Why didn't Littlefinger bring up Sansa's complicity?

[#teamNightking]

1 minute ago, SerJeremiahLouistark said:

But I do know that the only non northerner in that room was Royce

I only watched it once.  I thought there were other vale dudes there but I wasn't paying attention.

Still, he was like "Lord protector of the Vale" or something. Given the thousands of Vale knights present at Winterfell a little trial, even if a mummers farce, is not unwise for politics sake. 

[SerJeremiahLouistark]

4 minutes ago, MilesJames said:

It would of been more satisfying if Bran caught him of guard and exposed evreything. 

I agree, Bran should have said more.  

[SerJeremiahLouistark]

Just now, #teamNightking said:

I only watched it once.  I thought there were other vale dudes there but I wasn't paying attention.

Still, he was like "Lord protector of the Vale" or something. Given the thousands of Vale knights present at Winterfell a little trial, even if a mummers farce, is not unwise for politics sake. 

I'm pretty sure the only people in that room other than Arya, Sansa, Bran, LF, and Royce were Stark soldiers.  Honestly I believe there are holes because the drama of the scene was more important to the writers than the details and problems we find with it.  I don't think your average show watcher gives a shit.  

[#teamNightking]

6 minutes ago, SerJeremiahLouistark said:

Honestly I believe there are holes because the drama of the scene was more important to the writers than the details and problems we find with it.  I don't think your average show watcher gives a shit.  

Sort of sums up my feelings for the show now. I'm entertained but feel dirty afterwards, like I should know better but can't help myself.  

Writers shamelessly pulling me along by the snout and I want more! More! 

#dragonsnboobs

Forgive me GRRM!

[lakin1013]

On 8/30/2017 at 5:50 PM, Trigger Warning said:

Because it's very badly written. That entire plot was directed at the audience from Sansa and Arya arguing in private to that final dun dun dun surprise that's not really a surprise when she's addressing Arya then turns to Littlefinger, it's just dumb, they weren't trying to trick Baelish, they were trying to trick the viewer and it's obvious. They needed to get rid of Littlefinger and did it in the simplest way they could, I wouldn't expect them to keep him in character

I would argue that the entire plot was placed into the viewers' hands to force them to create the story.  As a viewer, I had to assume other conversations happened between Sansa and Arya about LF.  I had to decide that Arya sneaking around was already discussed with Sansa.  I had to imagine a conversation among Bran, Sansa, and Arya about how best to do LF in.  I am perfectly okay with LF being dead but I also did considerable creative work on that plotline as I had to establish support for the logic.  That is very poor writing.  If your audience have to create scenes to make the plot work, you are not doing a very good job as a show writer. 

[falcotron]

27 minutes ago, SerJeremiahLouistark said:

Now they can say they tried him and he was guilty.  Is anyone that wasn't there going to question it? 

If they aren't interested in attempting to make it just, or make it look just, they could just not have a trial and say they did.

This seems to be an example of fans not just accepting that things in the show don't make sense, but going out of their way to make things in the show not make sense even though they seemed to. Like the people on another thread insisting that Euron was telling the truth when he said he was running away to hide on his island, and who cares that Cersei's later scene with Jaime makes no sense that way, the show does things that make no sense, just accept it. (Or, if they're show-haters rather than fans, replace the "just accept it" with "and that's why the show sucks".)

Sure, the show does some things that don't make sense, but it does a lot of things that do make sense, too, If they didn't we wouldn't have this forum and discussions like this in the first place; the only thing to talk about would be how cool Viserion's CGI was and whether Jon's ass was sexy.

So, when the show has a trial, yes, you can come up with a conspiracy theory where the trial wasn't actually relevant at all, and then assume the show just had a trial because they thought it would be cool to add some courtroom drama, but when it's simpler to assume the trial actually was relevant, and the director wasn't lying when he said Arya wasn't plotting with Sansa, and so on, it's a lot more interesting to do so as well.

[SerJeremiahLouistark]

10 minutes ago, falcotron said:

If they aren't interested in attempting to make it just, or make it look just, they could just not have a trial and say they did.

