Two Sides of Daenerys in “The Laws of Gods and Men”

“The Laws of Gods and Men” very succinctly showed us two sides of Daenerys: the benevolent ruler doing her best to serve her people, and the unforgiving tyrant. While Daenerys was never exactly soft-willed, this tyrannical side has been coming to the front more and more throughout Season 4.

I’m starting to worry about Daenerys as a ruler, as I’m sure everyone else is, too, because of lines like, “I will answer injustice with justice,” “They can live in my new world or they can die in their old one,” and all the other ones they put in the Season 4 trailers.

This presentation of Daenerys differs considerably from what we’ve seen of her before. Compare the scene after she conquers Meereen to the one after she conquers Yunkai: In Meereen, a huge black Targaryen flag covers the statue of the Harpy, while in Yunkai she goes out among the people and is lifted up by them. In Yunkai, we only see the slaves’ reaction and how Daenerys deals with them; in Meereen, we see how Daenerys deals with the masters.

Here we see her surveying her empire, instead of being hoisted up on the shoulders of her people.

Like I mentioned in my review of “Oathkeeper,” when I read the books, I thought Daenerys crucifying the masters of Meereen was pretty badass. One for every crucified slave child they posted on her way? Now that’s some symbolic justice she’s meting out. When I was reading, I thought that was pretty cool.

In the show, the crucifixion was horrifying, and it was presented that way on purpose – Barristan’s counsel against this plan presented an alternative before we even knew what she was going to do, and this conversation is followed by some pretty gruesome crucifying.

Although there is probably no non-gruesome way to crucify someone.

Again, compare this to Daenerys in Season 3: we didn’t see her deal with the Yunkai’i masters, but we did see her wreak some havoc in Astapor. The Unsullied killed all the masters in the city, and Daenerys got Drogon to light a dude on fire. That whole scene was definitely presented as badass, though, not terrifying. Part of it for me was definitely that Kraznys mo Nakloz (the aforementioned dude who gets set on fire) was talking about Daenerys in a sexist and derogatory way to Missandei, so Daenerys getting the better of him was incredibly satisfying.

Daenerys’ interaction with the Meereenese masters was faceless the entire time: there was no personal interaction between any of them. They crucified slave children, and she crucified them, without any sneaky plots or secretly speaking the same language, or any interaction, period.

 

Not a great way to introduce yourself.

And that brings us back to the two sides of Daenerys in “The Laws of Gods and Men.” Her interaction with the goatherd is the same Daenerys from Season 1-3: she gracefully accepts responsibility and rectifies the problem, and then is incredibly pleased to see the man’s gratitude and quirky exit.

When Hizdahr zo Loraq enters the room, her demeanor changes completely: where she was laughing happily when the goatherd left, she’s now saying rude things in a sarcastic tone. Daenerys isn’t necessarily interested in the fact that slavery is a societal system of oppression: any individual who wasn’t actively fighting against it was propagating it, and is therefore a bad guy in her books.

This goes back to a longstanding argument about sexism and racism in society. You read Lincoln’s speeches, say, and it turns out that they’re super racist. Then you try to make yourself feel better (or someone else comes to Lincoln’s rescue) by saying that it was a different time. Everyone was racist, so why not Lincoln?

This argument doesn’t fly with Daenerys. Of course, it’s awkward when Hizdahr reveals that his father argued against the crucifixions and was overruled, but she doesn’t outright apologize for the death of Loraq Senior.

The choices the show has been making this season have indicated the beginning of an arc for Daenerys, one where she’s at least flirting with tyranny. As she learns from Hizdahr (and will hopefully remember), making broad generalizations about groups of people, even if they’re slave masters, wrongs the individual. Giving permission in the end for Hizdahr to bury his father at least indicates that the road to tyranny will be a windy one, if that’s the road she’s on.

Petyr Baelish, Part 2: The Tullys

I talked earlier this week about the creepiest moments with Baelish. It’s clear that he’s up to something – it was clear from Varys’ implications in season three, and it’s even clearer now that he’s kind of abducted Sansa. With all those horrifying moments, that could easily be his entire character.

The creep factor doesn’t take over Baelish’s entire character largely because of his history with the Tullys. From the beginning, we know that Baelish has always held a candle for Catelyn. We respect Catelyn, and in a weird way, that translates to respecting Baelish. He may run a string of brothels in King’s Landing, but the kind of woman he’s interested in is very honorable.

We also get an image of a poor, young, lower-class man who has no hope with a woman like Catelyn, and that image automatically leads to sympathy. Even if his story of unrequited love and being injured by Catelyn’s fiancée ends with, “I’m not going to fight them; I’m going to fuck them,” you can’t not pity Baelish for at least a second.

