SPOILERS

[Ed – This will be a long, pic heavy post.  Best to be read on lap or desk top]

Let’s pour out some Dornish Red for a fallen pimp.

Petyr Baelish (Puh-tire in the audiobooks, Peter to everyone else) was a young square (not a squire yet) out of the Finger Islands.  He was short and slight and from the smallest island, so Pimpin P became Little Finger.  Not a name he was actually feeling.

As a scrub he had a thing for Catelyn Stark, who was older than him and not interested.  She friend zoned him. Her little sis (the ugly one – not pictured for a reason) was feeling him.  Cat, gets promised to one of them Stark Boys.  LF was not having it.  Challenged Brandon Stark to a fair one, and got beat so bad that Cat had to beg  Brandon not to kill him.

But he learned.

The start of a player.

I most definitely identify with P. Beezy here.  I think if you’re on the periphery of folks, you realize you can’t “out tall” some of these dudes, you can’t “out muscle” them, you can “out bank” them.  What you can do is, is out think them.

And that’s one of the keys to the game.   Petey B was always one step ahead of men that were “better” than him.  He rose from a low place to almost winning the game by understanding people.

And this is the key insight of game.  At the abstract and at the on set, when you’re talking to a nice young lady – you have an idea of what she wants.  Not just what she says she wants, but what truly gets her to react.  This is not just her true self, but her hidden self.  A lot has been said on what women truly desire, most instructively by women themselves. My Secret Garden WAS a classic read by player’s in the 90’s, that for reasons many a player 20 years later has dropped. The inadequate modern equivalent is the 50 Shades of Grey series.  But understanding romance novels and reading those types of reviews used to be something players would kill some time with.  Cosmo as well.  Even if the “surface” stuff isn’t true – what these things do is focus a woman’s attention.  Too many folks even on my side of the game think that they can force a woman to think a certain way.  That’s not how it works.  What media does is get them to think about certain things.  While everyone is yelling about this political gaffe or some environmental horror – no one is watching as their pocket books get fleeced.

So let’s get into some lessons of Little Finger and how he rose, before he fell.

Look to the future.

One of the most valuable things you can learn on the journey.  Men that never were reminisce on what they might have been.

Lemme switch gears a second and talk about my favorite movie of all time.  No Country for Old Men.  This is one of the 2 scenes that make it my favorite of all time.

“ All the time you spend tryin to get back what’s been took from you there’s more goin out the door. After a while you just try and get a tourniquet on it”

Flight not Might

Petyr is counseling Sansa to be agile, like he is.  In terms of game, your secondary competition are other guys. (Your primary competition is your mind)…  So the best part of besting the Whales in VIP and the Bulls on the dance floor is outmaneuvering them.  Be it by physically blocking them out, by getting a lock in from the girl, or piquing her interest and then taking her out for a smoke.

Stop Playing a Victim and Take Action

In terms of life advice, this is always solid.  At this point in the story, Sansa has been on a downswing. LF is not just trying to raise her spirits, he’s trying to get her to channel that pain into action.  He’s actually giving her GAME, whether or not she (or GRRM) recognizes it.

Never Suffer Fools

Be they at the club, or your “wing man”, this is solid game advice.  When I was learning the game, I stayed away from anything mind altering.  Furthermore, a drunken kiss on the dance floor is one thing, but anything more I want a sober person to share that with.  Have the chick high on lust and desire, not MDMA.  I’m not trying to moralize you guys, but as a black man that has dipped in and out of the vanilla – don’t expose yourself to risk that is unnecessary.

Play Your Game

A little bit of an echo of above, but I know some of my biggest supporters aren’t really with all the mental stuff that I focus on.  If you’ve got money, if you’ve got height, if you’ve got muscles – you can play to those strengths.  The money guy uses his cash judiciously.  He doesn’t do VIP, he rents a place closer the action.  The tall guy might show up at NBA all star weekend (where he might get mistaken for someone, lol), but he doesn’t spend a lot of time at the Hip Hop nights (where he’s another tall dude amongst other tall dudes).

