[Petyr Baelish — Characters]
Tyrion arranges for Shae to serve as a handmaiden to Sansa Stark when she demands more freedom. He tests the loyalty of the remaining Small Council members by feeding them varying plans for marriage alliances involving Princess Myrcella Baratheon . He is confronted by Cersei about sending Myrcella to Dorne in a betrothal to the youngest son of House Martell . Tyrion has Pycelle thrown into the black cells for revealing the information given only to him. Varys congratulates him for the ploy to lure out the Queen's informant. Tyrion is also confronted by an angry Petyr Baelish for having been unwittingly involved in the ruse; nevertheless, Tyrion recruits Littlefinger in a plan to convince Catelyn Stark to release Jaime, offering him Harrenhal and the title of Lord Paramount of the Trident .
Returning to Winterfell , Arya initially finds herself at odds with Sansa due to the naïvety of her youth and perceived lack of support for their "half-brother", Jon Snow , King in the North . However, their tumultuous relationship is discovered to be the result of Petyr Baelish 's manipulation, and the two mend their sisterhood following his execution for his crimes against House Stark.
Arya is afraid of being recognized when Petyr Baelish visits Lord Tywin, but he says nothing. Tywin catches her reading a letter detailing his troop movements and questions where she learned to read. She distracts him by asking about his own childhood and steals the letter. She is caught carrying it by Ser Amory. She manages to escape him and names him as her next victim to Jaqen. Jaqen kills him before he is able to expose the theft. Tywin believes that he was the intended victim and begins a brutal investigation, ordering the deaths of dozens of his own men. He tasks Ser Gregor with rooting out the Brotherhood Without Banners , believing that they are responsible for the assassination. Tywin talks to Arya about the importance of legacy and the destruction of Harrenhal in Aegon's Conquest . His suspicions are heightened by her own knowledge of history.
Sansa attends court as Joffrey doles out rewards. Tywin is named Savior of the City and Hand of the King , Petyr Baelish is made Lord of Harrenhal and Loras Tyrell is allowed to name a favor from the king. He asks Joffrey to marry his sister Margaery . Joffrey asks Margaery if this is what she wants while Cersei looks at Sansa deviously.
The plan to wed Sansa to Loras fails when Cersei grows increasingly suspicious of the Tyrells and learns of the proposed marriage between Loras and Sansa through Petyr Baelish. This news prompts Tywin to arrange for Cersei to marry Loras and Tyrion to marry Sansa in order to curb the ambitions of House Tyrell and to bind two of the other great houses of the Seven Kingdoms closer to the Lannisters.
After the events of the Purple Wedding, Sansa and Dontos make a quick escape and get on a boat, leaving the city. Dontos takes Sansa to a ship which turns out to belong to Petyr Baelish. Baelish has Dontos killed to guarantee his silence and destroys the necklace Sansa was wearing. Sansa screams and asks why he killed Dontos. Baelish simply states that Dontos was working solely for money and that now, she is safe.
With Jon at Dragonstone, Sansa and Petyr Baelish learn from Maester Wolkan that they have about 4,000 bushels of wheat. Sansa realizes that they don't have enough food for the coming winter. She advocates building granaries to stockpile for a famine. Sansa orders Yohn Royce to see that the armor made for their armies are outfitted with leather to keep warm. While walking, Baelish and Sansa talk about the threat of Cersei. Petyr urges her to fight every battle and to look for threats in every corner.
Later, Arya presents the letter that Sansa had written to their late brother Robb urging him to come and bend the knee to Joffrey. Sansa replies that Cersei forced her to do it under duress. Arya counters that she was not tortured and that she saw Sansa at their father's execution; Sansa retorts that Arya did nothing to stop their father's execution either. Arya chastises Sansa for betraying their family but Sansa responds that they have only returned to Winterfell because of her, while Arya travelled the world in pursuit of her own agenda. Sansa adds that their half-brother Jon was saved from defeat when Petyr Baelish and the Knights of the Vale came to their rescue and insists Arya would not have survived the torments she endured at the hands of Joffrey and Ramsay.
Sansa does not make an appearance in the fifth novel A Dance with Dragons . She is mentioned several times by various characters: Theon remembers a time when he had thought that Eddard might marry him to Sansa and claim him for a son, but realizes that had only been a child's fancy; Tyrion speaks about her with his dwarf companion Penny; Cersei recalls that Petyr Baelish had offered to wed her, but was denied because he was much too lowborn; and Jon tells Stannis that Winterfell belongs to Sansa and thinks of Sansa alongside their other siblings while he decides what to do after receiving Ramsay's letter .
