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A Song of Ice and Fire / A Clash of Kings III / The Attempted Assassination of Bran II

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Ran
User ID: 0867924 		Jul 11th 2:50 PM
Broken thread continued.

Jeff wrote:

If the agent is the one to direct the assassination, Littlefinger placed a tremendous amount of trust in him. He had to be smart or Littlefinger never would have taken the risk. I mean, he's basically sending the guy up to Winterfell and telling him to use his discretion to kill a Stark child and lay and incriminating trail. Littlefinger would only trust such a risky plan to someone who is both very trustworthy and very smart.

In any case, Littlefinger can't just "send him off" or have him killed. The attempt took place only eight days after the king's party had left Winterfell. Had the assassin been captured and then talked, the Starks would have _immediately_ sent someone ahead to the King's Party to finger the agent. So, the agent would have been caught before ever returning to King's Landing. Unless, of course, that agent would have skeddadled from the King's Party himself. But I think that absence also would be rather obvious, and would amount to a lifetime in exile.

I can accept the possibility of the GUCT, but having the assasin intentionally caught just seems to be too much of a risk.

I will say this, though. If Cersei was behind the attempt, she was motivated by a desire to silence Bran. In which case, smothering Bran would make much more sense because it would look more like a "natural" death, and less likely to raise suspicion. Admittedly, the fire might raise suspicion anyway.

If it was Robert, a knife might fit his notion of an "honorable" death, but still a pillow would seem to be a more preferred method because it is less likely to sow suspicion.

A knife, on the other hand, clearly suggests foul play, which further suggests that someone was trying to incite trouble. And that does point to Littlefinger more so than anyone else.

To buttress Littlefinger's cause a bit more, I wonder about Varys' comment regarding the Lannisters trying to kill Bran and that Littlefinger then "meddled" in it. Could Varys have been referring to throwing Bran out of the window in the first instance, and Littlefinger then "meddled" with the attempted assassination?


Casper wrote:

I know the Spider seems to have a way of finding out most any secret, but how would he have known about Jaime throwing Bran out the window? I can't see either Cersei or Jaime telling him that.
Ran
User ID: 0867924 		Jul 11th 2:56 PM
And of course I forgot to save what I tried to write in reply to Jeff.

Anyhow: Exile might not be so bad, all considered. If one is one of Littlefinger's trusted agents, no doubt he's promised a nice, comfortable living across the narrow sea. Of course, it also presumes that whoever the agent was was someone easily findable or recognizable. If it were some freerider or hedge knight, they could possibly disappear into the Seven Kingdoms pretty easily.

Varys's words have raised that particular possibility, I've always thought. But . . . GRRM probably intended it to be as ambiguous as it is. Having him dump that right under our noses, without us knowing just what Varys means (Littlefinger pinning it on Tyrion? Or Littlefinger doing the attempted assassination?), is just the sort of thing he likes.

Ah well. _A Storm of Swords_ isn't so far away. ;)
Ran
User ID: 0867924 		Jul 11th 3:02 PM
Casper,

I think the idea would be that some agent of Varys's witnessed what happened, or at least was aware of what Jaime and Cersei were doing in Winterfell at about that time. This agent would then send him a report, by whatever manner it is that his non-KL agents send reports to him, about what they knew.

Of course, the issue with this is that ravens don't work, almost certainly. There's enough time for a report to get down to KL ... but there doesn't seem to be enough time to send back orders concerning what to do about it. The only ways to resolve that problem are:

a) Varys uses sorcery to keep in contact with his agents.

or

b) Varys's agent knows enough of Varys's plans (i.e., is very trusted) that he acts without orders, anticipating that that would be what Varys would have him do.
Jeff
User ID: 1536664 		Jul 11th 4:24 PM
Caspar, you raise a valid point about how Varys could have known. I think Ran might have hit on it. Varys _had_ to have some spies of his own with the King's party, and maybe they just deduced what happened based on some circumstantial evidence.

The circumstantial evidence always bothers me a bit with Bran. The kid gets tossed out of a window. Now, the most natural thing in the world to do upon discovering Bran's fall is to _look up_ The possible places from which Bran could have fallen in order to land where he did must be rather minimal. Sure, it couldn't be known that he actually fell from a window, but still it seems that would at least be a possibility. And one of the windows would have been the one in Jaime's room -- the guy who wasn't out hunting. Seems to me like the Starks were rather thick-headed about the whole thing, particularly given their basic distrust of the Lannisters and the message from Lysa.

