Ramsay wrote the pink letter

[Oberyn1104]

On 1/7/2017 at 2:24 PM, aryagonnakill#2 said:

There have long been theories that Ramsay did not write the pink letter.  Over the years these theories have grown ever more fanciful, whereas they started out a straightforward Stannis or Mance or Asha, now I am seeing people suggest that Mance and Stannis are in cahoots, or Mance and Barbery Dustin are in cahoots with Mors Umber or Manderly etc etc.

While Stannis, Mance, Asha, and Ramsay all potentially have the ability to know the information contained in the contents of the letter i.e. the names of the people at the wall being demanded and the fact that Mance was sent to retrieve Arya instead of being burned, only 1 person has a valid motive for writing it.  I would like to stress the world VALID as most people claiming someone other than Ramsay wrote the letter tries to form some far fetched motive, but has yet to succeed.  

Take for example the most recent Stannis wrote the Pink Letter thread.  The OP claims that Stannis wrote the letter not to gain reinforcements as earlier theories have suggested, but simply to get Jon to break his vows and come to WF so Stannis can name him lord as he wanted to do.  So this theory suggests that Stannis is able to perfectly predict Jons reaction to said letter, but is unable to predict the reaction of the other NWmen.  

Ok, lets look past that for a second and get to the real concrete reason why this doesn't make sense, the theory as it is put forth momentarily acknowledges that Stannis does not know about Tormund and his wildlings, and I am not sure if it acknowledges that Stannis should know the Thenns have been dispatched to Karhold so he should not think Jon has any wildling warriors with him.  It then ignores the fact it just acknowledged to say that Stannis knew the letter would provoke Jon to leave the watch, and since that's what he did it ends there.  What is being missed is that Jon only reacted the way he did because of the thousand or so willing warriors he had at his disposal.  If it were just Jon and the NW and old/young/wounded willings who could not fight, Jon would have had to literally ride to WF by himself.  What in gods name would he think he was accomplishing in this scenario?  Jon only acted the way he did after an hour long talk with Tormund where Tormund clearly had Jons back.  In other words Stannis would have no way of predicting that Jon would react that way, because with the information Stannis has Jon could not have possibly acted that way.

Every motive I have ever seen put forth for Stannis unravels in the same fashion, when you look a little deeper there really is no motive.

Now let us discuss Mance

There is a whole lot of speculation involving Mance.  Some is grounded in the text, some is not.  It is fair to speculate whether or not Stannis knows he is alive as there is some text to indicate this, but people are pulling stuff out of nowhere these days to suggest that he met up with Stannis on his way to WF, that he is in league with Mors Umber, that he is in league with Barbery Dustin, or Manderly, or I don't even know who else.  

My original objection to Mance writing the letter was very simple, where the hell did a bastard born ranger turned wildling learn to read and write?  Eventually it was pointed out that he knew ABEL and BAEL were anagrams, and so I concede that tho it makes no sense, he can read/write.

I have seen a couple different versions of the Mance wrote the letter theory.  First that in the moments directly after the escape was discovered and the guards blew the horns that Mance was able to sneak out of the great hall, break into the rookery and write the letter to Jon, then hide in the crypts to wait it out.  2nd is that Mance snuck out of the great hall and went straight to the crypts to hide and when Ramsay returned victorious but without Theon and Jeyne he broke into the rookery and wrote the letter to Jon.  Last is that Mance somehow came across Ramsay by himself(the versions of this get pretty fantastic) and used the Ruby to somehow glamour himself as Ramsay and Ramsay as Abel and is now acting as Ramsay, and thus wrote the letter pretending to be Ramsay.  How the glamour works and why Ramsay was alone idk, I'm sure the posters who believe this will be on this thread at some point.

