0:02 Game of Thrones has a lot of smart
0:03 characters [music] from Tyrion Lannister
0:06 to Lord Varys to Tywin Lannister. Each
0:07 of these characters knows how to play
0:09 the game in their own way. But the one
0:11 who really set everything in motion was
0:13 Lord Peter Beish or as everyone knows
0:16 him, Littlefinger. But even the smartest
0:17 person sometimes makes a mistake. [music]
0:18 [music]
0:20 And Littlefinger made just one one
0:22 single mistake in the entire Game of
0:24 Thrones. And that mistake is what ended
0:26 his life. When we look back at the show
0:28 Game of Thrones and the source material,
0:30 a song of ice and fire, Littlefinger's
0:32 entire life was one [music] high stakes,
0:34 extremely risky game of political
0:36 gambling. He was a man who came from
0:38 nothing, a minor lord whose sole true
0:40 asset was his brilliant, manipulative,
0:42 and absolutely ruthless mind. [music] He
0:44 literally clawed his way from a poor boy
0:46 growing up in the fingers, a truly
0:48 insignificant piece of land, all the way
0:50 up to being a lord and key adviser to
0:52 royalty, right there at the center of
0:54 power. Littlefinger's entire philosophy,
0:56 as he famously said in the show, was
0:58 [music] that chaos is a ladder. He
0:59 didn't want the current political order
1:01 to succeed. He wanted to tear it all
1:03 down so he could step over the bodies
1:04 and shattered pieces to take his own
1:06 place at the top. [music] Everything he
1:08 did from the very first episode was
1:10 designed to create this instability. Let
1:12 us briefly recap the sheer scale of the
1:14 chaos he created because it is important
1:16 to understand why his final error was so
1:18 significant. He started the entire chain
1:20 of events by manipulating his obsessive
1:22 [music] admirer, Lyser Arin, to murder
1:24 her own husband, John Arin, the king's
1:26 hand, and then to send a letter to her
1:28 sister, Catalyn Stark. This letter
1:30 falsely claimed that the Lannisters were
1:32 the ones who had committed the murder.
1:33 This single clever move is what brought
1:35 Ned Stark to King's Landing, and it
1:37 launched the series main conflict,
1:39 [music] the War of the Five Kings, which
1:41 lasted for years and killed thousands.
1:43 Later, while serving in King's Landing,
1:46 he pretended to be Ned Stark's ally, but
1:47 ultimately betrayed him to Cersei
1:49 Lannister, ensuring Ned's capture
1:51 [music] and eventually his death. He
1:52 arranged the death of King Joffrey
1:54 Baratheon at the Purple Wedding by
1:56 working with the Queen of Thorns, Ola
1:58 Tyrell. He smuggled Sansa Stark out of
2:00 King's Landing. He then took her to the
2:02 Vale, where he married Lysa Arin, who
2:04 was the lady of the Veale, and then
2:06 promptly killed her by pushing her
2:07 through the moon door, all so he could
2:10 gain control of the Veil's armies. In
2:11 the show, his ambition drove him even
2:13 further when he arranged for Sansa to
2:15 marry Ramsey Bolton. A truly horrifying
2:17 move as a way to use the Bolton army to
2:20 defeat Stanis Baratheon. Even after the
2:21 battle, when Jon Snow took back
2:23 Winterfell, [music] Littlefinger was
2:25 still the most powerful man in the north
2:26 outside of the Stark family because he
2:28 was Lord of the Veil and the man who
2:30 brought the reinforcements that won the
2:32 Battle of the Bastards. This entire
2:34 track record shows a man who rarely, if
2:37 ever, miscalculated. He was constantly
2:38 three steps ahead of almost every other
2:40 player on the board. The true genius of
2:42 Littlefinger's plans, especially in the
2:44 books where his character is even more
2:46 subtly drawn, is that he never seemed to
2:48 be acting for himself. Every move he
2:49 made seemed to serve another powerful
2:51 person, whether it was the Lannisters,
2:53 Lysa Arin, or Sansa Stark. But in
2:55 reality, all those moves ultimately
2:58 served only Peter Beish. He made himself
2:59 invaluable and untrustworthy [music] at
3:01 the exact same time, which is a very
3:04 difficult line to walk. So for a man who
3:05 made hundreds of moves that could all be
3:07 considered risky, which one was his
3:10 singular fatal mistake, it all came down
3:13 to a simple fundamental error. He failed
3:14 to account for the unique bond and
3:16 collective [music] power of the
3:18 surviving Stark children in Winterfell.