The man with muscles goes to a whisky/wine tasting showing off the guns through a dress shirt.  As Arnold said, when you drive a Ferrari you don’t need to speed, because everyone knows your fast.

If it Ain’t Broke…

Petyr has always been bullish on men’s boorish tendencies.  Men have certain desires, and he supplies them.  It’s rarely for the price that others bargain. This particular aphorism is that you can trust in men’s lust.

It Ain’t Where You From, It’s Where Ya At

Genetics isn’t destiny.  Of course this is self serving for a social climber – but there is an absolute truth of it.

Smarten Up Nas

In this scene Sansa is trying to play the straight ahead game, the Stark game. She wants to be virtuous and true – but everyone around her is lying.  They’re leading her by her lack of game.

Reputation Matters

Petyr is being cheeky with this one, but his rep for being slimy is something he actively cultivates.

^And this is a perfect example of it.  Earlier in the series Petey tries to get Ned to take the reins of power to start his reign.  Instead, Ned takes the high road and pays for it eventually with his life.

Staying Unpredictable by being Predictable

This is one of the keys to indirect.  If you go with the full court press from the second you meet a girl – the girl knows what you want and she can move accordingly.  Now when you fit her profile, it’s all groovy.  But it’s up to her.

Indirect game is getting into the conversation, and having the girl not entirely sure of when the standard approach behavior is going to come.  But as you get into the conversation – she gets involved in the conversation and loses track of “whatever “move” this guy has planned”.

Knowns vs Unknowns

This is sort of where I tend to shine in the game, and where I’m trying to get you guys to shine.  For Petyr, the element of surprise is THE element.  You think you know him, but he gets what he wants from directions you cannot expect.

It Ain’t All Good

Another lesson of tough love, but Sansa is clinging to her blue pill version of life, where the good guys win. Where the people that are supposed to win do.  Such is not the case.

No Half Measures

Got to torture the idea to get some game out of this, but when you deal with guys in your set trying to either blow up your spot, or steal the girl, you can’t always appease – sometimes you have to cut out their legs underneath them.

An easy way to answer an alpha test is to agree, “yes, and”, take it to the next level.  A young player can usually get past a dude trying to throw salt or a chick trying to see if he’s worthy.  But one of the elements that few are prepared to go along with is when you lay bare their intention in front of the girl

You – “yeah, and after I rescued the school bus of babies…”

Hater – ” Yeah whatever dude, blah blah blah”

You – “Hey man, you don’t need to try to so hard, just tell the girl you like her…”

^”Exposing” him – a lot of guys don’t know how to ride with that.

Don’t Count Me Out

Again, LF has to keep his spirits up and his eye on the ball through affirmation. But these aren’t self affirmations, but knowledge he drops on people he comes in to contact with.  Jewels is what the hip hop generation calls them, but the point of the jewel is not only that saying them to yourself increases your own potency, or that spreading it to others helps.  When they react to what you say in a positive manner – that makes you double down on what you’re talking about.

The “second order” effect is often stronger than what you say.   If you tell a chick you’re the man, that’s whatever.  If she learns about it from other people (social proof, reputation, pre-selection), that’s stronger.  But when she witnesses greatness – that supercharges whatever you’re doing.  We’ll talk about second order game later on.

Paranoia as a Tool

To an extent this scene is about LF gaslighting Sansa.  He’s getting her to fear everyone BUT him. In terms of the game, this is when you take the chick away from her friends and have her chilling with your cronies.  When a chick is not with her people, by herself, a lot of guys will press their advantage.  On unfamiliar with ground or in new situations, the girl relies on you.  This is a FALSE trust.  This will actually be part of LF’s fall, because he’s trying to isolate the girl in her own environment.

A girl’s reverse game, how she uncovers guy’s who aren’t actually good dudes, is that she brings you into her world and gets you to fail.

We’ll come back to this as well.  Social Isolation by telling Sansa to trust no one and only trust him backfires. It can be a good strategy – but here is LF not playing the game well.

A few more lessons from LF, and how he fell (on the show.  Book Petyr is alive and kicking it)

-Archie