Talisa's letter (possible spoilers)

[lojzelote]

I don't know what to think. And it probably doesn't matter, really; whether Talisa is a Mata Hari or Robb's Wuv, her storyline is silly. The Twue Wuv for a hundred times discussed reasons, the spy option because it's just contrived: I mean, what's the point. What does Tywin need this spy for? What does she write him about?! What they had for dinner? There are no battles, no anything, the RW is already planned with the Freys. How did Tywin in the first place know Robb will listen to and fall for and marry a random insolent foreign girl? Or did she contact Tywin only after she and Robb became a "thing"? But what was she then doing on that battlefield if it hadn't been all planned beforehands? She's really a Volantene noblewoman turned a selfless nurse turned a gold-digging spy? Wtf, whatever.

Seriously,George and the show creators are trolling us.

Blatantly obvious that in the show she is a spy. A spy who managed to get pregnant so she is carrying one of the most important babies in Westeros.

By getting pregnant she makes sure that she has somewhere to go and a part to play in the future of Westeros.

If she is a spy and pregnant (and means to keep the baby), the only place she has to go is seven feet under. Neither the Lannisters, nor the Boltons woud want her to bear Robb's child because it would have superior claim before both Sansa and f!Arya. If she ends in the hands of Robb's allies, she will be killed immediately after the birth of the baby.

ETA: That is, assuming that the show hasn't completely given up on logic.

[ugashep]

I agree, there's a lot of evidence for it. But it doesn't make sense from a plot standpoint. The main cause of the Red Wedding is the slight on Walder Frey by Robb's marriage. And now suddenly, his new wife is complicit in the planning of it? Case one: Talisa is in cahoots with Walder Frey as well as Tywin, which doesn't make a lick of sense. Case two: Talisa is only in cahoots with Tywin, in which case why would she risk her life by attending the wedding? Anyway, we'll find out.

I think your second scenario, that Talisa is in cahoots with only Tywin is the only one that is possible. And in that situation the Freys are being played, Tywin created the crisis with Talisa that drove the Freys into his arms, which is certainly not something Tywin is incapable of. If Robb now sends Talisa back to Riverrun with the Blackfish since she is "pregnant" it will only feed the fire, because she'll have given herself her an escape route from the destruction she knows is coming that she helped create.

[flinn]

David J. Peterson (created the High Valyrian language) on Talisa’s letter

Source

http://www.dothraki....-se-rina-litse/

I would call that confirmed. A letter to mom wouldn't matter.

[Jon Black]

I hope she's not enemy

because Jeyne Westerling (Robb's wife in the books) is not evil

This and it would kill the tragedy of it all. Plus, while she wrote the letter, she also said she was pregnant which also makes me think they will not go in the traitor direction.

Either way, his love affair will still be his downfall. However, it will hit harder if Talisa (or his wife/queen) loses him in such a matter (as GRRM wrote).

[YTDN]

I would call that confirmed. A letter to mom wouldn't matter.

Not really. All the writing on this show is actual writing rather than gibberish, even the stuff that doesn't matter. Peterson might just not want to ruin our speculations by confirming the letter is in fact to her mother and not a spy letter.

[Ran]

Not confirmed. They create prop items all the time, with detailed writing, for just momentary shots. They pay a lot of attention to those things on the production side.

There's one key word in that whole thing. Well, two, maybe. But the key word is "westrazon". Which must mean Westeros or Westerosi or something like. Perhaps it's saying "I have wed a Westerosi"? Who knows. But regardless, unless we want to suppose the letter isn't just written in Valyrian but also coded, that this one word sure makes it sound like it has nothing at all to do with the sort of thing a spy might write about.

The other word is the one that heads it, and I think may be related to "mother", as a similar word is used in episode 4 when Daenerys speaks of her "mother tongue".

[Magic 8 Ball]

At the Dothraki website, they now have the screen cap of most of the text and are now commenting in Latin to avoid "giving away spoilers"

[Draco_Dracul]

If Talisa were a spy working for Tywin, there would be no Red Wedding as Robb Stark would have been taken by a sudden fever within a few days of his wedding night.

I would call that confirmed. A letter to mom wouldn't matter.

Unless they want people to think she's a spy when she isn't. If they wanted to hide the fact that she was a spy they would lie and say it said something else or that it was just gibberish.

The logistics of making her a spy are astronomical for a plan that has such a small chance of working. If she's a noble woman, how much would Tywin have to pay to get a nobleman to risk his daughter's life if things go wrong and sacrifice his daughter's virginity if it succeeded? If she isn't, how much time and energy would it take to teach a common woman to read, write and preform basic surgery?

[lojzelote]

At the Dothraki website, they now have the screen cap of most of the text and are now commenting in Latin to avoid "giving away spoilers"

Like for realls?

One would think it is a list of RL secret agents.

[Magic 8 Ball]

I see Nuptia Rubrae in the Latin comments where they are discussing the letter.

[lojzelote]

I see Nuptia Rubrae in the Latin comments where they are discussing the letter.

I need to see this with my own eyes.

How do I get there? I'm not familiar with the site.

[Young Nan]

There's one key word in that whole thing. Well, two, maybe. But the key word is "westrazon". Which must mean Westeros or Westerosi or something like. Perhaps it's saying "I have wed a Westerosi"? Who knows. But regardless, unless we want to suppose the letter isn't just written in Valyrian but also coded, that this one word sure makes it sound like it has nothing at all to do with the sort of thing a spy might write about.

