The Winds of Winter: Who wrote the letter that killed Jon Snow?

Did Mance Rayder write the Pink Letter?

The most likely explanation for the pink letter is that Mance Rayder wrote it. For starters, the letter is heavily focused on the wildlings at Castle Black, and none of the other suspects have a greater stake in Val and Dalla’s child than Mance does. After all, Dalla’s child is Mance’s son. Mance is also the only character to ever previously threaten to cut out Jon’s heart, which is the way the pink letter threatens Jon. Because he had been in Winterfell disguised as a bard for a while, Mance could have gathered enough information about the Boltons and the northern political situation to produce the pink letter. Mance Rayder is also the only person to be mentioned by name in the pink letter. Everyone else has an alias like “bastard” for Jon, or “false king” for Stannis, etc.

Mance is a smart man who has actually done this sort of thing before. Way back in Book 1, Mance infiltrated Winterfell when King Robert Baratheon made a royal visit to the North. Mance has also lied to manipulate Jon before about being in possession of the Horn of Winter, which supposedly has the ability to destroy the Wall. Mance also has a bone to pick with Jon, because when they first met, Mance told him not to play tricks with him. This was when Jon was working as a double agent within the wildling camp; he had everybody fooled that he had turned his cloak, only to go back to the Night’s Watch later. Mance would understandably be angry about this betrayal, and about the wildling defeat at the hands of Stannis.

Mance is also one of the only characters to call the Night’s Watch “black crows,” which is how they are described in the pink letter. And the smear of pink wax could be because Mance was writing the letter in haste after stealing the wax. Mance also probably would not know about Ramsay’s habit of including skin in his letters, or the spiky handwriting.

The only problem with this theory is motive. If Mance is trying to punish Jon here, the pink letter seems a strange way to do it. It seems really improbable for him to predict that Jon would leave the Night’s Watch and ride south with the wildlings and even more improbable that the Night’s Watch officers would kill Jon. YouTuber Preston Jacobs lays out an intricate set of schemes that Mance may be conducting; they involve him knowing that Jeyne is not Arya and him using Val and Tormund to manipulate Jon at the Wall while putting his forces in position to take over the Night’s Watch castles.

When Mance arrives in Winterfell, he is no longer under Melisandre’s glamour magic and is free to do what he wants. In addition to being notably absent when the spearwives get Jeyne and Theon out of the castle, he takes an interest in the crypts during his time in Winterfell. In A Storm of Swords, we learn that Mance is frantically looking for the Horn of Winter, and he digs up thousands of graves north of the Wall in search of it. He may suspect that the horn is in the Winterfell crypts. There are multiple times we hear that when the horn is blown, it does not take down the Wall, but “awakes sleeping giants.” When Jon receives the pink letter, the giant Wun Wun inexplicably kills one of Stannis’ men at Castle Black. Tormund also brought hundreds of giants with him to the Wall.

Earlier, Jon sends Val to find Tormund and bring the remaining wildlings to the Wall. Even though his people are given lands, Mance expresses his unwillingness to submit to Westerosi laws and that his people will still not kneel. Jon puts a lot of trust in the wildlings and it seems like they are taking advantage of his kindness to weaken the Night’s Watch.

I think this theory is somewhat likely, but one major problem is that the Horn of Winter is probably in the possession of Samwell Tarly in Oldtown, which is a fan theory for another day. It would be a pretty insane coincidence if Sam blew the horn right when Jon was getting betrayed by the Night’s Watch.

Even if Mance’s schemes do not come to fruition, I think he is the most likely candidate for being the author of the pink letter.

Did Mance Rayder write the Pink Letter? Very Likely

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