Beyond the Wall: Exploring George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire, From A Game of Thrones to A Dance with Drago (21 page)

Psychopaths have a history of committing acts that would be considered criminal or at least immoral by the standards of their society. Littlefinger has committed, or arranged, several murders, as the most expedient means to accruing power and wealth. All these murders are carried out in cold blood.

Littlefinger’s first documented murder conspiracy sparks the War of the Five Kings, although it is not often credited as such a monumental accomplishment. Lysa Arryn poisons her husband Jon at Littlefinger’s behest. Had this not occurred, Eddard Stark would have never traveled to King’s Landing to become the King’s Hand to Robert Baratheon. In turn, he would not have been imprisoned and executed, and the Young Wolf, Robb Stark, would not have raised his banners against King’s Landing.

Littlefinger’s next victim is Eddard Stark. He manipulates Stark from the moment of his arrival in King’s Landing, feigning friendship until the Lord of Winterfell takes him into his confidence. Once this occurs, Littlefinger betrays Eddard’s trust, leading to his capture and execution for treason. With Eddard out of the way, Littlefinger marries the conveniently widowed Lysa. The half-mad woman is ecstatic to wed her childhood love, though he murders her not long after.

At Littlefinger’s behest, Dontos Hollard, the former knight and later jester in the court of King Joffrey, helps Sansa Stark escape from her forced marriage to Tyrion Lannister. After successfully accompanying Sansa to the ship that will take her from King’s Landing, Littlefinger murders him. Dontos could have lived on in exile, but a blade and burial at sea are more reliable methods of ensuring he will never reveal how Sansa escaped King’s Landing and with whom she left.

Littlefinger is a murderer, but A Song of Ice and Fire is full of violent men and women. What makes Littlefinger’s murders so different from those committed by the other characters? Motive. Littlefinger cares only for himself, and murders entirely for his own benefit. Other characters in A Song of Ice and Fire commit murder, but they are usually motivated to do so by emotions like love, shame, or anger, in response to a potential threat, or in service to an ideological cause that they perceive to be greater than themselves. That cause isn’t always noble or sensible, but motives beyond personal gain—or at least concurrent with it—are often what trigger the bloodshed. Queen Cersei may be a schemer and murderer, but she’s also a mother who will do anything and everything she must in order to protect her children. Her brother Jaime flings Bran Stark from a window, but it is to protect their illicit love affair. Their youngest brother, Tyrion, arguably one of the most ethical characters in the saga, arranges the murder of the musician Symon Silver Tongue in response to his ill-considered attempt at blackmail. Even Lord Walder Frey orchestrates the events of the infamous Red Wedding partially in response to a perceived insult to his house.

Littlefinger isn’t motivated by emotion. He claims to love Catelyn Stark, but his actions betray the facile declarations of his affection. Where is Littlefinger in her time of greatest need? Seducing her daughter and murdering her sister, in short order.

Lack of remorse or empathy are also hallmarks of the psychopath. Littlefinger offers cold comfort to Sansa Stark following the death of her father, telling her that he was a “piece” and not a “player” in the game. Respect for the feelings of others does not factor into his strategies. If anything, it is only considered a vulnerability to be exploited. He says as much in the same conversation with Sansa, as she poses as his daughter Alayne: “Everyone wants something, Alayne. And when you know what a man wants you know who he is, and how to move him” (
A Storm of Swords
).

Littlefinger’s skill at manipulating others might only be bested by Varys’s. What differentiates Littlefinger from the Spider, though, is motive. Varys acts to preserve the stability of the kingdom. His peers may consider him untrustworthy, and he may very well be, but it is because his allegiance is to crown and country rather than any particular individual. Littlefinger’s allegiance is to Littlefinger.

