Cunning, secretive, informed, and always
a few steps ahead --
these words perfectly fit two characters
on Game of Thrones:
Varys, aka The Spider,
"The bird singing in the West,
the bird singing in the East.
If one knows how to listen."
and Petyr Baelish, known as Littlefinger.
"Gold wins wars, not soldiers."
Both are spymasters who’ve proven that information
can be worth as much as gold in Westeros.
"Information is the key.
You need to learn your enemy's strength
and strategies.
You need to learn which of your friends
are not your friends."
Varys and Littlefinger lack physical strength
or noble heritage,
but they’ve risen from their humble beginnings
and they've continued to improve their standing
since season 1.
Littlefinger started as the head of a lesser house,
but learned to manipulate his way up the hierarchy,
"A mockingbird.
You created your own sigil,
didn't you?"
"Yes.
Some people are fortunate enough
to be born into the right family.
Others have to find their own way."
eventually becoming Robert Baratheon’s Master of Coin.
Varys was born into slavery across the Narrow Sea.
“I came from nothing.
I was sold as a slave,
and carved up as an offering.”
He learned to survive by organizing his
massive spy network,
"My little birds are everywhere."
and he was eventually made Master of Whisperers.
Their success comes from the ability
to make themselves useful,
while calculating the moves of the other players
well before they happen.
“Fight every battle, everywhere, always, in your mind.”
But for all that they have in common,
Varys and Littlefinger maintain opposite
perspectives on the morality of power.
Littlefinger is purely and openly
for himself, always,
"Now I understand.
When I take the throne,
you have to retain your position,
and your head."
"I would give priority to my head."
while Varys uses the same crafty wiles
with the goal of doing what’s best
for the people.
"I did what I did for the good of the realm."
This fundamental difference in their philosophies
that drive them is key.
Their views of life cause the two characters’ fates
to ultimately diverge,
in spite of their similar talents and strategies
"I admire you."
"And I admire you, Lord Baelish.
A grasper from a minor House with a major talent
for befriending powerful men... and women."
"An useful talent, I'm sure you'd agree."
So what do we learn by comparing the ideologies
of Littlefinger and Varys?
"A thousand blades."
"There aren't a thousand blades.
There aren't even 200.
I've counted."
"Huh.
I'm sure you have."
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Littlefinger is basically the anti-Jon Snow.
His sole purpose in life is to serve himself --
"What's it in for me?"
to get power and status or anything else
that could possibly benefit him.
“Littlefinger is one of the most dangerous men
in Westeros.”
“Chaos is a ladder…”
Littlefinger’s memorable words
"Chaos isn't a pit.
Chaos is a ladder."
encapsulate his approach to life.
Littlefinger does well when there’s disorder,
confusion or turmoil around him.
It’s only when there’s uncertainty and distrust
that a nobody like him has a shot
at rising in social status.
"A man with no motive is a man
no one suspects."
What this means, though, is not just
that Littlefinger flourishes
when there happens to be chaos,
but also that he has a habit of creating more chaos,
so that he can thrive.
“He would see this country burn if he could
be king of the ashes.”
If things are going well or people are
getting along,
this doesn’t create more opportunities for him
to improve his situation,
so that's where Littlefinger steps in.
"Always keep your foes confused.
If you don't know who you are, what you want,
you can't know what you plan to do next."
For the first seven seasons,
Littlefinger’s growing power and survival showed
his exceptional smarts and how effective
cunning is in Westeros.
"Every possible series of events is happening
all at once.
Live that way and nothing will surprise you.
Everything that happens will be something
you've seen before."
He’s great at making alliances because
he knows how to offer exactly what someone needs.
Everyone knows Littlefinger is conniving,
deceptive and slippery,
but people often feel they can’t avoid
keeping him around anyway,
because they have little choice
and they need what he’s offering --
"And I'll know you're a man of your word
when I see Sansa Stark's head on a spike."
He even lures people into seeing him as a friend
because he’s so open about being
completely untrustworthy.
“Distrusting me was the wisest thing you’ve done
since you climbed off your horse.”
The way that he’s so candid about his
self-serving ambition can be weirdly charming
and disarming.
But the facts speak for themselves:
over the seasons, he betrays Ned Stark
“I did warn you not to trust me…”
murders his own wife Lady Arryn,
"I have only loved one woman --
your sister."
brokers a marriage between Sansa and the
violent sociopath Ramsay Bolton,
“You freed me from the monsters
who murdered my family,
and you gave me to other monsters
who murdered my family”
and instigates a feud between the Stark sisters,
to name only a few of his betrayls and transgressions
in the pursuit of power.
Even his good deeds are for selfish,
political gain.
Littlefinger's one redeeming quality seems to be
his love for Catelyn Stark
and his resulting love for her daughter Sansa,
but even these women he betrays.
"I loved your mother since the time I was a boy."
"And yet you betrayed her."
“I loved you.”
“And yet, you betrayed me.”
As characters like the Starks are hunted down
and seemingly punished for their honor,
the show appears to be suggesting
that it’s necessary to be a total
Littlefinger-style opportunist.
“Many who try to climb it fail and
never get to try again.
The fall breaks them.
And some are given a chance to climb,
but they refuse.
They cling to the realm or the gods or love.
Illusions.
Only the ladder is real.
The climb is all there is.”
Life to Littlefinger is only this self-centered climb
to the top.
Others just don't admit it,
and aren’t as good at it as he is.
And this is why Littlefinger always looks for,
and sees, the worst in people.
Yet at a certain point, seeing the worst everywhere
stops working.
"Sometimes when I try to understand a person's motives,
I play a little game."
Oddly, it doesn’t occur to Littlefinger that Sansa
could ever turn this logic back on him.