Anyway, let's suppose this version of events gets reported to Varys. Varys asks his spies for some details, and learns 1) where Bran fell, and 2) that both Jaime and Cersei did not go hunting. He already knows what Jaime and Cersei probably were doing given their time alone, and where they were doing it. So maybe he just assumes Bran saw something he shouldn't have and was pitched from the window. Ned figured it out, so why not Varys?

Byz
User ID: 9829893 		Jul 11th 4:38 PM
Let me propose a few conditions that would have to be met for someone to be considered the mastermind behind the assasination attempt on Bran. You can use these to further hone your theories into a sharp stick to poke your enemies with.

1) The mastermind must have known that Bran saw something he shouldn't have.
When asking "Why would anyone want to kill Bran?" Robb, rightly, concludes that they must have been trying to prevent him from telling about something he witnessed. That means the mastermind either SAW what Bran saw, or knew that Bran saw SOMETHING indirectly. Furthermore, this means that the mastermind was either IN Winterfell at the time, or was in some sorcerous contact with agents in winterfell.

2) The mastermind must want Bran to be dead, along with his secret knowledge.
The mastermind behind the assasination set the library on fire. Lady Stark says that the library was chosen in order to draw her away from Bran, which would have worked, except for her "madness". This means even if the assasination was intended to be discovered, the distraction was REAL, and therefore the DEATH of Bran and his secret was intended.

3) The mastermind must know something about Catelyn and her fondness for the library.
See above. This means the mastermind must have been in contact with Catelyn or a close friend of Catelyn in the past 14 years or so when she gained a fondness for the library.

4) The mastermind must have possesion of the knife which once belonged to Petyr, and perhaps then Tyrion, and eventually Robert. Furthermore this person must have either wanted the dagger to be found to frame someone, or else they have some psychologically disturbed reason for wanting THAT knife to be the knife that killed Bran.

5) The mastermind must have control of at least one of the Lannister's men... or at least a lackey who could easily be mistaken as one of the Lannister entourage.

If you see any error in these conditions, feel free to point them out.

Using those facts, I am of the opinion that Cersei Lannister is the most likely suspect as the mastermind behind the assasination attempt. She would have the knowlege of Bran's secret, the motive to kill him, possesion of the murder weapon assuming that Robert was the last to have it, and command of the Lannister thug. It does not take far stretch of the imagination to assume that she might have aquired knowledge of Catlyn's fondness for the library, and her own maternal instincts would surely allow her to anticipate Catlyn's presence at the bedside of the sickly child. However, admitedly there is no textual evidence that Cersei, or anyone for that matter, would have special knowledge of Catelyn's fondness of the library (barring Tyrion's visit to the library, but then we know HE isn't the mastermind).

However, given that the murder mystery has existed for this long, I suspect that GRRM may have something up his sleave similar to some of these Petyr/Varys conspiracies. However, I like to stick to the facts when it comes to trying to uncover mysteries, and it always disappoints me when an author unveils the murderer via some peice of evidence that was never even hinted at before in the text. I like to think that the facts are there, but they are just carefully concealed. If that is the case, I think that the murderer must be either Jaime, Cersei, or unlikely Robert. They are the only characters I can imagine who might possibly be able to meet the physical conditions of being the mastermind this assasination overnight. The Lannisters left Winterfell the day after Bran's fall, and the assasination attempt occured only a week later. This means the assasin must have been instructed in what to do the night of the accident, or the following morning. Only someone in Winterfell, or a heretofore unrevealed sorceror could have achieved that. Most likely Cersei, hoping that her husband or Tyrion would catch the blame after the knife was discovered.

I have a hard time believing it was Jaime or Robert, because I can't see Jaime risking laying the blame on Tyrion, whom he loves, because of the knife... or Robert killing the child of Ned with such an ornate and obvious weapon.

Perhaps there are clues that other characters, inside or outside of winterfell might have been aware of Bran's discovery?
Ran
User ID: 0867924 		Jul 11th 4:39 PM
Jeff,

The First Keep had fallen out of use centuries (millenia?) ago. No one was lodged there, from Winterfell or from the King's party.

