Needle wrote: ↑Mon Jul 03, 2017 9:48 am
Ramsay and Roose never tried to hide their brutality, and the Starks haven't been ruling for enough time for LF to realise who Ramsay truly is. Ramsay went on skinning and torturing in plain sight, these stuff don't go unnoticed.
In most seasons, I typically assume about a year passes per season, so roughly a little over a month per episode, though not all story lines progress at exactly the same rate. Season 3 and 4 are the exception to this (Season 4 particularly). I generally assume these seasons combined are roughly a year, with season 3 being about 9 months, and season 4 being about 3 months. It's just a huge stretch for me to imagine Tyrion's imprisonment and trials spanning much longer than a few months. Since the Red Wedding happened at the end of Season 3, and Littlefinger was already getting a reply from Roose at the beginning of Season 5, it seems like he started putting this plan in motion very soon after Roose was named Warden of the North.
While Ned and Robb were still in charge, Ramsay presumably kept his flaying secret. It had been outlawed, and he would have been executed (or fled into exile) if he was caught. Ser Jorah fled justice because he was caught selling slaves, so a bastard like Ramsay Snow would have certainly faced death or exile if he was caught. After the Red Wedding, Ramsay became more open and public about the flaying. He flayed the Ironborn garrison at Moat Cailin, but the only witnesses to that were his own people, who had likely learned long ago to keep quiet about Ramsay's activities.
The first really public flaying that non-Bolton northerners would likely have been aware of would be the Cerwyns. If they had any idea what kind of person Ramsay was, they probably would have paid their taxes the first time he asked, so it seems that prior to that incident, Ramsay's brutality wasn't generally known even in the north. By the time the Cerwyns had been flayed, Roose had already accepted Littlefinger's offer, and he informed Ramsay of the marriage right afterward, so Ramsay's brutality wasn't widely known yet when Littlefinger made the offer.
Needle wrote: ↑Mon Jul 03, 2017 9:48 am
Roose is the only one on Robb's side who survived the red wedding, and right afterwards, Tywin Lannister himself said he would name him Warden of the North. Odd coincidence? For a man praised for being so intelligent and unpredictable, he did very little research on someone who's going to be a big part of his plan.
While Littlefinger clearly has some spies in the North (for example, he received news of Sansa's escape pretty quickly), he is absolutely not omniscient. Everyone knew that Roose had betrayed Robb, that was certainly no secret, but people in the South (even Lords like Walder Frey, who had access to r-mail to get the latest news) seemed to have little knowledge of what was going on in the North after Theon took Winterfell back in Season 2. Littlefinger did know something about the Boltons. He knew Roose was ambitious and treacherous (which were qualities he actually needed for his plan to work, since a Roose who was genuinely loyal to the crown would have executed him for treason just for suggesting the scheme). He knew Ramsay was a recently legitimized bastard. Since that required a decree from King Tommen, Littlefinger's spies in King's landing could have easily learned that.
Littlefinger most likely had no spies at all in the Dreadfort. Littlefinger's spy network in the north is most likely very small compared to his network in King's Landing, and most of those would have been in and around Winterfell, since that was where Catelyn was, and that was the center of northern politics. Once the War of Five Kings started, many of the spies probably would have followed the armies, since that's where the interesting action was, leaving his northern network even thinner than before. The Dreadfort wouldn't have been worth paying much attention to before the Red Wedding.
Roose becoming Warden of the North suddenly makes the Boltons interesting to Littlefinger, but getting a spy into position to learn the Boltons' secrets would likely take more than a few months, and have a high risk of ending with a flayed spy. He knew Roose didn't have a legitimate heir, and had convinced Tommen to legitimize his bastard Ramsay. He knew that the other northern lords were probably unhappy with Bolton rule, since it was quite well known that Roose had betrayed Robb. He knew that marrying Sansa to Ramsay would significantly strengthen the Boltons' hold on the north because it would mean that the last known surviving Stark would be in line to become Lady of Winterfell, and her children would inherit Winterfell. Once the marriage happened, any northern rebellion against the Boltons would effectively also be a rebellion against Sansa and her children's claim on Winterfell. It was a good plan for Roose and Littlefinger, with just one really huge flaw...Ramsay was a complete psycho.
