The northmen inside and outside Winterfell. Conspiracy? The GNC - The Grand Northern Conspiracy

[Hos the Hostage]

I am now inclined to think Mance may actually be behind the letter, I can't think of why Ramsay would be so pertinent as to ask specifically about Stannis's family AND Mance's, sure he's a nut but he's a well-informed nut it seems which is a bit suspicious given Abel is in the guise of Rattleshirt and event he spearwives may not be aware it's really him.

Mance writing the Pink Letter is a possibility, thank you for quoting that post which summarizes the argument. But was Mance in the guise of Rattleshirt in WF? Him being a singer and all fits Mance better than anyone. Surely the six spearwives knew, at least after they set out from Castle Black.

The wording of Pink Letter is highly indicative of an author other than Ramsay, I agree. Only "I want my Reek" matches Ramsay. When Mance asked Jon why he turned his cloak, Jon wriggles out of the question by saying about how he hates his bastard status. Mance was convinced by that. Although he later found Jon to be a traitor, one thing he knows for sure is the title "Bastard" is Jon's vulnerable point.

Mance working with the Northern Lords is something I would never have expected, but in the given the dire circumstances, with Mance's talking skills, may be.

[Androme]

I don't understand where people get the idea that Stannis means to march south after he takes Winterfell, have you all forgotten that he means to garrison the castles by the wall to defend it from the Others? Stabbing Stannis in the back when the Others are closing in seems completely and absolutely stupid.

[Narvi]

No one's going anywhere quickly in the North or the South until Winter's End. It's taken Stannis what a month just to go 100 miles. If he wins the battle of ice then he'll go back up north for the final battle with the others. The only plausible theory I've ever read is the grand northern conspiracy. Not sure about the Jon Snow part but Rickon is all over that. I love Jon Snow but I just don't see him forsaking his vows and honor to become king in the north. It'd be nice but I don't see it happening. There are no happy endings in this book.

[redriver]

This is the GNC.Anything else is derived,contrived or plagiarized from this thread.

[Ghosts Lunch]

BtOGNtN ... ( Can I use your initials ?)...Mance is very fascinating..but I'm not really completely sure what he's up to.

We know it was Mel's idea to have him rescue Arya , mainly to get Jon to trust her ( this could have ominous consequences for Jon , since she seems so interested in his shadow..but that's another story ). I do agree the spearwives seem to have been "stolen" or are the daughters of stolen Northern girls, judging by Rowan's ( ?) dedication to Ned / the Starks...And it makes sense women with such a background would be more likely to undertake a dangerous mission to rescue Ned's daughter.

I don't necessarily see Mance caring so much about reinstating a Stark in WF ( unless he's revealed to have Stark blood , and wants to fill the bill himself )..I think Stannis knew it was Rattleshirt he burned , but I don't know why , apart from the reasons Jon pointed out. And I don't think he can have known beforehand that Mance would be in WF..though I think he might know enough about him to figure it out based on the story of Theon and Jeyne's escape ...( On a side note, I seem to remember that there was no love lost between Benjen and Mance , but again, we don't know why.)

I can't see Mance being the one to pull the Northmen into his plan. If they're acting in concert following the escape , he joined them..

Mance couldn't have known about Tormund and his people when he left WF ,so he wouldn't know how many wildlings are available..and I really wonder, after all those people swearing directly to Jon, not the NW..how many Mance can consider his wildlings , anymore.

As to Mance's persuasiveness ..it may be considerable, but it's worth remembering that in getting the wildlings to band together, he did have some help , in the threat posed by the Others..and I'm picking up on hints that both Dalla and Val were / are likely priestesses or seers of the Old Religion .. so Dalla marrying Mance might have helped him as well ..but now with Dalla dead, Val seems to be her successor ( not as a princess but as a priestess ), and Val may be seeing Jon as the strong leader the people need.

I started out, like Black Wolf Smith , thinking there were 2 or 3 separate Northern conspiracies..and maybe they started that way, but the more I've thought about it and discussed it here with others, I've come to feel that they're all connected, all dovetailing together.

The White Harbour men left through a different gate..we've not heard that it was booby trapped..they could have kept going.. I don't think there would have been much of a battle between the Umbers and the Freys... the Umbers were green boys .. they were there for sabotage , more than for battle , and could have dispersed without too many losses.

