Winning the Game of Thrones: The Host of Characters and their Agendas (8 page)

He lifted his eyes and saw clear across the narrow sea, to the Free Cities and the green Dothraki sea and beyond, to Vaes Dothrak under its mountain, to the fabled lands of the Jade Sea, to Asshai by the Shadow, where dragons stirred beneath the sunrise. (I:136-137)

He may be seeing the past, or dragons may still exist, along with magic.

Dragon eggs appear to be like Valyrian steel weapons – hideously expensive, limited in numbers, but only somewhat rare in the east, more so in the west. Many fans wonder if Illyrio instead snuck the last few Targaryen eggs out of King’s Landing. However, the scene where they’re described in “The Mystery Knight” makes this unlikely as Egg (Aegon) Targaryen (great-grandfather of Daenerys) speaks to Ser Duncan the Tall:

“I’d show you mine, ser, but it’s at Summerhall.”

“Yours? Your dragon’s egg?” Dunk frowned down at the boy, wondering if it was some jape. “Where did it come from?”

“From a dragon, ser. They put it in my cradle.”

“Do you want a clout on the ear? There are no dragons.”

“No, but there are eggs. The last one left a clutch of five, and they have more on Dragonstone, old ones from before the Dance. My brothers all have them too. Aerion’s looks like it’s made of gold and silver, with veins of fire running through it. Mine is white and green, all swirly.”
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Daenerys’s eggs look noticeably different:

One egg was a deep green, with burnished bronze flecks that came and went depending on how Daenerys turned it. Another was pale cream streaked with gold. The last was black, as black as a midnight sea, yet alive with scarlet ripples and swirls” (I:104).

And certainly, it would be easier to come across dragon eggs in Asshai. At the same time, the reference to ancient eggs waiting on Dragonstone may come to be important. The next section discusses why Illyrio may have chosen to give them to her.

Illyrio Mopatis and Varys the Spider

Contains mild spoilers concerning the introduction of a book five character.

The pair is hatching a complex scheme: It’s revealed when Arya overhears them while “catching cats” in King’s Landing that Illyrio and Varys have been collaborating for some time, though their goal remains unclear. Varys insists that he wants the good of the realm; however, his actions support a more specific agenda. As a eunuch, he appears to have less personal motivations than many – he has no family ties or grudges in Westeros, unlike almost every other character. Several characters comment that it’s impossible to tell what he wants. Illyrio arranges Daenerys and Drogo’s marriage, but he too is a shadowy figure. Neither man is a point of view character, so every single thing they say could be a lie (though probably not the conspiracy discussion they share in the first book). Even judging them by their actions is problematic.

Oddly, the two strongest possibilities are that Illyrio and Varys want a non-magical, non-Targaryen puppet king who will let them rule however they like through him or that the pair has realized the Others are coming, and only real Targaryens with dragon magic can save the realm.

Varys was born a slave in Lys (according to Pycelle anyway). In the Free Cities, he traveled with a group of performers, who taught him much about disguises. However, a sorcerer of some sort offered the players a great deal of money for him and castrated him in a dark ritual; since then Varys has hated magic. (Varys tells Tyrion this in the second book. Tyrion notes that Varys’ voice “was different somehow” during the telling, suggesting Varys is unusually telling the truth.) On the show, Varys follows this season three conversation by revealing he’s captured the sorcerer and showing him to Tyrion. While this suggests the tale is true, it also reveals that Varys has many connections in the East and is perfectly willing to wait decades to enact revenge from a place of total safety and power. Retribution matters to him, but he has no need to rush.

According to Illyrio in the fifth book, Varys started thieving in Myr, and then fled to Pentos where he met Illyrio and they became partners: Varys would steal things and Illyrio would “arrange” their return for a price. This gradually changed from wealth to information, and both conspirators gained much money and influence.

