on reread you can really see how the small council in ADWD is a pale shadow of the council ned dealt with in AGOT. everyone in there had a damn angle. renly's trying to get robert to do a proper henry viii by getting him to marry margaery. littlefinger's running the world's biggest ponzi scheme while also having time to pull a psychosexual great gatsby on the side. pycelle has his lannister lapdog dynamic going on and varys is actively plotting the downfall of the royal dynasty for twenty years. meanwhile what does the small council in adwd have? harys swyft and paxter redwyne? bunch of rich guys from the reach trying to claw out a even more influence for themselves? ok. thats tuesday in westeros. littlefinger is engineering civil wars while gyles rosby is dying of consumption. we used to be a proper country