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Littlefinger love for Catelyn.


Lord Middlefinger

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Catelyn is in fact an intelligent women. She understands the political landscapes of Westeros and knows how the lords think.

Her mistakes and weaknesses throughout the series were done due to emotional feelings and motherly values. A mother like cat will do anything to get her litter back.

Similar to Ned, Catelyn was made to lose at almost every turn by grrm. Their purpose of the story was to go through certain tragedies and fail at certain points whilst finally seeing their ends.

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Cat is neither dumb nor irrational. She may overreact sometimes but her actions are consistent both to the family she comes from, who is all Family Duty Honour and the information she has.

Petyr has a crush on her because she was his first love and he has never got over her.

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10 hours ago, lorafen said:

Why so inteligent and cunning character like Petyr Baelish has loved so dumb and irrational person like Catelyn Tully even after he has grown up? Is that make any sense or it is another lie or Littlefinger's game?

Catelyn is not dumb or irrational. She is actually the consumate status quo politician, to use modern parlence. She makes decisions based on bad information that later result in tragedy for her and her family. And that information was mostly provided to her by... Littlefinger! She maybe should have thought twice about trusting him, but I understand why she chose to. He was basically a little brother in her eyes. And she cannot imagine family betrayal.

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Petyr Baelish wanted what he could get from Hoster Tully if he was a good-son rather than an indigent ward. He would get more from dutiful Catelyn than capricious Lysa, Hoster would give more for Catelyn. If Edmure died, Catelyn would inherit, a role she had been raised for.

There is also the fact that Catelyn was hard to get, while Lysa climbed into his bed. Winning Catelyn would mean spiting the Great Noble Family Stark, and Brandon seems like the type of person who would make that a very satisfactory thing to do. 

Really, Petyr is bold but extremely pragmatic. He must have known he was not going to win the duel for Catelyn's hand in marriage. He must have known that only Brandon's sense of honour would save his life, if Brandon felt there was no honour in killing a green young boy simply for being infatuated with his betrothed. 

The whole set-up, where he begs Catelyn for her favour, but she gives it to Brandon, begging Brandon to be merciful, but he isn't especially. Petyr didn't intend to win the duel,  this was his chance to look directly at her and say "Cat!" as his heart is piereced, or the boiled leather on top of it.

He is guilt-tripping Catelyn and turning her against the man she is going to marry, and leaving her flattered, looking kindly on him. Sure enough, Catelyn remembers him having a love so pure and innocent, he would have given his life for her. And trusts him completely, as her Stark husband did too. After Petyr had told at least Jaime and Tyrion but more probably the whole court (and later, her barely teenage daughter) how he had taken her virginity. When he sets up their meeting at Kingslanding in a brothel.

I wonder how dire the situation was for Petyr. If he had been as near death as Catelyn and Lysa had believed, would he have been up to taking Lysa? I suspect too, the "mistaken identity" thing with Lysa was not from his extreme drunkeness, but from a desire to have Catelyn think his love for her was pure and constant, while he was popping Lysa's cherry. Plus that gives Lysa an excuse to be indignant and jealous and insecure about the way Cat treated poor dear Petyr, meaning he can play Lysa like a fiddle and put her in her place at the same time, so why not?

I don't think Petyr has any genuine love for Catelyn. His actions when they meet after that long absense are to systematically make her a widow, kill her husband, destroy Winterfell and have Ramsey Bolton as the Stark in Winterfell. He replaces her presumed-dead daughter with the stewards girl, for Ramsey to starve and flay and hunt and stake his claim to Winterfell upon.

The daughter that looks like a younger, more beautiful Catelyn (and Sansa is younger and more beautiful than Catelyn was when she accepted Brandon's favour), he watches on while Joffrey has his knights beat her. He arms Joffrey with a crossbow the better to persuade him to kill her traitor father and show her his head.  While Cersei has her write those letters to her family, Littlefinger approved the phrasing. 

 Littlefinger stage-managed the riots of Kings Landing (I might one day post a long post on why I believe this, but not today). Sansa was going to disappear like Tyrek, until the Hound stepped in. Petyr then witnessed her marriage to the Imp without interference. He has framed her and Tyrion for the poisoning of Joffrey.

He talked Lysa into poisoning Jon Arryn (or at least, she believes she did) and into writing to Catelyn implicating the Lannisters. He threw her out the moon door after becoming Lord Protector of the Eyrie through her.

He might even have been behind the catspaw that used the hidden dagger he identified as his own. Catelyn thinks the assassin came for Bran. I think he might just as easily have come for her. His "you weren't s'posed to be here" could easily mean that he had not intended to murder her in front of her son. "It's a mercy" might refer to the fact that Bran was still in a coma and would thus never witness his mother's throat being opened.

