yep, nothing like a little poetic license.... putting one's own interpretive spin on what the reality may have been.
yes, I will certainly concede that the speech guy was manipulative, but not in the negative or malicious sense; rather in the sense of pushing the buttons he figured out were the buttons to push that would get the intended, and overall positive, results. but then, there has been various discussion on the manipulative tendencies of Ts, and whether that's bad or good, too, eh?
and strong-minded, yes. a certain arrogance, too, yes ..... or maybe just a strong self-confidence. people like that can maybe get under your skin or set your teeth on edge.....you might like to take them a peg or two down. but is it always really them.....or are they a mirror of something you don't like/want to see in yourself - or conversely something you would actually like to have more of in yourself, but resent them for having what you think you do not. who knows?
now, would have I liked speech guy in real life or would have I wanted to keep dealing with him or have him as a friend as he was played in the movie ...... that I don't know. it's just that, as the movie portrays it, the style/method/approach worked for the king ..... and I do have respect for the work the speech guy did for the king.
I mainly appreciated what I saw as really good powerful acting, too.
I think sometimes the king did seem to want to impale him, stopdog. And others around the king appeared to have similar thoughts/doubts.....maybe a bit of a polarizing, or controversial (adversarial?) figure.