Who killed Jon Arryn?

[FuriousGeorge]

Because exposing the relationship with Arryn on Stannis´ side would have helped Stannis and have got Petyr fired as a favour to Stannis first. Petyr would not have been in position to benefit from the chaos.

Also, warning Starks of Lannister plot was caused by Tywin´s declared fostering of Robert.

Yeah but surely he can kill John Arrryn basically as and when he wants if he as Lysa as his catspaw?

[Penguin king]

Do you not think that makes it a little bit contrived though? I mean why would LF kill Arryn if he was on his way to exposing the relationship between Jaime and Cersei as it acheives something that he wants without him actually having to do anything. If he needed him dead why not kill him after he has caused chaos.

He's not causing chaos for chaos sake, he's trying to get at Ned and Cat. Revealing Cersei's incest at that point doesn't help in that aim, as Ned and Cat aren't involved yet. On the other hand, Jon Arryn's death brings Ned to the capital where Littlefinger can manipluate him, and pinning the death on Cersi prompts ned into doing his own investigations leading to him being right in the middle of things when the Incest bomb finaly does go off.

[Ser Arthyr Dracenstein]

Sometimes I just want to scream.

The whole Jon Arryn was about to expose the Jaime-Cersei incest was just a huge RED HERRING!!!

The real reason was that Jon Arryn was going to take SweetRobin away from Lysa and give him to Stannis Baratheon to foster.

Littlefinger was having an affair with Lysa, once he found out about that, he persuaded Lysa to poison JA, then when King Robert started north to bring Ned Stark in as his Hand, he persuaded Lysa to send a letter to her sister warning her of the Lannisters.

What Littlefinger wanted all the time was revenge against the Starks for taking Catelyn, his one real love, away from him. I think at this point, Littlefinger was planning to get the Starks and Lannisters killing each other over the whole incest thing, getting Ned Stark dead and marrying Catelyn.

I am not sure he had truly appreciated that Catelyn had aged (think of a girl you had a crush on at school, do you picture the schoolgirl or the mother in her forties she is now?), and did not anticipate Catelyn would die during his machinations. The plotting to 'rescue' Sansa was first a means to make Catelyn choose to marry him, but now she is dead, he is 'overwriting' Catelyn onto Sansa.

I don't think Littlefinger truly understand that Sansa is a different girl, not a Tully to puppeteer, but a vengeful wolf, a Stark. She will be his downfall. She still has the poison he used to help the Tyrrels poison Jonfrey...

[FuriousGeorge]

Sometimes I just want to scream.

The whole Jon Arryn was about to expose the Jaime-Cersei incest was just a huge RED HERRING!!!

The real reason was that Jon Arryn was going to take SweetRobin away from Lysa and give him to Stannis Baratheon to foster.

Littlefinger was having an affair with Lysa, once he found out about that, he persuaded Lysa to poison JA, then when King Robert started north to bring Ned Stark in as his Hand, he persuaded Lysa to send a letter to her sister warning her of the Lannisters.

What Littlefinger wanted all the time was revenge against the Starks for taking Catelyn, his one real love, away from him. I think at this point, Littlefinger was planning to get the Starks and Lannisters killing each other over the whole incest thing, getting Ned Stark dead and marrying Catelyn.

I am not sure he had truly appreciated that Catelyn had aged (think of a girl you had a crush on at school, do you picture the schoolgirl or the mother in her forties she is now?), and did not anticipate Catelyn would die during his machinations. The plotting to 'rescue' Sansa was first a means to make Catelyn choose to marry him, but now she is dead, he is 'overwriting' Catelyn onto Sansa.

I don't think Littlefinger truly understand that Sansa is a different girl, not a Tully to puppeteer, but a vengeful wolf, a Stark. She will be his downfall. She still has the poison he used to help the Tyrrels poison Jonfrey...

Why does LF care about whether or not Stannis fosters Robin? I have never read aGoT and have only read the other four once and very quickly because I'm in the last year of my degree so the complexity of some elements of the plot is hard to get straight in my head sometime. Forgive me if I am being retarded I often am

[Penguin king]

Why does LF care about whether or not Stannis fosters Robin? I have never read aGoT and have only read the other four once and very quickly because I'm in the last year of my degree so the complexity of some elements of the plot is hard to get straight in my head sometime. Forgive me if I am being retarded I often am

Littlefinger doesn't care, but Lysa does which allows him to convince her into doing the deed for him. Killing Jon Arryn has two big advantages for Littlefinger:

1) It gets Jon out of the way so he can make a move on the Vale later

2) It means Robert has to find a new hand, which will almost certainly be Ned. Once Ned is in the capital Little finger can start manipulating him, and his revenge against the Starks can begin.

