Who Knew? Game of Throne's real root

[gorfias]

An interesting POV on Game of Thrones:

"One powerful lord does enjoy a rags-to-riches story, though ? and he?s set on making the Seven Kingdoms into a good old-fashioned American meritocracy. I write, of course, about Petyr Baelish, whom you may know better as Littlefinger."

Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/449528/game-thrones-lord-baelish-champions-meritocracy-free-market

An interesting proposition. I'm still rooting for Tyrion, though, how he can accomplish it when Danny has made him her pet?

 

[gorfias]

I'm not so sure about it. Littlefinger kinda embodies the worst in going up at all costs.

He has done some very ruthless things.

But another retrospective about him:

 

[DrownedAmmet]

An interesting POV on Game of Thrones:

"One powerful lord does enjoy a rags-to-riches story, though ? and he?s set on making the Seven Kingdoms into a good old-fashioned American meritocracy. I write, of course, about Petyr Baelish, whom you may know better as Littlefinger."

Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/449528/game-thrones-lord-baelish-champions-meritocracy-free-market

An interesting proposition. I'm still rooting for Tyrion, though, how he can accomplish it when Danny has made him her pet?

This article reads like it was written by Littlefinger's campaign manager. He's an opportunist, he doesn't give a toss about anybody's social mobility other than his own. It glosses over his faults and says it's all okay because he wants to establish a meritocracy, even though there's no evidence to show that that's what his goals are. I'm gonna spoilerize some of this but

Spoiler

The article claims he is a talented Master of Coin but ignores the fact that he just borrowed the money to keep the King happy. They're gonna have to repay those loans eventually, even if they do overthrow the Iron Throne the Iron Bank is gonna come for them eventually.
The article even gives show-Baelsih a pass for selling Sansa to Ramsay Bolton to get raped! Someone as "talented" and smart as Baelish is knew exactly what he was sending Sansa to.
And I love how the article overlooks that Baelish was a minor lord himself, minor lords getting raised to higher stations isn't that unheard of in the world of Westeros. Reminds me of how Donald Trump would try to relate to the working man by saying he got a "small loan" of a million dollars and worked his way up from there. Baelish used his family name to leech himself to the Tullys, if he was born a peasant there's no way he would have risen that far.

Long story short Baelish is just a conman, and he is usually the only one to benefit from his schemes. He isn't a point of view character so it's crazy to assume that he has this master plan to bring a 'meritocracy' to Westeros

Ironically the most meritocratic society in Westeros is probably Knighthood. It takes a Knight to make a Knight so there's some nepotism going on but there are hundreds of lowly born people that are given Knighthood because they've proved themselves in battle

 

[Thaluikhain]

is just a conman, and he is usually the only one to benefit from his schemes...it's crazy to assume that he has this master plan to bring a 'meritocracy'

That sounds like someone else I could mention, who was rather popular with "red blooded Americans" last election.

 

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

The army of the dead is marching south and that guy is talking about the free market and how wonderfully noble Littlefinger actually is. What a fuckin' tool. LITTLEFINGER IS A POWER HUNGRY SOCIOPATH!

 

[Avnger]

An interesting POV on Game of Thrones:

"One powerful lord does enjoy a rags-to-riches story, though ? and he?s set on making the Seven Kingdoms into a good old-fashioned American meritocracy. I write, of course, about Petyr Baelish, whom you may know better as Littlefinger."

Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/449528/game-thrones-lord-baelish-champions-meritocracy-free-market

An interesting proposition. I'm still rooting for Tyrion, though, how he can accomplish it when Danny has made him her pet?

Take your politics out of my games TV shows and stop pushing your SJW regressive agenda! Can't you non-gamers non-TV watchers just let us enjoy our entertainment in peace? Dirty journos always shoving their ideologies down our throats. I'm just asking for some objective games TV show analysis, like that found on Thunderf00t's channel and Ralph Retort HuffPo and Mother Jones.