With that said the same reason why Stannis did not likely write the letter applies to Mance as well, lack of motive.  Mance believes there are some 300 wildling warriors near the wall, and that they are in no way loyal to Jon, along with the sheer distance making Jon weeks away, the whole reinforcement argument just is not valid.  Warning Jon could be considered a valid motive, but it would not explain why he would pretend to be Ramsay, identifying himself as Mance and validating this with a little one liner like I kicked your ass as lord o bones would make Jon more likely to immediately believe anything in the letter.  Then Mance could simply say Ramsays coming to get you with a force you cannot overcome, please get the innocents like Val and my son to safety.  

The main reasons given for believing either Mance or Stannis wrote the letter are the presence of words/phrases that supposedly only a wildling or only Theon would use.  It is stated that only willings use the phrase "black crows" and that Theon uses the word "whore" excessively and that Ramsay has not used that word in the text.  What seems to be getting lost on the people proposing 1 of the 2 of those above arguments, is that if Stannis wrote the letter with Theons help and that is why the word whore is used, then in fact people other than wildlings would use the term "black crow" if it suited their needs, and if it was Mance than the word "whore" is not exclusively Theons to use.  What is also missed in this analysis is that Mance would not refer to Val as a wildling princess.  

Basically people are selectively choosing which phrases can only be used by which people, without applying that same logic to everyone.  If "black crows" would only be used by a wildling, but "wildling princess" is a term only a southerner would use, then clearly no one could have written the letter.  The simple answer to this problem is that the letter was written as insultingly as possible by a non wildling, and was written after extracting information from wildlings.

This brings us to Ramsay.

In the moments after the end of the chapter where Theon and Jeyne escape 2 or 3 spear wives have been killed/captured.  There are still a few more, but given how quickly things happened the one pretending to be Jeyne is in real trouble.  Mance is also in trouble as well.  While it is possible he snuck off in the confusion, as soon as the spear wives are identified as his daughters the entire castle will be looking for him.  As much as people like to make Mance out to be a superhero, he is in fact a mortal man trapped by stone walls filled with thousands of men who are looking for him.  The simplest answer to the question of what happened to him is obviously that he was captured along with any remaining spear wives.  We can be reasonably sure that the Freys and Manderlies would continue to exit the castle especially since we know the Freys fell into the pits dug by Mors Umber and his green boys.  While Theon is sure that Ramsay would be coming after them now that he and Jeyne escaped, I also think we can conclude that he would want to be involved in getting the info from Mance, after all Ramsay is already pissed and definitely loves torture.  While people often try to say that the Boltons would not know when they got the truth or that Mance wouldn't talk, those are pretty ridiculous arguments.  With more than 1 hostage, meaning only 1 spear wife needed, hey can simply compare the stories, when they match, you have the truth.  Plus no 1 is going to identify themselves as Mance Ryder to a Bolton unless they are shit out of luck and or lies to tell.

So now in possession of the knowledge contained in the letter and that Theon and Jeyne are headed to Stannis, Ramsay heads off behind the Freys and Manderlies to find his bride and reek.  Pretty much everyone agrees on some version of the night lamp theory where the Freys drown and Stannis wins, then passes Karstarks head off as his own along with his sword to send some of the mountain clans disguised as Karstark men into WF along with Manderlies or something along those lines.

While Ramsay would surely want to send men after Jeyne and Theon, he cannot just send his entire force, their are supply issues, and surely a Manderly knight or "Karstark" or whoever will tell Ramsay that they already sent scouts after them, but have no idea how much of a head start they have, and that they probably have guides from the mountain clans.

So Ramsay heads back to WF thinking he is victorious in regards to Stannis, but knowing there is a serious threat in the form of Theon and Jon and what they know/will soon know.  Ramsay being a hot head surely wants to ride straight to CB with a Bolton force and kill Jon/ the NW and get Jeyne and Theon.  Roose however is calmer as always and realizes that the situation is much more complicated than that.