Mad King Aerys, hearing about this amazing spy, recruited him. In King’s Landing, Varys sowed dissension between his royal employer and his son Rhaegar, and Aerys grew more paranoid under his influence. Stannis reflects in the third book that “Ser Barristan once told me that the rot in King Aerys’s reign began with Varys.” Likewise Jaime tells Brienne that Aerys “saw traitors everywhere, and Varys was always there to point out any he might have missed.” Varys alerted Aerys to the possibility that Rhaegar was recruiting allies against his father at the
Tourney at Harrenhal
, so Aerys attended, leaving the keep for the first time since his imprisonment at the
Defiance of Duskendale
. Rather than stabilizing the realm, Varys appears to have slowly unhinged it, or brought down the unfit ruler in preparation for another.

Why did he come to Westeros? Varys already had wealth and power in his homeland. Did he desire to play the Game of Thrones? Or did he have another agenda?

When Rhaegar had been defeated, everyone felt the Targaryens had lost the war from that moment on. Partially this was because much of the army died with Rhaegar but also because he was regarded as an excellent future king. With Rhaegar dead, Mad King Aerys lost his tempering influence, and the remaining heirs were tiny children. No one remained that anyone wanted for king.

Nonetheless Varys advised Aerys to bar the gates against Tywin Lannister, who came to “help” and instead butchered the Targaryens. Was Varys afraid for his own skin? Or was his loyalty to the king so great that he supported him even in inevitable defeat? Was he worried that the Lannisters would butcher all the Targaryens and their spymaster as well? This may have been a clever application of reverse psychology, but with only the facts provided, Varys may have actually been going down with King Aerys’ doomed cause – an odd position for the intelligent spymaster to take.

Whatever his agenda, Varys then wheedled King Robert into leaving him spymaster, and as we finally learn, he and Illyrio set up a child to be raised as Prince Aegon, Aerys’ infant son whom Varys allegedly smuggled from the castle before his death. (There’s no proof whether the boy is who he claims.) In the fifth book, Varys and Illyrio both appear to want this boy on the throne (making this a long game indeed).

One possible but far-fetched motivation is that Illyrio and Varys, advised by Illyrio’s red priest friends (Illyrio swears by the Lord of Light), learn that according to prophecy, three Targaryen heroes will be needed to fight the Others. Illyrio comments in book five that the dragon has three heads – he knows the prophecy. Perhaps Illyrio even gave Daenerys exactly three eggs because he hoped she’d hatch them and find dragonriders. In this case Varys, needing a real Targaryen, protected Mad King Aerys and his infant grandchildren as much as possible. It also suggests Varys might have rescued the actual infant Aegon since he would be needed someday.

However, there are many problems with this: In fact, Illyrio and Varys let Viserys and Daenerys wander as beggars for a decade when they easily could have offered them more help. If Varys doesn’t value those young Targaryens, he likely doesn’t care about preserving a real Targaryen prince when any silver-haired baby would do.

After decades of scheming, Illyrio brokers the marriage between Daenerys and Drogo and gives them the dragon eggs, which he says he obtained from the Shadow Lands. Their hatching was not predicted by anyone – it’s that shocking and unprecedented for the people of Martin’s world. There are seers and prophecies around, certainly, but it’s unclear how well red priests could see the future before Daenerys’s dragon hatching brought magic back to the world. Most likely, Illyrio gave Daenerys the eggs because they were an expensive, purposeless status symbol. In Daenerys’s thoughts, she explains, “It was a truly magnificent gift, though she knew that Illyrio could afford to be lavish. He had collected a fortune in horses and slaves for his part in selling her to Khal Drogo.” Certainly destiny may have taken a hand, but there’s no real indicator Illyrio gave her the eggs with a purpose.

The gift might also be interpreted as “Look, I’m honoring you and calling you a true Targaryen, heir to these eggs…then secretly sending you off to die.” Illyrio later explains that Daenerys wasn’t expected to survive – a thirteen-year-old sheltered, naive princess wed to the powerful khal and hauled into the desert? Little surprise Illyrio thought that. The scheme of marrying her off would eliminate Daenerys – as they think, an untutored maiden with Targaryen blood. She could not inherit in her own right, and the Dothraki would have no interest in conquering Westeros. The throne would be left for Aegon.

Having the Dothraki honor the egotistical and mad Viserys enough to give him a Dothraki army and sail across the sea they loathe so much is a far-fetched plan compared with setting Viserys up to be overbearingly arrogant until they kill him – which is exactly what happens. Illyrio tells Viserys Khal Drogo will give him an army, and then sends the unhinged, bratty king off with the Dothraki without even giving him a courtesy lesson. Viserys, like his sister, was set up to die.