3:20 Littlefinger's final play took place in
3:22 Winterfell in the show's seventh season.
3:24 He was there ostensibly as Sansa Stark's
3:26 adviser, but his actual goal was to get
3:28 Sansa to turn against her sister Arya
3:30 Stark and her half-brother Jon Snow, who
3:32 was the king in the north. His ultimate
3:34 plan was to marry Sansa and become the
3:36 warden of the north or perhaps even king
3:38 in the north himself. His entire scheme
3:41 revolved around a few key assumptions.
3:42 The first was that the returning Stark
3:44 children were the same people he had
3:46 known years ago. The second and most
3:47 crucial was that Sansa was still a
3:49 pliable emotional girl whom he could
3:50 manipulate simply by whispering in her
3:52 ear. He completely misjudged the woman
3:54 she had become. He taught her how to
3:56 play the game of thrones, telling her to
3:58 think of every possible outcome, every
4:00 enemy, and every friend. What he did not
4:02 realize was that his teaching had made
4:04 her a better player than him. When Arya
4:06 arrived at Winterfell, having become an
4:08 elite silent assassin trained by the
4:10 Faceless Men, Littlefinger saw her as a
4:12 threat to Sansa and therefore a threat
4:14 to his own plans. He began a brilliant
4:15 piece of emotional and political
4:17 maneuvering. He used an old scroll, a
4:19 letter that Sansa was forced to write
4:20 under duress back in King's Landing,
4:22 which instructed Rob Stark to bend the
4:24 knee to King Joffrey. This letter,
4:26 Littlefinger knew, would look like a
4:28 massive betrayal to Arya. In the show,
4:30 he let Arya's assassin-like paranoia do
4:32 the work for him. He made sure she found
4:33 the letter, sewing distrust between the
4:35 two sisters. He then whispered into
4:37 Sansa's ear, making her feel that Arya
4:39 was a threat who might hurt her or try
4:40 to user her position as Lady of
4:42 Winterfell. He was trying to repeat his
4:44 old trick, get two powerful people to
4:46 fight, and he would come out on top by
4:48 offering his assistance to the winner.
4:50 The one mistake he made was that he
4:52 completely ignored and discounted the
4:55 third Stark sibling, Bran Stark. Bran
4:57 had become the three-eyed raven. He was
4:58 no longer just a boy. He was an
5:00 all-seeing vessel of time and history.
5:02 Littlefinger had already tried to
5:03 manipulate Bran earlier by giving him
5:05 the dagger that was used in the first
5:07 assassination attempt on Bran's life
5:09 back in the very first book and season.
5:10 Littlefinger was trying to present
5:12 himself as a faithful servant and by
5:14 giving Bran the weapon, was trying to
5:16 remind the Starks that he had been there
5:17 for them. The show had a brilliant
5:19 moment where Bran immediately with his
5:21 all- knowing gaze said, "Chaos is a
5:23 ladder." and left Littlefinger stunned
5:25 and terrified because that was a private
5:27 thought and conversation that no one,
5:29 not even Bran, should have known. In his
5:31 final fatal gambit, Littlefinger had
5:33 Sansa bring Arya into the great hall,
5:35 assuming the meeting was to condemn or
5:37 execute Arya. But what Littlefinger did
5:39 not account for was the Stark's unity
5:40 and the fact that the two sisters were
5:42 talking to Bran. When Sansa turned and
5:44 said, "Lord Bish, you stand accused of
5:46 murder and treason, it was because she
5:48 had used Littlefinger's own lessons
5:50 against him. She consulted with Bran,
5:52 who saw all of Littlefinger's crimes
5:54 throughout history, giving Sansa
5:56 absolute, unquestionable proof. Bran,
5:58 the quiet, ignored brother, had seen
6:00 Littlefinger's betrayal of Ned Stark,
6:02 the lie he told Catalin about the
6:04 dagger, and the murder of Lyser Arin.
