Why was Lady Tanda Stokeworth Running?

[CassDarry]

Title is the question.

Sansa ran and saw Lady Tanda fleeing from the Red Keep after Joffrey choked/was poisoned at the wedding feast.

By my reading of it, she was old and alone but still running? 

I doubt she was involved....yet seems an odd detail.

[Ran]

She was fleeing rather than running, but she also spoke to Sansa. She clearly found it all too upsetting and left because of that. I can understand it, in an older woman, that the distress would make her not want to be around.

[Daenerysthegreat]

1 hour ago, CassDarry said:

Title is the question.

Sansa ran and saw Lady Tanda fleeing from the Red Keep after Joffrey choked/was poisoned at the wedding feast.

By my reading of it, she was old and alone but still running? 

I doubt she was involved....yet seems an odd detail.

The sight of joffrey choking on his pie was horrific to behold. I would have also fone the same thing as her

[Lady_Qohor]

1 hour ago, Daenerysthegreat said:

The sight of joffrey choking on his pie was horrific to behold. I would have also fone the same thing as her

She might also have been worried that Joffrey's murder was signalled the start of a coup or attack on the Lannister’s rather than it being a single event. As such she could be running away to safety away from any potential violence that might be about to break out. 

[Hugorfonics]

Because no one's dumber then Tyrion.

.

Margaery Tyrell was weeping in her grandmother's arms as the old lady said, "Be brave, be brave." Most of the musicians had fled, but one last flutist in the gallery was blowing a dirge. In the rear of the throne room scuffling had broken out around the doors, and the guests were trampling on each other. Ser Addam's gold cloaks moved in to restore order. Guests were rushing headlong out into the night, some weeping, some stumbling and retching, others white with fear. It occurred to Tyrion belatedly that it might be wise to leave himself. When he heard Cersei's scream, he knew that it was over.

I should leave. Now. Instead he waddled toward her.

[Megorova]

Lady Tanda's behaviour was indeed suspicious. So I have read information about her in AWOIAF-Wikia and noticed one detail about her - during the riots at King's Landing, Tanda was saved by Horas Redwyne, and because I suspect that during Jaehaerys I's reign there were two Redwyne brothers (one a Kingsguard and the other a Commander of the City's Watch) who were Faceless Men, so I think that there is a possibility that Horas Redwyne also was a Faceless Man, in a sense that the real Horas was killed and then his place was taken by a Faceless Man.

So then I was reading in Wikia information about Horas, and it turned out that he also had a brother - Hobber, same as that other Redwyne who lived during Jaehaerys' reign. Also it seems that in ACOK fakeHoras and Meryn Trant (who is also a Faceless Man) killed Horas' twin-brother Hobber during the tournament held on Joffrey's birthday, and then Hobber also was replaced by FM.

Then during the riots at KL, that happened after Myrcella's departure to Dorne, Horas supposedly saved Tanda Stokeworth. I think that that's when he killed the real Tanda and replaced her with another FM. During Joffrey's wedding the Faceless Men were going to kill Joffrey, and the fakeTanda provided the poison.

The poison was in the pie. Though not in the piece that Joffrey took from Tyrion's plate. Ilyn Payne is also a Faceless Man, so fakeTanda gave him poison and he smeared it on his sword's blade. So when he cut the wedding pie with his sword, that way he had applied the poison into the pie. Then Margaery took that piece of pie that was cut out by Ilyn's sword, and on the side of that piece there was poison from the sword, and Margaery gave that piece to Joffrey, who ate it from her hands. Then Joffrey went to Tyrion and drunk the wine from his wedding chalise. And in the wine there was also poison, this one was from Sansa's hairnet, which was given to her by Dontos Hollard, who got it from Petyr Baelish, who also planned to poison Joffrey on his wedding day.

So because Joffrey had consummed two poisons, they killed him much faster than what the Faceless Men had planned (they didn't knew that they are not the only ones who were aiming to kill Joffrey). So when Joffrey had kicked the bucket ahead of the schedule, fakeTanda panicked and ran away from there. That's when Sansa saw her.

As Joffrey's wedding gift fakeTanda gave him a pair of supple riding boots. Doesn't it look like a gift with a hidden meaning? She gave him comfortable shoes to walk in them into the afterlife. Or something like that.

[Jaenara Belarys]

@Megorova, in order for your theories to be true we would need an army of Faceless Men over the years. 

[Lord Lannister]

I think it was just a red herring for the readers. 

[Megorova]

1 hour ago, Jaenara Belarys said:

@Megorova, in order for your theories to be true we would need an army of Faceless Men over the years. 

