31 Things We Learned from the Game of Thrones Women

Photo Credit: HBO

20. Take care of your business discreetly, as often as possible.

Olenna Tyrell

Lady Olenna isn’t one to sugarcoat her words. Her motives and actions, however, are something of a different story. She may speak crassly, but she takes care of business with an unparalleled panache. At the end of the day, Olenna gets what Olenna wants, and she convinces everyone that what she wants is in their best interests as well. On the occasion that things don’t work out in her favor, she puts up a fight and then makes the best of it.

She’s honest, but not in such a way as to incriminate herself. Ned Stark—god rest his soul—would have done well to take a leaf out of her book in that regard.

Sometimes, that talent for discretion works out doubly in her favor, too. Remember the death of Joffrey? That was pretty much all Olenna. We can easily surmise that she (or, more likely, one of her agents, because this is the Queen of Thorns we’re talking about here) passed the poison necklace along to Ser Dontos. So at the wedding, all Olenna had to do was act like a grandma and fix Sansa’s clothes, swipe the crystal, and drop it in Joffrey’s wine. Voila, one granddaughter saved.

Cersei accusing Tyrion of the murder also is a bonus. The heat was never going to be on Olenna in the first place, but there was an easy target right there.