The Mad Genius Of Petyr Baelish

[Give Cersei some LOVE]

Just finished reading the OP. Amazing post, too many people underestimate Petyr Baelish. Answered a couple of my questions too. I'm glad there are others who pay more attention than I did.

I really hope Petyr rises to absolute power, with Sansa somehow causing his demise. What about warging? I know Sansa doesn't have a wolf anymore, but she is a Stark after all. And wouldn't it be ironic to see Petyr Baelish, puppet master, literally become a puppet? He for sure won't see that coming.

Sansa's affinity to warging is underdeveloped so she maybe has lost her chance. She lost her dog pretty early. I'm sure warging is triggered by having close affection to their "familiars".

[voodooqueen126]

Wrote long post computer ate it:

Do you think Petyr Baelish is a psychopath or a malignant narcissist with psychopathic features?

A few articles on psychopathy:

http://www.theforens...ive/spring08/6/

(the profile that I think Petyr has a lot in common with)

http://www.uclea.org...ning&info_id=30

http://www.patc.com/...n-subject.shtml

http://www.policeone...chopath-Part-1/

http://course1.winon...ions format.pdf

http://www.macleans....2_140722_140722

(Petyr might have quite low testosterone, which would account for the lack of promiscuity/rape found in narcissists* and psychopaths, but the psychology is the same)

(due to what I guess is low testosterone, it can be worthwhile to look at female serial killers-discussed in chapter 9 of

http://brainshare.zx...eir Victims.pdf

notably Petyr is plotting to poison a relative (either his son or his stepson) which is common to female serial killers...

Everything you have ever wanted to know about narcissists is here:

http://samvak.tripod.com/

I think a good case can be made for both.

*note distinction between cerebral and somatic narcissists.

[Scipio Africanus]

Wanted to type it before but the OPs post pretty much nailed it. There are a few assumptions here and there but overall a good recontruction. Baelish is definitely one of my favourite characters, just love how he's able to manipulate the lordlings to his advantage and I hope he survives (together with Varys) till the end of the series as he is one of the driving forces in the Game.

[Sneak]

Petyr Baelish is also one of my favourite characters and I found this to be a great read, congrats OP.

[voodooqueen126]

Wanted to type it before but the OPs post pretty much nailed it. There are a few assumptions here and there but overall a good recontruction. Baelish is definitely one of my favourite characters, just love how he's able to manipulate the lordlings to his advantage and I hope he survives (together with Varys) till the end of the series as he is one of the driving forces in the Game.

I don't know, I assume the focus, now that winter has finally arrived, will shift focus from the Game of Thrones*, to 'surviving and defeating ice zombies" focus. Baelish et al can only make such a task more difficult, given his particularly deficient personality.

*Needless to say viewing politics or warfare as games is a dangerous mindset to get into. It is said that the problem with most WW1 generals (Haigh etc) was that they had been trained, more or less, to see warfare as a game, and that the brilliance of John Monash was that he viewed warfare as an engineering problem.

[Scipio Africanus]

I don't know, I assume the focus, now that winter has finally arrived, will shift focus from the Game of Thrones*, to 'surviving and defeating ice zombies" focus. Baelish et al can only make such a task more difficult, given his particularly deficient personality.

War is a continuation of policy through other means. There's DEFINITELY going to be plenty of war south of the North, as varying parties will want the Iron Throne. So there's going to be plenty to do for LF and Varys, at least in theory.

I agree that the North will remain the focus point of the fight against the others. But as I typed in another thread, MANY POVs are in southern or eastern regions. So unless Jon survives we won't have a lot of POVs at the Wall to read about.

ps Baelish doesn't strike me as a psychopath (like Ramsay Snow or Gregor Clegane) but more of a sociopath who has difficulty emphatically connecting with others and is, indeed, narcessist. But he does have the ability to mock himself, I don't know if that fits in the profile.

[KhalKroeff]

The_Halfhand, this was by far the best post i've read in a month. I have not even tought half of Baelish plots. Very nice!

[Pj Fallon]

Wonderful post, thank you sincerely.

[Janicia]

I don't think Olenna trusted Littlefinger. I always wondered why the poison plan involved Sansa at all. Why add that layer of complexity to the plan? Sansa could have messed everything up. I think it was because Olenna wanted to make sure the poisoning couldn't blow back on the Tyrells. Sansa smuggled the poison into the feast. Probably some Tyrell (I'm betting Margery) ensured that Tyrion would be publicly associated with Joffrey's wine by whispering in Joffrey's ear how funny it would be if his uncle served him. I wouldn't be surprised if Olenna mentally primed Cersei to accuse Tyrion. The Tyrells made sure they could not be blamed.