Littlefinger didn't know just how much of a psycho Ramsay was. Even Roose, who clearly knew Ramsay's tendencies and didn't seem to have any moral qualms about them, didn't seem quite aware of how much of a psycho he was. Roose is a calculating, strategic thinker, and he thought he could teach Ramsay to moderate (or at least conceal) his cruelty to protect their strategic position. He was wrong, and he underestimated how far Ramsay would go.
Needle wrote: ↑Mon Jul 03, 2017 9:48 am
Sigh. When Sansa realises LF is going to marry her off to the son of the man who betrayed her family, she starts crying, she starts panicking, she doesn't think "oh if I fuck him he'll be wrapped around my finger." She doesn't have a choice, because if she would've said 'no', LF would've found a different way to make her marry him. Truly, the only reason they added LF's lines telling her that it's her choice, is so that viewers can say "oh it was SANSA's choice to marry Ramsay!! She agreed to do it knowing what will happen!!!"
Sansa doesn't feel uncomfortable being with Ramsay because 'Theon is watching her'. There are a good few seconds way before he tells Theon to stay, where he only tells Sansa that it's time to do their duty, that you can literally see the DISTRESS on her face. Her eyes are glistening, she's gulping, she's fiddling with her fingers, basic signs of fear.
Yes, Sansa was afraid, and didn't want to marry Ramsay. She did want to get Winterfell back, and she did want to stop being a helpless pawn, and Littlefinger convinced her that marrying Ramsay was the best way to accomplish that, so she agreed. Certainly, she would have been worried about what Littlefinger would do if she refused. Maybe force her to do it anyway, maybe make her marry Robin Arryn (as Lysa had planned), who knows. the point is that she decided it was the best of a bunch of shitty options, and the only option that would get her Winterfell.
People who choose the military path to power also face difficult, dangerous, unpleasant, painful and frightening situations. Most soldiers probably don't like going into battle, and many are probably afraid before a battle. They don't necessarily even want to kill the opposing soldiers, but they have to do so because that's what it takes to win, and if you don't win, you're likely to die. Sansa didn't expect to love Ramsay, and didn't
want to marry him, but political marriages in Westeros are about power and inheritance, not love or desire, and she was
willing to go through with it to get Winterfell back, even though she was afraid. She agreed to do something frightening and unpleasant, because she though it would get her something she wanted, and give her some control over her life. In the modern world, we expect marriage to be about love (and younger Sansa who liked all the romantic stories of princes might have had a similar attitude), but in Westeros, politics, marriage, and war are all closely connected.
On her wedding night, she was clearly afraid even before Ramsay told Theon to stay, and that's completely understandable. She knew Ramsay was a bit crazy, just from his behavior, and from Myranda's stories. She also knew it was too late to turn back, but at that point I think she was still willing to consummate the marriage consensually (or at least as consensually as any unwanted marriage entered into for political reasons). At that point, if she could somehow magically choose between consummating the marriage and eventually becoming Lady of Winterfell, or annulling the marriage, and going back to the Vale and living out her life as a pawn, hoping Cersei's agents never found her, I think she was still prepared to consummate the marriage.
When Ramsay made Theon stay and watch, that might have been the last straw that made her decide that getting Winterfell back wasn't worth enduring marriage to this psycho. She was certainly afraid from the moment she realized Littlefinger was taking her to Winterfell, but I think Ramsay telling Theon to watch was the first time she really
regretted agreeing to the plan.
Needle wrote: ↑Mon Jul 03, 2017 9:48 am
Do you really think that if Theon didn't stay, Ramsay wouldn't have been brutally rough with her, and then locking her inside afterwards?
No. Of course not. I never claimed that. Ramsay is Ramsay. He's a psycho who like to torture, humiliate and kill people.
What I said was:
IF Ramsay didn't make Theon stay and watch
AND Ramsay wasn't brutally rough
AND Ramsay didn't lock her up
THEN Sansa might not have regretted agreeing to marry him.
Even if all three of the conditions above were met, Sansa still probably wouldn't
like him, but she might have still considered getting Winterfell back to be worth the price of being his wife.