Catelyn is also the closest thing to a tangible motivation we see Baelish have. Just before he returns Ned’s bones to her at Renley’s camp, he tells her that he’s loved her since he was a boy. This story stays constant with Baelish.

She doesn’t react exactly as he hoped, though.

The only time Baelish’s devotion to Cat comes into question is when he’s talking about Lysa, who he is now going to the Eyrie to marry. Where he talks about devotion to Cat, he talks about Lysa’s devotion to him. He tells Tywin, “She has always been positively predisposed toward me,” after Tywin suggests that Baelish marry her.

What’s more, where Cat is an honorable woman, Lysa is insane. If Baelish did have the same feelings for Lysa he claims to have for Cat, that would be alarming, not pitiful. His pragmatic interest in marrying Lysa circles back and calls his alleged devotion to Cat into question.

There would be a lot of competition for Craziest Person in Westeros, but I feel like Lysa would hold her own.

I also start to get the feeling that people who remind Baelish of Cat (like Lysa or Sansa) start to become her in his mind. His relationship with Sansa is creepy for the first event at the tournament: in the show version, Baelish tells Sansa the story of the Hound’s burned face, and then threatens her not to tell anybody, because the Hound would kill her. So, of course, he shouldn’t have told her in the first place, and then she wouldn’t have the burden of the story of the Hound’s face.

He has a certain fascination with Sansa that isn’t exactly perverse, but isn’t exactly normal, either. It starts with the moment at the tournament, but continues through the second season. After Joffrey sets Sansa aside for Margaery, Sansa is full of relief that she doesn’t have to be Joffrey’s queen.

This is probably the happiest we see her on the entire show.

Baelish wastes no time telling reminding Sansa that just because she doesn’t have to marry Joffrey anymore, that doesn’t mean he’s going to leave her alone. That wipes the smile right of Sansa’s face, and, of course, turns out to be true.

It’s worth thinking about where this character has been so far since he’s now acting in such a major way. It’s easy to think of him as fundamentally similar to Varys, but we see Baelish act in a way that Varys doesn’t, way back to when he betrayed Ned in the throne room in Season 1. Now, he’s planned the murder of a king and stolen away the key to the North, who just so happens to be the daughter of the woman he claims to have loved since he was a boy. And as he heads to Catelyn’s sister in the company of Catelyn’s daughter, it’s hard not to start thinking about this stuff.

Seriously, though, someone had to kill Joffrey eventually.

This whole ordeal between Baelish and the Tullys gives the character a whole new texture than he would have if he were just a creepy ambitious man. The nickname Littlefinger is directly linked to growing up in the Fingers, near Riverrun, and is therefore also linked to Catelyn and Lysa. (Also, does anyone else feel like the name Littlefinger just sounds dirty?)

With Baelish, we end up with a character who is unrequited due to low status and therefore deserving of pity on the one hand, and a cutthroat, backstabbing, ambitious man on the other. In film and television, we usually see ambition as a bad thing, or as a characteristic of the villain – but Baelish’s ambition is grounded in something that makes us feel bad for him on a very human level.

And that’s today’s episode of Gray Characters on Game of Thrones. Three down, probably like a hundred to go.

Petyr Baelish, Part 1: 5 Times He Was The Creepiest

“Oathkeeper” included the big (spoilery!) reveal that Baelish and Olenna conspired together in Joffrey’s murder. Baelish is clearly coming back into the story in a big way, and if you’ve seen the “First of His Name” sneak peek you know that Baelish and Sansa will be arriving to the Eyrie in the next episode. Let’s recap the wonderful creepiness that has been Petyr Baelish so far on the show.

5. It’s Hard for Them to Simper and Bow

The scenes between Baelish and Varys are some of the best in the first season. They’re one of many reminders that Ned is in a place he doesn’t understand and can’t do well in, and they show us a great deal about the way things are done in King’s Landing. You don’t make an outright threat (telling Cersei that you know about her incestuous relationship, for example) – you imply subtly enough that your opponent can’t react, but not so subtly that they don’t know you’ve insulted them / indicated you have special knowledge.

This particular scene comes after Baelish has betrayed Ned, so we’re already starting to think that he’s evil. But this interaction from the Season 1 finale always sticks with me thinking about the character:

Varys: When you imagine yourself up there, how do you look? Does the crown fit? Do all the lords and ladies simper and bow, the ones who sneered at you for years?

Baelish: It’s hard for them to simper and bow without heads.

Varys: A man with great ambition and no morals; I wouldn’t bet against you.

It’s not necessarily worse than the violence we’ve already seen on the show, but it’s alarming nonetheless. Varys’ description of Baelish here is worth remembering: “A man with great ambition and no morals.”

4. This Whole Situation with Sansa

Pretty much every bit of Baelish’s interactions with Sansa are creepy, since he basically abducted her without warning, killed the man she thought was her real friend, and confessed/implicated involvement in Joffrey’s murder.

