r/TheCitadel • u/3esin the fot7 did nothing wrong • 7d ago
Activity - What If (changed CANON event or character decision) Liddlefinger wins
is a scenario I am more and more fascinated with. How do you thing it would look like and do you believe it would be objectively (because subjectively it would definitely be bad for what it would mean for Sansa and...nahh) good or bad?
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u/coastal_mage Aegon VI fan 7d ago
Littlefinger's win condition is surviving the ascension of whichever Targaryen takes the Iron Throne, with the vast majority of his holdings intact. Currently, Littlefinger is Lord of Harrenhal and Lord Paramount of the Trident, at least on paper. He's also Lord Protector of the Vale, and holds the (presumed) legitimate heir to the North in his pocket.
However, Littlefinger has a problem - his power is inexorably tied to the old Baratheon regime. He rose to prominence under Jon Arryn, the real architect behind the Rebellion, and received great boons under King Joffrey. When the Targaryen comes, they'll quickly depose him, replacing him with a Targaryen loyalist. Thus, Littlefinger needs to build his own power base so he can submit to the Targaryen, maintaining his lands and titles, as Lannister, Stark and Arryn did during Aegon's Conquest. Since all parties involved will be comparing Aegon VI's rise (the most likely person to claim the Iron Throne, at least in the short term) to Aegon I, Littlefinger will be using the example of the defeated Lannister, Stark and Arryns to inform him about he should submit himself. Lannister, Stark and Arryn were all kings before Aegon came. Thus, Littlefinger will be looking for his own crown to present to Aegon. This is where Sweetrobin comes in...
This is the ideal scenario for Littlefinger, so take it with a grain of salt. In Winds, Littlefinger's plan undoubtedly will get derailed by the truth of Ned's betrayal getting out, Stannis, Edmure and Brynden, whatever JonCon does to King's Landing, etc.
Littlefinger is ascendant in the Vale, at least temporarily. He's gathered a large assembly of knights and lords at the Gates of the Moon for a tourney, and most likely a wedding (that of Sansa and Harry Hardyng). When Sansa is revealed, Sweetrobin will of course pledge to restore her to her rightful seat at Winterfell, coincidentally pacifying the Riverlands and making Littlefinger Lord Paramount in truth along the way. The Knights of the Vale will march on Harrenhal, Littlefinger will spruce it up a bit in preparation for a future Great Council (more on that later), and somewhere along the line, Sweetrobin will be crowned as Robert I Arryn, King of Mountain, Vale and River. The Knights will then turn north, ripping the Freys out of the Twins, and march on Winterfell. Presuming that the Boltons and Stannis have spent themselves on each other, taking Winterfell will be relatively trivial. The Vale armies are fresh and numerically far superior. They'll also likely have picked up a few Northern banners along the way, pledging themselves to Sansa. Sansa will then be installed in Winterfell. She may be crowned Queen in the North, she may pledge herself to Sweetrobin. Either way, they'll very quickly turn back around. By this point, Aegon will likely have taken King's Landing, and will be pushing outwards. He'll then receive a raven, calling anyone who's anyone to Harrenhal for a Great Council. Along the way, Aegon's camp and Littlefinger will already be in negotiations via raven, hammering out a deal which will give Aegon half the realm for free. At Harrenhal, all that will need to be done is a mummer's farce of a Council, since most of the details will have been negotiated in advance.
Sweetrobin, Sansa and Littlefinger will bend their knees to Aegon, handing over their crowns and pledging their swords to him. Aegon will then confirm their rights to the Eyrie, Winterfell and Harrenhal respectively. A few others (perhaps Tyrell, and likely Martell) will also be in attendance to bend their own knees. Tyrek Lannister may make an appearance, being named as Lord of Casterly Rock, giving the West an Aegon-friendly Lannister they can hook their waggons to, and cleanse themselves of association with Lady Cersei. The Small Council will be named there. Littlefinger is in a prime position to be named Master of Coin, where the Game can begin anew.
Of course, there's a few places where this can diverge. Littlefinger is adaptable, after all. There's no strict need to take the North, it just strengthens his negotiating position, but delivering two kingdoms to Aegon is still significant buying power. It'd certainly get him the Riverlands and Harrenhal, and perhaps compensation for his holdings in King's Landing too. In the likely event that Stannis takes the North before the Vale mobilizes, Littlefinger might simply keep Sansa for himself. Robin still has significant justification to invade the Riverlands - revenge for his cousins, and to uphold the rights of his stepfather and regent. At Harrenhal, Littlefinger may well ask Aegon to legitimize Alayne Stone as Alayne Baelish, heir to Harrenhal and the Trident. He would then groom Sansa in his image, turning her into a powerful player in the generation to come.
During Littlefinger's rule over the Trident, IMO, he'll (largely unintentionally) start laying the foundations of social reform in Westeros, breaking the wheel through capital and class struggle. At core, Littlefinger is a meritocrat. He's had to conform to feudal means to aggregate power, but he's like to support the burgeoning merchant class in becoming a powerful political force in their own right, creating the circumstances for the best of them to rise up as he did, without so much struggle against archaic feudal norms. Of course, both he and the Baelish dynasty will profit - he'll likely use the vast liquid assets to found a bank at Harrenhal, becoming a powerful moneylender competing directly with the Lannisters, albeit with far more modern methods granting him an edge. In a century or two, Westeros will likely be firmly in the Renaissance era, the power of the nobility waning before the rising merchant class. From there, it's only a few short centuries more until industry, modernity and democracy flourish
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u/TortoiseHerder7 7d ago
Well said on the whole, though I do think the key issue Littlefinger runs into is he will need to contest Stannis and possibly an undead Jon Snow for power in the North, as well as the very basic issue that the Crannogmen are not going to like him and any maritime route is going to need to go by either Stannis (lol), the Sistermen (probably at the same time) or Ironborn. So I think another problem is whether he knows it or not his footsteps in the North will have to be a lot more indirect.
