Episode 110: A CLASH OF KINGS, TYRION VIII: "The Webs We Weave" SHOW NOTES! (Patreon)

Hello and welcome to the Not A Cast … podcast: the one true chapter-by-chapter podcast going through A Song of Ice and Fire one chapter a week. I’m one of your hosts Jeff better known as BryndenBFish. 

And I’m your other host Emmett, better known as PoorQuentyn.          

Welcome to the one hundred and tenth episode of the Not A Cast, titled: “The Webs We Weave: An Analysis of ACOK, Tyrion VIII,” in which the Lannister small council absorbs the news of Renly’s death and starts finding ways they can benefit. Traitors, all of ‘em, just like Renly.

This episode is brought to you by our Small Council: 

• Hand of the King WolfmanZack 
• Grand Maester Timbob
• Lord Commander of the Kingsguard Mark N. 
• Lord Travis, Master of Ships and Warden of the Waves
• Ser Keith J, Master of Whisperers
• Lord Philip the Merciful, Master of Laws
• Archmaester June, Healer of the Lesser Poxes
• Ragged Michael, Warden of the North
• Nelson the Hammer, Prince of Dragonstone
• Scarlett the Other Red Woman and Mistress of Whisperers
• Lord Micah: Warden of the West and the Kraken’s Bane
• Lord James: the Jim that was Promised
• The High Bearded Priest
• Lord Jake, Assistant (to the) Hand of the King
• Lady Xena Valyrian
• Hedrigal, Captain of the Air Ship Arrogance
• His Grace’s High Inquisitor Frank
• Ser Jasper the Cruel, the King’s Justice
• Laurence, Prince of Dorne
• Kelly, Warden of the East and Mistress of (Old) Bay of Crabs
• Steven the Steadfast, Master of Hounds
• The Blue Winter Rose Knight of Highgarden
• Lady Stephanie
• Lord Anonymous
• Lord Carlos
• Lord Andrew the Restless, a Priest of the Drowned God
• The King's Cook, Nolly (No-lee) Olly (Oh-lee), Master of Cannoli
• Ser Sourcedelica 
• Prince Matthew of House Targaryen - Proud Soy Boy of Summerhall, Defender of the 5th Book and Swing Dancer with Dragons
• Ser K.W. Dent, Elsie of the Blackwood Guard, and Batman of the Seven Kingdoms
• Lord Penchant for Nostalgia
• Queer Alex, Rainbow Commander of the They-des and Gentle-thems (ladies and gentlemen)
• Lord Clint, Esq., Master of Absolutely, Positively NOT Serving As A Spy for Several Unnamed High Lords and Ladies In Order to Further the Secret Blackfyre-Style Conspiracy to Overthrow The Oppressive Small Council
• Haldivar, The Waiter for TWOW
• A-a-ron Damphair Prophet of the Forsaken and High Priest of Euron Crows Eye
• Lieutenant Glenn Lord of H town
• Vanerys of the House Colgaryen, the First of Her Name, Princess of Dragonstone, Mistress of Art, The Overworked, Queen of the Pencils, the Eraser and the First Draft, Queen of Monochrome, Devotee of the Great GOT, Portraitist of the Realm, Lady Realist of the Seven Kingdoms, Blender of Paints and Maker of Drawings
• Seanwell the Slayer
• Lord Adam T
• Lady Alexandra of Tarth
• Ser Kristoph Logas, Bloody Scorpion of the Red Field, Defender of the Letter of Kin, and the Wolverine of house Qorgyle
• Lady Elizabeth, Mistress of Horse (Faced Lesbians)
• Ser Josh Snow Bastard Bounty Hunter of the North
• Ser Veyor, Chief of Parties in the Frozen Wastes
• Lord Peter
• Lady Ashley
• Lady Raj, Mistress of Horse
• And our newest members of the small council: 
  • The Dead Sheppard Reborn, Preacher of the Poor Fellows
  • Marshall Harrison—Absent, shipwrecked in the Jade Sea

Spoiler warning: All published books, 5 novels, 3 Dunk and Egg novellas, histories, interviews, TWOW sample chapters, as well as Game of Thrones the TV show. Anything and everything!

Question

Kaboth the Unfrozen, Lord of the Bricks and Castle Crimson Light, our not brand new but recently declared high lord asks a really great question that we’re going to split into two parts. One for this week and one for next week:

I came to Jeff’s writing more from the meta perspective. The simple idea that you can’t hold GRRM to a publishing deadline because his payments from HBO greatly exceed what his payout from books would be was fascinating and honestly refreshing, just not something that I had thought of before. I am somewhat fascinated by the division of Feast and Dance and it’s in ability to follow the normal story arc, exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, and finally resolution. I understand that in a multi book series you won’t have an overall climax, falling action and resolution but in each previous book, you have had those elements. But getting back to the multi-part question, here we go:

I now regard Feast and Dance as my favorite books but only after I read the combined reading list, what are both of your opinions on the reading list?

I believe that the dislike of Feast and Dance basically comes from the inability to reach the peak or climax of the narrative arc of the book and had the Battle for Fire or the Battle of Ice been included, it would have changed the fan perspective on the two books. Could this have changed the perspective on the books?

So, thank you Kaboth for the question. If you’d like to ask us questions we’ll answer here on the NotACast pod-cast, you are welcome to become a Sworn Sword of higher patron over at patreon.com/NotACastASOIAF where we have monthly bonus ASOIAF and Fevre Dream episodes, show notes, Q&A and access to the NotASlack for our two highest tiers.

It’s been a lot of fun to watch so many of you jumping in since we hit 900 patrons. We’re grateful for each and every one of you! And stay tuned. Next month, we start our multi-part series about The Forsaken!

But enough about patreon. When we last checked in with Tyrion, he had persuaded Lancel to become his spy and crowed about having it all: the girl, the city, the power. Let’s find out what happens to Tyrion in this synopsis of ACOK, Tyrion VIII!

Synopsis

Varys warms his hands over a brazier and reports that sadly, so sadly, Renly is dead. We are all very sad. Anyways, he was murdered. Got his throat slit. Terrible, terrible tragedy for the realm. Anyways, whodunnit?

“Have you ever considered that too many answers are the same as no answer at all? My

informers are not always as highly placed as we might like. When a king dies, fancies sprout like mushrooms in the dark. A groom says that Renly was slain by a knight of his own Rainbow Guard. A washerwoman claims Stannis stole through the heart of his brother’s army with his magic sword. Several men-at-arms believe a woman did the fell deed, but cannot agree on which woman. A maid that Renly had spurned, claims one. A camp follower brought in to serve his pleasure on the eve of battle, says a second. The third ventures that it might have been the Lady Catelyn Stark.” 

Thank you, Varys. Extremely helpful as always, Cersei doesn’t say. Anyways, you want this small council to grow smaller or would you mind sharing some actual insight instead of your opinion about Fleetwood Mac’s premiere album? Well, Varys would. He totally would, but there are too many rumors. Too many is worse than not enough.

Cersei warns Varys that he’s paid well for truth, not for rumors, and BTW, did you not hear me before when I was threatening to execute you? Here’s me threatening you again, Cersei basically says. Littlefinger puts in that the small council would be great if it was a little smaller, but Varys jokes … Yeah, jokes … that Littlefinger would be next on Tyrion’s list. Varys jokes … Yeah, jokes … that Littlefinger and him might end up on the Wall together. You never know. They’re joking. They’re bros. They’re not.

Anyways, now that the joking is done, Cersei decides to threaten Varys with being sent to the Wall. Wait, so, it’s not a joke now? Bro. Not cool. Littlefinger asks if Renly’s death is a ruse, but no. It’s not a ruse. Renly is very, very dead. We’re all sad. Joffrey is disappointed, Tyrion finally puts in. He had a spike meant for Renly’s head.

