Littlefinger and Barry Lyndon

[Alyn Oakenfist]

So I've talked previously how Littlefinger's story with Ned, Cat and Sansa very closely resembles Judge Turpin's story in Sweeney Todd. That being said, there are a few missing elements, primarily, the element of the social climber. And in that we can see the similarities with probably the greatest story about social climbing ever put to film, Barry Lyndon. So quick summing up of Barry Lyndon

- Redmund Barry (our protagonist) begins the story as a part of the petty nobility. When he falls in love with someone betrothed to someone much higher than him, he challenges them to a duel. In Barry Lyndon he doesn't lose the duel, but due to it being rigged nor does he lose it, and as a result of the duel he is kicked out. Sound familiar?

- From spite and hatred, he resolves to climb the social class, which trough a combination of bravery, skill, deceit and manipulation, he manages to do, first y becoming a very rich if not well respected man. Sound familiar.

- He continues his climb by becoming lovers with a young lady married to an old Lord, who's death he later causes, allowing him to marry his now widow. Hmmm

There are a few more parallels beyond this. Lord Bullignton and Brian are a pretty clear parallels to Harry and Robin.

Which brings us to an interesting plot point. In the movie, Brian dies, leaving Bullington as the heir, challenging Barry Lyndon to a duel and finally ousting him. So with this and the parallel to Sweeney Todd, will Harry and Sansa kick LF out of the Vale leaving him to the Riverlands and the tender mercies of Stoneheart?

[Lord Varys]

Those are just very generic parallels. In an aristocratic setting the way up for lesser people is always through noble marriages and/or acquiring (massive) wealth.

Character-wise there is also little these two have in common - Littlefinger is smart and very talented and a very diligent worker ... whereas Redmund Barry is a lazy charlatan, basically, whose advances are all based on lies and scams.

Littlefinger's influence, power, and wealth are all very real things - while Barry is always just barely tolerated in better circles and never truly has a chance to become accepted.

[Nathan Stark]

I don't think Harry will be doing any kicking. A bucket, perhaps. It'll be Sansa and Sweetrobin who kick out Littlefinger in this scenario. Though I do think it'll go down at Winterfell, not the Vale.

[Megorova]

1 hour ago, Alyn Oakenfist said:

So with this and the parallel to Sweeney Todd, will Harry and Sansa kick LF out of the Vale leaving him to the Riverlands and the tender mercies of Stoneheart?

No, definitely no. All LF's plans concerning the Vale will succeed. And he will go much further than that. After getting rid of Harry, LF will offer Sansa as a bride to fAegon, and he will try to pull off there the same trick as he did with Lysa, Jon Arryn and Robert (who is LF's son). Possibly he's intending for Queen Sansa to give birth to his son, and for that son to be raised as King fAegon's son, and for Sansa to poison her husband, for LF to rule 7K as the young King's Hand and Regent, same as he's doing it now at the Vale. His success won't go as far as that, in the end he will burn (not killed by Arya), though he will go much further than his TV-show version. He will stay nearly to the very end. I see that readers are underestimating him.

[Egged]

If you want more "Where did GRRM get this from?" read The Tartar Steppe. It's pretty much the Night's Watch.

Warning: It is depressing.

If you don't want to read it, there is a good movie adaptation.

[Nathan Stark]

2 hours ago, Megorova said:

No, definitely no. All LF's plans concerning the Vale will succeed. And he will go much further than that. After getting rid of Harry, LF will offer Sansa as a bride to fAegon, and he will try to pull off there the same trick as he did with Lysa, Jon Arryn and Robert (who is LF's son). Possibly he's intending for Queen Sansa to give birth to his son, and for that son to be raised as King fAegon's son, and for Sansa to poison her husband, for LF to rule 7K as the young King's Hand and Regent, same as he's doing it now at the Vale. His success won't go as far as that, in the end he will burn (not killed by Arya), though he will go much further than his TV-show version. He will stay nearly to the very end. I see that readers are underestimating him.

The trouble is, Littlefinger told us his plan, in the text. With GRRM, that usually means the plan is going to go sideways and fail. Littlefinger is a great player, don't get me wrong, but his reputation does get inflated at times.

[Megorova]

6 minutes ago, Nathan Stark said:

The trouble is, Littlefinger told us his plan, in the text.

