Who will win the battle of Winterfell?

[Faint]

Hunt them down? In the dead of winter? They'll be long gone by the time Ramsay reaches Stannis. For all he knows, they could be three days out in front of him, traveling light.

[thunder_chicken]

The attack is probably coming very soon after the Theon chapter. And neither Theon or "Arya" are likely to go very fast given their poor condition. Plus it's a LONG way from WF to CB (far enough that I had a hard time believing Jon thought he had any legitimate chance to get there), seems like plenty of chance for a Ramsey party to catch up.

I'm mostly going by Ramsey's personality, and I have a hard time imagining he would just let them go if there was any chance to catch them. This is a guy who lets people escape and hunts them for sport, so I can't picture him just sitting back and writing a strongly-worded letter if his two prize prisoners actually do escape.

[Jolene Brown]

The attack is probably coming very soon after the Theon chapter. And neither Theon or "Arya" are likely to go very fast given their poor condition. Plus it's a LONG way from WF to CB (far enough that I had a hard time believing Jon thought he had any legitimate chance to get there), seems like plenty of chance for a Ramsey party to catch up.

I agree with this, it really confuses me why Ramsay didn't go hunt after Theon and "Arya." Was it just the confusion caused by Crowfood Umber's men? Did they think Stannis's camp was closer than it was and that Theon and "Arya" would already have reached it? Or that it would just be difficult to use hunting dogs in a blizzard (I know nothing about how that works, but it seems like the snow might make it more difficult to track people)? I think that's more a writing issue than insight into what actually happened though.

[MikeDC]

You know, what happened with Mance is one of the biggest puzzlers about this whole sitch to me. As I've posted before I'm convinced the pink letter was written as an attempt to intimidate and blackmail Jon into silence about Arya's identity. The blackmail would be Bolton's revelation to the North that Jon pulled a fast one with Mance, thereby painting the last son of Eddard Stark as a liar, turncloak, traitor to his NW vows, in cahoots with the common enemy of the North and realm. However, if the Boltons reveal the Mance deception preemptively, BEFORE Jon proclaims Arya as fake, they run the risk of it backfiring, as those Northmen might be more sympathetic to Jon's desire to free his sister than they would outrage for his use of Mance Rayder. Therefore, putting Mance "in a cage for all the north to see" seems more likely to be a bullshit bluff designed to make Jon panic a little. The rescuer of Arya, sent by the last son of Eddard Stark, freezing in a cage with a horrifying skin cloak isn't likely to sit well with those Northmen who Lady Dustin already cites as disturbed by Ramsay's treatment of Arya.

It would help immensely if we knew what exactly the Boltons knew regarding Mance and Jon. We know the "Your false king lied and so did you. You told the world you burned the King-Beyond-the-Wall. Instead you sent him to WF,,," bit is inaccurate on a couple of counts. A) presumably Stannis knows nothing about the glamour, and B) Jon came aboard that train at the last minute. Interesting that Mel or the glamour aren't alluded to at all. There are a few possibilities as to why this inaccurate info was put in the letter. 1) Boltons know the whole story, but spin the info to Jon in a way that points to Jon being more personally responsible for the deception, thus making the blackmail more effective. 2) Boltons don't know about the glamour or Mel's role in the deception, and were told only that Jon sent the rescue team. They may even think that what they see is Mance's normal appearance, doubt anyone at WF saw Mance's real face before the glamour. 3) They never captured Mance at all, only a spearwife or wives, who told them Jon sent for them from the spearwife garrison to participate in the rescue attempt. Thus, they know Mance=Abel, but haven't captured him.

It's really impossible to know for sure, but I'm leaning towards possibility 2 or 3. If the Boltons knew the whole story, I gotta believe they would use that info as well in the blackmail attempt. After all, "The last son of Eddard Stark is conspiring with sorcerous witches, wildlings, deceptive magic and a false usurper king" seems more likely to discredit Jon in the Northmen's eyes than revealing he used subterfuge to save his sister.

I don't think Mance Rayder was actually captured but I do think one of the spearwives was. Someone must have told Ramsay the information that was in his letter to Jon. How he fits into matters I'm unsure of. Supposedly his mission was to retrieve Arya and Arya only, and having accomplished that (in a manner of speaking), what is left for him to do?

Is it possible he shows up at the Wall again?

If we suppose Mance wrote the letter (which I do), I think the motivations are clearer. Correct me if I'm wrong, but the best case scenario for Mance is that he and the other spearwives decided on a defensible or hidden position to retreat to at Winterfell. Say Luwin's raven tower (Note that Theon muses that as a boy he could fight 1 vs. 100 on the high ground of the tower stairs). And they're hanging out there. But... what cavalry do they want to come save them? As best I can tell, the only way for Mance to get help is to create a situation that gets a bunch of Wildlings marching on Winterfell.