First of all you need the 3-1 rule, 3 times as many men attacking as defending, and that is a minimum.  5-1 is more responsible.  That means the Boltons would have to march some 2k troops 6-700 miles through a blizzard to get to CB to do the deed.  Can they even spare those supplies or men?  IDK, they just lost the Freys and so now barely outnumber the other northmen in WF.  Would they really want to cut their force in half and instead be outnumbered?  Would they send everyone home so they weren't within the walls, but would also loose track of them?  The food in the castle was largely Manderlies to begin with, how much did he bring?

2nd of all is that Jon has all the ravens he needs to tell everyone northern lord that Jeyne is in fact Jeyne and not Arya.  A simple Starks have grey eyes line after swearing to it would get every lord to ask their masters who would look at their lineage books and go ya Starks have grey or blue eyes not brown.  Not only that but Theon could tell Jon that it was the Boltons and not the Ironborn who slaughtered Rodrik and his men and then burned WF.  This is not information that the Boltons can afford to get out.  Considering this we can see that the letter is as much about blackmailing Jon not to tel the realm about these things as it is a threat against him.  If Jon tells about Bran & Rickon & Arya, the Boltons tell about Mance.

Last is that the NW is a respected institution in the north, the lord of WF/warden of the north can't just attack the NW.  Many if not most northern houses have family there, and no one has attacked it since the Night King.  The Boltons can't just slaughter them, it's very similar to the Lannisters/Tyrells not being able to simply massacre the faith even though they have the military power to do so.  They have to be diplomatic and either get what they want via negotiation, or be able to point to their attempts and say we had no choice they were harbouring Stannis' family who were still plotting against the throne.  Since the NW gets a lot of its supplies from the north, hey have an awful lot of leverage in any negotiation.

Eventually Ramsay realizes Roose is right and writes the letter, which is opened at the wall before being given to Jon, hence the smear of pink wax rather than the seal.  As I have pointed out before, the fact that Jon does not note the handwriting means it was Ramsays, as there is no reason to point out that it is Ramsays writing, there would obviously be a reason to point out that it wasn't, which is not done.

Again the key to remember here is that Ramsay does not know about the thousand or so wildling warriors Jon has.  Without those warriors Jon cannot react aggressively, it is not an option, he can't fight them himself and if he runs by himself the watch will hunt him down as well as other northern lords.  His only options are to do nothing, surrender the people he has, or send them all off to Essos or some place like that.

Bonus point.  I think Ramsay kills Roose shortly after returning to WF with Stannis sword and Karstarks head.

I don't feel the need to discuss Asha as I have not seen anyone suggest that in a long time.

Do you think the Karstarks survived the battle?

[kissdbyfire]

6 minutes ago, Oberyn1104 said:

It would be such a deviation between the show and the book to have Stannis win and not have a Battle of the Bastards that the letter is true. Beyond that though Stannis's forces are outnumbered and starving. He lost nearly all his horses and mounted soldiers have a great advantage over foot. I also think that the Old Gods don't take kindly to Southron invaders who cut down godswood and worship the Red God. I do think that the letter shows that Ramsay killed Roose. Roose Bolton is a cautious man and it would be unlikely that he would allow such a taunting letter to be sen.t

 

That's what I think will happen.

Stannis might be outnumbered but deceptions will be employed. The Old Gods have more important concerns at the mo, and I think Bran's help will be needed.

And Stannis doesn't worship Red Rhaloo. He knows Mel has powers, and he's willing to use them but that doesn't mean he's a believer.

[Coolbeard the Exile]

20 minutes ago, Oberyn1104 said:

He could easily peel their skin and then mount their head.s

 

19 minutes ago, kissdbyfire said:

Exactly. 

 

Not something Ramsay does and i think that it was specically pointed out to help readers.

[Oberyn1104]

1 hour ago, Coolbeard the Exile said:

 

 

Not something Ramsay does and i think that it was specically pointed out to help readers.

He cut off the head of the goat herder who called him Snow

[Coolbeard the Exile]

16 minutes ago, Oberyn1104 said:

He cut off the head of the goat herder who called him Snow

Ramsay dosn't put heads on spikes

[Clegane'sPup]

Something has occurred to recently. If Ramsey wrote the letter and he defeated Stannis why did he not find Reek at the crofters village?