It is difficult to understand what it must be like to be without empathy or remorse. Human beings constantly anthropomorphize animals, despite their clearly nonhuman status. We project emotional states like hate, love, or anger on to beings incapable of feeling them in the same way we do. It is hard enough to view our relationships with our pets in an objective manner, so you can imagine how difficult it can be to conceive of, and anticipate, the actions of a human being with the emotional depth and capacity for remorse of a rattlesnake. Most people simply aren’t capable of it. Then again, most people aren’t Tyrion Lannister.

It should hardly come as any surprise that an astute judge of character like Tyrion has managed to see through Littlefinger’s façade of normalcy. Perhaps the distance granted him as an outsider has given him a sense of perspective not easily attainable by the rest of the characters.

In
A Game of Thrones
, Tyrion offers this comment to Cersei: “Why does a bear shit in the woods? [. . .] Because it is his nature. Lying comes as easily as breathing to a man like Littlefinger. You ought to know that, you of all people.” And later in the same book he sums up the Master of Coin with a single, devastating sentence: “Littlefinger has never loved anyone but Littlefinger.”

Manipulation is another key quality of the psychopath. Littlefinger has no friends, only tools and playthings to be disposed of the moment they no longer suit his purposes. His favorite method of disposal is to be found at the end of a blade. He excels at this. It’s a kind of genius, really: moving and shifting friends and foe alike like chess pieces upon a great board. Eddard thought that he could trust Littlefinger. So did Lysa Arryn and Ser Dontos. Sansa Stark seems to trust Littlefinger, and already she suffers for it.

Were it not for Littlefinger’s Svengali-esque talent for seduction, Sansa might have already revealed her noble identity to House Royce, and ultimately the true circumstances of her aunt’s death. In the light of such knowledge, Littlefinger’s claim over the Eyrie and Riverlands would be tenuous at best. The lords of the Vale already despise the man, and a charge of murder could be reason enough for a hanging. For now, Sansa maintains her alias as Alayne Stone and Littlefinger remains Lord Protector.

Obviously, Littlefinger plans to once again expand his dominion. There is the matter of his ward Robert Arryn, but given the history of others who have stood in the way of Littlefinger’s ambitions, the odds of the little Lord Robert reaching the age of majority are slim. Sansa’s odds aren’t much better. With the eldest Stark daughter out of the way, Littlefinger would be free to claim the North.

As for the superficial charm of the psychopath, nothing could describe Littlefinger better. He may seem pleasant enough—charismatic, even—but it is all a façade. Every bit of affection he shows others is in service to his personal benefit. Yes, he fought a duel for Catelyn’s hand, but marrying her would have greatly improved his social standing. It’s quite reasonable, given his later actions, to look back on even his earliest proclamations of love with a jaundiced eye.

Aside from the obvious answer of “power,” why does Littlefinger do the things that he does? Psychopaths act because they feel entitled. They feel nothing for other people, and are often highly narcissistic. The Hare Psychopathy Checklist, a diagnostic test used to identify psychopaths, lists both “aggressive narcissism” and “grandiose self worth” as personality factors common among psychopaths. Such a combination is potentially explosive. People, and laws, stand in the way of things that the psychopath thinks he deserves. The decision to eliminate or circumvent these obstacles can be an easy choice, especially if the likelihood that he will be caught is little or nonexistent. A pre-industrial society like Westeros would be an ideal environment for an intelligent psychopath, especially one whose noble status would lend some protection against common law.

One of the great charms of Martin’s epic is that the author avoids the good versus evil dichotomy present in much of fantasy fiction, instead opting to present a more textured, realistic human tableau. Just exactly who the heroes and villains are depends on one’s perspective, and even then neither designation is necessarily static: the despised monster of one book may be the hero of another, or vice versa. Kind men and women can become corrupted, slipping from the moral high ground inch by inch. Sometimes they pick themselves up again, and sometimes they don’t. Conversely, the most callous of characters may learn from their experiences and sometimes in spite of themselves feel pity or even respect for their enemies. Can we really say any of these things for Littlefinger? No, I don’t think that we can. His affections are feigned, as is his sympathy. There is nothing inside of him that can be recognized as compassion. There is no potential for growth because, metaphorically speaking, he is dead inside. Littlefinger hides the nihilistic vacuity of his inner being behind Cleckley’s mask of sanity. He is a monster among men.