It seems Jaime scouted out an abandoned part of Winterfell so he could frolic with Cersei. As Bran was thinking to himself, his favorite place to climb was the broken tower, reached by way of the First Keep. So, they would simply assume he was swinging along the gargoyles, headed for the broken tower, when he fell and slipped.
Aaron
User ID: 0317884 		Jul 11th 5:12 PM
IIRC, Jaime tells Cat at Riverrun that Cersei would never act on the assassination attempt without his knowledge. The question then is: Would she? And why would she arm the assassin with the knife Tyrion supposedly won?

She could not have known that Cat would run into Tyrion and take him captive. Even if Cersei did know that he would be taken captive, she must have also known that Tywin would not allow any slight of honor to come upon his house... such as Tyrions execution. (As Tyrion pointed out when he was a captive.)

However, I do think Cersei is among the few suspects with the connections to actually steal the knife from Tyrion IF it was stolen while they were all at Winterfell.

Wait a minute. The knife HAD to be stolen while they all camped at Winterfell. And if the Lannisters pulled out the day after Brans fall then that only gives a twenty-four hour time frame for someone to steal the knife, plan the library fire and hire an assassin to go for the kill. Does anyone agree that the assassin also started the fire?

The fact that someone was left behind from the Lannister/Barethon/Night Watch host means that whoever gave the order left with either the Kings Party or Benjens.

So here is the assassin hiding out in the stables. He either has his orders by the time this massive host moves out of Winterfell and is biding his time, allowing both parties to get far away from Winterfell OR he is hiding in the stables waiting for his orders to be delivered to him.

** Time Out to Think **
Ran
User ID: 0867924 		Jul 11th 5:15 PM
Byz,

Good points, but they rule out some of the arguments and candidates. Primarily, (1) and (2) presume that the _only_ reason to kill Bran has to do with hiding the truth of what happened. As arguments in the past have shown, there's a lot of opinions.

For example, Robert. Did he have to know anything about what Bran saw? No. Jeff and others have brought up the argument that maybe Robert went about trying to kill Bran as a mercy to the child and (more importantly) to the family. He didn't want to see the Starks suffer over a child who, at best, would wake up an invalid.

Now, I don't buy the argument fully, but the idea is there. There's even some possible support, given the assassin's statement abotu it being a mercy.

How about Littlefinger? The primary theory that suggests he's the one behind it suggests that he sent agents out to kill a Stark child (probably Rickon) in Winterfell after the king's party left, to stir up major trouble and perhaps lead the Starks right into a position for him to take advantage of them for his own personal gain.

From the very first words we hear about Littlefinger (Jaime naming him an ambitious enemy in Winterfell), we get a picture of a man who could very well set the wheels turning in a risky scheme to further his own interests. And, certainly, he could have owned the dagger -- the king is famously generous, indeed too much so, and could possibly have given the knife back after he used it to mock Jaime.

And what about the dark horse, Joffrey? He cropped up as a candidate, briefly, a fair while ago. He was suggested before with several possible motivations, a couple of them having to do with his more-or-less being aware that Bran saw something he shouldn't have concerning his mother and Jaime.

But there's also the possibility that the reason he decided to kill Bran was out of sheer spite and anger at Tyrion. After all, he's certainly unsympathetic to what Bran and the Starks are going through. So much so that Tyrion slaps him twice in front of everyone in the yard, and sends him off crying. Would this have been enough to set his violence-prone, vaguely unbalanced, immature self to trying to kill Bran?

It explains a lot, like the complete stupidity of using such a knife or assassin. Of course, there's lots of big problems with it -- where does a prince get 90 pieces of silver, when he'd probably carry a few gold pieces and a handful of silver? And of course, GRRM felt that one could deduce the killer from what he had written to date, although he did add that he really wasn't the best judge since he was actually writing it.

BTW, Tyrion never owned the dagger -- we can believe him on that one, I believe.

Condition (3) seems unnecessary. The point of burning the library tower was to get people to go to it to put the fire out. One didn't have to particularly know that Catelyn had a particular love of it -- it's her castle, her home, and that ought to be enough in most cases. Of course, this was not a usual case.

Your timing is wrong, also. The king's party remained in Winterfell for about a fortnight (two weeks) after Bran's fall (Jon says that Catelyn had not left Bran's bedside for nearly a fortnight, and the king's party was preparing to leave that day or the next.) The attempt on Bran happened 8 days after that.