This seems to be an example of fans not just accepting that things in the show don't make sense, but going out of their way to make things in the show not make sense even though they seemed to. Like the people on another thread insisting that Euron was telling the truth when he said he was running away to hide on his island, and who cares that Cersei's later scene with Jaime makes no sense that way, the show does things that make no sense, just accept it. (Or, if they're show-haters rather than fans, replace the "just accept it" with "and that's why the show sucks".)

Sure, the show does some things that don't make sense, but it does a lot of things that do make sense, too, If they didn't we wouldn't have this forum and discussions like this in the first place; the only thing to talk about would be how cool Viserion's CGI was and whether Jon's ass was sexy.

So, when the show has a trial, yes, you can come up with a conspiracy theory where the trial wasn't actually relevant at all, and then assume the show just had a trial because they thought it would be cool to add some courtroom drama, but when it's simpler to assume the trial actually was relevant, and the director wasn't lying when he said Arya wasn't plotting with Sansa, and so on, it's a lot more interesting to do so as well.

I'm not disagreeing with you I'm just trying to attempt to rationalize.  There are definite problems with the story here I just don't think that Sansa's complicity in any of those crimes mean much when she is under duress and being conned by a trickster.  She didn't push Lysa all she did was help cover the story and that's easily explained away when she says "that's what you do, you turn family against family, sister against sister, that's what you did with our mother and aunt Lysa, that's what you tried to do with us".   There is no way it goes down like this in the books because Sansa actually goes along with the lie that the musician pushed Lysa, in the show she admits Littlefinger did it.  

But again the scene was done the way it was for drama and not actual storytelling, it was 100 percent fan service and like teamNightKing said, it was still satisfying to see that fucker's threat get slit.   

[Cron]

2 hours ago, falcotron said:

The forum software seems to have a bug that occasionally causes the wrong person to get quoted. (And it's not just the name—the link goes to the user page that matches the wrong name rather than the right author, the wrong person gets notified, etc.)

My guess is that they're using a pretty ancient version of their software and can't easily upgrade because of all the customizations they've done, and we'll just have to live with it, just like the creaky old rich-text editor and the server going down in the middle of most episodes and so on. At least it doesn't seem to happen that often.

WOW!!!!  That is really disturbing!!

So, there could be stuff floating around here that people think I wrote and posted, when I really DIDN'T????

That is not cool, man.  Seriously

[Cron]

2 hours ago, MilesJames said:

It would of been more satisfying if Bran caught him of guard and exposed evreything. 

Yeah, I would have been fine with that, too, but I guess the build up in drama is what the show writers chose to go with instead.

And, of course, it's possible that Bran did what he did b/c he knew other paths would lead to disaster.  It seems that Bran CAN see at least some future events (as someone recently pointed out to me, Bran did see a vision of Drogon over King's Landing long before it happened).  So, maybe Bran chose to do exactly what he did (and chose to NOT do what he DIDN'T do) precisely because he knew other other paths would not work out nearly as well.  (Who knows, maybe another path led to LF escaping, or even LF possibly killing Bran.  But if Bran saw the future we saw on screen, then he WOULD choose that path, cuz it all turned out well for the 3 Starks, and very, very badly for LF)

[Lorathi]

8 hours ago, Cron said:

Well, I think Bran DID expose Littlefinger.  I believe the only way that that scene (the death of LF) was possible was cuz Bran exposed him.

Littlefinger built a life based on lies, and then ran into someone (Bran) who wasn't fooled, and had the ability to expose LF to others as a liar, too.

And as a result, LF got crossed off.

In other words, he got Deus Ex Machinad off the show. I hated Littlefinger from season 1 and have been waiting for someone to kill him. But with a great villain like that, I always wish for a satisfying death. What I thought we were getting was Sansa putting all the pieces together (especially once Arya told her what she overheard in Harrenhal between Littlefinger and Tywin). There was foreshadowing for that, since Sansa was present for a lot of Littlefinger's misdeeds (and others, like murdering Joffrey, he admitted to her).