* He can't and wouldn't ask Stannis to help, because Stannis had him burned alive and doesn't know Mel glamoured him (keeping Mance alive also serves an important plot purpose here, because it's going to drive a serious wedge between Stannis and Mel when it's uncovered).

* He can't even directly and truthfully ask Jon Snow and the NW to just allow a Wildling host to march its way South on the rightful Warden of the North. They would never do that, the NW thought he was burned as the traitor he was. And it was to Jon's great foolishness that he revealed Mance as being not burned at all, and made himself look complicit in the conspiracy.

Thus, Mance does the only thing that might he can do to solve the predicament. He plays on Jon's emotions in a way he thinks that would either lead Jon to doing something rash or letting the cat out of the bag that Mance is alive and holed up in winterfell. As it turns out, Jon does both, and the net result of this is probably that the relatively large number of Wildlings wipes out what's left of the NW and the few Queen's men at Castle Black and then marches south on Winterfell, carrying with them Mel (who might not be that unwilling a prisoner), the Queen, Shireen, and anyone else who might want to come.

What they run into when they get to Winterfell is anyone's guess, but my underlying point is that from Mance's perspective, setting that ball rolling seems to be his best (and perhaps only chance).

The attack is probably coming very soon after the Theon chapter. And neither Theon or "Arya" are likely to go very fast given their poor condition. Plus it's a LONG way from WF to CB (far enough that I had a hard time believing Jon thought he had any legitimate chance to get there), seems like plenty of chance for a Ramsey party to catch up.

I'm mostly going by Ramsey's personality, and I have a hard time imagining he would just let them go if there was any chance to catch them. This is a guy who lets people escape and hunts them for sport, so I can't picture him just sitting back and writing a strongly-worded letter if his two prize prisoners actually do escape.

Yup. And with Stannis and Umber out there, I think if Ramsay leaves, he either dies or returns victorious. The Theon gift chapter doesn't explicitly say, but it sounds like not much time elapsed between Theon escaping from Ramsay and Theon being captured by Umber and taken to Stannis. So when he's chained to Stannis wall, it's maybe only a day later, and presumably the Frey and Manderly hosts, perhaps followed by Ramsay have marched out.

My guess is Manderly hooks up with Stannis somehow, and they basically wipe out the Boltons outside the gates and then trojan horse themselves into the castle. Perhaps Mance only sends the letter after he sees Ramsay triumphantly returning with Lightbringer in hand. Mance then sends off the Raven to Jon. Except that shortly thereafter, Stannis pops up within the walls of Winterfell and destroys them.

In the meantime, of course, Jon gets assassinated and the wildlings march south.

I know I've gone pretty far afield in speculation here, but to my mind, this sequence would wrap up a lot of different pieces of story and bring them all together. We get an awesome series of battles which culminate in the Boltons dead and Stannis consolidating power and winning the loyalty of the Norther Lords (finishing up parts of old plot) but laying the ground for a whole new set of plotlines

* an angry Wildling host shows up with questionable allegiance to Stannis/Mance, holding Stannis' family and maybe Mel.

* Mel has visibly betrayed Stannis by keeping Mance alive.

* Perhaps the Wildlings do Jon a kindness and bring his body back to Winterfell, where it can be conveniently resurrected in a way ties in nicely with the various "dragon" of Winterfell prophecies (Jon being a Targ). Mance and/or Theon get sacrificed in the burning of Jon's body, but much to Mel's surprise the dragon that pops up from the stone crypts of Winterfell (which Jon has dreamed of a lot, but doesn't belong to) turns out to be Jon.

[MikeDC]

Hunt them down? In the dead of winter? They'll be long gone by the time Ramsay reaches Stannis. For all he knows, they could be three days out in front of him, traveling light.

But they can't be. Theon and Jeyne escaped by jumping off a wall in a hail of crossbow bolts in broad daylight. Ramsay will likely know they've escaped within a couple minutes of them jumping off the wall, and he'll know exactly where they hit the ground (and there will possibly be a trail in the snow from where they scampered away and right into Umber's hidden hands).

Being the man of quiet contemplation and caution we know Ramsay to be, the logical thing for him would be to haul ass after them. Perhaps Roose would be more cautious, but even in that moment, I'd have to think that anyone would think time is working against them to get Arya back And to both of them, Arya is important to have. So better to run out and get her before she gets to Stannis, let alone has time to go all the way to the wall.

