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

harry potter - Do the Kwikspell courses work?

In Harry Potter we are introduced to Kwikspell course in The Chamber of Secrets (and never hear about it again). We see Filch taking courses, presumably by mail. The descriptions of Kwikspell make me think it is for people who are weak in magic (kind of like how Neville was supposed to be when he was younger), but had magic in them nonetheless. However, Ron's comments later in the chapter make it sound like it is mainly for Squibs to learn magic. However, it is strongly implied through out all the books that Squibs are essentially Muggles, and will never be able to do magic. How then is a Kwikspell course supposed to work? Do we have any information to know if it works at all? Is it a scam? An answer from any level of canon is welcome. Answer Kwikspell courses are (probably) useful to some wizards, but not to squibs. The Kwikspell course literature comes with two testimonials. Madam Z. Nettles of Topsham writes: ‘I had no memory for incantations and my potions were a family joke...
Post a Comment
Read more

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

star wars - What "exactly" happens when someone turns to the Dark Side?

When I saw the original Star Wars saga as a kid, the concept of the Dark Side imprinted in me was quite simple. You did a bad thing, so you're a bad person so you go to the Dark Side and keep doing bad things. Now, obviously this doesn't hold true in reality. In my mind it is perfectly reasonable for Luke to kill the Emperor and Vader and then just flee the Death Star and rejoin the Alliance. After all they are at war, those are enemy officers that have captured him and are taunting him by threatening with death of all loved ones and the whole operation was intended to kill the Emperor anyway. The same would hold true for Anakin. He could have killed Mace Windu to save the Chancellor and Padme but that doesn't mean he's going to then go mad and kill all Jedis including children. It doesn't add up from a merely psychological point of view. He had a set of objectives and that made him want to keep the Chancellor alive (quite valid by the way, Mace Windu is quite clums...
Post a Comment
Read more

star trek - Warning regarding forward saucer section in Nemesis?

In Star Trek: Nemesis , just before the Enterprise rams into the Scimitar, Picard sends a text message from his captain's chair arm pad to Troi — who is manning the helm in lieu of the crewman who was just blown out through what was once the view screen — indicating that she should put full impulse on standby. (Literally, if you watch the scene closely, Troi's console prefaces the order with "TXT MSG" !) My question is: Did Picard also somehow warn crew members in the forward saucer section about what was about to happen? The ramming of the Scimitar was a heat of the moment decision. Considering that he also resorted to calling the auto-destruct sequence shortly after (which ended up being offline), he probably was of the mindset that any losses would be acceptable in order to hault Shinzon's march to Earth. Still, I'm curious. Answer The original script indicates that he called for the crew to " brace for impact ". Whether that call (or the comma...
Post a Comment
Read more