(Small) issues with our favorite story

[ravenous reader]

For a change, I won't comment at length on Littlefinger, LOL, except to say that the reason he killed Jon Arryn was not so much that Arryn had begun poking around into the paternity of Joffrey etc.,  but into the paternity of Sweetrobin, and/or the financial irregularities.  Also, all of you reasonable souls advocating that Littlefinger's primary target was not the Starks, in particular Brandon Stark, are sorely mistaken as to the full extent of the irrationally protracted vindictive nature of psychopath psychopathology.

So, as to the OP topic:  my 'small issue' with GRRM's narrative is that I still cannot buy that Cersei would leave Winterfell without trying to have Bran killed.  Based on everything we know about her, why would she be at peace with leaving Bran's and therefore her and her children's fate up to 'the old gods'?  She of all people had the most to lose from Bran potentially awaking from his coma and spilling the beans on her and Jaime.  I just can't buy the Joffrey rationale for having Bran killed: which boils down to the stupidity of Joffrey and the sharpness of Valyrian steel.  It's a cheap shot by the author.  But more than this, I don't believe paranoid control-freak Cersei would have the equanimity to live with the uncertainty without doing something about it.  She risks to lose more from Bran's eyewitness account than she does from Ned's secondhand account of the incest -- yet in response to the former she does nothing, waiting it out and hoping for the best; while in response to the latter it's overkill?

[One-eyed Misbehavin]

5 minutes ago, ravenous reader said:

For a change, I won't comment at length on Littlefinger, LOL, except to say that the reason he killed Jon Arryn was not so much that Arryn had begun poking around into the paternity of Joffrey etc.,  but into the paternity of Sweetrobin, and/or the financial irregularities.  Also, all of you reasonable souls advocating that Littlefinger's primary target was not the Starks, in particular Brandon Stark, are sorely mistaken as to the full extent of the irrationally protracted vindictive nature of psychopath psychopathology.

So, as to the OP topic:  my 'small issue' with GRRM's narrative is that I still cannot buy that Cersei would leave Winterfell without trying to have Bran killed.  Based on everything we know about her, why would she be at peace with leaving Bran's and therefore her and her children's fate up to 'the old gods'?  She of all people had the most to lose from Bran potentially awaking from his coma and spilling the beans on her and Jaime.  I just can't buy the Joffrey rationale for having Bran killed: which boils down to the stupidity of Joffrey and the sharpness of Valyrian steel.  It's a cheap shot by the author.  But more than this, I don't believe paranoid control-freak Cersei would have the equanimity to live with the uncertainty without doing something about it.  She risks to lose more from Bran's eyewitness account than she does from Ned's secondhand account of the incest -- yet in response to the former she does nothing, waiting it out and hoping for the best; while in response to the latter it's overkill?

I agree as well. Also one of the many reasons Joffrey doesn't make sense is that Robert hit him over killing a cat? I think?

So killing his father's bff's son is a shitty way to get in good graces and "need for attention" is a terrible explanation 

[One-eyed Misbehavin]

I made this to discuss other issues than mine own with LF. 

I'll drop it cause I'm the bigger man 

[ravenous reader]

3 minutes ago, One-eyed Misbehavin said:

I agree as well. Also one of the many reasons Joffrey doesn't make sense is that Robert hit him over killing a cat? I think?

He vivisected a pregnant cat -- something which GRRM has in interviews interpreted as nothing more than a phase, a bit of 'bullying'; which however I've interpreted, along with Robert Baratheon, as something far more worrying than that.

3 minutes ago, One-eyed Misbehavin said:

So killing his father's bff's son is a shitty way to get in good graces and "need for attention" is a terrible explanation 

Agreed.  The silly rationale notwithstanding, I can still somehow understand Joffrey's hatred of Bran (perhaps jealousy?); I just can't understand Cersei's motivation in letting the issue go.  It's not in character with the girl who at age 11 tossed her friend Melara down a well in order to silence her, based on a prophecy she had heard pronounced only moments before; nor with the unhinged adult woman we get to know later.  Bran is in possession of knowledge more terrible to Cersei, should it become public knowledge, than a nebulous prophecy pronounced by some hag in the woods.

[Traverys]

Perhaps we overestimate Littlefinger's ability. We assume he intended to plant animosity between the Starks and Lannisters by getting Lysa to poison Jon Arryn. Maybe it was more than Jon Arryn cracking down on not only the parentage of Cersei's children; maybe he was catching on to Peyr's game.