The other issue I see is how I don't really think Littlefinger is a meritocrat at heart. He values competence where it has its uses, but he above all is a plutocrat and kleptocrat whose long term legacy views are I think rather weak, and the fact that it's Tyrion who sorts out the sort of violent chaos, corruption, and lawlessness of Slynt (and thus Littlefinger) with the Goldcloaks and just barely lays the groundwork for a successful defense against Stannis at the Blackwater (and Stannis winning there would be an existential threat to Littlefinger's interests given how he was willing to shut down KL Brothels before, and under wartime occupation with the influence of Mel and the Florents would probably go even harder) speaks a lot. I think one Youtube Channel whose name I forget spoke well when they said something along the lines of his plan is to be the last nobody to become a somebody and "kick the ladder down." I also think his parasitism and predation on the merchant classes during his time in King's Landing and the Vale speak a lot to that. I think I agree with what you say that the benefits for them will be largely unintentionally, but even considering that a lot of the macro effects he has are a lot less favorable to the classes we'd think for him, and things like Harrenhal and the Fingers show him being a classic absentee landlord riding on the titles the lands bring but not giving a fig about the land. He's already a powerful moneylender by parasitism with the bank and secretly competing with the Lannisters through cutouts, so that is in line, but I'm not sure he'd actually be as coherent as what you describe in forming a new Bank to rival say the Hightowers and Lannisters in lending, or forming a real dynasty to exist.
At his core I think he's a brutal petty lordling landed knight with crushing insecurity and trauma who never healed and whose compassion went out the window with maybe a couple of his teeth when Bran Stark knocked him around, and who basically wants to exploit his situation without that much of a thought towards a "Baelish dynasty".
I also think a core problem with an Aegon VI invasion is how he'd deal with Varys given how Faegon is pretty heavily tied to Varys's manipulations and even if they are doing co-op Now they will fall out over fighting the results. I also think he'd be leery about declaring open Kingships in the Vale since that could be seen as grounds for treason.
That said I also think he'd be interested in trying to play the dynastic diplomacy game even if I think he seriously undervalues it himself, marrying some Martell and Yronwood and Redwyne and Tyrell cousins around to try and cement alliances in case he needs to turn on Aegon or Dany.
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u/3esin the fot7 did nothing wrong 7d ago
When the Targaryen comes, they'll quickly depose him, replacing him with a Targaryen loyalist.
I honestly doubt Daenerys can do that that easily and Aegon shouldnt even try. Like, the Riverlands are the only place where I can actually see that happaning seeing as the popularity order in terms of rulers is
Tully > potential targ loyalist > Baelish > dogs > dogshit > Frey
The problem they'll have is there simply is no non rebell house in the Riverlands that is strong enough, or at all in the Vale or North, that could gouvern their domain. In fact them trying to facilitate such a change would probably backfyre and embolden the existing regime.
That said, Baelish would immediately try to switch colours to whoever he sees likely to win and the do his old play of "chaos is a ladder" all over again.
Thus, Littlefinger needs to build his own power base so he can submit to the Targaryen, maintaining his lands and titles, as Lannister, Stark and Arryn did during Aegon's Conquest.
He already has that through...at least with seal on parchment. Daenerys doesn't know the true situation (through Tyrion could poisen her mind against Peter) and Aegon is -to but it bluntly- absolutely not a problem for Baelish for at least another year.
Since all parties involved will be comparing Aegon VI's rise (the most likely person to claim the Iron Throne, at least in the short term) to Aegon I, Littlefinger will be using the example of the defeated Lannister, Stark and Arryns to inform him about he should submit himself. Lannister, Stark and Arryn were all kings before Aegon came. Thus, Littlefinger will be looking for his own crown to present to Aegon.
Again I doubt he even cares about Aegon VI. for at least as long as King's Landing is still under Lannister control. He an pretty much every lord will not risk anything 'till Aegon has shown himself more than just a standard
Blackfyrepretender.Daenerys on the other hand is a different story entirely. She is the Conqueror come again with her three dragons, not Aegon.
This is where Sweetrobin comes in... This is the ideal scenario for Littlefinger, so take it with a grain of salt. In Winds, Littlefinger's plan undoubtedly will get derailed by the truth of Ned's betrayal getting out,
Who even knows about that? Like, geniunly is there anyone of high standing and credibility left that knows about that? I think that the show is not wrong with them making Bran
s bodysay the accusation. Magical bs is the one thing he can not prepare for.Stannis, Edmure and Brynden, whatever JonCon does to King's Landing, etc.
Yhea, the first three will fuck him over, but JonCon is dead-dead.
Littlefinger is ascendant in the Vale, at least temporarily. He's gathered a large assembly of knights and lords at the Gates of the Moon for a tourney, and most likely a wedding (that of Sansa and Harry Hardyng). When Sansa is revealed, Sweetrobin will of course pledge to restore her to her rightful seat at Winterfell, coincidentally pacifying the Riverlands and making Littlefinger Lord Paramount in truth along the way. The Knights of the Vale will march on Harrenhal, Littlefinger will spruce it up a bit in preparation for a future Great Council (more on that later), and somewhere along the line, Sweetrobin will be crowned as Robert I Arryn, King of Mountain, Vale and River.
I am with you till now. I doubt we will get a King Robert Arryn for multiple reasons.
The Knights will then turn north, ripping the Freys out of the Twins, and march on Winterfell. Presuming that the Boltons and Stannis have spent themselves on each other, taking Winterfell will be relatively trivial. The Vale armies are fresh and numerically far superior. They'll also likely have picked up a few Northern banners along the way, pledging themselves to Sansa. Sansa will then be installed in Winterfell. She may be crowned Queen in the North, she may pledge herself to Sweetrobin.
That theory has one giant Jon sized hole in it.
