Lord Varys

Bald, soft-spoken, and perpetually smiling, Varys serves as Master of Whisperers on the Small Council, trading in secrets rather than swords. He speaks in riddles about power and loyalty, professes to serve only 'the realm,' and seems to know everyone's business before they do — a courtier whose real allegiance is impossible to pin down.

Conleth Hill plays him as pure surface: unctuous, funny, faintly ridiculous, until a line lands with real weight and you realize how carefully he's been steering the room. The writing uses him as the show's clearest voice on what power actually is, and Hill delivers that theorizing with such warmth and wit that you trust him long before you understand him.