[kissdbyfire]

How can anyone presume to know for a fact that Ramsay has never and will never put heads on spikes? 

[kissdbyfire]

Just now, Clegane'sPup said:

Something has occurred to recently. If Ramsey wrote the letter and he defeated Stannis why did he not find Reek at the crofters village?

B/c he only thinks he has defeated Stannis. 

[Clegane'sPup]

2 minutes ago, kissdbyfire said:

B/c he only thinks he has defeated Stannis. 

jovial banter ---- Ramsey didn't actually ride to the crofter's villiage he's accepting second hand info that Stannis was defeated?

[kissdbyfire]

4 minutes ago, Clegane'sPup said:

jovial banter ---- Ramsey didn't actually ride to the crofter's villiage he's accepting second hand info that Stannis was defeated?

Either that or he was shown a dead body with a flashy sword? 

[Clegane'sPup]

Just now, kissdbyfire said:

Either that or he was shown a dead body with a flashy sword? 

whiny voice ---- but, if, umm, why does Ramsey think LC Snow have Reek?

[kissdbyfire]

9 minutes ago, Clegane'sPup said:

whiny voice ---- but, if, umm, why does Ramsey think LC Snow have Reek?

Not sure what kind of info Ramsay will have received from either his own men or prisoners he's made... but it's possible that someone at some point tells him that Stannis had sent Reek and fArya to CB? 

[Lost Melnibonean]

10 minutes ago, Clegane'sPup said:

whiny voice ---- but, if, umm, why does Ramsey think LC Snow have Reek?

Cause the men Ramsay "captured" told him that Theon Greyjoy was sent to the Wall with Arya Stark.

[Clegane'sPup]

Just now, kissdbyfire said:

Not sure what kind of info Ramsay will have received from either his own men or prisoners he's made... but it's possible that someone at some point tells him that Stannis had sent Reek and fArya to CB? 

regular voice --- are you by any chance having difficulty with quoting and replying? I sure am. I can't figure out if the problem is me, the site or my puter.

Back to the Reek thing.  I guess if Stannis was defeated at the crofter village no one thought to look for Reek at the weirwood tree. If I stretch it a bit no one found the body at the tree.

Har, you play well with others 

 

 

[Makk]

21 minutes ago, Clegane'sPup said:

whiny voice ---- but, if, umm, why does Ramsey think LC Snow have Reek?

Possibly because Stannis wants Ramsay to leave Winterfell on a hunt? Although Stannis probably doesn't put too much stock into Ramsay valuing Theon, fArya is a completely different matter. If Ramsay learns that his bride was sent north with a small escort 10 days ago there is a high chance he would rashly rush forth with a sizeable search party.

[kissdbyfire]

10 minutes ago, Clegane'sPup said:

regular voice --- are you by any chance having difficulty with quoting and replying? I sure am. I can't figure out if the problem is me, the site or my puter.

Back to the Reek thing.  I guess if Stannis was defeated at the crofter village no one thought to look for Reek at the weirwood tree. If I stretch it a bit no one found the body at the tree.

Har, you play well with others 

 

 

But Theon's body won't be at the tree!

[Clegane'sPup]

10 minutes ago, kissdbyfire said:

But Theon's body won't be at the tree!

By the old god's and the new the ravens and Asha said that Theon needs be taken to the tree. Where would the body be?

30 minutes ago, Lost Melnibonean said:

Cause the men Ramsay "captured" told him that Theon Greyjoy was sent to the Wall with Arya Stark.

Scratches head. Splain yourself.

21 minutes ago, Makk said:

If Ramsay learns that his bride was sent north with a small escort

Just so you know, me & KBF and LM are playing around. I take your comment as a serious one. My question would be how did Ramsey learn that his bride was sent north. Thanks.

