VARYS: For 300 years, the Targaryen dynasty ruled Westeros.
Wars were still fought.
Homes still burned and men still died.
But compared to the chaos of what came before,
the realm was stable.
LITTLEFINGER: And boring.
The Targaryens lied, thieved and killed as much as other lords.
They just had dragons to answer all complaints.
Until they didn't.
When the last dragon died,
it was only a matter of time before the Targaryens followed.
VARYS: By only, you mean another century?
LITTLEFINGER: Which they wasted trying to replace their lost advantage.
Incinerating their own palaces to hatch dragon eggs,
drinking wildfire to become dragons,
and let's not forget the Mad King's favorite, burning men alive,
so he could pretend to be a dragon.
VARYS: We urged Aerys to pardon Brandon Stark.
The boy had threatened Prince Rhaegar,
but Rhaegar had stolen the boy's sister.
And the boy was the eldest son of our Warden of the North.
LITTLEFINGER: Who's the greater fool?
A mad king or the man who reasons with him?
Aerys saw knives in every shadow.
When you told him to treat the Starks with caution, you made him afraid.
And what he feared, he killed.
VARYS: I wouldn't have thought you of all people would bother with recriminations
for Brandon's death, Lord Baelish.
Not after your, shall we call it, duel with him.
LITTLEFINGER: Brandon was as arrogant as he was stupid,
like his father, Lord Stark, who answered Aerys' summon to the capital.
They earned their fates.
But the younger son, Ned, what was his crime
that Aerys ordered his death as well?
VARYS: Unlike men, families don't die when you lop off their head.
LITTLEFINGER: At the very least, you should have pointed out
that loyal and dutiful Ned was living with Jon Arryn,
a proud and over righteous lord
with an impregnable castle and no sons of his own.
Perhaps you could have spared Aerys the embarrassment of revolt.
VARYS: If only we'd had the foresight to consult you, Lord Baelish.
But I suppose first we would have had to know who you were.
LITTLEFINGER: Nobody knew Robert Baratheon either.
Yet he claimed the right to sit on the Iron Throne.
VARYS: He had Targaryen blood through his mother.
LITTLEFINGER: A pretty dress for an ugly truth.
It was war and he could swing a hammer harder than the other options.
When did you know you'd lost, Lord Varys?
VARYS: When Robert Baratheon killed Prince Rhaegar on the Trident.
LITTLEFINGER: Wrong.
You lost the war when you let Ned Stark slip back into the North.
Neither the bloody gate to the Vale,
nor Moat Cailin in the North have ever fallen.
They could have held out for years even if you'd killed Robert.
But you let him slip through your fingers as well.
VARYS: I told the court that Robert was hiding in the stony Sept,
but the Hand of the King wasted too much time searching the city.
Something about the glory of single combat.
Then Ned Stark's army arrived to save the day.
LITTLEFINGER: Too bad Lord Tywin wasn't Hand any longer.
He would have simply razed the town and been done with it.
VARYS: Perhaps.
And perhaps the rebels would have found
even more of the countryside flocking to their banners.
LITTLEFINGER: I'd almost forgotten.
You weren't always so loyal to the Lannisters during the war.
Were you?
VARYS: I did my duty to the realm.
When Lord Tywin showed up at King's Landing professing loyalty,
I warned Aerys not to open the gates.
Prince Rhaegar was dead, our armies scattered.
The lion does not stir unless he smells meat.
LITTLEFINGER: I admire your powers of persuasion, Lord Varys.
Few could traffic in so many secrets to so little avail.
VARYS: Grand Maester Pycelle told Aerys what he wanted to hear.
That his old friend, Tywin, was there to save him.
LITTLEFINGER: Then Aerys' old friend sacked the city
and his son stabbed Aerys in the back.
VARYS: A regrettable, though necessary, action.
LITTLEFINGER: As were the pardons the new King Robert bestowed on the royalists,
Mace Tyrell, Barristan Selmy, you.
VARYS: King Robert wisely chose order over vengeance.
LITTLEFINGER: Jon Arryn wisely chose for Robert.
But Jon Arryn died. Then Robert.
Then Ned.
So ended their glorious revolution.
VARYS: And Westeros has been burning ever since.
LITTLEFINGER: Let it.
VARYS: How Targaryen of you.
One of the mad ones.
LITTLEFINGER: Fire turns even the proudest oaks to ash,
leaving newer roots space to climb.