I wrote more about this in my review of “Oathkeeper,” but in the latest episode Baelish describes himself as “a man with no motive.” But is that true? When Sansa asks him what he wants, he replies, “Everything.” As he did one other time:

3. Telling Tales to Ros

Whenever people talk about Game of Thrones necessitating the invention of the term “sexposition,” I have to assume they mean this scene. This is where we meet back up with Ros after she says goodbye to Theon in Winterfell, and where we hear Baelish’s whole story with Catelyn (but more on that tomorrow).

This scene delivers such memorable lines as “I’m not going to fight them…I’m going to fuck them.” A little ironic, since Baelish also says in this scene that he’s saving himself for Catelyn. But here, too, he answers the question, “What do you want?” with, “Oh, everything. Everything there is.”

It’s clear that he wants “everything” – but what is that? Apparently this motive, the desire to have “everything,” is the same as having no motive, or wanting nothing. In either, the particularity of desire drops out – he doesn’t want to see any particular family in power, or any particular lord to befriend him. There is only one other scene we see him express a different interest:

2. Ros the Bad Investment

After Janos Slynt (who tragically just reappeared on the Wall) kills Robert’s bastard daughter in the brothel, Ros takes some time to mourn. This leads to one of the more memorable/horrifying scenes with Baelish/on the show, where he tells her:

You know you remind me of another girl. A lovely thing I once acquired from a Lysene pleasure house. Beautiful, like yourself; and intelligent, like yourself. But she wasn’t happy. She cried, often. I asked her why, but we didn’t have the kind of rapport that you and I have. Yes, she was quite sad. Girls from Lysene pleasure houses are expensive, extremely expensive, and this one wasn’t making me any money.

I hate bad investments, really, I do. They haunt me. I had no idea how to make her happy, no idea how to mitigate my losses. A very wealthy patron – he offered me a tremendous amount of money to let him transform this lovely, sad girl; to use her in ways that never occur to most men. And you know what occurs to most men. I will not say he succeeded in making her happy; but my losses were definitely mitigated.

In this scene, it’s clear that he’s interested in money. But is the desire for money different from the desire for “everything” he expresses elsewhere? People desire money because they think it’s the same as power – and sometimes it is. At the very least, money alters the balance of whether someone will or will not do as you say. They are more likely to follow your instructions the more money you are offering them. It’s constantly pointed out with the Lannisters that money can’t buy everything (Ned asks rhetorically why Robert is king, and not Tywin Lannister, if gold really does win wars), but we’re seeing with Davos and Stannis that it might buy an army.

Money is versatile in what it can get men to do or keep men from doing, and Baelish’s desire for it is as a tool and means to get his eventual desire of “everything.”

1. The Climb

I’ve talked before about Ros’s death, and will continue to do so indefinitely. So watch out for that, I guess.

The beautiful writing here is that the top three items on this list form a story: Baelish hires Ros, Baelish threatens Ros, Baelish kills Ros. But instead of Ros’s whole character just telling us more about Baelish, as often happens with female characters in fantasy, the writers are able to show us the inner life of two characters in one story spread out over three seasons.

The speech, during which we see that Joffrey has killed Ros, is horrifying:

Baelish: The realm. Do you know what the realm is? It’s the thousand blades of Aegon’s enemies, a story we agreed to tell each other over and over until we forget that it’s a lie.

Varys: But what do we have left, once we abandon the lie? Chaos. A gaping pit waiting to swallow us all.

Baelish: Chaos isn’t a pit. Chaos is a ladder. Many who try to climb it fail and never get to try again. The fall breaks them. And some are given a chance to climb, but they refuse; they cling to the realm, or the gods, or love. Illusions. Only the ladder is real; the climb is all there is.

In Either/Or, Kierkegaard makes a distinction between a seducer who seduces so that he can have sex, and a seducer who seduces for the sake of the seduction itself. (I’m not going to lie to you guys: I haven’t read Either/Or. I just know about this argument.)

We see the same dichotomy with Baelish here in this speech. Is the “everything” he desires really some end state? Does he even have one in mind? Or is it the climb itself, which he says here is all that exists? This issue comes up also in Shakespeare’s Richard III (which I actually have read) – Richard is able to keep things moving and under his control only until he actually becomes king (uh, spoiler alert, I guess). After that, he has nowhere to climb, and since climbing is his only skill, he crashes and burns.

These, so far, are the stand-out super creepy moments from Baelish. I have to say, he’s one of my favorite characters. There’s something so magnetic about Aiden Gillen’s portrayal, and there’s a lot that’s just terrifying about the character.

Check out “Petyr Baelish, Part 2: The Tullys” here.