“But whoever did the deed, we must assume Stannis was behind it. The gain is clearly his.” He did not like this news; he had counted on the brothers Baratheon decimating each other in bloody battle. 

But Tyrion is GOOD.

Anyways, what’s up with Renly’s army? Well, bad news, friends. Most of Renly’s army bent the knee to Stannis with the noble house of Florent leading the way. Ah, but wait, Varys. You said most. Not everyone? Nope. Not everyone. Randyll Tarly and Mathis Rowan ran away like the Robert E. Lee cosplayers they are. And Ser Cortnay Penrose, who BTW is a villain, is still holding Storm’s End. Also, Renly’s corpse has gone missing. Very unrelated but Loras Tyrell has fled with a fifth of the knights who showed up to Storm’s End. And yes, he may have murdered three guys on his way out of the stormlands. But it’s okay. It’s only Robar Royce, Emmon Cuy and some rando probable-peasant after all. No big deal. 

“Ser Loras is likely making for Bitterbridge,” Varys went on. “His sister is there, Renly’s

queen, as well as a great many soldiers who suddenly find themselves kingless. Which side will they take now? A ticklish question. Many serve the lords who remained at Storm’s End, and those lords now belong to Stannis.”

Tyrion leaned forward. “There is a chance here, it seems to me. Win Loras Tyrell to our cause and Lord Mace Tyrell and his bannermen might join us as well. They may have sworn their swords to Stannis for the moment, yet they cannot love the man, or they would have been his from the start.”

“Is their love for us any greater?” asked Cersei.

“Scarcely,” said Tyrion. “They loved Renly, clearly, but Renly is slain. Perhaps we can give them good and sufficient reasons to prefer Joffrey to Stannis... if we move quickly.” 

And what reasons would those be? Littlefinger immediately blurts out that they should bribe the Tyrells to join their side. But Varys is all like, the nobles are above bribery. They’re not chickens to be bought in the market. No, ser. Littlefinger counters to go look in the market and let the small council know how easy it is to buy a chicken. It’s all very droll. Anyways, it’s not like Littlefinger would go up to Mace Tyrell and give him gold. That’s peasant behavior. No, ser. He will offer castles, honors, lands. It’s no bribe. How dare you even suggest that. It’s a gift.

Tyrion puts in that this might work for the lesser lords. But it ain’t gonna work for the Tyrells. Littlefinger suggests that the key is Loras Tyrell: Mace Tyrell’s favorite son. And how are they going to accomplish that? Easy. They’re going to pull a Renly and marry their asses together (Is that the right wording? I don’t know. I’ve only been married one time. Still am). And who will be the blushing bride and dashing husband? Why Margaery Tyrell and Joffrey of House Baratheon -coughLannistercough-. 

But Cersei objects. Joff is betrothed to Sansa Stark. Big fuckin’ deal, Tyrion says. They’ll just break the marriage contrast. No big. Tyrion is GOOD. Anyways, Tyrion points out that Cersei might tell Joffrey that Margaery is hot and ready to trot. But Cersei’s all like no thirteen year old boy cares about that shit. Exactly right, Cersei. Thirteen year old boys are not about this. Oh except for Tyrion. He got married at thirteen, he tells Cersei. Yeah, but that shit was shameful according to Cersei. Joff is a fine-ass boy, again, according to Cersei. 

Tyrion does that annoying thing where he points out that Joffrey is a monster, reminding the readers that Joff had Boros Blount tear Sansa’s dress off. And while there was a component of anger in the act, sexual sadism was truly behind the act, Tyrion thinks. He and Varys had tried to figure out a time to get Joffrey away from the Hound to go to Chataya’s, and I just want to pause here and say Tyrion, what the fuck, man? Don’t inflict Joffrey on sex workers. But Tyrion is GOOD.

Back in the present, Tyrion tells Cersei that they need to up and get into bed with the Tyrells or Joff ain’t going to live long enough to make his wedding. The Tyrells bring fifty thousand swords to their side. Varys creep-creeps on over and puts a powdered hand on Cersei’s sleeve, telling her that Joffrey needs to put the needs of the realm before his own desires. Cersei, right for once, tells Varys to get his fucking hands off her and stop patronizing her. They don’t know the shit women go through when they’re told to “put the needs of the realm first”. Besides, Joffrey won’t settle for Renly’s widow. He won’t consent.

Tyrion shrugged. “When the king comes of age in three years, he may give or withhold his consent as he pleases. Until then, you are his regent and I am his Hand, and he will marry whomever we tell him to marry. Leavings or no.”

Cersei’s quiver was empty. “Make your offer then, but gods save you all if Joff does not like this girl.” 

With that settled, talk turns to who should go to Bitterbridge to make the arrangements. They’re not sending Bronn or Shagga to do it. Cersei immediately suggests Jacelyn Bywater, but Tyrion says no. Jacelyn won’t make a good envoy. Okay, well how about Tyrion then. Hm. Yeah. About that. No. Cersei should so totally go and arrange the match for her son. They bicker for a bit. But then Creepyfinger steps forward:

“Your Grace, my lord Hand,” said Littlefinger, “the king needs both of you here. Let me go in your stead.”

“You?” What gain does he see in this? Tyrion wondered.

“I am of the king’s council, yet not the king’s blood, so I would make a poor hostage. I knew Ser Loras passing well when he was here at court, and gave him no cause to mislike me. Mace Tyrell bears me no enmity that I know of, and I flatter myself that I am not unskilled in negotiation.” 

Not unskilled in negotiation is a pretty rich way of saying “bought off the gold cloaks to betray Ned Stark.” I digress, for now.

Tyrion realizes that Littlefinger has them in a bind. He wants to keep this enemy quite close to himself, but he really can’t get out of King’s Landing and allow Cersei to ruin everything he’s been up to. Tyrion warns Baelish that there’s fighting between King’s Landing and Bitterbridge. Plus, Stannis will have his own men out to try to bring the Tyrells to his side. So, Littlefinger wants an escort. Tyrion offers one hundred gold cloaks. Five hundred gold cloaks, Littlefinger counters. Three hundred, Tyrion sallies back. Three hundred and forty, the remaining forty comprised of twenty knights and twenty squires. Littlefinger needs to look official. 

Tyrion agrees, and Littlefinger asks that the two Redwyne boys Horror and Slobber be included with him as they’ll need to return these kids to Paxter Redwyne as a gesture of good will. Lol, good will. Yup. Love it. Cersei doesn’t want to release these kids as Paxter is a “traitor.” Again, so rich. But Tyrion says they’ll send Hobber back with Littlefinger and keep hold of Slobber and hope Paxter can puzzle out the meaning.

But then Littlefinger gets back to business. He needs a lot of shit. I’m just going to bullet-point his requirements for his mission:

• Swift horses
• Lots of gold
• A commission in writing signed by every small counselor and Joffrey himself

Tyrion uncomfortably agrees to everything, and Littlefinger says he’ll be gone by the morning. Good. Get the fuck out. Oh wait. One more thing. Littlefinger wants a reward for his leal service to the king. When Cersei asks what he wants, Littlefinger smiles slyly at Tyrion and says he’ll think of something. 

Outside, the sky is foggy, and Tyrion wonders about whether it’ll be a dangerous day to travel. But he orders Varys to draw up the papers and orders Joffrey to get woken up. Dude, the king is still sleeping? It’s daytime as my daughters like to say jumping on me at 6 in the morning on a Saturday.

The small council session breaks up, and Tyrion finds himself somewhat alone with Cersei (Ser Preston Greenfield is there too putting on a cloth of silver cloak on Cersei’s shoulders. Bronn is there too, creeping in the shadows.) Cersei asks how the chain is going, and Tyrion replies that it’s going great. Thank the gods for Ser Cortnay delaying Stannis. But then Cersei puts on a charm offensive:

“Tyrion, I know we do not always agree on policy, but it seems to me that I was wrong about you. You are not so big a fool as I imagined. In truth, I realize now that you have been a great help. For that I thank you. You must forgive me if I have spoken to you harshly in the past.”