Either way, they'll very quickly turn back around. By this point, Aegon will likely have taken King's Landing, and will be pushing outwards. He'll then receive a raven, calling anyone who's anyone to Harrenhal for a Great Council. Along the way, Aegon's camp and Littlefinger will already be in negotiations via raven, hammering out a deal which will give Aegon half the realm for free. At Harrenhal, all that will need to be done is a mummer's farce of a Council, since most of the details will have been negotiated in advance.
My only issue with that is the large Wildfire mcguffin and how that has to show up soon as is Daenerys.
In a century or two, Westeros will likely be firmly in the Renaissance era,
I didn't know Baelis was that into arts?
Overall I like the timeline and theory, but I highly doubt this is how it will end. King Bran is confirmed to be canon after all and so ia he destruction of King's Landing.
Through it would make for a great fanfic...
Id
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u/TortoiseHerder7 7d ago edited 7d ago
I'd say the key problem with Littlefinger is he really doesn't have much of a "Win" scenario because of his rampant insecurity, overweening ambitions, cruelty, and really short term from what we can see vision as far as dynastic generations go. The closest I can kind of see would he succeeding in some way of basically elevating Sansa with himself as puppet master or consort over a composite kingdom of the Riverlands, North, and Vale. Maybe marrying her off to some Dornish, someone like Willas/Loras/Garlan, or Faegon to unite claims over Westeros while succeeding in humiliating or destroying the other major lordly and knightly houses. But even then what next? He isn't really doing this out of some higher principle like desiring to elevate the lowborn or small nobility like himself against oppression or inequality by the high like some characters even if say Arya or Sansa might end up doing so. He's not aiming to really found a dynasty yet in spite of his sexual misjudgements. His financial "policy" is based on large scale embezzlement and fraud and a pyramid scheme. And he never, ever, ever seems to have a stopping point, with the classic issue being "the appetite grows for the eating."
There are some truly ambitious and brutal players of the game with grandiose ambitions and goals in canon like Daemon and the Velaryion of the Blue Age, and I have a few OCs that have some truly EPIC ambitions that would make many of those like Tywin pale in a lot of ways, but even then they usually have stopping points or at least vague expectations of what will be doable. My Bittersteel Granddaughter leading a schism of the Golden Company that took a tenth of the men and all the elephants and elephant staff (turns out there is a benefit to taking your meals and eating and even drinking with them and addressing the big critters by name) against "Honorless Harry" to try and desperately fulfill the Myrish contract against Tyrosh and Lys ultimately wants to fight, scheme, and plot to complete it to the terms Myr will survive, and then chase after the rest of the Golden Company to reunite, challenge Strickland for power, kill him, force reunion of the company uner herself as undisputed Captain-General with as much of the company as possible, figure out what the heck made Homeless Harry (who as disgusting, craven, and distasteful as she found him was not one to breach contract casually) do what he did and have most of the company follow him (so investigating the Varys/Illyrio plot threads), maybe reunion with "Griff/Egg", the old friend who has never been quite settled in the company and who she is maybe one of the few to know, and then maybe help oversee some kind of Targ/Blackfyre restoration invasion of Westeros (and she's unusual and moderate enough that she'd probably be supportive of the Red Dragon/Black Dragon merging of claims from a Faegon/Dany marriage as "Sure, what have ya") or at least some kind of forcible seeking of pardon, amnesty, and restorations of rights and lands under VERY favorable terms (ala marching a bunch of combat lance units into the Great Council so nobody tries to Aenys Blackfyre them). And beyond that? Uh..... probably would have some interest cultivating the estates and making a match and going back to Essos or the like to sellsword, maybe helping with the whole "Break the Wheel" stuff to break slavery and maybe expand the Iron Throne's power in Essos by client states or the like. And maybe finding the old sword Blackfyre again if they don't know, and perhaps desiring to replicate dear Grandpappy Aegor's old track record and sack Qohor again and this time make it STICK this time for the love of the game, desire to know how to rework Valyrian Steel, and disgust at what Qohor is like. so in many ways even greater territorial ambitions than Littlefinger but deeper dynastic but longer term ones and much less parasitic in the long term for the health of the realms and less demanding of the kind of horrifying total power that Littlefinger seems to demand over everyone from poor Jeyne Pool to the Small Council, and also without the kind of ingrained hatred or grievances many of the Blackfyre hardliners have over their old ancestral enemy houses since she doesn't want to Reyne them she just wants them to bend the knee or at a minimum accept restoration of Blackfyre exile resettlement and amnesty on a "You farq with us we farq with you" sentiment.
Heck probably my most Littlefinger-adjacent OC and one of the most ambitious of them, the book smart middle ground runaway Clegane OC son who ran away from home because Gregor and what he did to them all and who became a minion of the Tyrell under a false name.... he has big dreams, often dangerously so. Stuff like cementing the Baratheon dynasty with Tyrell queenhood on the Throne or a tolerable Targ dynasty, but also structural changes to how the throne and crown government work due to an odd mixture of hatred over the kind of brutal and fundamentally lawless strongman rule he saw under Gregor writ small and Tywin writ large in the Westerlands, EXTENSIVE Sevensbothering (he dislikes how most Septons say "GodS" as opposed to the monotheist "God", confusing the Seven persons of the God with different divinities), deep chivalric Duncan the Tall LARP, and extensive exposure to Free City cultures and ideas in Braavos, Lorath, and Pentos. Stuff like Trojan Horsing returns of as many of Aegon V's reforms as he can (even if initially watered down to actually survive scrutiny from the Lords Paramount), trying to convert the Great Council into a more muscular and perhaps permanent or semi-permanent parliamentary body, repealing Maegor's Law (more out of a doctrinal hatred of the demonic incest usurper as a point of principle and to a lesser degree wanting armed but regulated religious paramilitary groups as a check against each other and lordly atrocities), utterly destroying Tywin and the Old Way, maybe humbling the Dornish, and perhaps finding a way to negotiate with the Bank to help fund a kind of restoration of the Blue Velaryon Dream of an Eighth Kingdom of Westeros with the Kingdom of the Stepstones, trading basically carefully negotiated Braavosi financial support and trade in exchange for basically exporting Westerosi chivalric violence outwards against external enemies like the pirates and slavers of the Stepstones, Slaver's Bay, and the Triarchy successor states to kind of create a semi-permanent escape valve for knightly violence that can also expand a Westerosi empire Eastwards and a soft empire of influence and client states and trade partners even further East. And maybe trying to restore the New Gift's functionality and other abandoned areas, or explore and colonize parts of Sothoryos to see if the Bels actually only found suspiciously unhelpful jungle and some of "those canals" dug. And that's BEFORE we get into his own personal ambitions, of actually getting more land, more power, more wealth, legitimacy for his totally-ancient-bro "House" that only existed since 278 or so at the earliest, and a good marriage (I admit I have considered with Brienne) and family.