Petyr talks sentimentally about Catelyn, but his behaviour is incredibly vengeful and resentful. Like Tyrion with Tysha, except Petyr never blames other people for misrepresenting situations to him. Rather, he takes control of the misrepresentation quite conciously, for his own benefit. 

Tywin pointed out to Catelyn that Littlefinger loves only Littlefinger. Sometimes he says things that suggest otherwise, but everything Petyr Baelish does suggests to me that Tyrion read him right. 

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Good post above.

I too always thought there was more to it than just a teenage crush. He plays the long game and I've seen plenty of theories about how there might be magical properties involved. 

The begging Cat for her favour thing might have been a genuine setback for him. There's plenty of evidence throughout the lore of knights in tourneys wearing favours and doing well, possibly through some sort of magical shenanigans, off the top of my head the best example is Jorah Mormont while wearing the favour of Lynesse Hightower. 

The other magical theory is that like other characters he's trying to birth the prince that was promised, and he wants Cat/Sansa for their bloodlines and ties to Harrenhal through the Whents. Tyrion noticed the usually cool calm and collected Littlefinger's eyes involuntarily light up when he offers him the lordship 

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14 hours ago, saltedmalted said:

Baelish has "loved" her only in his head. He forgot to ask Catelyn about her opinion about the matter.

Erm. Catelyn "volunteered" that information. Directly telling him that she loved him after all, creeping in his bed to get deflowered, and NOT correcting him when he called her Catelyn. Darkness and drunkenness did the rest.

If it were true - and no one has ever corrected Petyr about that fact - then "Catelyn´s" actions in telling him she loved him, giving him her virginity but then not giving him her favour as she should have when he did what a honourable boy had to do, even at the cost of his life... amounted to fatally playing with him and letting him down. An explanation Lysa had a good opportunity to give - and no one has corrected. Nor can Petyr really be blamed for not having seen through it yet.

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anyone may love sb dumb, no matter if "dumb" even applies to her.

she is not stupid, just completely unaware of how lame rejected boy may behave. here and today it would all end up with "catelyn is a whore" written on her house. in westeros thousands have to die :rolleyes:

but seriously... her idea of petyr's attitude towards her is incredible. he was almost killed and driven away like a dog, how come she expected anything good of him? too many songs probably.

"little brother" my ass :lmao:

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6 hours ago, Jaak said:

Directly telling him that she loved him after all, creeping in his bed to get deflowered, and NOT correcting him when he called her Catelyn. Darkness and drunkenness did the rest.

I doubt he believes it was Catelyn. 

Ignoring his delusions on the sickbed, Catelyn had never shown any romantic interest in him. 

When he challenged Brandon to a duel he forgot to ask for her permission. 

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On 3/1/2021 at 2:12 AM, Walda said:

I suspect too, the "mistaken identity" thing with Lysa was not from his extreme blood-loss, but from a desire to have Catelyn think his love for her was pure and constant, while he was popping Lysa's cherry.

I've seen this idea mentioned a few times recently: that Petyr thinks he was the first lover for both Catelyn and Lysa, but it was actually Lysa both times. Where is the textual evidence for this please?

Regarding Petyr himself, I doubt that he was as calculating back then as he is now. More likely he was an innocent boy dealing with a crush on a girl he could never have. It's possible that the whole Brandon / Catelyn incident hit him so hard, it started him on the path to becoming the selfish, manipulative guy that we see in the story.

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1 hour ago, Aebram said:

I've seen this idea mentioned a few times recently: that Petyr thinks he was the first lover for both Catelyn and Lysa, but it was actually Lysa both times. Where is the textual evidence for this please?

Regarding Petyr himself, I doubt that he was as calculating back then as he is now. More likely he was an innocent boy dealing with a crush on a girl he could never have. It's possible that the whole Brandon / Catelyn incident hit him so hard, it started him on the path to becoming the selfish, manipulative guy that we see in the story.

Hmm, Catelyn refers to him as being clever and cunning as a youngster, and Littlefinger was a strong believer in the clever, plucky hero who beats a brute with his wits, yet never parlayed that into fighting Brandon smartly.

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On 3/2/2021 at 10:21 PM, Angel Eyes said:

Hmm, Catelyn refers to him as being clever and cunning as a youngster, and Littlefinger was a strong believer in the clever, plucky hero who beats a brute with his wits, yet never parlayed that into fighting Brandon smartly.