Martin’s saga is often compared to J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, but with all due respect to Professor Tolkien and his wonderful work, the psychological complexity just isn’t there. With the exception of Boromir, Aragorn and company are “good” in a way that is rarely encountered outside of fiction. The One Ring corrupts good men. It is clearly a supernatural source of evil in a world where people (and elves, dwarves, and hobbits) are essentially good. Martin doesn’t introduce an external source of evil in his work because it isn’t required. There is corruption and depravity and sin in A Song of Ice and Fire, but it can all be ascribed to human fallibility. Supernatural evil is exceptionally rare, and when it appears, it is almost uniformly alien. There’s nothing seductive about the white walkers and their wights. They don’t communicate by any other means than bloodshed, and offer nothing more than the oblivion of undeath.

A supernatural conception of evil provides an easy out for readers who might otherwise look at a character’s desperately cruel actions and question whether they themselves may be capable of the same given the right circumstances. Where there’s a darkly seductive magic ring—or, to consider the real world, a horned man holding a pitchfork—luring the righteous off the path of the just, we can continue to cleave to the illusion that evil is something outside of us instead of existing as a potential within us all. Martin’s saga offers no such comfort. Evil in Martin’s books usually wears a very human face, and most often that face is one that is not all that far removed from our own.

The fact that Littlefinger wears a mask of normalcy makes him even more frightening than the white walkers, wights, or petty sadists of Westeros. The Bloody Mummers advertise their depravity, and Gregor Clegane’s unhinged rage guarantees him a wide berth. Ser Jaime Lannister probably won’t cut you down without some reason, minor though it may be. Littlefinger, with his good upbringing, neat appearance, and friendly smile seems like someone you should be able to trust with your secrets, even your life. To do so is to risk forfeiture of both, but it is likely that you won’t realize the danger until you feel the blade biting deeply into your throat or the hand on your back as you stumble out the high tower window.

Could Littlefinger ever find some manner of redemption? Unlikely. Iniquity, subterfuge, and violence have defined his character in the saga, and a Littlefinger suddenly gone “good” would not be Littlefinger. Psychopathy is for life, and Martin’s commitment to psychological realism would probably not allow for such an unlikely turnabout.

A Song of Ice and Fire is not known for its storybook endings, but this is part of what makes the books so entertaining. Good is not always rewarded, nor evil always punished. As a matter of fact, sometimes it seems that evil often escapes punishment. In other words, Westeros is very much a world like our own. Few of us play a game of thrones. Most of us are limited to, at most, a game of cubicles. But there are heroes and villains among us, and some days we can play both roles. We also have our own Littlefingers. Some lurk in dark alleys with axes, while others siphon away our pensions and turn our government against us. Some of them are as close as the apartment next door, or perhaps even the nearest mirror.

If they wear the mask of sanity as well as Littlefinger, though, we’ll have a hard time recognizing them, until it’s far too late.

       
MATT STAGGS
is a former mental health worker and journalist now employed as a book publicist, author, and podcaster. Matt is a regular contributor of reviews, interviews, and feature articles at Suvudu, publisher Random House’s official science fiction and fantasy website. He is also the host of the DisinfoCast, the official podcast of the Disinformation Company. In his increasingly limited spare time, Matt enjoys drawing, playing tabletop roleplaying games, arguing about movies, and researching topics in psychology, culture, religion, folklore, and Forteana. He lives in central Mississippi with his wife, two cats, dog, and bearded dragon, Smaug. Should you wish to do so, you can find Matt on Twitter at @mattstaggs, Facebook at
facebook.com/mattstaggs
, and at his shamefully neglected website
mattstaggs.com
.