[Hermione]

I think that another advantage in having Lysa do the deed - for LF, of course - is that he can control her with the knowledge of what he did, at least in theory. I suppose LF being LF he has some proof somewhere of what Lysa did and can use it against her should she oppose some of his plans. At least that's what I believe LF originally intended to do, or at least have in reserve, before he realised that Lysa was pretty much raving and wouldn't have cared whether he threatened to expose her as a murderer or not, since she believed it was all done in the name of true love.

[Jaak]

Yeah but surely he can kill John Arrryn basically as and when he wants if he as Lysa as his catspaw?

And killing Jon Arryn does him little good if Stannis is the heir and Hand of Robert. He has to stop Stannis from getting to power, and does not have the opportunity to kill Stannis. Therefore, he has to remove Stannis´ most valuable ally, to get Stannis out of his neck.

He would not have had problems with Renly inheriting after Robert - Renly can get along with him. But not Stannis.

[Lion of Judah]

Pycelle took part in Jon's death as well.

[Twinslayer]

I think that another advantage in having Lysa do the deed - for LF, of course - is that he can control her with the knowledge of what he did, at least in theory. I suppose LF being LF he has some proof somewhere of what Lysa did and can use it against her should she oppose some of his plans. At least that's what I believe LF originally intended to do, or at least have in reserve, before he realised that Lysa was pretty much raving and wouldn't have cared whether he threatened to expose her as a murderer or not, since she believed it was all done in the name of true love.

I would take this one step further. Lysa didn't kill Jon Arryn. Cersei did. But Littlefinger convinced Lysa that she (Lysa) did it as a way of manipulating her.

Does anyone else think that Lysa's confession sounded unreliable? Particularly since it was given to Sansa, who also seems to remember things that never actually happened?

[PWT3]

Pure revenge for the Starks taking his first true love away from.

You must not have read too carefully, cause if there is one character in the series I consider utterly incapable of love, it's the monster Baelish. Tyrion and Varys and some others have him correctly pegged in GoT when they say things lie Littlefinger cares only for Littlefinger, and when Tyrion basically laughs at Catelyn when she says LF's love for her was true love.

That character is an irredeemable, loveless demon.

[Lost Melnibonean]

Did LF find out from Sir Hugh That Jon A had discovered the secret about the children? if that is true, why did the mountain kill Sir Hugh? just because he likes to kill people?

As Sandor explained to Sansa Hugh left his jugular exposed and the Enormity that Rides went for it...just because.

[Winterfell Resident]

It was hatched by Little Finger.

It was shared with Lysa Arryn(formerly Tully aka Catelyn Stark's sister).

It may have been carried out by Lysa or Jon Arryn's squire who was killed in a tournament.

It was either Lysa or the squire who actually poisoned Jon Arryn.

Nevertheless, it was Little Finger and Lysa/Squire that was in on it.

[Lost Melnibonean]

Lysa killed him. Littlefinger instigated it. It is known...

"Tears, tears, tears," she sobbed hysterically. "No need for tears . . . but that's not what you said in King's Landing. You told me to put the tears in Jon's wine, and I did. For Robert, and for us!"

Gregor killed Hugh because he could. Why did Varys suggest to the Ned that he did it for the Lannisters? To gain the Ned's trust?

[Asha Greyjoy:Feminist Icon]

Littlefinger,Cause he hates Stannis.

Gotta confess...my brain read and then almost instantly dismissed this as a commonplace Grand Theory of Stannis Joke. Then I did whatever the forum equivalent of a double-take is: "No, wait - that's true. My bad." (This has been further explained upthread.)

So really? I guess I'm at that point in my time here where I'm becoming conditioned to expect certain things. To Stanstans: Thanks for both the aforementioned conditioning and the humbling new lesson in the dangers of prejudicial thread-scanning.

(Said as one of the last of a dying, near-mythic breed of fan: Pro-Stannis/Pro-Dany, or, They Who Will Not Choose.)