Of course, you might still need a sorcerer to be able to manage this all. A round trip flight of two weeks from Winterfell to KL and back is exceptionally unlikely given the vast distance to be covered.

But, of course, you can get rid of needing any kind of messages travelling back and forth if -- as with GUCT (the Grand Unified Conspiracy Theory, i.e. the one that calls for Littlefinger to be the mastermind) -- one presumes that someone in KL wanted to kill a Stark in Winterfell even before the king left to make Ned Hand, for the purpose of sowing discord.

It may sound, of course, very far-fetched put just like that. And maybe it is far-fetched, any way you put it. But there's some pretty lengthy arguments which go over the points for Littlefinger, Robert, Cersei, Robert _and_ Cersei, Joffrey, Varys, and even recently Pycelle I believe.
Ran
User ID: 0867924 		Jul 11th 5:21 PM
Aaron,

Tyrion never owned the knife. :) It belonged to Littlefinger, who lost it in betting on Jaime against the Knight of Flowers. He probably lost it to Robert, but it is not entirely certain. And then we know nothing more about who owned the knife. Even Jaime's answer is shifty, because he pauses a long, long time to think after Cat tells him about the knife, as if he's decidin how much truth to tell her.

So, in the time between Joffrey's nameday feast and the attempt on Bran, there's no telling who or how many people had the knife. Did Robert really own it when he used it to mock Jaime? Did he give it back to Littlefinger in drunken generosity after mocking the Kingslayer? Or to Cersei as a gift, or Joffrey? Did he keep it somewhere? Did someone steal it at King's Landing from him while he was passed out drunk, or on the road?

And so on.

As for the assassin waiting in Winterfell to receive actual orders ... that's certainly an interesting possibility. However, there's the distinct problem of _how_ he'd get the orders. He's a lowly stablehand who doesn't even belong in Winterfell -- he's not exactly going to go knock on Maester Luwin's door to ask him if any ravens arrived for him. Heck, it's doubtful he could even read. ;)

So, unless one presumes sorcery, then it seems unlikely that the assassin stayed there until he got some orders from King's Landing.
Byz
User ID: 9829893 		Jul 11th 5:25 PM
I agree, Cersei probably would have informed Jaime of the assasination. And my general feeling is that if Cersei or Jaime did it, it should have been revealed in the story by now. Authors hardly ever hold out on a mystery this long just to reveal the obvious. But I still can't shake the fact that Cersei is the most likely suspect.

Perhaps Catelyn had an insight (that WE haven't had) at the end of aCoK when Jaime reveals that Robert had the knife, perhaps the answer may be in Jaime's conversation with Catelyn? And if Catelyn is going for a sword, and Jaime is not DEAD, that seems to support that theory.
Aaron
User ID: 0317884 		Jul 11th 5:45 PM
The other option is that someone from Kings Landing could have Luwin in the pocket. Luwin could have delivered the order to the assassin.

But just the fact that the assassin was left behind by the host when it moved out means that someone =a resident of Winterfell or a guest= had to give the assassin the order to stay behind. Because as you pointed out no instructions could have come from KL so fast.

Jaime likes Tyrion, plus he told Cat he didn't do it; Robert loves Ned and his children, there is no reason he would conspire to kill one of them even if the kid was a lame duck; Joff is a little bitch boy, is he really capable of pulling a stunt like this off? No.

I can see Cersei going behind Jaime's back and orchestrating this thing. But she would have no reason to use this dagger unless she was in cohoots with Littlefinger. And even then, what purpose does framing her brother serve? Unless she didn't know that Littlefinger would name Tyrion.

Yes Cersei could have pulled this off.

As far as the GUCT goes, sending an assassin to kill one of the Stark children indiscriminately is just way to random an act for Littlefinger. Littlefinger is to cautious for this. Mysteriously and randomly offing a Stark kid is just not an option and is something that could lead to multiple, unpredictable results. Petyr is to smart to choose this road and would no doubt construct a more solid plan to fulfill his aims.
Ran
User ID: 0867924 		Jul 11th 5:57 PM
Not randomly, actually. In all probability, folk could guess that Ned would take the opportunity to take some of the children with him. Which? Well, he'd probably leave Robb -- let him practice what it would be like to be lord of Winterfell. And he'd leve the youngest, Rickon. After that, who knows.