If Varys and Illyrio wanted the Targaryen siblings killed, Illyrio could have simply poisoned their dinner. A more likely and complex plot is that Daenerys’s wedding was arranged to frighten Westeros and begin the panic and civil war that in fact resulted. Sending the Targaryen heirs off with the Dothraki, and reporting Daenerys’s marriage and pregnancy to King Robert, as Varys does, gives Robert an excuse to send assassins and spiral into paranoia as Aerys once did. In the discussion, Varys urges Robert to send an assassin and tells Ned that leaders must do “vile things” to preserve their realms. Of course, the hapless assassin inflames the conflict further.

Around this time, Varys meets Illyrio beneath the Red Keep and Arya overhears the following fragments of conversation. (Martin has confirmed that the book characters she doesn’t recognize are these two, and they appear as themselves on the show).

Varys: “I warn you, the wolf and lion will soon be at each other’s throats, whether we will it or no.”

Illyrio: “What good is war now? We are not ready. Delay.”

…

[Illyrio suggests stalling by killing Eddard Stark.]

“If one Hand can die, why not a second…You have danced the dance before.”

“Before is not now, and this Hand is not the other.”

“Nonetheless, we must have time. The princess is with child. The khal will not bestir himself until his son is born. You know how they are, these savages.”

“If he does not bestir himself soon, it may be too late. This is no longer a game for two players if it ever was. Stannis Baratheon and Lysa Arryn have fled beyond my reach, and the whispers say they are gathering swords about them.” (I:343-344)

Varys goes on to list other families like the Tyrells who are scheming for power, and then asks for more money and more “little birds,” child spies he can train.

A few facts are apparent: Varys and Illyrio are scheming for a Lannister-Stark civil war, but not until the time is right. Drogo and his army won’t move on Westeros yet, and Varys and Illyrio need more time to organize their schemes. There’s no mention of the Dothraki reaching Westeros, only beginning to march (and presumably take slaves and assemble ships). All this would throw Westeros into panic, a goal the conspirators desire. Varys doesn’t want a strong kingdom uniting against a Dothraki horde, but instead a scattering of kings all fighting for dominance, some of whom might ally with Daenerys. They want chaos.

The conversation also reveals that Varys once killed a Hand or did something similar. Varys may have decided not to interfere with Jon Arryn’s death, as he needed the Lannisters strong without Cersei banished or executed. Illyrio may also be referring to Varys’ games in Aerys’ court, where Aerys went through several Hands. Tywin was the King’s Hand then before a paranoid Aerys fired him. Did Varys help arrange this?

“This is no longer a game for two players” is intriguing. Are Varys and Illyrio uniting against some other mastermind more devious and powerful than Littlefinger? (Tywin, who has all his enemies killed with a flick of his pen and has been playing for decades seems logical.) Is this a reference to the Lord of Light versus the Other? Or do they just mean it won’t be a civil war of two sides but five? The sentence that follows suggests the last option.

During the first season, Varys drops hints to Ned that the Lannisters killed Jon Arryn and that the queen and Lancel killed King Robert, likely to encourage the Stark-Lannister conflict. Later, he convinces Ned to publicly repent his war against the Lannisters and make peace between the families, delaying the civil war. However, Joffrey unexpectedly kills him. Civil war begins, sooner than the conspirators planned. Then another startling event happens as Daenerys births her dragons out of stone. Suddenly, the young marriage pawn has become an important player.

After this, the conspiring pair take a larger interest in Daenerys. Varys suggests King Joffrey dismiss Ser Barristan Selmy. When Joffrey does, Illyrio sends Ser Barristan to join Daenerys. (In any case, Ser Barristan is a voice of reason in court, so he must go.) Likewise Illyrio provides Daenerys with ships and gifts. When asked why much later, Illyrio says, “
Not all that a man does is done for gain. Believe as you wish, but even fat old fools like me have friends, and debts of affection to repay.”
This debt might be to Daenerys…but what did she ever do for him? Varys, who grew up with Illyrio
 
and made him who he is, is a more logical choice.