty hair brained and at best very unlikely and more often than not dead wrong. That said, sometimes when running through these fun exegetical exercises interesting things pop out. 

 

[OtherFromAnotherMother]

3 minutes ago, YOVMO said:

Just playing with possibilities. I have long suspected that BR and FM are working together for a variety of reasons. Also, that the SSM told us we will figure it out in the third book is true. Did anything else other than two characters in a POV chapter reasoning that it was Joffrey happen in that book over the course of several hundred pages? I mean, anything? Anything at all? I suppose some things happen but grrm has never been cheeky, coy or otherwise cagey in his quotes right? Oh wait, none of that is true.

 

ill grant you that sometimes the obvious reading is in fact true and a lot of theories, mine own included, are pretty hair brained and at best merry unlikely and more often than not dead wrong. That said, sometimes when running through these fun exegetical exercises interesting things pop out. 

 

Yes. Lots of stuff happened. Some of the stuff that happened tells us it was Joff. Can you show me some DIRECT textual evidence that says it was the FM working with BR ?

 

[Maester of Valyria]

18 hours ago, 40 Thousand Skeletons said:

I will probably make it a new thread, and I will be sure to post a link here if I do.

Many thanks

[Ferocious Veldt Roarer]

2 hours ago, YOVMO said:

next: Cat mentions about the assasin that he moves improbably fast. I guess most people figure well he is an assasin so he is probably very agile. However, you can't have it both ways. He is either a camp follower who gets paid off by someone to slit bran's throat or he is a professional assasin. If the former, than the idea of him moving remarkably fast is silly. If the later, than the idea of him allowing himself to be equipted with the VS dagger is silly.

Cat observed that he "moved faster than she would have believed", but the facts are, she, unarmed, unfed, underslept and generally exhausted, was still able to fend him off. So he couldn't be that super fast.

2 hours ago, YOVMO said:

one other thing: the use of the word catspaw has always been very odd to me. There is some conjecture out there that Bloodraven wargs cats and there are some cat connections with the faceless men as well. Could the catspaw have been a faceless man? If so, what was the price to kill a stark inside winterfell during king Roberts visit? Who paid it? 

That's correct, only half a dozen or so things wrong with that reasoning. There isn't very strong link between the assassin and the word "catspaw" - while it has become this forum's nickname for him, in the books it's used to describe him only once. And there isn't anything particularly special about the word itself, it's used about twenty times, in different contexts. But no worries, the link between cats and either Bloodraven or the Faceless Men is next to nonexistent, too. And it's quite unlikely that the catspaw was a Faceless Man, considering that first and foremost Bran is still alive, and second that, as pointed out above, the assassin did not appear all that scary competent.

Apart from all that, though, a good question.

 

2 hours ago, YOVMO said:

For my money, both BR and the FM were involved in the attempt (and intentional failure) to kill Bran

Let's be serious. It's not supposed to still be a riddle. We have Tyrion on one hand, and Jaime with Cersei's help on the other, independently reaching the same conclusion. Joffrey did it, it's explicitly said, accept it. While for other hypotheses (like yours) you need to make up a ton of stuff and it still looks unconvincing.

[OtherFromAnotherMother]

20 minutes ago, Ferocious Veldt Roarer said:

 

Let's be serious. It's not supposed to still be a riddle. We have Tyrion on one hand, and Jaime with Cersei's help on the other, independently reaching the same conclusion. Joffrey did it, it's explicitly said, accept it. While for other hypotheses (like yours) you need to make up a ton of stuff and it still looks unconvincing.

Yup.

But I have to say @Ferocious Veldt RoarerI am disappointed. I thought when I saw your name on this post I was going to get some more "Sumner Did It". I want to know what happens next!

[WSmith84]

Summer hiring the assassin makes me think of some twisted version of Lassie: 'What's that Summer? Bran fell off a tower? And you want me to go and... murder him?'

[YOVMO]

2 hours ago, OtherFromAnotherMother said:

Yes. Lots of stuff happened. Some of the stuff that happened tells us it was Joff. Can you show me some DIRECT textual evidence that says it was the FM working with BR ?

 

Some does indeed and that is the most likely thing. That said, it is not impossible that there are other and more sinister things going on.

 

as for textual evidence for FM and BR I am working on it. I wish I had the time to take all these ideas and notes and build them into a single cogent essay. I really enjoy this stuff.

in short i will say that the FM are natural enemies of team ice given their origin as the slaves of valyrian dragon lords. I will confess, I see a very clear binary between the powers of fire (targs, dragons, blood magic, r'holler etc) and powers of ice (Others and wight army, COTF, Starks, bloodraven and, yes, Faceless men).

 

[40 Thousand Skeletons]

17 hours ago, Light a wight tonight said:

If this is so obvious why are you the first one to come up with it? The forum's been around for a lot of years.

The knife doesn't implicate the Lannisters until Cat gets to King's Landing and shows it to Littlefinger, who seizes the opportunity to blame the Lannisters. The knife never belonged to them. Do the CoTF influence Littlefinger to make up this lie?

Again, not obvious to anyone but you.

Why would the CoTF want to influence Cat? She's a second-tier player.

You want my opinion? The theory is contrived, overly complicated, and and unconvincing. 

Wow if you think this is overly complicated I can't wait to see what you think of the giant detailed big picture version I'm working on right now.  I'll just have to make it really convincing to change your opinion. And, as I stated, I have no idea why I'm the first one to come up with it, if in fact I am. I did come up with it myself, as I have never read the theory on this forum or seen it on youtube or anything. I guess I'm just smarter than everyone else.  

[YOVMO]

1 hour ago, WSmith84 said:

Summer hiring the assassin makes me think of some twisted version of Lassie: 'What's that Summer? Bran fell off a tower? And you want me to go and... murder him?'

Ok that legitamitley made me laugh out loud

[40 Thousand Skeletons]

17 hours ago, WSmith84 said:

Perhaps I'm misreading the OP, but are you suggesting that a CotF hired the killer? Like, walked up to him with a bag of silver and said 'kill Bran Stark'?

I don't think the killer ever saw that bag of silver. I think it was planted and the killer had other motivations. All we be revealed in my more elaborate theory currently being typed.

[40 Thousand Skeletons]

2 hours ago, Ferocious Veldt Roarer said:

Let's be serious. It's not supposed to still be a riddle. We have Tyrion on one hand, and Jaime with Cersei's help on the other, independently reaching the same conclusion. Joffrey did it, it's explicitly said, accept it. While for other hypotheses (like yours) you need to make up a ton of stuff and it still looks unconvincing.

Let's be serious, I am thoroughly unconvinced by your unsatisfying argument and your undeserved level of confidence in it. I'm sorry, care to list all the stuff I "made up"?