Good point… also I think one of the main problems with taking out the Freys is that their command of the Twins over the River allows them to be relatively safe from any long sieges from one side (they can just get resupplied from the other side). However, with the North and the Vale, Littlefinger can attack the Freys from both sides at once, taking away that advantage.
I wasn’t disagreeing with you in general, I just think Stannis’s ride isn’t that different from the others. The lands may have been fairly empty, but there still would have been some Wildlings there.
And Stannis’s arrival was a surprise to the Night’s Watch too. Why wouldn’t he have tried to get word that reinforcements were coming? His fleet must have gone right by Eastwatch. Why not send a message by raven?
These “cavalry arrives in the nick of time out of nowhere” have more to do with drama than plausibility.
No doubt someone saw something, but that doesn’t mean the people who saw it bothered to say anything to their local lord. And if their lord did hear about it (or saw it himself) he may have just decided it was better to not warn Ramsay. Both Ramsay and Jon have trouble rounding up loyal houses. It appears many northern lords just want to keep their heads down for the time being and see where things go.
Exactly. Had Jon known, he would have had to knowingly and convincingly driven his army into a hopeless meat grinder, crushing and pulping thousands to their deaths. Would he have done that? Could he have done that, even if he had wanted to? And his only guarantee that it would even work would be the word of Sansa, based on the word of Littlefinger. Remember what Sansa was like in season one. That’s the Sansa that Jon Snow grew up with. Would anyone trust her opinion on warfare? Or anything not related to traditional lady-like pursuits? She’s grown a huge amount, but Jon doesn’t really know or understand that yet. He probably still sees the naive girl he remembers from happier days.
Plus, it fits thematically with the rest of the episode in two important ways:
(1) Sansa beat Ramsay at his own game. He is a schemer who uses people, and is willing to do things such as fire arrows into a melee despite endangering some of his own soldiers. Sansa is an apprentice schemer, but she’s learning from the best. Her plan involved accepting that Rickon was already as good as dead and that Jon could be used as a potential pawn sacrifice. Ramsay’s plan lured Jon away from his makeshift defenses. Sansa’s plan lured Ramsay’s army away from the defenses of Winterfell. There’s a nice symmetry there.
(2) The episode has a very strong theme of female empowerment. It’s most obvious in the conversation between Dany and Yara, but I think it includes Sansa as well. It feels right to think that Sansa was an active force in retaking Winterfell, beyond just writing a letter and begging for help. At one point she explicitly states that nobody can protect her. I think the unstated subtext is that she therefore must protect herself, implying that she is being more hands-on and active instead of reactive.
He had the Boltons in the north. Delivering Sansa to them should have made them allies. Or at least non-enemies.
We don’t know how much of the Vale’s strength is in the north, but it is effectively trapped there. A Vale with forces divided should be in a very dangerous position. There’s nothing stopping that Lannister army at Riverrun from invading the Vale and it can get to the Vale faster than Littlefinger can return with his army.
Beyond that, Littlefinger is away from the Vale and thus away from influencing Robin. If a Lannister army shows up then the nobles of the Vale should say we aren’t fighting for Littlefinger’s dreams of power. A palace coup ought to occur and Littlefinger would lose his base of power.
And knowing that, the Freys might just decide to make a deal instead. And wouldn’t it be just like Littlefinger if he already had some prominent member of the Frey family in place to argue in his favour and take out Walder?
You are right. But I might be able to explain away the no-raven situation. What would sending a raven have accomplished?
The Brothers couldn’t change tactics a bit, they also could not do any more than they were already trying. In fact, telling those overstressed and exhausted men that help was near, might have eased their tension too soon or it might have given some the idea that this could be survivable after all, if only they kept their heads down for a little bit, which could have been fatal.
I don’t see any upside to inform them but there might have been a potential downside, so, … I might not have told them either.
Sansa didn’t have to be a master strategist for things to go down the way they did - she just had to really, really, really NOT want to use Littlefinger’s army, as she suspected there would be a very high price to pay for that. Maybe she didn’t even trust him not to turn on Jon once Ramsay’s forces were defeated.
So, she begs Jon not to fight. Jon’s going to fight anyway. So, knowing how cunning Ramsay is she knows Jon is leading his army to certain death and in desperation she rides back to Littlefinger and asks for his help. Littlefinger agrees, and HE is the master strategist who held back his forces until the Bolton army was committed to the encirclement so they could be slaughtered from their flank. Sansa already admitted that she doesn’t know anything about battles, so she wasn’t going to come up with such a plan. But Littlefinger? Sure. And he’s cold enough to let as much of Jon’s wildling army die as necessary in order to ensure victory. At this point, so is Sansa, but she still wouldn’t have come up with that plan.
