The Small Council: Who’s your pick for Best Politician in Season 4?

In this week’s Small Council, we discuss the most recent WiCnet Award vote: Best Performance as a Politician in Season 4. Due to the Thanksgiving holiday, voting has been extended to Monday night. Check out our picks, and vote below!

Rebecca Pahle: Stannis (The Mannis) Baratheon isn’t Westeros’ best political player. Not by a long shot. He seems fundamentally incapable of realizing a fundamental truth of politics–that it’s tough to get people on your side if you’re an asshole. I’m a Stannis fan, so “He’s the only King who’s shown any interest in dealing with the ice zombie situation!” is pretty much my rallying cry, but if Stannis ever ascended the Iron Throne (which he won’t), Westeros would fall apart in like five minutes flat. I can admit that. I’m secure in my Stannis love.

So. Stannis is a shit politician. Pretty good that this category is about best performance as a politician, awful or not, then, eh? If there’s a chance for me to wax rhapsodic about Stephen Dillane, then sweet boiled lobster, I am going to take it! What sets Dillane’s performance apart from all the other political performances from this season–not what necessarily makes it objectively better, because a lot of the nominees are absolutely flawless in different ways–is that he does not seem to care at all whether people like Stannis….

His performance is utterly unshowy and unself-conscious. There are no emotional monologues and shouting matches. For the most part, he just stands around glowering at everything and being equal parts pissed and emotionally closed off, which fits his character the same way Natalie Dormer being charming and Charles Dance striding around being commanding does. It’s different, and it’s refreshing, and it makes the few scenes where he actually gets more than two lines (side-eyeing D&D hard here) really stand out for me in a season that was full of stand-out moments.

I particularly loved Dillane’s approach to Stannis’ angry defense of his daughter Shireen, who doesn’t appreciate R’hllor nearly enough for mother Seylse’s liking, in “The Lion and the Rose.” When Stannis shuts down his wife’s suggestion that Shireen “needs the rod,” there’s no impassioned speechifying about the horrors of child abuse. There’s no “I would never hit a child, what the hell is wrong with you?” There’s not even Dillane trying to make Stannis more sympathetic by injecting pathos into his performance. It’s just: “No. You’re not going to beat my daughter. Duh. She’s a kid. There’s nothing more to talk about here. Moving on.” It’s subtle and emotionally jolting and amazing, especially as a contrast to the rest of the episode, which has veteran political players circling each other like sharks at Joffrey’s wedding, everybody trying to get one up on their rivals and maneuver them into saying or doing the wrong thing. Can you imagine what Dinklage would have done if someone asked Tyrion “Hey, should I beat up this kid?” His response would have been a verifiable barn-burner! Because Dinklage is a charisma machine, and that works for Tyrion. But Stannis needs to be emotionally inaccessible and kind of an asshole, and Dillane is just plain fearless about getting him there, even if it means Stannis is never going to be a tenth as popular as other characters.

Rowan Kaiser: Game of Thrones likes to play a neat little trick on its chief politicians. First, it builds them up, giving them what they want, and then it lets it all collapse around their victory. Sometimes it’s their fault, sometimes it’s happenstance, sometimes it’s their enemies. Regardless, those nobles who’d smugly or defiantly achieved some measure of success inevitably have to watch it turn into failure–and that’s when their actors are often at their best.

The story of Game of Thrones hadn’t seemed like the rise of Tywin Lannister, for two main reasons. First, he already starts as one of the great powers, a former Hand who returns to that job almost as soon as it appears. Second, Charles Dance portrays him with such natural power and charisma, from his very first scene, that it seems natural that he’d be in charge. He’s exactly the sort of man that Westerosi culture promotes, and he’s exactly the sort of man who ends up in charge on television shows.

And that’s what makes Charles Dance so fantastic to watch as, at the height of his power, his inability to relate to his children destroys him. Once Joffrey dies, Tywin is the undisputed power in the Seven Kingdoms (just ask the Iron Bank). But Tyrion’s trial and the split it causes. But his collapse isn’t an Alfie Allen-style freakout. It’s small cracks in the powerful facade: Dance stops moving when Cersei admits her incest; he grips the throne a little too hard when he tells Tyrion “You’re not on trial for being a dwarf” and falls directly into Tyrion’s trap. And, I think most interestingly, Dance plays Tywin’s breakdown so well that, in the end, when he asks Tyrion to come and talk to him, it’s almost impossible to tell if Tywin is just stalling for time and attempting to use his patriarchal power–of if he’d finally realized that the brilliant, powerful son he always wanted was the one he always hated.

Andrea Towers: Politicians aren’t always what they seem. Sometimes it’s the most obvious ones are the least successful, sometimes it’s the quiet ones that make all the difference, and it’s the latter that makes Margaery Tyrell such a powerful player in the Westeros universe.

