Post by Direwolf Blitzer on Jun 30, 2016 0:52:10 GMT
My question after this episode is whether or not this new Northern Kingdom includes the Vale or not--because the Vale lords (Lord Royce notably) were cheering along with the other Northerners and Wildlings in that scene.
Kicking myself a little for not considering that. Historically (well, for like 6 weeks last Fall) the Vale is part of the Northern Kingdom. I'm not even remotely close to writing off Littlefinger, but this will necessarily reduce his power. Might even take it away completely. Jon would kill him in a heartbeat if he had Yohn Royce thrown out a window.
So how does he keep on Littlefingering?
Well Littlefinger actually gave us the answer in the godswood: "news of this battle will spread". He tells this to Sansa in regards to how he's saying that people will find out that he supported the Starks so he needs her to warrant it, but it's also a warning that whatever the news is will be how people see the situation instead of what actually happened. As we can see, people see that Jon basically valiantly formed a Vale, wildling, northman army and retook Winterfell and avenged the Red Wedding... so who told everybody that story? Littlefinger did. LF is watching the KITN scene the way he is because he set it up so that everyone would turn to Jon instead of Sansa after she rejecting him by limiting how everyone would see her critical role in it all.
As LF said, he wants the Iron Throne with Sansa by his side. The Iron Throne sits in the south, not the north. Sansa can't help him rule from the south if she's stuck as Queen in the North.
But how does he get any of this? The Vale soldiers did for the Boltons, sure. But they're not likely to march on KL in the middle of winter. I suppose his best hope would be to rally all the lords dissatisfied with Lannister rule, which, by now, is all of them. He could secure an alliance with Jon and a marriage with Sansa, and head South to politic his way to the Iron Throne, but there are a lot of things in his way. Will Sansa marry him, will Jon support his claim to KL (assuming he leaves the North alone or something)... etc. He needs them nominally on his side, and he needs to get his retinue and get the hell out of the North.
Edit: I've thought about it for another minute, and, eh, you're probably right Mark. I still have some objections, most notably that he runs a very high risk of losing the Vale to the North. But you make sense, damn it all.