I like the theory that LF (rather than Cersei) tried to kill Tyrion off during the battle. I'm not sure Cersei would have pulled something like that while Tyrion's thugs had Tommen and while Tyrion was trying to save the city for her and Joffrey. Maybe she would have been that reckless, but it makes more sense as an act of Littlefinger. We also never see Cersei think "I wish Tyrion had just died in the Battle of Blackwater like he was supposed to" during her point of view chapters, though she thinks about Tyrion a lot. Tyrion wanted to take Littlefinger out, but he hadn't gotten to it yet. It makes perfect sense that Littlefinger would strike against Tyrion.

[Janicia]

I think Littlefinger did take a big risk in lying to the Starks about the knife. He had lost the knife to King Robert when Littlefinger bet on Jaime and Robert bet against Jaime. Robert then made a big deal of drunkenly bragging about it to get under Jaime's skin. A number of people would have seen and remembered that incident and the knife, which was distinctive for its valyrian steel blade. A much greater number of people would have known that Tyrion wouldn't bet against Jaime. If Ned had checked Littlefinger's story with Varys, Barriston, Renly, Lancel, or Robert, Littlefinger's lie would have been exposed and it would have been obvious that Littlefinger was trying to stir up trouble between the Starks and Lannisters. Ned could have had him arrested for that.

[Where Boars Glow]

Great stuff mate. Littlefinger is one of my all time favorites as well. He is the embodiment of the American dream. Born from nothing kicked fought and scrapped his way into power and glory through cunning, wits, and tenacity.

"It is not enough that I succeed—all others must fail." Ghengis Kahn

[icantstandgreyjoys]

I always assumed that his history with the Tullys was the main reason of his acts. He believes that Cat really loved him(the night with Lysa explains that) and they couldn't end up together because of his low birth. So he started to plot his rise when Hoster Tully banished him. But he saw greater opportunities after he found about the twincest and decided to take them, rather than just fucking up the Tullys.

I think that his initial plan was getting Lysa pregnant with his own child, and his own blood being the heir(and lord afterwards) to the great Eyrie and the Vale. It would be a delight to see the blood that everybody looked down on running in the vains of a "Mighty Lord".

But as he is a very ambitious and egocentric man, he might have seen an opportunity for himself after he found out about the twincest. And SweetRobin turned out to be a shame for him. So he came up with the plot that Halfhand summed up.

Regarding his future; maybe in one point, he realised that Hoster Tully wasn't the (only) one to blame, it was the system(aristocracy), and he saw the bigger picture. I think that in the inside he loathes flattering the lords all the time even for his own sake, he hates the fact that he will never be treated like Tywin(for example), and he is sick of being looked down on. So to some point, he represents the Bourgeoisie, he has the money, doesn't have the respect, and tried to make his way up raising statute by getting into the council and marriage and given lordship etc, but after some point I think that he'll snap and decide to take all the power for himself, bringing the Westeros down. And it'll be his downfall. Or maybe not.

[Curt Moister]

Great post. I love Petyr's character. Would love a POV.

[Scipio Africanus]

I wouldn't be surprised if Olenna mentally primed Cersei to accuse Tyrion. The Tyrells made sure they could not be blamed.

I'm not so sure Cercei had a lot of contact with the Tyrells, she appears to dislike and mistrust them.

Olenna needed to get rid of Joff. Mainly due to LF and Sansa telling her he was a little psycho and not easily controlled. Olenna then had a little chat with LF how it could be done best. And lo! we see Tyrion eventually get blamed. Tyrion is LF's favourite patsy. Not just because of his appearance, but because he knows that at least Cercei dislikes him and Tywin is ashamed of him, and would view Tyrion as a very likely subject if Joff got poisoned.

If Ned had checked Littlefinger's story with Varys, Barriston, Renly, Lancel, or Robert, Littlefinger's lie would have been exposed and it would have been obvious that Littlefinger was trying to stir up trouble between the Starks and Lannisters. Ned could have had him arrested for that.

Varys was present when LF told the whopper of a lie yet he kept his mouth shut. It is my belief Varys at that point made a mutual alliance to cause havoc in Westeros. And I also wouldn't be surprised that Varys was the one who supplied the Tears of Lys to LF and Lysa Arryn.

Varys is just a big a bastard as LF but comes off kinder and more sympathetic.

[Hoderp]

Thanks for taking the time to type all that up. It was an awesome read and fuck all the haters complaining about the big wall of text. The whole ASOIAF series is a whole block of text yet they complain about this one.