“Must I?” He gave her a shrug, a smile. “Sweet sister, you have said nothing that requires forgiveness.”

“Today, you mean?” They both laughed... and Cersei leaned over and planted a quick, soft kiss on his brow.

Too astonished for words, Tyrion could only watch her stride off down the hall, Ser Preston at her side.

Now alone with Bronn, Tyrion is at a loss for words, wondering if that really just happened. Cersei kissed him? Weird, dude. Weird. Bronn asks if it was sweet, and Tyrion says um, no way, dude. I’m not into my sister. Hahahaha. (He totally is). The last time she kissed him was when Tyrion was six or seven years old, and Cersei did it on a dare from Jaime.

“The woman’s finally taken note of your charms.”

“No,” Tyrion said. “No, the woman is hatching something. Best find out what, Bronn. You know I hate surprises.” 

And that is ACOK, Tyrion VIII! I’m not saying I don’t miss our month of Catelyn already. But I am saying that this was a nice, grounded palette cleanser from Renly! What did you think of this chapter, Emmett?

Depth

Tyrion VIII can’t help but feel like a comedown after spending so much time at Storm’s End with the Baratheon bros, but it’s a very appropriate kind of comedown: a focused dialogue scene that filters the earth-shattering revelations of the Catelyn chapters through the wants and needs of the major players in court politics. Tyrion, Cersei, Littlefinger, Varys...this means something different to each of them even as they are on the surface acting as a unit. Renly’s death, a spiritual and metaphysical phenomenon in the moment, has now been absorbed back into the political community as a shadow on a wall like anything else, given meaning by its audience.

It’s fun to look at the way George utilizes chapters where most of the action is set during a small council session. It is a definite comedown from our Storm’s End chapters, and I’d argue it works as an epilogue to those Catelyn chapters. We get a rundown of what’s happened at Storm’s End, we get rumors of who did Renly in and then we get Littlefinger heading for Bitterbridge to bring the Tyrells into alliance. That’s basically our springboard for a lot of the political plot in King’s Landing going forward: the Tyrells + the Lannisters and then the Tyrells vs the Lannisters.  

This is the basic narrative structure that GRRM used when he wrote the ADWD Epilogue which functions similarly to this chapter in the narrative with Kevan Lannister taking Tyrion Lannister’s role in hearing about events in the stormlands, rumors flying about what’s actually occurring in the south and then Varys making his move which will then drive a lot of the political action in King’s Landing and the stormlands come TWOW. I love it. I love small council scenes. I love whole chapters dedicated to a small council session. It’s the beating heart of southron political Westeros. 

