Dervish said
Now onto Littlefinger. Moar spoilers below.The thing is, you never seem him actually demonstrate any genuine feelings towards Cat.In Game of Thrones, when Cat reaches the capital, he lies to her outright and says that the blade that the assassin used was his that he lost to Tyrion, knowing that she would pursue him and try to hold him accountable for the attempted murder of her son. Her capturing Tyrion and putting him on trial is what started the rift between the Lannisters and the Starks and led to Jaime attacking Ned into the street, which kind of snowballed into the war. Littlefinger knew it was Joffery who hired the assassin, and if he genuinely cared for Cat's feelings, he likely wouldn't have ended up putting her in harm's way. The Lannisters have a reputation for being through in destroying Houses that become their enemies. You don't need to look any further than the Targaryens and the Reynes to see that. After the Red Wedding, Littlefinger isn't moved at all at the death of Catelyn, and it's likely he knew it was going to happen. Even before The RW, he was trying to get Sansa to consider leaving the capital with him to go to the Eyrie. After the Purple Wedding, Ser Dontos delivered Sansa to Littlefinger, and what's going to happen is he's going to make her pose as his illegitimate daughter until the time is right to reveal who she actually is. Since he knows Lysa Arryn is madly in love with him (she even poisoned Jon Arryn for Littlefinger, which as you recall, set off this entire mess), it wasn't hard to get her to agree to marry him. Almost immediately, he fakes affection for Sansa and makes sure he's caught by Lysa's bard kissing Sansa, where the bard rats him out to Lysa, who obviously demands answers and she's never been the most rational person. She threatens to throw Sansa out the Moon Door, which Littlefinger prevents happening and instead murders Lysa that way, telling her something along the lines of "I only ever loved Catelyn." Which I'm pretty sure is a bold-faced lie to be an evil shit since that horrible revelation would be the last thing she ever knew before she died, and it's also likely for Sansa's benefit. He pins the murder on the bard and Sansa remains his only witness, and this is three people Sansa's witnessed Littlefinger kill since she left the capital. She's smart enough NOT to piss him off.So now Littlefinger is the Lord of the Vale with what is believed to be the eldest surviving Stark whom I think he likely intends to marry to give him legitimacy and claim over both the Vale and the North. This would make him one of the most powerful men in status in Westeros. Sansa's nothing more than a tool for him, a very well conditioned tool who spent years being tortured into silent submission by Joffery. It might be one of the few things that's keeping her alive.Also, he's the one who has kept Jeyne Pool in one of his brothels, whom he turns over to the Lannisters to present to the Boltons as Arya Stark to further cement their claim to the North. Not exactly respecting the memory or blood of the woman he claimed to love. Tyrion said it best, he seemed to be the only person who legitimately saw Littlefinger for who he was. "The only person Littlefinger loves is Littlefinger." I can't find exactly where the quote came from, but it's pretty much exactly what he said. Damned if he wasn't right.
You misunderstand me: I don't believe LF has any sort of care for Cat's wellbeing or emotions. You're quite right: "The only person Littlefinger loves is Littlefinger." He doesn't see Cat as a love interest, he sees her as a prize: just another goal on his climb up the ladder to power, just as much in his mind as Harrenhall or the Vale. He has quite literally fought over her before against Brandon, despite possibly knowing she did not reciprocate his feelings. And he did truly have feelings for her (at the very least sexual feelings, though I would assume after their childhood together there were heavy emotional ties as well), as Lysa recounts the night she had sex with him while he was drunk, and he called out Cat's name (of note, it appears LF does not actually recall the specifics of this drunken sexual encounter, and actually believes that it
was Cat he was making love to, as he refers to the incident in that way later. This just furthers his motivations to try to win Cat from Brandon, as he believes she loves him, when in fact it was Lysa that holds that "honor").
By the time the books start, LF has changed, but his primary motivations haven't. Brandon had died, Ned has taken his place; doesn't matter. The woman he thought loved him has apparently scorned him for someone stronger, from a better family. The incident sticks with him, motivates him. He's been degraded becasue he's not from a strong family, as well as embarrassed (and if there's anything LF values, it's his pride). So he's motivated to gain more and more power. He knows he can't win through direct fighting, he learned that lesson with Brandon. So he uses his wits, builds a name for himself, works his way higher and higher into the upper echelons of Westeros. And now he's finally putting all of his grand schemes into action, starting(?) with the actual initiation of the GoT conflict by poisoning Jon Arryn and then telling the Starks that the Lannisters did it. This is actually much more important in instigating Lannister v. Stark drama than his business with the dagger, that was just icing on the cake. Why do all this? Because he knows Cat is a "lost cause" and because he has grand plans to use the resulting chaos to further his agendas (which is working quite splendidly, seeing as he is now lord of the Riverlands and *sort-of* the Vale. And hey, he got Sansa on the side, who is said to look a hell of a lot like a young version of her mother. Whether that little "win" was planned or was simply fortuitous is another whole debate.
I think it's kind of a stretch to say that LF planned for Lysa to see him kissing Sansa, which would then...do what? If he wants to kill Lysa (and I think he probably did either way), he could've (and would've) found a much simpler and effective way to do so. He also would have done it a lot later, after he'd already established himself in the Vale. Keep in mind that after Lysa's death, he has a pretty difficult time convincing the lords of the Vale to keep faith with him considering they all view him as a newly-arrived stranger, who might have usurped the weirwood throne (which he did, so they got that one right). For that kiss with Sansa to be planned would make almost no sense; in fact, it nearly ruins his entire plans! If literally anyone else had seen the kiss, he would've been fucked. If he hadn't arrived in time to save Sansa from Lysa, he would've lost his biggest power piece, and he would've been fucked. If he hadn't been able to silence the singer that witnessed the whole thing, he would've been fucked. He's good at thinking on his feet, and he managed to salvage the situation (though it did cause him difficulties later), knowing that he had to eliminate the now-hysterical Lysa who was now a threat to Sansa's safety.
There's no reason to assume that his "only Cat" line is anything but the truth. What does he gain by lying? Just "because he's evil" isn't good enough, and I feel it seriously cheapens the character and his motivations. Lysa is a constant reminder of his childhood, and his own failures. She adores him, but she's just a worse version of CAt to him, and she annoys him incessantly. There's no way we would have been given so much information about his childhood and his relationships with Lysa, Cat and the Starks just for it to add up to "well he just gets his kicks from manipulating people." Those interactions form the motivations of what I feel is one of the most interesting characters in the series, and to sum them all up as inconsequential to who he is today and the actions he's taking is, I feel, somewhat misguided.