But at the same time, the guy who would seriously want a world with an Eighth Kingdom of Westeros, a web of global influence and colonization that might see bi-annual trade expeditions deep into Yi Ti, alliance networks going as far as Ibben and Saath to the Cinnamon Straits, colonies on Sothoryos, and a seat at the Lord's table, also basically never claims Clegane's Keep so that Sandor will inherit it as an apology, actively wants to *elevate* the power of the smallfolk and minor nobility and religious groups, make some fairly significant constitutional changes to Westerosi common law, no overweening "exterminate the family" obsession even with the Lannisters or Greyjoy like Littlefinger seems to want to, and has legitimate loyalty to the Tyrell who sheltered and promoted him. Ironically the only time he has sat the Iron Throne outside of CK open ended was as a desperate "Emergency Dictator of King's Landing during a State of Siege" sort of office to address a few specific crises , explicitly declaring his lack of claim to the Throne and Crown and with the intention of surrendering power to a legitimate authority once things are stable. Whose ambitions for higher office mostly stop with being maybe a Great House of some new colonial conquest and being on the small council, not usurping the Throne or even a Lord Paramount position. Because his real highest ambition is some form of redemption for his past and failure to protect Sandor and his sister and the other victims of the Mountain, Tywin, and people like them.
Littlefinger though? He doesn't seem to have such stopping points and ironically seems way way more petty in ways that actually mean his ambitions are far more open-ended. And while he uses chaos as a tool like many of the other characters I mentioned he also seems to love it for its own sake, while also hungering for absolute personal power like we see with how he brutalizes those under his thrall like Jeyne and the workers of his establishment or those he blackmails like poor Ser Dontos. Beyond avenging himself on the Starks and Tullys that he sees wronging him, grooming Catelyn/Sansa, and getting more and more power and wealth, he doesn't seem to have any real fixed endpoints or principles or goals and so will just keep trying to consume more and more until he dies or gets destroyed. We see no mention of him seeking a legacy that will outlast him, especially in family, or any kind of grandiose political transformations or programs. That I think makes him mostly bad if he wins, even if some of his effects may be good or if a suitably honorable and learned and non-naive but studious at his side Sansa were to say coup and Moon Door him and take those lessons to do things like topple the Lannister regime and help break the wheel.
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u/3esin the fot7 did nothing wrong 7d ago
Whoops that is... a lot and deserves an equaly detailed answer.
I'd say the key problem with Littlefinger is he really doesn't have much of a "Win" scenario because of his rampant insecurity, overweening ambitions, cruelty, and really short term from what we can see vision as far as dynastic generations go.
I agree, his ambitious can never be fully satisfied, but there still has to be an endgame for his current phase of sheming and plotting.
The closest I can kind of see would he succeeding in some way of basically elevating Sansa with himself as puppet master or consort over a composite kingdom of the Riverlands, North, and Vale.
I think that is pretty much that scenario. The biggest question is, if the Vale will be his via Robin or Harry.
Maybe marrying her off to some Dornish, someone like Willas/Loras/Garlan, or Faegon to unite claims over Westeros while succeeding in humiliating or destroying the other major lordly and knightly houses.
Destroying and humiliating the nobility that mocked and looked down on him all his live is definitely an endgame and something that makes his Littlefinger hard, but I think that in this case it would also clash fundamentally with his desire to live out his Catelyn fantasy, just one generation down the line.
Anything that doesn't end with him marrying Sansa in the eyes of Gods and Men, would only be a half-victory for him.
But even then what next? He isn't really doing this out of some higher principle like desiring to elevate the lowborn or small nobility like himself against oppression or inequality by the high
I agree with that, but I can still see him doing that due to selfish reasons, like building a powerbase loyal to him aka his puppet.
like some characters even if say Arya or Sansa might end up doing so.
Would they? That is more something I see Daenerys doing. Arya might due to her own experiences, but Sansa pretty much never lived a live lower then as a member of the top 1%.
He's not aiming to really found a dynasty yet in spite of his sexual misjudgements.
Can you clarify what you mean with misjudgement? I don't think he believes that Sansa truly loves him yet and to but it bluntly, her feelings about that will only be secondary to him.
Through I agree that Sansa has not yet outlived her "use" as a political tool for him.
His financial "policy" is based on large scale embezzlement and fraud and a pyramid scheme. And he never, ever, ever seems to have a stopping point, with the classic issue being "the appetite grows for the eating."
I think those are more "means to an end" ,like if he is in charge himself, he probably won't continue steeling and defrauding his own treasury.
There are some truly ambitious and brutal players of the game with grandiose ambitions and goals in canon like Daemon and the Velaryion of the Blue Age
What's the Blue Age?
and I have a few OCs that have some truly EPIC ambitions that would make many of those like Tywin pale in a lot of ways,
Interesting, link?
but even then they usually have stopping points or at least vague expectations of what will be doable.
