Hey babe, so I used to think Littlefinger knew of Daenerys since the line: "What little peace and order the five kings left us will not long survive the three queens, I fear." But I also saw someone say his plan of marrying Sansa and rallying her bannermen included making her a Queen, so the queens would be Cersei, Margaery, and Sansa, correct? Surely Littlefinger has heard the rumors, and if not, what do you think he plans to do with Daenerys or F-Aegon?
Littlefinger definitely knows about Dany, especially since he was the one who told Robert that sending a Faceless Man after her would be way too expensive. Whether he knows about Queen Daenerys and her dragons is a different matter. The rumors about Dany have only just begun to hit Westeros – the Summer Islander swan ship captain who met her in Qarth has only just arrived in Oldtown (and is going back to her again, with Archmaester Marwyn on board); Tywin dismissed Varys’s report about a three-headed dragon in Qarth (Varys carefully placed the info along with a bunch of unreliable rumors to make sure Tywin would ignore it, actually, but also note Littlefinger was there to hear that report); Cersei also dismissed reports of dragons and slave revolts in the east.
Nevertheless, Littlefinger has his own sources, and he’s not the sort to ignore eastern rumors just because they’re far away or unlikely. So we can assume he’s paid a little more attention to reports of Dany and her dragons (although he probably doubts anything about magic he may have heard). But Littlefinger’s also especially likely to track what mercenaries are doing, as war affects inter-continental economics and his more speculative investments. The Golden Company broke their contract with Myr sometime early in 300 AC (according to the fan timeline, Arianne heard about it in “February”, Cersei heard about it in “March”), Jon Connington convinced them to sail to Westeros in “April”, and Sansa’s last AFFC chapter was mid-“May”. So it’s pretty definite Littlefinger heard about their activities by the time of the convo about the three queens. However, the Small Council is discussing the Targaryen pretender with the GC in the Stormlands at the end of “June” – so while Littlefinger may have heard of Aegon in particular by TWOW Alayne I, it’s uncertain if he would have in AFFC. Although if he has spies in the GC, he might have heard the news before anyone else did.
So, with all that established – who did Littlefinger mean when he said “What little peace and order the five kings left us will not long survive the three queens, I fear”? Margaery and Cersei are a given, but did he mean Dany, Sansa, or someone else for the third? I’ve talked about this before, but that was a while back, so let me go over it again:
Pro: certainly when she arrives in Westeros there will be war.
Con: does LF expect her to arrive anytime soon? If he’s heard info about her, he’s also probably heard of her staying in Meereen.
Pro: it does seem likely that he plans to make Sansa a queen eventually (I have no doubt that Littlefinger ships Sansa/Petyr/Iron Throne).
Con: in that same conversation, he speaks of making Sansa Lady of the Eyrie and using the Vale lords to march on Winterfell, not King’s Landing. He’d be keeping his ultimate plans for her secret, so why mention “three queens” at all? Also, “peace won’t survive the three queens” seems contradictory to his “everyone will love you” plans with Sansa, not to mention his usual methods of trickery… wouldn’t he want Queen Sansa to bring peace, not destroy it?
Myrcella– (assuming LF expects Tommen won’t survive and/or heard of Arianne’s queenmaking attempt) Pro/con: Myrcella wouldn’t be a third side of this war of queens, she’d join up with her mother… but nevertheless, patriarchal lords might reject a ruling queen, especially one so young, which would again set the Lannisters against everyone else.
Arianne– Pro/con: If the fan timeline is correct, Aegon would not yet have arrived in Westeros by the time of this conversation, and certainly Dorne would not yet have received JonCon’s letter asking for their support. However, either the timeline may not be correct, or LF might have spies within the Golden Company, which would tell him that Aegon is hoping for Dornish support; and he might be predicting Arianne will marry Aegon before either of them have even thought about it themselves. (As the fans have, lol.) Arianne would definitely be a third side, and again, war would follow.
Now, stepping aside from what Littlefinger may have been thinking re the three queens, and going to the Doylistic question of what GRRM was planning here – post-facto foreshadowing might be involved. That is, at the time GRRM wrote that line, he might have been thinking the third queen would be Dany (or Sansa). But with the split he had to do with AFFC/ADWD, and all the rewrites ADWD needed, not to mention how long it’s taken for TWOW, maybe his plans changed. For that matter, the two TWOW Arianne preview chapters we have were originally planned for ADWD, which may mean they were written while he was working on AFFC, even. So maybe this third queen will turn out to be Arianne, and LF will say “ah, exactly as I expected”, and it won’t even be a retcon.
What Littlefinger plans to do with Aegon – probably wait and see. If Aegon looks to be successful in his conquest of Westeros, which he almost certainly will be (at least for a little while)… and if something goes wrong with LF’s plans for Sansa in the Vale (which between Sweetrobin’s health, Harry’s fickleness, Lyn Corbray’s unpredictability, and Shady Shadrich likely kidnapping her for the bounty, they very probably will), LF might move to plan B, make Sansa queen by marrying her to this Targaryen prince. That likely would require dealing with Arianne, but for Littlefinger and his poisons? Not a problem in his mind. But either way, I really hope Sansa does not end up connected to poor doomed Aegon, but even if she is, if my silly little crack theory is correct, no marriage will happen anyway.
So it’s all really complicated, and I personally would not make any definite bets about the identity of this “third queen”. Can’t speak for other people, of course…
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