[CDM]

So do you think the "Jon Arryn's death plot" it could be summarized with this diagram I made?

http://imageshack.com/a/img716/654/nsx9.png

I don't think Littlefinger and Lysa told anything to Hugh about the murder, it would have been too risky.

Maybe he discovered things anyway, and that's why they wanted him dead? But I like to believe that Ser Hugh actually knew NOTHING and got totally screwed x) That LF wanted him killed by the Mountain so that the Lannister would be blamed (he didn't asked the Mountain to kill Hugh, he just set up the fight and guessed that the Mountain would kill him because that's what he does).

But I'm not sure if it was Littlefinger who made it so Hugh would fight the Mountain, though. Pycelle believed Hugh had poisoned Jon on Cersei's command, so maybe he wanted to silence him? That's possible too.

[Charles Calthrop]

Completely agree. Littlefinger is out for Littlefinger. Additionally, we know that he's Westerosi society's most ambitious social climber. The whole exercise is to a) pit the Lannisters against the Starks (the two most militarily powerful houses) b) to dislodge the Baratheons a bit (reigning house), and c) by doing so, create opportunity for himself.

As a very small lord, he can't marry Lysa (the wife of a Lord Paramount), until he gets a similar level of title. He sees chaos as opportunity, and saw this as the way to engineer maximum chaos. Sure enough, he ends up with Harrenhal and is 'LP of the riverlands' - which is useless until the Lannisters win the war, but not to him. It's ultimately useful, because it allows him to have control of the Vale (and he hopes, the North).

For him, it's not enough to take sides - he has to keep all the high lords busy. He destabilizes the Lannisters too, to prevent them from becoming too powerful. Any sort of power structure that becomes too stable is going to hinder his upward mobility, so he seeks to nullify that.

You must not have read too carefully, cause if there is one character in the series I consider utterly incapable of love, it's the monster Baelish. Tyrion and Varys and some others have him correctly pegged in GoT when they say things lie Littlefinger cares only for Littlefinger, and when Tyrion basically laughs at Catelyn when she says LF's love for her was true love.

That character is an irredeemable, loveless demon.

[GallowsKnight]

I've always liked the idea that many people contributed to his death. Lysa obviously poisoned him under manipulation from LF. But Pycelle made sure Maester Coleman didn't cure him with purging because he thought the Lannisters did it. Varys is somehow involved because he boasts of it to Ilyrio.

[ap2442]

Wow, this diagram is amazing!

Question, though: (I am sure I missed it somewhere) - how did Stannis find out about the incest between Cersei and Jaime, and how did he find out that the children weren't Roberts?

So do you think the "Jon Arryn's death plot" it could be summarized with this diagram I made?

http://imageshack.com/a/img716/654/nsx9.png

I don't think Littlefinger and Lysa told anything to Hugh about the murder, it would have been too risky.

Maybe he discovered things anyway, and that's why they wanted him dead? But I like to believe that Ser Hugh actually knew NOTHING and got totally screwed x) That LF wanted him killed by the Mountain so that the Lannister would be blamed (he didn't asked the Mountain to kill Hugh, he just set up the fight and guessed that the Mountain would kill him because that's what he does).

But I'm not sure if it was Littlefinger who made it so Hugh would fight the Mountain, though. Pycelle believed Hugh had poisoned Jon on Cersei's command, so maybe he wanted to silence him? That's possible too.

[Aemond's Eye]

I don't know if I hate Lysa for being a bitch and a crazywoman more, or Pycelle for being such a toady with no sense of justice whatsoever.

It's harder to hate Cersei because at least her paranoia is out of loyalty to her family and a genuine concern for her children, as Varys points out.

I don't believe it is. From reading Cersei's POV chapters and her actions, I think her main concern is always for herself. She only cares about her children as an extension of herself, just like she only loved Jaime when he was her mirror image. I short, Cersei only truly loves Cersei.

[CDM]

My understanding of the whole plot, in a video :)

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4MXZZd0YKsI

 

@ap2442: I have no idea how Stannis discovered the truth about Joffrey... but he wasn't the only one to know, Littlefinger and probably Varys and Pycelle knew about it too, no? I'm not certain. But everyone had a lot of spies, so eventually every secret in the court is bound to be discovered I guess. I have no idea how Jaime and Cersei managed to hide their relationship so long in the first place.