PETYR BAELISH - the modern man (pt. 2)

Where were we….oh yes, our pal, Petyr. 

Patyr has this gigantic crush and doesn’t really get that Cat will never love him in return. As a young boy, he still sees the world in black and white and challenges Brandon over Cat’s. The poor boy is defeated, humiliated and left with a massive scar on the chest.

Brandon Stark, Catelyn Tully and Petyr Baelish by Zerochan

Littlefinger ascends to Master of Coin and takes part in the Small Council of the reign, which is a great conquest for a man of his birth. 

But that’s the most he can do due to the fact that he has not a single drop of blue blood in his veins.  

History repeat itself, we stated it, A Song of ice and fire is no exception. 

In the middle ages the power starts to shift form the nobles to the middle-class. This happened because of many reason but at one point the power once detained from lineage by Landlords (and sustained mostly by taxes incomes) passed to merchants. 

Part of the middle-class has now the (economic) power while an increasing number of nobles drown in debts. More and more noble men and women (seconds a thirds sons in the beginning) marries below in exchange for big dowries that will eventually save their houses from ruin. 

The merchant of Venice (2014), by Michael Radford 

Those rich commoners are seen as (remember the Merchant of Venice? He was in his right but is still perceived as the bad guy) lecherous creatures aching for power and money with no honor or good qualities in counterpoise to the knights, heroic figures who were the epitome of all that is good.

As always, the heroes/good-guys are those who fit the current regime ideas, because it is the winning side who writes history books and, in our case, it is the nobles and the clerks the ones writing our history for too many centuries to count.

Mankind history tells a tale of great knights or blue blooded, god anointed  men sat in their saddles or their thrones, people worth worshipping, according to books anyways (I'll skip all the French revolution stuff).

Il rosso e il nero (1997), by Jean-Daniel Vearhaege

When part of the middle class become the upper class (you can read Le rouge e le noir and see the world through Julien Sorel eyes/POV) the saying “work ennobles man” was forged. This people had the power now but still were seen as unworthy. They had - shamefully so - dirtied their hands to get there. There was nothing noble (literally) about them. They reached the pinnacles of the words and still people looked down at them because they earned what they had with their hard work and were not born into a great family.

HBO - Game of Thrones (Petyr Baelish and Eddard Stark)

By the time monarchies collapsed under debts, rich people rose to power (Lord Warwick  the king-maker, anyone?) and since wars are fought by men and an Army marches on its stomach, this commoners shaped the sorts of the realms as they pleased. This men paid their position with money and hard work, nor their blood or their names paved the way for them.

BBC One - THE WHITE QUEEN (2013)

In Game of thrones we see this chiasm between honorable men and rich men; it doesn't matter if they are high born, all the same, money dirts hands. Blatant is the case of the House of Lannister opposed to the House of Stark. Money and vices against moderation and honor.

Jaime Lannister - fan pop

In order to create a new order where men are the architects of their own destiny and the men rise and fall due to their merits and not their blood, you need to destroy the old one, to burn it to the ground, because you are fighting ideas (archetypes) as well. Littlefinger is ante litteram a modern man. 
He tries to build (from ashes???) a modern world and, in a modern world, money is power and even a single man, if cunning enough, can easily bankrupt or overthrow a state. 
The idea of the self-made man, that we are all equals and we make our destiny is a common notion to us, it's a recent concept though and it is less rooted than we may think.

There are no commoners in history books or great novels because, modern as we are, we are still slaves of that old concept. We don't have to reach so far for examples. 
As a child, have you ever played at being a princess or a knight? 

The Walt Disney Company - THE PRINCESS AND THE FROG (2009)

Of course you have! We all grew up watching Disney movies and reading fairytales. 
It is a fact, I'm not really complaining, we dream over knights and princesses: highborn, beautiful, good, fair people. When our heroes doesn't fit the drill (meaning they are not noble of birth) they eventually marry into nobility (Aladin, The Beauty or the Beast....).

The Walt Disney Company - ALLADIN (1992)

Funny thing is, Littlefingers doesn’t really dirties his hands, he pushes people in the right direction and wait for them to fall in his elaborate net. He tricks people into doing what it seems the best for them by making them do what it’s best for him; best on the long run so they cannot foresee his true intentions, not at the moment being anyways. 

HBO - Game of Thrones (Petyr Baelish)

So, my theory is that readers (and watchers alike) don’t like Littlefinger because the story (like history) is written from only one huge POV, the highborn people's one. We follow them through the story and little we care for the masses. We acknowledge (and we are ok with it...) that commoners are just casualties in the heroes' path towards the restoration of their power or the rise of their names. 

The heroes and the villains in our stories are all Lords and Ladies and we want to believe - even though we know all too well we are pretending -  that we are Lords, Princesses, heroes, wizards.....
We simply forget we are the masses.

King Joffrey Baratheon by Magali Villeneuve - PINTREST

Even Jon Snow, the alleged bastard of Winterfell, one of the main protagonists of this (never-ending) saga (seriously, it’s been 5 years, when will come out Winds of Winter?) is noble at heart and – anyways - he has Stark blood (if not Targeryan) in his veins so no harm done, he's already half noble.

MR George R.R. Martin (A song of Ice and Fire author)

If the theories on Jon Snow's true parentage are indeed correct – and I do hope so – he may be not only the legitimate son a crown Prince and a highborn Lady but also the rightful heir to iron throne of Westeros (the most uncomfortable chair in all the seven kingdoms).

Jon Snow by 

Jon Snow is in all mind and purpose the white knight, he enshrines all we search in a hero. If he ends up being a Targerian Prince, he will find himself on the very top of the social ladder standing politically and morally above all the others. He will be the prince amongst the Lords, the better amongst the bests. 
(I may add that the word aristocrat comes from the greek αρίστος, the better, but I wont go there.....)

HBO - Game of Thrones (Lyanna Stark)

We are just two books from the truth but is safe to say that A song of ice and fire is the story of the fall and rise of the Stark family (or the Targeryan, depending on who's Jon father) so our little Petyr - who planted all the dominoes of the social revolution and triggered them - will probably see his downfall before the story comes to its epilogue because there is no place for him or for his modern concept of society in this medieval fantasy tale.