(If ur up to date on the shows OR the books this is not a spoiler, if u aren't either please stop reading now)

So why did LF want to set the Starks against the lannisters? He told lysa to poison Jon Arryn and then blame the lannisters to her sister

i need more of an answer than he just wanted to create chaos becuz he could rise in chaos. Cuz that's just random to me and it easily could have not worked out for him

Is this just a plot vehicle that shouldn't be picked apart

Or was he working someone else who's motivation for pitting Starks against lannisters made more sense

prototype

stand ur ground, believe in urself,
believe in love, prepare urself for love, remove the negativity from ur life, and accept the love u kno u deserve

>i need more of an answer than he just wanted to create chaos
>becuz he could rise in chaos. Cuz that's just random to me and
>it easily could have not worked out for him

Dude even gave a monologue about it.

Its office politics 101.

He was in a position where he was invaluable to the company (so his job was safe) but was unable to move ahead because the current management structure was pretty cut and dry; a shakeup at the top was going to be his advantage no matter what…since his position was in stone there was no way he was gonna get demoted, but he could always slide in (as he did) when something new opened up.

Why involve the Starks at all? They weren't in the power structure in KL, so if ur saying he wanted to move some lannisters out any major house could do that

Why not set renly and stannis against the lannisters? (I kno they came to that anyway but why didn't LF go that route)

prototype

stand ur ground, believe in urself,
believe in love, prepare urself for love, remove the negativity from ur life, and accept the love u kno u deserve

For the true parentage of cersei's kids? Stannis was already suspicious about the truth of that and renly already had the ties to the reach via loras to crush the lannisters as they would have done anyway had stannis not killed renly

prototype

stand ur ground, believe in urself,
believe in love, prepare urself for love, remove the negativity from ur life, and accept the love u kno u deserve

I dont think Littlefinger could have guessed Stannis would cast an evil spell to kill his own bro

I feel like Little Finger even on his A-Game couldn't get Stannis to not see him as a slimy duplicitous piece of shit. So if Stannis's power suddenly grows out of this chaos...how does Little Finger play that to his advantage.

He already had an alliance with the Lannisters and he was tied to the Starks through the Tullys.

"All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players:
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts..." -The Bard

>Why involve the Starks at all? They weren't in the power
>structure in KL, so if ur saying he wanted to move some
>lannisters out any major house could do that

The Lannisters are still #1 military wise, so not many other houses could take them on. Starks had a chance because of how tough they stayed even during peace time as far as armies were concerned, how much they still subconciously distrusted the south, and the fact that in a land war the North was a bitch to take over (hence how it had to be done with dragons). The vale would have gotten stomped unless the Starks helped. Might as well go to the source. And he already had the Vale since its queen was sodickmatized.


>Why not set renly and stannis against the lannisters? (I kno
>they came to that anyway but why didn't LF go that route)

Id also argue Renley Stannis were less easier to manipulate then Ned. Stannis had to resort to magic to beat Renley, and Stannis’s whole team is a witchcraft infested loony bin.

All Littlefinger had to do was sit back, let Ned figure out what he already knew, and soft offer him the throne via blackmailing his way into becoming the permenant hand. If Ned took it, Littlefinger was confident he could be a puppetmaster through Ned(having shown he's corrupt). If Ned was too strong(or in this case too stupid) and said no, he could just give him up in exchange for moving up under the new Lannister bosses fully in charge.

Basically, he had NOTHING to lose with no risk. So while I can argue that's alot chaos, like Varys said (paraphrased) Littlefinger would burn down the whole kingdom just to rule its ashes, lol

Militarily....so that doesn't hold up. And u can't just say the vale would have got crushed, they are consistently sited as having some of the stringest Knights in the realm as opposed to just foot/men at arms which was a large part of the lannisters host

Also their is no guarantee that the north would have involved itself in any war with the vale and the westernlands. Yes ned is more prone to support family but the north in general tries to stay out of southern affairs and calling banners in the north for a war between the arryns and lannisters would have been much

prototype

stand ur ground, believe in urself,
believe in love, prepare urself for love, remove the negativity from ur life, and accept the love u kno u deserve

The war of kings showed that Tywin is a wiley asshole and could just make a bunch of phonecalls and have a bunch of dudes have his back just off the promise of paper(even though, ironically enough, they were bleeding money).

The North showed they could do that just based off that fact that they WERE one kingdom once, still have some beef with getting herbed out by dragons, and Ned is truly beloved. Notice they lost when they didn't play the politic game right with with their bannermen after having a superb run.

While the sand snakes and fam are having fun looking sexy, being rich, and being some of the best fighters in the realm its not about that.

Plus, ultimately, the Vale getting involved would have shown Littlefinger's hand waaaayyyy too early since he would have eventually had to come out publically with Lysa when she declared war.