 

[DrownedAmmet]

An interesting POV on Game of Thrones:

"One powerful lord does enjoy a rags-to-riches story, though ? and he?s set on making the Seven Kingdoms into a good old-fashioned American meritocracy. I write, of course, about Petyr Baelish, whom you may know better as Littlefinger."

Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/449528/game-thrones-lord-baelish-champions-meritocracy-free-market

An interesting proposition. I'm still rooting for Tyrion, though, how he can accomplish it when Danny has made him her pet?

This article reads like it was written by Littlefinger's campaign manager. He's an opportunist, he doesn't give a toss about anybody's social mobility other than his own. It glosses over his faults and says it's all okay because he wants to establish a meritocracy, even though there's no evidence to show that that's what his goals are. I'm gonna spoilerize some of this but

Spoiler

The article claims he is a talented Master of Coin but ignores the fact that he just borrowed the money to keep the King happy. They're gonna have to repay those loans eventually, even if they do overthrow the Iron Throne the Iron Bank is gonna come for them eventually.
The article even gives show-Baelsih a pass for selling Sansa to Ramsay Bolton to get raped! Someone as "talented" and smart as Baelish is knew exactly what he was sending Sansa to.
And I love how the article overlooks that Baelish was a minor lord himself, minor lords getting raised to higher stations isn't that unheard of in the world of Westeros. Reminds me of how Donald Trump would try to relate to the working man by saying he got a "small loan" of a million dollars and worked his way up from there. Baelish used his family name to leech himself to the Tullys, if he was born a peasant there's no way he would have risen that far.

Long story short Baelish is just a conman, and he is usually the only one to benefit from his schemes. He isn't a point of view character so it's crazy to assume that he has this master plan to bring a 'meritocracy' to Westeros

Ironically the most meritocratic society in Westeros is probably Knighthood. It takes a Knight to make a Knight so there's some nepotism going on but there are hundreds of lowly born people that are given Knighthood because they've proved themselves in battle

To be fair, he had to deal with the king's bread and circus shtick, I'm pretty sure Tyrion mentions that without him the kingdom would have been bankrupt far earlier. The Bolton thing is the show screwing the character because of their shit writing. And a minor lord is extremely likely to stay a minor lord as they are viewed only slightly better than peasants by their peers with his origins not even being that good economically to give him a boost, maybe if he was in the Lannister side.

He is self serving but making him a Trump or conman is taking it a bit too far in the other direction as he is shown to be very good in manipulation and management.

Yeah he had to deal with the king's demands, but his solution was to not deal with them at all. He makes himself out to be this "financial wizard" when all he did was borrow it with blatant disregard to how to eventually pay it back which comes to bite the Iron Throne in the ass eventually.
The fact remains he still came from a fairly privileged background, I wouldn't say owning their own island is "slightly better than a peasant." Westeros society is at least partly meritocratic in the way people are rewarded land and titles for accomplishments.
The Trump comparison was more a response to the article than the character himself, but I don't get how you can argue that he isn't a conman when he literally cons a few people in the books like:

Spoiler

He straight up cons Dontos Hollard by giving him a crossbow bolt to the dick instead of payment for a job well done (again not very meritocratic of him) and he cons Lysa into marrying him only to murder her.

 

[DrownedAmmet]

An interesting POV on Game of Thrones:

"One powerful lord does enjoy a rags-to-riches story, though ? and he?s set on making the Seven Kingdoms into a good old-fashioned American meritocracy. I write, of course, about Petyr Baelish, whom you may know better as Littlefinger."

Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/449528/game-thrones-lord-baelish-champions-meritocracy-free-market

An interesting proposition. I'm still rooting for Tyrion, though, how he can accomplish it when Danny has made him her pet?