• The bomb drops
  • The opening shot of Tyrion VIII is a closeup of Varys’ hands as he warms them over the fire while informing the rest of the Small Council of Renly’s death
  • It makes me think of someone washing their hands; specifically, in the wake of Renly’s death, it makes me think of someone washing their hands of blood
  • Fire consumes; as Dany thinks, fire makes her clean. Can Stannis use R’hllor’s fire to wash his hands clean of Renly’s blood? What about Varys--will Dany’s fire wash him clean of the blood on his hands, as it strips the flesh from his bones?
  • There’s an additional continuity piece that GRRM keeps sprinkling into the narrative: that winter is coming.
  • The white raven has arrived from the Citadel announcing the end of summer in the ACOK Prologue
  • And now a chill is starting to set in.
  • The literal warm summer of the south that Robert boasted to Ned about in Ned’s first chapter is fading away
  • The metaphorical warm summer of peace and plenty that was Robert Baratheon’s reign is also fading, replaced by the cold of war, starvation and death.
  • For the moment, however, Varys’ crimes are on the back burner (so to speak). We’ll have a lot more to say about the Spider’s fears and desires in Tyrion X
  • The focus in this scene is on Renly’s death, and how it carries different implications and ripple effects for everyone in this room
  • Before we can explore those ripple effects, however, the councillors have to confront the reality of the death itself, surrounded as it is by a fog of confusion
  • Here we see something I was talking about a couple weeks ago: Renly’s death allows George to comment on modern political assassinations, with which the reader will presumably be more familiar than medieval-era assassinations
  • “When a king dies, fancies sprout like mushrooms in the dark.” American readers will be all too familiar with this phenomenon--just look at the fancies sprouting around the death of JFK, our very own young king with his own Camelot
  • Renly was killed by one of his guards, or by Catelyn, or by a woman he’d spurned. JFK was killed by the mob, or by Castro, or by the CIA…
  • We feel the need to understand and thus wield some measure of control over the major political/cultural events of our lives. We feel the need to be detectives
  • This is in part why the noir genre has aged so well. It might not be the Prohibition era any more, we might not be gumshoes running around interrogating dames, but everyone understands the deep frustration of trying to solve the unsolvable
  • As readers, as audience members, we are detectives of a sort, trying to piece together the narrative fragments we glimpse into a single coherent whole
  • The sad reality is that in life, unlike in art, you are never, ever going to arrive at that coherent whole. Power will always, always stay a shadow on a wall
  • This tragic sense of entropy, this impotent paranoia that can only observe abuses of power but never change nor even fully comprehend them, is the core of great modern detective stories from Chinatown through Inherent Vice and beyond
  • Like the detectives in those stories, Varys is able to gather significant intimate information about Renly’s death: he knows that Renly’s throat was slit and that his gorget didn’t save him. So someone who was on the scene works for Varys
  • It’s a chilling reminder that in any given scene in ASOIAF, someone in the room probably works for Varys. The Spider weaves his webs everywhere.
  • Varys’ webs are extensive, as you pointed out, but they’re not everywhere, and they sometimes get constrained by geography.
  • Varys seemingly had informers in Stannis’ camp, but they all went silent when Stannis absconded to Dragonstone with the royal fleet.
  • So, Varys had no idea what Stannis was doing or planning until he landed in the stormlands.
  • And we should never forget that Varys’ biggest intelligence miss was finding out about Ned Stark’s execution on the steps of Baelor’s Sept (thanks to Littlefinger).
  • Moreover, Varys doesn’t seem to have any eyes inside the Tyrell camp as he is unable to provide any real information on what the Tyrells are doing now.
    • Extremely minor theory: There didn’t seem to be much of a Tyrell/Reach presence in King’s Landing prior to the War of the Five Kings erupting. So, any of the spies that Varys recruits that turn over information in this chapter were recruited from Renly’s faction in King’s Landing.
  • Overall, what I like about these theories of who killed Renly is how you start to see the historical foundation for why there will be three explanations for an event.
  • When the history book is written by the next Maester Yandel or Maester Gyldayn, I wonder if they won’t include theories about jealous lovers, Catelyn Stark doing the deed or Stannis being behind
  • Regardless of how history remembers the deed, there’s also the distinct possibility that maybe Varys does have all this information at hand. Maybe he does have informers everywhere. 
  • And if he does, that’s oh so much more insidious.
  • And because no one else (not even Littlefinger) can match that spy network, they are all reliant on the information he chooses to give them, meaning that Varys can not only control his own conspiracy, but influence everyone else’s
  • All Cersei can do is complain that he doesn’t know more. All Littlefinger can do is wonder if it’s a ruse, and take Varys’ word that it isn’t. Even Tyrion knows that he only knows what Varys wants him to know. Knowledge is power--it’s Varys’ armor
  • But Varys is also like those detectives in modern cynical noir stories in that all the information he gathers doesn’t actually illuminate what happened or help decide what to do now. Evidence is supposed to be the lifeblood of both detective work and careful reading, but in this scene, GRRM is showing us the limits of evidence
  • What happened to Renly is beyond the tools Varys is bringing to bear, not only because the shadowbaby is a thing of occult irrational magic, but also because it vanished, and the only witnesses to it had to immediately run for their lives
  • Varys insists that he’s limited by the social status of his spies. As we see in his report, Varys’ spies tend to be grooms, washerwomen, men-at-arms. If he has lords and knights in his pocket, he’s not telling anybody about it, not yet anyway
  • Yet it doesn’t really make sense that this should limit Varys’ ability to gather information. Flunkies and peons make better spies, as Dontos tells Sansa:
    • “I hear all sorts of things as a fool that I never heard when I was a knight. They talk as though I am not there, and the Spider pays in gold for any little trifle. I think Moon Boy has been his for years."
  • After all, how did Varys find out about Renly’s slit throat and broken gorget? Because when Loras made off with the body, he presumably ordered some squires or grooms or men-at-arms to help him, and one of them worked for Varys
  • Varys’ limitation is not the status of his spies. It’s the nature of the murder act itself, which was designed to throw off detection by leaving no evidence behind
  • And that is something Varys really doesn’t want to admit, because that calls into question the very nature of his profession, not just his specific spy network
  • Renly’s death makes all the schemers suddenly look powerless, and so Varys basically has to come up with a reason everyone should still be listening to him
  • Varys is right that too many answers are the same as none...but as Cersei points out, if that’s the case, why trust Varys at all? What is he bringing to the table?
  • Pycelle and Janos Slynt didn’t bring enough to the table to justify their presence; Varys and Littlefinger joke with each other about how they have to do better
  • They don’t seem particularly worried, though. Why not? Because they’ve come to the conclusion that neither Cersei nor Tyrion has the capacity to replace them
  • They’re secure in their jobs, they have their larger plans cooking in the background, and they’re confident the Lannisters can’t/won’t stop them
  • And never forget that Tyrion had the mandate from Tywin to execute any member of the small council that he thought were acting against Lannister interests.
  • Perhaps Varys knew about Tywin’s directive to Tyrion and cozied up to the Acting Hand in order to prevent his execution
  • Maybe Littlefinger saw the writing on the wall and scaled himself back to being everyone’s friend
  • But the strongest possibility of all is that Varys and Littlefinger know there’s a greater danger to their conspiracies than the Lannisters just over the horizon.
  • Renly’s death is a source of concern for them not because it will lead to an immediate loss of power, but because it might produce a loss of power down the line if Stannis becomes King, because he despises both Varys and Littlefinger, and will probably get rid of them happily even if it makes his job harder
  • That’s the ultimate takeaway from the news of Renly’s death. Cersei is a very reactive politician, and she often allows her pride and anger to blind her to the true import of a given piece of information. As such, she’s focusing here on who slit Renly’s throat, and how useless Varys is if he can’t tell her that specifically
  • But while Tyrion certainly has his own humongous blind spots, he’s (somewhat) better at seeing the big picture and looking beyond his pride 
  • He silently absorbs Varys’ news, Littlefinger’s jests, and Cersei’s blind rage before cutting through it all to deliver the message that matters: “whoever did the deed, we must assume Stannis was behind it. The gain is clearly his.”
  • This is the question we must always ask in politics: qui bono? “Who struck the blow” is a distraction to keep everyone from asking the important question: why? Why was Renly killed? Who benefited? Who has the power to cover it up?
  • The answer, as Tyrion recognizes, is Stannis. The gain is his, and as we’ll see when we return to Storm’s End in Davos II, he has the power to cover it up