Personally I have been wondering if there is an alliance forming between some of the northern hill clans and the wildlings going by the nature of one of the wet nurses and the chiefs reasons for visiting Jon while the Wildlings are there and possibly sounding out his leadership skills etc, and we have already seen the Thenns marry into a northern house. From this perspective I wonder if some of the Washerwomen are northern hill clanwomen and not wildlings as such, or perhaps a mix of both?

I do wonder if the Pink Letter was a way into stimulating Jon into a reaction with just happens to allow a whole lot of Wildlings to descend into the Winterfell area which Mance would easily be able to put under his discipline once they see him, this could be part of a revenge plot against Stannis, Stannis smashed him with organised battle tactics but under the conditions it is the irregular Wildling/northern hill clan style of fighting which would be supreme. Either way Mance would want a small army to come to him

Not sure how many players know what, eg that Jeyne is a fake Arya, that Rickon is alive, that Bran is alive, the legitimisation of Jon Snow in Robbs will

[Ghosts Lunch]

Its possible they weren't trying to keep Jon away from Cercei or Catelyn but maybe to keep him away from King Robert. The last thing they would need is Robert eyeing Jon from across the table and seeing a possible resemblance of Rhaegar and Lyanna

AFAIK there isn't any optical resemblance between Rhaegar and Jon.

Yeah I think Jon is described as being the most "Stark" looking children of all of them with Arya being a close second.

Interesting point, never considered this

It's possible the issue is not so much that Jon looks like Rhaegar but that he looks like Lyanna, as Arya kind of does

[Ghosts Lunch]

You still keeping clean Kissedby fire ;)

Ho ho! So you want to out-legalistic me eh! :)

So what do you think?

In my opinion we've got the contents of Robb's will, which in my opinion can potentially be set aside because Robb is dead and his kingdom largely died with him.

In my realpolitik thinking the North is looking for a Stark. With no complications (so Jon and Sansa ruled out) and potentially prefereably male (this might be wrong and a disortorted picture becaue Manderly has granddaughters rather than grandsons to marry off). What is interesting is that Manderly opts for Rickon as the Stark he is reasonably sure he can lay his hands on, rather than Bran the Stark who technically is the Stark he shuld e looking for if he wants his true Leige Lord.

A more interesting question, but possibly one that GRRM will avoid is that if a lord with sons to marry off backed one of the stark girls and a lord with daughters to marry off back a stark son who would win out?

I figured Manderly wants Rickon because Bran can't have children given his accident, so good to marry one of your grand-daughters off to Rickon, because if Rickon does not succeed Bran directly (in the event he comes back to claim his inheritance as either Lord Stark or KotN) Rickons children certainly will and they will be ahead of any children of either Arya or Sansa in the pecking order so that little kid is a form of hot property

In the Manderly's case it would cement their place in the north and give them greater credibility as northmen given their heritage as southerners, a bit like the Tyrells needing to marry the current IT Royal Household to get a royal legitimacy their family history lacks

[Ghosts Lunch]

The only Place I know that Rob would have sent his will/papers would be Greywatch. The are the closest men of the "North", we know that at least 2x he sent word to them, and it seemed that since J/M went to WF, and Crag were attacking the Ironmen, that they got them.

Is it just me or is it strange that Ramsey kills the Ironmen he had Theon get just down the road from MC and the "new" wardens did not try to talk to the Crag's? No, I am the Warden, or come bend the knee or anything.

As for the timetable that is all ways a problem with in, and leads to questions,

If Jeyne W. Stark is with child as many think, Do any of the Northmen know? How would what they are doing change with that news? beside the 2 going to the wall are any of the others headed north?

Interestingly I figured Roose was hiding with someone else in his armour just in case the Crannogmen decided to shoot darts at him and not any other forms of danger

Only way the Crannogmen are coming to bend the knee is if they want to come out of Greywater Watch, not like it's practical to send an army in, Roose would probably want to deal with them later when his grip on power is more consolidated

I don't believe Jeyne Westerling is with Child, we know she is in the prologue of WoW, but I wonder if it is to get killed, Robbs North/Riverlands Kingdom won't be revived, the only thing holding it together now is Jeyne Westerling as Queen of it, but I reckon the North is essentially going its own way in conjunction with the Wildlings/Jon Snow etc and the Riverlands its own direction with Edmure/Nlackfish/ZomCat in conjunction with Sansa/Robyn/Littlefinger in the Vale with this whole "Direwolf with bat wings" claim Sansa seems to have to Harrenhall at the centre of it all

It's really quite intriguing, they've been completely smashed but the Starks through their children prospectively have their fingers in a lot of pies, including a Dany Targaryen one through Jon Snow

[CatOfThe_Canals]

Can anyone point to me the direct stuff about Robb's will? I remember him telling Cat verbally or insinuating that he wanted Jon to hold Winterfell if he died but when does it say he actually wrote it and sent it?

