Skip to main content

game of thrones - What was Littlefinger's motivation for the Purple Wedding?


As realized in the second half of A Storm of Swords and early in Season 4 of the TV series, Littlefinger conspires to



kill Joffrey at his wedding to Margaery.




Afterwards, he discusses this with Sansa:



"Why should I wish him dead?" Littlefinger shrugged. "I had no motive ... Sometimes the best way to baffle [your foes] is to make moves that have no purpose, or even seem to work against you."



But is Littlefinger being entirely truthful? Surely he had some motivation for the plot, beyond just confusing his opponents?



Answer



It's very hard to come up with why Littlefinger does anything, since he's very private with his true intentions. All we can come up with are a few guesses. As I see it, there are only two reasons Littlefinger might do anything: to advance his power and political position, and for pure personal reasons.


Political Agenda


Littlefinger lost the hand of the love of his life because his name had no power behind it, and ever since he has been working hard to change that. In the span of 15 years or so, he went from the son of an impoverished lord to the Master of Coin of Westeros, Lord Paramount of the Trident, the Lord Protector of the Vale and Lord of Harrenhal. And it's quite obvious he doesn't have plans to stop.


Assassinating Joffrey accomplished several things:




  • Removed Joffrey, who was by all accounts hard to control. In his place is now young Tommen, who has no real power of his own yet. Making the throne much easier to influence.

  • Get the favor of Tyrells who now wield great power in the council through Mace Tyrell, the Kingsguard through Loras Tyrell, and the throne itself through Queen Margaery.

  • Gained control of Sansa Stark, who is (as far as everyone knows) the heir to the North. Now if Littlefinger's scheme of marrying Harry the Heir to Sansa works, he will gain control of the North and the Vale.


So through all these machinations Littlefinger can potentially control the North, the Vale and the Riverlands, as well as having considerable influence with the Tyrells who control the South and are largely the power behind the Iron Throne (now that Tywin and Cersie have been neutralized). So one can argue that Littlefinger is now, or is going to be, one of the most powerful men in Westeros if not the most powerful.


Personal Agenda


Here it is pure speculation, since we have no insight on how Littlefinger thinks. I can't think of Littlefinger having any daggers to hone with Joffrey. However, we do know he still retained his love for Cat, and he thinks she was killed by the Lannisters.


More likely, I think, is that Littlefinger harbors a grudge with all the Great Houses. After all, he lost Cat to the heir of House Stark. But even with House Stark all but extinguished, his machinations continue. Which hints that his revenge plot (if it does indeed exist) encompasses all the families that have looked down on him in the past.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

futurama - How much time is lost in 'Time Keeps on Slippin''

In time Keeps on Slippin' , Farnsworth creates a basketball team which he matures by abusing Chronitons. This leads to time skipping forward by random, but ever increasing amounts. How much time was skipped in this way? Answer Unfortunately, I don't think a good estimate can be made for this, for two reasons: Many of the time skips move forward by an indeterminate amount of time. At one point, the Professor mentions localized regions of space skipping forward much more than others. We then see two young boys on the street below complaining about having to pay social security, only to suddenly become senior citizens and start complaining about wanting their money. Thus, each individual could have experienced a different amount of time skippage.
Post a Comment
Read more

harry potter - How could Expelliarmus beat Avada Kedavra?

I want to be very careful about how I ask this question – I am not asking How did Voldemort die? [CLOSED] Below the text is the relevant passages from Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows if anyone wants to review them (I'm sorry for the amount of text). How did Expelliarmus beat Avada Kedavra and kill Voldemort? I feel the reason Harry's Expelliarmus overpowered Voldemort's Avada Kedavra curse has to do with who was master of the Elder Wand and how the Elder Wand works. I've always had trouble understanding fully how the Elder Wand works, though. How much did the fact that Voldemort never truly won or mastered the Elder Wand factor into how Expelliarmus reacted to Avada Kedavra and caused Avada Kedavra to rebound and kill Voldemort? An answer based in book canon would be especially welcome, but any canon source really is fine. Harry heard the high voice shriek as he, too, yelled his best hope to the heavens, pointing Draco’s wand: ‘ Avada Kedavra !’ ‘ Expelliarmus !...
Post a Comment
Read more

Is there good canon evidence for the "Nightmare Matrix"?

On the Matrix wiki, there's an article about the Nightmare Matrix which says: The Nightmare Matrix was the second prototype Matrix, designed by The Architect after the massive failure of the Paradise Matrix in the hope that human minds would more readily accept an imperfect world with suffering. Unlike the first version, this Matrix instituted a basic cause-and-effect programming and forcibly made those connected to it accept the program. Vamp Prime, a possible remnant of the Nightmare Matrix. It also featured programs that resembled mythical evil creatures in various human mythologies such as vampires, werewolves, zombies, aliens, etc. It also failed, but many of the programs who were designed for it survived deletion in exile. The Merovingian and his wife, Persephone may have had their roots in this version of the Matrix. Upon its failure, the Merovingian started a smuggling ring of programs and information to provide a haven for exiles that would last for 6 cycles in the final ...
Post a Comment
Read more

story identification - Anime with a boy hiring a creature from a stone, meets a man named Dante and starts a journey to collect crystals

I am from India, this anime or animated series (I can't remember this was made by the Japan or other countries) was aired between 2009 and 2012 probably in Jetix/Disney XD (but I'm not sure). This anime starts with a boy (the main character, I forgot his name) who find a stone (or crystal like thing) in his dad's property, his dad was missing that time. Some day he accidentally hire a creature/monster from that stone. Other day some creature attack him and he was saved by his creature and the story begins. In his journey to solve the mystery he meets a middle aged man 'Dante' (probably that was the name; this is the only character name I can remember). He had also some stone. After that they meet with one girl and a women (one of the girls is same age with the main boy character and probably will become his partner as the story goes on). Another women probably Dante's partner. Four of them started their journey to collect all the stone/crystal. They are collecti...
Post a Comment
Read more