How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Narrator.Paragraph)
Quote #1
Don't bother, sweetling, Tyrion thought, swirling the wine in the cup. He cares not a whit about carvings. The eyes he boasts of are his own. What he means is that he was watching, that he knew we were here the moment we passed through the gates. (4.Tyrion.140)
By entering Tyrion's thoughts, the narrator gives us a glimpse into how words are manipulated in the King's Landing court. In many ways, this rhetoric is the kind we use in our literature studies, where an image symbolizes something very different, with an ear for the language.
Quote #2
[Theon] did not think the captain approved, and that was amusing as well, watching the man struggle to swallow his outrage while performing his courtesies to the high lord, the rich purse of gold he'd been promised never far from his thoughts. (12.Theon.15)
Many of the upper-class members of society manipulate the lower-class people to get what they want out of them. Some do it with promises of rewards; others with threats of punishment. Theon is perhaps the bluntest of manipulators as he just waves a giant bag of money around.
Quote #3
Pycelle was lost. "But that is from the grayscale that near killed her as a babe, poor thing."
"I like my tale better," said Littlefinger, "and so will the smallfolk. Most of them believe that if a woman eats rabbit while pregnant, her child will be born with long floppy ears." (16.Tyrion.28-29)
Littlefinger may be the master manipulator of Westeros—he knows how to take truths and add just the right amount of fiction to have people think what he wants them to. Of course, while he's letting others in on his game, Tyrion's taking notes.