[Cladinator]

...and Rickon has a chance to grow up until it's time for the final battle with the Others...

I've been thinking about this a lot lately. It is mentioned on several occasions that Shaggydog has a wildness and savageness that can't be tamed (traits that Rickon no doubt shares).

I am really hoping that Rickon turns into the badass that I think he is probably going to be.

[Lord Fauntleroy]

Interesting point, never considered this

It's possible the issue is not so much that Jon looks like Rhaegar but that he looks like Lyanna, as Arya kind of does

Apparently he looks enough like Ned to convincingly be his progeny.

"Jon was never out of sight, and as he grew, he looked more like Ned than any of the trueborn sons she bore him."

Cat II, GoT

[Luddagain]

Of COURSE all the Northern Lords know it is a fake Arya.

Just as Mance rayder used the Robert celebrations to take a look at the Stark kids, so too do the bannermen use harvest festivals etc and visits to check out the kids.

They are good parents checking out the likely marriage prospects. So every Lord with a boy under 15 was checking out Sansa and Arya. appearance, eye colour, personality etc. The mothers if they came too were checking out the girls hips to see if they can carry babies, just as Catelyn thought on Jeyne Westerling's hips. Most Lords would be checking out Arya in particular, since they would rationally assume Sansa would head South

to marry a Great Lord, whereas the second daughter was likely to wed in the North. They would of course check out the boys too for their daughters. Some would even check out Jon Snow, if they had many daughters or a bastard girl of their own or a relatively poor cadet branch with several daughters.

[finger]

You know, there's a short story, I think Borges', about a guy in a band of outlaws. He had offended the boss and he seemed to have got away with it. It made him daring, and everybody seemed to allow him to do his will, so he grew bolder.

The reader came to know that it was so because he was dead since the first offence, so the others were just waiting to see when and how he'd be killed.

BTW, his name wasn't Roose.

[Eyron]

I was doing some searching around the net, as one does and came across this amazing asoiaf theory called the Grand Northern Conspiracy :lol:

 

Edited the title to make it easier to find since it seems to have caught on some traction out there in the wild web. Even if my thoughts about the whole idea weren't the most well thought out or eloquent, the birth of the great ideas of Yeade, Tze et al came to light here. It was fun to read back and also see what it has spawned in other places and see how many have their hearts set on this idea still.

[Eyron]

This is the GNC.Anything else is derived,contrived or plagiarized from this thread.

Damn right :fencing: :P

[ViserionsFire]

Of COURSE all the Northern Lords know it is a fake Arya.

 

At least Manderly knows that the Arya the Boltons have is a fake.

 

In AFfC while in the HoBW Arya remembers going to White Harbor.

 

Chapter 22:

"She had visited White Harbor with her father twice, but she knew King's Landing better."

Going with Ned, Manderly would certainly have honored her as family member accompanying his Liege Lord.

[Aetta]

Manderly wants a Stark in Winterfell, but he's willing to take Stannis as his king.

He also needed Davos's skills as smuggler to get to Skaggos and find Rickon.

Yes, and why not?  Stannis doesn't want an abode in Winterfell-to the contrary, he seemed keen to have a Stark in Winterfell.  And the Northerners don't want the Crownlands, though they might reconsider that when the walkers come a-walkin.'

Stannis has the better claim...to that monstrosity called the Iron Throne. At least as far as those who don't know anything about Jonny Targ (which is no one but Howland and Wylla) are concerned.  The wolves and the rest of the North have long bent the knee to the dragon.  Even a cadet dragon seemed to be fine for over a decade.

[BadWo1f]

We can say for sure that Boltons are biggest army in the North, and the one with best fighters - because most Northmen died in War of Five Kings. They are inside of Winterfell, a strong castle, winter is sweeping outside. Dustins and Ryswells are also on Roose side. Freys are outside at the moment, they will probably die, I don't doubt that, but they will take some of the enemy with them (hopefully). Lord Manderly is still in Winterfell, can his men really betray Roose? Even if they do, they are still at the wrong side of the wall. Only way they can get in is if someone opens the gate and Roose knows that.

[Whitering]

I got the impression from Theon that Manderly mostly had older knights and men with him = suicide mission.