Director Daniel Sackheim shoots down Pink Letter fan theory

If there’s one thing all fans of the Song of Ice and Fire series love, it’s a good conspiracy theory. The fandom is simply brimming with them, sometimes to the point of disbelief by the show-only folks. Everything from the alphabet math of R+L=J to the other alphabet math of MK+J=Ty. (Follow any of that?) Then there are the really far-out ones, like the idea that Meera and Jon are twins and the always mindbendingly hilarious “Varys is a merman.”

That brings me to the letter that arrived at Castle Black in “Book of the Stranger,” delivered by a man with a Flayed Man shield. It is a variation on the same letter than arrives at Castle Black in A Dance With Dragons, known in the fandom as “The Pink Letter,” due to the wax it is sealed with. It claims to have been written by Ramsay Bolton, but some fans question that. Our own in-house tinfoil hatters have suggested that it could have been sent by people who are dead on the show (Mance Rayder, Stannis) or people who have no interest in sending such a letter considering where they are currently on the show (Theon, Melisandre.)

The show moved the letter’s delivery from prior to Jon Snow’s Night of the Long Knives to after his resurrection. But despite the shift, the theories are still out there, which is how director Daniel Sackheim came to find himself answering questions about whether the letter could have been written by someone other than Ramsay.

His answer: a resounding No. “This I can tell you without any concern [of spoilers]. That letter was written by Ramsay,” Sackheim told Tech Insider.

"It’s the ignition, or trigger, in terms of them going through the process of taking Winterfell back. How they’re going to take Winterfell back, I can’t say. But it’s the beginning of that process."

Of course, as Tech Insider goes on to note, that’s not really going to satisfy theory-hungry fans, who’ve moved on to another suspect: Littlefinger. After all, it was Littlefinger who pushed Lysa Arryn to write the letter to Catelyn Stark way back at the beginning of the books and the show, the letter that set everything in motion and got us where we are today. It could *always* be Littlefinger.

But the show seems to have had enough lying for now, what with that whole “Jon Snow is Dead” thing it tried to pull off. If they’re saying the letter is from Ramsay, then we should just come and see.