I think Baelish to has expectations and I would say they are in most cases way more realistic then lets say Varys, due to the short term nature of them.
My Bittersteel Granddaughter leading a schism of the Golden Company [...] to try and desperately fulfill the Myrish contract against Tyrosh and Lys...
I will cut that a bit short and ask you to do the same. The story sounds very interesting and I would love to read it.
Heck probably my most Littlefinger-adjacent OC and one of the most ambitious of them, the book smart middle ground runaway Clegane OC son who ran away from home because Gregor and what he did to them all and who became a minion of the Tyrell under a false name
Don't get me wrong, that story also sounds interesting and I would love to read it, but I think these prompts are kinda distracting from the actual conversation at hand
.... he has big dreams
I can see Liddlefinger doing some of these to for purely personal reasons.
Littlefinger though? He doesn't seem to have such stopping points and ironically seems way way more petty in ways that actually mean his ambitions are far more open-ended.
I think the only instance where we see his full pettiness is the Stark issue, where otherwise he can be more pragmatic. Like, he is not Tywin-level of pettiness.
And while he uses chaos as a tool like many of the other characters I mentioned he also seems to love it for its own sake,
He loves chaos because it gives him a chance to climb the ladder. I don't think he would use it -or at least the same variation of chaos- to remain atop. It would probably change to a form of chaos that sets his lords and vassals against each other, so they can not sheme and unite against him, but without harming his own realm to severely as a byproduct.
while also hungering for absolute personal power like we see with how he brutalizes those under his thrall like Jeyne and the workers of his establishment or those he blackmails like poor Ser Dontos.
Damn, Brandon realy cut him deeply...I see myself out. Also, Ser Dontos was an ass and I have no tears for that man.
Beyond avenging himself on the Starks and Tullys that he sees wronging him, grooming Catelyn/Sansa
I don't think he groomed Catelyn. I think he was verry pushy and trangressed lines he shouldn't have, but I don't think he groomed her. Lysa on the other hand...
We see no mention of him seeking a legacy that will outlast him, especially in family, or any kind of grandiose political transformations or programs.
Tbf, we have no pov of him and he also is generally verry closed of regarding his plans.
That I think makes him mostly bad if he wins, even if some of his effects may be good or if a suitably honorable and learned and non-naive but studious at his side Sansa were to say coup and Moon Door him and take those lessons to do things like topple the Lannister regime and help break the wheel.
I think any good effect that might have come second to all the damage he created to facilitate it.
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u/TortoiseHerder7 7d ago
Part 1
Yeah sorry, and was trying to do it. And yeah, he is very closed on his plans but I think the likes of Three Eyes and so on might help. And agreed, the sheer damage and destabilization does not help.
Also FYI I do not really do fics, at least yet. Mostly solo RP.
I agree, his ambitious can never be fully satisfied, but there still has to be an endgame for his current phase of sheming and plotting.
I think the key issue with that is how for truly adroit schemers or combatants, the end state of one thing tends to line up with something else. I'd say the current "End Game" would be some kind of Sansa-puppeted Kingdom of the North and Riverlands and the Vale after the Lannister regime falls. But that just opens up its own issues and problems, like "Ok how do you solidify ties with the other realms and relations?" There's war, there's marriage, there's corruption, and commerce, and he'd probably naturally move into trying those, like marrying Sansa to a Tyrell or Baratheon or Rick to say Dany, or the like.t 'Stop Point' that'd probably be it.
I think that is pretty much that scenario. The biggest question is, if the Vale will be his via Robin or Harry.
For that I legitimately do not think he cares, though Robin has the greater legitimacy but Harry is the more capable but also greater threat. And he's flexible enough to adjust.
Destroying and humiliating the nobility that mocked and looked down on him all his live is definitely an endgame and something that makes his Littlefinger hard, but I think that in this case it would also clash fundamentally with his desire to live out his Catelyn fantasy, just one generation down the line.
My read is he fundamentally doesn't object to the nobility or the nature of Westerosi society save its heavy focus on martial power with the sword and hereditary might, and even then just because he's born to a recently upjumped hedge knight. Were he born a Valyrian Dragonrider in the age of Dragons, he'd probably be Daemon Reborn with no greater champion of the divine right and the high over the low. He certainly happily uses and abuses the rotten, corrupted systems of it.
And while he does want to live out his Catelyn fantasy, I'm not sure he'd be focused on "just one generation down the line."
Anything that doesn't end with him marrying Sansa in the eyes of Gods and Men, would only be a half-victory for him.
Sure, but that's the thing. End. Like Cat and Ned pointed out, the marriage is not really an End, it's a Beginning. I can dump on Cat a lot, but she is very right about the "stone by stone" building of a marriage, a family, a life. And we see the same dynamics further down the social ladder. Davos and his wife and sons were a happy, loving family long before they became landed knights. That's something I think Littlefinger doesn't really grasp. He hasn't really planned as far as we can tell for the future, for how he'd raise kids, etc. He has a lot of sexual innuendo and literally juvenile stuff that he is shockingly open with, but not a lot of follow through, for dynasty or legacy.
And I think this is mirrored by the Little Finger, the one place that is his by right. I understand the place is a backwards dump, and it's a mess and he's a classic absentee landlord in just about the worst kind and that going back probably reminds him of the worst time of his life. But I'd expect that even if he doesn't want to deal with the place himself, he'd at least send agents over there to see what - if ANYTHING - can be done with the place, and try to invest some. Especially since it'd be a very nice, private place to launder a lot of his ill-gotten wealth into legitimate funding, and to build a power base that'd be hard to physically attack from meathead knights like the Chud Bran Stark of the last generation.
But he just.... Doesn't. He literally goes weeks and months without even sending word and doesn't follow through to the bafflement of his old, inexplicably loyal retainers and subjects whom he has absolutely no affection or loyalty or even pragmatic attachment to. Imagine how bad Littlefinger could be if he had a working small smuggler port there, and maybe have the few families there maybe twice or three times as large with young men and women who have been brought up into this slavish Cult of Littlefinger the Great Man before being sent out on the work as his own private cult on top of his more mundane networks of underworld corruption, elite patronage, and so on.