  • By the same token, the question we should ask about the assassination of JFK or any other political figure is not who fired the bullet, but why. Qui bono?
  • Tyrion understands that the important takeaway here is that Stannis and Renly never had the battle he was hoping for. As the Lannisters have slid toward what seems like certain defeat throughout ACOK, the one bright spot has been the Baratheon bros turning on each other instead of the Lannisters
  • Now that’s over. There’s only one Baratheon left, and he’s the one the Lannisters have all feared the most this whole time. Tyrion feels his battle wound from the Green Fork flare up, because he knows he’s going to have to fight again soon…
  • Minor nit, but I love this idea of Tyrion having his own “Jon flexed his burnt sword hand” in the form of his throbbing elbow. Sadly, this only comes up one more time in the narrative. Again, just a nit.
  • Love how Tyrion zeroes in on the qui bono question in this chapter. 
  • Consider that through all the confusion and conflicting stories, Tyrion can cut right through the heart of the matter and see that it was Stannis who was behind Renly’s assassination.
  • Sadly for Tyrion, he’s going to forget qui bono when another king dies and all evidence points to him.
  • In ASOS, he’ll be unable to realize that the Tyrells had the most to benefit with a dead Joffrey.
  • This is a fascinating wrinkle to how GRRM characterizes Tyrion in having him be so spot-on with his observations of events external to himself while having an inability to see it when it becomes quite personal to him.
  • (It won’t be the last time either, but I’ll save my thoughts about Mandon Moore come ACOK, Tyrion XIV)
• The silver lining: Loras’ defectors
  • Tyrion again demonstrates his keen political mind (relative to Cersei, Pycelle, Janos Slynt, etc) by zeroing in on the one piece of Varys’ information that is useful, something they can act upon to save themselves from Stannis
  • “What of Renly’s host?” Absent a legal claim, a political program, or an heir, Renly’s source of power was his army, and now it’s up for grabs
  • As Catelyn predicted right after Renly’s death, most of Renly’s cavalry has gone over “banner and blade” to Stannis, the last Baratheon standing
  • This makes political sense, not only because these lords are now lacking a king, but also because they can now climb a new ladder, advancing their position
  • By crossing the line first, Alester Florent guarantees that his family will be the most prominent in the new coalition (being Stannis’ in-law doesn’t hurt, ofc)
  • These lords weren’t motivated by love of Renly nor hatred of Stannis so much as a desire for power to be gained through Renly. Now Renly’s dead, and Stannis is still alive, offering them a chance to gain power through his rise instead
  • But not all of Renly’s followers followed this logic. Tyrion immediately zeroes in on this opportunity: “Most [went over to Stannis], but not all?”
  • As it turns out, Loras did not bend the knee to Stannis. Unlike in the show, this is not because he blames Stannis for Renly’s death; book!Loras blames Brienne
  • The show also had Littlefinger on hand at Storm’s End to immediately propose that the Tyrells join the Lannister camp; this is not the case in the books
  • So it’s not spelled out exactly why book!Loras was unwilling to bend the knee to Stannis. Without the Lannister deal on the table yet, what was Loras’ plan?
  • In part, of course, Loras wasn’t thinking rationally at all! His lover, his other half, had just been murdered, and Loras himself had killed his comrades in his rage
  • So he fled the scene, riding back to the Reach, riding for home and family, a source of comfort while he figured out what to do next
  • But those emotional considerations don’t apply, or at least not to the same extent, for Randyll Tarly and Mathis Rowan, who follow Loras back to the Reach
  • I think what motivates these guys is a recognition that they will not politically benefit under Stannis--if anything, they will suffer with him as King
  • Stannis hasn’t forgotten which lords besieged him at Storm’s End. At best, they’ll be confirmed in their position and gain nothing more. At worst, they’ll lose it all
  • We might salute Stannis for his refusal to reduce politics to bribery and horse trading, but the flipside of that is how difficult it becomes to grow his coalition
  • The Tyrells and their closest allies slipping through Stannis’ fingers at Storm’s End winds up guaranteeing his defeat at the Battle of Blackwater 
  • Why is that? Loras leaves Storm’s End with only ~5,000 men, ironically the size of Stannis’ initial army. That’s not enough to stop Stannis at King’s Landing
  • The variable here, as Varys notes, is the gigantic infantry force Renly left behind at Bitterbridge. Catelyn thought that decision might be Renly’s doom, but it turns out to be Stannis’! If Renly had brought them, they would now follow Stannis
  • There’s another wrinkle in that large force of infantry left behind, as Varys points out:
    • Many serve the lords who remained at Storm's End, and those lords now belong to Stannis.
  • So, the 50,000 or so soldiers left behind at Bitterbridge contains a contingent of soldiers whose loyalty is to lords who have now sworn to Stannis.
  • What becomes of those who are, and I’ll use a military term OPCON (operational command) to the Tyrells but are ADCON (under administrative command) by Stannis’ lords?
  • Randyll Tarly provides the answer in ACOK, Tyrion X:
    • Lord Tarly has seized Renly's stores and put a great many to the sword; Florents, chiefly.
  • It’s likely that these men were all executed by Lord Fuck-Face after the Tyrells took the marriage deal with the Lannisters as proferred by Littlefinger.
  • Again, the chivalrous image the Tyrells put forward is belied by their actual conduct.
  • But consider that these soldiers had done nothing to earn their fate. They hadn’t marched with Stannis, hadn’t turned cloak for Stannis at Storm’s End.
  • Their only fault was bearing the wrong sigil and being at the wrong place at the wrong time.
  • Weird comparison, but I think of these murdered men in a similar lens as the riverlanders that Tywin and his goons terrorized during the War of the Five Kings.
  • They really didn’t have it coming. Wrong place. Wrong time.
  • Why is it always the innocents who suffer most, when you high lords play your game of thrones?
  • As it stands, however, they are in limbo, pledged to no one...and Tyrion realizes that this presents the Lannisters with one last chance to stay in power
  • Win over Loras, and you win over Mace. Win over Mace, and you win his massive army. Tyrion is basically following in Renly’s political footsteps here
  • The Lannister-Tyrell alliance completely changes the game of thrones; without this alliance, the Lannisters would have lost everything. And it’s Tyrion who makes it possible, for which he gets exactly zero credit from his father in ASOS
  • Cersei once again takes a reactive stance; all she can think to say is that the Tyrells and their cronies don’t like the Lannisters. How can they become allies?
  • As Tyrion says: the Tyrells don’t have to like the Lannisters. They just have to hate them less than they hate Stannis. If the Lannisters can make it so, they win
  • That’s a core concept of politics right there: you don’t have to be someone’s first choice to win, you just have to be the best choice available at the crucial moment
  • Aye, but this always gets back to the core weakness of Lannister ambitions in ASOIAF. They can gain short-term advantage and win today’s battle while losing tomorrow’s war.
  • Part of George’s deft handling of the politics of Westeros shows us over and over again how the Lannisters maximize any advantage possible and squeak out a victory.
  • But the Lannisters aren’t able to turn their short-term victories into long-term successes precisely because they don’t have a winning message of why to stick with them or a set of shared principles to coalesce around.
  • Sure, the Tyrells might hate Stannis more than the Lannisters now. But the ideology of Joffrey, such as it is, means that the Tyrells are always open to a better deal -- Tommen in ASOS, who knows come TWOW and beyond
  • There’s an irony in that the Tyrells present a dark mirror to the Lannisters in seeing Joffrey as the short-term means to a long-term goal: putting the Tyrell bloodline into royalty.
  • Meanwhile, the Starks have the thumb pressed against them and lose even when they win.
  • But because the Starks have their lone wolf dies, the pack survives ideology found in harvest feasts and inter-family relations extending thousands of years in the North, the boys will never stop marching for the Ned’s girl.
• A new marriage pact
  • The mortar that will cement the great western alliance, as Littlefinger calls it in ASOS, is a marriage pact between Joffrey and the widowed Queen Margaery
  • It’s so neat that Tyrion can taste it, and you can see why. It’s as if Renly never happened, never lived, never crowned himself. The Tyrells stuck with the throne
  • It also negates the betrothal to Sansa, which is politically null at this point as everyone points out...but it’s also worth noting that this is Tyrion’s first chapter after Sansa III, in which Tyrion saw how hideously Joffrey is treating Sansa
  • This may be an attempt on Tyrion’s part to direct Joffrey’s wrath away from Sansa, trying to protect an innocent as he did in that earlier chapter
  • But as we said in our episode on Sansa III, Tyrion’s ability to “do justice” is continually hampered by the king, regime, and family to which he is tethered
  • Tyrion has not solved the problem of Joffrey’s sadism. He has simply redirected it towards the Tyrells, in an effort to make it their problem instead of his
  • They, of course, rather permanently solve it...and frame Tyrion in the process, a spectacular rebound of fate that is both unjust and ironically appropriate