No, he didn't. That was a lie, or only partial truth, his real plan is a bit different (he never reveals the entirety of his plans to anyone). Harry will die soon, with LF's help. LF isn't going to give Sansa to Harry, if he can give her for a higher price to fAegon. She's the key to the three Kingsdoms - North, Riverlands, and Westerlands (as Tyrion's wife). And thru her LF can get Iron Throne, while by giving her to Harry he will only lose control over the Vale. Thus, Harry is a goner for sure.

11 minutes ago, Nathan Stark said:

his reputation does get inflated at times.

He did outsmarted Varys more than once, that should be worth something.

[Nathan Stark]

10 minutes ago, Megorova said:

No, he didn't. That was a lie, or only partial truth, his real plan is a bit different (he never reveals the entirety of his plans to anyone). Harry will die soon, with LF's help. LF isn't going to give Sansa to Harry, if he can give her for a higher price to fAegon. She's the key to the three Kingsdoms - North, Riverlands, and Westerlands (as Tyrion's wife). And thru her LF can get Iron Throne, while by giving her to Harry he will only lose control over the Vale. Thus, Harry is a goner for sure.

Well, we can agree that Harry is gonna die very soon. 2050 at the most.

But how are you so certain that you know Littlefinger's plan? My own hunch is that he is not planning on giving Sansa to anybody, since he clearly wants her for himself. Though you do make a solid case for how Sansa is the key to the North and Riverlands.

18 minutes ago, Megorova said:

He did outsmarted Varys more than once, that should be worth something.

Did he? I never got the sense they were directly working against each other for the most part. They are working towards acheiving different goals.

[Walda]

Love the film of Barry Lyndon. 

It is an interesting comparison. Thackeray based the novel The Luck of Barry Lyndon on the horrific real life of Andrew Robinson Stoney, who had enlisted as an ensign in the 30th (Cambridgeshire) regiment of the foot, promoted himself to Captain on the strength of a newspaper misprint, married a heiress for her money and killed her for her inheritance, before conning the hand in marriage of Mary Bowes, the dowager Countess of Strathmore and Kinghorne by her first marriage, and the richest heiress in England when she inherited her father's coal fields.

The horrific levels of domestic abuse that ensued when he discovered most of her money was secured against such as him in trust funds, and the publically available details of that abuse thanks to court actions for they money and for divorce, as well as Stoney's using the press to further his cause, and even forcing his wife to write a book of 'confessions' at swordpoint including details of an abortion she had obtained, that he then published. She escaped him, established a legal precedent that enabled a woman to have funds to live on seperate to her husband out of their joint estate, and that a women could divorce their husbands if he is unfaithful AND abusive, although she died before their divorce came through.

His army surgeon and friend published a memoir of him that included his third, commonlaw wife, a fifteen year old girl, daughter of a fellow inmate of Fleet Street debtors prison. He managed to get a room that he turned into a prison in a prison for her. She had several children to him in that room and died from his abuse there before he did, aged sixty-three.

Stoney used his second wife's wealth to get himself a seat in parliament in the days of old corruption. He was a psychopath, not a brilliant thinker and organizer, but a forceful personality and an outrageous liar that was good at exploiting the marriage laws and sexual mores of the time to make men his accomplices and women his victims. The real man had none of the courage and tenderness of Kubrick's Barry, and none of the (actually quite racist) rougeish blarney of Thackery's Barry. Also he was more violent and thuggish than Thackery or Kubrick wished to depict.

I sincerely hope that Lysa is not Mary Bowes. That would make Sansa Polly Sutton. It would also imply Petyr had a Hannah Newton, a dead first wife, not as wealthy as Lysa, and not from the mainland. Perhaps the gentlewomen of Braavos, daughter of a merchant prince, that was Alayne's mother.

[Alyn Oakenfist]

27 minutes ago, Walda said:

The real man had none of the courage and tenderness of Kubrick's Barry

Yeah, Kubrick, is pretty clever in the way he portrays Barry, using his positive traits as a way to mock British upper society (which he personally hated), ironically often showing Barry as the better man.

I think GRRM is kinda doing this too. Sure LF is a psychopath, but as an administrator, he'd probably be one of the best Kings ever, and far better than the likes of Robert.

