Tyrion finally will get to his quote about “The Great Game” in Episode 10 of season 6. But what exactly is the Great Game? Why should Daenerys be terrified? And why is Tyrion encouraging her to be terrified?
In the books, Tyrion plays a chess-like game called cyvasse but it’s really a metaphor for the real game surrounding everyone. The real game is obviously the quest for the Iron Throne and Cersei in the beginning describes the rules at a very high level, “When you play the game of thrones, you win or you die. There is no middle ground.” In short, anyone who tries to climb the ladder essentially gambles on their life or ascension. You cannot be just a passive player who sits on the sidelines.
There have been many players in the game from all types of backgrounds, poor to wealthy, young and old, beautiful and ugly, powerful to the powerless. Take the Waif as an example of a ladder climber. We wonder what her true motive is in antagonizing Arya. In the end, we can assume that her desire to murder Arya comes from the notion that she could gain favor with the Faceless Men and improve her ranking. You can look at Ramsay as another player, a heavy hitter in fact considering he was born a bastard, his existence caused from rape. Yet takes high risk moves in murdering his father and eliminating his step mother and brother. At the end of the day though, his whole house gets wiped out in a far better play.
But that is the game. A process of elimination where you can eliminate individuals or whole houses, take over their property and make their wealth your own. Daenerys is a conqueror and acquires her power, army and wealth through eliminating the key heads then absorbing their power base and growing her own. Of course, creating allies does increase your power base as we have seen Littlefinger join up with the Tyrells to eliminate Joffrey and acquiring the more important player of Sansa, who is described by Littlefinger as “the key to the North.”
Even so people can be the equivalent of pieces either from skills, knowledge, a certain position on the board they possess or weapons. Brienne is a piece, for instance, who is constantly manipulated but a very powerful piece because of her skill and her Valyrian sword Oathkeeper. The dragons are pieces themselves, all three of which are currently under Daenerys’ control, which enable her to have a great deal of power to negotiate with. Tyrion seemingly possesses Varys, who is someone bearing the weapon of knowledge where the secrets of their opponents allow Tyrion to outplay any rivals. Even someone like Tommen is a piece despite having power. But in truth he’s nothing more than a rubberstamper and those that can get closest and pull him towards his heart’s biggest desires can claim their hold over him.
So what is the Great Game? The Great Game is the End Game where every play is crucial in eliminating the last of your opponents. Many of the minor opponents are gone, leaving the major pieces and players on the board. The Baratheons are mostly gone, the Boltons are dead, most of House Martell has been eliminated, the Karstarks and Umbers have been taken down, Riverrun has been overrun by the Lannisters. That leaves the real players like the Starks, the Vale, the Snakes/Dorne, the Tyrells (for how long?), Lannisters and the Targaryens along with the random shuffle card of the White Walkers still on the table.
But these players are the deadliest. Throw Littlefinger hidden in the mix along with Varys and perhaps the Maesters too. Either way, the remaining moves are about absorption or elimination until a single house or individual remains.