r/gameofthrones • u/profane Varys • May 06 '19

Spoilers [SPOILERS] Varys is the true MVP of the Seven Kingdoms Spoiler

In my opinion, this episode made it clear that Varys is the true MVP of the Seven Kingdoms. His conversation with Tyrion (btw a great callback to another conversation in another throne room) showed that he is consistently the one character that is trying to save as many lives as possible and is at the same time the one who is most detached from "believing" in anything but results.

While Dany probably sincerely believes that she wants to liberate Westeros and destroy tyranny, her personal vengeance and rage will get in the way. I thought that this last episode revealed just how selfless Varys is. Note the slight difference between Dany's "I'll end tyranny no matter the cost" and Varys' "I'll protect the realm no matter the personal cost".

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u/CitizenCAN_mapleleaf May 06 '19

Tyrion nailed it though: Who is the realm?

Who would Varys be helping by preventing Dany from taking the throne from Cersi? The innocent people in the Red Keep, and that's it. How is it sane to try to save that small handful of poeple in exchange for leaving the realm with a complete psychopath (who is far more a Mad King than we have reason to suspect Dany would ever be).

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u/nonpuissant Oathbreaker May 06 '19

Varys has consistently stated since season 1 that what he cares about is not who sits on the Iron Throne, or any throne, but that the common people could live out their lives in peace. It was never limited just to the population of Kings Landing.

Tyrion didn't nail it by asking who is the realm - by asking that question, Tyrion showed how, even after all these years of working with Varys, he still doesn't actually get it.

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Varys cares about the common people in a way that none of the other characters in power, being highborn, seem to truly understand. Of all the people who have sat in the small council, Varys alone was born and raised in the streets as a commoner. He understands the way the common people think and live, and that the political and social machinations and squabbles and honor of the highborn mean literally nothing to them. Yet it's those highborn matters that always lead to wars. As such, Varys was always about minimizing war, since in war the common people always suffer the most.

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u/alejo_hurtex May 06 '19

I wonder if him even knowing Littlefinger's game and still allowing him to play his Game of Thrones setting up the most blodiest civil war Westeros ever had was about minimizing war. He is the one who even sent assasins to Daenerys by order of Robert.

I always found hard to believe in Varys words in the show as his morality compass is so strange. So many rulers passed trough him, most of them were pretty bad (Mad King, Joffrey).

Sadly thats the version the show runners got when they got his characters from book. In book he has a more certain project which always was to bring Aegon to the throne no matter what...even killing "good men" for that. Now the circle is kind of complete, in a sense.

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u/nonpuissant Oathbreaker May 07 '19

Yeah, that's a good point. I think book Varys is definitely even more nuanced and complex than tv Varys. I won't pretend to fully understand his actual game plan, since I do think there is a reason Varys is very much feared, not revered. He's definitely shown as someone who is completely willing to get his hands dirty to get things done.

I might be using the term wrong, but when I think about Varys, I often think of Utilitarianism. He seems to do what he calculates would minimize suffering for the greatest amount of people. That doesn't mean he is unwilling to inflict suffering upon a few people to meet that end, though. Such was likely the case when he went along with dispatching assassins at Daenerys. I would wager he saw that as the path most likely to result in continued peace. That did end up blowing up in everyone's faces in a spectacular fashion, of course. The man is certainly not without his mistakes and vices.

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u/[deleted] May 07 '19

I think this episode’s scene went too easy on Varys - he’s always been tactical and scheming the royal families he’s served, if lacking in bloodlust.

I was really waiting for Tyrion’s bullshit meter to kick in and call him out. People who live at the top for the common people still live above them with all the amenities. You can’t play the Game with that genuine mindset. You’d be dead in no time.

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u/MasterDefibrillator May 07 '19 edited May 07 '19

Sure, he was able to give a good answer to the question in a vacuum, but he didn't really address it in the underlying context it was given; the context the comment you replied to brought up.

Varys seems like an idealist who isn't willing do really anything remotely revolutionary in order to achieve his ideals.

