Paulina: The One Person Who Tells Leontes the Truth

Paulina visits Hermione in prison in Act 2 Scene 2 and immediately decides to act. She takes the newborn Perdita to Leontes to remind him of his own child. He threatens her with burning. She tells him to his face that he is a tyrant and a fool: 'I'll not call you tyrant; but this most cruel usage of your queen is tyranny.' She does not stop.

After Hermione dies, Paulina stays at court and keeps Leontes's guilt alive. She tells him periodically that he will never find anyone as good as Hermione. She prevents him from remarrying for sixteen years. This could be devotion to Hermione's memory, or something more calculated. She knows Hermione is alive and is managing the conditions for her return.

The statue scene in Act 5 Scene 3 is entirely her design. She controls who enters the chapel, she controls the timing of the reveal, she decides when the statue moves. It is the most powerful staging of a woman's authority in any Shakespeare play, achieved entirely through art and patience rather than rank.