[kissdbyfire]

35 minutes ago, Clegane'sPup said:

By the old god's and the new the ravens and Asha said that Theon needs be taken to the tree. Where would the body be?

Ah, that's a really good question, isn't it? I wish I knew... I suppose he could be anywhere afterwards.

35 minutes ago, Clegane'sPup said:

Scratches head. Splain yourself.

Just so you know, me & KBF and LM are playing around. I take your comment as a serious one. My question would be how did Ramsey learn that his bride was sent north. Thanks.

[Lost Melnibonean]

48 minutes ago, Clegane'sPup said:

By the old god's and the new the ravens and Asha said that Theon needs be taken to the tree. Where would the body be?

Scratches head. Splain yourself.

Just so you know, me & KBF and LM are playing around. I take your comment as a serious one. My question would be how did Ramsey learn that his bride was sent north. Thanks.

Ramsay believes that Stannis is dead, and that Stannis’s host has been defeated. Ramsay has recovered or has been given Lightbringer, so we can assume that someone (a Manderly? one of Stannis's knights?) presented Stannis with the sword and maybe even a body stuffed into Stannis's armor. 

Ramsay has beheaded and flayed Abel’s washerwomen. He has stuck Mance in a crow cage, but he may have left Mance alive. 

Ramsay believes that Stannis has sent the presumed Arya and Reek to Castle Black (apparently the result of further deception), and he wants them returned. He must know that Jon will recognize Jeyne Pool, and that Theon is still a potentially valuable hostage (and his favorite pet). But we know that Stannis had no intention of sending Theon anywhere, which further suggests that Stannis has fooled Ramsay. 

Ramsay demands Selyse, Shireen, and Melisandre, as well as Mance Rayder’s presumed son be turned over to him. (These would be extremely valuable hostages.) Otherwise, he threatens to march on Castle Black. 

Ramsay has Jon in a tight spot since Jon has meddled in the affairs of the Seven Kingdoms. Jon attempts to marshal the wildings, but, of course, Bowen Marsh has had enough.

As far as Theon is concerned, why would Stannis sacrifice to the Old Gods? If doesn't burn him, the best thing to do would be to use him and Asha to challenge Euron. 

[kissdbyfire]

14 minutes ago, Lost Melnibonean said:

Ramsay believes that Stannis is dead, and that Stannis’s host has been defeated. Ramsay has recovered or has been given Lightbringer, so we can assume that someone (a Manderly? one of Stannis's knights?) presented Stannis with the sword and maybe even a body stuffed into Stannis's armor. 

Ramsay has beheaded and flayed Abel’s washerwomen. He has stuck Mance in a crow cage, but he may have left Mance alive. 

Ramsay believes that Stannis has sent the presumed Arya and Reek to Castle Black (apparently the result of further deception), and he wants them returned. He must know that Jon will recognize Jeyne Pool, and that Theon is still a potentially valuable hostage (and his favorite pet). But we know that Stannis had no intention of sending Theon anywhere, which further suggests that Stannis has fooled Ramsay. 

Ramsay demands Selyse, Shireen, and Melisandre, as well as Mance Rayder’s presumed son be turned over to him. (These would be extremely valuable hostages.) Otherwise, he threatens to march on Castle Black. 

Ramsay has Jon in a tight spot since Jon has meddled in the affairs of the Seven Kingdoms. Jon attempts to marshal the wildings, but, of course, Bowen Marsh has had enough.

As far as Theon is concerned, why would Stannis sacrifice to the Old Gods? If doesn't burn him, the best thing to do would be to use him and Asha to challenge Euron. 

Before I say anything else, I don't think Theon is dying just yet. With that out of the way, I could totally see Stannis beheading Theon in front of the heart tree. Remember, Stannis is not a religious man, and he knows the clans are making a huge difference in his favour, now that he's got them. So, if he were to decide to execute Theon, I can see him choosing the heart tree instead of burning Theon alive, especially after what Asha tells him in TWoW Theon I.