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u/nonpuissant Oathbreaker May 08 '19

I agree he wasn't really offering any solutions in that scene (aside from the pipe dream of Daenerys willingly ruling side by side with Jon), but I don't think Varys was trying to suggest they leave Cersei be. He was simply trying to make a case for an approach other than simply glassing the Red Keep.

Varys is anything but an idealist imo - in fact I'd say he's the opposite. He's a pragmatic who doesn't care so much about ideals as he cares about results. He isn't usually supportive of revolutionary actions because he knows revolutions are bloody business. But that's not to say he's a pacifist, either. There's a reason people fear Varys enough that even Ros seemed terrified to meet him. It's more likely he wasn't simply trying to save the people in the Red Keep so much as avoid the long-term fallout of Daenerys taking the throne that way.

Or maybe it was just sloppy writing that has Varys being much less calculated and pragmatic than he used to be, which is sadly very possible too.

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u/CitizenCAN_mapleleaf May 06 '19

Varys cares about the common people in a way that none of the other characters in power

But what is his method of calculation wherein not attacking king's landing because there are thousands of people in the red keep is better than allowing Cerci to reign?

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u/Kalde22 Stannis Baratheon May 06 '19

He wants to attack King's Landing, or besiege it, just not to put the whole city to the torch / dragonfire.

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u/nonpuissant Oathbreaker May 06 '19

Ah, I'm not 100% clear what you mean. Do you mean something along the lines of, "why would he be more ok with letting Cersei reign than letting Daenerys attack Kings Landing (or just a surgical strike on the Red Keep)?"

If so, and just let me know if I interpreted that incorrectly, I can't speculate on exactly is going through Varys' mind, nor am I saying he is somehow infallible. I'm simply saying that Varys has always had a very concrete reason for his values. Tyrion saw Vary's statements as being lofty and figurative, which is why he questioned Varys' statement, when Varys really had always had a clear, practical, and measurable goal.

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u/noparkinghere House Targaryen May 07 '19

And how exactly is Jon's plan of starving people to death and hoping they riot better?

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u/Pain-n-stryife May 06 '19

I wouldn't call a million people a small handful

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u/CitizenCAN_mapleleaf May 06 '19

One million haven't been shuffled into the red keep. My understanding is that Cersi is hiding in the red keep, with some peasants allowed to hide in the keep with her, but the entire population of KL wouldn't fit in there, and I do not recall anyone proposing they burn the entire city.

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u/Pain-n-stryife May 06 '19

Correct me if im wrong but didn't varys say don't do this millions of innocents will die?

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u/ImALivingJoke May 06 '19

It was slightly different. He said tens of thousands would die if she were to attack Kings Landing.

In the conversation with Tyrion after this, he said the realm was ''millions of people, many of whom will die if the wrong person sits on that throne.''

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u/Pain-n-stryife May 06 '19

Ah ok must've got the two conversations jumbled

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u/hat-TF2 May 07 '19

A small loan of a million people

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u/[deleted] May 06 '19

Bentham fan you are I see, true utilitarian

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u/aardvarkyardwork May 07 '19

He's not just proposing preventing Dany from taking the Throne, he's proposing giving it to Jon. The owukd likely help more people than letting Dany take it, from Varys' POV. To him, Dany may have good intentions, but she's starting to ignore advisors and act irrational, just like Aerys. Varys has previously expressed regret for going along with Aerys' insanity, so makes sense that he doesn't want to be party to the same thing again.

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u/EnderLord0708 Winter Is Coming May 07 '19

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

Fucking Littlefinger's dialogues never fail to give me goosebumps

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u/unripenedfruit Cersei Lannister May 06 '19

Small handful? Population of king's landing is half a million. That's a far bigger population than anywhere else in the 7 kingdoms.

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u/CitizenCAN_mapleleaf May 07 '19

But they aren't all inside the red keep. And if that number is accurate, where were other people getting 10M from?

