Yes, that’s why Lysa went along with it, but it was Petyr’s plan. When they’re standing by the Moon Door, she says,
But don’t the Martells hate the Lannisters and Baratheons?
I don’t think they were too upset that the son of the King that ordered Ellia and her children’s deaths* was killed.
*Of course, there’s the possible Aegon running around, but no one in Westeros knows about that, and there’s some evidence he might be a Blackfyre, not actually Aegon.
It was more about Olenna subverting any alliance.
And doesn’t Varys know about Aegon, or am I misremembering?
Varys knows about Aegon. Aegon is the “Mummer’s Dragon”, and Varys is the mummer.
I don’t think that Littlefinger is conniving to get Catelyn. He’s conniving to get power. He knows his best opportunity would come with the kingdom in chaos, so he pushed Lysa to murder her husband; Jon Arryn was the only thing holding the kindgom together, so with him gone, civil war was basically inevitable.
By ingratiating himself to the Lannisters, he eventually traded up to becoming lord of Harrenhall. The castle itself is useless to him – he has no men to hold it, and it’s nothing but a money pit. But it’s a Great Lordship, so holding that title makes him a suitable match for the widow who holds the Vale.
Now he’s got the Vale, and through Sansa a good chance at gaining the North. The Lannisters are just about exhausted from the conflict, so he’s actually in a good position to move on the Iron Throne.
Him and what army? Not snark. Seriously, other than perhaps enough money to hire mercs and perhaps the military strength of the Vale (for whatever that is worth), I was never under the impression he had a lot of war assets.
I think the northern warlords would rally around Sansa, were he to marry her and present her properly. He might even be able to make a claim to the river land folks.
The Vale just seems like a convenient place to get his ducks in a row. I don’t think he sees it as a viable long term holding.
He’s been watching Sansa for years, waiting for the right time to make his move. He seems to have an unhealthy obsession with Catlyn, using first her sister and now her daughter as substitutes. I wonder how he’d feel about seeing the undead Catlyn now?
/aside - could the maybe-Aegon be Ned Stark’s real bastard? Or was that the princeling the dragons roasted?
I think Petyr’s primary motivation has always been to become a great Lord (Show Them All as somebody already said.) But then when he realized he had the chance to end Ned, and possibly wed Catelyn, he would have thrown his whole plan away to do so. There was nothing he wanted more than he -thought- he wanted that. (I doubt they’d have been happy.)
He is a chess player, but also a consummate opportunist. Lysa shows that she’s still under his thrall so he uses her to get what is clearly the safest castle in the kingdom. Tyrion offers him Harrenhall, which he never expects to actually receive but the momentary boost allows him to marry Lysa.
One of my big disappointments is that we didn’t get to see his response to Catelyn’s death. Did he still love her? Or was he furious with her for referring to him as a “boy” when he’d just risked his life for her? My sense is that he still desperately wanted to be married to her - but to love her or to make her life miserable? Maybe both. I wonder what his response will be to her current state? Does he have enough love in him to grab a sword and release her from it? Or will he try to use her somehow?
My sense is that he goes back and forth between feeling loving and furious toward Catelyn, and also between seeing Sansa as Cat’s daughter or Ned’s daughter. He wants to protect Cat’s daughter but use Ned’s as revenge. He certainly can’t marry her, having declared her to be his “natural” daughter. He must also certainly calculate that she’s one of the most valuable hostages in the land.
The tie-breaker in his head between all these conflicts is very simple - position of power. Power = money and land. He doesn’t seem to have any desire to build an army, or to involve himself in armed conflict. He’s more like a corporate hostile takeover artist.
He intends to keep the others fighting each other as long as possible, depleting their resources and numbers, and snuffling up whatever he can without catching their eyes. In the case of the Lannisters, he grabbed Lysa’s lands while getting them to thank him for it!
And here’s some absolutely pure speculation: He’s smart enough to know that the time to strike will be just before Spring. Let the war and the Winter take their toll. He and his are comfortably holed up and as long as they have enough food they’ll be the strongest in the land and easily take it all over.
As far as I can see, the only way this plan can go wrong would be if his cozy nest were attacked by dragons.
My prediction - Varys is Rhaegar.
The Vale has a fairly large army and is almost completely untouched by the war. They’d be a fairly large player if they decide to (and the lords obey Littlefinger.)
TruCelt, what’s the situation in which Ned has a kid during the war and then he ends up under the control of Illyrio, Varys, and Jon Connington?
Ned doesn’t think about any bastards other than Jon, and if there was a possible child of his around I think he’d have thought about it at some point.
I know he gives a completely different backstory, but I did wonder for a while if Varys was actually once an Unsullied. I now think he’s not, but do wonder if his being a eunuch and her fighting force being eunuchs will have significance in his interplay with Daenarys, or if you’ll learn the genitals of the Unsullied have been used as sacrifices (like Varys says his were) and now whatever powers aren’t getting them are pissed.
Or perhpas Varys is not really a eunuch at all?
In this scenario Jon Snow would be the son of Lyanna and Rhaegar, (“Promise me Ned, promise me!”)and Ned’s bastard was “taken to Dorn.” IIRC Ned had spent a great deal of time in Dorn - maybe a whole year? Time to travel far beyond, or to bond a child with a new family and be satisfied as to their suitability as fosters.
The TV show has made his lack of genitalia a given.
Why would he give up his own child? If you’re already claiming to have one bastard I don’t see giving up a second, especially one that’s actually his kid given how much he loves Jon.
I doubt that is the case as it was referenced that Robert killed Rhaegar in the Battle of the Trident… in front of two armies.
We’re getting much too deep into this side discussion, I apologize.
Is the military strength of the Vale actually counted anywhere? (I honestly don’t remember.) I know the Vale has been untouched by war. With winter coming, wouldn’t you want to keep it that way? Let the winter come in, hurt all your enemies that have been scorching the earth and neglecting their planning, and decide if you can actually attack in the spring? For that matter, why should the lords obey Littlefinger? What is keeping Westeros from having a first Magna Carta signed, especially with someone with as weak a claim as Littlefinger?
Here’s a pseudo-cite (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1jW3Ee3S0KY). Elio is the guy George calls up when he forgets facts about his series (not sarcasm). If you don’t want to watch he gives strengths as:
[ul]
[li]North - 35k[/li][li]Westerlands - 50k[/li][li]Reach - 100k[/li][li]Vale - 35k[/li][li]Dorne - 25k[/li][li]Riverland - 20k[/li][li]Crownlands - 15k[/li][li]Stormland - I zoned out at this point.[/li][/ul]