This article reads like it was written by Littlefinger's campaign manager. He's an opportunist, he doesn't give a toss about anybody's social mobility other than his own. It glosses over his faults and says it's all okay because he wants to establish a meritocracy, even though there's no evidence to show that that's what his goals are. I'm gonna spoilerize some of this but

Spoiler

The article claims he is a talented Master of Coin but ignores the fact that he just borrowed the money to keep the King happy. They're gonna have to repay those loans eventually, even if they do overthrow the Iron Throne the Iron Bank is gonna come for them eventually.
The article even gives show-Baelsih a pass for selling Sansa to Ramsay Bolton to get raped! Someone as "talented" and smart as Baelish is knew exactly what he was sending Sansa to.
And I love how the article overlooks that Baelish was a minor lord himself, minor lords getting raised to higher stations isn't that unheard of in the world of Westeros. Reminds me of how Donald Trump would try to relate to the working man by saying he got a "small loan" of a million dollars and worked his way up from there. Baelish used his family name to leech himself to the Tullys, if he was born a peasant there's no way he would have risen that far.

Long story short Baelish is just a conman, and he is usually the only one to benefit from his schemes. He isn't a point of view character so it's crazy to assume that he has this master plan to bring a 'meritocracy' to Westeros

Ironically the most meritocratic society in Westeros is probably Knighthood. It takes a Knight to make a Knight so there's some nepotism going on but there are hundreds of lowly born people that are given Knighthood because they've proved themselves in battle

To be fair, he had to deal with the king's bread and circus shtick, I'm pretty sure Tyrion mentions that without him the kingdom would have been bankrupt far earlier. The Bolton thing is the show screwing the character because of their shit writing. And a minor lord is extremely likely to stay a minor lord as they are viewed only slightly better than peasants by their peers with his origins not even being that good economically to give him a boost, maybe if he was in the Lannister side.

He is self serving but making him a Trump or conman is taking it a bit too far in the other direction as he is shown to be very good in manipulation and management.

Yeah he had to deal with the king's demands, but his solution was to not deal with them at all. He makes himself out to be this "financial wizard" when all he did was borrow it with blatant disregard to how to eventually pay it back which comes to bite the Iron Throne in the ass eventually.
The fact remains he still came from a fairly privileged background, I wouldn't say owning their own island is "slightly better than a peasant." Westeros society is at least partly meritocratic in the way people are rewarded land and titles for accomplishments.
The Trump comparison was more a response to the article than the character himself, but I don't get how you can argue that he isn't a conman when he literally cons a few people in the books like:

Spoiler

He straight up cons Dontos Hollard by giving him a crossbow bolt to the dick instead of payment for a job well done (again not very meritocratic of him) and he cons Lysa into marrying him only to murder her.

I don't remember having mention of him just loaning all the money, the iron bank would have stopped it after some years and in general countries taking loans does not mean they are failing. The only time the iron bank shows up is when Cersei decides to stop paying them (like an idiot) and that's after a very expensive war. And he couldn't really face the king and tell him to stop making grand festivals, not if he wanted to keep his job.
Aristocracy has hierarchies and it's clear from the book Baelish was treated badly if not on the bottom (if I recall he was beaten up for speaking with Catelyn).
I don't really care about the meritocracy (nothing really is like that, it heavily depends on the ruling lord), it's possible but so extremely unlikely that it's not an actual plan.
I think master manipulator and pragmatic is more appropriate, conman is usually for small scale. You might as call call Dany a murderer rather than a conqueror.

I was going off of memory, but this quote is from the Wiki:

"When Baelish leaves for the Eyrie with a marriage proposal for Lysa Arryn, Tywin Lannister, now Hand of the King, appoints his son Tyrion as the new Master of Coin. Tyrion discovers that his predecessor's financial wizardry actually amounted to borrowing large sums of money from the Iron Bank of Braavos, leaving the Iron Throne heavily in debt."

