Margaery Tyrell was a survivor for so long on Game of Thrones, outwitting and surviving so much upheaval, while maintaining a moral center.
Margaery Tyrell was my favorite female character in George R. R. Martin’s Song of Fire and Ice, and when she joined the series — portrayed by the lovely Natalie Dormer, so wonderful on The Tudors — I was elated. Margaery is an ambitious, chameleon-like survivor who outlasts two kings, adapts to change like a boss, is strategic with her alliances, and does the unthinkable: outfoxes Cersei in the “game of thrones.”
Unlike Cersei, however, she retains an innate goodness, even if her pragmatism often wins out over doing the right thing. Case in point, when she sits in Tyrion’s trial and lets him take the hit for killing horrible King Joffrey, knowing full well it was her grandmother who poisoned the little twit. But Margaery’s a survivor, can you blame her? She’s in the game to win.
And for a long time, it looked like she was going to.
Margaery started out in season 2 married to Kingly Renly Baratheon, who the ambitious Tyrells align themselves with during the war for the throne. Margaery wants to be queen, you see, she doesn’t care who with. Renly is having an affair with her brother, Loras, and the woman is progressive enough to not care, she even offers to bring him into the bed, if it means she will sire an heir. That’s the cool-headed pragmatism she displayed early on, which is a requirement when you play the game of thrones.
But Renly dies, that the first king down, Margaery’s motivations remain the same. She has a great role model in Lady Olenna Tyrell, her grandmother, who is even more strategic than Margaery. She sees the writing on the wall and deftly switches allegiances to the Lannisters, with Margaery skillfully telling Joffrey she’s heard of his “courage” (um, sure you have) and that she’s come to love him far afar (which is where you’d have to be to love him). She ends up married to the horrible boy king, but only briefly, since he’s poisoned by a joint effort of Olena’s and Littlefinger’s.
But before that event, Margaery demonstrated a rare gift of diplomacy, the ability to reign in Joffrey by helping to win over the people with her charity work. Even when Cersei attempted to poison Joffrey’s mind against her, Margaery was still able to outwit her and manipulate her way back into Joffrey’s good graces—who many people could accomplish that?!
But with Joffrey’s death and the Tyrells’ perceived innocence, Margaery was able to transition smoothly to King Tommen, finally getting it just right. She managed to woo him to her side right away, you knew she would be able to manage him indefinitely, plus, Tommen was very sweet and shared a common goodness with the Tyrell queen. Her scenes with his cat (Ser Pounce!) were precious, as she found a way to cleverly transition from motherly to wifely demeanor around the young king.
The Tyrells (at least Olenna and Margaery) were every bit as clever, strategic, and determined as the Lannisters, but Olenna and Margaery tempered their political intelligence with a moral fortitude that recognized the right thing to do on the rare occasion they could act on this feeling. At every turn, Margaery protected her more sensitive brother Loras. Her scenes with the brilliant Lady Olenna were a true joy in a world full of very cruel power players, with the Tyrell queen saving Olenna — at least temporarily — encouraging her to head back to Highgarden when it looked like the High Sparrow was cleaning house among the royals.
But it was the empathy she and Olenna displayed towards Sansa Stark that stands out the most. Sansa had been a pawn for the Lannisters, abused for many seasons while her family members were killed in the war among the kingdoms. But the Tyrells were the few to offer Sansa an ounce of sympathy, with Olenna saving her life in the end, by having her snuck out of King’s Landing when Joffrey was poisoned. But they tried prior, by offering her a marriage to Loras and a safe haven at Highgarden (which of course the Lannister scuttled once they got wind of it).
Margaery was able to outmaneuver Cersei’s plot to have her and her brother arrested for immorality by the High Sparrow, turning the tables by aligning the crown (and Tommen’s loyalty) towards the Sparrows in King’s Landing. It was quite a coup, that resulted in the humiliating naked walk of shame for Cersei and her impending trial.
But of course, it was Cersei, and no one is quite as evil as she is. Equally ambitious as the Tyrells, Cersei was just completely ruthless and didn’t care about destroying whoever she needed to, letting her trial—and everyone there including Margaery, the High Sparrow, and the Tyrells—go up in a cloud of green smoke. Margaery, of course, was the only one to recognize the danger, but it was too late. Margaery made a more elegant and polite queen than Cersei, but Cersei was just so much more destructive and it culminated in the death of one of the greatest characters on the series in season 6.
Cersei probably feels she’s obliterated the young “queen” from the Maggy the Frog prophecy she heard in her childhood, “queen you shall be… until there comes another, younger and more beautiful, to cast you down and take all that you hold dear.” Of course the first part of the prophecy is true by now, with all three of Cersei’s children dead (not the one on the way), with Tommen committing suicide after the Sept blowup. All her life Cersei’s been worried about this prophecy, but if Margaery wasn’t the young queen to take her down, surely it’s Daenerys?
We’ll soon find out in season 8.
Game of Thrones Season 8 returns April 14 on HBO.