  • Margaery, unlike Sansa, has protectors around her, and Joffrey has no shadow assassins to outfox those protectors. They will come for him, and claim his life
  • Tyrion unknowingly seals his hated nephew’s fate, and his own, all while doing his level best to save them from the man whose inheritance he knows they stole
  • This is the essence of not just tragedy in general, but specifically the tragedy of power. We are being shown how even the Lannisters’ best decisions, the decisions that guarantee their short-term survival, still contribute to the long-term destruction promised by the moments and choices that define them deep down
  • It’s all kindling for the fire...but that’s all still to come. For now, this is a genuine political triumph for Tyrion, and like all political triumphs, it is built on marshalling the full extent of one’s resources at the precise pressure point with perfect timing
  • He has what the Tyrells need: a living breathing sperm donor with a crown who is not named Stannis Baratheon. In return, all Tyrion asks is survival. Win-win!
  • In practical terms, of course, what this actually amounts to is inviting the Tyrells to take over the royal court, and it’s fascinating to remember on reread that Tyrion is not envisioning his father as a leading partner in this alliance
  • That’s how it plays out, of course--Littlefinger and the Tyrells link up with Tywin and ride to glory and Stannis’ ruin at the Blackwater. But in these initial planning stages, Tywin has been cut out of the loop entirely. That’s kind of exhilarating!
  • This is in large part because Tyrion has been left to his own devices to conduct diplomacy on the fly with the royal imprimatur, but when taken in context with the Martell alliance, I wonder whether Tyrion isn’t trying to undercut his father on some level, or at least trying to establish his own power base outside his control
  • Agreed! And it’s something Tyrion has been angling for since AGOT 
    • He hired the Mountain Clansmen as his essentially private army and use them as his enforcement mechanism in King’s Landing
    • He has Bronn putting together a less-than-crack team of sellswords and ne’er do wells and is training them to augment his clansmen in the capital
    • And to counter Littlefinger’s flunkie, he has Jacelyn Bywater running the gold cloaks now — though whether Jacelyn is Tyrion’s man or loyal to Varys is a question left unanswered in ACOK
  • Setting up political institutions and alliances outside of Tywin is another angle Tyrion is using.
  • But the problem for Tyrion is that in creating the Tyrell-Lannister marriage alliance and the Dornish-Lannister non-aggression pact, he’s using proxies to accomplish it -- Joffrey and Myrcella in particular.
  • And in the case of the Lannister-Tyrell marriage pact, Tyrion may have the IP for the ideas, but it’s Littlefinger who he’s going to delegate to work out all the details.
  • That means that come the end of ACOK, Tywin can seamlessly hijack Tyrion’s schemes as his own and run them in his own way. 
  • Regardless of his motivations, it basically gives the Tyrells everything they could want with the price of fighting a man they were already predisposed to dislike
  • So what’s the catch? As Tyrion will admit to himself later, the problem is Joffrey. That’s always the problem, and he can’t get around it, try as he might
  • But Joffrey doesn’t directly appear in this chapter; Cersei is the one Tyrion is having trouble with here, and her motivations are worth teasing out
  • She digs in her heels against Joffrey marrying Margaery, despite the transparent fact that the Lannisters need this Tyrell alliance to have a prayer against Stannis
  • Now, Cersei doesn’t like any rivals for power, so that could explain what’s happening here. But she also keeps shifting her explanation of her objection
  • The common thread, I would argue, is the “younger and more beautiful queen” prophecy. Cersei believes she’s neutralized that figure...as long as that figure is Sansa. But now, she sees that it might be Margaery, who is far more powerful and well protected than Sansa has been since her father’s downfall
  • And while Cersei’s paranoia ultimately works against her, she’s not wrong to sense danger from the Tyrells; she’s just wrong about what form it will take
  • What a great irony that Cersei, who believes she’s dedicated her life to protecting her children, doesn’t even realize in this moment that Joffrey is now doomed
  • For Cersei, there’s also something deeply personal in treating Joffrey like the method of payment to bring a great alliance into being.
  • Cersei, herself, was treated that way by Tywin all her life with Lord Tywin first unsuccessfully trying to hitch Cersei and Rhaegar together and then successfully marrying Cersei to Robert.
  • Come ASOS, Tywin is going to try this again with Cersei, considering matching her to Willas Tyrell or Oberyn Martell before she explodes at her father that she’s the queen regent, not a broodmare.
  • And now, evil uncle Tyrion is playing the role of Tywin in using Joffrey like a broodmare to make another alliance happen.
  • My sense is that Cersei considers Joffrey a full or at least partial extension of herself. So, Tyrion’s proposal is particularly galling 
  • It’s happening again. Tywin (writ small) is selling Cersei off again.
  • But Tyrion beats down every one of her arguments, and it’s interesting to note how he does it. On the surface he deflects the question of Joffrey’s desires, or indeed his agency at all: we’re the adults, he’ll marry who we tell him to marry
  • And he’s not wrong, as we’ll see at the end of ACOK, when Joffrey publicly sets Sansa aside and vows to wed Margaery, despite his visible reluctance to do so
  • But because Tyrion is our POV, we have access to his thoughts as well as his words, and his thoughts give us a more complicated and troubling picture
  • In truth, Tyrion is taking note of Joffrey’s frustrated sadistic desires, and he’s been planning on redirecting them even before the Tyrell marriage alliance 
  • Tyrion’s plan is to set Joffrey up with one of the sex workers at Chataya’s, in the hopes that this will sweeten Joffrey and maybe even make him grateful
  • In Season 3 of the show, we see in detail how this would probably play out if Joffrey were a few years older: hideously and lethally for the women involved
  • But even here, it’s clear that Tyrion’s plan is misguided, dangerous, and reflective of the traumas and blind spots that have brought the Lannisters to this point
  • Tyrion’s taking no concern for what Joffrey might do to these women. Who’s going to stop him? Or worse, what if they do try to stop him, and they hurt him? Or kill him? Or he orders them all killed? Lots of variables here! Lots to go wrong!
  • Tyrion cannot see that because of his own personal history with sex and sex workers, and how that is wrapped up with the brutal hierarchy at the heart of Tywin’s vision of House Lannister, a hierarchy enforced in blood and misery
  • For Tyrion, sex with a sex worker is how you banish loneliness, alienation, self-loathing, and anger. A lot of that comes from being a dwarf in a world that hates him for it, but it’s also wrapped up in the one escape he ever had from that world--his marriage to Tysha--and how that escape was violently cut off
  • So it’s the only way he can think of to manage Joffrey. There’s something almost naive about how Tyrion thinks this will be all it takes to cure what ails his nephew
  • It’s the sweet lesson in contrast with Tywin’s promised “sharp lesson,” and I think both miss the point: Joffrey might be too far gone with the crown on his head
  • Once again, Tyrion admits that all his plans rely on Joffrey being a child. But that won’t be the case forever. What happens when he’s an adult, and unstoppable?
  • In the short term, though, all he needs is to get Cersei on board, and he gets some help in convincing her from Varys and Littlefinger. What are their angles?
  • As I said, both of them want to avoid Stannis sitting the Iron Throne. But they also have other, more long-term and personal calculations at work
  • Littlefinger, as we see throughout this scene, is as obsessed with sex as Tyrion, which is also rooted in a lost love (though much less brutally so in his case)
  • He can’t stop himself from talking about how “beddable” Margaery is and how “sweet” Sansa’s body is. Because he was denied Catelyn on the basis of his class, Littlefinger’s political mindset is caught up in his frustrated sex drive
  • The Lannister-Tyrell marriage alliance will leave Sansa without a future husband, making her vulnerable to Littlefinger’s predations, in terms of both body and claim
  • Something interesting about the Stannis-Renly showdown is how little heterosexual procreative marriage-pact sex had to do with any of it
  • Renly’s marriage is a shadow on a wall, and Stannis is notoriously disinterested in sex; his only sons are shadows with his face who vanish after they’ve killed
  • But now, we’re back in the domain of leveraging sexuality for power consolidation: the “big tracts of land” from Monty Python, in other words
  • Tyrion and Littlefinger want to lead Joffrey into the Tyrell alliance dick-first, and Cersei strongly objects to this; it’s a psychologically revealing moment for her
  • Because of how things turned out with both Robert and Jaime, Cersei can only accept male sexuality within the context of a power dynamic that she controls
  • We’re going to see that very strongly with the Kettleblacks after she becomes a POV in AFFC, but it also colors her view of Joffrey here in ACOK
  • Cersei generally blinds herself to Joffrey’s misdeeds, of course. But there’s something specific at work when she denies his sexuality
  • Cersei can’t stand the idea of her perfect golden son having a sex drive, because that makes him like Robert, and her whole goal is that he be nothing like Robert:
    • “I did not fight a war to seat Robert the Second on the Iron Throne. You gave me to understand the boy cared nothing for his father."
      