The question to me is not whether they go out immediately after Jeyne and Theon. They do. the question is whether they come back later, or get ambushed by Umber.

[pragmaticus]

The key is how do you bring the Boltons to battle which means they must leave Winterfell in the midst of a snowstorm - only two things can do that - a fire or the destruction of their supplies in Winterfell or both. Forced out of Winterfell by circumstance, Stannis holds the route upon which the Freys and the Boltons can escape south. Stannis's army is starving and already there has been cannabalism but would such an act be tolerated if Stannis offered his soldiers the meat of his adversaries?

[bent branch]

Once I read bemused's theory regarding the crypts and their use to bring in troops, I loved it. So I went back and read all the Theon POVs to see if it looked like it could be true. Reading Theon's chapters like that, back-to-back, was quite intense. The main impression I got was the northern lords who were forced by Roose to be there, not only wanted Stannis to take Winterfell, they needed Stannis to take Winterfell. They need Stannis to be the one to take back Winterfell because their family members are being held hostage. If they were to openly rebel against the regime change being forced on them by the south the hostages would be killed. So I think all of them, including Lady Dustin, will turn on Roose's troops and open the gates when Stannis gets there.

This doesn't mean I am not convinced about the crypts being a secret way in and out of Winterfell. In fact, I am convinced they are. While the crypts will not be needed for bringing in troops to open the gates, they did serve a purpose. The conspiracy between the northern lords to remove Ramsay from Winterfell and Roose as the Warden of the North is going on inside and outside of Winterfell's walls. The ability of those inside Winterfell to communicate with those outside Winterfell was severely hampered. They couldn't use ravens obviously, and sending someone over the wall was extremely dangerous since it would only take one time getting caught for the game to be revealed. Lady Dustin obviously went in looking for the crypts, which means she knew about them from somewhere. I think this is our signal that Galbert Glover and Maege Mormont have made it back to the north (yay). The reason I think this is I accept bemused's argument about who would have known about the secret entrance to Winterfell and that Jon would not have been one of them. Knowing that Jon did not know about the secret entrance, Robb would have verbally told Galbert and Maege about where the passage entered and exited so that they could tell Jon. To put it in writing would have risked it spreading beyond these two trusted people and not telling them would risk the knowledge being lost. Robb would not have told them where in Winterfell the crypts were located because this was something Jon already knew. Thus, if the knowledge was coming from Benjen he would have told Lady Dustin where the crypts were rather than her having to ask Theon.

As Lord Varys said up thread, the northern houses are hurting. The people killed and taken hostage at the RW were people who were important to the northern houses. They really can't take anymore losses. So when they saw Stannis take Deep Wood Motte from the ironborn and give it back to the Glovers, they realized he was their best chance for keeping the north relatively independent. They will bend the knee to Stannis if they can have most of their houses restored (the Boltons are toast though).

[bemused]

bent branch.. I don't really disagree with your take on the crypts , after all , we're all just kicking the ball around here.. and I do think they'd let Stannis take credit for the victory ( and in fact , if it exists, their conspiracy might have been a lot tougher to carry out without Stannis' force for the Boltons to focus on, and spend his forces on ). But if there's a bunch of Northerners already inside ( especially if there's a Stark among them ) it's far less likely Stannis would bestow it on someone else ( we know Jon was his original choice ) and far less likely that Stannis' men would feel they had the right to run roughshod over the Godswood , the crypts , etc.

I agree Lady Dustin may have already known where the crypts were. She may even have known from a visit to WF in the past. But asking Theon to show her the location and then planting her very detailed story with him , would calm suspicions that might be raised if she just went poking about on her own.

If Robb knew about the crypts , I don't doubt that he may have told Maege and/or Galbart under the circumstances .. but the entrance/exit would probably not be easy to find and I don't know if they would have had a chance to check it out unobserved. It's possible , though.

This is where my earlier musings over what could be hidden in the crypts and why there must always be a Stark in WF come in ( I can't help it ).. ;) .. Back at that time, I wondered if whatever is hidden down there could only be accessed by a Stark, and now I have to ask the same question about the secret entrance.

Many people have speculated that there may have been magic involved in the raising of Winterfell , and I couldn't help thinking.. what if there's something equivalent to the gate under the Nightfort , that in this case, can only be opened by a Stark ? A Stark could let whoever he/she wanted to through, but would be absolutely necessary to open it , or perhaps, in the case of the passage, even to find it from the outside. ( and of course, the same still goes for any hidden weapons , knowledge etc. )

Anyway , I could see the HM being Benjen or Galbart.. I definitely lean toward Benjen at the mo , in part because of the Stark in WF thing ,and in part because I've long felt that Theon's reaction to the HM and the fact that he doesn't mention HM when questioned, is because it's someone he assumes to be dead.

