But I wouldn't have bought Littlefinger lifting a finger for a second. Isn't it more fitting for his character to remain a selfish dick to the end than to completely backtrack at the last minute?
I'm surprised.
This is super super common in media. The bad guy who wants to take over the world stands with the hero to stop the really bad guy who wants to
destroy the world because you can't rule a smoking ruin. It's a source of interest and drama because we also know the bad guy will be angling to come out of the crisis on top. It's like when the Master works alongside the Doctor to stop Rassilon in
The End of Time. The whole point is that temporarily, the villain's self interest is aligned with the conviction of the heroes because they're only aiming for survival. That's only made possible by the overwhelming threat that the big bad represents. As Jon says in the show, they're all on the same side merely by dint of still breathing, and why would anyone ever go against that. Obviously Cersei, but it's been long established that she's nigh insane and would cut her own nose off to spite her face and we're not supposed to agree with her, as shown by Jaime leaving her to fulfil his promise to ride North. I don't know why it would be so unbelievable that a character who is so smart he can work for his enemies for decades, plotting secretly to overthrow them, can't put aside his personal ambitions to prevent the world being conquered by implacable ice zombies.
As it was, I found his death immensely satisfying, where he tried everything in his wheelhouse to get out of it, getting more and more desperate until he got what was coming to him.
On the specific bolded part there, he absolutely did not do close to everything in his wheelhouse to get out of it.
Why didn't he point out that, over the death of Lysa, that Sansa has changed her story. Sansa lied, by her own admission when she changed her story, to Bronze Yohn and told him that Lysa threw herself out the Moon Door.
Now she's saying that Littlefinger did it, and gives no justification for this, nor is it questioned. If Sandra is lying about this, what else is she lying about? The stuff about Ned has literally nothing to it aside from the word of Bran,
who is not exactly accepted as a magic time wizard by the general population. At the very least it should have been possible to discredit that statement, especially as it was known that Bran was nowhere near King's Landing at the time. On top of this, Littlefinger was engaged by Ned to bribe the Gold Cloaks to overthrow the Lannisters, who were at the time the legitimately ruling house in the eyes of the law as far as anyone knew. Littlefinger couldn't argue that he acted according to the law as he saw it? He didn't kill Ned, it's long been accepted, and stated by Sansa that Joffrey was responsible for killing Ned, even freaking Cersei didn't want that. The letter from Lysa to Catelyn was written in a code only they knew, and the only copy was burned after reading, there's no proof about John Arryn either. They come at him with no proof, nobody questions him, Littlefinger doesn't say anything about all these inconsistencies, and he just gets killed. I don't have a problem if you found that satisfying, I don't think my view of the show is the only one that exists, but I feel like you're characterising it in a way that doesn't reflect the content we're presented with. It's not like GoT has ever been afraid of long tense conversations before, so I personally was disappointed that there was no adequate defense of Littlefinger at all.
Also Sandra gave the sentence and let someone else swing the sword. Tut tut.