It would have been fitting for Littlefinger to have told Sansa just one thing too many, and not realized quite how clever he made her. But instead, she stupidly takes Arya to be her true enemy (after Arya flat shows her that she can kill her and steal her identity, then refuses to and leaves). Whether you take into account the deleted scene or not, she quite clearly fell for his BS once again, even after he got her raped and tortured by a monster.

Having all knowing Bran take out Littlefinger was about as satisfying as watching him catch gray scale or be killed off screen. And it's insulting that the show tries to present it as a team effort where they outsmarted him, because that isn't what happened. Sansa finally decided to speak up about what she already knew (which she could have done at any time), and Bran added in a bunch of stuff which wasn't even necessary to get Littlefinger executed. This plot just wasted time, and showed us that neither Sansa's political maneuvering nor Arya's spying has improved much.

[Cron]

27 minutes ago, Lorathi said:

In other words, he got Deus Ex Machinad off the show. I hated Littlefinger from season 1 and have been waiting for someone to kill him. But with a great villain like that, I always wish for a satisfying death. What I thought we were getting was Sansa putting all the pieces together (especially once Arya told her what she overheard in Harrenhal between Littlefinger and Tywin). There was foreshadowing for that, since Sansa was present for a lot of Littlefinger's misdeeds (and others, like murdering Joffrey, he admitted to her).

It would have been fitting for Littlefinger to have told Sansa just one thing too many, and not realized quite how clever he made her. But instead, she stupidly takes Arya to be her true enemy (after Arya flat shows her that she can kill her and steal her identity, then refuses to and leaves). Whether you take into account the deleted scene or not, she quite clearly fell for his BS once again, even after he got her raped and tortured by a monster.

Having all knowing Bran take out Littlefinger was about as satisfying as watching him catch gray scale or be killed off screen. And it's insulting that the show tries to present it as a team effort where they outsmarted him, because that isn't what happened. Sansa finally decided to speak up about what she already knew (which she could have done at any time), and Bran added in a bunch of stuff which wasn't even necessary to get Littlefinger executed. This plot just wasted time, and showed us that neither Sansa's political maneuvering nor Arya's spying has improved much.

Hmmm.  Well, I won't deny it could have been done in a better way, and frankly it sounds like your way would have been better and more satisfying.

So that's cool.

I would agree that a lot of what we saw was superfluous maneuvering for position that wasn't really necessary.  My opinion has been, for weeks, that the most realistic thing would have been for Sansa and Bran to quickly compare notes on LF shortly after Bran arrived at Winterfell, after which LF would have been dead within 30 minutes.  (I believe Bran surely knew all about LF before Bran even arrived in WF, cuz Bran would have already used his powers to see what had happened to each of his family members, and gee, whatta ya know, here's this guy, LF, who keeps popping up over and over)

I guess part of why I enjoyed the scene so much was relief that the writers didn't make it even WORSE by actually having Sansa and ARya try to kill each other.  So, maybe that's faint praise, to say "Well, it could have been worse," but I still enjoyed finally seeing LF caught up in his own web and crossed off accordingly.

There are also many other possibilities we don't know, and can never know.  For all we know, Sansa WAS trying to convince Royce to back her up in crossing off LF for a long time, but he was reluctant and wouldn't do it...until Bran arrived and convinced Royce that Sansa was right, and LF had to go.

Yes, I realize I'm inventing possibilities in order to fill in huge gaps in the story we were given, and yes, I realize that is FAR from ideal, but I think that kind of "gap-filling" is the best we've got available to us.  Yes, I wish this season had been 15 episodes long, with each one 90 minutes, filling in every possible detail and explaining every issue behind the scenes, but that just wasn't happening, of course.