About "westrazon", just because it is likely to mean westerosi or westeros doesn't mean there aren't any nefarious intentions. She could be saying "the westerosi is doing______" or anything, really. I don't think this one word really shows one way or another that she is good or bad.

[Magic 8 Ball]

I need to see this with my own eyes.

How do I get there? I'm not familiar with the site.

Click on the link up thread, go to the comments section of the most recent post

[lojzelote]

Click on the link up thread, go to the comments section of the most recent post

Thanks.

[Areo Speedwagon]

I don't know what to think. And it probably doesn't matter, really; whether Talisa is a Mata Hari or Robb's Wuv, her storyline is silly. The Twue Wuv for a hundred times discussed reasons, the spy option because it's just contrived: I mean, what's the point. What does Tywin need this spy for? What does she write him about?! What they had for dinner? There are no battles, no anything, the RW is already planned with the Freys. How did Tywin in the first place know Robb will listen to and fall for and marry a random insolent foreign girl? Or did she contact Tywin only after she and Robb became a "thing"? But what was she then doing on that battlefield if it hadn't been all planned beforehands? She's really a Volantene noblewoman turned a selfless nurse turned a gold-digging spy? Wtf, whatever.

I've never understood the negative attitude toward an actual love story in the show, dismissively branded here even as "Twue wuv." I guess the only tolerable sexual relationships in the Song of Ice and Fire series is prostitution, incest, rape, and manipulation. And you can say that it was handled poorly; that's why you don't like it. But this is a tv show, not a book. And Robb was never even a pov character. He is one of the last pieces to fall on the road to the larger scope this story encompasses.

But I agree that her being a spy would be contrived. I agree with someone further back that it's a red herring. Maybe Cat hears about all these letters and thinks she's a spy.

[Broken Fox]

It sucks to say that I'm actually looking forward to the Red Wedding at this point. I like Catelyn and the Blackfish, but the rest...

Robb and Talisa are painful to watch.

Brutus is a dickhead.

The northern army and GREY WIND are non existent.

Just put the storyline to rest.

[Moët]

Hmmmm. David Peterson (dothraki.com) will release the translation of Talisa's letter after the end of the season.

I'm leaning towards spy.

My only question is, does Robb still have a reason to write his will? I should think so, as a contingency.

[lojzelote]

I've never understood the negative attitude toward an actual love story in the show, dismissively branded here even as "Twue wuv." I guess the only tolerable sexual relationships in the Song of Ice and Fire series is prostitution, incest, rape, and manipulation. And you can say that it was handled poorly; that's why you don't like it. But this is a tv show, not a book. And Robb was never even a pov character. He is one of the last pieces to fall on the road to the larger scope this story encompasses.

I agree with you that her being a spy would be contrived. But to say the loyalty of your enemy's wife, who tends to and heals his wounded and is therefore in the barracks, is meaningless, that having your enemy's wife loyal and writing to you holds no tactical advantage in wartime makes it seem like your anger for Talisa is beginning to affect other things.

As far as "how did Tywin know?" In the books, isn't it revealed that Jeyne's mother knew it would happen? That she pretty much figured if she put her daughter in the same room as the injured king one thing would lead to another? Either way, I'm sure Tywin had dozens of options had Jeyne or Talisa not worked out. But we don't, and will never know about the possible options B - L simply because option A worked.

By breaking the marriage contract with the Freys, Robb Stark lost a vital ally and endangered not only his (family's) cause, but also that of his bannermen who were stuck with him in the Riverlands. His reason for doing so is not a misguided sense of honor and probably also the fear that he has sired Jon Snow 2.0 like in the books, but "yolo" and "my mom pissed me, I'm gonna piss her back". In both scenarios he's kind of an idiot, but while in the former one we feel for him and his noble ideals, in the latter one he's simply an unsympathetic brat. People are bound to make fun of someone who has a few chats with a girl, then sleeps with her once and then gets angry with his mother and in turn decides to marry the girl "for love", damning his cause. It's not the concept of a romance I'm making fun of, but the delivery of it. It's also very generic and posseses the attributes of cheesy writing George himself tried to avoid (an unprotected foreign nurse-alleged -noblewoman tells a King his campaign sucks to his face and keeps interrupting his war councils, while the King's generals watch by and the King is enchanted and passionately falls in love with the precious feisty beauty). Bleurgh. It all has been re-hashed many times.

In books, Jeyne's mother didn't "know", but the chances of the plan working were still much higher. She pushed her pretty daughter to keep to a young handsome bedridden man company for days/weeks, to nurse him and bond with him. Not a given it will work, but compared to a random girl from a battlefield, a girl the young man has no reason to talk to, to listen to, to spend a mere moment in her company ...

[Magic 8 Ball]

"Hic epistola convertenda est noble ex Valyriana in Anglicum, antequam Nuptiae Rubrae"

"Caveat lector atque auctor,spoeler Latinus autem spoeler est"

The "spoeler" Latin neologism is cute.

[Aethermancer]

I would call that confirmed. A letter to mom wouldn't matter.

Unless the letter to mom was one telling her mother that the fertility treatment worked. And next episode we have a miscarriage scene.