Board Thread:TV Show Discussion/@comment-5014364-20161218050632/@comment-5014364-20161219050255

SummerandBran wrote: I wondered why Baelish wouldn't know about Ramsay. That made no sense at all. If he didn't, he would have found out before marrying her off. He has a network of spies and I don't know how he benefited from marrying her off when his long term goal is to sit on the Iron Throne with Sansa at his side. It was a confusing, unnecessary subplot. And what I meant when I said they should read the books is so they would understand what you're even talking about. If they hadn't read the books, yet stuck to Sansa's true plot, nobody would've have missed out. So you don't need to read to enjoy the show. You need to read to understand the injustice you and I feel was done to Sansa's character. Does that make sense?

Well, here's what I gather:

In the books (and TV show) Littlefinger has a big spy network across Westeros. So it doesn't make sense that he wouldn't know who Ramsay even is, an infamous psychopath.

The TV writers attempted to..."hang a lampshade" on this, is the phrase, point out and address a potential plot hole...which is weird....by emphasizing that Littlefinger explicitly doesn't know who Ramsay is (have a line where he says he's never heard of him).

And in interviews, the writers tried to explain this as that Ramsay hasn't been "publicly" killing that many people for many years, compared to the books, where his crimes (hunting woman for sport) have been going on for a while. Even this makes no sense though - if his crimes were THAT public in the books Ned Stark would have arrested him years ago.

But okay, fair enough, news has broken down due to the war, word simply hasn't reached Littlefinger all the way down in the capital, right?

....wrong.

Two things:

First, even if Ramsay's activities weren't very public before...dear god, the same episode that Littlefinger arrived at Winterfell, Ramsay publicly flayed Lord Cerwyn alive, and left his skinless corpse on public display at Winterfell itself! We saw that!

And okay, maybe Littlefinger would consider "skinning my political enemies alive" to not...necessarily, correlate with "brutalize his own wife". Right? I mean Stannis burns men alive but he treats his wife well.

....Ramsay has been hunting women for sport around the Dreadfort and skinning them alive, too.

Second point: let's assume that Ramsay's brutality is kind of new so Littlefinger hasn't heard of it, AND that LF has heard Ramsay skins his enemies, but doesn't think that will carry over to his bride.

...Why would Littlefinger not bother to ''investigate' a man he's never heard of, before handing over Sansa, one of his biggest bargaining chips?

I mean the writers at the time acted like, "tut tut, we thought of everything, we'll include a line pointing out that Ramsay is relatively new on the scene and thus Littlefinger's spy network never heard of his prior atrocities to know what kind of monster he is".

...okay....then why didn't Littlefinger take the HOUR OR TWO it might take to have some of his spies ask around about Ramsay? Who has been flaying alive dozens of ironborn soldiers at Moat Cailin? Surely someone heard something about the women he's killed for sport? (as Myranda recounted)?

Are we to believe that....the Bolton soldiers, even peasants, would be that tight lipped about it? That the Cerwyns wouldn't mention to villagers "dear god our lord was skinned alive by Ramsay!" and Littlefinger's spies wouldn't hear of this?

On top of that, around episode 6.3, Littlefinger announces "my spies in the North tell me that Sansa has escaped Winterfell"...and okay, maybe those were new spies he planted there but....

1 - It is vaguely plausible that Littlefinger might not know who Ramsay is already, but....

2 - ....he didn't spend one day, one hour bothering to check, after the marriage was proposed? He rode to Winterfell! It takes weeks to get from the Vale to Winterfell!

So it's insulting that it doesn't even make sense.

But the point of this thread is really "Sansa wasn't really a political player in Season 6".