      "Why would he? Robert ignored him. He would have beat him if I'd allowed it. That brute you made me marry once hit the boy so hard he knocked out two of his baby teeth, over some mischief with a cat. I told him I'd kill him in his sleep if he ever did it again, and he never did, but sometimes he would say things…”
  • As we saw in book one, Renly and the Tyrells were trying to set up Margaery as looking like Lyanna, exactly the kind of girl Robert would be into
  • And now, that very same Lyanna 2.0 is being dangled in front of Joffrey like a carrot! Remember how Cersei said Robert whispered “Lyanna” in her ears on her wedding night? Imagine what a nightmare this alliance seems like to her!
  • But Tyrion and Littlefinger have her on the ropes, and Varys slips in to help, saying that it must be done. Why prop up the Lannister regime this way?
  • It’s again worth emphasizing that Tywin is not involved at this stage of the planning. Perhaps Varys was hoping Tywin would fall in battle or become politically marginalized after the Tyrells showed up to take over the court
  • I think it’s safe to say that well before AFFC/ADWD, Varys was planning to set the Lannisters and Tyrells against one another after Stannis was dealt with
  • Absolutely. I think it’s what Littlefinger wants as well.
  • Littlefinger set the Starks and Lannisters against each other in AGOT for the personal reasons of avenging himself against, um, Ned? 
  • But he’s also used the chaos to rise above his station as Master of Coin.
  • Soon, he’ll be angling for a higher position and great lordship. And he’s only able to climb that high over the pile of corpses that the War of the Five Kings creates.
  • It’s intriguing to consider that at this juncture in the story, Littlefinger and Varys are at cross-purposes.
  • Varys and Littlefinger want to forestall a strong warrior-king from taking the Iron Throne.
  • They both want Joffrey on the Iron Throne so as to have a weak monarch that they can undo with relative ease.
  • They both want the Tyrell-Lannister alliance now to keep Stannis off the throne, and someday down the road, they plan to break-up the alliance.
  • And they’ll leverage the ensuing chaos to boost their own vessels of power into positions of power — Littlefinger using Sansa to become QiTN with, of course, him as King and Varys using his prepared prince in Young Grift to take the Iron Throne.
• Littlefinger’s gambit
  • We’ve established the what (marriage pact), where (Bitterbridge), why (save our skins), and when (now if not sooner), so what’s left is who. Who do we send?
  • Again we see how political opportunities always collapse back on what the political community makes of them, shadows on walls driven by fear and desire
  • For Tyrion and Cersei, the role of emissary to the Tyrells is a thankless task poised to undo everything they’ve built up against the other so far in the book
  • More than in our (comparatively) bureaucratized and technologically advanced time, Tyrion and Cersei’s personal presence is necessary for their power
  • This is because their power comes from them going around and giving direct orders to people, and those orders being obeyed. The trappings of power are what give them power: everyone’s belief that they’re in charge
  • But things work somewhat differently for Littlefinger. He definitely leans on the trappings of power, but in a different way than the Lannisters
  • They want everyone to fear the snarling lion, to stand in awe of its glittering golden mane. Littlefinger benefits from everyone ignoring the mockingbird
  • But the mockingbird plants its eggs in your nest, and you don’t notice until it’s too late. It’s almost the opposite of the shadow Varys is trying to cast
  • Varys wants to look big, omnipresent, the Spider weaving his web around you when you don’t even realize it. Littlefinger benefits from being underrated
  • More than being underrated, Littlefinger benefits from taking on lesser-regarded roles and tasks to achieve power.
  • Robert will scoff at Littlefinger as a mere copper-counter, and even Tyrion will be unable to take advantage of his short tenure as Master of Coin.
  • This is precisely because of their status as noblemen who are above such tasks.
  • Littlefinger’s real genius is sensing an intellectual lack in his “betters” and becoming the subject-matter expert in that task.
  • And now here, he takes on a role of emissary, ostensibly carrying the Lannister offer to Mace Tyrell
  • Tyrion, again a very smart guy, is at a loss as to why Littlefinger would want to take on this role.
  • Part of Tyrion’s political brilliance is that he can play the traditional game of thrones much better than just about anyone, because he’s studied history, politics, warfare, science, etc and observed all of these pursuits in practice.
  • Tyrion’s intellectual passions can all be classified as traditional Westerosi pursuits that a nobleman pursues. He just happens to be better-studied than his forebears and contemporaries.
  • But Tyrion’s blindspot is having the same class-snobbery as those of his noble class: he’s not about to stoop to learning mercantile trade! That’s work done by upjumped peasants, for R’hllor’s sake!
  • And while Cersei will point out that Tyrion is a good talker, he’s not precisely the diplomatic sort — more often than not pissing off whoever he’s talking to.
  • Enter Lord Littlefinger: former customs officer at Gulltown, Master of Coin.
  • He’ll rub two gold dragons together and magically come up with four gold coins. He’ll find a way to pay for Robert’s lavish tourneys and lifestyle (through deferred interest — go back and listen to our episode on Eddard IV!).
  • And here’s the kicker: all of those loan negotiations, all the economic interests that he’s used the exchequer to buy the crown into, that mass system of corruption that he’s created — it means that Littlefinger is the perfect candidate to play emissary.
  • And Littlefinger’s demonstrated his diplomatic ability before when he got into the grubby negotiation weeds of turning Janos Slynt and the gold cloaks against Ned Stark. 
  • Tyrion can’t see that Littlefinger the Diplomat is running the same game he’s run as Master of Coin: being really good at something in order to betray his cause, country and benefactors.
  • His power is achieved through people he never gives public orders to, because he doesn’t have to. They’re his people, and their job is to ignore his corruption
  • Just look at how the mobs ran casinos. Only the foolish ones sent their goons stomping around, causing a scene, attracting local police and press
  • The smart ones realized that all they had to do was send a guy once a month and have everyone in the counting room simply pretend that this guy taking a huge amount of cash out of the safe and then leaving was never there
  • While Littlefinger is rarely subtle in person, credit is due for understanding the importance of a light touch when it comes to systemic corruption
  • You don’t want to go around hustling people all day, you want everyone to know better than to screw you over in the first place. Don’t make me come down there!
  • As such, Littlefinger can leave for weeks or even months at a time and be sure his system is humming along, because it’s built on omissions, on silence
  • That’s his shadow on a wall, and as such, Littlefinger is free of the burdens that prevent Cersei and Tyrion from leaving the city
  • For him, this is a gigantic opportunity on multiple levels, and this is a great example of how Littlefinger gets a ball rolling without knowing precisely where it will lead, simply because he can sense literal and figurative profit on the wind
  • In the short term, this just gets Littlefinger out of the city! Stannis will be coming soon with fire and blood, and whatever happens next, Petyr Baelish wants no part of it; that’s why he holds out for as many guardians as possible
  • But he also holds out for a knightly tail to make him look important to the Tyrells; again, his political POV was forged in the rejection of his hand for Catelyn
  • And he wants a document making clear his power to make arrangements on behalf of the crown. This is a blank slate for...well, anything he wants, really!
  • Coupled with as much gold as he can carry, Littlefinger has guaranteed both his survival if all goes to shit and a dramatic rise in fortunes if all goes well
  • It’s an impressive performance; we’ll talk more about his larger plans later, but this is Littlefinger’s big move in ACOK, and he plays it to the hilt
  • Littlefinger is “not unskilled” at diplomacy, and he can use his legally-binding powers to do whatever he wants to do.
  • Consider that during his tenure as Master of Coin, Littlefinger has run a massive ponzi scheme right under the noses of the most powerful people in Westeros.
  • Now he’s on his own, riding for Bitterbridge, without a hint of oversight.
  • And that’s key for Littlefinger’s scheme here. He’s entirely on his own, without a minder or Lannister toady to counteract him.
  • This is a failure on Tyrion’s part as acting Hand of the King: he knows that he can’t trust Littlefinger, but he sends him off with “do whatever the fuck he wants” papers in hand.
  • Of course, it’s hard to imagine a person Tyrion might send who’d fully comprehend what Littlefinger is up to.
  • But, maybe, just maybe send Jacelyn Bywater to accompany Littlefinger to Bitterbridge.
  • After the riot in Tyrion IX, Jacelyn will tell Tyrion about the word on the street. He’s got his ear to the ground, knowing and sensing the environment he’s around and bluntly telling Tyrion the ground truth — even if Tyrion doesn’t want to hear it.
  • (At the very least, sending Ser Jacelyn might save the poor man’s life!)
  • Or maybe, and I admit this is strange, but why not send Bronn with Littlefinger? Sure, he’s not a political supermind, but I’d wager that Bronn’s low cunning would allow him to see that something is off at Bitterbridge. 
  • Perhaps Jacelyn and Bronn return with Littlefinger and speak of their suspicions to Tyrion, and maybe when he’s framed by the Tyrells and Littlefinger, come ASOS, Tyrion, who, again, is smart, can put all the pieces together.
• Tyrion v. Cersei, yet again
  • This chapter is more concerned with plot than character, but we are seeing George develop the central character dynamic of these Tyrion chapters in ACOK: his dysfunctional relationship with Cersei and how it ultimately dooms them both
  • Even when their interests align, even when they are managing to work as a unit, even when on the surface they are repairing their relationship and moving forward, we get plenty of signs that it won’t last. It’ll fall apart worse than ever
  • Right after they agree on the marriage pact that will save both of their lives, Tyrion and Cersei go right back to trying to one-up each other by getting the other to leave the city. Not even the pretense of trust!
  • And when there is the pretense of trust, as at chapter’s end, it rings wildly false. Cersei apologizes to Tyrion, praises his efforts, even gives him a kiss
  • The only way Tyrion can interpret this gesture is that Cersei must be planning something, must be trying to pull the wool over his eyes with sweetness
  • He’s right, of course! But how tortured and sad it is that the Lannisters cannot even imagine sharing genuine emotions with each other. They cannot care for one another as a family should, because of their personal backstories with each other and also because power has corrupted their family so thoroughly
  • Even as the Lannisters save themselves from the forces of destruction outside them, they are as helpless as ever before the forces of destruction from within
  • It’s a strange parallel, but I re-read ACOK, Davos II when Stannis spends a whole paragraph attempting to figure out what Renly meant by offering him a peach.
  • Like you talked about in part 2 of ACOK, Catelyn III, there’s a lot of meaning behind what Renly was doing there.
  • But ultimately, it was a gesture that will vex Stannis into his grave.
  • That kiss that Cersei gives Tyrion vexes him and leaves him strangely unnerved and stuttering to Bronn about it.
  • There’s a lot going on here! Cersei is definitely plotting something as we’ll find out later in ACOK.
  • It’s also getting under Tyrion’s skin, because he wants Cersei sexually -- it’s not exactly subtext in ACOK, and Tyrion will make it horrifically explicit that he wants Cersei come ADWD.
  • But there’s even more at work here. Tyrion ties it back to his childhood and how the last time Cersei did it was when he was 6 or 7.
  • She did it on a dare from Jaime, and that memory has been burned into Tyrion’s mind.
  • It speaks to how that same feeling that goes into how Tyrion regards sex workers as you were putting so well early on: he can’t imagine anyone truly loving him.
  • For Tyrion, a kiss, one of the most physically intimate things two people can do, is mockery. Tyrion can’t fathom anyone kissing or loving him in earnest.
  • So, when Cersei kisses him here, Tyrion senses. No, he knows, that it’s a lie.
    • Fool, he thought to himself afterward, as they lay in the center of the sagging mattress amidst the rumpled sheets. Will you never learn, dwarf? She's a whore, damn you, it's your coin she loves, not your cock. Remember Tysha?
  • And he’ll be proved right yet again. The kiss was cover for a conspiracy. Another kiss. Another lie. How heartbreaking.

