So all in all given that the KG gave control over the lives of the king and the royal family and they could probably kill the king and a portion of his family and get away with it due to the gratitude of the new king, how come the KG didn't become an active player in the game?ġ) There are only 7 of them, not hundreds, like the PG. One could also claim, that such a murder would be severely punished by Westerosi society, however as we can see from the Jaime case besides mumbling and the cries of one hypocritical and overly righteous lord, nobody did anything about Robert ascending the Throne over the body of a king slayed by his bodyguards and the corpses of children. Their power doesn't consist in their numbers, it consists in their power over the kings live. However be it either 7 or 1000 of them they would still be beaten by any army, or the city guard for that matter. Another theoretical problem in them becoming active players is the fact that they are just seven of them. It's also clearly not a problem of KG honor as we can see that they vary just as much as everyone else (with such honorable figures as Sandor Clegane, Criston Cole, Merryn Trant and a lot more scum whose name I can't remeber). To avoid exactly this problem the byzantine Varangian Guard was made up exclusively of foreigners (usually vikings).
the KG usually come from noble families, and are therefore clearly connected to the familial interests going on. They carry a lot of legitimacy, as seen by the Dance, with Aegon gaining a huge legitimacy boost simply due to the fact that the KG supported him and 2. There are also further reasons why the Kingsguard could do this kind of shenanigans. What would very often happen is that the guard would quickly figure out that they could support someone a bit further away on the succession line, kill the king/emperor maybe the people between the emperor and their claimant on the succession line and then proclaim their claimant as the new king/emperor. Comparing with our history, we have countless examples of the king/emperor's bodyguard killing, overthrowing and proclaiming monarchs, the most famous/infamous example being the praetorian guard. Given that the Kingsguard could easily kill a king (and strike up a good deal with the successor for doing it, ensuring no repercussions for the act) why didn't they ever do it until Jaime, and even then in the last possible hour, and only because of the wildfire.
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