6:06 The core of the mistake is this. Peter
6:08 Beish had always been a master of human
6:10 nature, predicting how ambition, greed,
6:11 and lust would make people act. He
6:13 successfully predicted how a vengeful
6:15 sister Lysa and a naive [music] Lady
6:16 Sansa would act. But he failed to
6:18 account for the supernatural and the
6:19 sheer honesty and memory of the
6:21 three-eyed raven. He was playing a
6:23 political game, but the Stark siblings
6:25 had access to a divine, all- knowing
6:27 cheap code. He could fool people, but he
6:29 could not fool [music] history itself.
6:30 He never imagined a player like Bran
6:32 would be on the board, someone whose
6:34 memory was perfect, immediate, and
6:36 all-encompassing. That single oversight,
6:38 failing to eliminate Bran as a factor,
6:40 or even realize what Bran had become, is
6:42 what allowed Sansa to look past his lies
6:44 with absolute certainty and [music]
6:46 bring him to justice. He underestimated
6:48 the intelligence and emotional growth of
6:51 Sansa. Yes, but that only led her to the
6:54 final source of truth, her brother. In
6:55 the final reckoning, Littlefinger, the
6:57 master manipulator, was caught by the
6:59 very family he had tried to destroy and
7:01 conquer. All because his one flaw his
7:03 overconfidence blinded him to the one
7:04 piece of magic he should have feared
7:06 more than any dragon. [music] The
7:07 complete and unchallengeable truth of
7:10 the past spoken by the three-eyed raven.
7:12 It was a single fatal underestimation of
7:14 the power that now protected the Starks.
7:16 This final move is a dramatic departure
7:17 from the [music] books where
7:19 Littlefinger is currently much safer and
7:21 in a much more powerful position. In the
7:23 books, his downfall is still looming,
7:25 but it has not happened yet. Book
7:26 Littlefinger, who is even more
7:28 meticulous and less prone to outright
7:30 emotional moves, would likely not have
7:31 been so openly blatant in his final
7:34 manipulation of Sansa and Arya. George
7:36 RR Martin himself [music] suggested that
7:37 his version of Littlefinger would never
7:39 have handed Sansa over to Ramsey Bolton,
7:41 as that would risk her emotional and
7:43 physical harm. and Littlefinger does
7:45 genuinely in his own twisted way love
7:47 the memory of Catalyn and projects that
7:49 onto Sansa. This suggests that the
7:50 show's Littlefinger was driven by a more
7:52 theatrical almost clumsy kind of
7:54 ambition in the end which made him more
7:56 susceptible to this one fatal [music]
7:58 error. Whether in the show or the books,
7:59 the lesson of Littlefinger's life
8:01 remains the same. The man who thinks he
8:03 can control chaos will eventually be
8:05 consumed by it. He thought his moves
8:07 were flawless, but he simply did not see
8:09 the final quiet and magical piece that
8:10 the universe had put on [music] the
8:11 board. a piece that could look straight
8:13 through his web of lies. His one single
8:15 mistake was underestimating [music] the
8:17 power of the complete unedited truth. It
8:20 was a failure of imagination, believing
8:22 his game was the only one being played,
8:24 and that ultimately cost Peter Beish his
8:26 life. [music] That was a deep dive into
8:28 the mind of Littlefinger and his one
8:30 fatal flaw. Before you go, let me know
8:32 in the comments section what your
8:34 favorite Littlefinger moment is. And if
8:36 you found this analysis interesting and
8:38 detailed, please consider hitting the
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