I think it is fascinating how Petyr managed to increase (at least superficially) the revenue of the crown tenfold yet still find a way to beggar the realm. Ponzi scheme comes to mind; he borrow money from person #1, then when he needs to pay some back he borrows money from person #2 to pay back #1; when #1 and #2 need their next payment, he borrows enough money from person #3 to pay them back, and on and on it goes.

While Tyrion is not able to deduce very much for Petyr's books, he does notice that people he has labeled traitor or had executed were indebted to the crown. They were likely helping Petyr embezzle and he killed them to cover his tracks (similar to how he did Dontos). We also know from Jaime that Littlefinger had a large number of men on the payroll as jailers (gaolers?) while only a couple seemed to actually be employed. This could extend across the Red Keep and even King's Landing, including the goldcloaks. Who actually counts the city guard? So all Littlefinger had to do was buy off the captain (e.g., Janos Slynt) and he further diverts his increased revenue to seemingly necessary, legitimate expenses. I also suspect his investments often benefit his own establishments, and that he could be receiving a lot more money from investments that what he reports in his books and the coffers.

I wish I could remember so I could link it, but someone in a thread pointed out that Littlefinger intentionally kept things on the edge so that they would always need him. When Robert demanded a tourney, or when some other necessary costs arose, he always managed to find the gold despite the level of their debt. So even if Jon Arryn had suspicions about Petyr, getting rid of him is probably easier said than done because it could prove to be even more disastrous.

That's just my two cents. I believe there are some good essays about how LF slipped under the radar for so long. If I can remember where they are I'll post the links.

[SeaWitch]

It is easy to make yourself essential if you are the only one who knows how things work.

I think KL was grinding along as a cesspit of corruption, nepotism, bribery and backstabbing before any of our players entered the scene.  Petyr is the consummate opportunist, he worked out how to engineer things so he wound up at the top.  How long he thought he could stay there before it crashed down may not enter into it, if 'the climb is all' it might all be about the next step, the next score, without a goal.  He's used the fundamental disdain of the nobility/aristocracy for the nuts and bolts of government, the actual business of it - he has their distaste for the mercantile class, but the sense to see their usefulness and ability.  

I don't think he's a psychopath, but he does remind me of people I worked with in the City. (London)  Not quite reckless, but a certain arrogance that came from handling such large amounts of money, that everything was almost a game, numbers on a screen that weren't real.  

Jon Arryn appointed him, from a position where he'd been very successful.  And that's interesting, too. He was still extremely young to be in charge of things in the fifth biggest city, what did he do before? (I'm going with probably organised crime.)  Despite it being Lysa's urging, I doubt he'd have done so if there wasn't competence, and he certainly wouldn't have then brought him to KL. So, I don't think he thought initially he had cause to examine his own appointee.  If he did have doubts, by the time investigations started, all sorts if other schemes were moving.

(Sweetrobin - Lysa was with JA in KL, Petyr was in Gulltown, he didn't come to KL until after SR was born, by timings.  And I think JA would watch his wayward wife, in his need for an heir.)

 

[One-eyed Misbehavin]

6 hours ago, ravenous reader said:

He vivisected a pregnant cat -- something which GRRM has in interviews interpreted as nothing more than a phase, a bit of 'bullying'; which however I've interpreted, along with Robert Baratheon, as something far more worrying than that.

Agreed.  The silly rationale notwithstanding, I can still somehow understand Joffrey's hatred of Bran (perhaps jealousy?); I just can't understand Cersei's motivation in letting the issue go.  It's not in character with the girl who at age 11 tossed her friend Melara down a well in order to silence her, based on a prophecy she had heard pronounced only moments before; nor with the unhinged adult woman we get to know later.  Bran is in possession of knowledge more terrible to Cersei, should it become public knowledge, than a nebulous prophecy pronounced by some hag in the woods.

I'm completely with you on this. Nice job bringing up her friend she pushed down the well. 

[Ferocious Veldt Roarer]

Sometimes, when I read a story on some real-world grand-scale fraudster, the like of Bernie Madoff, my reaction will be "How many years? How the fuck did he get away with this for so long?!" (like, seriously, how the fuck one embezzles sixty billion dollars?).

That's life.

[SeaWitch]

4 minutes ago, Ferocious Veldt Roarer said:

Sometimes, when I read a story on some real-world grand-scale fraudster, the like of Bernie Madoff, my reaction will be "How many years? How the fuck did he get away with this for so long?!" (like, seriously, how the fuck one embezzles sixty billion dollars?).

That's life.

Sometimes, it is the scale, the sheer audacity.  Beyond normal belief.

Sometimes, so many other people are invested or implicated, everyone looks the other way for as long as possible.