In fact, if Littlefinger wanted a Stark child killed, the best and most obvious choice would be Rickon. A boy his age wasl ike to play alone at times, and Winterfell was a big place. He would also be the easiest to kill -- anyone older, like Bran, Arya, or Sansa -- could be large enough to be able to run quickly. And Robb, of course, was practically a man grown and could defend himself. Rickon could do none of this.
Byz
User ID: 9829893 		Jul 11th 6:10 PM
On the one hand, you have the facts of the story to interpret, but then on the other hand you have the author's literary devices. An author sometimes screws up on the facts and introduces paradoxes or inconsistencies in a story, but he rarely ever acts against his own literary devices, which are placed in the story to create a certain mood or theme to guide the reader's expectations and help them to be entertained by the story. An author that introduces or withholds literary devices frivilously is a poor and unentertaining writer. I think GRRM puts his devices to good use.

One such device is Catelyn's tutolage of Robb. She asks him to figure out for himself why someone would want Bran dead. Robb decides, on his own, that they must have wanted him silenced. That's a literary device that cannot go unnoticed! Robb, just like the reader, is presented with the puzzle. It would be very poor writing for GRRM to introduce a scene like this into the story only to reveal that it is meaningless later. So I will hold fastly to #1 moreso than ANY of my other points. Robb's discovery is the hook, or the primer for the reader's introduction to the mystery. That's the most sacred piece of evidence from a literary standpoint.

I don't buy the mercy killing argument for the simple fact that mercy killers don't assasinate with expensive knives, attacking anyone who discovers them a week after the patient has been in recovery. I reject many of the other arguments for similar reasons or because they don't fit the most basic facts that I think GRRM has given us.

But most importantly, I don't want to form an opinion and then search for facts to support it. Instead, I want to look at what the facts are and then try to form opinions that supports those facts.

I know that the author placed Robb and Catelyn's observations in the book for a reason. I know that the author has Catelyn ponder the choice of the library as significant to her. I know that the author has us pondering the strangeness of the knife as the chosen weapon, as contrasted to the nature of the beggardly assasin who was seen amoung the entourage. I'm not ready to speculate as to the unrevealed motives of characters. I'm simply stating that these are the most important observations we have, because the author has them deliberately delivered to us. My reasoning is that any suspect that does not fit these conditions is *probably* not the mastermind and is certainly not the best suspect.

Of course this is all my very humble opinion, and I offer it merely as a suggestion for fine tuning some of these theories that do not seem to fit well with the major facts and themes we have already been introduced to. :)

I can't rule out Petyr, Varys, or any other character that might have access to unusual or unrevealed means of masterminding this plot, but given that GRRM downplays sorcery, and that he said that we should be able to figure out who the killer is based on what we know already, I find it hard to believe that the thing was orchestrated by "unrevealed" means. I would rather assume that the mastermind does fit the facts we have. Perhaps we have just overlooked some important details?
Relic
User ID: 9308123 		Jul 11th 6:23 PM
It would be nice to have a list of everyone that was present in Winterfell around the time of Bran's fall.
Ran
User ID: 0867924 		Jul 11th 6:25 PM
Not we. ;)

For example, Varys-as-sorcerer has gotten arguments. Several people think he msut have some black art to ferret out the things he does, and Illyrio even calls him a wizard. Of course, there's very good ways to explain this all, but if you don't want to form an opinion, then the obvious course is to presume that Varys is indeed a sorcerer and learns what he does via sorcery, and so was capable of this.

And Littlefinger? Lets use your argument about GRRM using "literary devices." Tyrion thinks, in the sky cells, that there may well be a third party besides the "wolf and the lion" involved in the attempt.

This seems to directly contradict the idea that GRRM uses these "literary devices" as tip-offs, because on the one hand you have this "literary device" which points to someone wanting to keep what BRan saw a secret, and on the other hand you have this "literary device" that suggests that it's not a Lannister, who are the only obvious people to want the secret kept.

So, I place very little stock in these devices. One thing GRRM has made plain in the story is that Catelyn and the Starks are very good at figuring out _obvious_ things. But, given how Littlefinger has played them for fools so easily, I think that one must then decide that the Starks are very poor indicators as far as these "literary devices" go.