That's right - there is an entire army of them. Because Faceless Men are Braavos' military, police, national security, etc. There are thousands of them, not only in Braavos, but all over the world. They work undercover, some of them on a decades or even life-long assignments.

[Jaenara Belarys]

7 minutes ago, Megorova said:

That's right - there is an entire army of them. Because Faceless Men are Braavos' military, police, national security, etc. There are thousands of them, not only in Braavos, but all over the world.

I can believe theories such as the Great Northern Conspiracy. Those are plausible. I cannot, however believe such a ridiculous claim. The Kindly Man says that "Many have served Him of Many Faces through the centuries", it says OVER THE CENTURIES. Not "many serve Him of Many Faces". 

[Megorova]

@Jaenara Belarys Braavos was founded by 23 people, they were the first keyholders of the Iron Bank and also heads of the Founding families of Braavos. There was 40 Valyrian Great Houses, and 23 Founding families of Braavos. Those 23 Founders, they all were Faceless Men (and Women). And nowadays there are over a thousand of keyholders. Obviously that not all keyholders are Faceless Men, and not all Faceless Men have a key, though majority of the keyholders are the Faceless Men. So amongst FM there are at least several hundreds of those who have keys and several thousands of "working bees" who doesn't have a key. 

The Sealord wouldn't have assigned Patchface to stay for 15+ years within of Stannis' household, if he didn't have more people to spare.

The Uncloaking of Uthero implies that 111 years after the founding of Braavos, all its citizens were FM. By that point in time, there were hundreds of them. And sinse then they have multiplied, and considering that Braavos is a city with population of "tens of thousands", it makes sense if at least 1 out of 10 is an FM. Thus now there are several thousands of them.

[Jaenara Belarys]

@Megorova Give me quotes and proof, please. Not headcanon. 

[Megorova]

40 minutes ago, Jaenara Belarys said:

@Megorova Give me quotes and proof, please. Not headcanon. 

"The anniversary of the Uncloaking is celebrated every year in Braavos with ten days of feasting and masked revelry—a festival like none other in all the known world, culminating at midnight on the tenth day, when the Titan roars and tens of thousands of revelers and celebrants remove their masks as one."

Why specifically 10 days? Not 3, not 7, not 5, but 10.

GRRM is using trinities nearly everywhere. There's ten days of celebrations, tens of thousands of revelers, so it's fitting if one in every ten citizens of Braavos is a Faceless Man. Then there is a trinity of tens connected to Braavos.

"Thus was born the Iron Bank of Braavos, whose renown (or infamy, to hear some tell it) now extends to every corner of the known world. Kings, princes, archons, triarchs, and merchants beyond count travel from the ends of the earth to seek loans from the heavily guarded vaults of the Iron Bank.

The Iron Bank will have its due, it is said. Those who borrow from the Braavosi and fail to repay their debts oft have cause to rue such folly, for the Bank has been known to topple lords and princes and has also been rumored to send assassins against those it cannot remove (though this has never been conclusively proved)."

 

Why infamy? Because it was founded by the Faceless Men - a secret society.

"Archmaester Matthar’s The Origins of the Iron Bank and Braavos provides one of the more detailed accounts of the bank’s history and dealings, so far as they can be discovered; the bank is famous for its discretion and its secrecy. Matthar recounts that the founders of the Iron Bank numbered three-and-twenty; sixteen men and seven women, each of whom possessed a key to bank’s great subterranean vaults. Their descendants, whose numbers now exceed one thousand, are known as keyholders to this day, though the keys they display proudly on formal occasions are now entirely ceremonial. Certain of the founding families of Braavos have declined over the centuries, and a few have lost their wealth entirely, yet even the meanest still cling to their keys and the honors that go with them.

The Iron Bank is not ruled by the keyholders alone, however. Some of the wealthiest and most powerful families in Braavos today are of more recent vintage, yet the heads of these houses own shares in the bank, sit on its secret councils, and have a voice in selecting the men who lead it. In Braavos, as many an outsider has observed, golden coins count for more than iron keys. The bank’s envoys cross the world, oft upon the bank’s own ships, and merchants, lords, and even kings treat with them almost as equals."

The Bank's influence has reached to all over the world. And it was founded by the Faceless Men, so now they have agents everywhere where they have financial dealings. Because those envoys of the Iron Bank are also Faceless Men. They have many agents, because to have control over the entire world, they need to have many people whom they should be able to send in case if someone will refuse to pay.

