His lie was terrible too. The fingers are to the east of the Eyrie. To get a group of Boltons there to kidnap them would be impossible. Plus the Boltons would have just killed him if they were going to kidnap Sansa anyway.
I had assumed the attack would be before the walk of shame, not during it. That they’d attack the temple/prison and rescue Loras and Margaery.
I think it was clear to him that the Vale guy knew he was up to no good. His move this time was basically saying “I control Jon Arryn.”
The camera did focus on the “Flayed Man” sigil on the wax seal. Would Littlefinger stoop so low as to forge someone else’s seal?
I think the most likely explanation for the “secret” is the Sparrow lying to Tommen, either to test him (tell him a lie in confidence, then see if it gets a reaction, then you know Tommen revealed a secret, and that gives you leverage of some sort) or deliberately to provoke a result (for reasons not yet seen). I will be somewhat surprised if Margaery ever agreed to a walk of shame at all, it’s out of character for her and contradicts what we’ve seen her doing recently.
This was my interpretation of the scene as well. Littlefinger was saying to Royce, “I can say anything I want, and Robin will trust me. Wanna play?”
While I wouldn’t put it past Littlefinger to arrange some kind of Weekend At Bernie’s type scenario with the late Jon Arryn, it’s his son Robyn he’s pulling the strings of. Although I agree it was a bit obvious and not very Littlefinger-y.
Again I wouldn’t put it past him as part of his ‘chaos is a ladder’ schtick, as he mentioned to Cersei last season all he has to do is wait for Stannis and Roose to battle it out and mop up the survivor. Seeing another way to weaken the Boltons and generally sow mayhem before he sends in the forces of the Vale would be in character, though the big question is would he know Ramsay had Rickon? Maybe through working with the Umbers, though I don’t know what they’d get out of it, some sort of promised reward when Baelish is Warden of the North maybe?
Yeah, I don’t see why this letter needs to be anything other than what it appears to be. It seems quite reasonable that Ramsay would send a rider with such a note.
Regarding Tommen’s secret: It seemed to me that Tommen had learned of Margaery’s imminent Walk. They cut away just before he says what he says to Cersei, and then in the next scene Cersei uses a “Guess what I just learned?” tone when mentioning the Walk. I thought the dots were laid out clearly to connect those two scenes without any need to speculate on some further secret (…and certainly not information on Joffrey’s murder. Innocent Tommen would have been much less calm and collected if he had received that meteor strike to his worldview.)
Yes, Little Finger the guy who when he betrayed Ned Stark actually held the knife to Ned’s throat and nearly “mwahahaha”-ed. “I told you not to trust me.”
Subtle.
I’m quite familiar with the trope, and it does not apply here because he’s not a creator of the show.
We don’t know about all Targaryens (of course there was the thing with Viserys, but molten metal seems like kind of a gray area), but the show certainly seems to be presenting Dany as fireproof.
I was thinking the department for grassland security needs to review its procedures…
In what way is a producer and scriptwriter not a ‘creator’?
Another possibility, Margaery does her walk but because she has shown kindness for the poor in the past she gets a completely different reaction from the crowd. Instead of revulsion and abuse like Cersei got, she gets adulation from the masses, thereby increasing her power and influence. Just a thought I had, how likely?
As has been pointed out multiple times, he wrote an episode a year for the first few seasons. He has not worked on the show in years. Executive producer credits are often given out like candy as an honorary credit even if the person isn’t very involved with actual production but had some important hand in it somehow (or provided funding). He’ll always get something like a “Story by” credit (I’m not sure exactly how they attribute it on the show), mainly so he can always collect a check for each episode they make. But that’s about all he does with it these days. His word is not canon for the show.
Normally authors of books that get adapted for film or TV have very little, if any influence whatsoever on the adaptation. They get paid, and others take it from there. GRRM has actually had more than average influence for a book author, but it still doesn’t amount to much in the long run. He himself has lamented his lack of control, in this quote from his blog:
What kindness has Margery shown the poor? It seems to me there’s hardly any interaction between the nobility and the poor at all, and Margery has only been in King’s Landing for a few months, maybe a year. I’d think the masses know virtually nothing of her beyond her name and that she’s been married to Joffrey and then Tommen.
Thought about that too, and while she’s obviously more popular than Cersei we’ve not seen any evidence that anyone is all that broken up over her being banged up in squalor. In a popularity contest the High Sparrow would win, I think.
ETA; on the whole GRRM/creator thing we’re just gonna have to agree to disagree.
I was thinking there was a scene where she was traveling with Joffrey through a squalid part of Kings Landing and she stopped the procession so she could get out and interact with the poors. I thought at the time that they were setting her up to be a champion of the masses.
Yep, she visited an orphanage in season 3.
“But what have you done for us lately?”
And presumably she’s done of a lot of work for the poor off screen (or rather had underlings work for the poor in her name & made the occasional appearance).
Their sigil is a flayed man; that in itself says all you need to know about them.
Yes, of course Littlefinger would stoop that low, but I see no reason to doubt Ramsey sent the letter.
I believe at one point Ramsey told someone that his family had been flaying their enemies for a thousand years. I assume anyone that wasn’t onboard with that would have left long ago!