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