I still don’t think we know Littlefinger’s game, and at this point I think it’s at least even money that he doesn’t have one - other than to prove himself loyal to House Stark and use that to solidify his position as protector of the Vale. His ultimate plan is probably to have Robyn meet an untimely demise and have himself declared Lord of the Vale, and to pull that off he maybe needs to come home as the heroic saviour of Winterfell and perhaps even Warden of the North.
Remember, what drives Littlefinger is his childhood as a hostage who loved Catelyn but could never have her. He’s a northman who was never accepted by the north, and for him the ultimate satisfaction might be saving Catelyn’s daughter and helping to restore house Stark while elevating himself to the highest position the North can offer.
As for Jon Snow… Why is anyone surprised that he screwed it up? Just when has he shown any real skill at leading an army? Personal combat? Sure. He’s a great fighter. But he was losing at the wall and beyond. He would have lost to the wildlings had Stannis not saved the day, and he lost at Hardhome. Then he couldn’t even keep the loyalty of the watch and got murdered for his trouble. My read on Jon Snow is that he’s a great fighter, a good man, but kind of lousy at leading men in battle. And he proved it against Bolton.
I also think the show went out of its way to show us that something was interceding to save Jon. His charge against hundreds of longbowmen should have been almost instantly fatal, but they kept showing the arrows falling all around him without him being touched. In the initial melee, the horses all veered around him and he was left alone, and even he looked confused by that. Then when he was actually fighting people, several times he was about to be cut down by someone he didn’t even see, only to have something happen to stop it every time. It was either a very weak part of an otherwise excellent battle depiction, or we were meant to feel that he was being protected in some way. I think the latter is more likely.
I thought the weakest scene in the show was the initial conversation between Tyrion and Daeneris. Tyrion making light of what was going on was totally out of character, and it was almost sitcom-level silly. But after that initial bit, the dialog got better.
As for the loyalty of the North, I can totally understand why the Starks may have been in the doghouse. Robb Stark commanded the north to rise up with him, and then he pissed it all away over a girl. All he had to do was marry a Frey, and the entire situation would have been different. Instead, he risked the lives of thousands of Northmen for love. Also, as King he executed a Karstark Lord for disobeying his orders, even when warned that this might cause big problems for him.
Ned Stark went to King’s Landing to help Robert hold onto power, and Robert got killed and Ned lost his head. They let Winterfell be taken by their former hostage and military lightweight, Theon Greyjoy. Sansa was last seen swooning over murderous Joffrey, then possibly poisoning him and vanishing.
Basically, the Starks looked like total screwups whose arrogance and/or incompetence got a lot of Northmen killed and forced them to live under Roose freaking Bolton. Why they should remain loyal at all is the mystery.
But does any one know that the Knights of the Vale are in the North, aside from Jon and Sansa and co. & the nobles of the Vale? I don’t think that King’s Landing would know about it for a little while, unless someone is working to undermine Littlefinger in the Vale.
I think more likely, that it was something as simple as, no raven was available, like it was returning a message before they arrived. Or that the raven in question was killed by the warging dudes flying around in falcons. It makes sense that they’d target any ravens in the area. It doesn’t take a stretch to assume the message got lost.
Also, Stannis was a dour asshole. Maybe he just didn’t care to divert someone to Eastwatch to inform them. They may have landed up the coast a day’s ride from the Night’s Watch outpost for all we know. Since they didn’t know about Stannis, it stands to reason, that if a message was sent, it didn’t make it. No reason to waste screen time on some dude saying, “Bro, didn’t you get our raven?”
Littlefinger is from the Vale. Remember his crappy castle on the Fingers (where Lysa came to meet him)? He was raised at Riverrun, but I think it was as a voluntary ward, not a hostage.
One of the Silent Sisters delivered Ned’s bones to Catelyn a few seasons ago.
Sansa hasn’t proclaimed herself Queen of the North (at least not yet). For now it seems like she’s content to be Lady of Winterfell and Wardress of the North and owe nominal fealty to whoever’s sitting on the Iron Throne (as long as that person leaves the North the fuck alone).
So did they actually charge into battle with her men, or stay behind the rear line? I don’t think we saw her at all during the actual fighting, and as courageous a leader she may be in actual combat she’s be toast.
That’s par for the course, and the same think will end up happening on a larger scale if/when Daenerys finally conquers Westeros.