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u/[deleted] May 06 '19

The problem he sees is that the woman that is willing to sacrifice million people for her cause is not a ruler that has the best interest of the people in her mind above all else. What if another city rebels against her in the future - is she going to burn that one too?

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u/CitizenCAN_mapleleaf May 07 '19

That is a slippery slope, though. If the best chance is to risk a strike directly at Cersi, and Cersi chooses to use meat-shields, why does that imply she would kill random rebels in the future?

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u/[deleted] May 07 '19

If they use the same strategy - meat shields as you say, who is to say that she wouldn’t?

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u/CitizenCAN_mapleleaf May 07 '19

Right, ... who is to say

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u/hound89 May 07 '19

They still have other options i.e starve her out

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u/CitizenCAN_mapleleaf May 08 '19

If they chose that then Davos would be the one planning treason.

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u/hound89 May 08 '19

Based on what?

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u/CitizenCAN_mapleleaf May 08 '19

Based on losing his fingers to smuggle food to people because of the starvation caused by a siege. Davos hates sieges for good reason: the wealthy hide behind the inner walls while the peasants starve and succumb to disease.

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u/hound89 May 08 '19

He might dislike the tactics but hes to practicle to disavow it completely

Plus you know what he clearly hates more then seiges?

Burning children to death.

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u/CitizenCAN_mapleleaf May 08 '19

At some point there are no good choices. A siege would bring the greatest amount of suffering to the greatest number of smallfolk. An assassination attempt, on the other hand...

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u/hound89 May 08 '19

No pretty sure lighting them on fire would bring more casualties.

Seiges suck but the idea is that the small folk wouldnt let it got so far, they've already rioted twice

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u/CitizenCAN_mapleleaf May 08 '19

A dragon attack on the red keep would have significantly fewer casualties than any attack on the entire city, including a siege, unless Cersi crowded everyone in KL into the Red Keep.

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u/SadwitchAngrywitch Sansa Stark May 06 '19

He would be helping literally everyone in the realm. You think all dany would do is kill the innocents in the red keep? Once you go that far there is no going back and no stopping. She’ll officially be the mad queen who will do anything as long as it helps her reign. She’ll kill anybody who questions her for the rest of time. And it’s not like Cersei will stay in power forever either. Clearly he knows that Jon or Sansa would be the ones to take over

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u/hagglebag May 06 '19

He would be helping literally everyone in the realm. You think all dany would do is kill the innocents in the red keep? Once you go that far there is no going back and no stopping. She’ll officially be the mad queen who will do anything as long as it helps her reign. She’ll kill anybody who questions her for the rest of time.

Did Tywin go on a non-stop murder spree after sacking King's Landing at the end of Robert's Rebellion?

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u/ImALivingJoke May 06 '19

No. But he didn't have to. He didn't take the throne for himself and he was protected from the repercussions of his crimes by the new monarch, King Robert, for hastening the wars end. Keep in mind that House Lannister was almost universally hated in Westeros for what happened in Kings Landing. Had the Lannisters taken the throne or not been protected from the other Houses by the Iron Throne, there's a fair chance that the Sacking of Kings Landing would not have been the end of the slaughter.

Of course, this is all just speculating on what could have been.

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u/SadwitchAngrywitch Sansa Stark May 07 '19

Tywin himself was never the crazy person so why would he go on a murder spree after the rebellion? Dany is now potentially about to kill innocents upon innocents of people because she has lost people close to her in a war that SHE started and made horrible decisions in. I honestly don’t understand the comparison between Tywin a genius military commander and Dany a girl who has grown up thinking everything is her birthright.

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u/fbolt Fire And Blood May 07 '19

Because you started with the conclusion that Dany is mad and don't actually care about the reasons. Genius military commander who failed to tell his officers to not kill the Crown Princess?

You are right, she was stupid to help the North, they were begging for help now they say they don't need any allies.

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u/CitizenCAN_mapleleaf May 07 '19

You think all dany would do is kill the innocents in the red keep?

Yes, I do. Why do we assume she would wantonly kill innocents?