So I'll take what I can get, and if I can find a way to make it make sense in my mind, I'll give the show the benefit of the doubt and go with that,unless they RADICALLY violate common sense and plausibility (which we HAVE seen, most recently in 706 when Gendry ran for help, teh raven flew to Dragonstone, and Dany got back to Jon & Company in time to save them all.  In my mind, there were just too many ill-fitting puzzle pieces that just could not be reconciled with each other, and I think the show basically dropped the ball there)

[Tadco26]

Like I said, the trial happened the way it did because the writers wanted a gotcha twist for the audience.  That's why Arya was brought in as if she was the suspect and then surprise switch to Littlefinger.  Otherwise there is never a pretense that Arya is the one on trial.  It's pretty clear that as a group we care more about debating and justifying the logic or lack there of in the scene than the writers did.

[Princess_of_Sunspear]

On 31/08/2017 at 4:28 AM, Tadco26 said:

Like I said the only reason the Boltons have ANY claim on Winterfell is because the Iron Throne made them Warden of the North.  There was no threat of Northern Rebellion mentioned ever on the show, that is a book only story line, and even if there was it doesn't explain what Littlefinger got out of the deal.  In the books the Fake Arya marriage is also made in part to strengthen the Bolton/Lannister alliance, not destroy it.  Keep in mind that the "weakened" Lannisters were stronger then than they were this season when they conquered all the Tyrell lands, and that realistic travel times for armies is clearly not something the show writers really care anything about.

Stannis and Ramsay would fight regardless of Sansa's presence or Littlefinger's alliance with the Boltons.  If anything the alliance would have expectations for him to back the Boltons against Stannis for no gain on his part. 

The most reasonable explanation is the writers wanted to consolidate as many scenes as possible and reduce the number of different locations with story lines, and hit certain plot points from the book, regardless of whether the plot point still made sense after the other changes they made.  Some of that is understandable.  You can't have an unlimited cast and you have limited screen time, and you can't have high paid actors go half a season or more with no scenes so combining them where possible reduces that problem. I'm just not a fan of the way they often drastically change things and then force plot points from the book in when the changes they made no longer make that plot point logical.  Which is what happened when they forced Sansa into the Fake Arya role.

I agree with you in part, they did have to converge a lot of plot lines (hence Sansa not fake Arya on the show), but I still think that Northern Rebellion against Boltons was always on cards, even if it's only a book thing- given how hated the Boltons are, at some point there would've been attempts to get rid of them by claiming that they're usurpers put on the seat by a bastard king. Marrying the last surviving Stark and getting her children is a sure fire way to consolidate your claim. And in the books it was a Lannister/Bolton show, but, again, I always considered it to be a Lannister attempt to put up a show for Northern lords to reconcile them to the new management- put Ned Starks daughter on show, get everyone to bow to  Boltons as they now have her hostage.

Even though show is not bothered with logistics as a rule, Lannisters were in deep shit at the end of S6/ start of S7 ad Jaime has mentioned how they have no allies or food. Even after the plunder of Highgarden, they have a bigger threat of Daenerys and her Unsullied/Dothraki/Dragons, so it's unlikely that they'd bother sacking Ramsay if he defies them(marrying someone they want dead), at least not until after they defeat Dany, and tbh, no one expected Cersei to last so long on IT, and Tyrells/Tommen couldn't care less about the North. 

LF gets Winterfell out of the deal- he installs his chess piece Sansa as the Lady of Winterfell early on in the show, but it was always his goal in books. He counted on Sansa becoming LoW and Stannis defeating Ramsay- in which case he could conveniently turn up and say "btw, Sansa is my ward, she was kidnapped by the Boltons" and pretend to serve Stannis (before stabbing him in the back LF style). The only thing that bothers me is that he risked his most valuable piece by turning her over to a known psychopath, but I guess he expected Ramsay to die sooner than later. 

[Apoplexy]

2 hours ago, Princess_of_Sunspear said:

 LF gets Winterfell out of the deal- he installs his chess piece Sansa as the Lady of Winterfell early on in the show, but it was always his goal in books. He counted on Sansa becoming LoW and Stannis defeating Ramsay- in which case he could conveniently turn up and say "btw, Sansa is my ward, she was kidnapped by the Boltons" and pretend to serve Stannis (before stabbing him in the back LF style). The only thing that bothers me is that he risked his most valuable piece by turning her over to a known psychopath, but I guess he expected Ramsay to die sooner than later. 