Bran’s claim is pretty much academic at this point. The few people that know he’s alive don’t know where he is, if/when he does show up it’s doubtful that he has any interesting in deposing his sister, and if he’s incapable of fathering a child (something which the show hasn’t addressed either way yet) there’s no point him pressing a claim to Winterfell or the North.
I don’t think she hasn’t any idea how she’s going to go about ruling an entire continent yet. Even her ancestors only ever ruled greater King’s Landing directly, the rest of Westeros being given to allied families (in at least some cases the same families that ruled the formerly independent kingdoms) to rule on the Targaryens’ behalf. For all we know she’ll try to do away with that system entirely and reorganize Westeros into a bunch of provinces with non-hereditary governors ruling on her behalf (ala the Roman Empire).
There’s also the lesson that even the most loyal beasts will turn on their master if they’re hungry enough. That as true of dogs as it is of people.
I wonder if we’re going to see any reaction at the royal court to Sansa reclaiming Winterfell. IIRC we didn’t even see Cersei getting word that she married into House Bolton (a Lannister ally).
Right, and so far she’s barely been able to handle ruling one city-state.
Davos still hasn’t actually really found about what happened to Shireen. He knows she died, and that Melisandre is being cagey about the details. The charred horse is a clue, but I don’t think he found anything that points to Shireen being burnt at the stake as apposed to say this being the remains’ of Shireen’s funeral pyre.
Next season has to introduce some weapon that cancels out dragons. The Walkers will definitely have some kind of magic counter. Also, Euron has some sort of plan that still has to be somewhat feasible even with Dany/Tara alliance or what is the point?
Oh, that’s right. I had misremembered that he had grown up a hostage in the south. But this makes his motivation even more understandable: He wants to be Lord of the Vale. The Vale was closely allied with the Starks because of the sisters. By saving Winterfell he’s building up some serious bona fides should something happen to Robin and the Vale needs a new Lord.
I also like the idea of his plan being to take the Twins and the Riverlands. That also makes a lot of sense. He could wind up ruling half of Westeros, which would put him in a good position for taking the Iron Throne at some point.
That is, the Crownlands.
I get the feeling he has figured it out already.
Ned and Robert had been wards of John Arryn. It wasn’t because of the sisters.
Certainly word will get out immediately that Jon and Sansa have retaken Winterfell. It’s hard to conceive that the role of the Vale won’t as well.
I don’t think he ever had any intention to leave the Boltons in the place of power in the north; the plan he told Cersei might not have been too far from the truth.
Besides, who would trust the Boltons? And why should they not turn on him the minute they see an advantage in doing so? If Sansa was his bargaining chip, then they already had what he could give them, and wasn’t needed anymore.
Why is it trapped? The sea is open on the eastern side. The Houses there are mostly of unknown allegiance in the tv series, in the books it has become pretty clear that Littlefinger has serious influence there.
But given our tv-knowledge, nothing could hinder the Vale army from crossing the quite narrow sea instead of relying on the more treacherous and long-winded land route.
No army can simply go into the Vale as long as it’s not invited. The mountains keep them on controlled paths, the fortifications there keep them out.
The Vale is more vulnerable by sea but we have no idea how strong the naval forces of the competing parties are.
You have a point here. I agree that Littlefinger has strong opposition in the Vale and his position is far less secure than he might think.
If he had failed in the north … but it doesn’t look like it.
You really, really haven’t been paying attention to Littlefinger’s character if you believe that.
We’ve seen the three dragons in action. Looking ahead-- will we have two other dragon riders? What is the prerequisite for dragon riding? I think Jon may find himself astride on of those MFers. The R+L=J theory would fit right into this. The third rider? I hope it’s Tyrion only because how cool would it be to have that tiny little guy bestride a huge dragon?
Then what was the point of giving them Sansa?
Maybe you’re right and he can reunite his forces. But there still wasn’t a whole lot of benefit. It seemed like Ramsay could rally only 4,000 troops to defend Winterfell. Even if they declared against Littlefinger what difference does 4,000 troops hundreds of miles away from King’s Landing matter?
I’ve got this to say: If and when Arya and Sansa meet up there will be one stone cold wall of Northern Ice that Walkers and Southerners will have to deal with.
They had to go by Moat Cailin, which is the bottleneck on the way to the North. Surely the Boltons as Wardens of the North would have had a garrison or at least some sentinels there.
The real reason that they took Ramsay by surprise was same as that for every other implausibility in the show: that it was more dramatic that way. No other explanation is needed.