Or, in other words, I still disagree with the points you put forward. They're intuitive only if you take them out of the context of the story. In context, the Starks are clearly not good indicators of what the truth of things are, while Tyrion very probably is.
Aaron
User ID: 0317884 		Jul 11th 6:31 PM
Well if Rickon was the target, then why did the man go after Bran? And could this 'simple' killer change the target on his own authority? Most definitely not. Which means someone in the Kings party, or the Night Watch party or a person or persons in the employment of the Stark house had to deliver the order to the hit man.



Ran
User ID: 0867924 		Jul 11th 6:47 PM
Oh, I agree it was someone in the king's party who gave the assassin the orders. But according to the theory, that person was an agent of Littlefinger's who was overseeing the attempt on the Stark child. One presumes some discretionary ability to pick the easiest target, and in some ways this would be Bran.

There's reason to believe that Littlefinger had an agent or two up there. In book two, two things are established: Littlefinger has a fighting man (or men) in his service (Lothor Brune, the freerider), and that nine out of ten men (according to Tyrion) in the KL bureaucracy are in his pocket.

We know there were freeriders and the like in Robert's train. We can also presume, with a high degree of probability, that the king's party probably had someone keeping track of expenses -- Littlefinger is apparently quite meticulous about the book keeping.


cbudoris
User ID: 0408214 		Jul 11th 8:25 PM
The most interesting theory I've read so far has to be the possibility that Joffrey was behind the knife. What we know both before and after the killing is that Joffrey is deranged (maybe due to his incestuous conception, though his other siblings don't exhibit it). He was publicly humiliated by Tyrion, in front of his men, for Bran's sake. Its not that far of a leap to figure he'd want revenge. As far as the knife goes, maybe 1) Robert -gave- the knife to Joffrey, 2)Joffrey stole it from his father or 3)Joffrey acquired it via some other mean.

He also tried to attack Arya when the King's party stopped at the Trident.

This is my best guess regarding a 'less-than-obvious-murderer'. I still think it was Cercei. She's the only logical choice (but this speculation is more fun).
Jeff
User ID: 8813033 		Jul 11th 9:20 PM
I don't think we can believe Jaime's denial that Cersei was involved.

Would Jaime guess that his sister would screw his cousin Lancel? Would he guess that she would offer herself to Ned Stark? I don't think so -- he doesn't know her as well as he thinks.

Or maybe it's more accurate to say he wants to believe that he knows her that well. I think his hesistation in discussing the whole thing might have another root. In AGOT, he, Cersei, and Tyrion all sit around and talk about Bran. Cersei and Jaime both mention that it would be a mercy if Bran died -- Tyrion then says that they'd best not mention that idea to Ned Stark.

Maybe after the meeting with Tyrion, Cersei and Jaime discussed offing Bran, but Jaime refused to go ahead, and Cersei agreed. Or at least _seemed_ to agree. Now, when Jaime is presented with the possiblity that Cersei is involved, he says no -- because she would have told him about it. I think that is Jaime really trying to convince himself rather than trying to convince Catelyn.
Byz
User ID: 8290473 		Jul 11th 10:57 PM
Furthermore, Jaime even admits that they "talked about it" refering to murdering Bran, but had decided it would be impossible. I guess they didn't know about Catelyn's fondness for her library. That offers the intriguing possibility that some other than the twins, and a bit wiser to Catelyn's fancies took it upon themselves to do the killing. But who?

Robert, the owner of the murder weapon, then becomes the next most obvious candidate, but he doesn't seem to have any reasonable motive to kill the boy in cold blood in such a strange manner, so far.

And that also begs to know why Petyr would tell Catelyn that Tyrion won the knife instead of Robert. At first glance it would appear that Petyr is either covering for Robert or condemning Tyrion. Which leads us back to the ever popular Littlefinger conspiracy. But without the missing link between Petyr, Robert, and Tyrion, I'm not happy calling that lie anything more than a lie.

Of course we've gone over all this a thousand times before, but I suppose it never hurts to poke at it a few more times.

I'm sticking to my guns on the fact that the mastermind's knows about Bran's secret. A re-reading of Jaime's conversation with Catelyn reveals that killing Bran would have been an abysmally impossible feat if not for the cleverly planned distraction. Killing any other Stark, including Eddard himself would have been an easier task for someone who simply wanted to cause bad blood between the Starks and Lannisters. It took careful planning to stage the assasination of Bran, which seems to indicate that the mastermind had Bran specifically targeted. Unfortunately that doesn't rule out the Joffrey theory. :P
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