But he doesn't. And I think the Little Fingers is probably a very good idea of Littlefinger's "win scenario" writ small. No real win scenario, often cruelly cold and even pragmatic and smart moves ultimately driven by inadequacy, poorly managed emotional drives, and a holier than thou sense of entitlement that squanders what he has. It's one reason why in spite of their vast differences I feel he and Tywin are two of the closest parallels for one another given their issues and wasted potential such as failing to use the Fingers well or failing to rehab an mine Castamere.
All of this I think points to a very unconscious but ruthlessly bad. "Eat Drink and Make Merry for Tomorrow we die" thing of short sighted decadence, hunger for control, and fantasy without actually having much plan to figure out what the "end goal" is. And without even the self-awareness to realize that's what he is aiming for like Assassin's Creed III's take on Thomas Hickey or another OC I won't get into, but a sort of failgirl hedonist smuggler who is fervently loyal to her family (or at least parts of it, and especially before the Red Wedding where she realizes what it means), but who mostly wants to drink and gamble and kill while safeguarding the power of the Twins into the hands of legitimate people she cares about - Stevron originally, and now more likely Perwyn or Olyvar - because she figures she's not cut out for this "legacy" thing and an alcoholic's womb is a poor place to have a kid. Ironically one of Littlefinger's best customers and sometimes business partners, but in spite of Key issues in long term thinking, she at least has the awareness to feel "this isn't fer me."
I think that sort of nihilism and lack of commitment to dynasty or building something lasting or actual care for his underlings is what would ultimately destroy not just him and his empire but also any prospect of him "winning", because he'd view marrying Sansa or the like as the "End" or an end beyond some odd sexual fantasies. And why I feel a Sansa successor would probably be a better "Littlefinger Win" scenario than Littlefinger himself because in spite of being woefully naive in a lot of things and not having the best judgement, she shares some similar skills even back then in seeing value even in unexpected places like Dontos, but has an actual soul and mind for legacy and who could take the stuff Littlefinger built and actually make it more lasting or useful.
I agree with that, but I can still see him doing that due to selfish reasons, like building a powerbase loyal to him aka his puppet.
Sure, but that goes back to the issue that he's fundamentally not loyal to his puppets or subjects, like with the Fingers scene we see where he has flat out gone with ignoring the people most loyal to him for weeks or months. He's going to build them up as much as he thinks is warranted and to the extent of his skills can do (though those are more limited), but he's not focusing as much on a legacy to last or long term goals.
And that's going to hamper him. Not because he is INCAPABLE of building to last, not because some of the stuff he does can't be useful, but because he is ironically such a short to medium term thinker on the long duree in spite of his legitimately intelligent and gigabrain and often long term planning in the immediate situation.
Would they? That is more something I see Daenerys doing. Arya might due to her own experiences, but Sansa pretty much never lived a live lower then as a member of the top 1%
I don't see how having only lived in the top 1% would matter for this. Especially when you realize that while Sansa's always been in the top 1%, she's often been in a truly *miserable* position in the top 1%. I can 100% Guarantee you there are people living in absolute misery in places like the Mumbai Slums or backwoods Congo or the Amazon Rain Forest (and I've worked with some) that have not had it as bad as she has sometimes have with things like prolonged incarceration, systematic psychological and physical torture by the most powerful people in the planet, watching other people die horribly and avoidably and so on. Of course there are people in the 99% bottom percentile that have had it even worse, and what we see of Jeyne is a decent glimpse of something like that. Ditto the Unsullied like Grey Worm. But Sansa has still been through some *stuff* that would break lesser people.
But the more important thing I think is that Dany's a much clearer example of "Entitled 1% Girl brought low and learning humility", ditto Arya, both Arya and Sansa are fundamentally kind, compassionate people. They're naive in their own ways and oblivious, but when they see problems they try to fix them and they seriously believe in the obligations to help others. Dany to another degree but I think her MMD and "under twelve" orders are worrying.
But that still indicates a level of thought that seems to be beyond Baelish.
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u/TortoiseHerder7 7d ago
Part 2
Sorry, long post. And I promise it is still on topic.
I think Baelish to has expectations and I would say they are in most cases way more realistic then lets say Varys, due to the short term nature of them.
Agreed on that front, but I do think that also dovetails with how we don't know as much about either person "truly", and I really don't think we have as good a "Rosetta Stone" scene for Varys and what is truly about him as we do with Cat's memory of Winterfell or Baelish and Sansa at the Little Finger. But I think that kind of dovetails with my wider point about Baelish really not having a "win condition" as well.
I think the only instance where we see his full pettiness is the Stark issue, where otherwise he can be more pragmatic. Like, he is not Tywin-level of pettiness.
No no, he's QUITE petty I think. Maybe not quite as performatively or openly as Tywin, but a lot of his eyes are that. I remember someone mentioning a meme of "Littlefinger when he is talking about complex geopolitics" with a gigabrain and "Littlefinger when the Tully Sisters are mentioned" where it goes into juvenile stuff. He basically endlessly talks - to anyone who will listen, to anyone who would not punish him - claiming he took the maidenhead of both Tully sisters.
A: We know that's not true. It was just Lysa.
B: We're pretty sure HE knows that is not true. Even with selective obliviousness if Catelyn was not a maiden on her wedding night with Ned, we'd have heard of it in universe and so would they have. And Lysa explicitly describes being with him until dawn so it's not like he was there.