[Sigella]

My takeaway from Barry Lyndon was how he kept failing at his social climb, constantly crashing and burning. Granted it's been more than a few years since I saw it last.

LF has thus far been far to successful to make a satisfactory parallel.

[Megorova]

22 hours ago, Nathan Stark said:

But how are you so certain that you know Littlefinger's plan?

I don't want to hijack this thread, so I will answer to you question, but, please, DON'T comment on it, or else we will have here a longwinded debate unrelated to this thread's topic. Let's not do that, Ok?

Spoiler

In the last book of the Bible there are depicted events of the World's End, Apocalypse. ASOIAF's characters are partial parallels to Biblical characters depicted in the Book of the Apocalypse:

• Varys is a Dragon/Satan,
• Jon is Agnus Dei/the Lamb of God/Jesus;
• Dany is the Bride of the Lamb (the Bible ended with her wedding with the Messiah), and also she's the Woman Clothed in the Sun; 
• Rhaego is the second coming of Jesus, the Great Shepherd, the King of kings and Lord of lords, who in the Bible was leading an army of horsemen against forces of darkness in the Last Battle;
• Cersei and King's Landing is the Great Harlot/Babylonian Whore, while Euron is the Scarlet Beast;
• Golden Company is the Beast out of the Sea,

who had seven heads, one of which was mortally wounded and then healed itself (parallel to Elia's Aegon, who died when the Mountain smashed his head), which caused people to worship this Beast. This Beast had 10 horns, so 5 out of its 7 heads was horned, and 2 were without horns. GRRM's dragons have horns. So 2 heads without horns are Myles Toyne and Harry Strickland, those captain-generals/leaders of GC who are not dragonseeds, while 5 horned heads are: 1. Aegor Rivers, 2. Daemon (the unnumbered) Blackfyre, 3. Maelys the Monstrous Blackfyre, 4. whoever was their captain-general in a slot between Maelys-B and Myles-T, 5. fAegon - five leaders of GC who are dragonseeds.

(The fourth one was possibly the Smiling Knight (the Mountain of Jaime's youth), a guy who got killed by Arthur Dayne, while Barristan Selmy killed Simon Toyne, the leader of the Kingswood Brotherhood (and possibly a brother of Myles Toyne, who then became GC's captain-general, after the Smiling Knight's death). I think that the Smiling Knight was GC's captain-general and one of Blackfyres, either from a female line or some sort of distant cousin of Maelys the Monstous and the Unnumbered Daemon. In my opinion Barristan Selmy's mother was Aenys Blackfyre's daughter, so Barristan is a Blackfyre by blood. Also I think that Barristan is fAegon's father, and that the boy's mother is septa Lemore, whose real name is Jeyne Swann. At the time of Barristan's fight with the Kingswood Brotherhood, he saved from them Lady Jeyne Swann and her septa, it happened in 281. In my opinion Jeyne's septa was actually Shiera Seastar in shadow-glamour. After Barristan saved Jeyne, and Arthur with Jaime Lannister took prisoners (amongst them Ulmer, who is now an archer at the Castle Black) to King's Landing, Barristan stayed with Jeyne and her septa, to escort them to wherever they were going. The thing is - in his youth Barristan served as a squire to Lord Swann, so he was an obvious choice which of the three knights should stay with Lady Jeyne. So when Barristan, Jeyne and her septa remained alone, the septa/Shiera slipped love potion into Barristan's drink or food, Jeyne had sex with him, and conceived fAegon. This happened at the very same night when Elia and Rhaegar conceived Aegon at King's Landing. The same comet that was passing above the city at that time, was also seen from the Kingswood. While the Bleeding Star comet heralded the birth of the real Promised Prince - Rhaego, that comet in 281 heralded conception of fAegon/Antichrist.)

• fAegon/the mummer's dragon is a parallel to Biblical Antichrist.

I see an obvious (or at least highly likely) parallel between what happened at the Kingswood between Barristan Selmy, Jeyne Swann, and Shiera Seastar, to what GRRM wrote in AGOT - Robb Stark, Jeyne Westerling, Sybell Spicer.

Robb had sex with Jeyne Westerling because she slipped him a love potion, prepared by her mother. Sybell Spicer is the granddaughter of Maggy the Frog, who was a fortune teller from Lannisport, who dealt in cures and love potions.

