Jump to content

Poker Face


Texas Hold Em

Recommended Posts

It's the ability to hide one's true feelings and intentions.  Any player of the game of thrones should have this ability.   Below are what I think are the most effective use of the ability in our story:

  1. Lord Walder and the Frey clan.  The family played its part beautifully in the planning and the execution of the Red Wedding.  Walder gave Robb a little rebuke with his body language and tone of voice just to add to the play acting.  Great stuff.
  2. Varys undermining Robert Baratheon for many years.  It's not any one thing that he did but the fact that he did it consistently and for so long.  
  3. Daenerys rescued The Unsullied from their masters.  My own pick as the best use of deception.  Her ability to hide her knowledge of the language, maintaining a straight face under the barrage of insults thrown at her by the masters.  I mean, the girl is a wonderful actress.  Even the great language abilities and keen observation of Missandei was fooled.  
  4. Jon Snow pretending to defect.  I don't care for Jon's chapters but I will give credit where credit is due.  He fooled the wildlings and made them think he defected to their side.
  5. Littlefinger pretending to be a friend of the Starks. 
  6. Daenerys tricked the Second Sons.  Wonderful acting skills at play again.  She wins the mental chess game with the sellswords.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

12 hours ago, Texas Hold Em said:

Daenerys rescued The Unsullied from their masters.  My own pick as the best use of deception.  Her ability to hide her knowledge of the language, maintaining a straight face under the barrage of insults thrown at her by the masters.  I mean, the girl is a wonderful actress.  Even the great language abilities and keen observation of Missandei was fooled. 

That's definitely the most entertaining example :D

But the hardest faces to read are the ones belonging to those with no face at all ;)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Ramsay Bolton successfully persuades everyone he's Reek
  • Arya passes herself off as a boy for weeks
  • Roose is a pretty enigmatic guy (and a skilled liar)
  • Aurane Waters totally fools Cersei
  • Doran Martell probably has too good a poker face. The fact everyone thinks he's weak will probably come back and bite him in the arse
  • We only see Tywin's true emotions a handful of times, so he's pretty good at hiding them
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Lord Tywin, with his gold-flecked pale unsmiling stare and his basket of deplorables deserves an honourable mention. What we regard as 'the Freys' is largely Lord Bolton in a Frey-goodbrother cloak, acting according to an agreement he made with Lord Tywin, after all. The Red Wedding seems to be Lord Tywin's way of making lemonade out of the lemon that was Genna's marriage. Then there is the Tarbecks and the Castameres,  Duskendale's short-lived defiance, the siege of King's Landing, and the fact he seemingly started the War of Five Kings, as well as ended it. Why was he ready to tussle with Stannis over SweetRobin?

I think Ser Gregor is fiercely inscrutable as well - I'm really not sure he was acting on Lord Tywin's command when he first razed the Riverlands. But then, I can't put his actions at the siege of King's Landing together in a way that places him in the chambers of the Crown Prince while Elia and her children were still alive, either. (My prime suspect for that crime is Varys, or some other Aerys loyalist, who knew the secret passages and could run through them to Rhaegar's quarters while Gregor was raising the banner of the roaring lion over the gates of the goldcloak's barracks). There is no doubt he is a brutal man - his brother's face is his own work, if not the deaths of his sister, father, wife. His rape of Layna innkeeper's daughter at Sherrer is brutal, as  is his suggestion re. outriders and eyeballs, and his tickling. But he is also a competent commander, and doggedly loyal. All we really know about his interior life is that he has really bad headaches.

I think Lord Tywin was attempting to kill Gregor. Tyrion notices when his father puts him and his mountain-clan friends in the vanguard, which bears the brunt of the attack, but he conveniently forgets that Gregor led the van, the first to engage the Karstarks.  As Bronn noted, the big man makes a splendid target. Throughout that war, Gregor is found wherever the fighting is fiercest, and wherever the enemy has the advantage. Darry. Duskendale.  Mummer's ford, Ruby ford, the Battle of the fords (and Stone Mill, which would also have been on the water). Cersei's champion. Gregor gets every poisoned chalice, every dirty job. He never catches a break. Yet he never rebels against his lord, or murmurs his discontent, or demands more. It's really hard for me to understand what his deal is.

Bolton, another of Lord Tywin's creatures, is also a master of disguise. Ramsey, the Freys, the Greyjoys, and, I suspect, the Manderleys, and Lady Dustin, do his dirty work and cop all the blame for it.

Qyburn - his taste for torture took me by surprise, and necromancy is regarded as the blackest sin by the faith of the seven and the maesters alike. Of course there had to be a reason for his fitting in so well with the Brave Companions, beyond his surgical skills. Anyone that looks grandfatherly to Cersei has got to be a monster, right?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I think Doran is one of the best, only we haven't yet discovered what he is hiding :).

 

50 minutes ago, Walda said:

I think Lord Tywin was attempting to kill Gregor. Tyrion notices when his father puts him and his mountain-clan friends in the vanguard, which bears the brunt of the attack, but he conveniently forgets that Gregor led the van, the first to engage the Karstarks.  As Bronn noted, the big man makes a splendid target. Throughout that war, Gregor is found wherever the fighting is fiercest, and wherever the enemy has the advantage. Darry. Duskendale.  Mummer's ford, Ruby ford, the Battle of the fords (and Stone Mill, which would also have been on the water).

Good catch.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 9/14/2018 at 8:32 PM, Texas Hold Em said:

It's the ability to hide one's true feelings and intentions.  Any player of the game of thrones should have this ability.   Below are what I think are the most effective use of the ability in our story:

  1. Lord Walder and the Frey clan.  The family played its part beautifully in the planning and the execution of the Red Wedding.  Walder gave Robb a little rebuke with his body language and tone of voice just to add to the play acting.  Great stuff.
  2. Varys undermining Robert Baratheon for many years.  It's not any one thing that he did but the fact that he did it consistently and for so long.  
  3. Daenerys rescued The Unsullied from their masters.  My own pick as the best use of deception.  Her ability to hide her knowledge of the language, maintaining a straight face under the barrage of insults thrown at her by the masters.  I mean, the girl is a wonderful actress.  Even the great language abilities and keen observation of Missandei was fooled.  
  4. Jon Snow pretending to defect.  I don't care for Jon's chapters but I will give credit where credit is due.  He fooled the wildlings and made them think he defected to their side.
  5. Littlefinger pretending to be a friend of the Starks. 
  6. Daenerys tricked the Second Sons.  Wonderful acting skills at play again.  She wins the mental chess game with the sellswords.

 

This is my number one choice too.  It's one of the reasons why I enjoyed that book so much.  

On 9/15/2018 at 8:39 AM, The Lord of the Crossing said:

Mance Rayder is good at this game.  

And he's been doing this for so many years.  Entering Winterfell with a bounty on his head.  That took some balls.

On 9/14/2018 at 8:32 PM, Texas Hold Em said:

Lord Walder and the Frey clan.  The family played its part beautifully in the planning and the execution of the Red Wedding.  Walder gave Robb a little rebuke with his body language and tone of voice just to add to the play acting.  Great stuff.

Great teamwork to get almost all of the family in the play and the ones who won't were conveniently removed to where they can't spoil the game.  

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

×
×
  • Create New...