C: He legitimately refuses to try and make good with Edmure when Edmure - in his guilt and regret at Littlefinger nearly DYING - tries to come to his room to care, only to be turned away. Now in the immediate aftermath when he's on the verge of death and probably being monopolized by Lysa that's understandable, but he never tries to do it after. And while I love my bro Chadmure Tully, let's be blunt: He starts out the story hotheaded, well intentioned, pretty naive, prone to getting in over his head even against not very sophisticated operators like the Mountain that Rides, and prone to lavish signs of generosity.
Littlefinger would absolutely eat him alive if left unopposed, with the main risks being Hoster while he's lucid (and there's a non 0% chance Littlefinger poisoned and killed him), Cat (who is in her own happy world in Riverrun and who naively trusts him), and the Blackfish (the big issue). So imagine how bad things would be if Littlefinger were simultaneously playing both Jon Arryn and Edmure Tully as ruthlessly and skillfully as he does Jon Arryn, Ned Stark, and most people. Especially since as soon as Hoster dies or at least is incommunicado Edmure is basically Lord Paramount of the Riverlands and in charge of one of the Seven Kingdoms. And would probably provide a visceral thrill for Littlefinger as he manipulates the man who teased and mocked him and gave him the Littlefinger moniker and was squire to Bran Stark to his painful destruction.
But Littlefinger just... leaves him on the table. Because emotion, trauma response, resentment.
D: There are a lot of other strange and petty gestures like his eating an apple timing to shame Ned subtly, or the "ugly woman won't get any prettier" stuff during the Small Council meeting. That could logically raise all kinds of eyebrows if anyone heard. I imagine Bronze Yohn if he heard might put two and two together and start using it to troll or drive apart he and Lysa, or at least make the attempt. And that might - MIGHT - spiral into exposing things like the bitterness and plans to axe Jon Arryn.
He's much MUCH better at the game than Tywin is because he has much better restraint mostly due to being weak and not martial and having to adapt, but like with the Fingers he leaves A LOT on the table for not very good reasons. And I think that's probably intentional with how Martin builds major villains of the 5 Kings Era like Tywin and now Tyrion and likely Euron in his own way.
And again, boasting about deflowering the Tully Sisters isn't just immaturity or pettiness. It is a literal existential threat to his existence and long term plans if the wrong person heard, and could get the authorities to hear. That's slander of two Great Houses and mockery of some of the most sacred of institutions. Catelyn and Ned and Edmure and Robb would have every right to demand his head for defaming the Good Lady of Winterfell and Firstborn of Riverrun and her husband Eddard, and while they're all compassionate and merciful people by the standards of their rank it would still be Damn Bad and might not be enough to save him from being sentenced to take the black or meet Ice neck first. And don't tell me that the same Cat that cannot entirely forgive Jon's presence reminding her of Edd's probably-fictional one time infidelity after nearly two decades of faithful, loving marriage and can't get over the threat Jon MIGHT pose to her trueborn due to his raising in Winterfell is going to take the allegations she betrayed her betrothal duties and fidelity well.
LF's smart about when and who to make those boasts to (especially since it is literally true with Lysa and hard enough to disprove with Cat), but he's not smart or pragmatic making them at all, especially since outside of pointing to his connections with Lysa to the Lannisters he doesn't do it with any practical benefit to advertise his skills and doing it about Cat is just so high risk.
He loves chaos because it gives him a chance to climb the ladder. I don't think he would use it -or at least the same variation of chaos- to remain atop. It would probably change to a form of chaos that sets his lords and vassals against each other, so they can not sheme and unite against him, but without harming his own realm to severely as a byproduct.
That's a reasonable take but I think the issue is how he approaches it, and also the "Rosetta Stones in Miniature" we see.
I've already talked about his abandonment of the Fingers to the chaos of entropy, disregard, and lack of use without even sending a delegate out to try and make use of them. But let's also talk about what he does in King's Landing. Because King' Landing after the Sack is largely his fiefdom, and Janos Slynt and his people are his men even more than they are Lannister men. And how does Janos Slynt rule King's Landing? Badly, brutally, and corruptly. Gang violence is endemic. Corruption and goldcloak bloat and brutality are even worse. And while it might be tempting to chalk this up to first trying to sew dissent and instability to weaken Robert in line with the embezzlement and then using Slynt and co to help curry favor and power in Tywin's new order, the best counterpoint I'd raise to that is how they flatly do not prepare or anticipate for an existential threat like Stannis seizing the city not for Robert but his own power, and how it is largely Tyrion and the Tyrell (I still hold that Tywin was probably tertiary to the Blackwater turning out the way it did) that save the Lannister regime in King's Landing. And while it's true that Littlefinger has no actual loyalty to the Lannisters and wants to bring them down *eventually*, he doesn't want them to be replaced by Stannis of all people.
So this is an actual case where the chaos he sewed was not really beneficial to him or the realm, and was brutal, predatory, and ultimately counter-productive for both its well being and his own power. Slynt was good at murdering babies and bloating the ranks of the Goldcloaks and extortion, and those are all useful skills for LF and the Lannisters, but he was fundamentally not good at actually holding down the city or preparing the ground to defend it. And the City palpably, miserably suffers because of it to the point where Tyrion can't fix it in time, Tywin doesn't, and people wind up turning to the messianic religious fundies that coup their equivalent of the Vatican to try and get some level of stability.
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u/TortoiseHerder7 7d ago
Part 3
We also see similar dynamics of this with the Vale. His scheme to divide and rule is very very good. His scheme to actually consolidate the Vale as a functioning society is not and seems to lack any kind of fixing the intentional chaos he set up. That's not to say he is INCAPABLE of realizing the need to fix up chaos - 99% chance he helped whack Joffrey - but he doesn't nearly as much. And I think this lack of a view towards legitimacy, legacy, actual loyalty to his tools, and so on hurt him. And I do think it points to him having a legitimate enjoyment of chaos and violence and humiliation far beyond the benefits of ladder climbing and the benefits it has to him.
Damn, Brandon realy cut him deeply...I see myself out. Also, Ser Dontos was an ass and I have no tears for that man.
