Aidan Gillen on Littlefinger’s “Slack Judgement of Ramsay Bolton”

The Game of Thrones promotional parade for Season 6 rolls on. In addition to interviews in all the major publications, HBO’s monthly guide for April includes a sit down with one of the major characters, and one we don’t hear from that often. Aidan Gillen, the controversial chaos-causer Littlefinger, hasn’t been out front to discuss Season 6, but now he’s sat down with HBO and given his views on the upcoming season.

The full piece can be found in the print edition of the guide. But HBO Watch has the first segment of it up online, and Gillen has a few interesting things to say, both about last season, and where things are heading once the show returns to air.

As always, he feels Littlefinger’s aims aren’t driven by love or hate, but an overarching need for power and control. “Control and power are desirable to him as has been well indicated up to this point. He’s said at least once that what he wants is “everything” and that’s a pretty clear statement. I think he may be smart enough to not want to be the figurehead though.”

Meanwhile, for fans who wondered all season if Littlefinger understood who it was he was marrying Sansa off too, Gillen is pretty unequivocal. Those who think that Littlefinger knew exactly what he was doing are wrong. For the first time, Littlefinger misjudged, and that’s partly because he hadn’t done his homework. Will he be able to admit it? Gillen thinks to do so would be a huge step for his character.

If anything, one of the defining things for Littlefinger this coming season would be feeling some regret and admission to slack judgment when it came to Ramsay Bolton. But he’s had his hand in so many devious acts that that’s always there by default. Although I’d see it more as strategy, daring and commitment.

Gillen seems to think that, if he does meet back up with Sansa, he owes her big time. “Those two are fellow travelers at this point. But as I said earlier, Petyr should be feeling really, really bad about where he left her in Season 5 and, if they do meet, he should try and make things up.”

As for meeting up with any other characters—the interviewer suggests he might find himself confronted by Daenerys Targaryen—Gillen thinks if such a meeting were to happen Littlefinger would be majorly judgmental.

I’d be wary of dragons generally as they’re not easy to manipulate. Remember these are days long before How To Train Your Dragon. I’d admire Daenerys’ stoicism and courage and flair, but perhaps be critical of some of her strategic moves. That could be an interesting conference, though.

As interesting as the one between Dany and Tyrion last year? We’ll have to wait and see.