@bceagles128 said:
Dude. I have enjoyed many of the liberties that Benioff and Weiss taken with the source material.... but Sansa and Ramsey? What the fuck? That makes absolutely no sense at all within the context of this world. Littlefinger is in love with Sansa as a surrogate for Caitlyn and he knows that Ramsay is a monster. He also hates the Boltons with a fiery passion after what they did to Caitlyn. He would NEVER in a million years have her marry Ramsay, even as a move in a plan to eventually get back at the Boltons. No way, no how.
I am assuming that they are going to have Brienne play the role of Mance in the books (i.e., helping her to escape), but even so, I don't see how Littlefinger could be behind that, so it sure seems like he's actually trying to marry Sansa off, at least temporarily.. And that makes no sense.
I dunno if it makes no sense. I mean, we can say that Littlefinger has got three goals at this point; (a) power/the Iron Throne, (b) bedding Sansa, and (c) revenge on the Boltons. If you think about it, marrying off Sansa to Ramsay, at least temporarily, sets him up to accomplish all three, given what he knows:
- Littlefinger wants to get rid of the Boltons, but he needs to get close to them first, so he proposes the Sansa-Ramsay marriage.
- Littlefinger knows the Boltons will accept the proposal because with Tywin's death, the Lannister-Bolton alliance dies with it, and the Boltons need support from somewhere else. Marrying a Stark helps legitimize their claim on Winterfell and might swing a few northern lords to their side.
- Littlefinger knows that Roose will be suspicious of his motives, so he spins the yarn about being a gambler and how the Lannisters currently seem like a bad bet. He doesn't need Roose's complete trust, he just needs to keep him occupied long enough for the rest of his plan to work.
- Littlefinger also knows that the northern lords the Starks and hate the Boltons with a passion. The only reason no one's done something about it is that they are too weak after the war and no house can take on the Bolton's by themselves. Therefore, he needs to give them a reason to unite.
- Despite his claim of ignorance about Ramsay, I'm pretty sure Littlefinger knows all about him, or has at least heard enough to make a guess about his nature.
- Littlefinger knows he can manipulate Sansa.
Given all those things, I see Littlefinger's plan going down something like this:
1. Marry off Sansa to Ramsay. This gets Sansa back in Winterfell and announces her presence to the rest of the north.
2. Littlefinger is counting on Ramsay to abuse Sansa, at least emotionally if not physically. This works in his favor. In terms of Littlefinger being unwilling to put Sansa in danger, I guess I don't agree. As Varys said in a past season, Littlefinger cares about Littlefinger. I think he's perfectly willing to let Sansa be in harms way so as long as it get him what he wants eventually.
3. Littlefinger finds some excuse to leave Winterfell, maybe by telling Roose he can use his persuasive ability to convince other northern lords to come over to his side. Once he's in the northern lords' castles however, Littlefinger points out what's happening to Sansa and encourages rebellion. Ramsay abusing Sansa is the ideal lever for Littlefinger the pull all the northern lords to his side, since it's pretty much guaranteed to push all their buttons - a damsel in distress who happens to be a Stark and is being harmed by the hated Boltons.
4. Northern lords rally to massacre the Boltons and rescue Sansa. This allows Littlefinger to exact revenge on the Boltons and also to be at the head of the force that "rescues" Sansa, which makes him look good in her eyes and appeals to whatever vestigial romanticism she still has left. He can spin her any tale he wants at this point, whether that this was all part of a plan or that he simply didn't know just how awful the Boltons were. Despite Sansa showing a little growth the last couple of seasons, we know that Littlefinger is still capable of manipulating her easily, and he's probably counting on that to continue.
5. Now Sansa is in control of Winterfell and a ton of northern lords with their attendant armies. And since Littlefinger can control Sansa, that means he controls Winterfell and the northern armies, which puts him in a pretty good position vis-à-vis the other contenders for the Iron Throne.
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