Fighting Brandon was meant to be the ultimate romantic gesture - fighting against fate. I think Cat was moved by that - it's how she sees him. I don't remember her calling him cunning - cunning is always a criticism.

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I've always thought Petyr's backstory with Cat was pretty interesting in how it ties so many things together, as Lysa reveals. And how it really does humanize even a mustache twirling scumbag like Littlefinger.

Catelyn and Ned were fools to trust Petyr at all after how Cat left things with him. 

Petyr fought a duel for her, was willing to die for her, and was most likely willing to kill for her. He was very young, madly in love, and Petyr never really came to terms with Cat's rejection until he was sent away and she utterly abandoned their relationship. 

From what I recall, Petyr was in his sick bed at Riverrun for quite a while. That's a pretty long miserable time, surrounded by people who hate/are embarrassed by you, to dwell on romantic disillusionment and the fact he's about to be sent back to his shit hole estates on the Fingers, probably for good from his pov at the time, since he just ruined his reputation. If it weren't for Lysa maybe he would never have risen as high as he did. Certainly not as fast.

I think when Cat never returned the letter he sent after Brandon died finally killed any final hopes Petyr might have had about reconciling and eventually marrying Cat. At some point after that he became the bitter, scheming, vengeful, sardonic asshole we see in the books.

You can empathize with him a little. He reminds me a little bit of myself around my high school days. You see the movies (songs for Petyr) where they do big showy public gestures of affection/love to get the girl and it works. Then you try something similar and it totally backfires, embarasses everybody involved, and makes you look like a jackass. Plus he knocked up her sister in drunken denial/mistake.

Cat was put in a pretty tough situation by Petyr, but she probably really did consider him like a little brother back then, and she was pretty cold after everything that happened. 

I'm not sure if part of him still loves Cat and he sees her in Sansa or if using Sansa is fueled only by revenge for what he thinks she did to him.

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On 3/2/2021 at 11:16 PM, Aebram said:

I've seen this idea mentioned a few times recently: that Petyr thinks he was the first lover for both Catelyn and Lysa, but it was actually Lysa both times. Where is the textual evidence for this please?

To start with: there is textual evidence that Petyr says he took Catelyn´s virginity. Tyrion had heard it, Jaime refers to that, Petyr mentions it to Catelyn.

There is textual evidence that this is not true. Catelyn in her POV remembers that Eddard deflowered her.

Then read the account of Lysa to Sansa at Moon Door - that Petyr did not hear.

Lysa mentions an occasion when she was deflowered by heavily drunk Petyr - who called her Catelyn, but Lysa did not correct him.

This provides the logical reason for Petyr to have honest but incorrect belief that he had Catelyn´s maidenhead.

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4 hours ago, Jaak said:

Lysa mentions an occasion when she was deflowered by heavily drunk Petyr - who called her Catelyn, but Lysa did not correct him.

Oh yeah, I had forgotten about that one. Of course, it's not a complete proof. King Robert called Cersei "Lyanna" on their wedding night, but it's unlikely that he actually thought that he was with Lyanna at the time. He was just drunk.

When LF claimed to have deflowered both Tully girls, he may have just been boasting. Guys do that sometimes. But you make a good case. Thanks!

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Shes a symbol from his childhood of "making it"

As a child he spent time with the Tullys yet was lower status than them.

Cat represents his move from mostly irrelevant nobility into one of the kingdoms big shots.

He had to settle for Cats sister so not getting Cat is like an itch he cant scratch for decades.

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12 hours ago, Aebram said:

Oh yeah, I had forgotten about that one. Of course, it's not a complete proof. King Robert called Cersei "Lyanna" on their wedding night, but it's unlikely that he actually thought that he was with Lyanna at the time. He was just drunk.

More importantly, when Robert woke up sober, he remembered that Lyanna was dead and that he was married to Cersei.

When Petyr woke up sober, there was an obvious explanation to all his experiences. Catelyn had been afraid to kiss him in the public but she really loved him as she said and presumably wanted him to somehow save her from the unwanted engagement.

When Petyr woke up wounded, there was another reasonable explanation to all his observations - an explanation Lysa would have been volunteering. Catelyn had been "just playing" with Petyr - actually did have sex with him, but did not love him. And directly lied to him when she said she loved him.

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On 2/28/2021 at 3:15 PM, lorafen said:

Why so inteligent and cunning character like Petyr Baelish has loved so dumb and irrational person like Catelyn Tully even after he has grown up? Is that make any sense or it is another lie or Littlefinger's game?

One word; obsession.

Otherwise, as Tyrion and Varys say; LF just loves LF.

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