They say that success in life is all about who you know and who you are more than anything else. Very few people in Westeros are self-made men. Bronn was nothing but a common sellsword until he took a chance and befriended Tyrion Lannister. Now he's a knight with a castle, doing special favours for the Queen Mother in exchange for a bigger castle and a prettier wife. Littlefinger might have been a nobody as far as lords are concerned, but he was still a lord before he made his money as the Master of Coin and King's Landing's brothel master. Essos is a bit more fluid, lacking the traditional nobility of the Seven Kingdoms. We don't get a lot of shots of the 99 percent of Westeros. Mostly we see them being terrorized by Lannister men, or walking along the side of the road while The Hound and Arya pass through, or crowding in a marketplace while import characters walk and talk through them. The closest we've come to this world is the High Sparrow and his band of religious fanatics who have smashed and beaten and arrested their way through the nobles. Arming the Faith Militant was a huge mistake on Cersei's part, because it's not like she can get the Goldcloaks or the Lannister army to put down the beast she unleashed. She'd be directly attacking the church, which I can assume has a lot of support among the people of Westeros due to their short life span, and an incredible amount of financial resources, given the fact that the Sept of Baelor is a gilded monstrosity, according to the Sparrow himself. By turning the force of the Faith against the crown's most important ally over some personal grudge, Cersei Lannister might have just ruined the kingdom. Olenna Tyrell says, in no uncertain terms, that she'll let King's Landing starve and she'll make sure that the people know that the High Sparrow is responsible. Meanwhile, Littlefinger gives Olenna some information that she'll need to help bring down Cersei, and of course Lancel is there to give testimony as to the peculiar tastes of the former Queen of the Seven Kingdoms. There's no doubt Sansa is going to use that corkscrew, and there's no doubt it's going to backfire on her, because it's Sansa, and she can't really catch a break. Still, she hasn't given up, and that's a credit to her willingness to keep fighting even while her only ally has thrown her to the Bolton wolves (temporarily). Her allies among the small folk might give her numbers over the Bolton forces holding her captive, but small folk can only do so much without some sort of higher muscle behind them. The hard part is getting the good folks to do something effective to stop the bad.
