The pink letter

[divica]

16 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

No, we don't agree about any of this because neither of those things indicates what you say it does. Jon and Mel both knew Arya Stark was brought to Winterfell to marry Ramsay Bolton. That is not in doubt. Jon has been told she was fleeing him, so he thinks she may be somewhere else, he hopes she may be somewhere else ... but he doesn't know where she is. And he doesn't believe Mance or Mel after Alys' arrival because he thinks they may have fooled him completely with their girl story.

But jon is always thinking arya is somewhere in the wild and hoping mance finds her. If mance going to winterfell was something they discussed he would have thought about that possibility sometime. And if mel thought that mance might be in winterfell she should also talk about it in order to regain jon's trust.

The core of the question is that neither jon or mel ever supose he might go to winterfell.

20 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

But you do not have any evidence or reason to believe that he wanted to something else at Winterfell. All you cite is the certain ploy line and Mance's interest in the crypts which is easily explained within the context of the story.

There are no other clues.

They can't.

If neither mel nor jon think that mance might go to winterfell to help arya then we have no reason to supose that mance imediatly thinks he might have to go there.

And we have even less reason to think that mance knows that the crypts have a secret passage to outside of winterfell. He has no reason to know this.

So 2 clues that mance might be planning something in winterfell are enough...

27 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

Him doing mystery stuff before he got to Winterfell is even weirder to assume since there is no indication that he did anything before getting to Winterfell. Why not just assume most relevant stuff in those novels happens in-between chapters? That way you can turn the story completely around.

Mance doesn't repay Jon a debt, he is his man now, according to his own words. Repeatedly. And Mance Rayder may be many things but he isn't a liar.

Jon also didn't save Mance from Stannis, Mance and Stannis saved Mance from Stannis by convincing Stannis not to burn Mance.

I am pretty sure jon saved mance at the end of AsoS when stannis army arrives. And he also protected the tent with mance's familly.

And mance is a liar. After all he just lied to everybody and faked his death. He broke his vows to the NW. He lied about the horn of joramun. He lied about being rattleshirt. Mance lies if it helps him achieve his objectives all the time. As far as we know he wanted jon to believe he could trust in him so that he sends him outside of CB and he can acomplish his ploys.

31 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

That would depend on the perspective ... any lake can look it is going to go on forever depending how you look at it. And Mel saw an image of that lake from a certain perspective. But perhaps Alys really did take a detour to Long Lake. Who knows? However, if she did then Mance clearly didn't catch her there meaning the interpretation of his mission being only to go to Long Lake and wait for her there makes no sense because he clearly didn't wait for her there and missed her ... but still went to Winterfell to save Arya, so he stayed true to his mission.

And you are not exactly consistent - when I said the vision could come true by ways of Mance freeing Jeyne and him freeing her because of that belief you argued against that. But now you expect it to come true in the next book when it effectively already came true with Alys. That doesn't make much sense.

You do know the diference between ponds and lakes right? Because there are only 3 lakes in the map. If you are sugesting something smaller that isn't on the map then it would be a pond and therefore too litle.

And yeah, you are right that if the girl is farya the relation between visions and actions that lead to the future seen in the visions would be pretty weird. But alys traveling to long lake is also pretty weird. she would need to cross a river and ride near the dreadfort and that doesn't make much sense. Besides, if grrm wanted to use a body of water in the vision he could easily have used a rived instead of a lake. And farya is dressed in greys by the way. While we have no idea what alys was wearing... So there are quite a lot of things going against alys fulfiling the vision.

42 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

It took some time. She knew where to look, one imagines, but finding some people isn't the same as finding many. And Val could offer Tormund and his people something - Mance would not be able to do that. What he offered the wildlings failed, they would not trust him again.

If val could do it mance was also able to do it. And if by some people you mean 4k people then we are talking about a lot of people. And if those 4K spread the word then the wildlings would know mance was alive and fooled the stupid kneelers and is back to avenge our dead comrades. And not forget that now mance know details about the NW like how many men are in each castle so he can have a better plan.

45 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

Mance was a kneeler himself most of his life, by the way. He doesn't hate them. And he clearly never had the intention to kill them all.

He doesn't want to kill them all but he also doesn't want for the wildlings to become kneelers. And the weeper's host is the wildlings last shot at freedom south of the wall. And what was bad in the past may not be so bad now...

48 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

But this goal he can no longer accomplish. And he may have already realized that they have to defend the Wall against the Others or all will die. Mance was a man of the Night's Watch before he turned wildling. Besides, the only hope how to get his people to safety is now with Stannis and Jon, not against them. He must know that even if his people invaded the North they would eventually be crushed. The women and children and old folk cannot hope to survive winter in a foreign land without food and shelter.

Actually you might be somewhat right but for the wrong reasons.

First, forget mance being willing to compromise or wanting his wildlings to swear fealty to stannis. If that was the case he could have negotiated safe passage into the north at any time. However that wasn't his choice. And by the way, even val threatned war if selise insisted in them acepting stannis and r'hllor as king and god.

What you should point is: After seeing his whole army break against 1500 men how can he expect the widling to win any battle against an army? 

And the question becomes. So how does mance plan to save the wildlings? Because there is no way mance is fighting the others for jon and stannis/mel if the wildlings remain north of the wall.

55 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

Because Abel looks like Mance in Winterfell and not like Rattleshirt.

He does? You have quotes about mance's apearence, rattleshirt's apearance and abel's apearance?

56 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

Because it already did at CB. Not as well as it worked when he also wore the bones, but well enough to fool people, anyway. For instance, when Mance battles Jon he doesn't wear the bones.

Are you sure he wasn't wearing the bones? Because jon does see mance's shape change and I always thought that was because he was really paying atention at that time.

1 hour ago, Lord Varys said:

Yes, right, because there is any indication that that horn is in Winterfell of all places. There isn't, that's just wishful thinking. There is also no reason to believe Mance would even want that horn which can bring down the Wall. Remember, he never wanted to bring down the Wall.

First, the horn has to be somewhere. We know it isn't north of the wall so winterfell is one of the best places south of the wall to start no?

And we know that the worn wakes giants (like someone is suposed to wake dragons).