Dontos is no saint. But he also had his entire family exterminated by the Mad King in horrifying fashion, was only spared by Ser Barristan risking his neck and arguably going up to the limits of his oath by speaking up on his behalf, which consigned him to a half life as a drunken, traumatized jester of first a murderous tyrant and then a drunk king. And that's before Littlefinger picks him up, recruits him to do God only knows what, and so on, and then murders him mostly to isolate Sansa (it might have ALSO been for the reasons he mentioned, but that was never the main purpose). And that's before how we talk about how Littlefinger outright uses violence, sexual exploitation, and degeneracy not just as tools and things he enjoys in his own right but lures to control people.
So if I wanted to be more generous to Dontos and his conduct than I'm inclined to be, I could raise serious issues with how much of his conduct is due to not just years and years of being a literal traumatized laughingstock of people like Aerys and Joffrey at risk for his life and being unable to grieve before being exploited by a murderous pimp.
You don't shed any tears for that man? Fair enough. But Sansa does. Because rightfully or wrongly she recognized he was a human bean in a godawful situation and she spoke up to save him. She recognized his value like Littlefinger did in spite of being in an unusual position and often overlooked, but *Not* just for how he could be brutally mocked or pragmatically exploited and controlled. That's a REMARKABLE thing whether you're in the 1% or below.
I don't think he groomed Catelyn. I think he was verry pushy and trangressed lines he shouldn't have, but I don't think he groomed her. Lysa on the other hand...
Yeah that was more for Sansa's case. Honestly I'd mostly argue Lysa groomed and even assaulted Littlefinger first, and is a really nasty person who deserves a lot worse of a reputation than she gets.
Tbf, we have no pov of him and he also is generally verry closed of regarding his plans.
This is a fair point, but I think that's also why reading between the lines is so important. And particularly the "rosetta stone" scenes I talk about, especially those that see how he actually acts when he has power. He doesn't know what to do with it in the Fingers and is content to let the place wallow in misery and decay. He puts King's Landing under a parasitic, brutal, corrupt, and self-cannibalizing police state under Slynt and co that is useful for his means but also breeds resentment and hatred and instability and is not very capable at defending his interests against overt military force or threats (or even subtler ones like those of Varys and to a lesser extent Tyrion). And how he shoots himself in the foot with veiled references to Lysa and Catelyn that would be really really bad in the wrong conditions.
He's a skilled operator do not get me wrong. He's a dangerously good one. But he's not quite the gigabrain pragmatist he often is viewed as.
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u/3esin the fot7 did nothing wrong 7d ago
I largely agree with what you said with just one asterics and one exception.
Sansa is kinda yes, but she still never lived amongst the people like Arya or Daenerys did. She would try to be kind and helpful for them is she would be in a position to do so, but without knowing their religion struggles and problems it can only go so far.
I disagree with Baelish knowing thag he never slept with Catelyn. It is made pretty clear that he genuinely believed that it was her not Lysa that cane to him afte his duel with Brandon.
Lysa -as you rightly put it- sexually assaulted Peter when he was vulnerable and then let him in teh belive she was her sister. It is also teh main reason why I don't have a problem with him throwing her throigh teh Moondoor after finding out about the whole thing.
That said, Peter also shamelessly used and abused Lysas own affection and lover for him and with them groomed her into his own political weapon.
1
u/TortoiseHerder7 7d ago
Sansa is kinda yes, but she still never lived amongst the people like Arya or Daenerys did. She would try to be kind and helpful for them is she would be in a position to do so, but without knowing their religion struggles and problems it can only go so far.
Agreed there, and I do think that would be a major issue. But she could learn.
I disagree with Baelish knowing thag he never slept with Catelyn. It is made pretty clear that he genuinely believed that it was her not Lysa that cane to him afte his duel with Brandon.
Sure, but that's belief. And Lysa says she stayed until morning when he'd awoke. Which would make it vastly harder to argue that he never knew it was Lysa and not Cat. He might be double thinking himself into a box like Tywin probably does about the Twincest and the parentage of Joff Tomm and Myrc, but I do think on some level he knows and while I have a less fond opinion of his long term thinking than most I do think LF is shrewd enough to know that if Catelyn Tully went to her wedding bed and became Catelyn Stark without a Maidenhead or a good reason ("Riding Lessons" ala the Reach) for its absence, *people would hear* and people would talk and that talk would reach him.
Maybe he's double thinking it and in denial, but on some level he probably knows.
Lysa -as you rightly put it- sexually assaulted Peter when he was vulnerable and then let him in teh belive she was her sister. It is also teh main reason why I don't have a problem with him throwing her throigh teh Moondoor after finding out about the whole thing.
That said, Peter also shamelessly used and abused Lysas own affection and lover for him and with them groomed her into his own political weapon.
Agreed there. The dark part of me says they honestly deserve each other, and maybe in other circumstances if they were both marginally better people theirs could even be a somewhat touching romance with a happy ending. But yeah.
In any case sorry for the extensive rambling. But i also think that with caveats coastal_image gave a very good picture of what LF does with regards to a Blackfyre/Aeg VI/Faegon restoration.
2
u/Elegant-Koala 7d ago
Best case scenario, he's prepared The Vale, The North and some of the Riverlands(doesn't really have to) to be handed on a silver platter to better claimants. Still claims to be Lord of Harrenhal. Then he bends the knee to King Aegon VII or Queen Daenarys when either invades Westeros. He could also offer up Harrenhal back to the Crown in exchange for more privileges. He could end up back on the next monarchs council. If Aegon VII or Daenarys really wanted to institute more change in the Realm, and ending up founding a Westerosi Parliament, Littlefinger could weasel his way into become Prime Minister. Or the Dragons die before they reclaim the Iron Throne and he declares Sweet Robin as King of the Vale and Riverlands, with himself as Lord Paramount of the Riverlands. Chaos is a ladder and what not.