Keep Others In Suspended Terror: Cultivate An Air Of Unpredictability
Humans are creatures of habit with an insatiable need to see familiarity in other people's actions. Your predictability gives them a sense of control. Turn the tables: Be deliberately unpredictable. Behavior that seems to have no consistency or purpose will keep them off-balance, and they will wear themselves out trying to explain your moves. Taken to an extreme, this strategy can intimidate and terrorize.
Use Absence To Increase Respect And Honor
Too much circulation makes the price go down: The more you are seen and heard from, the more common you appear. If you are already established in a group, temporary withdrawal from it will make you more talked about, even more admired. You must learn when to leave. Create value through scarcity.
Crush You Enemy Totally
All great leaders since Moses have known that a feared enemy must be crushed completely. (Sometimes they have learned this the hard way.) If one ember is left alight, no matter how dimly it smolders, a fire will eventually break out. More is lost through stopping halfway than through total annihilation: The enemy will recover, and will seek revenge. Crush him, not only in body but in spirit.
Pose As A Friend, Work As A Spy
Knowing about your rival is critical. Use spies to gather valuable information that will keep you a step ahead. Better still: Play the spy yourself. In polite social encounters, learn to probe. Ask indirect questions to get people to reveal their weaknesses and intentions. There is no occasion that is not an opportunity for artful spying.
When Asking For Help, Appeal To People's Self-interest, Never To Their Mercy Or Gratitude
If you need to turn to an ally for help, do not bother to remind him of your past assistance and good deeds. He will find a way to ignore you. Instead, uncover something in your request, or in your alliance with him, that will benefit him, and emphasize it out of all proportion. He will respond enthusiastically when he sees something to be gained for himself.
Use Selective Honesty And Generosity To Disarm Your Victim
One sincere and honest move will cover over dozens of dishonest ones. Open-hearted gestures of honesty and generosity bring down the guard of even the most suspicious people. Once your selective honesty opens a hole in their armor, you can deceive and manipulate them at will. A timely gift a Trojan horse will serve the same purpose.
Learn To Keep People Dependent On You
To maintain your independence you must always be needed and wanted. The more you are relied on, the more freedom you have. Make people depend on you for their happiness and prosperity and you have nothing to fear. Never teach them enough so that they can do without you.
Infection: Avoid The Unhappy And Unlucky
You can die from someone else's misery emotional states are as infectious as diseases. You may feel you are helping the drowning man but you are only precipitating your own disaster. The unfortunate sometimes draw misfortune on themselves; they will also draw it on you. Associate with the happy and fortunate instead.
Win Through Your Actions Never Through Argument
Any momentary triumph you think you have gained through argument is really a Pyrrhic victory: The resentment and ill will you stir up is stronger and lasts longer than any momentary change of opinion. It is much more powerful to get others to agree with you through your actions, without saying a word. Demonstrate, do not explicate
Make Other People Come To You Use Bait If Necessary
When you force the other person to act, you are the one in control. It is always better to make your opponent come to you, abandoning his own plans in the process. Lure him with fabulous gains then attack. You hold the cards.
Get Other To Do The Work For You, But Always Take The Credit
Use the wisdom, knowledge, and legwork of other people to further your own cause. Not only will such assistance save you valuable time and energy, it will give you a godlike aura of efficiency and speed. In the end your helpers will be forgotten and you will be remembered. Never do yourself what others can do for you.
Court Attention At All Cost
Everything is judged by its appearance; what is unseen counts for nothing. Never let yourself get lost in the crowd, then, or buried in oblivion. Stand out. Be conspicuous, at all cost. Make yourself a magnet of attention by appearing larger, more colorful, more mysterious than the bland and timid masses.
So Much Depends On Reputation Guard It With Your Life
Reputation is the cornerstone of power. Through reputation alone you can intimidate and win; once it slips, however, you are vulnerable, and will be attacked on all sides. Make your reputation unassailable. Always be alert to potential attacks and thwart them before they happen. Meanwhile, learn to destroy your enemies by opening holes in their own reputations. Then stand aside and let public opinion hang them.
Always Say Less Than Necessary
When you are trying to impress people with words, the more you say, the more common you appear, and the less in control. Even if you are saying something banal, it will seem original if you make it vague, open-ended, and sphinxlike. Powerful people impress and intimidate by saying less. The more you say, the more likely you are to say something foolish.
Conceal Your Intentions
Keep people off-balance and in the dark by never revealing the purpose behind your actions. If they have no clue what you are up to, they cannot prepare a defense. Guide them for enough down the wrong path, envelop them in enough smoke, and by the time they realize your intentions, it will be too late.
Never Put Too Much Trust In Friends, Learn How To Use Enemies
Be wary of friends they will betray you more quickly, for they are easily aroused to envy. They also become spoiled and tyrannical. But hire a former enemy and he will be more loyal than a friend, because he has more to prove. In fact, you have more to fear from friends than from enemies. If you have no enemies, find a way to make them.
Never Outshine the Master
Always make those above you feel comfortably superior. In your desire to please or impress them, do not go too far in displaying your talents or you might accomplish the opposite inspire fear and security. Make your masters appear more brilliant than they are and you will attain the heights of power.