"Sometimes when I try to understand a person's motives,
I play a little game.
I assume the worst.
What's the worst reason you have for turning me
against my sister?"
But he’s become complacent enough to expect
that no one can see through his motivations
or beat him at his own game.
"Thank you for all your many lessons, Lord Baelish.
I'll never forget them."
When Bran repeats Littlefinger's words back to him,
“Chaos is a Ladder”,
this is a clear message to Littlefinger
that he’s seen who Littlefinger is,
always has been, and will be.
"None of you were there to see what happened.
None of you knows the truth."
"You held a knife to his throat.
You said 'I did warn you not to trust me.'"
But you don’t need to be clairvoyant to know
what a sleazeball Littlefinger is.
“Is there an idiot in any village
who trusts Littlefinger?”
“Only a fool would trust Littlefinger.”
Given his past behavior,
it’s completely predictable that
he’ll try to split people up
or destroy their bonds,
simply because it’s easier for him
to manipulate and have power over wolves
who are separated from their pack.
"That's what you do, that's what you've always done,
turn family against family,
turn sister against sister."
Eventually and inevitably,
Littlefinger’s way of playing the game
just burns too many people too badly
for them to forget about it.
Littlefinger destroys himself by forgetting
that just because he’s smart
it doesn’t mean everyone else is stupid.
As we saw in our last video comparing
Ned Stark’s and Jon Snow’s versions of honor,
early seasons of the show set up honor
and intelligence as opposing traits
at odds with each other,
but over time the show subverts this clean opposition.
So the interesting twist that happens
by the end of Season 7 is that
characters like Jon and Sansa
show us how being honorable can be smart,
while Littlefinger shows us how being too smart
and dishonorable is eventually dumb.
Littlefinger doesn’t realize that after a while
he’s actually become pretty transparent
and not useful at all.
“Who do you truly serve?”
“The realm, my lord.
Someone must.”
Varys shares the same talents
and tactics as Littlefinger,
but his underlying mission and motives
couldn’t be more different.
Varys is sympathetic to the sufferings
of the poor
"You wish to know where my true loyalties lie?
Not with any king or queen, but with the people."
and he believes in a cause
higher than himself.
Ultimately, he has the best interest
of the common people at heart.
“What is it you want, exactly?”
“Peace, prosperity.
A land where the powerful do not
prey on the powerless.”
We might not have noticed this for a while
because Varys’ idealism is hidden beneath
a cloak of shrewd pragmatism.
"When you look at me, do you see a hero?"
After standing by the Mad King,
he has remorse for what he let happen
"It's what I told myself
when I watched them beg for mercy.
'I'm not the one doing it.'"
and he acutely feels the sufferings
of the unfortunate.
He originally agrees with Robert’s decision
to have Danaerys assassinated
"I want them dead.
Mother and child, both."
"Who gave the order to kill me?"
"King Robert."
because he sees it as the only way
to avoid another bloody civil war
that would hurt the poor most.
"It is a terrible thing we must consider,
a vile thing.
Yet we who presumed to rule must sometimes
do vile things for the good of the realm."
But he can’t tolerate Joffrey’s limitless cruelty
and does everything he can to work against Joffrey.
Eventually Varys comes to serve Dany’s cause
because he believes in her as a ruler.
“I will dedicate myself to seeing you
on the Iron Throne,
because I choose you.
Because I know that the people have
no better chance than you.”
Varys’ ultimate goal makes him a kindred spirit
with both Daenerys and Tyrion --
like Dany, he thinks of the good
of the common people is more important than anything.
Like Tyrion, he’s also very realistic
about the cynical world he lives in.
So his practical, skeptical side is
always wrestling with his desire to do
what’s right for society.
Varys is still safe, at least for now,
as one of Daenerys’ advisors.
It’s possible that his eventual demise could come
from an inability to understand
the mystical forces at play,
which he’s tended to dismiss.
"The sorcerer called and a voice answered.
And ever since that day, I have hated magic,
and all those who practice it."
Or his pragmatism that tends to hold him back,
could get in his way once more.
Whatever ultimately happens,
Varys has earned our respect in a way
that Littlefinger never did,
because his ingenious plotting and information-gathering
don’t just serve his own ego.
"There are many who know that without you,
this city faced certain defeat.
The King won't give you any honors;
the history won't mention you.
But we will not forget."
As it stands at the end of season 7,
Littlefinger's gone and Varys remains --
and in this simple fact, Game of Thrones sends
the message that intrigue and deception
only work for so long
if there’s no purpose underneath
besides selfishness and powerlust.
The truth always comes out.
If you stand for nothing besides yourself,
sooner or later you will end in disgrace.
Varys continues to show how helpful schemes,
alliances and trickery can be,
when they’re directed toward the good
of society and a better life for all.
Hey guys, we're gussing you're missing Game of Thrones,
so we've got a few ideas for how you can survive
the drought.
If you love Daenerys' badass vibes,
now might be the time to start watching
or rewatching Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
If you love historical epics,
full of battle scenes and hot romance,
go for Troy,
or the 300.
If you like the Wars of the Roses,
the history that partially inspired Game of Thrones,
you can try Hollow Crown, a British TV adaptation
of some of Shakespeare's histories.
If you're into the interconencted storylines
and keeping track of lots of different characters,
try Robert Altman's Short Cuts
or Nashville.
I love Altman.
He's one of my all-time facorite directors.
Absolutely, me too.
If you like scheming, power struggle
and seeing people stabbing each other in the back,
try House of Cards or Empire.
And if you enjoy getting sucked into a world
of endless lore and backstories,
there's always The Lord of the Rings,
or if you have the time,
all of Star Trek.
And please subscribe if you're new here.