So I think they'd let Stannis claim his victory , and I wouldn't rule out that they'd bend the knee ( if it must come to that )as long as they're allowed an acceptable amount of autonomy in return.

I had some thoughts about the letter that I've been pecking at on my wordpad all day, but I'll have to do another post tomorrow.

[Lord Varys]

If Lady Dustin was really in on a Stark restoration conspiracy, why the hell did she not arrange an accident for either Roose and/or Roose and Ramsay? She is close enough to them to do it, and Roose seems to trust her so that she could even poison him. Roose Bolton is all that helds the anti-Stannis (or anti-Stark) coalition in the North together. Were Roose to die, the Northern lords would abandon Ramsay as one man. No one is going to suffer him as Warden of the North.

So instead of developing some kind of elaborate conspiracy, why did they not just kill him?

[mcb]

If Lady Dustin were really in on a Stark restoration conspiracy, why the hell did she not arrange an accident for either Roose and/or Roose and Ramsay? She is close enough to them to do it, and Roose seems to trust her so that she could even poison him. Roose Bolton is all that helds the anti-Stannis (or anti-Stark) coalition in the North together.

What would happen to hostages kept at the Dreadfort, I wonder, should Roose kick the bucket and Ramsay inherit everything?

[Lord Varys]

There are no hostages at the Dreadfort. At least none of the hostages taken at the Red Wedding. They are all at the Twins, or already on their way home (since Jaime commanded Lord Walder to release them).

And Lady Dustin has no kin that was killed during Robb's campaign, or at the Red Wedding, nor has any kin of hers have been taken as hostage.

Anyway, Lord Walder would not kill off the hostages he still has if some woman he has no sway over killed Roose Bolton. Nor would Ramsay be able to convince him to do so. Especially since the Freys in the South have no means to find out how Roose Bolton died, or who killed him, if he's just found dead...

[Lady Wylla Manderly]

Stannis. Please, GRRM. You owe us that much. :bawl:

[Wolf of the North]

There are no hostages at the Dreadfort. At least none of the hostages taken at the Red Wedding. They are all at the Twins, or already on their way home (since Jaime commanded Lord Walder to release them).

I believe the hostages taken during Ramsay's sack of Winterfell are still being held at the Dreadfort.

[bemused]

Lady Dustin may be close enough to Roose to have an opportunity to poison him , but she points out that he watches Manderly and only eats /drinks what he he sees Manderly taste first ..Roose may have a tendency to do that generally .. and Roose is the only thing standing between her and Ramsay's venom for her.

I don't think we can say she had no kin killed in Robb's campaign. She's a Ryswell by birth, and she must have some feeling for the Barrowton men ( her men ) she sent south.

Whatever her personal reasons might be, it may not be a thing she could accomplish alone, without coming in for some retribution. Better to make common cause with the others...and it's not just Roose ...everyone hates the Freys.

ETA : the characters don't know everything we know..they don't yet know what hostages will be freed/rescued..they don't yet know about Aegon, they don't know of Kevan's impending murder. If they free themselves of Roose and attack the Freys , they have to simultaneously put themselves in the best position they can to withstand an attack from the Lannisters/Freys.

[Knight of the Teabags]

I believe the hostages taken during Ramsay's sack of Winterfell are still being held at the Dreadfort.

Oh you mean Old Nan and the rest of the surviving Winterfell servants! I think sadly in this situation the term 'victims' is arguably more appropriate than 'hostages' - as the crucial difference with 'hostages' is that you can threaten them to gain leverage over your enemies. Hasn't Ramsey already raped a number of them and hunted them with his bitches? Correct me if I am wrong but weren't the only noble prisoners taken at Winterfell Theon and the Walders?

Unfortunately for these poor womem I think the Northern houses aren't likely to be coerced by the Boltons threatening these innocent (but almost entirely common) lives.

[Faint]

I do wonder what the point was of taking so many of the Winterfell denizens in place of killing them all. The younger, more attractive woman I can understand (and be revolted about) but everyone else?

[bemused]

I'm holding out hope for Old Nan , since she can't be an object of anyone's desire :)..maybe she can just fade into the woodwork ... I used to hope she was unremarkable enough to go missing from the captives at WF and be surviving in the crypts..:D..I love Old Nan ( could you tell ?)

