Ten more quotes and then we’ll get into the reason why I put this up in the first place.
Petyr is about his paper.
To an extent, this mirrors the contemporary take on game. With enough money you can get what you want. Now, I can tell you when I went from low 5 figures to mid 6 figures – my game options got worse. I leaned on my paper too hard. We’ve talked about how to use money to increase your game before so I won’t rehash that.
Out with the Old and in with the New
In this scene Petyr destroys a snow castle. He’s trying to school Sansa on to stop living in the past and fighting old battles, and to think about doing something new, something better.
What is the meaning of truth?
Now I’m not saying you gotta lie. But unless you’re in the laboratory, truth really is in the eye of the beholder. Petyr lies and lies and lies. But he tells lies that people can believe. There’s a great portion in the book where the King’s council are trying to come up with a rumor about Stannis to counter the ones circulating about Cersei and Jaime. Baelish wants to spread the rumor that the child of Stannis was fathered by the court jester, Patchface. The facts don’t matter in this case.
The Game Doesn’t End
When you’re in the game, no matter what you get, you always want more. I’ve dated perfection, 3 times. LTR’d all 3 of them. Lived with all 3 of them. Now my eye didn’t wander (much), but once you’ve got a princess in your life – your attention turns to something else. That’s human nature, and understanding that helps you in your game. A man shouldn’t castigate himself for wanting something new. He should also recognize that he may be the prince that she was promised, but even chicks get bored with perfection.
What a player does?
The traditional pimp, player, hustler, con man, preacher, businessman, politician – what he does is create a fantasy in the mind of his audience. Little Finger makes sure to be entertaining.
All this game that my boy has, how did he fall off?
The Downfall
George (RR Martin) always manages to write some weakness into his characters. Petyr’s love of Catelyn and not her sister ends up coming back to haunt him. This is attachment to his “one-itis” may be the thing that makes his house of cards fall apart.
Now, I don’t think this is how LF died in the show is how it’s going to play out in the books. For one, the tension between Sansa and Arya was weird, and their master plan involved a deus ex machina in Weirwood Boy Bran.
The real tragedy is how Sansa felt about Little Finger, and that’s where the game lesson is.
So for those that don’t follow the show or have read the books, lemme break it down in player terms.
Little Finger is trying to capture the Iron Throne. How he plans to do so is not clear, but he likes to improvise and plan. He starts a war between Starks and the Lannisters, but then saves the daughter of the only woman he’s ever loved, Sansa.
In the books, Sansa is learning the game at the foot of the master. In the show, we get a little bit of that at the end of one of the seasons, before she’s sent to Ramsay. I’m not clear on the exact timing, but LF does make a move on this teenager and plants a fat one on her lips. From there, she’s going to the North.
What happens on the show is that whatever meager skills that Little Finger dropped on her, she’s not sharp enough to manipulate sociopath Ramsay. (Contrast that with Margaery Tyrell getting schooled on the game by the Queen of Thorns and learning how to play Joffrey)
I don’t want to get into all that unpleasantness of Sansa in Winterfell. By the time that turn of the wheel finished, Little Finger comes to her rescue again. Saving her, her brother, and regaining them their castle.
You’d think she’d be on her knees for Little Finger. He gave her the game, her family, and her home.
A player would never make this mistake. You give a chick everything, and all you’re gonna get is ingratitude. So the showrunners are clearly not players and don’t want Little Finger to remain one.
They did get Sansa’s reaction right. She has nothing but contempt for him.
Within the universe of the show, he basically played the provider, and he got played for it.
Even though this is fiction, Sophie Turner’s disgust for LF carries straight through the show. She finds him vile, the man who saved her life twice.
So one of the things that I took away from this – You can’t attempt to make a chick entirely happy. To do so, she’ll have no more use for you.
Lemme turn the mic to you guys?
What do you think he did to make her loathe him so?
-Archie