You'll get proof of this when Tommen will fall out of the window (he will be killed by Noho Dimitris). Let's return to this topic then.

[Jaenara Belarys]

Thank you. One last question: besides your stated Braavosi intent of killing dragonseeds, what's the motivation for all of this? Payment for debts? That seems a bit shallow. Conquering the world with dragons? That'd be pretty hard....even for the Braavosi and FM. 

[Frey family reunion]

My personal suspicion is that GRRM wanted a momentary filter between Sansa and the reader, despite the fact that it was necessary to give us Sansa’s POV to propel her story towards the next chapter.

So my guess is, Stokeworth became the filter.  My suspicion is that Sansa was more complicit in the poisoning than we’re led to believe, but being the good girl she is, she’s repressed her guilty thoughts, hence this passage:

Quote

Lady Tanda had been fleeing as well. “You have a good heart, my lady,” she said to Sansa. “Not every maid would weep so for a man who set her aside and wed her to a dwarf.”

A good heart. I have a good heart. Hysterical laughter rose up her gullet, but Sansa choked it back down.

 

[Ran]

Please stay on topic, folks.

[Nathan Stark]

On 10/10/2021 at 3:14 AM, CassDarry said:

Title is the question.

Sansa ran and saw Lady Tanda fleeing from the Red Keep after Joffrey choked/was poisoned at the wedding feast.

By my reading of it, she was old and alone but still running? 

I doubt she was involved....yet seems an odd detail.

It's not odd at all. I don't think Sansa and Lady Tanda were the only ones fleeing the scene of Joff's death. There was a whole crowd of people who wanted to be far away from the horrific event, because political assasinations are inherently unpredictable, dangerous situations. Plus, watching someone die as awefully as Joffrey did is traumatizing. I don't think it is out of place at all for Lady Tanda to flee somewhere safe.

[CassDarry]

1 hour ago, Nathan Stark said:

It's not odd at all. I don't think Sansa and Lady Tanda were the only ones fleeing the scene of Joff's death. There was a whole crowd of people who wanted to be far away from the horrific event, because political assasinations are inherently unpredictable, dangerous situations. Plus, watching someone die as awefully as Joffrey did is traumatizing. I don't think it is out of place at all for Lady Tanda to flee somewhere safe.

Lady Tanda fleeing somewhere safe isn’t that odd by itself.

but as you say if there was a whole crowd of people it just seemed odd that she was mentioned and I was wondering what other readers opinions on why the author included Lady Tanda fleeing specifically.

Frey Family Reunion probably has the right of it or along those lines.

[Nathan Stark]

38 minutes ago, CassDarry said:

Lady Tanda fleeing somewhere safe isn’t that odd by itself.

but as you say if there was a whole crowd of people it just seemed odd that she was mentioned and I was wondering what other readers opinions on why the author included Lady Tanda fleeing specifically.

Frey Family Reunion probably has the right of it or along those lines.

It was part of setting the scene. I don't think there's much more to parse than that. GRRM wanted to paint a picture of how frightening and surreal the whole experience was for Sansa and everyone else. 

ETA: If Sansa was more complicit in Joffrey's murder than previously shown, surely there would be more solid clues than a brief encounter with Lady Tanda to go on? That's a massively important plot detail with huge implications for Sansa's story going forward. It would just be unlike GRRM to have a twist like that without doing extensive setup, and I don't think there is any setup in this case.

[Universal Sword Donor]

On 10/10/2021 at 3:28 PM, Megorova said:

@Jaenara Belarys Braavos was founded by 23 people, they were the first keyholders of the Iron Bank and also heads of the Founding families of Braavos. There was 40 Valyrian Great Houses, and 23 Founding families of Braavos. Those 23 Founders, they all were Faceless Men (and Women). And nowadays there are over a thousand of keyholders. Obviously that not all keyholders are Faceless Men, and not all Faceless Men have a key, though majority of the keyholders are the Faceless Men. So amongst FM there are at least several hundreds of those who have keys and several thousands of "working bees" who doesn't have a key. 

The Sealord wouldn't have assigned Patchface to stay for 15+ years within of Stannis' household, if he didn't have more people to spare.

The Uncloaking of Uthero implies that 111 years after the founding of Braavos, all its citizens were FM. By that point in time, there were hundreds of them. And sinse then they have multiplied, and considering that Braavos is a city with population of "tens of thousands", it makes sense if at least 1 out of 10 is an FM. Thus now there are several thousands of them.

How exactly did Patchface get to Braavos? He was picked up as a small child in Volantis as a jester by Steffon Baratheon.