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Originally Posted by Darth Angelus  Yes, his wife vouching for Littlefinger did gain him great credibility in Ned's eyes, I suppose, and indeed makes Ned look quite a bit less gullible for trusting the man.
Still, I think C Of K has a point in that Ned never gave people a reason to come down on his side. Now, my knowledge of this series is quite limited, as I pointed out in my last post, and consequently my opinions on the story is very humble and I could easily have been mistaken, but I always just assumed Cersei had at some point made Littlefinger a better offer than Ned had. Still, considering it more closely yesterday, I thought of something that hadn't crossed my mind before, which was that I have no idea how far back Littlefinger's collaboration with Cersei went, or just how deeply he was in on her schemes.
Don't get me wrong. Littlefinger was one of the lowest scumbags on the show. It would not really bother me if he met a gruesome, horrible death followed by a very special place in any kind of hell that might exist in that world (if that exists).
Even so, a clever politician may very well get a lowlife like Littlefinger to work for him.
Or maybe not. Maybe even the greatest player was bound to lose with the cards Ned had been dealt to his hand. |
The alliance between Cersei and Littlefinger doesn't necessarily go back back very far. (Even I'm unsure how far, really) I'd say all the players in King's Landing wanted Ned Stark gone almost from the moment he galloped into King's Landing, but I don't think Littlefinger and Cersei got together until after King Robert's death. It was basically an alliance of necessity, and it had one purpose -- to get Ned Stark out of King's Landing before he could put Stannis Baratheon on the throne.
I don't know if you've seen any of the second season of the show yet, but Stannis Baratheon isn't like any other character, and he is definitely like no other character on the small council. Stannis is a hard, rigid, and bitter man. He hates dishonest men, and doesn't look favorably on brothels. Being that Littlefinger owns several brothels, and makes a living as a dishonest man, there's little chance that he could survive (politically) under Stannis' rule. What's worse, Stannis once served on the council with Littlefinger, and already knows about his scheming. So, in the sense that Cersei offered her son to Littlefinger as the next king of Westeros, she did indeed offer him a better deal than Ned Stark.
Joffrey was a monster, but so long as Littlefinger could be of use to him, Joffrey would not get rid of him. Stannis would see it as his sovereign duty to get rid of Littlefinger, maybe by just kicking him off the council, or maybe by burning him alive. So the alliance between Cersei and Littlefinger happened by default. Ned almost couldn't have made Littlefinger a worse offer than Stannis.