Keep in mind the character didn't see the exact end game happening, but him replacing the current Hand with someone who he thought was more mallable and or stupid was a good move, period. WORST case scenario if none of that ned shit happened I would have went to the Lannisters on some, "Yo, Aryn was gonna talk about y'all being an incest family and I handled that, remember me" and just kept that in my pocket until something else popped up. (A natural baratheon heart attack? death from syphillis? lol)

Herbed out by the dragons, save for the riverlands and dorne

There was no evidence that the westerlands were the number one military power besides the fact that Tywin was the liege lord. And even with him being the greatest strategist in the realm he woulda been spent if the tyrells hadn't gone over to him to avenge renly's death

But that's beside the point, there are more compelling answers to my inquiry in this post, thanks tho

prototype

stand ur ground, believe in urself,
believe in love, prepare urself for love, remove the negativity from ur life, and accept the love u kno u deserve

>But that's beside the point, there are more compelling answers
>to my inquiry in this post, thanks tho

*Kicks stool on the way out*

With the lannisters but wanting more and knowing they had to decline for him to get more so he came up with an outside force to reduce them tho, it all tied together for me with the other answers in here

prototype

stand ur ground, believe in urself,
believe in love, prepare urself for love, remove the negativity from ur life, and accept the love u kno u deserve

>Why not set renly and stannis against the lannisters? (I kno
>they came to that anyway but why didn't LF go that route)

remember John Arryn mentored Ned and Robert Baratheon together while they were younger. and its not like LF was like hey Ned...Jon is dead, go and avenge him.

but that one innocuous, seemingly singular action cause all the dominos to fall. i don't think LF knew which way they would fall, but he knew something was going to go down.
---------------------------------------
it's true what they say...people are strange, when you're strangers.

not compassionate....only polite.

I am not like you at all and i cannot pretend.

Bound to hit *something*
>
>but that one innocuous, seemingly singular action cause all
>the dominos to fall. i don't think LF knew which way they
>would fall, but he knew something was going to go down.
>---------------------------------------

prototype

stand ur ground, believe in urself,
believe in love, prepare urself for love, remove the negativity from ur life, and accept the love u kno u deserve

He was in love w/ Catelyn and Ned got her. He knew Ned wouldn't let shit go and would likely get his fool self killed. Then he could probably make another play for Cat.

What kinda backfired on him was Rob getting so much support so fast and fucking over Walder Frey to the point of getting his fool self killed.

I think he calculated all this shit to get control of the Vale and Winterfell, but things went faster than he expected he started improvising.

On Ned, his hatred of Ned and the Starks (Brandon for embarrassing and nearly killing him and both of them getting Cat) makes his motivations more clear :partly pure revenge for a perceived slight

prototype

stand ur ground, believe in urself,
believe in love, prepare urself for love, remove the negativity from ur life, and accept the love u kno u deserve

>He was in love w/ Catelyn and Ned got her. He knew Ned
>wouldn't let shit go and would likely get his fool self
>killed. Then he could probably make another play for Cat.
---------------------------------------
it's true what they say...people are strange, when you're strangers.

not compassionate....only polite.

I am not like you at all and i cannot pretend.

I feel like his initial end game was Ned gets sent to the wall (or otherwise disposed of) and that would make Cat free to marry. He was always going to get rid of Lysa one way or another.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The Green Mile is a movie where the magical black man wrongly dies and the white man who let it happen lives forever.

of a plot to get this one? Risk his life for his childhood crush.

I do not buy that for a second.

--

"You can't beat white people. You can only knock them out."

i think she was just a bonus in a plot that is purely about him rising to the top in the midst of chaos. I will say I think part of his motivation was created by him coming from a low house and falling in love with a woman from Better house that he could never marry.

Like the nerd who could never get the cheerleader in high school and is determined to become a billionaire to show his worth. Actually he fits this mood perfectly if you juxtapose Brandon Stark against him as the captain of the football team/bully.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The Green Mile is a movie where the magical black man wrongly dies and the white man who let it happen lives forever.

but with an endgame where he is in control of everything.

Too bad he isn't on the side that has the Dragons though.

Crazy how Varys is the only one who sees him for what he is, and that he actually is the threat that he is.

If you've read through AFFC, here's a very good write-up.

http://towerofthehand.com/blog/2011/03/29-mockingbird-part-1-as-high-as/index.html


tl;dr
His main goal if not to be king seems to be becoming a high lord. He already had a strong connection to Lysa (matriarch of The Vale) whom he could manipulate rather easily. The Vale is the "easiest" for him to take because Lysa's is in love with him. But, Lysa's married to Jon Arryn. So Jon's gotta go. Jon's close to Ned. Kill Jon, make Ned think the Lannisters did it. War. With war he can marry Lysa under the guise of bringing the Vale back under the crown. Without the war people are suspicious of he and Lysa marrying especially given Jon's mysterious death.


I would personally assert that "getting back at the Starks," isn't necessarily one of his major goals, but a nice little bonus.

--

"You can't beat white people. You can only knock them out."

thanks, reading that has me so hungry for the next book, it better come out sometime this year

prototype

stand ur ground, believe in urself,
believe in love, prepare urself for love, remove the negativity from ur life, and accept the love u kno u deserve

I'm with Reg on his summations though

waddup Reg!

a message board? and that i should just reply i agree to every reply in a post. sorry i disagreed with the viewpoint u accept and that its "lol" worthy but thats pretty juvenile of u

anyway i agreed with as much as i disagreed with in here

prototype

stand ur ground, believe in urself,
believe in love, prepare urself for love, remove the negativity from ur life, and accept the love u kno u deserve