As much as Margaery is cunning, as much as she is quietly manipulative and driven and goal-oriented and moves the pieces of her chessboard in such a way that her actions mostly fly under the radar, the main reason why she thrives as a power player — and why she’s my pick for this category — comes down to two words: Natalie Dormer. Dormer’s subtle acting choices and cool, reserved demeanor give us a window into Margaery’s soul in the way the books couldn’t: as a non-POV character, we were often aware of what the character was doing, but in the dark about her true motivations and inner thoughts. Dormer highlights these emotional moments for Margaery (“I don’t want to be queen, I want to be the queen”), drawing us into her plans as if we’re the Lannisters ourselves.

It’s the way Dormer takes advantage of Margaery’s greatest asset — her gender and body — that makes her fascinating to watch. When she’s trying to seduce Tommen, when she’s attempting to build a sisterly friendship with Sansa, when she’s stoking Joffrey’s ego by placating his power trips no matter how terrible they are, she doesn’t dumb herself down. Instead she uses her smarts to “seduce” everyone she comes across, so much so that when you’re watching Margaery, you’re not thinking about what her inner motives are. You’re simply watching a girl who is so convincing at being the “perfect” queen that Westeros has always needed.

Yi Li: It’s bizarre, in a way, that I’m writing about Peter Dinklage’s performance as a locus of power in a season where Tyrion Lannister has been anything but. Yet it seems the lower Tyrion slides on the Westerosi totem pole, the higher my opinion of Dinklage’s acting chops rises.

I was trepidatious about how Game of Thrones would handle its snarking, Joffrey-slapping fan favorite’s path into increasing moral ambiguity— after all, Dinklage’s Tyrion had been notably more scrupulous than his book counterpart. But Dinklage’s performance pulls no punches. Dinklage has given us countless great performances about how gaining and keeping power, but an amazing one about losing it.

The grimace of unadulterated disgust written across his face as he curses the crowds who have come to ogle at him and sit in judgment—as they have his entire life— struck a chill in my spine more than any cruel proclamation of Joffrey’s ever had. It was the look of the monster Tyrion was always called and never was. The little gasp of relief when Oberyn agrees to be his champion was not a sound I ever expected to come from Tyrion, and certainly not for a favor so scant as the mere chance of being saved from execution. His preternatural calmness as he leaves behind Shae’s lifeless body and the steadiness in his voice as he tells Tywin, “I am your son. I have always been your son”—that is not the sort of wry, bantering confidence we’ve come to expect from Tyrion, but the calm of a man who has seen in the worst in himself and survived.

Yet, through it all, he was recognizable. Dinklage preserved enough of Tyrion’s saunter in that we’re forced to reconcile even as Tyrion reaches new moral and emotional depths, we’re forced to reconcile these new dimensions of his character with the Tyrion we know and love. Dinklage take Tyrion to places of brutality, desperation, and conviction that shocked and terrified me—and yet, they felt like places Tyrion was meant to go. Tywin Lannister may not have seen it coming, but he sure should have.

Cameron White: Aidan Gillen gets his fair share of criticism for his ever-changing Petyr Baelish accent, but there’s no denying he understand the character he’s playing. Season 4 is a banner year for Littlefinger, too, as he slowly reveals himself to be a mastermind seemingly without equal. Gillen doesn’t even need the character’s mustache–his tone of voice, the movement of his eyes, and the way he carries himself as a quiet threat throughout the season do all the work necessary to turn Littlefinger into the mustache-twirling force of chaos he quickly proves himself to be.

Look at it this way: if all we knew about Littlefinger is that he had a thing for Sansa’s mom, then the fallout of Lysa spotting The Kiss would play out in the paternalistic way that Lysa insists upon. Sansa would be sent away, Petyr would recommit to her, and so on. But we know better. The face of disgust on Gillen’s face as he shoves Lysa out the Moon Door is the character summed up. He was patient, he waited for this moment, and when the time came, he seized on the opportunity with every emotion in his body. I love the quieter moments even more. The scene with Gillen and Sophie Turner on the boat to the Eyrie (where the trailer pulls the “if they don’t know who you are or what you want, they can’t know what you plan to do next” quote from) is laced with both poison and plotting. The character is thinking ahead, but his plans are based on a deeper emotional connection to the Stark women. That informs all of his scenes this season, and Gillen lands every single one.

I find myself utterly fascinated by Gillen’s overall portrayal, for it is as ever-varying as his accent. Disgusted, yes; intrigued, also yes. But mostly fascinated. Gillen’s far too skilled a performer to be anything but.

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• Published on 11/30/2014 at 9:14 PM CDT
• Last updated on 11/30/2014 at 9:14 PM CDT