Foreshadowing/Groundwork

Bronn will indeed find out what Cersei has cooking: a conspiracy with the Kettleblacks, who will be first mentioned in Tyrion’s next chapter...when we learn he’s bought their services in turn

As we discussed in our Renly episode last week, we learn in ASOS what happened to Renly’s body: Loras buried it somewhere secret near Storm’s End

George drops in a comparison between wildfire and the candle light in Cersei’s eyes, because she’s going to be taking quite an interest in the substance going forward…

Littlefinger mentions not being frightened of shepherds, only the sheep. This may be a reference to him being the “Lord of Sheepshit” AKA lord of his current holding in the Fingers he’s given the name of “Drearfort” to. His lands boast a small village, a hermit cave and, of course, a large flock of sheep.

Courtnay Penrose’s stubborn defiance will come up again in Catelyn V when Edric Storm gets mentioned before paying off in Davos II

We also get another mention of Tyrion’s great chain, George striking the balance of keeping it in our heads without giving away what it’s for so the Blackwater lands as a surprise

#RiotWatch! Littlefinger mentions how little food is available in the market, once more reminding us that the city is a pressure cooker, right before it blows sky-high with the bread riots in Tyrion IX

Theory/Discussion

Since Tyrion VIII plays host to Littlefinger’s big move in ACOK, we thought this would be a good time to trace (as best we can) how the mockingbird’s master plan evolves between this chapter and his next big move: the Purple Wedding. 

Littlefinger at the start of ACOK: Stayin’ alive

• Helped turn Janos and the gold cloaks against Ned Stark
• Suspected of treachery by Tywin for counseling Joffrey to execute Ned Stark
• Tyrion arrives in KL with a mandate from Tywin to sort out the true and false counselors. 

Littlefinger vs. Tyrion

• Tyrion also shows up to KL knowing that Littlefinger lied to Catelyn about the catspaw dagger
• Littlefinger knows that Tyrion knows, but Tyrion feels like he can’t touch Littlefinger given how valuable he is in keeping Joffrey on the Iron Throne
• This doesn’t prevent Tyrion from enacting his hat-trick plot to find out who’s informing on him to Cersei
• Tyrion offers Littlefinger Harrenhal if he can deliver Lysa Arryn and the Vale to Joffrey
• But it turns out, nope, the Harrenhal offer was false. Got you.
• Littlefinger is wounded that Tyrion manipulated him which is delicious, and I think this is when Littlefinger started plotting something else — which I’ll detail when we get to ACOK, Tyrion XIV
• But now here in this chapter, Littlefinger offers to go to Bitterbridge to negotiate the marriage of Joffrey to Margaery.
• Why?
• You put it well in the depth: about how it gets Littlefinger out of Stannis’ warpath
• He’s also going to be rewarded for his actions and plans to make out however way the battle goes
• But also, as an agent of chaos, a term GRRM used about Littlefinger somewhat recently, Littlefinger can sow seeds of future chaos.
• He can both create the alliance as well as destroy it, and I think this was animating his thoughts as he rode to Bitterbridge

Littlefinger and the Tyrells: What actually goes on at Bitterbridge

• This is one of the most crucial negotiations of power in the story, and we don’t directly see it; we have only Littlefinger’s word to go on, and he’s not exactly reliable
• The Tyrells and their allies (Rowan, Tarly, Oakheart) have forsaken Stannis’ campaign for good at this point. They have a larger army than his, but there’s no way politically to keep that army together if they remain on their own while Stannis takes the Iron Throne 
• Margaery’s widowhood represents the sudden instability of her family’s fortunes. The personal is political; sex and power are so deeply intertwined they’re hard to separate
• They need a new king, and Margaery needs a new husband to produce the next king; these are one and the same concern, and Littlefinger walks into the room knowing that
• It would seem his knightly tail did the trick of getting Littlefinger access to the central rose bush itself: Mace and more so, Olenna, who was born a Redwyne and is probably the main reason Littlefinger wanted to take a Redwyne twin along
• Olenna is a carefully kept secret from the reader until her introduction, so again it’s difficult to establish the dynamic here, but Littlefinger must’ve known who he had to persuade and how: Loras on the romantics, Olenna on the logistics, Mace in between. That’s the Tyrells in a nutshell, and Littlefinger played each in turn...or so he says
• I don’t think he’s lying, exactly. He used both song and steel to get what he wanted while convincing the Tyrells it was all their own idea and he but their humble servant
• He leveraged the romantic image of the Kingsguard in stories, the image he fell in love with as a lad and now feels betrayed by, to ensure Loras joins the Kingsguard
• Why do this? Much as Littlefinger (like the Tyrells themselves, and Varys too) prefers the Lannisters to Stannis in the short term, he does not want their power secured long term
• So while on the surface, ensuring Loras’ introduction to the Kingsguard binds the families together and gives Mace a useful role for his favorite son, what it actually does is put a hot-headed violent young man in permanent close contact with a sadistic young king who is about to be married to the violent young man’s sister. A recipe for disaster
• It’s as if Sansa had been married to Joffrey with Robb serving as the Kingsguard. Not everyone is Aemon the Dragonknight, made to sniff back a perfectly manly tear…
• Littlefinger’s brilliance here is ensuring the Tyrell-Lannister alliance persists in the short term while disintegrating in the long term: a pyramid of dynamite and a lit match
• Yet while Mace and Loras get thoroughly worked over by the mockingbird, Olenna immediately understands Littlefinger’s game. She goes along, but she’s not fooled.
• Olenna is not averse to Littlefinger’s ploy. She knows her family needs a new king. But she realizes there must be a catch somewhere in here, and that it’s probably Joffrey
• So her questions focus not on what the Lannisters and Tyrells have to offer one another, but on the potential seed of their mutual ruin that Littlefinger is carefully planting
• Littlefinger responds by praising Joffrey, sticking the party line, acting like a good Lannister emissary, and publicly reassuring the Tyrells so they can all move forward
• But under the surface, he supplies them with the truth about Joffrey
• Again, why do this? Because he’s probably reached the same conclusion as Bronn
• Joffrey has outlived his usefulness to Littlefinger, and is now a thorn in everyone’s side. In the guise of working out a marriage pact, Littlefinger and the Tyrells have taken out a murder contract on the bridegroom, all without making a word of it explicit. Politics, baby!

Conclusion

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• Join us next week as we sail back to the North for Theon III, in which our “hero” commits a bunch of war crimes and then comes up with a crazy plan to take Winterfell with a handful of his Ironborn bros. Thank the gods this will never work, right? Right?!