So in part one we talked about how
Littlefinger spread a rumor of incest and beggared the realm in order to gain temporary control of the Vale and in part two we talked
About how Littlefinger's created conflict in the Reach by sending the Florents over to Stannis and perhaps having control over House Tarly.
Our story is absolutely riddled with Littlefinger's crazy spending and embezzlement
for example Jaime discovers
There's 29 gaolers hired to guard only six prisoners and only about half of these guys have ever shown up for work.
Tyrion discovers that Littlefinger lent a whole bunch of money to some merchants called the Antler Men.
Tyrion was foolish enough to allow Joffrey to catapult them into the river before they had the chance to pay the crown back.
But let's talk about House Stark. The Starks don't seem to have any debt and they have nothing to do with the Vale.
So why is Littlefinger interested in them? Now one could say Sansa Sansa Sansa
But Littlefinger doesn't seem to be interested in Sansa at first. In fact we can pinpoint the moment
Littlefinger becomes interested in her: at the Hand's tourney Loras Tyrell crowns Sansa with a red rose.
Littlefinger comes up to Sansa and says "Your mother was my queen of beauty once
you have her hair." His fingers brushed against her cheek as he stroked one auburn lock. Quite abruptly
He turned and walked away. So it seems at this moment Littlefinger had a revelation that Sansa was important.
So what was he doing before? Was Lysa his red haired Queen of Beauty? Was Catelyn?
If that's the case how does Ned Stark advance Baelish's plans?
Littlefinger sent a letter that ensured that Ned would come to King's landing
So what's Ned's role to play now one might say that Littlefinger
Just wanted to widow Cat so he could then marry her?
But that doesn't quite make sense, as Littlefinger saves Ned's life after Jaime Lannister attacks him.
Okay, maybe Littlefinger just wants to profit off of chaos between the Lannisters and the Starks.
Except that again doesn't make sense, as Littlefinger stopped war by saving Ned's life.
So what is Ned's role to play in Littlefinger's plan? Well, let's go back and look at everything Littlefinger
Did with Ned. Well, of course the first thing he did is send a letter that blamed
Jon Arryn's death on the Lannisters. This began the Stark/Lannister feud and also sent Ned to King's Landing to solve a murder.
Next, he claimed that Tyrion was the one that attacked Bran. This again increased the hatred between the Starks and the Lannisters.
Next Littlefinger tells Ned to go talk to Ser Hugh about Jon Arryn's murder.
Now of course Ser Hugh is killed by the Mountain at the Hand's tourney.
Now the Hound thinks the Mountain killed Ser Hugh intentionally, and the timing is a bit suspicious
We don't know exactly what happened
but it'd be pretty easy to bribe one man to not fasten Ser Hugh's gorget
and then bribe a second man to place Ser Hugh against the Mountain in the lists.
Ser Hugh didn't have a squire, but somebody had to have helped him get his armor on
I'm guessing was Lothor Brune. Nonetheless, Ser Hugh's death definitely fueled Stark/Lannister hatred.
Now on top of Ser Hugh, Littlefinger also recommends that Ned interview the rest of Jon Arryn's servants.
This makes Ned find Gendry, but it also makes him want to find Chataya's brothel.
When Ned decides that he wants to leave King's Landing, Littlefinger all of a sudden reveals the location of this brothel.
At the brothel Ned gets attacked, but Littlefinger brings the gold cloaks and saves Ned's life.
So it seems this entire murder mystery was a way to keep Ned in King's Landing, and fuel a Stark/Lannister hatred.
The letter, the dagger, Ser Hugh, and the murder mystery fuel Ned's hatred of the Lannisters
keep him in King's Landing, and lead to his biggest mistake: the coup.
Let's keep in mind that Littlefinger controls the gold cloaks, the city guard of King's Landing.
This means that if Ned dies or leaves King's Landing, the gold cloaks aren't really in play,
armies would then decide who sits the Iron Throne and not a security force.
Only in the realm of King's Landing does Littlefinger have complete power.
Littlefinger wants Ned in King's Landing because he wants the coup, because during the coup Littlefinger is useful.
Littlefinger wants to be wanted and needs to be needed. And I do think had Ned paid the right price,
he would have gotten Littlefinger's loyalty. What was that price?
Harrenhal
Littlefinger's obsession with Harrenhal is only surpassed by his obsession with Sansa Stark.
The Lannisters give Littlefinger's crony Janos Slynt Harrenhal for the loyalty of the gold cloaks.
Now this is an exceptionally weird move as Harrenhal already has an owner: House Whent.
It's also beyond generous, but Cersei said she was desperate, and Littlefinger brokered the deal.
Tyrion undoes this deal, but later offers Harrenhal to Littlefinger himself in exchange for the loyalty of the Vale.
Tyrion remarks that he sees hunger in Littlefinger's eyes.
Tyrion reneges on that, but after successfully bringing in the Tyrells, Littlefinger asks for and is granted Harrenhal.
Now, there is some talk that the only reason that Littlefinger wanted Harrenhal is so he would have a status high enough to marry Lysa Tully,
but that doesn't really make sense
Lysa Tully is a grown-ass woman and she can marry whoever she wants. Her parents are dead,
who on Earth would tell her no to a marriage with Littlefinger?
So Littlefinger wants Harrenhal for some other mysterious reason.
Now this creates a rather interesting dichotomy between Littlefinger and Varys:
With littlefinger on the side of Harrenhal and Varys on the side of Aegon they've recreated the conquest.
But why? What does Littlefinger want out of Harrenhal?