Now about Shiera/Jeyne Swann's septa, The Sworn Sword:

" "You've known queens and princesses. Did they dance with demons and practice the black arts?"

"Lady Shiera does. Lord Bloodraven's paramour. She bathes in blood to keep her beauty. And once my sister Rhae put a love potion in my drink, so I'd marry her instead of my sister Daella." "

"Did the potion work?" Dunk asked.

"It would have," said Egg, "but I spit it out."

Rhae asked her aunty Shiera to give her a love potion which she wanted to use on Aegon.

GRRM frequently uses trinities in his writing, in ASOIAF a trinity is the most frequently used pattern. So we have three bad girls that used love potions to get what they wanted - Rhae (failed), Jeyne Swann (succeeded in her seduction and got a child), Jeyne Westerling (her plan succeeded, but there was no child, of which Sybell took care of).

• In the Bible there was a False Prophet, the Beast out of the Earth.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Beast_(Revelation)#Beast_from_the_Earth

"This second beast comes out of the earth whose overall appearance is not described, other than having "two horns like a lamb", and speaking "like a dragon".^[5] His purpose is to promote the authority of the first beast with the ability to perform great signs, even making fire come down out of Heaven. This second beast is also called the false prophet.^[6]"

I think that LF's ancestor was the Bastard of Harrenhal, who in my opinion was a secret son of Aegon IV Targaryen and Aegon's eighth mistress and bastard-daughter, Jeyne Lothston. Jeyne's mother was Falena Stokewoth. Family sigil of House Stokeworth is a lamb with chalise in its front paw, this:

https://awoiaf.westeros.org/images/thumb/3/37/House_Stokeworth.svg/218px-House_Stokeworth.svg.png

It's a Biblical symbol of Jesus.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lamb_of_God

Look at this picture, and compare it with Stokeworth's sigil:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Agnus_Dei_with_Vexillum.jpg

The real Lamb of God is bearing the weight of his cross, and bleeding for his people, while the lamb on Stokeworth's sigil is pawing the gold. Jon is for the people, and LF is for himself.

It the Bible the Beast out of the Earth had dragon's voice and a lamb's horns.

Littlefinger (figuratively) has dragon's voice, because he is a dragonseed and King Aegon IV's descendant, and he has lamb's horns, because one of his ancestors is a Stokeworth.

This is a scene in which people of 7K are worshiping Antichrist/fAegon, ACOK Dany IV:

"Glowing like sunset, a red sword was raised in the hand of a blue-eyed king who cast no shadow. A cloth dragon swayed on poles amidst a cheering crowd. From a smoking tower, a great stone beast took wing, breathing shadow fire. . . . mother of dragons, slayer of lies . . ."

Littlefinger will be fAegon's False Prophet, he will persuade people of 7K to worship fAegon as their King. He will offer Sansa to fAegon. How Dany will be the Lamb's/Jon's bride, Sansa will be the fake Lamb's/Antichrist's/fAegon's bride.

And then both Varys and Petyr Baelish will burn. Because that's what happened in the Bible to the Dragon/Satan and the False Prophet. If my assumptions are correct, then Varys and LF will be "the last man standing", they will go off the stage the last out of the bad guys.

22 hours ago, Nathan Stark said:

23 hours ago, Megorova said:

He did outsmarted Varys more than once, that should be worth something.

Did he? I never got the sense they were directly working against each other for the most part. They are working towards acheiving different goals.

1. Littlefinger effectively stole Margaery/The Reach from fAegon/Varys.

(Let's not debate about what is written under spoiler, I wrote it there just to explain my opinion, not to have it discussed).

Spoiler

One of Varys' main goals was to marry fAegon to Margaery Tyrell, thru her to ensure The Reach's support in Golden Company's conquest of the 7K. The real head of House Tyrell is Olenna, not Mace, and Olenna is a Redwyne. Tyrion saw that Illyrio had in his mansion a cask of wine from private stores of Runceford Redwyne, Olenna's father.

Redwynes have the largest fleet in Westeros. Have you ever thought how did Bittersteel and his people managed to transport from Westeros to Essos after their failure in the First Blackfyre Rebellion? I think that they got help from Runceford, who was a Blackfyre-supporter. Thus Olenna and Mace are also Blackfyre-supporters. Varys, Tyrells and Redwynes are accomplices.

