Marrying a cousin (common in Westeros and the real world in the middle ages and not considered incest) would be more of a traditional happy ending (which I definitely don’t expect from this series!) than marrying your aunt! Though avunculate marriages (a closer relation than cousins, sharing a quarter of genetic material) also happened in the real world, more rarely, so maybe the people of Westeros would consider that on the same level as cousins. They hated the traditional Targaryen brother/sister incest. The books are not traditional fantasy, it’s more like historical fiction (though not set in the real world) war drama with the fantasy elements very much on the side and not at all the focus. I mean banking and debt and proto-paper currency are all plot elements!
I don’t think Martin would have taken anything from Harry Potter, which was published around the same time and very different, children’s books. He borrowed a lot from real medieval history. I’m not aware of any real life figures if any that might have gone into Littlefinger but in book and show (made kinda cartoonish in the show) I think he’s definitely 100% out for himself with next to no altruistic qualities. He does stuff like hoard food so can sell it at inflated prices during the winter.
Cat was actually very very unhappy about Jon and hated him and wished Ned hadn’t brought him to Winterfell (nothing she could do about that). In one of her chapters in the books she thought she could have forgiven Ned having a dozen bastards so long as she didn’t have to look at them. One reason Ned let Jon join the Nightswatch is that Cat didn’t want him to stay at Winterfell with Ned gone. The books use first person POVs and she was a POV character so we know her children are all Ned’s. Ironically in the books though after Littlefinger rescues Sansa from King’s Landing he has her pose as his bastard daughter to conceal her identify.
I wonder if Lysa’s (Cat’s sister) kid could be Littlefinger’s bastard but I think it would have come up by now.
Thanks for a very informative post.
Wardaddy reminded me about Ros, whom Littlefinger helped do-in awfully.
But he also helped out Sansa, more than once, suggesting he's not entirely evil-hearted.
Of course, Sansa knows the price he wants in return, and obviously doesn't want to pay it.
But is death for Littlefinger really a fair compensation?
Some new crime is necessary, and that's what we may be seeing develop now... ?