But all this talk of hostages gives me yet another thought of Lady Barbrey and her dissembling ( sorry, Lord Varys ;))

I've often wondered , after coming to the conclusion that her Stark story was less than true , if the opinions she expresses about maesters ( the grey rats ) might also be suspect. She does point out for us that a maester's loyalty to the house he serves might be compromised by his loyalty to his house of origin. So when we meet Tybald of the Dreadfort , we automatically see him as a Lannister agent , or sympathizer ( and probably rightly so )...Her theory might be true in some cases , we've met Tybald and Pycelle , but we've also met Cressen and Luwin , who both appear to have given honest, even devoted service.

I don't know how long Tybald has been with Roose , but I've seen some posts that suggest that the other prisoner in the Dreadfort dugeons could be the former Dreadfort maester , which would imply Tybald was part of the deal with Tywin.

If so, we don't know what the captive maester's house of origin might be or where his loyalties might lie.. I'll just say that Roose doesn't seem to be a person one could warm to and certainly Ramsay isn't...but I do wonder about Barbrey's sister and Domeric, an accomplished student ,whose education he would have had responsibility for.

As a consequence of Tybald being with the Karstarks , Roose has 3 borrowed maesters at Winterfell , Medrick (old), Rhodry ( plump ) , and Henley (young) of houses Hornwood, Cerwyn and Slate ,respectively. Their names don't give me a clue, but they might for others. I believe all those houses have suffered pretty badly ( Barbrey has brought up the fate of Lady Hornwood more than once in negative terms). I feel that because Medrick is old, and probably served the Hornwoods for a long time , his loyalties would not transfer to Ramsay at Lady Hornwood's death.

I haven't thought too deeply about the others yet,but I think maybe Barbrey was not being totally honest . If she doesn't have a real aversion to Medrick for example, It occurs to me that in the possibility of Mance being the writer of the letter , she and Medrick could have contributed to him being able to send it. ..and Roose is not likely to be able to recieve any confidential communications while he's at Winterfell.

Maybe it also means that the 3 maesters themselves could have written the letter ? ;D

[Damar]

The Theon chapter spoke too much of a Hope Spot for Stannis, and by now I'm highly suspicious of whenever GRRM writes a Hope Spot or gives clear advantages to any army. Renly afterall started the war with the biggest army and yet died before his first battle.

[VaramyrSixchins]

But they can't be. Theon and Jeyne escaped by jumping off a wall in a hail of crossbow bolts in broad daylight. Ramsay will likely know they've escaped within a couple minutes of them jumping off the wall, and he'll know exactly where they hit the ground (and there will possibly be a trail in the snow from where they scampered away and right into Umber's hidden hands).

Being the man of quiet contemplation and caution we know Ramsay to be, the logical thing for him would be to haul ass after them. Perhaps Roose would be more cautious, but even in that moment, I'd have to think that anyone would think time is working against them to get Arya back And to both of them, Arya is important to have. So better to run out and get her before she gets to Stannis, let alone has time to go all the way to the wall.

The question to me is not whether they go out immediately after Jeyne and Theon. They do. the question is whether they come back later, or get ambushed by Umber.

I don't know that the Boltons would catch on right away. The guards were alerted by Jeyne's scream when Frenya killed the guard at the Battlement's Gate. They obviously saw Theon's jump, but if they saw his companion at all, they saw a girl in Squirrel's clothing. They already shot Holly, presumably killed Frenya, my guess is the guards assumption would be Theon ran off with "washerwomen" and would report as much to Bolton. If Squirrel remained in Boltons bedchamber, huddled under wolfskins, no one may have looked very closely for a while. Possibly Jeyne's absence wasn't discovered until well after she and Theon made it to Umber.

Also, we know from the gift chapter that

the Freys came out and were trapped in the pits

and that Jeyne/Theon's escape coincides with the Frey/Manderly mustering and preparation to march out. Even if Jeyne was discovered by the Boltons to have been Theon's companion by then, and Ramsay immediately pursued with a clear trail to follow, he would have had to hunt with this battle going on. And even then, the trail would've led straight to Umber, because we know, again from the gift chapter

Theon/Jeyne only made it a short way before being surrounded by Umber spears.

So, unless the Umbers were the head-on-a-spike "false king's friends" which I doubt, or Ramsay wouldve recovered Jeyne in that event, we can assume it's unlikely Ramsay immediately rushed out.

Also, remember it was Bravossi banker that delivered the two to Stannis. As he was making the same Deepwood Motte to WF trip that Stannis's host was making, and had to backtrack to Stannis's camp, it stands to reason that 1) Umber held the two long enough for Tycho to arrive (unless he was already there), and 2) Tycho and co. weren't bothered by a pursuit.

[VaramyrSixchins]

Well, obviously I didn't do the spoiler tags right. Would anyone be so kind as to tell me what I did wrong? Thanks.