During Robert's Rebellion Mace on purpose arrived too late at the Battle at Ashford, only after it became apparent that Robert's forces will lose to Randyll Tarly forces. In a span of entire Rebellion, Mace and Redwynes were holding their forces back from the fights that were going on between Targaryen-forces and Robert's supporters. Instead of joining Rhaegar at the Trident's battle, Mace was dawdling/wasting time away, while sitting near Storm's End, doing nothing. After Rhaegar's death he didn't commanded his troops to march to King's Landing to provide aid to King Aerys. The distance from Storm's End to KL is nearly the same as from Trident to KL, thus if Mace was a Targaryen-loyalist, he would have had been able to save Aerys. But he didn't, because he is actually a Blackfyre-supporter. While Mace was sieging SE from the land side, the sea side was blocked by Redwyne fleet. Nevertheless Davos managed to get past that fleet and to smuglle onions for Stannis and his people. I think that Varys gave a command to Redwynes to get Davos thru. Davos and Stannis are unaware of it. Varys didn't had intentions for Stannis and his people to die, thus Redwynes pretended that they haven't noticed Davos' advances towards SE.

Varys wasn't intending for the Golden Company to invade 7K, not yet. And Tyrells got tired of waiting, being fed for years by Varys' promises (same as Golden Company). So it was Littlefinger, who ruined Varys's original plans, by making Lysa to poison Jon Arryn, by instigating conflict between Starks and Lannisters, by tricking Margaery into marrying with Renly Baratheon, and then with Joffrey Lannister. All that made Varys to rush his plans. Now Margaery is married to Tommen, and even though they haven't consummated their marriage, it's unlikely now that fAegon will agree to marry with Margaery. By the time of fAegon's arrival to KL, Margaery either will be dead, or will be a triple-widow, and thus not a viable candidate to become his bride.

2. Varys intended to marry Sansa to Willas Tyrell,

Spoiler

to appease Tyrells and Olenna after his failure to assure Margaery's becoming the Queen of 7K thru marriage with fAegon. Thru LF's assistance (who did this for his own reasons) they already accomplished that - Margaery is the Queen of 7K, and not thanks to Varys. So Varys had to give them something else. And that something else was supposed to be Sansa/the key to The North.

And this time Littlefinger again outsmarted Varys. He not only stole the Key to The North from under Tyrells' and Varys' noses, he also additionally turned her into a Key to the Westerlands, by marrying her to Tyrion. Jaime is a Kingsguard. LF leaked to the public information about Cersei's sins, and now Cersei is held in captivity and will be judged, and if she will be found guilty, she will be either executed, or depraved of all titles, including her status as Tywin's heir to Casterly Rock's seat. As Tyrion's wife Sansa is the Lady of Westerlands. With Tyrion's death she is the Head of House Lannister, not Kevan, even though he is Tywin's brother.

But now Sansa is with LF, so in this game he has also defeated Varys.

3. Varys' plan for Ned Stark was to send him to The Wall.

Spoiler

He persuaded Cersei to pardon Ned, and in exchange of him joining Night's Watch, not to execute him. That's not what LF wanted. He needed to maximally disrupt Varys' plans concerning fAegon's and Golden Company's preparations for their future invasion. By sending Ned to The Wall, Varys would have avoided civil war at 7K (which he didn't needed to happen at that point in time. It would have been an entirely different matter, if this sort of war-conflict happened in Westeros when Golden Company would have been ready to afterwards rip its fruits, to invade and to attack 7K when it will be weakened by that conflict, then that conflict would have been favourable for Varys. It seems to me that during Robert's Rebellion Varys was also waiting to see what will be the outcome of it. And if Robert lost, but Targaryen-forces would have been weakend from war, then it would have been a good time for Golden Company to invade. Though Robert won, and united 7K thru all those marriages, him with Cersei, Ned with Cat, Lysa with Jon. And thus then invasion would have definitely failed. This time, when LF started the War of the Five Kings, Golden Company wasn't ready yet).

But LF manipulated Joffrey into continuing with his original plan, and Ned got executed.

Thus, the current score in "Littlefinger VS Varys" game is 3:0.

