Jump to content

Are Mors and Mance working together?


James Steller

Recommended Posts

There’s a well thought out theory that the hooded man inside Winterfell is Mors “Crowfood Umber” using Melisandre’s glamor bracelet to impersonate Roger Ryswell after he was the first anonymous victim of the spear wives’ murders. I thought it was well put together for the most part, but what makes me tilt my head is the implication that Mance and Mors are not only aware of each other, but they’re also working together, since Mance would have had to give Mors the means to impersonate someone else. 
 

I can remember if the sample Theon chapter of WoW confirmed this or not, but I’m not sure if Mors is actually coordinating his actions with Mance. Given that Jon warned Stannis not to bring wildlings through Umber territory, why would Mance and Mors suddenly be able to work together? Or was that a mislead on GRRM’s part to make Jon an unreliable source of information?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I read that theory, and yeah, I'm calling BS because of the fact that Mors Umber hates wildlings so much that Stannis couldn't even march them through Umber lands. Even if you argue that they're technically on the same side for once, who the hell would have sat Mors down and told him what was going on? And does Mors strike you as a man who'd think about this new alliance between wildlings and Northmen and see the benefits in it enough to change his mind? Mors is not that guy. Mors was doing scout work for Stannis and he happened to find Theon in the snow, it wasn't like Theon knew where to jump anyway, they did that out of desperation. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Most likely not, or rather:

[Don't read that if you don't want to read considerable spoilers for TWoW.]

Spoiler

If this were the case, we are not likely to learn this because it seems that Mors Umber dies early in TWoW. There has been a picture of a computer screen of Anne Groell depicting what seemed to be a page from an Asha chapter where Hosteen Frey is mentioned to march against Stannis with a Mors Umber's head on a pike as his banner - after he has put down Mors himself and his green boys (or most of them) in the wake of Aenys Frey's death in one of those pits.

I don't think the author will bother with Mors stories after the man in a corpse - even less so if Mance were dead as well (which I think is less likely).

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 4 weeks later...

Mors is not the Hooded Man, but I do believe he is in league with the Mance, along with many other Northmen

Apparently, Melisandre wanted Jon to send Mance to rescue his sister in order to gain Jon’s trust, but the especially curious issue here was that Melisandre saw Arya riding north, east of Long Lake, and Mance said he had a ploy in mind, asking for a handful of spearwives to help him, suggesting he knew that he would be going to Winterfell not the eastern shore of Long Lake. Later we found out with the arrival of Alys Karstark at Castle Black, that Mance did not even bother to look for Arya, and Jon began to suspect that Melisandre had some other task for Mance. He ended up thinking about Melisandre’s secret agenda at least twice more.

Disguised as Abel, an echo of Mance’s hero, Bael the Bard, the Mance wanted to know how Theon captured Winterfell. Clearly, Mance was attempting to find some way for Stannis to capture Winterfell. He also wanted Theon to show him the crypts. While Mance was apparently unable to find some way for Stannis to capture Winterfell by some trick, his spearwives began murdering men to fan the flames of animosity between House Frey and the Northmen, especially House Manderly. Presumably, Mance intended to hide in the crypts as Bael had done.

But why was Mance so eager, desperate even, to help the presumed Arya to escape? He did not seem to care about Theon, but he needed Theon to get the presumed Arya out. Did he believe that he had stumbled upon Arya Stark at Winterfell, and that he needed to get her out of the castle to fulfill Melisandre’s vision to foster good relations with Jon and to promote fidelity between the Free Folk and the North? Is that why he apparently sacrificed himself to free the presumed Arya? Theon was quite convinced that Abel would be caught and flayed by Ramsay, and that fate was apparently confirmed in the pink letter

Spoiler

and in the Theon spoiler chapter from Winds, the events of which were confirmed to have occurred before Jon received the pink letter,

and foreshadowed in The Dornishman's Wife.

Interestingly, one of the spearwives, Rowan, seemed to hold Theon in great contempt. This alone would not have been suspect, but she also took great umbrage at Theon’s use of House Stark’s words, suggesting she was actually a daughter of the North rather than a native of the Free Folk, although there did seem to be a grudging respect, or awe, for House Stark among the Free Folk. Rowan, tall and skinny, too lean and leathery to be called pretty, but attractive with auburn hair, could very well have been the daughter Mors lost during a wilding raid. 

Perhaps Mance stoped at Last Hearth with Rowan on his way to Winterfell. Perhaps Rowan convinced her father that he should not be demanding Mance’s skull for a drinking cup after all. 

Mors later arrived at Winterfell. He did not attack, but he started blowing war horns, presumably to instill fear in the defenders, but possibly to alert agents on the inside, and notice that was precisely when Mance decided it was time to bug out. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

×
×
  • Create New...