Baelish doesn't tell anyone where he's getting the money from, he's content to let people believe he's some crazy talented investor or something. Tyrion actually has to make a decision about how to raise money and comes up with the whore tax (I think it's his idea.) An unpopular choice but one that tries to fix what Baelish did

 

[DaCosta]

Then I stand corrected, though it's a bit of bad writing. Continuously taking loans could have only worked if he managed to either run away before it was discovered (which was a matter of time) or got to a position of power to be untouchable. Both are unlikely and only work because a boar got lucky. And if he was caught he would have suffered in ways other characters in the series would feel going too far.

Though now Baelish becomes a master bullshiter rather than a financial wizard.

He didn't win because a boar got lucky.

Robert died because his preferred way to kill a boar was to wait for it to charge and dodge at the last second, something widely known to others, and Cersei instructed Lancel Lannister, his squire, to give him a much stronger wine than usual and to always keep his cup full. Cersei planned the accident that killed her husband. If not that boar, he would have likely kept drinking and the next one would have done him in.

Cersei did this because the honorable Ned Stark warned her he would tell Robert of the real parentage of his children. Something Ned told Littlefinger he was going to do. Alongside telling the rest of the kingdom, including Renly and Stannis, about it too.

Ned knew about the incest because Littlefinger guided him through his investigation of Jon Arryn's death, including introducing Ned to a whore and one of Robert's many bastards.

Ned became Hand of the King and went to King's Landing due mostly to Lysa Arryn's letter, in which she blamed the Lannisters for Jon Arryn's death, and he feared for Robert as well. Littlefinger got her to write that letter.

Robert asked Ned to be Hand of the King because Jon Arryn died. Jon Arryn was murdered by Lysa under Littlefinger's request.

Let us not forget about Catelyn Stark taking Tyrion Lannister prisoner, on account of Littlefinger telling her that the dagger used by the assassin that tried to kill Bran was one he lost to Tyrion in a bet. This is not true, he lost that dagger to Robert instead.

The Lannisters and Starks were always going to go to war with each other. The War of the Five Kings was always going to happen. Littlefinger made sure of that.

 

[bastardofmelbourne]

Yeah, this is just the fanbase polishing a turd and calling it an anti-hero.

This happens in literally every piece of media that has a villain who isn't immediately repulsive on a physical level. There's always a group of people who think Draco Malfoy or Sephiroth or Patrick Bateman or Macbeth or the Joker are secretly just well-intentioned but troubled bad boys who are the real heroes for steadfastly being an evil jerk in the face of adversity. It's all bullshit; these guys are villains because they are villainous. There's sympathetic villains, honourable villains, admirable villains or pitiable villains, but they're all ultimately bad people because they do bad things to people who don't deserve it. There's a goddamn trope page [http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DracoInLeatherPants] for it.

Littlefinger is an amoral, self-interested schemer who hated Ned Stark because Ned married his unrequited love. And because of that he plots the death of Ned, the destruction of most of the Stark family, the death of the woman he claimed to love, and then he tries to "make up" for it by being creepily nice to her daughter...right up until he sells her to an almost comically sadistic rapist.

You could maybe make an argument for Book!Littlefinger, but in the books Littlefinger never sells Sansa to Ramsay Bolton, he never feeds Joffry disposable prostitutes for use as target practice, and he never gives a little speech to Varys about how he's totally fine with sending everything to shit if it means he can benefit from the chaos. Still caused a devastating civil war over a childhood crush, though.

 

[DaCosta]

It's the cases where the chain of events needed is so convoluted that Littlefinger just got lucky that things turned up is way, it's definitely not a foolproof plan and could have easiely turned out in a different way.

Most of the events he had a direct hand in shaping. The others are just a man known for being honorable acting honorably, and a murderous woman who even tried to arrange her husband's death before to try and do it again.

Even if one thing ot two changed, like Robert surviving, there would have been a war regardless.

 

[Erttheking]

No. It's like the show said. Littlefinger would let the world burn if he could be king of the ashes. He's a selfish, opportunistic, manipulative sociopath.