While Jon is visiting his "father's" tomb, he is interrupted by Petyr Baelish , who comments on how he didn't always see eye to eye with Ned, but they both loved Catelyn . Petyr then reveals he loves Sansa in the same way, prompting Jon to angrily slam Petyr against the wall and tell him not to touch his sister. Afterward, Jon leaves the crypt and Petyr follows a few moments after to avoid association with a fight between them.
Meanwhile, Sansa is brought to Winterfell by Petyr Baelish in order to be wed. Initially thinking she was to be married to Roose Bolton, Sansa is mortified at the idea of having to marry the man who murdered her brother. Although Petyr corrects her by informing her that she was to be wed to his son, Ramsay Bolton , this did not make Sansa any less displeased about this betrothal.
Bran is still largely believed to have died along with Rickon at the hands of Theon. When Sansa returns to Winterfell to be wed to Ramsay at the behest of Petyr Baelish , Ramsay initially forces Theon to keep up the charade and apologize to Sansa. Eventually, however, Sansa's fury at the belief Theon murdered her brothers eventually forces Theon to finally admit that he did not kill Bran and Rickon. Stunned by this admission, her anger towards Theon cools but when she asks if he knows where they might have gone to, he breaks down and leaves the room, fearful of what Ramsay will do if and when he finds out what he just told her. However, Sansa appears to be left with a sense of renewed hope by the revelation that Bran and Rickon, in addition to Jon, are still alive.
Joffrey is infuriated, but restrains himself from striking her as he says "Mother tells me a king should never strike his lady" - so he simply calls on Ser Meryn Trant to strike her for him, and the knight slaps Sansa hard across the face twice with his armored gauntlet. Sansa notices how Joffrey is standing on a walkway over a steep drop to the stone courtyard below and resolves to push him off while he is distracted, even though it would almost certainly mean her own death. The Hound realizes this and stops her right before she can push him, under the pretense of wiping the blood off her lip. He later asks Petyr Baelish and Varys to begin his first Small Council meeting.
When Cersei complains that Margaery manipulates her son, Tywin replies that he wishes Cersei could do so. She challenges her father to control his grandson; Tywin says that he will. However, Joffrey's authoritarian cruelty and malignancy is proven to be uncontrollable, since, after Ros is caught spying on Lord Petyr Baelish , so Lord Baelish gives her to Joffrey, who brutally kills her in his chambers with his crossbow.
Petyr Baelish was the head of House Baelish and the lord of an extremely minor holding , so small it has neither name nor a maester , located in a small area within the Fingers , a coastal region in the northeastern shores of the Vale of Arryn .
In A Song of Ice and Fire , Petyr Baelish's father made the acquaintance of Lord Hoster Tully during the War of the Ninepenny Kings, where they fought together. Nothing is known about Petyr's mother, except that her name was Alayne.
"Littlefinger" is a nickname given to Petyr by Edmure Tully during their time at Riverrun together. It is a reference to the fact that Petyr Baelish's holdings are on the smallest of the Fingers, the numerous headlands and peninsulas protruding into the Narrow Sea on the Vale's east coast, and to the fact that he has been slight and short for his age.
Tywin Lannister calls the first meeting of the Small Council since he arrived in the city and assumes his position as Hand of the King . He has the meeting place changed to a room next to his own quarters, asserting his dominance. Tywin arrives early and has all of the council members called in at once, with seats on only one side of the table, as a non-verbal test to see how each of them reacts around him. Petyr Baelish ambitiously pushes his way past everyone else to be the one who sits closest to Tywin. Varys rolls his eyes at Littlefinger's assertiveness and lets him pass, content to sit in the second-closest seat.
Catelyn was born into House Tully and is the eldest child of Lord Hoster and Lady Minisa Tully . She has a younger brother, Edmure , and a younger sister, Lysa . Petyr Baelish was fostered with the Tullys and Catelyn grew up with him.
According to the TV series, official pronunciation guide developed for the cast and crew, "Catelyn" is pronounced "CAT-lin" ("cat" like the animal), not "Kate-lin" or "Cat-ellen." Indeed, in the TV series, she is sometimes referred to as simply "Cat" by people who know her well, like Ned Stark or Petyr Baelish.
Brienne later accompanies Sansa to the ruins of Mole's Town to meet with Petyr Baelish. Though Baelish offers to help Sansa against the Boltons, Sansa accuses him of deliberately giving her to Ramsay to further his own agendas and contemplates having Brienne kill him there and then, though she lets him go after he reveals that her great-uncle, Brynden Tully , has retaken Riverrun from the Freys .