[Winter's Breath]

thanx for the epic post,

But I believe varys is an even bigger and better player, and a bigger genius. He literally has a network of secret spies, explored all of the secret red keep to discover the passage ways, and climbed from nothing as well, maybe even less being a foreigner and an eunick, and took a much sorter rout. He basically arrived in Kings landing, and became a member of the small counsel immediately. Additionally, he was able to have plots going from afar in Esteros, and not only had a plot but a back up too, having two targs. We can not forget he is expert at manipulating too, as seen with his planed assignation of Keven. I believe the high sparrow was his work too, and the ideas and arming the faith coincides with the war to achieve a peaceful and righteous realm. He also used the "don't look threatening strategy" except instead of rising and becoming threatening has been patient and stayed looking not threatening. No one cares or even thinks about him anymore, and even as a reader I forgot about him in DoD until I was shocked and reminded of him in the epilogue. We are pretty sure of his motive as readers, but only because he confessed it to Keven so not many in the book know. Lastly, he also thinks on the fly, as the war in Westeros was not his doing and he was not ready, and probably was waiting a few years to get the ball rolling. But he adapts to this, keeps houses fighting, and then adapts again when Ageon shows up alone and without the Dragons, which is probably why he pulled Ageon out of hiding and had him meet tyron in the first place. And he is not successful yet, but if it wasn't for the other's attack, (and who plans for a zombie apocalypse) I think he would be successful.

Oh and for some time now he has had no contact with other players or people, losses a big part of his spy network with the destruction of the tower of the hand, yet still manages to pay the game.

Genius.

[Sneak]

Probably some Tyrell (I'm betting Margery) ensured that Tyrion would be publicly associated with Joffrey's wine by whispering in Joffrey's ear how funny it would be if his uncle served him. I wouldn't be surprised if Olenna mentally primed Cersei to accuse Tyrion. The Tyrells made sure they could not be blamed.

Also the dwarfs were bought by LF to try to get Tyrion angry and make a scene, so people would easliy believe he was the poisoner. Add this to the fact that people knew Tyrion and Joffrey didn't get along, and it was easy to frame him. LF and Olenna probably decided they would pin the blame on Tyrion because of this dislike between him and his nephew.

I don't think Olenna primed Cersei to accuse Tyrion; Cersei already didn't like her brother and Tyrion had made no secret of his dislike of Joffrey. He would have been the prime suspect regardless of his actions during the wedding. Cersei is the only one who thinks the Tyrells were involved IIRC.

[Janicia]

Maybe Tyrion and Joffrey's confrontation over the jousting dwarves led naturally to Joffrey deciding to humiliate Tyrion by making him pour wine, but that seems awfully convenient for the plotters. Joffrey could have chosen all sorts of ways to humiliate Tyrion. If Joffrey had insisted on Tyrion jousting, it would have been obvious to everybody that Tyrion didn't poision Joffrey, since he was nowhere near the cup. I think it is likely that Margery suggested the idea of making Tyrion pour wine to Joffrey (as we saw Sansa do with Ser Dontos).

As for Olenna priming Cersei - I have no evidence. But we have seen Olenna bump into somebody, utter a quick calculated barb, and wander off before. As Oberlyn points out, most people would associate him with poisoning before Tyrion, but the inter-Lannister hatred runs deep.

[Janicia]

Varys was present when LF told the whopper of a lie yet he kept his mouth shut. It is my belief Varys at that point made a mutual alliance to cause havoc in Westeros.

Oops, I'd forgotten about that. Did Varys support LF's story, or did he just not contradict it? I remember Varys telling Tyrion that he wouldn't expose Shae to Cersei, but that if Cersei asked the right question he would answer it truthfully. Similarly, Varys could have killed Ned in the dungeon or could have let him escape, but he let Ned's situation play out. If Ned had privately questioned him about LF's dagger story, there is a chance Varys would have told the truth, especially given the flimsiness of the lie.

[voodooqueen126]

War is a continuation of policy through other means. There's DEFINITELY going to be plenty of war south of the North, as varying parties will want the Iron Throne. So there's going to be plenty to do for LF and Varys, at least in theory.

I agree that the North will remain the focus point of the fight against the others. But as I typed in another thread, MANY POVs are in southern or eastern regions. So unless Jon survives we won't have a lot of POVs at the Wall to read about.

ps Baelish doesn't strike me as a psychopath (like Ramsay Snow or Gregor Clegane) but more of a sociopath who has difficulty emphatically connecting with others and is, indeed, narcessist. But he does have the ability to mock himself, I don't know if that fits in the profile.

Of course there will be ongoing conflict in the South. But I would say that Baelish is a book 1 villain who can die in the epilogue chapter of TWOW.

Varys will definitely die final book (or even survive)

replace has trouble with 'has no empathy whatsoever"

many psychopaths are not violent. They make up 1% of the population, yet serial killersare far, far rarer (responsible for only a small percentage of homicides)

. Even then not all serial killers are particularly sadistic (David Berkowitz, John Allen Muhammad, I don't think the Zodiac killer engaged in prolonged torture, Gary Leon Ridgeway says that most of his victims died quite quickly)

It is possible that he can engage in self-depreciating humour, whilst being a narcissist, but not common.

The case can be made for both. Frankly I have trouble deciding. Certainly he is morally subnormal, which definitely places him in one of the cluster B personality disorders.