Highlights
- Characters in Game of Thrones use manipulation to gain power and achieve their goals.
- The most skilled manipulators in the show are those who can convince others to do their bidding.
- Manipulation can lead to both success and downfall, depending on the decisions and actions of the characters involved.
The world of Westeros and Game of Thrones is filled with characters maneuvering to try and get what they want. From the lower lords, trying to find their way into positions of power, to the main players attempting to consolidate and even increase their fortunes, there are a vast cast of players on the chessboard always moving around.
However, some are better at this game than others. The mightiest warriors in Game of Thrones are not always the main players, because swinging a sword is easy, but manipulating others to swing one for you is where true power lies. Thus, some characters have become masters in the art of manipulation.
8 Olenna Tyrell
Killed Joffrey
- Victims: Margaery Tyrell, Joffrey Baratheon
One of the sneakiest background characters in Game of Thrones, Olenna is the very definition of a shadow manipulator, almost never putting herself out in the open. She chooses instead to convince people to do her bidding, one by one, not revealing herself unless absolutely necessary.
Not only did she manage to swap her family alliances around constantly, keeping Loras and Margaery in good positions, like Queen and Kingsguard, but she also managed to save Westeros from any further wrath by Joffrey Baratheon. That young man was the worst thing to happen to the throne in a long time, and Olenna knew he had to go, no matter the cost, which ended up being her entire family.
7 Tyrion Lannister
Drinks & Knows Things
- Victims: Daenerys Targaryen, Jon Snow
Whether it is for better or worse, Tyrion has great gifts in the art of manipulation. Over the course of the early seasons, he provides a voice of reason to the members of his family, but never quite exerts himself to the level required to bring them around to the ways he knows things need to be done. As such, he is out-manipulated by Cersei and his father and is almost put to death.
However, he manages to escape and find Daenerys Targaryen. From then on, Tyrion is one of the prime manipulators in the show, leading Daenerys back to Westeros as her Hand, and helping convince others to do the right thing and work beside her. He is also responsible for the last major manipulation in the show, convincing Jon Snow to kill Daenerys when they finally see she has gone mad. Starting as a hated dwarf and ending as head of the Lannister family and Hand to the King is a pretty good upgrade.
6 Sansa Stark
Learned From The Best
- Victims: Jon Snow, The Northern Lords
Though she also seemed to have genuine good intentions at heart and was smart enough not to trust Daenerys from the beginning, Sansa Stark was definitely a manipulator by the end of the series. This was because she spent much of her youth learning from Cersei Lannister, Littlefinger, and other characters who sought to manipulate her.
Thus, Sansa slowly moved from a pawn in the games of others to a strong manipulator and Lady in her own right. Dispatching Littlefinger once she solved his machinations, something nobody else had managed, she then managed to survive all the way to the end of the series, wary of Daenerys the entire time.
5 Tywin Lannister
Orchestrated The Red Wedding
- Victims: Walder Frey, Roose Bolton, The Starks
Managing behind the backs of the whole North to orchestrate a plan to murder their King, as well as half his family, is a showcase for manipulation. Other characters play a great game throughout the series, but Tywin Lannister is the real force of brutality that kept people scared of the power of King’s Landing in the early seasons.
Many powerful forces and great manipulators themselves, like the High Sparrow, kept away from trying to seize power while Tywin was alive. This man managed to be richer and more powerful than the King of Westeros, both a seasoned battle commander and a genius. If any of his children had inherited all of his traits, the Lannisters would have won Game of Thrones.
4 Margaery Tyrell
Three Times A Queen
- Victims: Renly Baratheon, Tommen Baratheon
There aren’t many characters throughout the history of Westeros who can claim to have been made Queen on three separate occasions. But Margaery Tyrell isn’t like other people. She’s the best case for the great families of Westeros in a daughter, willing to do whatever it takes to gain power for her House.
Margaery knows how to play the games she must in manipulating people, but she’s even smarter than Cersei in some ways, because she even endeared herself to the people of King’s Landing and the High Sparrow. She knew how to get people on her side, having learned from Olenna, her grandmother. She was even trying to make Joffrey a better king, and then could potentially have made Tommen into a great one, had Cersei not gone for a brutal move, wiping out all her enemies at once.
3 Varys
Master Of Whispers
- Victims: Daenerys Targaryen, Tyrion Lannister
The master of whispers, Varys, was a fascinating character in Game of Thrones. From his early plotting to give Daenerys power to his machinations both for and against the Lannisters, Varys was one of the few manipulators who was actually seeking what was best for Westeros.
Having risen to a seat on the Small Council, Varys was a dangerous man whom others didn’t dare threaten. Everybody wanted him and his whisperers working for them. He proved himself over time to be one of the most valuable assets to Daenerys as she returned to Westeros. He brought her the loyalty of both Dorne and the Tyrell family, before realising that she was turning to madness and attempting to stop her, leading to his own demise and eventually hers. Varys was a genius. Unfortunately, he entrusted Tyrion to see Dany for what she was slightly too early.
2 Cersei Lannister
Manipulated Her Way To Rule The Iron Throne
- Victims: Jaime Lannister, Euron Greyjoy
One of the great schemers, if one who was always a little too reckless, Cersei managed to take what she wanted through constant manipulation of her brother, husband, and most of the major Lords of Westeros, but she slowly burned down everything and everyone around her until she was left weak and easy to defeat.
Cersei openly betrayed the Dornish, the Tyrells, and the Starks, she had to turn to sources like the High Sparrow, Euron Greyjoy, and the Iron Bank for help, and these unreliable sources made her weak. Despite her vicious, plotting, diabolical nature, Cersei was the cause of her downfall. She manipulates her brother so brilliantly that he returns to her, knowing what she was and that he was destined to die if he returned, Cersei could provoke that kind of loyalty in addition to inspiring terror among the masses.
1 Petyr Baelish (Littlefinger)
Began The Game Of Thrones
- Victims: Lisa Arryn, Sansa Stark
Probably the greatest of all manipulators in Westeros, Petyr Baelish managed to go from the son of a hedge knight to the Master of Coin, with a seat on the small council, by the beginning of Game of Thrones. He was also the whisperer in Lysa Arryn’s ear who convinced her to poison her husband, kick-starting the War of the Five Kings by telling her to blame her husband’s death on the Lannisters.
He then weaseled his way into a marriage with Lysa before killing her, gaining control of the armies of the Vale in the process. He came close to manipulating Sansa into marriage as well, after convincing her that he had her interests at heart when selling her to the Boltons. This diabolical creature was constantly in power, only being brought low because Sansa and Arya realized their part in everything, just as he attempted to turn the sisters against one another. Littlefinger was one of the smartest characters Westeros ever saw, but he eventually got too bold and paid for it.
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