DWJC, 350 O/ S 350H DWJC, 210 DWJC, x105c SAF, O/ S 474T SAF, x105C SAF, 205 O/ S 224 SAF, O/ S 350A SAF, O/ S 374T CM/ Ardex, 205 O/ S 210 Leveler/ CM, 150 12" FT/ Mastic, 110F 12" FT/ Mastic, 236 CSQ Glue, 110 12" O/ W/ Mastic, 146 CBM, X105C Sticky Carp Glue, 254 2x2 CP PH/ SH/ MF/ TEG, 110
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Tyrion Lannister, standing on top of the Mud Gate, watches motionlessly as half of Stannis' fleet is ablaze in the Blackwater Rush, along with most of King Joffrey's ships. It seems like the river itself is on fire. The air is full of smoke, arrows and screams. The wildfire is drifting downstream towards ships that desperately, but futilely, try to escape. The low-hanging clouds reflect the green glow, creating an eerily beautiful scenery. Tyrion is reminded of dragon fire and wonders whether he feels the same way as Aegon the Conqueror did when he watched the Field of Fire. He is captivated and can't turn away, although he realizes that this is only half a victory and that the celebrations of the Gold Cloaks behind him are premature.
Tyrion sees another ship loaded with wildfire exploding and has to shield his eyes. Hundreds of people are dying in the water, either burning to death or drowning. He thinks of Stannis, who might be sitting on his warhorse among the mass of people on the southern bank of the Blackwater, watching the same spectacle. Tyrion hears King Joffrey, huddled among his guards on the wallwalk below, complaining about the fate of his fleet, as the Kingslander, Queen Cersei and Loyal Man are already burning and the Seaflower is about to be engulfed by flames as well. He advises his nephew that there was no alternative to sacrificing the own fleet, thinking by himself that Stannis would have sensed the trap, if the royal fleet had not come forward for battle. Bronn's position under the Red Keep is too far away for Tyrion to see anything, but the sellsword must have set the oxen into motion the second Stannis' flagship had passed and the enormously heavy chain was pulled up by the winches, creating a barrier that now prevents most ships from escaping the wildfire inferno.
Some do, though, as Tyrion observes with dismay. While the main channel of the Blackwater is all aflame, the north and south banks are not, as the wildfire has not spread as evenly Tyrion hoped it would. A good part of Stannis' ships have made for the southern side of the Blackwater, from where they can bring the enemy troops across later on, while at least eight ships have already landed under the city wall, putting men ashore there. Stannis' main host might need some time to regain their courage after watching the jade holocaust that has absorbed so many of their fellows, but when they start to attack again, the risk of the city forces breaking will be acute, as Lord Jacelyn Bywater has warned Tyrion. Seeing shapes moving among the charred ruins of the city wharves, he sends order to Lord Jacelyn to make another sortie against soldiers stumbling ashore.
He also commands Ser Arneld to swing the Three Whores thirty degrees west. King Joffrey brings up that his mother has promised him that he could use the catapults and Tyrion allows him to go through with his plan for the Antler Men. When they were brought before the King for justice, Joffrey promised them that he would send them back to Stannis. The traitors are now naked and trussed up in the square, antlers nailed to their heads, and Joffrey intends to catapult the bodies over the city wall in Stannis' direction. Tyrion tells Joffrey to proceed swiftly, as the Great Whores will be needed for other things soon. As the happy King is about to leave, escorted by members of the Kingsguard, Tyrion orders Ser Osmund Kettleblack that they should keep Joffrey safe under any circumstance but also keep him among the defenders. He wonders whether Cersei will be true to her promise of protecting Alayaya the way he protects Cersei's wretched bastard son.
Tyrion gets word that hundreds of enemies have landed on the tourney grounds and prepare for battering down the King's Gate with a ram. He curses, hurries to his horse and, followed by Podrick Payne and Ser Mandon Moore, gallops through the River Row, kept clear of traffic on Tyrion's command to allow movement between the gates, towards the King's Gate. When he arrives there, the ram is already in place outside and crashing against the wood. Some of the defenders on the gatehouse square are wounded, but Tyrion spots a good many sellswords and knights who are not, and he orders another sortie, asking who is in charge.
Sandor Clegane steps forward and objects to Tyrion's order, dropping his helmet to the ground. His face is covered in blood from a gash on his forehead and his left ear is sheared off. Tyrion insists on a sortie, but the Hound tells him to bugger that and bugger himself. A sellsword seconds Clegane, explaining that three sorties left half of the men wounded or dead. Tyrion sarcastically asks him whether he thinks he has been hired to fight in a tourney. He repeats his order, addressing the Hound in particular, but then is shocked to notice that Clegane is actually scared. He changes his tactics and tries to coax the men into action, but Clegane is adamant that he will not lead the men into the fire again. He suggests to open the gate instead and kill the enemies when they rush inside. Ser Mandon advises him to obey the order of the Hand of the King, but the Hound just curses Tyrion some more, then asks for wine.
Clegane's face is white as milk and Tyrion thinks he's dead on feet, worn out by the battle and his terror of fire. Even worse, the Hound's fear has shaken the will of those he commands. Tyrion is looking around for another man to put in charge, but dimisses his own idea of using Ser Mandon, as he remembers a comment by his brother Jaime that Ser Mandon is not the kind of man others would follow. He hears another crash of the ram and announces that he will lead the sortie himself, thinking to himself that this is madness but madness is better than defeat. The Hound laughs at the suggestion with contempt, but Tyrion gives orders to prepare the attack. However, only twenty men respond to his call while the others follow Clegane's example. Sitting on his horse with helmet and shield, Tyrion addresses the holdouts: "They say I'm only half a man. What does that make the lot of you?"
He manages to shame them by suggesting they are less than a dwarf if they refuse to fight the enemies. Within a few moments, twice as many men respond to Tyrion's orders. He announces:
"You won’t hear me shout out Joffrey’s name. [...] You won’t hear me yell for Casterly Rock either. This is your city Stannis means to sack, and that’s your gate he’s bringing down. So come with me and kill the son of a bitch!"
Tyrion unshields his axe and trots towards the sally point. He thinks the men are following him, but he doesn't dare to look around and check whether they really do.