I think LF was banking on the fact that the Boltons wouldn't kill Sansa till she produced an heir. And after that, he could still hold his influence over the north by saying he is the guardian of the child's mother.

[MasterOfDeath]

I was thinking about this today and just realized Littlefinger was trying to turn Sansa and Arya against each other like he turned Lysa against Cat.

As for LF's motives for marrying Sansa to Ramsay, the only reason I could see is he wanted to ensure Stannis would lose the battle. Marrying Sansa to the Boltons ensures the North won't help Stannis and he will be defeated leaving LF able to come in with the Vale army and destroy the Boltons himself, saving Sansa, becoming a hero that saved the North, marrying Sansa and then consolidating his forces to take Kings Landing eventually and crown himself king with Sansa at his side.

 

Of course it didn't turn out that way.

 

As for why Royce didn't question Sansa's complicity in covering up the truth of Lysa's death, remember back in season 6, Royce has figured out that Littlefinger sold Sansa to the Boltons and condemned him for it until LF intimidated him through Robin and Royce complied with his plan too for fear of being sentenced to death by Lord Robin. He himself was also a victim of LF's schemes so he can't really talk for complicity.

[falcotron]

21 minutes ago, MasterOfDeath said:

As for why Royce didn't question Sansa's complicity in covering up the truth of Lysa's death, remember back in season 6, Royce has figured out that Littlefinger sold Sansa to the Boltons and condemned him for it until LF intimidated him through Robin and Royce complied with his plan too for fear of being sentenced to death by Lord Robin. He himself was also a victim of LF's schemes so he can't really talk for complicity.

That doesn't answer the question; in fact, it does the exact opposite.

Many crime bosses (at least many fictional ones) make people complicit in their crimes, so those people can't turn against them without implicating themselves. That seems to be part of Littlefinger's MO, and why he's survived this long, right? Except that if he won't use that complicity against anyone, and nobody's even remotely worried that he will, it doesn't actually give him that benefit at all, or any other benefit (except maybe some kind of for-the-evulz fun).

 

[Shi Qiang]

Sansa was indeed an accomplice to what LF was doing in the Vale.  Let's also remember that she is poisoning Sweet Robin in the novels.  The short answer to your question is the show writers wanted LF dead and Sansa to come out smelling like a rose.  We book readers know better though.  LF and Bran should have brought up Sansa's complicity.  If Bran is to be the 3-eyed raven who serves the best interest of man kind, he cannot be partial to his sisters. 

[Eternal_King_Stannis]

Why would he admit to doing it anyway?  Why not ask for a trial by combat?

[Nowy Tends]

On 08/28/2017 at 9:26 AM, Hoo said:

Simple.  She played him to kill him, because she wanted to kill him like serial killers do,

This is so ridiculous… Can you PLEASE stop trolling this threads? you should tidy your room, make your homework and let the grownups discuss…

[Tagganaro]

6 hours ago, MasterOfDeath said:

I was thinking about this today and just realized Littlefinger was trying to turn Sansa and Arya against each other like he turned Lysa against Cat.

Yes, the showrunners were clearly going for that parallel, which made me otherwise appreciate this entire arc even though it doesn't hold up to firm logic.  I think for me the whole thing worked on a character and emotional perspective, and that was all I really needed from it.  There are lots of nits to pick with the logic or lack thereof, but as a pure kickass moment Sansa suddenly turning to "Lord Baelish" was awesome as well as Arya slicing his throat.

I think the final wonderful scene on the Winterfell balcony tied things together for me in a way that justified all the logical and narrative hoops they jumped through to get there.  Mileage varies of course, but I really enjoyed this arc for that reason.  It was about getting the Stark Pack back together with Arya, Sansa and Bran all working together to take out one of the biggest villains in the series who was responsible for putting them through most of this shit to begin with.  For me, that was really satisfying and to see Arya and Sansa finally arrive at a place where they can work together and appreciate each other was really rewarding.