Those three are the main key points, though there are more. Littlefinger constantly pushed Varys to act in a hurry, to counter LF's moves. And when people are rushed, they make mistakes.

Spoiler

In my opinion in the past Littlefinger was one of Varys' agents, one of his Little Birds, that's why his personal sigil is a Mocking bird, it symbolises his victory over Varys, something like "the disciple who has surpassed his teacher". LF being Varys' ex-apprentice explains how LF found out about fAegon and Varys' plans for Golden Company to invade 7K.

LF knows that Varys is a Blackfyre, and originally Varys made LF his disciple because LF is also a dragonseed and bloodrelated to Varys. LF's ancestor, the Bastard of Harrenhal, was half-brother of Daemon I Blackfyre, and one of LF's other ancestors, an Otherys-girl (mother of the Sellsword from Braavos, who was LF's great grandfather, and half-brother of the First Lord Whent of Harrenhal/Shella Whent's grandfather, and Cat and Lysa's great grandfather) was Daemon's niece. (The Bastard of Harrenhal at first had a child with one of the Black Pearls, or the Black Pearl's sister or cousin, that child is LF's great grandfather, and then the Bastard returned to Westeros, married there and his legitimate son (or in case if he had only daughters, then his son-in-law) became First Lord Whent of Harrenhal. This Bastard's second son (or son-in-law) is Catelyn Tully's great-grandfather. Which means that Cat, Lysa and Edmure are Petyr Baelish' third cousins.

Petyr is Aegon IV's descendant. He knows about this, and he thinks that he has no less rights to get Iron Throne than Varys, or fAegon, or Baratheons. Those are his motives for what he does - he believes that he has a right. And by blood he has a claim even higher than fAegon's, who is Daemon Blackfyre's descendant. Amongst Petyr's ancestors there are three children of Aegon IV - Jeyne Lothston, The Bastard of Harrenhal, and an Otherys-girl (either Bellenora, or Narha, or Balerion Otherys thru his daughter), while Blackfyre-line descended only from one of Aegon's children - Daemon I.

(LET'S NOT DEBATE ANY OF MY CLAIMS. I JUST SHARED MY OPINION, THAT'S IT. I DON'T WANT OTHER POSTERS TO FLOOD THIS THREAD WITH CRITIQUE OF WHAT I WROTE, INSTEAD OF DICSUSSING THE ORIGINAL TOPIC OF THIS THREAD. SO, please, DON'T. I'm adressing this to anyone who will read my post and will want to comment on it - don't.)

@Nathan Stark we can continue discussion of those parts of my post that are relevant for this thread, like LF and his plans, etc., but not what I wrote under spoilers. Ok?

[Angel Eyes]

9 hours ago, Sigella said:

My takeaway from Barry Lyndon was how he kept failing at his social climb, constantly crashing and burning. Granted it's been more than a few years since I saw it last.

LF has thus far been far to successful to make a satisfactory parallel.

Littlefinger, in my view, is more akin to Heathcliff from Wuthering Heights, given how he's brought up and takes over the place that threw him out, gaining power over the daughter of the woman he desired. The point that Littlefinger is now isn't far off the point that Heathcliff is at when the novel begins; he's already won for now.

[Lord Varys]

59 minutes ago, Angel Eyes said:

Littlefinger, in my view, is more akin to Heathcliff from Wuthering Heights, given how he's brought up and takes over the place that threw him out, gaining power over the daughter of the woman he desired. The point that Littlefinger is now isn't far off the point that Heathcliff is at when the novel begins; he's already won for now.

There is somewhat of that there, yes, but Littlefinger doesn't *really* take over the Riverlands, nor does he seem to be particularly motivated by a desire for vengeance over the Tullys. Lysa is much more motivated by a desire to punish her father than Littlefinger apparently is.

It may that a desire for personal vengeance jump-started Littlefinger's ambition ... but now his ambition drives him, his desire to gain more and more power, not petty revenge. He doesn't get rich and powerful to be able to strike back, he does it because he likes it. In that sense he has not that much to do with Heathcliff or Edmond Dantes, for that matter.

But with Sansa there is definitely a parallel there - although we have to see which road they take together. I'm pretty sure they will continue to dream big and take a shot at the ultimate price.