Well, whatever he wants, it's highly linked to Sansa Stark. Now, Littlefinger is definitely into red hair,
it's Sansa's red hair that makes Littlefinger lose his cool and storm off abruptly.
The only other two women that Littlefinger ever gives any attention to (Cat and Lysa) also happen to have red hair.
Littlefinger has shown no interest in Arya (a brunette). Now, when Cat and Littlefinger were younger, they used to play Jenny of Oldstones.
Now, Jenny claimed to be descended from the kings of the First Men, she also wore flowers in her hair which invokes Garth Greenhand,
the first First Men king.
Now Cat wore this crown of flowers with Littlefinger when she was young,
and a crown of flowers seems to be a regular fetish with people in Westeros.
A whore at Chataya's brothel wears a blue flower crown, and of course Lyanna Stark was given one by Rhaegar
Lysa Tully surrounds her house with a ring of blue flowers
and the Florents even put this crown of blue flowers on their sigil as they claim descent from Garth Greenhand
So a blue flower crown seems to be the crown of the First Men.
Rhaegar crowns Lyanna queen of love and beauty with this crown, while Littlefinger sees Cat as his queen of beauty,
with flowers in her hair--that is, before switching to Sansa.
so Rhaegar and Littlefinger seem to be like-minded, they're both searching
for their First Men lady, who they can crown queen of love and beauty.
They even both kidnap their queens, as under First Men/Wildling customs and the kidnapping of Lady Stark
of course invokes the story of Bael the Bard, while Rhaegar emulates Bael with the bard angle,
Littlefinger seems to emulate him with the trickster angle, as well as the name similarities.
So why the red hair? Well, in First Men culture red hair is lucky.
But there also seems to be a song about the perfect girl:
"I loved a maid as fair as summer with sunlight in her hair,
I loved a maid as red as autumn with sunset in her hair,
I loved a maid as white as winter with moonglow in her hair."
Now, we don't have the verse for spring, but it's probably: "I loved a made as blah blah as spring with flowers in her hair."
But what on Earth does finding the perfect First Men queen have to do with Harrenhal?
Well Rhaegar thought Harrenhal was important enough to prophecy that he needed to crown Lyanna there.
If Littlefinger is like-minded, he may be looking to do something similar there.
It should be noted that Catelyn's mother was a Whent. Which means Sansa and Arya's mother's mother was a Whent.
So in a matrilineal way they have a connection to Harrenhal.
Osha speaks about her lineage as her mother, her mother's mother, and her mother's mother's mother.
So it seems the First Men were more matriarchal than the Andals.
So in a womanly way, Cat and her daughters are connected to Harrenhal, and this keeps coming up in our story.
Danelle Lothston, who once ruled Harrenhal, had red hair just like Cat, Lysa, and Sansa.
And Harrenhal has a widow's tower and a wailing tower which sound like Cat, or Lady Whent, or Lady Lothston,
or Sansa. Although Sansa isn't a widow yet, Littlefinger says widowhood will become her.
"The thought made her tummy flutter." Now this isn't the first time Sansa's tummy flutters.
It also did during Joffrey's wedding: "as if she swallowed a bat."
And this isn't the only time Sansa is associated with a bat.
Polliver claims that she transformed into a half-bat, half-wolf and escaped King's Landing.
So Harrenhal, Cat, and Sansa are weirdly linked and Littlefinger is obsessed with all of them.
But this link just gets weirder and weirder. In A Clash of Kings, right before Catelyn is about to meet with Jaime,
she has a very weird experience. Moonlight comes through the windows, she hears a singer sing
"I loved a maid as red as autumn" and then she loses hours.
Now Catelyn losing time makes me think of Samwell losing time with the glass candle in Oldtown.
So I do wonder if Catelyn's head was getting messed with, with a glass candle.
Nonetheless, what follows this is the forming of the oath.
Jamie and Brienne are to bring back Arya and Sansa to Catelyn safely.
Now weirdly later on Arya is just dropped from the oath and the oath becomes all about Sansa
and Jaime and Brienne have a weird magical connection formed.
The genesis of this connection is in the bathhous] of Harrenhal, where Jaime first starts finding Brienne sexually attractive.
The two discussed oaths, and Jaime's dilemma with them. This bath house is likely where Danelle Lothston used to bathe in blood.
After leaving Harrenhal, Jaime has a weird dream about Brienne and oaths.
He discovers that he had been sleeping in moonlight,
so again, perhaps a glass candle had been messing with his head, or maybe it was the tree stump.
Nonetheless, Jaime goes back to Harrenhal and rescues his maiden fair from the bear.
Weirdly Rorge is very much against Jaime and Brienne leaving alive. Does he know about their oath?
Back in King's Landing, Jaime equips Brienne with a shield and a sword and tells her to go find Sansa.
The sword is Oathkeeper, which is really Ice melted down.
Ice was actually melted down into two swords: Oathkeeper and Widow's Wail.
Interestingly, both of those names also remind us of Catelyn and Harrenhal.
The shield is of House Lothston and Danelle Lothston looks like Sansa, and bathed in the same pools that Jaime and Brienne did.
So Brienne is trying to find Sansa with the shield of Harrenhal and the sword of Winterfell. The shield reminds us of her mother,
and the sword reminds us of her father.
It's also interesting that Brienne's arms are half bat and half wolf, which is exactly what Polliver calls Sansa.
And being the lady of Harrenhal makes her queen of the Riverlands, while being the lady of Winterfell makes her queen of the north,
and being the queen of love and beauty, and the queen of the First Men kind of makes her queen over everything.
So how is Littlefinger going to make Sansa a queen? Well, we'll talk about that in part four.